The Meat and Potatoes of Life

Father’s Day: Keeping it simple

Humor June 13, 2013 Comments: 11

My 40-something brain regularly forgets that my sunglasses are perched on my head, can’t remember where I parked the minivan, and compels me to walk around my house mumbling to myself, “Now, why did I come in here again?” However, for some unknown reason, I have an incredibly detailed memory of my childhood.

I don’t have a perfect chronological recollection of my upbringing; instead, I have an almost photographic memory of certain mundane, seemingly unimportant occurrences like climbing my neighbor’s tree or eating dry Tang out of the jar with my licked finger. It’s as if I can transport myself back in time and re-experience all the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings all over again.

Sometimes, if one looks at snapshots or home movies, one can artificially remember the events depicted. However, other than a couple shaky 8 mm films in my mother’s attic without a workable projector to watch them, and a few yellowing photo albums — with a clear preponderance of shots of my older brother, I might add – my family did not regularly memorialize events on film.

Therefore, my childhood memories are totally legit.

A couple weeks ago, I was at Walmart buying cards for Father’s Day. Our kids think their Dad is the greatest thing since Double Fudge Cookie Dough Blizzards, so they were happy to help. While they looked for cards, I figured I’d get one for my own father.

I read card after card, but could only mumble to myself, grimace and shake my head. None seemed to fit my complex circumstances. None described our complicated relationship. None communicated the vastly mixed emotions and unique bond that my father and I have.

The kids were done, so I sent them to find a gallon of milk to buy me more time. “Stop overthinking this,” I said to myself, “there must be something here that you can send to Dad.”

Before picking up another card, I tried to remember how I felt about my dad when I was a kid. Before my marriage to my Navy husband emptied my parents’ nest. Before my parents got divorced. Before my Dad resented me for not speaking to him for five years. Before I resented him for breaking up our family. Before we butted heads trying to form a new relationship. Before we had to forgive each other.

I thought back to a time when I was just a kid and he was just my Dad.

As the details of my childhood awoke from hibernation, vivid scenes began to flash in my mind. Dad taking out his false tooth (college football accident) on a family road trip, and talking to the tollbooth operator with a fake hillbilly accent, just to make my brother and me laugh. Dad letting me skip school to go with him to Pittsburgh for business, and me throwing up peanut butter cookies in the A/C vents of his Buick on the way.

Dad lying shirtless on the floor so my brother and I could draw on his back with ink pens while he watched golf tournaments. Dad lecturing my brother and me at the dinner table on report card day. Dad explaining to the police officer why he was teaching me how to do doughnuts in the icy natatorium parking lot after swim practice one night. Dad handing me an old tube sock filled with tools – a small hammer, screwdrivers, pliers – before I left for college. Dad nervously walking me down the aisle at my wedding.

One memory lead to another, and to another.

Then, my mind was seized by one final recollection, which ended my paralyzing over-analysis. I could see my father lifting me from the back seat of our station wagon. I had fallen asleep on the way home, but woke up when my parents pulled into the driveway. I kept my eyes closed and pretended, lazily allowing my arms to drape around my father’s neck and my head to lie upon his shoulder. I bobbed gently as he walked through the house and into my yellow bedroom, where he laid me in my mock brass bed, removed my shoes and tucked the covers around my chunky little frame.

I felt him kiss my forehead, and then, he stood there and waited a moment before he turned and left the room.

Suddenly, there at the Walmart, the Father’s Day cards on the rack had relevance.

My father raised me, protected me, cared for me, loved me.

I love and appreciate him.

Enough said.

Give me liberty, or give me naps!

Humor June 8, 2013 Comments: 16

Wow, my arm is really getting tired . . .

When the alarm goes off in the morning, and your brain’s cells begin to stir, a myriad of possible “first thoughts” might pop into your head.

“The minivan needs gas for the morning car pool.” “Should I forgive my husband for the fight we had last night?” “Don’t forget to get something for Father’s Day.” “I wonder if Junior will pass his Calculus exam.”

None of these early morning contemplations can accurately predict the course of the rest of your day, but there is one particular “first thought” that is a definite Red Flag. If you wake up in the morning, and think, “I need a nap,” you can bet your overpriced wrinkle cream that the rest of your day is pretty much gonna blow.

I know this, because that is exactly what I’ve been thinking lately. I’ve been dragging my weary bones out of bed all week, when all I want to do is crawl back under the covers and hide from the inevitable calamity of my unmanageable schedule.

Is it the exams, events and final grade panic of the end of the school year that’s got me wanting to stay in bed? Well, not quite. Is it my son’s Eagle Scout Ceremony, which we insanely decided to host at our house this weekend for over 50 people? Well, not exactly. Is it the fact that my husband is being wined and dined all week while on a work trip in South America while I am left driving this runaway train? Well, yes, but not entirely.

Or could it be that we are moving to Rhode Island in a few days, and we’re nowhere near ready? Well, yeah, maybe. Or is it the fact that I am frantically scribbling this column on a legal pad at Starbucks, because I just killed my laptop when I knocked my coffee onto the keyboard 12 minutes ago, and fear that I might have to use my thumbs to tap this thing into my Smartphone to get it to the editors? Hell yes, truth be told.

But it’s not any one thing that has me dreaming of naps. It’s the totality of my circumstances as a middle-aged Navy wife and mother of three teens.

Recently, I was lamenting my to my neighbor, a 25 year Navy wife with two grown boys, when she validated my malaise. “Yea, I remember when the boys were in high school,” she said, “and I told my husband one day, ‘I’m exhausted.’ He told me to go take a nap, and I told him, ‘No, I mean, I’m globally tired after 18 years of raising kids. Thirty minutes of shut eye ain’t gonna cut it.’”

Ironically, now that her boys have flown the coop and she’s an empty nester, she’s napping more than ever, just because she can.

The rest of us middle-aged moms must keep slogging along, waiting for the day when our schedules ease up enough that we can enjoy the luxury of a delicious afternoon nap. In the meantime, we can take comfort in the [slightly modified] immortal words of poet Emma Lazarus, thoughtfully inscribed on the base of our Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your befuddled housewives yearning to break free,
With wretched refuse in their teeming heads.
Send these, the napless, tempest-tost to me,
And I’ll tuck them all into their comfy beds!”

Image via http://www.bytatiana.com.

Announcing: The Mess Hall

military May 27, 2013 Leave a comment

Legendary V-J Day photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt, courtesy of Wikipedia.

In honor of Memorial Day, I’ve decided to get off my duff (whatever that is) and finally create a page just for us military folks. We have our own groceries (aka “commissaries”), our own department stores (aka “exchanges”), our own 7-11s (aka “shopettes”, unfortunately without those delicious Slurpee machines, I might add), so why not have our own page on my blog, right?

However, let me be clear that I do not do book reviews (sorry, I’m a slow reader), I don’t offer guest posting (it’s all about me), and I don’t blog about other people’s products/services no matter how legit (although you can feel free to send me samples!) I don’t mean to be a fuddy-duddy, I just simply don’t have a lot of time [READ: my life is a train wreck.] I have been known; however, to share certain military related news/products/services on my Facebook page, so if this is something you’d like me to consider, go to https://www.facebook.com/TheMeatandPotatoesofLife and send me a message. Hitting the “Like” button wouldn’t hurt, either. Just sayin.

Anyhoo, this page will be a work in progress (I’ll soon be adding lists of retailers who offer military discounts, classic books every military family should have on their shelves, and even time honored military spouse recipes), but please click on the “The Mess Hall” page tab above to see my first list of military-related items — organizations that honor the troops and their families.

The Dog Days

Pets May 26, 2013 Comments: 16

In the fragile darkness of morning, birds chirp outside our bedroom window, heralding the start of another day. I hear my husband snort, scratch, then hit a couple of buttons on his bedside clock to ward off the inevitable alarm bells.

My sports swatch emits a beep, but I slap my wrist to make it stop and curl onto my side, snuggling into my pillow. Just ten more minutes.

From under the foot of our bed, comes an elongated yawn, beginning deep and low, and finishing with a high-pitched squeal and a few jaw-smacking clucks. It’s Dinghy, our aging labradoodle, whose 110-pound body clock is now considerately working in tandem with ours.

A bit of a late bloomer, Dinghy took his sweet time maturing, despite the fact that everyone told us that “dogs take two years to settle down.” We picked him out of a litter of fat pups on a farm in rural North Carolina in 2006, and named him Dinghy – an homage to our life as a Navy family. Although a bit naughty – stealing socks, sampling toilet water, and turning the backyard into Swiss cheese – Dinghy became our constant companion, comforting and entertaining us through deployments and PCSes.

Now, in his eighth year, Dinghy is technically as old as my husband and me, and we’re all showing our age. Like us, Dinghy no longer faces each day with unbridled enthusiasm and spontaneity, but instead, thrives on routine. As we drag our weary bones out of bed and to the bathroom to wash and brush, Dinghy begins each day with his own morning self-cleaning ritual.

As a male dog, he starts with the unmentionable area that males find most important. After spending what seems to be an inordinate amount of time licking that general location, he comically turns himself into a pretzel in order to scratch inside his ears with his long awkward hind feet. Inevitably, he misses the first few times, haphazardly wapping his neck and the back of his head, until he finally finds that sweet spot under his floppy ear. Without looking, we know he’s found it when we hear him grumble deeply as if to say, “Oh yea, that’s the ticket.”

Once done scratching, he cleans his paws in preparation for what is arguably one of the cutest things you’ll ever see. Alternating each enormous front foot, Dinghy wipes his own face over and over, then with paws daintily crossed, he licks them one last time.

Despite this elaborate cleaning ritual, Dinghy faces each day looking like a dirty bathroom rug, with shaggy legs and a perpetually dripping, foul-smelling beard.

Once downstairs, we pour coffee, as Dinghy slurps water from his nearby dish, waiting for the subtle signals that we’re ready to take him on a walk: putting on our shoes, filling a travel mug with coffee, grabbing his leash from the hook in the garage.

For that moment, he turns into an adolescent again, excited to experience the sights, sounds and flavors outside. Every morning, he marks the same trees, nibbles the same grass patches, and makes his daily deposit conveniently close to the neighborhood pet waste bin.

Once home, Dinghy takes inventory of the family, and then eats his breakfast. Between chomps, he slurps water, then lopes out of the laundry room to make sure we’re all still there. By the time he’s done, there’s a path of slimy drips and kibble shards trailing out of the laundry room.

Belly full, he licks his chops and belches, before finding a suitable spot to sleep the remainder of the day. Usually, he prefers to climb slowly onto the couch in the den and circle around for what seems like forever before lowering is body in one slow, groaning plop.

Other than a brief frisky period when the kids get home from school, Dinghy’s middle aged eat-walk-sleep routine continues late into the evening, when he follows us back upstairs for the night.

As my husband and I nestle into the well-worn spots in our bed, Dinghy plops down with one final groan as if to say, “Whew, these dogs’r barkin’.” As a Navy family still on the move after more than 20 years, we couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Does size matter (in marriage)?

marriage May 19, 2013 Comments: 18

My column in the May issue of Military Spouse Magazine!

Leaf through any wedding magazine, and you’ll think you deserve only the best for your big event. It’s a once in a lifetime thing, after all, so you shouldn’t waste this opportunity to treat yourself, right? Sure.

A humongous ring, a gazillion roses, pure silk, fine china, cut crystal, surf and turf, spa treatments, and of course, a honeymoon that’s simply to die for. Paris, Bora Bora, the Bahamas, Tuscany — that’s what you deserve! You don’t want your entire marriage to get off to a mediocre start, so you must demand only the best!

Reality check, please?

My engagement ring, a modest-sized gold solitaire, seems to have gotten smaller over the years, which might be due to the fact that it’s always gunked up with schmutz. My plain quarter inch wedding band has been dulled by constant wear.

For two decades, both rings have been permanent fixtures on my left hand (especially since I jammed my fingers catching a football at the beach a few years ago), which is now dappled with the beginnings of liver spots and crisscrossed with tiny wrinkles.

Here’s some knowledge I’ve picked up during these two decades:

Take the glossy wedding magazines with a colossal grain of salt. Few can afford to splurge on every single aspect of their wedding and honeymoon.
Anyone who does spend that much on their wedding and honeymoon will wish they a year later that they hadn’t.

I speak from experience.

Back in the spring of 1993, my then-fiancée was in his second tour of duty in the Navy, so he bought the best ring his non-existent budget and low limit credit card could buy. With the ring in his pocket, he knelt down between two tables at our favorite Italian restaurant in Pittsburgh one night, and asked me to be his wife.

Our Italian Restaurant

I tried to cut wedding costs wherever I could – making my own veil and centerpieces, decorating the church, baking cookies for the reception, hiring an amateur DJ instead of a band. Everything went off without a hitch.

Just Married

Afterward, we spent a night at the Pittsburgh Airport Best Western, complete with “honeymoon package” – a metal ice bucket with sparkling cider and two plastic glasses –before flying to Bermuda for our honeymoon. We had rented a tiny pink cottage named “Halfway to Heaven” with outdated furnishings and a few resident Palmetto Bugs hiding in the kitchenette. It was not as warm and sunny as we had hoped, but we got the cottage cheap because it was the middle of hurricane season.

Twenty years later, do I wish my husband had spent a little extra to get me a bigger diamond? Do I wish we had splurged on roses and limos for our wedding? Do I wish we had just shelled out a few more bucks to honeymoon somewhere that wasn’t in the midst of hurricane season?

Here’s the thing:

Back when we were scrounging for the money (or available credit) to spend on our wedding and honeymoon, we were so goofy, cheesy, silly, corny, stupid in love, that we were clueless. Mention that time in our relationship to any of our relatives, and they will roll their eyes and huff, “Oh Brother, you guys were so annoying.”

Oh brother….

We were in that ridiculous stage when you can’t keep our hands off each other. When you look into each other’s eyes a lot and giggle. When you talk incessantly about how much you love each other’s freckles, hair, eyes, lips and toenails. When you think that everything that happens is serendipity.

To us, our honeymoon could not have been more romantic – everything from the stormy skies to the Palmetto Bugs had some kind of romantic meaning. Blinded by love, “Halfway to Heaven” seemed like Pure Heaven to us.

So now, when I look down at my plain gunked-up solitaire ring, I don’t want a bigger one. My ring symbolizes that lump in the throat feeling of being utterly in love, regardless of financial or practical limitations.

My ring reminds me that, as long as we splurge on love, size really doesn’t matter.

Tired? Boring? Predictable? True marital romance is a gas (www.themeatandpotatoesoflife.com)
War of the Roses (www.themeatandpotatoesoflife.com)

Don’t miss the big MSOY 100-page June issue! https://www.facebook.com/MilitarySpouseMagazine/app_453999958005196

The Bottom Drawer

military spouses May 12, 2013 Comments: 10

Forgotten, but not lost.

Ironically, there are benefits to moving so often as a military family. Every few years, we’re forced to go through all the used markers, pillowcases, snow boots, kitchen utensils, Barbies, tae kwan do trophies, tax records, and saucepans, and throw a bunch of stuff out.

As a person who attaches sentimental value to everything from seashells and matchbooks to stained bibs and hospital bracelets, this can be stressful. But the sands of time grind away my sentimentality, and eventually, I end up chucking out mementos that I formerly believed to be too precious to part with.

As we prepare for our next military move to Rhode Island, I’m reconsidering items I thought were useful or nostalgic enough to haul around for so many years. For example, Aunt Millie’s (may she rest in peace) old end tables, with the cigarette burns I thought I’d buff out one day, were relegated to the donate pile. Although I kept one file of my kids’ artwork, anything with cracked macaroni or yellowing glue was photographed and discarded. Similarly, clothing that has not been worn in the last five years – except for my college duck boots which I hear are coming back into style — has been delivered to Goodwill.

Some collections, however, get pared down with each tour, but are never completely discarded regardless of their current usefulness. For example, I’ve been adding to several tubs of old t-shirts for years, because someday, I WILL make each of my kids a t-shirt quilt before they go off to college. And, I have at least four boxes of old toys and books that WILL seed the fantastic playroom I envision for my future grandchildren. I WILL use that stuff someday, I swear.

And then there’s the stuff I recently whittled down to one bottom file drawer. It contains documents that not only took years of hard work to assemble, but cost me over $90,000 to acquire. When my husband and I first married in 1993, this collection was huge and took up at least a dozen boxes. But with every tour, the contents aged, became obsolete, and were thrown away.

Other than a few musty books which reside on our shelf just for show, the bottom file drawer now contains the only tangible evidence of my career as a litigation attorney.

The hanging folders in the bottom drawer have tabs inscribed with titles such as “Resumes,” “Transcripts,” “Licensing,” and “Writing Samples.” Even though none of these documents have been referenced since I quit working in the 1990s to raise our kids, I keep them all neatly filed in case I need them to land that six-figure partnership offer in a high-powered litigation firm one day.

Although I won’t readily admit it, I know down deep inside that these old documents, now yellowed and stained with spots of rust from ancient paper clips and staples, will never realistically serve to supplement any future application for my employment. But I can’t bring myself to throw them away, just in case.

Besides, the file drawers above contain my children’s birth certificates, report cards, physical forms, the deed to our first house, mortgage documents, college savings statements, the dog’s shot records, orthodontist’s bills, car insurance policies, passports, tax forms, orders and other essential documents memorializing 20 years of life as a military family.

Like my college duck boots, the tub of t-shirts, and those old toys, my legal career will stay packed away a while longer. I WILL get to them eventually. In the meantime, I’ve got other, more important things to do.

The Stuff Families Are Made Of (www.themeatandpotatoesoflife.com)
Buying Culture (www.themeatandpotatoesoflife.com)
What’s that you say, Ms. Robinson? (www.themeatandpotatoesoflife.com)

Battery by blender

Humor, parenting May 3, 2013 Comments: 10

It took three hours to get eight stitches.

Awaiting stitches, and imprisonment.

“MOLINARI!” the ER nurse bellowed, jolting us out of our waiting room stupor. Tearing our eyes from hypnotic crime show reruns playing on the wall-mounted television, we scrambled to move our 12-year-old daughter, who’d been placed in a wheelchair to elevate her lacerated foot.

“So, what happened?” the nurse asked.

“It was the blender,” I blurted, nervously.

“The blender?!” the nurse looked in horror at our daughter’s foot, wrapped in a dishtowel.

“Well, no, her foot wasn’t actually in the blender . . . it was on the floor . . . and the blender was in the freezer.”

“In the freezer?” the nurse asked, confused.

“I . . . it was me . . .,” I mumbled culpably, “I put the glass pitcher in the freezer. When my daughter opened the door, it fell out and cut her foot.”

“Ah,” the nurse seemed relieved to not be dealing with a frappèd foot, “let’s take a quick look.” As our daughter winced and whined, we carefully unraveled the dishtowel. “Hmmm . . . looks like you’re gonna need a few stitches young lady.”

The nurse fired questions at us – “full name, date of birth, address, phone number, insurance carrier, policy number” – while tapping away at her computer.

Then, after a pregnant pause, she looked intently at us and carefully enunciated, “Has your daughter ever had stitches before?

“No,” I answered immediately.

My mind waffled and my eyes darted as I thought, “Should I tell her about that face plant she did into the side of the backyard playset? She didn’t need stitches, but if I don’t mention that, will she think I’ve got something to hide? Why is she asking this question anyway? Does she think we’re abusive parents with a long history of suspicious ER visits? I guess the whole blender story does sound a bit suspect, and I was the one who put the blender in the freezer to begin with. I should’ve known it would slide off that bag of chicken tenders!?! It was my fault! I’m sure she’s alerting the police right now! I think I hear sirens!”

“Sit tight in the waiting room. When the doctor is ready for you, we’ll get you all fixed up.” the nurse said with a smile.

We settled back into the waiting room, just in time to see Matlock render a withering cross examination. Stagnating under the unforgiving fluorescent lights for another hour, we reassured our daughter, analyzed the people around us, leafed through dog-eared magazines, and watched an episode of “Hill Street Blues.”

Just as I thought cobwebs were forming, our name was called.

The x-ray technician, the billing rep, the nurse, the doctor – they all asked the same questions. First a battery of rapid-fire queries regarding tedious details were launched in robotic succession, followed by one carefully worded question delivered police-interrogation style.

I can’t recall if the final question was “Has your daughter had stitches before?” or “Are you the abusive parent who negligently put the blender in the freezer sideways?” but I am certain that they had it out for me.

I prayed they wouldn’t find out about our two older kids, who have had their share of emergency room visits. Three broken bones, two pulled elbows, and at least a dozen stitches; with such typical excuses — fell off the couch, fell off the playset, fell into the playset, fell down the stairs. It all sounded so textbook, I was sure that the police were on their way to haul me off to jail.

But finally, after 30 minutes of treatment and three hours of waiting, we were released. Feeling like some kind of middle-aged jailbird, I sheepishly wheeled my daughter back to the ER entrance.

Suddenly, “YOU’RE UNDER ARREST!” blared from the waiting room. I considered bolting, but I was still a little sore from that body sculpting class, and besides, I would need to pack my fiber pills and contour pillow before I could lead a life on the run. Just as I turned to face the wall and spread ‘em, I noticed that the order had come from CHiPs Officer “Ponch” Poncherello on the wall-mounted TV, and I realized that I was free to go.

On our way home, while my daughter sipped a conciliatory Whataburger chocolate shake, I turned to her in an effort to relieve the still-fresh pang of guilt, “Lollipop, if I hadn’t put that blender in the freezer sideways, none of this would’ve happened. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s OK, Mom,” she said between sips, “it’s not your fault. It was just an accident.” Along with my heart and that chocolate shake, my mother’s guilt finally melted away.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Meat and Potatoes of Life

Father’s Day: Keeping it simple

Give me liberty, or give me naps!

Announcing: The Mess Hall

The Dog Days