Thursday, April 29, 2010

Confession

So today in Trader Joe’s I was in the check-out line, having a fun conversation with the checker and bagger, two guys my sons’ age, about a band they are in and music they like. They were stuffing my mishmosh of reusable bags with pita chips and snap peas and too many items involving dark chocolate to name, when I happened to glance at the woman behind me who was unloading her own reusables.

Hers were beautiful and elegant. They were some kind of rough-textured, handmade weave in a mix of blooming colors, with natural canvas handles. And they all matched.

I coveted those bags. I wanted them BAD.

Not that my bags aren’t dear to my heart. I tend to pick them up when I am on vacation or at an event, so they remind me of places and people. The Nature Conservancy one has a panda on it, the Tahiti-floral is from the beach, the mossy camouflage-looking one I got in San Francisco. I had always thought of them as funky and fun.

That is, until I saw the coordinated set in line behind me. They seemed so chic. They looked pulled-together, and fairly traded. These were the reusables of an organized woman, one who probably made a list for Trader Joe’s that actually contained most of the items that found their way into her cart. (I usually go into the store with a list of fifteen items, and come out with three times fifteen. Most of them contain chocolate.)

And I felt inferior. And then almost immediately I felt silly, because here I was, doing something good for the world by not consuming plastic bags, and here she was, doing something good for the world, and who cared if her reusables were prettier? How shallow of me.

So I turned around and said, “Those are beautiful bags.”

I expected to see the woman who fit the bags—slim white jeans, pressed fitted shirt, high heeled sandals, manicured toes, great hair and sunglasses. Instead I was facing a tiny twinkly-eyed, white-haired lady who was rummaging through her purse (which did not match the bags).

“Thank you honey,” she said. “They were a gift from my niece.”

Then she held out a Canadian penny. “Look at this! Don’t know where I got it.”

I took the coin. Canadian pennies, with the profile of Queen Elizabeth, have always struck me as elegant. I said that, and the woman pressed the penny into my palm and folded my fingers over it.

“You take it,” she said. “Maybe it’s lucky.”

By that time I felt lucky. Lucky to be having fun conversations, lucky to be the recipient of a sweet gesture, lucky to be buying chocolate. Even lucky to have my mishmosh of bags. I walked to the car, waiting for other surprises the day might bring, and thinking happy thoughts about a chance encounter with a lovely lady.

Yes, a lovely lovely lady.

But I still want her bags.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Just Say Noprah

“A panini maker is the thing to have.” Oprah Winfrey

Susan Reimer, the very funny Baltimore Sun columnist, once wrote an article listing things experts recommend that we do each day. As I recall (and can’t verify because someone borrowed my autographed collection of Reimer’s columns—if it was you, would you please return it?) the list consisted of around fifty items including “stretch,” “floss,” “eat five fruits and vegetables,” “walk in nature,” “try something new,” “clean off your desktop,” “read for pleasure,” “laugh out loud,” “find three items to donate/trash,” “lay out your clothes for the next morning,” “find time for you,” and “get enough sleep.” Woah—doesn’t leave much time for a shower (unless you’re wiping down the walls with a squeegee, another item on the list).

And these recommendations were nothing compared to the number of tasks Robyn Okrant attempted in the highly entertaining Living Oprah: My One-Year Experiment to Walk the Walk of the Queen of Talk. Okrant’s mission for 2008 was to follow all of the advice disseminated by the admirable and successful Ms. Winfrey via her show and O magazine. She used Oprah’s web site as an additional resource—for example, when husband Jim became a little irritated after she told him Oprah said his bedside TV had to go, she searched Oprah.com for relationship advice.

Okrant says she launched the Living Oprah project to investigate whether she could really “Live Her Best Life” (Winfrey’s mantra) by following someone else’s idea of what a Best Life is. In the first month, she spent over $700 and almost 100 hours on assignments such as concocting Blueberry Oatmeal bars with a hidden layer of spinach (“like green slime”) and incorporating sea life into her décor. She has her clothes tailored, changes her lightbulbs to energy-efficient ones, and names five terrific things about herself. She adds a fabulous chair to each room ($429.62).

Within the next month her husband is remarking “That shirt is totally cutting that lady in half. It’s a really bad length for her body type” (watch Oprah much??) and Okrant is regularly contemplating the state of her fecal matter (according to Oprah’s team doctor Mehmet Oz, it’s supposed to be S-shaped). “Not only do I stare at myself in every reflection I pass to make certain I am acceptably dressed,” Okrant remarks, “but now I need to study the toilet bowl to make sure I’m a proper pooper.”

As the task list and the number of people following her progress via her Living Oprah blog grow exponentially, Okrant struggles to reconcile O’s advice to think about consumption with her recommendation to immediately purchase a new pink cell phone. She reflects that although from the outside things look good—she is dressing more stylishly, getting in better shape and advancing her writing career—she often feels tired and stressed. “While the pressure of making the wrong choice is lifted from my shoulders,” she reflects, “….life in this manner is like an endless run on a woman-sized gerbil wheel.”

Okrant is a yoga teacher, writer and performer, her husband is an artisan, and she was completing a graduate degree at the time the project was going on. Somehow she made it through a year in which she invested almost $5000 and 1200 hours to live (sort of) like Oprah, and even kept her sense of humor and what seems to be a genuine fondness for the Queen of Talk. I would have bailed the day I had to wear those leopard-print flats (“They go with nothing, so they go with everything!”) to the Celine Dion concert.

At the end of the year, Okrant admits, the results were mixed. She acknowledges that she gained “incredible insight into how I might achieve a happier, more fulfilling life,” but also gets that she'll never find her best self by seeking the approval of others. Of course, perpetuating standards many of us will never be able to live up to is profitable. Much of the self-help programming and media aimed at women exist because of our constant state of dissatisfaction with ourselves; if all of this stuff worked, we wouldn’t need it. And clearly the industry expects us to fail and try again—even O magazine ran a story entitled “If You’ve Gained Back Every Pound.”

For me, it’s not about the panini maker, although I do enjoy O magazine and would like to give Oprah a big hug for introducing me to Not Your Daughter’s Jeans. I think Okrant sums it up well: “The biggest compliment I can give Oprah is to acknowledge and appreciate all the lessons I learned from her this year, and turn off my TV.”


Thursday, April 8, 2010

Five Reasons to Stay Married

Last weekend Rob and I were alone in the car for two hours, driving home from Philadelphia where we’d had lunch with our two oldest children and some of their friends. In the course of conversation, our daughter Maggie was appalled to learn that we had only dated for two months before becoming engaged. (We had known each other for two years before that and been good friends, but when one of us was unattached, the other was dating someone else.)

“Two months? Two MONTHS?” she kept exclaiming. “I can’t believe that! What was your hurry?”

Twenty-five years later I can’t really explain what the hurry was either, although it seems to have worked out okay. But since we were speaking of marriage, and since we usually introduce more compelling topics than who’s buying the water softener chemicals on long car rides, I suggested we think of five reasons we should stay married.

The first five we came up with were worthy, and accurate: we share a history, we share children, we enjoy doing things together, we still make each other laugh and we’re compatible in bed (neither of us snores. What did you think I meant)?

But after more discussion, we came up with a few more reasons to stay married:

After all these years, I have accepted that Rob will always take his socks off inside-out, so they have to be turned outside-in before they can be matched and put in the drawer.

Rob has perfected looking interested when I talk to think, while really listening to the game that’s on in the other room. He’s also tolerant enough to listen in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep (he says if I’m talking, then he knows everything is okay).

If I just want to taste something in a restaurant, I can order it because Rob will finish it.

We have taken over the chores each other dislikes. I do the painting and the water chemicals. He loads the dishwasher and figures out how to fit things in the downstairs refrigerator after a large Costco run.

And (drum roll please) the most important reason I will remain married to this man: he runs out to get me Ben and Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk, even when the NCAA tourney is on.

Of course, I am usually willing to wait till the half. These compromises are what marriage is all about.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Danger, Will Robinson

I just unwrapped a new hard drive, and here are the first five "Important Safety Instructions":

1. Read these instructions.
2. Keep these instructions.
3. Heed all warnings.
4. Follow all instructions.
5. Install in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions.

These hard drive folks sure think a lot of themselves, don't they?

Compliment


When I showed this shot of pansies to my son Tom, he said he didn't know I could take a photo this good.

Thanks, sweetie. I think :-)