No, no, they can't take that away from me

Tonight's the night! After 161 games over 5 months, here we are. My heroes in Cubbie blue take on the Giants in the first round of the NLDS.

I'm watching the game at home tonight. Yes, Wrigleyville will be party central, but I won't be there. This game is simply too important -- and I'm too short -- to try to follow it closely in a bar. I know my friend John would be up for watching it with me, but nah. This is between me and my guys.

Of course I've got Hurricane Matthew on my mind these days. Poor Barb and her hubby are not only battling his/her cancer, they're looking at destruction of their retirement property in Hilton Head; I have family in/around Tampa and friends closer than family in Key West.

But I refuse to let it ruin this for me. Someone who knows me very well observed, "You're always happiest when you have baseball." And it's true.


My Cousin Rose traipsed all over Poland, looking for her heritage. Mine is no further away than Clark and Addison. I'm a third generation Cub fan on both sides of my family. My blood is Cubbie blue.

• My favorite grandpa taught me how to watch the Cubs. It's about the moments. "Did you see a good play in the outfield?" he'd ask. "Was your beer cold? Did you feel the sun? Then it was a good game." And so I notice the moments. KB's sweet swing. Rizzo's stretch with one foot on the bag. Jake's follow through. Lester's elbow! I love you guys.

• My favorite grandma loved these guys, too. Ryne Sandberg were her favorite. She looked so cute in her official #23 jersey. I promise that if this is the year, I will proudly wear her jersey to the parade. It'll be like having her with me.

• Throughout his life, my favorite uncle subscribed to two magazines: Mad and Vine Line.

The Cubs were my dad's passion. They didn't make him happy but then nothing did. Still, so many of my memories of my father include the Cubs. (Ex: Every family picnic, he'd have his radio next to his lawn chair, listening intently as he ate potato salad from the paper plate balanced on his knee.)

So yes, a hurricane is bearing down on the SE. I'll be monitoring it on my phone and texting my loved ones.

But I'll be glued to the game. Oh, yes I will. With all apologies to George and Ira Gershwin: Hurricane Matthew and Mother Nature can't take that away from me.

October Challenge -- Day 7

Today's October Daily Prompt: Something Orange

Over the past year or so, I've immersed myself in all things Sinatra. One of the factoids I uncovered is that orange was his favorite color, and that he believed wearing it improved his mood. For a mercurial artist who fought epic battles with the blues, that's saying something.

"Compare and despair"

That rather facile little rhyme is a favorite of my oldest friend's shrink. I never quite got it until recently.

I've long envied my friend Barb's lifestyle. She's sophisticated and wealthy. She always knows what wine to order, and which is the new, hot restaurant. She and her husband now own three homes -- a house with a full basement and garage in Chicago, a 2 BR condo in Hilton Head, and a new house that's under construction, also in Hilton Head. I have a two BR condo with a hole in the living room wall, an outdated kitchen and a half complete bathroom because I can't afford to fix/finish anything.

Yet this year, Barb has dealt with a double mastectomy and a botched reconstruction. Her husband is facing lung cancer. And Hurricane Matthew is headed toward their places in Hilton Head.

In all, I'm feeling kinda lucky to be a sedate old cat lady, looking forward to the Cubs/Giants in the playoffs.

This profound revelation came to me while watching a really rather dreadful musical from 1941, Ziegfeld Girl. I am a big Judy Garland fan, yet this one has somehow always escaped me. Now that I've seen it, I realize I hadn't missed much.

Three girls make the Ziegfeld Follies. A wise old theater veteran tells them they have to choose their path. Do they want to take full advantage of the opportunity they have been offered and become stars? Will they ignore their careers and fall victim to temptation? Or will they decide that glamour is not for them, that they want home and hearth?

Judy becomes a star. Lana becomes a drunk slut. Hedy forsakes glamour to become a housewife. Yawn.

As I was watching this predictable soap opera, my mind wandered. Hedy was quite dull, but Judy and Lana were both better than the material. As they sang and suffered in glorious black and white, I thought -- these MGM girls never had to worry about bedbugs, or broken elevators, or outdated kitchens and bathrooms. I felt like quite the victim.

Then I remembered that in real life, Judy died in the bathroom of a drug overdose at age 47 and Lana's daughter stabbed a mafioso outside her bedroom door.

Suddenly I once again felt lucky to be average. Dull. The Cubs are literally the most exciting thing in my life right now.

Good for me! Go, Cubs, go!

Shit just got real

My beloved Wrigley Field is being prepared for THE PLAYOFFS! Game One (against someone or another) is Friday at 8:15 PM.

October Challenge -- Day 5

Today's October Daily Prompt: Favorite Fall Snack

The first since Spring 2015

After Rose left this morning at 6:30 AM, I stayed in bed and slept fitfully. I misread the symptoms and took Tylenol, when I should have reached for my prescription migraine medicine. By the time I realized I was in the throes of a migraine, it was too late to treat it. I just had to wince, vomit and try to sleep it off -- staying in bed until 10:30.

I got home before 1:00 PM, but I really haven't accomplished anything today. The damn headache really drained me.

I thought these suckers were a thing of the past. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Good, good news

Surprisingly good news!

Last night was my "sleepover" with my cousin Rosemary. She was in Chicago for less than 12 hours, between flights. We stayed at the O'Hare Radisson,* which got her out of the airport and into a bed, saved her the expense/hassle of renting a car (the hotel has a complimentary shuttle), and best of all, for me, kept her out of my apartment.

We actually had fun! I wasn't expecting this turn of events, but there it is. She was buoyed by her trip to Poland, where she dug around in her family history -- visiting churches and cemeteries and farmlands. Her trip was personally guided by a ancestral expert named Ava. She learned a great deal, and it was her dream come true.

She was full of tales about her hotels, about watching NCIS in Polish (they're still on Season 3!), about security in European airports, about shopping for citrine (I got a pair of earrings).

I'd been dreading this overnighter. Rose is very set in her ways and in the recent past has been nothing but critical of me. I don't think she means to be annoying. We are 12 years apart, and from the time I was a tiny gal, she was my mentor and protector. But 58 and 70 are different than 5 and 17. She's not the senior partner anymore. I no longer care about impressing her, and I find it tiresome to absorb the constant carping.

But she was fun and affectionate last night. She even indulged me bringing her up to date on my Cubs. I couldn't stop myself, and as I was halfway through bragging about the standings I remembered her snark from three years ago -- "I don't live and die over baseball, Gal." But yesterday she was positive, saying that she has "high hopes that this will be the year."

It occurs to me that maybe she finally found something that made her happy. Her life has been a little low on joy. I love her, and was happy to see her happy. I know she loves me, and as time goes on and my family gets smaller, I appreciate and honor that bond.

*We ended up at the Radisson because other hotels were booked by a convention. Don't stay there. Near O'Hare, there are many better choices.

October Challenge -- Day 4

 

 

 

Today's October Daily Prompt: The Autumn Weather

October Challenge -- Day 3

Fall haul. To me, this means putting together a bag of clothes and tchotkes for Goodwill. And I've got to get on that!

Playing Catch Up

Days one and two in the October Daily Prompts.

1) Favorite fall activity. I look forward to getting my winter clothes out. I feel an attachment to my sweaters -- they feel like friends -- that isn't there with my shorts and t-shirts.

2) Favorite Halloween/fall movie. Oh, that's easy! Hitchcock's almost-perfect Psycho is still the scariest thing I've ever seen.

A month of prompts

I stole this from Kwizgiver.

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing: The Musical Perceptions Meme

1. Where did you grow up? In a small suburb about a half hour -- and a complete lifestyle -- away from Chicago.

2. Where do you live now? In a far more diverse village closer to my beloved Chicago.

3. What do you think about religion? A) That it's enriched my life tremendously; B) That my relationship with Christ is personal; C) Politicians who pimp their faith for power and gain should reread the Constitution ("no religious test should ever be required to any office ...") and the story of the moneychangers in the New Testament. Little offends me more than showy piety. Live your faith but don't try to legislate it. That's unAmerican.
 

4. When did you start using online social media? Well, I've been blogging for a decade. I can't recall when I joined Facebook and Twitter.

5. What did you study to be? I didn't study to be anything. I was the laziest and most unfocused student ever.

6. How are you at this point of your career? Tired.

7. Do you use your real name on a blog? NO!

8. Do people you work with read your blog? Hell no!

9. Are you on the job market? Why? What have you heard?

10. If you could go back in time to meet someone famous but now deceased, who would it be? My all-time idol, JBKO. But I wouldn't want to go back in time -- I'd like to somehow converse with her today. I want to ask her about this most unusual political season. And there are two big film bios about to come out -- a miniseries and a movie. I wonder how this most private of women would feel about still being such a source of fascination, long after her death.

Finally!

It took four exams, two doctors and more than a month, but I finally have my new glasses! We had to cure my dry eye and rule out thyroid/diabetes for the change in my vision before we could settle on a prescription.

I am thrilled by how big the frames are. My eyes are bad and with my older, smaller frames, the radical change in peripheral vision freaked me out.

Hopefully, next week my contact lenses will be ready. YEA! Must be careful not to overwear them again, which is what caused the damaging dry eye.

Saturday 9

The Last Time I Saw Him

1) In this song, Miss Ross sings of a tender farewell at the bus station. When did you last say goodbye to someone at an airport, dock, train or bus station? The last time I said "goodbye" at the airport, I was waving to my niece before entering Muskegon County Airport. Only two commercial flights take off, and two flights arrive, each day from this tiny airport. All go to O'Hare. I'm told that charters often fly from Muskegon to Vegas, too.

MKG-ORD or ORD-MKG. That's it.

2) Continuing with the theme of "lasts," who received the last gift you gave? I gave an expectant coworker a swaddle blanket and a little t-shirt that says, "Ciao!"

3) Who last did you a favor? I'm sooooo not tech savvy, and one of my coworkers helped me out with a file.

4) What's the last thing you dropped or broke? I lost the TV remote control under my bed this morning. Does that count?

5) What's the last thing you borrowed or lent? I can't think of anything.

6) When is the last time you danced? I do clumsy little dance steps all the time as I sing with the radio or TV.

7) When were you last nervous? Waiting for my friend Barb. We were at the hospital, where her husband's condition was being diagnosed. I knew she would be upset, and I was afraid I wouldn't be up to the task of comforting her. I held her and let her cry and offered to stay with her. Beyond that, I'm not sure there's anything else I could do.

8) What was your last DIY project? I put my cell back together with Scotch tape.

9) When did you last check your horoscope? Was it accurate? Years and years ago. It probably wasn't accurate or I would have continued reading it.

Thanks, Guys!

Months ago, when I found out when we would be seeing Hamilton, I was worried. The last week of September is typically crunch time for teams in play off contention. I planned on insisting I take the seat on the aisle so I could run out and check my phone during the performance.

HA!

Behold the best record in the major league baseball, Ladies and Gentlemen. I can be forgiven for not expecting this. It's also the best record the Cubs have earned in more than 100 years.

With my guys MORE THAN 18 GAMES AHEAD of the Cardinals, my fat ass stayed in the seat for the entire performance.

YES!

I've seen so many wonderful shows at this theater,* beginning with A Chorus Line in the 1970s. A haunting Cabaret revival, the hilarious and surprisingly sweet Book of Mormon, the ultimate jukebox musical Jersey Boys ... But I've never seen anything like Hamilton.

It's a rap opera. I loved it so much I forgot I don't like rap. The score was also heavily influenced by 1964-66 British invasion pop, reggae and the Great American songbook.

It's all about the "10-Dollar Founding Father without a Father." All I knew about Alexander Hamilton before Wednesday night is that he annoyed Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr shot him. All I knew about Burr is that he shot Hamilton.

To be honest, before Hamilton, the only Revolutionary-era figures who sparked my imagination are Jefferson (portrayed as a Princelike rock star) and Abigail Adams. Now I'm fascinated by the bastard orphan son of a whore and a Scotsman who grew up to be a hero and a scholar. While Abigail Adams doesn't appear, this play is not short on women. And let's face it, most accounts of our nation's birth emphasize the Founding Fathers at the expense of the ladies.

This all does my heart good. Before the play started, I heard a young man (18? 21?) whistling "My Shot." Just as I've never much liked rap, I bet this kid never much liked American History. There were some children in the audience, too, but I was especially excited to see high school/college aged kids.

The cheapest seat for tomorrow's matinee is $400. That's nose bleed. Is it worth it? No. The play will be here well into the new year (I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't still here in 2018) so the demand will diminish and the prices will go down.

But you definitely should see it. It really is that good! PBS is showing a documentary about its creation -- Mr. Manuel, I am in awe of you! -- later this month. I can't wait.

*It'll always be The Shubert to me.

Wednesday night I get to see Hamilton! Our tickets are terrific, and we got them for face value. (The cheapest scalper seats for tonight are $500+.) I've been listening to the soundtrack, prepping. (I can hear Eliza's voice in my head: "Look around ... look around ...".) I am so excited that my city has come together over a biracial cast rapping about the founding fathers.

What a glorious, positive thing!

I was also looking forward to spending time with my friend Barb. Her life is changing so much. Newly retired, awaiting breast reconstruction, downsizing one home into another ... I don't really know the details of what's going on with her and I was looking forward to catching up.

So when I got the email this afternoon, I felt my stomach drop.

Barb's husband is in the hospital. In the morning they thought it was pneumonia. When I held her and hugged her this evening, the doctors were preparing her and John for the likelihood of lung cancer.

This news exhausted me. I got home and went to sleep on the sofa at 8:00.

2016 has delivered to much pain and hardship to me and to those around me. I can't bear to list it all out right now.

Thank God for the Cubs.

The Godfather

Today should be my godfather's birthday.

He died six years ago, and I think about him every day. So today I'll paint a word portrait of him.

He would be 74. Nearly 16 years my senior, he was a sophomore in high school when my mom -- his sister -- asked him to be my godfather. That meant a great deal to him and helped cement our bond.

He bought me my first Beatle record (Love Me Do/PS I Love You) before the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan. How do you thank someone for giving you the soundtrack to your life?

He could make me laugh harder than anybody, before or since. I believe to this day he had magic in his soul, because of all the imagination and fun he brought with him.

He served in Vietnam for two years. I loved getting letters from him and looked forward to seeing his handwritten "FREE" in the upper right corner instead of a stamp.

When he was in country, he enjoyed getting tapes from me. My grandmother bought a reel-to-reel tape recorder so he could hear our voices. But most of the family was tongue-tied, whereas I was a naturally blabby young thing. He still remembers how I updated him on Batman and Robin TV show or my school lessons. One of his fellow soldiers christened me "The Magpie."

When he came home from Vietnam, I brought him to school for "show and tell." I still remember him sitting on the window sill of my third grade classroom, in his uniform, answering my teacher's questions about teamwork. I was so proud!

Upon his return from Vietnam, he put what money he had in real estate. By going in with an investment group for a building on Chicago's Michigan Avenue, he became a millionaire. That showed such his exceptionally good money sense, even though he only had a high school education.

When I moved out on my own, he taught me about money. I know I probably rolled my eyes a lot when he took me to get a new stereo and pay for it on time so I could build a good credit rating. Not the sexiest of topics, you know. But now that I'm older and wiser with a 700+ FICO score and a good mortgage, I'm grateful he shared his wisdom.

A naturally gifted athlete, he tried to teach me to ski. That didn't go so well. He also ran marathons all over the country. He gave me the t-shirts.

He loved cats. He named his first cat Dumbo because of its ears. His last cat was a very chill gray and white striped cat named Bennie. She was his constant companion during his illness and I like thinking that she's back by his side now.

He died from Parkinson's when he was only 69. That's the double-edged sword in all of this. For while I take tremendous comfort in knowing he's no longer suffering, I am forever angry that his service in Vietnam exposed him to the Agent Orange that exacerbated the condition ... and yet the Bush-era VA refused him treatment upon his diagnosis because he made too much money.

Think about that: No one from the military asked him how much money he had when they drafted him, did they? Then they sent to the jungle where he was exposed to what would kill him, and denied him assistance until he was so ill he was unable to work and had gone through his assets.

And while I'm being political ... Toward the end of his life he struggled mightily with Parkinson's. He was so ashamed of the twitches and tremors, so certain that assholes were making fun of him.

So if you think this is worthy of applause, yes, you are deplorable.

Serge Kovaleski suffers from arthrogryposis. This disease attacks the joints. For Mr. Kovaleski to wake up every day and go to work for The Washington Post is worthy of our celebration, not Mr. Trump's scorn. One can criticize his reporting, certainly, but not mock his condition.

Compassion and respect for people like Serge Kovaleski. That's also part of my uncle's lasting gift to me.

The Queen's Meme

 The Hodgepodge Meme


1. Do you have a favorite chair in your home? The dining room chair nearest the kitchen. Why is it your favorite place to sit? Location, location, location.

2. You've been given a billboard space on the highway of life. What is the ONE word you'd place on the billboard to describe your life right now? HUH? (I understand the question; that's the one word I'd choose.)

3. Do you own a string of pearls? Nope.

4.  Whose initials would you carve on a tree? I don't think I would. I carved my initials in a picnic table and it took me for freaking ever. Not as easy at it looks.

5.  Could you go without your cellphone for an entire day? Sure. I often forget to charge it, which leaves me without it. I left it in a restaurant once, so I had to go phone-free overnight.

6.  If you could pre-install an app on every human being born today, what would that built-in app be? What Jennifer Aniston famously referred to as "The Sensitivity Chip."

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing: The "Doing Questions Like It's 2003" Meme

1. Tell us about your pets. If you don’t have one, share why you don’t. As I write this, Connie is trying to distract me from the keyboard. She is a compact gray and white female feline, terribly sweet. The skinny beige demon, Reynaldo, is nearby. Reynaldo is always nearby. I've never had a cat as devoted to me as Rey is. I feel like he's more of a roommate than a pet.

2. Name three things that are close to you. Sunglasses, headphones, coupons.

3. How was the weather for your summer? Humid!

4. What was the last film you saw? Did you like it? I just saw Bridget Jones' Baby. While Patrick Dempsey and Colin Firth are completely adorable and very, very hot, I found the movie entirely predictable. Gal's recommendation: Wait for cable. Go see Hell or High Water with Jeff Bridges and Chris Pine instead.

5. Tell us about the last trip that you took. To Michigan for my niece's college graduation. I'm endlessly proud of her. She chose the school, she got the funding, she worked the crappy jobs to pay her living expenses. Her strength and drive impress the shit of out me.

6. Where do you buy groceries? Why? Saturday I went to Trader Joe's. It's my favorite place to shop. It's tiny and it doesn't always have what I need (so I end up going to another store anyway), but what the hell. The staff is friendly and cooperative. The collection box for the food pantry is front and center. The food is wholesome. It makes me happy to shop there.

7. Tell us something that you did today. Or will do if you haven’t had your morning coffee yet. I'm going to Carson's (maybe it's Bergner's in your part of the country). I have coupons!

8. Have you pulled an all-nighter? Often.

9. Can you taste the difference between Pepsi & Coke? Yes. Coke is better.

10. Tell us about your siblings. How many and what do they do? Two sisters. One 17 months older, the other 8 years young. They successfully annoy me.

11. What’s the oldest thing that you own? I'm a packrat, so I have a lot of old shit. For example, the mixing bowl currently on my counter -- it's a good size for making Jello, which honest to God I'm gonna do one day soon -- had belonged to icky grandmother. I have no idea how old it is, but 65 years isn't an unreasonable guess.

Saturday 9

Saturday 9: One Night in Bangkok (1984)

1) This song is from the play Chess. It's been said that the most successful players are fluid in their thinking. Do you consider yourself flexible or set in your ways? A coworker recently predicted that my tombstone will read: Change Is Bad.

2) Nigel Short, a real-life chess grandmaster, used to wear a t-shirt that said, "He who cares, wins." Do you always play to win? Or do you play board/card games or sports for the fun of it? I have no killer instinct for games at all. Now in business, that's another story.

3) The singer is in Bangkok for an important tournament. He maintains that he doesn't mind missing the sights and dismisses Bangkok is just another "crowded, polluted stinking town." Do you find big cities exciting? Or do you think of them as noisy and dirty? I have always been a City Mouse.

4) Air pollution has reached serious levels Bangkok. Do you suffer from allergies, asthma or another condition that could be aggravated by pollution? Lately my eyes have become rather sensitive to smoke and grit.

5) To reduce traffic, commuters travel through Bangkok on ferries that make regularly scheduled trips up and down the Chao Phraya River. When was your last boat ride? It's been so long I truly don't recall. Too bad, because I love Lake Michigan.

6) Round trip airfare between ATL and BKK is $1750. If we gave you a travel voucher for that dollar amount, how would you spend it? I'd use that travel voucher to take my nephew to Washington DC. I'd love to show him all the memorials and museums. He's a history buff, and he's never been there! What an honor it would be to introduce him to his American heritage.

7) The Holiday Inn Express in Bangkok has a McDonald's onsite. When you go somewhere new, do you find it comforting to be surrounded by what's familiar? Or would you prefer to try new things? Both. "When in Rome ..." and all that. But there is something to be said for the dependability of a Big Mac when you're on the road.

8) One of Bangkok's most popular restaurants is DID, which stands for Dine in Dark. The dining room at DID is 100% light free -- cell phones must be stored in the lobby to avoid distracting from the experience -- so customers eat their four course meal without seeing it. This heightens the diner's sense of taste and smell. When you prepare a meal, do you put a great deal of care into its presentation? None. When I prepare a meal, I often consume it standing in the kitchen or in front of the TV.

9) Random question: Think about your last professionally prepared meal. Did you dine in, carry out, or have it delivered? Carry out. A slice of pizza at my desk, Friday lunchtime.

My good deed for Friday

I sit across from a rather adorable boy -- he's not yet 30, so to me, he's still a boy. He works hard, is personable, and he's a Cub fan, so we have much in common. Every morning, after a win (and we've had more than anyone else this magic season) he pastes a blue W on the wall. Currently he has blue W's wrapping all around his cubicle!

He was gone Friday afternoon, from lunchtime on. Just before 5:00, he reappeared. He was en route to his office space and I was on my way to the ladies' room. I could smell the liquor on him. He literally did a soft shoe when he saw me. "Home field ad-van-tage!" he sang, referring to the Cubs still improving fate as we move toward the playoffs. I figured he'd gotten free tickets to this afternoon's game, would grab his backpack, and go home -- or to a Wrigleyville bar to continue partying.

When I got back from the restroom, I saw him talking to a coworker. Nonono. Not good. I thought that, since everyone from my team had left for the weekend, that his group had cleared out, too. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. And he was, frankly, too obviously drunk to be interacting with coworkers.

I've openly drunk beer at my desk -- swigging from a bottle handed to me at one company celebration or another. I've got a bottle of cheap bottle of vodka in my bottom drawer and have surreptitiously  mixed it with fruit juice and sipped away with complete impunity. As long as we don't appear high, no one cares. But there's the rub. No one cares if we drink at work, but it's dangerous to been seen drunk.

He was drunk.

I didn't want him to get in trouble, so instead of going home, I sat knee-to-knee with him and started a conversation. My sense was this -- if anyone wanted to talk work with him this close to the end of the workweek, and saw him in animated conversation with me, they'd just let it go until Monday. Who wants to stay late on Friday?

It worked. We talked until nearly 5:40, until I couldn't hear a printer whirring anywhere else on the floor.

He hadn't been to The Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field. One of our agency's vendors had an open house and much, much food and liquor had been provided. We talked baseball first and then he let IT drop: he's one of about 25 of employees being transferred to our sister agency in January. This could be a very important move for him, a chance to show he can handle more responsibility than he's heretofore been given.

How shitty if a little harmless and out-of-character partying jeopardized that?

So I missed the opportunity to slip out early Friday. I served the greater good.

Fame can blot out a lot of sunshine

Earlier this year I read that the three most recognizable men on the planet were Barack Obama, Muhammad Ali and Sir Paul. With The Champ's passing, I guess this means Paul moves up to #2. (I'm betting the Pope has cracked the big three, but I don't know for sure.)

That level of fame is inconceivable to me. It not only must be hard to be Paul McCartney, it's probably also very difficult to be tangentially connected to him. Your achievements very easily get lost in shadow cast by his light.

Take, for example, Dr. Richard Asher. Born in England in 1912, he began practicing medicine in London in the mid-1930s. He specialized in hematology and endocrinology. But beyond his chosen fields, he made discoveries and encouraged innovation that had impact all around the world.

•  In 1947, he began advocating for "early ambulation." Very (perhaps overly) simply put, in those days, complete and total bedrest was the prescription for just about everything. Dr. Asher insisted his hospitalized patients walk a bit every day. If you've been in a hospital lately, you know here in the States, doctors agree with him on this.

•  He proved that a body being too cold is as dangerous as being feverish, which is why hospitals now have thermometers that detect hypothermia.

• He defined Munchausen Syndrome in 1951. When a person repeatedly pretends to be sick to gain attention or sympathy, they have Munchausen Syndrome. Parents or caregivers who make those in their care ill for the same reason have Munchausen by proxy. And Dr. Richard Asher was the first to identify and write extensively about it.

Yet he's best known as the father of Jane Asher, the actress once engaged to Paul McCartney. I appreciate you, Dr. Asher, and I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to learn about you. Rest in peace.

... and so I cried a little

My mom died four years ago this month. She'd been very ill for a while, and I was exhausted by worry about her. And her death was just the beginning of a very ugly adventure with the legal system and banks and my sisters as we laid her to rest and dismantled her life.

I spent a lot of that time equal parts angry, disillusioned and bone tired. I was angry that my mom didn't really work at her rehab or cooperate with the doctors. I felt she died before she had to, and when I still needed her.

I was upset to learn that my mother never saw fit to maintain her life insurance, so we (and by "we" I mean "I") were facing a big bill for her funeral. I asked her not to make her executor but she did it anyway. This was like painting a target on my back for my sisters to aim at -- and my older sister is an especially lethal shot -- so to be honest, I'm still pissed.

Still, since my mother had no cash or stocks, no will and a reverse mortgage. I thought being her executor would be simple, at least legally. It was not. And don't think there's not a weight to opening your purse and seeing your mother's death certificate -- a necessity as I had to carry it with me when I did the rounds from one columned building to another.

I also had to revisit a lot of the fissures within my family, and to come to grips with the fact that my mother was at the fulcrum for much of it. Then there were the new revelations. My favorite was having to keep my face composed as I listened to my mom's best friend tell me my mother used to explain away the hostility between me and my older sister as "jealousy over your sister's great beauty."

 

This all came back to me Tuesday night. My friend Mindy's mother died over the weekend. I never did cotton to that woman. She was all about appearances. (It must be said that, for my part, I left Mrs. G. shaking her head, as well.)

She also very obviously favored Mindy over her older sister. I could see this damaged both of her daughters. Mindy felt tremendous pressure to be "the good girl," something that's traveled with her, and inhibited her, throughout her life. Now that she's over 60, she's still worried about putting a foot wrong. Her older sister, on the other hand, always felt frustrated and misunderstood. And here's the thing: BOTH women are people you'd be glad to know, and that their mother should have been proud of.

Yet the older sister posted the sweetest tribute to their mother. Photos taken throughout the woman's life -- with great emphasis on her early years as a fashion plate and a beautiful bride, which she would have wanted. But it was the song choice that made my throat close up. "For Good," from Wicked.

Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

It was such a beautiful, generous sentiment. And I started to cry. Sitting at my computer at my desk at work, I started to cry.


For Mrs. G.'s daughters, who didn't get the mother they deserved but got one they loved anyway. For Mrs. G., for not being able to appreciate her girls for who they are.


For me and my mother. I do love her and I do miss her. I am angry at her. And I know all these things can coexist.


I haven't genuinely mourned her because, I think, I was afraid I would fall apart. It was all too much. She was the parent I was closest to, depended on the most. To see her as less than perfect was scary.

On the other hand, I am what my shrink used to call "a truth teller." This photo always resonated with me. The solitary figure, howling at the moon. I was the one in my family who couldn't help yelling, "THIS IS ALL FUCKED UP!" Whereas my mother, the child of two alcoholics, was just as driven ... to keep it all together, to avoid conflict at all costs, to insist everything was fine (even, and especially, when it wasn't), to say, "There's nothing to see here."

So there was always destined to be friction between us.

And that's OK. 


Our parents love us, and they damage us because they aren't perfect. We love them, and we disappoint them, because we came from them but grew into autonomous human beings. It's the natural, albeit painful, order of things.


With the distance that comes from four years, I'm able to see that.


No, scratch that. I always SAW it.


With the safety that comes from four years, I'm able to feel that.