By susan fishman orlins Have I been spending too much time while I’m alive worrying about what will become of my body after I die? I would like my daughters to chime in on this, but they avoid the topic of my ashes as though it were pink slime.
The idea of spending eternity in a meadow appeals to me:
“Mockingbird Hill,” a bluebirds’ trill. A child’s drawing of grass with white cloud puffs, a smiling Mr. Sun, medleys of rainbow-colored posies. A rainbow.
I used to think I wanted my body preserved above ground. My brain tells me it doesn’t matter what happens to my body after I die. But the below ground and other alternatives give me the willies.
My father chose airtight coffins for his parents and for himself. Is keeping the worms out any better than keeping the air out?
My parents are buried in my grandparents’ family cemetery plot in an unattractive industrial neighborhood of Philadelphia. I gave up my spot, thinking I’d rather end up somewhere near my daughters. Now, though, regrets about being homeless in the afterlife seep into my thoughts. After all, my daughters may have families of their own to be with on “the other side,” so maybe I should have taken a sure thing with my family of origin.
Will my daughters want to visit me after I die? It’s unlikely that all three will live in the same city. So cremation, as unpleasant as that  sounds, seems like a good plan for sharing my remains. They could divide the ashes and each have part of me in a locket.
Each of my girls could also keep some of me in a gorgeous mosaic urn, personalized with photos under glass beads, like the ones my friend Sybil Sage makes for ashes of your cat or your mother.
I doubt they will want to eat my remains the way, as you may recall, a former Mr. Wrong swallows a pinch of his late father whenever he feels blue.
Though I consider myself a secular Jew, I consulted askmoses.com about Jewish law regarding cremation. Moses takes a hard line:
Jewish law requires no mourning for the cremated. Shivah is not observed and Kaddish is not recited for them. Those who are cremated are considered by tradition to have abandoned, unalterably, all of Jewish law and, therefore, to have surrendered their rights to posthumous honor.
The footnote, however, offers hope for flexibility:
1. This is the prevailing custom. Please consult with your Rabbi to see if this is also your custom and/or if there is reason to make an exception.
This is one of the things I like about being Jewish: You can always find an interpretation of Jewish law to suit your needs.
What ideas do you have for where to go and how to be near loved ones after you die? Do you care?
See my posts on Life (as it were) Goes Strong:
By susan fishman orlins It all started after my friend Chris emailed me a link for the Pitchapalooza, which was to occur the following week at Politics & Prose, D.C.’s independent bookstore that hosts frequent book talks by bestselling authors.
Twenty writers would be chosen randomly to give one-minute pitches of their unpublished books. The lucky 20 would receive feedback—“American Idol” fashion (sans Simon)—from the authors of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published as well as from guest panelists, which included a literary agent.
Given my attraction to scaring myself to death by performing for audiences, this was my meat.
Let’s pause here to note that tied with my fantasy of getting published in the New Yorker, is giving a book talk at P & P, if had a book. (If we had bacon, we could have bacon and eggs, if we had eggs.)
Already deep in the throes of writing my memoir, I thought, What an opportunity! Followed by: What if I win? Will an agent make me rewrite my book? What if I don’t even get chosen to pitch?
I had a million questions about the event, three of which I sent in an email to the bookstore, who forwarded it to the authors:
Will it help my chances if I arrive early?
How many writers typically sign up for the 20 slots?
Will we know ahead of time whether we’ll be called or will we be thinking the whole time, “Yikes, I could be next!”?
Author Arielle replied that arriving 20 minutes before the start would be fine. She also said I could look forward to the “adrenaline rush” of “sitting on pins and needles all night,” because I would be called only if/when it was my turn.
Oy, I thought. But really, how many people in D.C. were going to turn out to pitch their books? And I’d only have to get through one minute. I wasn’t going to over-worry this, wasn’t going to put wine in my water bottle to calm my nerves at the Pitchapalooza.
Over the next six days, I worked on little besides trying to unearth the ideal 200 words and arrange them in perfect order.
 Casey Listening I read my pitch to each of seven friends, three daughters and, 10 times a day, to Casey. After each shard of feedback, I tweaked.
On Pitchapalooza day, I was still re-writing and reciting. I added and deleted bits about my dying mom, my daughter’s lost bear and my travel smoke alarm.
I went back and forth between a fantasy of not getting chosen and one in which I end up with a book deal as well as a movie contract.
I dressed in my usual black and white and put on my new bright yellow high tops—the Price Is Right of outfits—fun enough to get noticed without going over the top. Since author Arielle Eckstut co-founded LittleMissMatched, I decided to wear mismatched socks, believing Arielle would notice and be impressed. But all my interesting socks were in the laundry.
Before rolling out the door on my bike, I emailed my pitch to myself in case I were to lose the two copies I had printed out.
I’d had the entire day to be ready on time and arrive 20 minutes early, as planned. But lateness always happens, and I arrived seven minutes before show time; all seats were occupied, people were standing everywhere and the book was sold out (buying the book was required for participants).
A store employee collecting names of prospective pitchers must have detected an aghast look on my face. He stuck a card in my hand and told me I could qualify by hurrying to the cashier and paying to reserve a book.
“How many people have signed up?” I asked. He told me more than 60 writers were vying for the 20 spots.
With trembling fingers I scratched my name on the card and scrunched it, so it would stand out from the others and have a better chance of getting chosen. (At the time I felt okay doing that, but now that I’m exposing myself, I’m worried. Was I cheating? It’s not as bad as sneaking ahead in the left-turn lane, when you know you’ll be driving straight, is it?)
 Yellow Shoes After reserving my book I found a spot on the floor near the front and leaned against a bookshelf, my yellow high tops extended in front of me.
The first name called was not mine, nor was the second, nor the 17th
Writers pitched and on my laptop I typed notes from the panelists’ critiques:
What is the story arc? How does this change the hero?
Because it’s a memoir about her mom, it will get them on TV
Pugs are good—dog books sell!
Single spinster—good but can’t be both memoir and self help.
Something redemptive.
Oh dear, I’m thinking, Where is my arc? Mom is dead. I have no pug. Single spinster, got that one nailed. Something redemptive—must add that now.
And I began adding something redemptive to my pitch.
“Susan Orlins.”
OMG, that’s me!
I took my laptop rather than my printed notes to the lectern. As I read, I tried not to trail off at the end of sentences:
Confession. I’m a worrywart. In my MEMOIR, Confessions of a Worrywart, I worry about everything from my DOG’S self-esteem to decapitation by ceiling FAN.
A friend calls some of my worries, White Girl Worries, and I WORRY ABOUT THAT.
BUT my anxiety ALSO extends to the COMPLICATED TERRITORY of relationships: with my mother, daughters, ex-husbands, boyfriends and therapists, who are like boyfriends, but who can’t dump ME.
I am more Nora Ephron than Dr. Phil. I blog about worry, then I WORRY ABOUT BLOGGING.
After I looked up an old beau in Paris, he took me to lunch where he choked on a chicken bone. He left abruptly and WENT MISSING for two days; I thought he had died. It would have been my fault FOR TRACKING HIM DOWN.
When your daughter is in Colombia and hasn’t tweeted all day, IS IT EVERY MOTHER’S tweetmare that her kid is locked in the TRUNK OF A SEDAN?
After my divorce, I began searching for my popular, pre-marriage self. After an imaginary encounter with her, I no longer yearn (They stopped me right here mid-add-on sentence. Ordinarily I would never have started two sentences in a row with “after” . . . just sayin’) to be that shallow.
Mothers and others can identify with my real worries and smile at my IMAGINED FEARS.
Who knew it could be SO MUCH FUN TO WORRY?!
Everyone laughed. The panelists said they loved it. They said my pitch got weak at the end, which was the “redemptive” bit I had added right before they called on me. They said my book would be in the humor section. I said something about my essays, because personal essays are my genre—funny at times, but not “humor,” not Erma Bombeck.
“Don’t say ‘essays!’” the four panelists cried in unison. Apparently publishers disdain the word.
There had been so many good pitches that it took several minutes until the authors agreed on a winner, who would receive an introduction to an agent. “And the winner is . . . .” Not me.
The winner’s pitch was good, about his great uncle who was a sociopathic doctor. Among other things, the uncle cut off limbs, for example, of someone with an amputation fetish.
Before leaving, I approached the literary agent from the panel to say one of her clients is my friend. At the same moment, she was approaching me. “I want you to send me something ,” she said as she handed me her card.
I won after all! I thought as I floated out the door and onto my saddle.
The evening had gone so well that I worried I would get in a bike crash on my way home. But I didn’t. Then I unlocked my door all ready to say to Casey, “There you are, There you are,” at a high-pitch, they way I always do when I get home.
But Casey wasn’t there; I realized I’d gotten home safely, because the disaster in store for me—to offset my rousingly successful night—was that my Casey had died while I was gone.
Then, there he was, there he was . . . in his rarely-used doggie bed; I had dodged two bullets.
The next day, I sent the agent a few chapters and links to some of my blog posts. I haven’t heard back and I keep thinking how different they are from the one-liners in my pitch.
I also sent a thank you email to the authors, David and Arielle. Arielle replied appreciatively and then asked where I had gotten my yellow shoes.
Anyone else have anxiety about public speaking? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
Check out some of my Home Goes Strong articles:
NEW POST:
By susan fishman orlins
 This is what my ideal seatmate looks like Ever since reading about Dutch Airline KLM’s new Meet and Seat program that allows passengers to choose seatmates, using Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, I’ve been contemplating who my ideal seatmate should be. For a worrywart this whole idea is a great thing.
Ideal seatmate number one:
- You do not have a cold or other communicative airborne diseases.
- You have not been in communication with someone who has a cold or other communicative airborne diseases.
- You do not wear perfume.
- You do not want to talk.
- You are narrow in girth.
- You will not hog the whole armrest.
- You are willing to go halvies on two of the meal choices so we can each halve our risk of a 100% bad choice.
- You will let me stuff my excess carryon, such as my food bag, under the seat in front of you for takeoff and landing.
- You will not sneak sideways looks at what I am writing on my laptop.
- You do not snore.
- You do not want to talk.
Ideal seatmate number two:
- You are a New Yorker editor.
- You want to talk about my writing.
- You have been looking for a writer just like me to contribute to the magazine.
- You don’t have a cold.
Ideal seatmate number three:
- You are an unattached heterosexual single man around my age.
- You are really smart and have a good sense of humor.
- You like dogs and don’t mind dog hair.
- You find me attractive and I find you attractive.
- You tolerate individuals who watch “Survivor” and “The Bachelor.”
- It would be nice if you have a beach house, but you don’t need to be very rich.
- You don’t have a cold.
The best seatmate of all:
- I will not find you on LinkedIn or Facebook, because the best seatmate of all is no seatmate at all. I would trade a business class seat and all the airplane food on the planet for lateral space in economy so I could spread out all my stuff.
- Second best, though, might be someone with whom to share the cost of the middle seat, in the event I run into a fortune.
What do you look for in a seatmate?
Some of my recent and related Home Goes Strong articles:
By susan fishman orlins Lately I’ve noticed how logical I’ve become. Two cases in point:
1. When saying good-bye to someone who is embarking on travel, I no longer say, “Have a safe trip.” That raises the spectre of an unsafe trip. So lately I say, “Have a great trip,” applying the subset logic that if it’s a great trip, it will also be a safe trip. Of course when I say it, what I’m thinking is Have a safe trip.
2. I have these velour jogging pants that turned out to be too short from the day I bought them several years ago. Even when my weight remains unchanged, I notice that my clothes seem to shrink over the years. In the case of the velour pants, however, suddenly this season, when I put them on, the length was perfect. Yay! Then I realized why: I’ve shrunk, the way we do by the time we are in our sixties.
It reminds me of a party game my parents once played with their friends. They asked everyone how tall they were and then measured each guest. You can guess what happened. If interested, you can read more about this as well as about my parents’ other party games.
I am happy my mind is still logical enough to solve the mystery of why the pants fit. Old pants finally fitting is one very good thing about being 66.
Other good things about being 66:
15% senior discount on Amtrak.
Medicare.
Naps. And even if you don’t nap, the house is quiet enough to nap if you want to.
No more PMS.
Fewer years remaining to endure global warming, income inequality, religious fanaticism, violent crime, earthquakes, terrorism, newly discovered deadly micro-pollutants, politicians (stretching the truth here, as most of my entertainment derives from politicians), safe trip worries, pants that don’t fit; in short, fewer years of worry remain.
What are your favorite things about getting older?
Check out my recent Home Goes Strong articles:
*Collection of Favorite Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes
*Living Together: Men Speak Out With Advice About Sex and More
*Living Together: Relationship Tips
*Easy Meditation
*Tapas and Crostini Recipes
*Conversation Starters
By susan fishman orlins Early in our relationship, on warm Friday evenings, my boyfriend Steve (who later became my husband) and I frequently squished onto a Long Island Railroad car to spend summer weekends with his parents. On one such trip a muffled siren began to blare. I turned to Steve and shouted, “Sounds like someone’s portable smoke alarm has gone off.”
His incredulous look made clear he found the suggestion preposterous that anyone besides me had packed a travel smoke alarm. From then on I always removed the alarm’s batteries before placing it in my wheelie bag.
Check out some of my recent Home Goes Strong articles:
By susan fishman orlins 
You may already know about my infatuation with Gretchen Rubin, who applies her genius to the study of happiness.
It would take a village for me to accomplish all that Gretchen does. In addition to writing books and a Page-a-Day Calendar, she maintains The Happiness Project blog and manages her Facebook Fan page, where she asks things like what is your favorite number and 213 people reply.
On my Facebook page I ask things like “How do you place toilet paper in the holder? With the paper coming from the top or bottom?” and two people reply.
Gretchen also created The Happiness Project Toolbox with a mind-boggling assortment of tasks to help you become happier: resolutions, group resolutions, one-sentence journal (I tried this one), and secrets of adulthood, to name a few; and then these tools have tools.
“If you wake up feeling yucky . . .” she has a solution. How does she do all this?
Moreover, you can email Gretchen to get all kinds of things, such as Gretchen’s personal Resolutions Chart for inspiration. She has her own YouTube channel! I could go on, but I’ll mention just one more thing, the daily Moment of Happiness email I receive from Gretchen.
Here is today’s:
“Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.”
— Benjamin Franklin
*If you enjoy these emails, please forward one to a friend.
You see that asterisk at the bottom? She knows how to promote herself in a way that makes you admire her. By contrast, at the bottom of each of my blog posts, I clock you in the head with an arms-length list of links to articles I’ve written. At times, I copy Gretchen’s idea of saying “It’s Share With a Friend Day!” imploring my readers to share the link to my blog with friends.
By the way, Gretchen is no lightweight, having been, among other things, Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal and having clerked on the Supreme Court for Sandra Day O’Connor. She pursues happiness with an intelligence and gusto that must also have led to her success in previous careers.
For Gretchen, every Wednesday is tip day; copycatting, I started having tip days, which occur randomly, when I think of it. Mine of course are worry tips, which are close cousins to happy tips. If you eliminate worry, you’ll be happier, right?
So today I am combining the best of Happiness guru Gretchen Rubin: Tip Day along with a Moment of—in this case—Worry . . .
First a smidge of background. I generally do not wake up feeling yucky. My bedroom has sunlight and my Casey, snoozing in a sprawl beside me, gives me something to smile about. But then, lest I become too jolly, I (sometimes) remind myself of all that could go wrong. (I added “sometimes,” because if I tell you that I always do this,my brain will believe it and become set to do this kind of worry. Worry Tip #1: Avoid brain-setting.) Recently I wrote a piece called Easy Meditation, in which I shared a method I heard about on NPR. The author talked about allowing thoughts to pass through your mind like clouds. So now, when I awake–or any time bad, mad, sad things visit my thoughts–I try to allow them to come and go like passing clouds. (Tip #2)
Two More Worry Tips:
- Take a Moment of Worry each morning and then tell yourself to be done for the day.
- Or, and I may have mentioned this before, make an appointment with yourself to worry later, say at six o’clock in the evening. When the assigned time arrives, you may not feel like worrying at all!
How do you manage your worry?
And now for what Gretchen would call Shameless Self Promotion:
Did I mention that today is Share With a Friend Day (Facebook, Twitter, email, LinkedIn, Pinterest)?
Check out my lastest Home Goes Strong article, Roasted Vegetables.
I had the privilege of interviewing Gretchen, who shared lots of Happiness tips:
*Happy Home, Part 1: How To Be Happier At Home, A Conversation With Happiness Project Expert Gretchen Rubin
*21 Ways To Remember Practically Everything!
*How Couples Resolve The Thermostat Wars & Other Domestic Battles
*Aphrodisiac Foods & 7 Easy, Delicious Recipes To Give Your Libido A Boost
*Brain Food . . . 5 Delicious, Easy Recipes
- Author’s note: It would probably take the rest of the day to figure out why there is formatting glitch on this page. I’d like it to be perfect, but if you’ll allow me one more tip–which I learned when my ex ran for Congress–it’s a good idea to drop the last 15% of perfection. I’ve noticed that letting go of perfection is a habit of highly successful, less-stressed individuals.
By susan fishman orlins 
It’s a common occurrence in New York and other cities. You put your key in the lock of your apartment building and someone is about to follow you inside.
What do you do? Usually in the interest of security I ask if the person lives there and then request they use their own key or buzz the person they are visiting.
It happened to me a few days ago. A tall, handsome black man, somewhere around my daughter’s age of 29, follwed me through the first of two locked doors to my daughter’s building in New York City. Several things whizzed through my mind.
Mainly I thought, Will he think I’m a white woman not letting him in because he’s a black man?
Nonetheless, I asked, “Do you live here?”
In a pleasing Obama-like voice he replied, “No, I’m visiting my friend in 5D.”
“Would you mind asking your friend to buzz you in?” I said.
“Not at all,” he said.
And I headed upstairs to quickly drop off my laptop and pick up my jacket before meeting my friend for a day of biking in Queens and Brooklyn. I also wanted to get a snack during my discretionary five minutes.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about that attractive guy in a sweater and down vest and wondering how he felt about my not opening the door to the building for him.
I decided to forgo the salad, chocolate and glass of milk I had counted on scarfing down. Instead, I grabbed my jacket, bounded up to the 5th floor and rang the buzzer of 5D, while running through various permutations of gender and race and how I would have responded to each combination.
I egged myself on, knowing that a story for me to share with you was in the making.
A white guy named Matt answered the door. Still panting from racing up the steps, I asked if I could speak to his friend that a few minutes ago I didn’t let into the building.
“Sure come in,” said Matt.
“Hi, I’m Susan,” I said.
“I’m Shawn,” said Shawn in the soothing voice. “Nice to meet you.”
I handed Shawn my card and told both of them, “I’m a writer and I’m wondering if I can ask you a question about what happened downstairs.”
“Sure,” said Shawn.
I told him I felt bad not letting him in and wanted him know it wasn’t because he was black; I added that I felt bad because, as a black man, he must often run into suspicious white people.
And then I ran through a few permutaions.
“It would have been easier,” I said, “to not let in a white man.” No guilt. I would not have given that another thought.
Maybe I would have let a white woman in without questioning, though the previous day a white woman closed the door on me while I was fumbling for my key.
I later realized I hadn’t mentioned the black woman option; did that omission suggest a bias in me? Would I have admitted a black woman? In general, I’m more intimidated by women, so on that alone I’d be more inclined to let a female in. I wouldn’t want a woman, black or white, mouthing off at me.
 Where Shawn and I are from Shawn said, “I didn’t think about it at all.”
I started to mumble something about living in New York or DC, where my home is, there is so much more blending of races and Shawn said “Oh, I’m from D.C.” and I asked what he did and we three morphed into stop-and-chat chatter.
Already running well beyond my discretionary five minutes, I asked Matt if he knew my daughter, who also lives in the building, and he said, “No, is she single?”
She is. And I wondered whether Shawn was single.
Soon thereafter I had to leave. While pedaling along First Avenue to the Queensboro Bridge, I thought about how rewarding it is to take a moment that could have been nothing more than breezing by a guy in an entryway and make it into a story, in this case, one that challenged my assumptions.
Of course, I’m worried I’ve said something racially offensive here. Sometimes I need to ask a black friend if something I say or think is acceptable, the same way I sometimes have to read New York Times editorials to know what I think.
What do you do when someone is about to follow you into a locked apartment building? Do you act differently based on their gender, race, appearance, smooth voice, etc.?
Check out some of my recent articles on Home Goes Strong:
*BEST BANANA CAKE RECIPE EVER! CHOCOLATE CHIPS OPTIONAL
*SUPERBOWL PARTY AND POTLUCK RECIPES AND IDEAS
*EASY, HEALTHFUL CHINESE FOOD RECIPES
*SHOULD COUPLES HAVE SEPARATE BEDROOMS? READERS RESPONSES MAY SURPRISE YOU
*NEW GREAT IDEAS FOR COOKING FISH AND HOW TO ORDER FISH & SEAFOOD ONLINE
*TOP 10 WAYS TO WIN AT SCRABBLE AND WORDS WITH FRIENDS
By susan fishman orlins  Marathon women a decade hence On an ordinary afternoon in 1998, Eliza, my sixteen-year-old daughter, plopped her backpack at my feet, waved a brochure so close it grazed my nose and declared, “I’m signing up for the Marine Corps Marathon. I’ll be running with a group that raises money for AIDS and trains Sunday mornings at seven.”
“Seven a.m. – are you crazy?” Then, pausing for less time than it takes to say “PowerBar,” I added, “Tell you what, I’ll sign up with you.” It was as though, for just this microsecond, I had morphed into Jane Fonda.
Now alone, I began to confront different questions. Was I doing this for myself or for Eliza? Or to bolster my athletic image with friends and acquaintances? Was I willing to risk injury and, in turn, all the skiing and swing dancing that filled the void left by my divorce? Wasn’t there a simpler bonding opportunity with Eliza? And an easier way to meet guys? Would I ever find a sports bra that worked? And why would I give up six months of Sunday mornings to arrive at my weekly training sessions earlier than the newspaper arrived on my doorstep? Surely not because running 26.2 miles with thousands of other Type A’s had always been my dream. More likely, my interest could have been called morbid curiosity.
Nonetheless, I attended an orientation meeting with Eliza where we exchanged motives with other hopefuls. A trim secretary, seated beside me, told the group, “My best friend is dying from AIDS. He can’t run, so I’m going to do it for him.” Ashamed of my egocentric motivation, I sheepishly introduced myself and expressed my desire to regain a sense of focus in my life. When Eliza announced that she looked forward to training with her mom and raising money for an AIDS clinic, I felt exonerated.
At our first weekly training session, our leaders assigned partners and placed us in pace groups. These were the people with whom we would train as well as run the actual marathon. Eliza’s tight-abs pack lined up near the front; despite our neon CoolMax costumes, my partner, Rayford, and I found ourselves in the rear among the less hurried.
In the weeks that followed, the pain of placing one foot in front of the other was eased, ironically, by Rayford’s sagas of his partner’s death from AIDS and living with his own HIV. After we got through a twelve-mile Sunday run by exchanging the ordeals of Rayford’s coming out and the final year of my marriage, we agreed on “single in the seventies” as our topic for the upcoming fourteen-mile run.
If I were still married, I would have bristled at the idea of striding the equivalent of halfway from Washington to Baltimore (or if you compute all the training miles, round trip to Scarsdale). Isn’t it striking how a major life change, like divorce, can transform you into the opposite of who you thought you were? Yet, dim recollections suggested that the marathoner was who I originally was. It seemed that marriage had molded me, temporarily, into someone less adventuresome.
Sometimes I imagined Eliza and myself as two intersecting rings. I worried I was treading on her exclusive territory but I asked anyway, “Would you mind if I try to keep up with your group on next week’s six-mile maintenance run? It might be my only chance to jog with you
 What our cupcakes did not look like. before the distance increases.”
Even before she answered, her response was evident in her bright eyes, lit up the way they did on the trail when her group–in their homestretch–passed me still huffing my way to the halfway mark, and her fellow speed-mates cheered, “Go, Liza’s mom.”
As Eliza and I planned a party for the fundraising component of our marathon, she asked, “Mom, how can I take credit for half the donations? They’ll be mostly from your friends.” I told her that so many of my friends were the parents of her friends and that we were in this together – a partnership. We not only jointly crafted invitations and made cupcakes, but we also explained to our guests what raising money for drug therapies that offered hope to people with HIV/AIDS meant to us. I reminded Eliza that, without her, this expansion of my world would never have occurred.
The training distances mounted, I began to believe I could actually make it to the finish line. New queries surfaced. Would Eliza wait on marathon day until I completed the course? Wasn’t it backward – shouldn’t the mother be the one to soak up her little girl’s I-did-it grin as she crossed the finish line? Or was this one of those role reversals dealt to us by the passing years? On my birthday, Eliza hauled out a cake she had baked and shouted, “Yay!” when I extinguished all the candles in one blow.
And on marathon day, there I was sailing by on my merry-go-round as I cried, “Look at me!” Eliza jumped and waved and cheered my victory – hers, mine, ours.
What have you plunged into with unexpectedly satisfying results?
EXCITING NEWS: Coming soon my new book Confessions of a Worrywart: Being a Mom, Having a Mom
Check out my latest Home Goes Strong articles:
*NEW YORK FISH MARKET: ORDER FABULOUS SEAFOOD ONLINE
*TOP 10 WAYS TO WIN AT SCRABBLE AND WORDS WITH FRIENDS
*ORGANIZING YOUR AFFAIRS BEFORE YOU DIE: ADVICE FROM A 29-YEAR-OLD ORPHAN
*BEST SPAGHETTI SAUCE EVER!
By susan fishman orlins 
I needed an antidote to worry this weekend, when my bike got a flat tire and then my car wouldn’t start. So here is the latest in my Antidote to Worry Series of food photos and such.
Here’s how I compose this satisfying crunchy salad:
- A base of arugula
- Trader Joe’s Healthy 8 chopped veggie mix, which contains broccoli, carrots, green cabbage, red cabbage, jicama, green bell pepper, radish, celery.
- I add pine nuts; shelled, salted and roasted pistachio nuts; blue cheese; pomegranate seeds and orange muscat champagne vinegar (vinegar also from Trader Joe’s).
And just like that I crunch my worries away!
Btw, I just posted my chili recipe–improvised from a 140-character chili twecipe–that I made with my daughter, another antidote to worry.
How do you crunch away your worries?
Unrelated announcement: See my “most popular” articles this week:
 Orange muscat champagne vinegar, mm
By susan fishman orlins Is it a worrywart trait to seek pleasure on the highest plane? To always be wondering whether–no matter how good something is–it could be better? That’s how it is with me and eating.
It’s a similar quest with family time. When I hear about a family who acts out Shakespeare together or who is always texting photos, I wonder why my family isn’t doing that; competitive and envious I am, even though I’ll never understand Shakespeare, and I cherish every minute with my girls, time typically amid a flurry of knives, cutting boards, skillets and olive oil.
Back to my quest to elevate taste to the max. For a long time now, I’ve been in search of how to best savor food.
 Big bite? Little bite? Chew slowly? Slosh?
- Do I take a bite and slosh it into all the crevices in my mouth?
- Should I slosh savory and sweet differently?
- Ought I study a map of my taste buds, so I can be sure to hit the right ones with the right foods?
- Did you know we have taste buds in our stomachs; how does that work?
- Mindful eating? Benefits of 100 chews? What if the patience required is not in my Ashkenazi DNA?
- Eating with hands? Um, licking plates?
- Do I need to be sitting down, even though biting into a warm, pink, juicy, olive oil sautéed chicken liver, over the kitchen sink fills me with an elation that makes time stand still (I know what you’re thinking and, yes, it is orgasmic)?
- What about little bites or big bites?
I ponder the size-of-bite question regularly as I chomp on my daily ounce of a Trader Joe’s 72% dark chocolate bar (diet tip). A big mouthful is simply more satisfying than a dainty nibble. I stand practically frozen, chewing at my chocolate drawer, concentrating hard on the bittersweet flavor sensation under the sides of my tongue, while Casey at my feet concentrates, waiting for an errant crumb. (Chocolate is not the only food that can poison dogs).
Concentration by the chocolate drawer It’s the very same delight for me with a mouthful of pomegranate seeds. I’m drawn to the idea of biting on one shiny red seed at a time and savoring that nano-burst of juice, yet I find it impossible not to fill my cheeks, till they bulge like a squirrel’s, with a whole fruits-worth of seeds.
If I remember, and can bear to put off masticating that shiny, red heavenly mouthful, I run my tongue over the cluster’s bumpy terrain. And, as above, all sexual inferences you draw acknowledged but not intended. That’s how it is with eating.
The other night I went to see Adam Gopnik talk about his new book, The Table Comes First: Family, Friends and the Meaning of Food.
When I asked about eating technique, he wasn’t able to tell me how to slosh, but my question led him to talk about experiments where wine connoisseurs were asked to taste fine wine with a cheap label.
Their reactions that it tasted just okay were corroborated by MRI’s that showed brain changes, compared to when the subjects saw the accurate wine label.
I don’t like milk chocolate; it’s a totally different food from dark chocolate, and I wonder what would happen taste-wise, if someone were to give me a chocolate bar, milk chocolate in color, though exactly the dark chocolate taste of the one I love eating every day.
As with the wine label switcheroo, would it taste like milk chocolate?
On my way to the book talk I’d been listening to NPR. John Sebrook was talking about his latest “New Yorker” article “Crunch” about a hybrid apple. In the article he says that the sound when you bite into the apple is like “hearing with your mouth or tasting music,” which enhances pleasure.
This leads me to ponder taste buds in my ears and wonder why my music preferences are so limited, which I’ve noted to elaborate on in a future post.
How I’d love to see your comments on how to savor food to the max!
Check out my latest articles:
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By susan fishman orlins While shops experience brisker business on weekends, blog traffic slows, at least mine does.
So I’m posting this shortie today, hoping for weekend visitors.
What I’m about to write is one of those things I wouldn’t give a second thought to, were I not examining myself all the time for the very
 gaggle of cups on the kitchen counter purpose of writing about it.
The trick is to catch myself either in the act of something quirky or in the act of something everyone does, but no one thinks to talk about, sort of like how we don’t talk about the conversations we have with out dogs.
So here’s what I think is a quirk, but do let me know if you do this too: I save drinking water. Let me explain.
I have these under-the-sink filters that make the Potomac River potable as it comes through my kitchen faucet. I treat this water with the same respect I give my homemade chicken soup.
For one thing, ever since I went four years without realizing I was supposed to change the filters annually—not realizing they were in canisters that were clear plastic, not brown—I try not to tax those filters unnecessarily.
Plus, ever since I got kidney stoned, I drink buckets of water every day, either hot water with lemon or room temp with nothing in it.
So, if I’ve been out with my stainless steel bottle of hot lemon water and now I want to have regular water in that bottle, I pour the remains of the lemon water into a separate cup for later. This routine leads to a gaggle of cups on the kitchen counter.
 Tablescape, Cafe Matisse in Washington, D.C. It’s a similar look to my place setting at restaurants, where I request a half glass of white wine, half glass of red, tap water, fizzy water and sometimes hot water. Oh and a large glass of ice for my white wine.
That’s it for now.
Oh, by the way, do check out my meaty post, Thanksgiving: Moist Turkey, Vegetarian Recipes, Appetizers, Desserts, DIY Centerpieces, Giving Thanks, Entertainment Tips. Just as with my inability to select one color of wine, one flavor of water, I seem unable to narrow down my titles to something pithy.
Do you do hoard water or other things? I’d love to hear about that and other quirks!
By susan fishman orlins 1955
After a swallow of dinner, I dirty my face with burnt cork and, on my shoulder, rest a broomstick with a bundle of rags tied to its end. I then prepare for the battle with my mom over not wearing a coat.
I step into the hallowed night, wondering which house has the apples with razor blades.
Nervously, I take the shortcut home through waist-high weeds that surround a haunted house whose creaky steps I’ve mounted on blue-sky afternoons.
On the kitchen table, I dump my bag for my mother’s inspection. It’s a disappointment that nothing sharp turns up in the apples.
1966
In college I feel stupid dressing up in costume, and I feel stupid if I don’t for a Halloween party where everyone else is in disguise.
1979
Halloween becomes fun again once I get married. Six weeks after Steve and I exchange vows, we move to Beijing. With the enthusiasm for holidays that comes from being separated from one’s roots, we invite our new friends to celebrate with us.
The Hungarian journalists have sewn their own clown suits and a partner in Steve’s law firm dresses as a flasher with a sausage attached to boxers under his raincoat.
We provide umbrella hats for our Chinese friends who wear only their Mao suits, obligatory attire for locals in 1979 China.
Only Steve’s Chinese-American secretary creates a stir. The room becomes silent when she enters dressed as a Red Guard. She stands in that arched-back pose you see on posters, with Mao’s ubiquitous red book in her raised hand.
The wounds from the Cultural Revolution are still too raw for people to accept reminders of that holocaust.
1992
Through my children, I re-live the thrill of my own childhood autumns, the season of crayons that still have their points and blank composition books. We convene on our front stoop to decorate the door for Halloween.
Steve tells us he heard on the radio that witches and hobos are politically incorrect, so I craft my witch as an ethnic-neutral with paper-bag
 Noodle Pudding hair, and a newspaper face.
After we go trick or treating, I tell my four-year-old goblin, “Nobody likes the raisins–those we’ll give to Grandmom for her noodle pudding.”
Emily’s blue eyes, bright as light bulbs under normal conditions, are on high wattage tonight.
“This one’s bad for your teeth, Sweetheart,” I say. Then I drop an appallingly puny Almond Joy into the “throwaway” pile that will go on the high shelf in my closet where I hide my gum.
A pack of Soda-Licious fruit snacks that really will play havoc with the molars, I place into her pile. I don’t like the flavors. Halloween does this to me.
1993
Each of my grade-school daughters accepts my offer of $10 to buy their Halloween candy in my effort to protect their dear little bodies from all that sugar. Soon they regret it; no such transactions occur ever again.
1996
Emily, age 8, writes in her school journal, “I like Easter because it is fun and I get a lot of candy. My mom doesn’t let us eat our candy so I save it for so long that it gets rotten and I have to throw it away. Eliza eats hers anyway.”
2011
Ever since my kids flew the coop, I’ve become a Halloween Grinch. I don’t want to keep jumping up to answer the door, so I go out to dinner.
After years of grappling with the temptation of leftover Reese’s peanut butter cups, this year I give out individually wrapped Lifesaver mints, which I leave in a bowl on my front stoop.
The following week over coffee, friends inform me that no kid likes peppermint Lifesavers. I had wondered why the bowl of mints had not been emptied.
 Participants in D.C.'s high-heel drag race On Halloween night I go to a bistro in Georgetown with my friend Daniel. Last week, we went to D.C.’s annual High Heel Drag Race, and now I want to see more costumes, the Georgetown scene.
Daniel says, “It’s not safe, so let’s eat a bit farther up, then walk down.” I say, “You’re being a terrible worrywart.”
But Daniel is right. We zigzag to skirt around thick crowds of made-up young adults who exude no merriment.
The next day I learn that 15 minutes after we left the area, a 17-year-old boy suffered a gunshot wound in the head.
This makes me long for the days when I was a politically incorrect hobo for Halloween.
What are your memories of Halloweens past?
Get ready for next Halloween:
For awesome eats, check out my recipes:
By susan fishman orlins  Mom had often complained that I'd thrown away her bag collection when I helped her move. So, for her birthday, we gave her a gift of gift bags . . . and she cracked up. I’m a saver. Every time my inbox mounts to the limit of 4,000 emails, I move a few thousand to random folders I doubt I’ll ever find again; and then I’m set for another few weeks of not deleting messages, mainly from the likes of Sock Hop Sundays, Hot Tub Works and Book TV Alert.
Aside from reminding me of my hedonistic tendencies, keeping these emails relieves the fear I’ll miss something, even though I have never opened a Book TV Alert and I went to Sock Hop Sunday only once.
Someday, after I finish watching all the Oprah episodes saved on my DVR, I may just want to check out Book TV. The emails will serve as a reminder.
Plus, I don’t want to waste time deleting emails or unsubscribing.
The first time I surfed to Book TV, Isabel Allende was speaking about the death of her daughter Paula. She referred to the remarkable ability of the human spirit to rise above adversity. I was going through a divorce at the time and it helped to say to myself, if she can rally after such a tragedy, then surely I can deal with this divorce.
With phone messages, it’s different. I so fear accumulating my kids voices, which are much more precious than emails, that I delete them right away so as not to tempt any hoarding instincts.
A few weeks ago, while visiting my 28-year-old daughter, Eliza, in New York, I listened (except when she made me hold my ears) as she transferred to her computer 20 special voice messages she had saved over time. She was preparing to trade in her Blackberry for an iPhone.
I heard the message from me, singing happy birthday. And then the room filled with the voice most familiar to me, the one I heard for hours every week during long conversations about our lives.
Lizie, it’s Grandmom. The book you sent me, I never laughed so much! (laughter) I laughed out loud the whole time I was reading it. (laughter) I just loved it . . . It was so funny! (more laughter) . . . .
It was only 7 months ago that Lizie asked me to take Shopoholic to my mom in Florida, “I think Grandmom will like it,” she said. Four months later, in early July, my mom died. On Christmas Day my mom would have been 93, the birth date she shared with Eliza.
I didn’t cry when my mom died, just as she didn’t cry when her mother died. My mom and I were/are not criers.
But as each day passes, I miss her more. How she would have loved to hear the details of my interview with TLC’s Georgetown Cupcake sisters about their bakery and their lives!
No one gets excited about what I do each day, the way my mom did.
Every adventure I have, every picture I take, I wish I could share with my mom. Hearing her voice and that laugh—so real, so hearty, so alive—was like having her right there on the sofa with us, making me feel so happy, so sad.
Now that I have this recording of my mom’s voice, I’m wondering whether I should start saving the voicemails of everyone I love. Oy.
What do you do about saving voicemail? Email?
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By susan fishman orlins The other day, I bike downtown to the Newseum to hear a panel discussion by New York Times columnists. I leave home early enough to swing through McPherson Square, D.C.’s Occupy Wall Street venue.
 Soul Power My immediate sense is a blast from the past, a hippie and flower child commune ambience.
 The Lending Library The Lending Library boasts titles like War and Peace and The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo.
 The Kitchen On a small stove, ground beef is sizzling, almost ready to go into the spaghetti sauce for tonight’s dinner.
 Needs Bengay and Tiger Balm comprise 20% of the Needs, suggesting that occupying Wall Street puts a strain on the muscles.
 The Massage So folks help one another relax.
 The Committees and Meeting Schedule I have been fantasizing about taking my tent and spending a night with this group. Were I in my twenties, I might have moved right in, drawn especially by the camaraderie and excuse to sleep under the stars.
The Committees and Meeting Schedule heighten my envy of this seemingly tight community that contrasts with my comfortable home in a boring, mown-lawn neighborhood.
I would join the Welcome, Comfort and Media committees rather than the Sanitation, Legal and Outreach Committees.
 The Art Table Why isn’t there an Arts or Culture Committee?
 Art Table Yield Signs made at the Art Table are everywhere.
 Music Appreciation There is nothing in the Music Appreciation area–it’s guitar, drums, girls in long skirts, abundance of hair–to suggest this is not 1971.
 The "Red Cross" This medic’s name is Kennedy. He seems to be a regular, but tells me people come to volunteer before they go to work. I ask about toilets. He replies that the protesters are at the mercy of nearby restaurant owners’ generosity.
 Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig speaks Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig encourages the crowd to “invite the grassroots in, take in the Tea Party members who do not have a job … those people who have the same recognition” of the fundamental unfairness . . . . (Quote courtesy of occupydc.org.)
 Media Circus The protest is a media magnet, even the media folks are media-worthy.
 View from the Newseum Roof After meandering through the Occupy Wall Street community, I go to the Newseum, Washington’s fabulous news museum, and listen to opinion pages journalists discuss the current political climate and the 2012 election.
Maybe panelist David Brooks is the one who remarks that the Occupy Wall Street movement is not very organized.
I wonder whether he has seen the list of Committees and the Schedule of Meetings at McPherson Square.
Where do you think the Occupy Wall Street movement is headed?
Related Announcement: Don’t miss my Top Ten Do-It-Yourself Halloween Costumes
 Poorman's Nation such as Poorman’s Nation costume in this photo I took last week at “Wall Street’s” Occupy Wall Street demostration in Zuccotti Park.
By susan fishman orlins “Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”
I’ve been thinking I should get a medical alarm button to wear like the one advertised in the campy Life Alert “Help! I’ve fallen!” commercial. My mom wore one until she died at age 92.
Otherwise, how would I contact someone if I were to fall, unable to move?
Every time I take a shower, along comes the imaginary falling scenario: Warm water cascading over me turns icy cold as I lay motionless on the tub’s white porcelain. Casey, my beagle-basset, hears my wails and sprints to rescue me, like the cat I once read about who dialed 911. Or maybe it was a toddler.
 This no-solution thinking scares me, so I switch my ruminations to the day my life-saving, rectangular white pendant in the mail.
I slip it over my head for the first time and, BOING, white curls spring from my scalp.
A few nights ago I had a scare. I was home alone with my pooch Casey, and I heard the front door shut. I immediately phoned my daughter, who lives only a few miles away, so she would be on the line with me when I confronted the burglar.
(Do you ever wonder, the way l do, what you would do if, when you go to check, someone wearing a ski mask is actually there?)
Probably no one had entered.
But just in case, that night I locked the door to my bedroom. I was too scared to check all the rooms in the house.
I imagine the intruder having taken up residence on the third floor, which I still have not checked. I picture him pulling peanut butter sandwiches out of his backpack and sitting cross-legged as he picnics on the bed or al fresco on the roof.
If I’d had a Life Alert, I could have pressed the button and emergency help would have arrived to scare off the burglars.
On the Life Alert Site, a video shows a woman taking a bath when an intruder enters her home.
She hears a sound, presses her Life Alert and reports a break-in to the man who answers. His deep voice then announces over a speaker, “You have been detected. Leave now!” At that, the burglars skedaddle.
In the next video sequence the deep voice wakes the woman, “Sharon,” he says, “We have received a smoke signal coming from your kitchen. Get out now.”
 I love the personal touch. Sometimes on a Sunday it’s too quiet around here. Wouldn’t it be nice to push my button and talk to the nice gray-haired man. He would call me Susan.
They also have a video of helping poor Sharon after she falls off a ladder.
Shouldn’t anyone who lives alone have a medical alert system? Maybe I can order one for each of my kids.
Friends say, “Just keep a cell phone in your pocket.”
I prefer a button to push when someone in a ski mask is pointing a gun at my nose.
Not to mention the cancer risk of carrying a cell phone centimeters away from my ovaries.
I just called Life Alert for my free brochure and already my hair is turning grayer.
Can you think of any good reason not to get the help button?
Take advantage of my research and check out the 411 on how to find Emergency Response Systems for yourself or aging parents, including red flags.
While you’re at it, check out some of my home security articles:
By susan fishman orlins Popcorn is one of my favorite comfort foods. It fills me up, is healthful, tastes delicious and I pretend that eating this overflowing pot of it, sprinkled with sea salt, won’t make me feel squeezed in the waist by my elastic waist pants.
When my oldest daughter Eliza was a toddler, I thought it would be fun to place the electric popcorn maker in the middle of the living room, take off the top and watch the kernels explode all over the floor and furniture. I was right; for excitement it rivaled, hm, well nothing I can think of.
I took the above photo 25 years later in Eliza’s apartment. We became overly zealous with the amount of kernels and this time we were the ones all over the floor, cracking up, wondering when it would ever stop popping.
 We were like Lucy and Ethel in the “I Love Lucy” episode when Lucy and Ethel were trying to prove their pioneer bona fides to Ricky and Fred by baking bread. Lucy misread the recipe and used 13 cakes of yeast instead of 3.
You won’t be sorry if you try our fabulous popcorn.
What are your comfort foods?
Speaking of food, check out my newest articles on Home Goes Strong:
By susan fishman orlins You can tell a lot about a person’s life from the files they have open on their browser.
 Too many tabs Eugene, my computer guy, says I shouldn’t keep so many files open. But like with my desk, if I put things away, I’ll forget about them. So I leave them out and layers of other things gather on top of them and then I forget about them anyway.
Just yesterday, while taking my Organizing Challenge, under a pile on my desk, I found a dress I meant to return back in June.
Similarly, on my browser, I keep Sites open, holding onto the fantasy I’ll get around to reading them:
- An article about devices that help you watch your home from afar
- Twitter so I can check every 20 minutes to see if anyone retweeted my Holy Guacamole! tweet as well as see what my daughters are up to.
- Likewise, a tab to my stats that show how popular my blog posts are and, by association, how popular I am.
- “A Pro Confides his Best Tips for Painting Exteriors” I hope will help me figure out the best painter from the six I’m interviewing.
A tab with a “Consumer Reports” report on point and shoot cameras is open, so I can compare the one I just bought to the ones I didn’t buy. Is it a worrywart thing to seek opportunities for regret (and then regret having done so)?
Also open is Adam Gopnik’s piece about dogs in the “New Yorker.” It’s reassuring to know it is only a click away. But also anxiety-provoking; the tab is a steady reminder I don’t make time to read.
The “New Yorker” Festival Site is open with events ranging from a tasting walk in Greenwich Village with Calvin Trillin to Malcolm Gladwell waxing about The Virtues of Obnoxiousness. If I weren’t commitment averse, I’d buy tickets and close this tab.
Instead, I entered the limerick contest to see if I could win some tickets, which takes the matter out of my hands:
- A writer of wee note I became
- But my dream in this role was not fame (false, but here for the sake of rhyme and meter)
- Nor a view of the High Line
- Nor a New York Times byline
- But on New Yorker Fete’s slate my name.
(Hm, I worry they (and you for that matter) will not get the last line, my dream to be a featured writer in the Festival.)
I could make a file of these links, but I worry I’ll lose my place in the dog article if I close it and who needs one more file to keep track of?
Plus, as with newspapers that pile up, well, you know what happens, I chuck them on recycle day, and then I feel guilty I haven’t read them as well as worried I’ve missed something great.
Eugene is always telling me to reboot my computer more often for it to run its best. So once in a while I summon up the discipline to bid my tabs good-bye, and I log out only to start accumulating all over again, knowing I’ll never remember there was once a really great dog story I didn’t finish.
I’d love to see in the comments below what your open tabs say about you.
Check out my Home Goes Strong articles.
See my latest Huff Po post New York has The Moth, DC has SpeakeasyDC.
By susan fishman orlins My very first Mr. Wrong told me, “Susie, what you need is a purpose.” That was in ninth grade. George, now a retired psychiatrist, was right. The benefits of having a purpose were never more obvious than after I launched my blog.
 Blogging The irony of blogging about being a worrywart, is that it keeps my mind so occupied with what I plan to write that little room remains for maladaptive thoughts.
And blogging has made me aware of so many things I hadn’t previously thought about . . .
* When I saw my niece the morning of my mom’s funeral, we hugged and I said, “I miss you so much!” She replied, “I don’t miss you; I read your blog.”
* My friend Sue, author of the thoughtful interfaith blog On Being Both, told me correctly you’ll spend 1/3 of your time writing, 1/3 of your time posting and 1/3 of your time getting the word out via social networks.
I spend another 1/3 of my time checking my stats: How many visitors to my blog? Did they like me enough to stay for a couple of minutes? Did they come from Twitter or Facebook or Sarahneedsajob.com?
I’ve learned that obsessively checking my stats soothes the same pleasure center of the brain as, say, an addictive numbers game . . . and worry.
* I have learned to let go of the last 15% of time it would to make things “perfect,” otherwise I would never have time to post anything. I learned this 15% rule when my then-husband ran for U.S. Congress.
* One thing leads to another. I launched my blog in June 2010. In July 2010, a friend who liked my blog introduced me to Huffington Post where I published my first Huff Po piece, Travel Tips From a Worrywart.
A month later an editor read on Huff Po my article Turn Chores Into Family Fun and offered me a (paying!) job blogging for NBC’s Home Goes Strong.
* If you can write, you can write about almost anything, as in Composting It’s Easier Than You Think, The Avocado!, as well as people’s personal stories, like Death of a Husband, One Woman’s Story series.
* Some of the thousands of thoughts that go through a person’s mind each day make great opening lines. You just try to be good at catching them.
* Blogging is less lonely than writing for print. Readers comment and I comment back. On twitter, my tweeps retweet or send me messages. For non-virtual human contact, I figure I can always go to the dry cleaner.
* I posted a piece that that offended a friend whose cousin had commited suicide; in the post, Worry Orgasm, I failed to show empathy when someone delayed my train by throwing himself in front of it. An editor might have pointed that out and urged greater sensitivity.
Instead, I made amends in my next post, “Worry Orgasm” Regrets. It was so raw, so non-virtual, this personal experience with my best friend playing out on my blog.
* I don’t know what I would do without my brilliant writing group. In addition to their encouragement (Diane regularly envisions a movie coming out of my blog stories, with Susan Sarandon in the role of me!), they help me write by consensus. If 4 out of 7 don’t like something, I cut it.
* Oy, the things people search for! I am able to see what searches have lead visitors to my blog. Yesterday one search term was “porn yoga” and, today, “I’m worried I have warts.” The interest I have in reading these search terms make me wonder, Am I a Voyeur?
* Because I tweet links to my blog posts, old friends have turned up, like an author whom I French kissed, when I was in 9th grade and he was in 7th.
I look forward to another year of blogging and send gratitude to my readers who make it so damn much fun! XO
I’m told I need to post at least 3 times a week or readers won’t return. I simply don’t have the time to do that. I’d love your comments on this and anything else.
Check out my recent Home Goes Strong posts:
Family Vacation With my Ex and Our Daughters, How we Do it
Bobby Flay’s Upcoming Cookbook, a Preview
By susan fishman orlins There’s something serene, along with a sprinkling of smug, about people who practice yoga. They laud the benefits—“Doing yoga has saved my back.” “I’m no longer stressed.”
 Self Portrait With Bike If I had the patience to do yoga, I’d also have the attention span to meditate, read the New Yorker and maybe even drive more.
On the other hand, I’m like the yoga folks when it comes to bicycling. I too often wax smugly about the thrill of breezes in my face and never having to deal with rush hour traffic or the search for a parking space. I stay fit and it takes barely more time to get anywhere by bike compared to auto, sometimes less.
Admittedly, biking requires a degree of flexibility about arriving at your destination with wet circles on the underarms of your shirt.
In the winter, when the temperature is in single digits, many bikers hang up their handlebars and I find myself among a reduced population of peddalers.
“I don’t get it,” I say. “You would ski in this weather as well as sit motionless on a ski lift.”
 Chill, not chilled, on a ski lift As for environmental benefits of biking, I accept praise for my smaller footprint, though I confess it has much to do with my disdain for the experience of being behind the wheel of my car, whose battery dies and underbody rusts as a result of remaining stationary in front of my house.
The only drivers I can sort of relate to are those who have soothing rides during which they listen to books on tape.
But I then I remember I have no patience for keeping track of a book’s multiple cd’s or even uploading cd’s to my iPod and then figuring out how to find where I last left off.
Instead, while biking, I listen to NPR and learn things like, you should salt your food right before eating for maximum flavor, because salt releases aroma that enhances taste. If you salt while cooking that aroma disperses into the air rather than into your olfactory senses.
How did I get to salt from where I started with smug yogis and biking? It’s like that game where you start with a word, say, “bike.” And you change one letter at a time—bile, bale, sale—and end up with “salt.”
I used to phone my mom while biking. We’d chatter during a 40-minute ride about the news, the family, Oprah and books, while I pedaled home up a long dark hill after making dinner for my friend whose leg was shattered when a car knocked her off her bicycle in broad daylight.
Sometimes I call a friend while biking, who says, “You shouldn’t talk on the phone while biking.”
I’m careful, I say, I ride on the sidewalk and I pause to look both ways at driveways. Plus my bike and I are a Christmas tree of reflectors and blinking lights.
If I think about how I could get hit by a car while biking, my stomach flips, but once I mount the seat I feel as calm and free as a yogi.
How do you achieve a biker’s high, a yogi’s calm?
Unrelated announcement: If you like Avocado, don’t miss my article with tons of fabulous ways to use them from on pizza to on your face, as a masque or as shaving cream! Fried bacon anyone? Avocados go great with that too!
Wondering what to make for dinner tonight? Check out my new post In the Kitchen With my Daughter.
By susan fishman orlins At first it all seemed like a big adventure: stepping into Hurricane Isabel at one am with two pajama-clad teenage daughters and one dog in tow, basking in mini-celebrity the following morning when neighbors gathered in small clusters to gasp at the damage, and moving in with my ex, which surely interrupted whatever sameness had existed in my day-to-day life.
The forecast had been known for days, so it was no surprise Friday night when the power went out and the house went dark at ten o’clock.
“We might as well go to sleep,” I said to my kids, Sabrina and Emily, whose older sister Eliza was safely away at college. “I want you girls to stay in my room tonight just in case.”
They knew what I meant, as it was not the first time I had expressed concern about the monster poplar tree outside of Emily’s bedroom. Sabrina arranged a pile of blankets on the floor at the foot of my bed and Emily climbed in next to me, where her father used to sleep before our divorce five years earlier. Casey, our beagle-basset, wedged himself between us.
We fell asleep to the crackling sounds of falling trees that had been going on all evening. At one point I woke up to a loud bang and thought, That must’ve been a big one. Casey and the girls were in sound slumber and I fell right back to sleep.
Within what must have been a minute, I awoke to the siren-like whine of our smoke detector. Too drowsy to fully digest the potential danger, I stumbled into the hallway and saw it was all smoky. Although at some level I was aware the scent of smoke was oddly absent, I  /media-credit]calmly said to the girls, “Get up. We have to leave. There’s a fire.”
Casey got up too and when he arrived at the bottom of the stairs and noticed me reaching for his leash, he did what he always did: he ran in circles around the dining room table with me chasing behind until finally I caught him.
Then, due to a lifetime of having it branded on my brain that when there is a fire, you leave everything and get out, I knew to leave my purse. So it did not occur to me to actually take my purse rather than what I did, which was to spend precious seconds rooting around in it for my cell phone.
I guess my urge to communicate trumped my instinct to save myself from what, for all I knew, was a house in flames.
The moment we ventured outside, I looked to the right and up, where that ancient tree had towered for a century, maybe two; now, only dark sky and a huge yawn of open space glared back. A strange feeling of amputation washed over me. Something that had been such a presence was simply gone.
Don’t get me wrong. I was not sorry to see it go. Two days earlier, knowing the storm was headed our way, I had spent a half hour on the phone with my mom, discussing the anxiety I’d had ever since moving in six years earlier that the tree would fall and, in particular, that it would fall and crash into Emily’s bedroom.
I concluded that, even though I would miss its shade and proud, broad, leafy branches, I would overcome my resistance to paying the price of a small car to end up with less rather than more; I would have the tree cut down the following week. I had written “tree” in my day planner.
Why hadn’t it occur to me to do something about that tree before the most destructive hurricane ever to hit D.C. arrived? Would I really have followed through if the tree had withstood the storm? Aside from the thousands it would have cost, it gave me a grumbly stomach to imagine anyone traveling up that high to take it down.
Fortunately, my friends Lorraine and Joel lived around the corner, and I knew that I could rely on Lorraine, who was always sending emails in the wee hours, to come to the door when I rang.
Given that there was no choice about being out, I did not fret at the level of which I am capable about the dangers of sagging power wires and falling trees as we trudged against the fierce winds.
Rather, there was something enchanting about the debris swirling around us, and the sense we might get lifted up and blown to the Land of Oz, like Dorothy and Toto.
ARE YOU PREPARED IF A TREE HITS YOUR HOME?, my post on Home Goes Strong.
By susan fishman orlins China Baby
Last week the daughter of friends in Beijing wrote to me about her baby:
My baby is more than four months now. She is very healthy and very happy. Recently, I made haircut for her. In China we cut all the hair from birth, in order to grow better. Generally these hair be used as writing brush with the baby’s name and birthday for keepsake.
I wanted to share that bit of charm with you, especially because I have more to report on deer. If, like me, you are sick of deer talk, you may want to look up from your smartphone at this point and join the meal conversation that is going on around you or, if you are crossing the street, pay attention and look both ways.
Hm, that makes me so curious to know what you were in the middle of when you began reading this. Work? Other Websites? Work? Studies? Kids? Work? I’d love you to take a minute and let me know in the comments.
Think of it as a come as you are party, which reminds me of the Come as You Are party I had in the Seventies and my dear friend–who is now a big shot talking head, MacArthur Fellow, lauded by Clinton and others–loves to remind me how I’d invited him with a phone call at 7 am. So on the evening of the party, he arrived wearing only a towel around his waist and shaving cream on his face. The rest of us were dressed suitably enough to at least go grocery shopping.
I need to post more below on the deer to clarify/correct some tips on ticks.
BEFORE YOU GO, CHECK OUT MY DESSERT RECIPES, including Coconut Rice with Mango and Mango Sorbet that is fit for an Emperor. And a Cheesecake that I can’t even think about without salivating. There’s also a Fruit Salad that is a work of art.
Baby Deer: Corrections and More
I received this email after my previous post Deer Update With Deer Tips:
There is, in fact, a species known as the deer tick and, although they do pick up Lyme disease from white-footed mice, they spread it to deer and, thus, to other ticks which spread it to people and pets. Lyme disease contracted from deer ticks is very painful and treatment lengthy.
My experience with deer and other wild animals (think ducks, geese, rabbits and squirrels) is that you can put out all the commercial food you want and they will still prefer your shrubs and plants.
. . . Be advised that Chronic Wasting Syndrome among deer has been confirmed in Maryland. This is a horrible illness that causes deer to waste away no matter how much they eat. There is no cure or treatment. It has been around for many years but has only recently been confirmed in this state. Judging from the size of the fawn pictured, it has not needed to be nursed for some time. Perhaps the mother is recovering from the ordeal of raising twins.
I have been rehabilitating wildlife for over 24 years and have attended numerous classes and conference and done much reading regarding wildlife and the problems facing them. Through networking with other rehabbers in Maryland and across the country, the rehabbers at Second Chance keep abreast of new developments and treatments. We are in the process of using a specific drug to combat West Nile Virus in crows and hawks which has had good results in trials.
 Mama deer keeping cool under my deck
Christine Montuori, Founder/Director Second Chance Wildlife Center
And below is from David Stang, also at SCWC:
I may have misspoken about deer ticks when I said “no such species as deer ticks and in fact, the most common way to get ticks is from mice.” What I should have said is this:
Black-legged ticks can carry Lyme disease and some other diseases that can affect both humans and animals. This tick is sometimes found on deer, but adult black-legged ticks also feed on white-footed mice, chipmunks, shrews, raccoons, skunks, opossums, and other mammals. When deer are scarce, ticks don’t necessarily become scarce, because they have alternative hosts. Lyme disease can be found where there are no deer, and there are areas in this country that have deer but no Lyme disease. Deer can travel farther than a mouse, so can transport a tick farther… but we have many more mice than deer, and mice are the likely vector for most of the ticks we come upon.
By susan fishman orlins The fawns scamper across my backyard like teenagers off to a pep rally. Despite a few scares–days when I didn’t see the
 Mama Deer emaciated-looking mom in my yard–Mama deer has been here too.
But I’m still concerned about her.
After I wrote “Oh Dear, My Deer” about how worried I was for the little deer family, readers’ comments rivaled the debt ceiling negotiations in their diverse perspectives.
On my Facebook wall, one friend wrote “I am so DISTRESSED” and went on to say she hoped I’d been serving milk and cookies to the deer (or something like that; I spent 20 minutes searching for her exact comment.)
By contrast, my friend Jane wrote on my blog:
I can’t believe I’m trying to find ways to keep deer away from my hydrangeas (just bought coyote urine) and my brother never wears short sleeves or short pants because he worries so much about deer ticks and you are encouraging them so close to your house. Deer bring nothing good. Get rid of them! Soon!
Another comment, from my friend Lise, confused me at first: “What is the deer-equivalent of matzoh ball soup?” I thought oh, she wants me to make deer soup. Ew.
But now I realize she was suggesting I make deer-friendly matzoh ball soup to help plump up the malnourished-looking mother deer.
I did not make soup, but I did place in the yard a pan filled with water.
Even though I haven’t seen my dears today, I phoned The Second Chance Wildlife Center, believing that nearly a month is long enough for the deer to be in residence at my residence.
Happily, David Stang answered my call and I couldn’t wait to share the 411 with you!
David first tip is is no such species as deer ticks and in fact, the most common way to get ticks is from mice. I don’t like cats, but I like ticks even less. Is it time to get a kitten?
Also, if you want to keep the deer from eating your azaleas, try feeding them deer chow, which they may like better. Just buy a bag for $10 and scatter it on your lawn.
David had great news for Casey, who has been banned from even the front yard, because it has deer droppings that he likes to eat. Deer droppings, according to David won’t hurt him. “It’s like putting some hay in the blender,” he said.
Severa; deer wizards have advised me to leave the yard gate open so the deer will leave. I asked David what he thought about leaving the gate open. He replied, better to keep it closed; they can jump the fence if they want and the closed-in yard will protect them from dogs (and I’m thinking coyotes).
David noted he would be pleased if a deer family like mine were to settle in his yard.
 one of the teen twins; blurry I know--I have a tremor So I can sit back and enjoy my deer, though now I’m worried they’re off to greener pastures, as I haven’t seen them all day 
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: SEE MY FAVE HEALTHY RECIPES
By susan fishman orlins  [- Oh deer, my dear A year ago, I woke up and peered into my backyard and saw a mother deer and what appeared to be her two newborns clustered behind my azalea bushes. The young ones were trying to stand but then they would collapse, their spindly legs unable to support them. By afternoon, they were walking.
The following day I looked for them but they were gone, which would have required them to leap over my picket fence.
Again this year I have a mom and 2 baby deer in my yard. The difference is that they have been here for more than 2 weeks. And now, I’m worried.
Each day the mother deer, though she grazes on my weeds, looks more and more bony. Her ribs are showing, the area around her hips is sumken and her face is gaunt, as though she has been starved in a concentration camp.
The spotted babies look so huggable and sometimes I talk to them in a high voice, the way I say to Casey, “Who’s such a goody-good boy?”
“Who are such goody-good deer?” I repeat a few times and, honestly, I perceive that they wag their little white Bambi tails.
 "Goody-good deer" I’m worried if I phone animal control that a big man will come and take the mom away, separating her from her babies, and that would be worse than anything.
I realize the deer ticks must be having a carnival back there, but I’m not too worried about that. Casey, who used to run in the backyard, has lost privileges because he rolls around in the deer droppings and eats things too gross to mention. Also he once got loose and chased a deer.
I’m afraid Mother deer will die in my yard. If Mama isn’t sick, why are they still here?
And I guess if she dies I’ll call animal control to cart her away. But as I write this I’m beginning to worry about disease and how I will know if she died; there is a considerable growth of weeds in which to hide and then die and decompose.
Just as I am about to publish this, my daughter (who is home for a few weeks before setting off to grad school) tells me she woke up to something that sounded like the wail of an animal dying. Is she imagining things based on my anxiety?
Will a deer carcass attract rats?
So far today, I have seen only the toddler deer.
I welcome your thoughts and suggestions.
SEE MY LATEST POST on Home Goes Strong: Easy Summer Dishes and Sides
By susan fishman orlins  Mom always looked great without a lot of fuss Grief: keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret.
At the cemetery, my sister and brother stand teary over our mother’s coffin with their arms around each other’s backs. Dry-eyed, I step up next to them, completing our sibling trio. Yet we are two plus one, a double and a single, a duet and a solo.
After standing there for a moment, unconnected–not part of their mood, not feeling their pain–I step back to allow them their moment.
We all adored my mom and felt a closeness to her that any mother (or offspring, for that matter) would envy.
So what’s with me and this numb reaction to her death?
Like my mom, I’m not a crier, except when I get divorced and have to agree to living 9 consecutive days a month without my kids. But that was years ago, and Mom was right when she told me I would eventually come to make the most of those 9 days on my own.
Though I can get weepy if I accidentally turn on the evening news, I strive to avoid sadness and pain. A mother’s death is one of the Big Boppers of loss and maybe I’ve put up a wall to block that. Or is this just a psychobabble idea from spending too much time talking to shrinks?
On a similar note, maybe I am in the denial phase; though after my father died, I also wondered why I never crumbled with grief.
 Mom and Dad aboard the Queen Mary Mom often said she wished she had been able to cry when Daddy died. Nonetheless, her loss was palpable after 66 years of marriage in which each considered the other before themselves.
Though it feels counterintuitive to prance around with my life the same as I did before Mom died, the fact that she and I shared the dry-eyes trait pleases me.
Her life ran its course over 92 years and she had no regrets. I celebrate that, and despite my jolly demeanor, I am aware that Mom’s death leaves me with a permanent empty space, an amputation.
Mom was the only person in the world (except me) who thought I ought to be on Oprah; Oprah, who–by ending her show–also left a hole in my life.
Mom timed her death nicely to coincide with the Oprah loss. Now, I won’t have to watch an Oprah show about, say, octogenarian sex, and then ache to phone and discuss it with Mom.
The truth is I lost my mom 2 months ago, a few days after we moved her up North in a medical van to be in a long-term care facility (she hated the term nursing home) near my brother’s family.
It was the most awesome road trip ever during which my mother said it felt surreal, as though she were traveling to Heaven, even though she didn’t believe in Heaven.
Then reality struck. Her new room–where we hung her favorite paintings and piled up personal things like the book of drawings and tales of her life I made for her 90th birthday and the quilt with family photos my sister had lovingly sewed for her–embodied all the railroad clichés: the final stop, the terminus, the end of the line.
She didn’t want to live after that and I was her cheerleader. She reminded me how I always said I’d help her pull the plug. Of course when it came down to it, I couldn’t do any such thing without the approval of my siblings, the ones who know how to cry.
A few weeks after my mother became downhearted, her body began to shut down. Her meds increased and, though she was still coherent, she became non-reactive, the opposite of the mother I always knew, who thrilled to everything from reports of my high school friend appearing as a frequent guest on MSNBC to the article I wrote about Choosing my Parents.
Another upcoming loss is likely to be my beagle Casey, given that he is 13 years old. Like Mom he has lived a long life with no regrets, except he probably wishes I’d have taught him to fetch. What if he dies and I can’t stop crying?
After all these years, my heart still goes pitty pat when I look at that boy. And even though he doesn’t have much to say about the debt ceiling, he is great company day and night. If I weep for him, not having wept for my mom, what kind of griever am I?
 Last picture of Mom and me together I’m told people grieve differently, and I’ve seen friends react similarly to me when their elderly parents died, so I’ll try to stop worrying that my heart isn’t swollen with grief right now, right after my beloved mom died.
What unexpected reactions have you had to loss?
RELATED ANNOUNCEMENT:
See my article Last Week my Mother Died; This Week I Celebrated Her Life.
SEMI-RELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: For more on death, see my series about Beth, who was diagnosed with breast cancer the same week she had to tell her husband that he had an inoperable tumor and that he would die.
After my Husband Died, Dealing With his Possessions
Caring for my Dying Husband at Home
My Husband’s Final Days and Funeral
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT:
Keep cool, read my article 12 Ways to Refresh With the Miracle of Lemons
By susan fishman orlins Saturday, July 2, 2011
Mother died today. I am not trying to channel Camus, just trying to make sense of how it feels to suddenly become a 65-year-old orphan in New York while my mom’s cold body lay in Philadelphia.
I’m sitting in Union Square, one of my favorite places to work when I visit New York. The usual bustle is going on around me: a pair of Boston terriers rollicking in the dog run and the farmer’s market actively trading consumables, like the quart of organic skim milk in a glass bottle I bought to go with the chocolate chip banana cake I brought here in my bike basket.
A church group on a neighboring bench is painting their faces red white and blue for their annual pamphlet giveaway to promote patriotism and Christ. We take a picture together, my first thought being I can’t wait to show Mom, even as I know from my brother’s phone call an hour ago that, with her hand in his, my mom had just taken her last breath.
I so wanted to be there with her, but one never knows when the end will happen. I knew she was in the homestretch and, though I saw her last week, I figured she would hold tight until my visit tomorrow.
It’s comforting that I spent so much quality time with Mom, yet would a better daughter, knowing she was rapidly failing, have rushed to her side? Would it have mattered to her in her remote state or would that have been only for me?
A few weeks ago when I kissed her good-bye before heading home to D.C., I said “See you next week,” and she asked “Why?”
Although mid-week her eyes began to be closed more than open, I had planned to read to her the picture book of her life stories, which I made 2 years ago for her 90th birthday. It was my fantasy that she would then slip into death while I was there, with her hand in my carbon-copy, arthritic hand.
So, now who will enthrall to what I do every day and to the photographs I take?
Proceeding with today as planned seems odd. At the same time, it’s as though in a way my mom died after we moved her from Florida to Philadelphia, when it dawned on me she would never again be talking on the phone with me from her club chair, the one my dad had sat in for so many years until he died in 2006 and she inherited the throne.
I can just see her now, the books, magazines, newspapers piled on the table beside her, the remote control in her hand, watching the TV in her mirror-backed wall unit with the Lladro figures and other pretty things she had collected reflecting sunbeams while Chris Matthews ranted about the Republicans.
She wielded that remote with the facility of a man half her age.
I meet my friend Anita at Joe for a cup of joe. When I say, “My mother died this morning,” her expression of shock is far greater than mine was when earlier I had seen my brother’s name pop up on my phone and answered it with, “Mommy died.”
After coffee, Anita and I proceed as planned, pedaling into Brooklyn for a look at the local culture and lunch.
Mom would have loved hearing about the Chasidic family I passed on the Willaimsburg Bridge, the gaggle of kids and the man in a long black coat that flapped as he walked, white tights and a big fur hat (she would know the Yiddish term for this).
 salade niçoise We stop for lunch at Fada, reported to be the only authentically French bistro in the area. Happily there is nothing pretentious about this place that feels as though it’s been here since the invention of French fries.
We sit by a counter on high stools in the front that, being on a corner, is open to the street on two sides. My appetite has not faded with the loss of my mom. Rather, as I dig into my salade niçoise, I feel a numbness that friends have reported feeling after their parents have died.
My mom’s was a life well-lived and filled with love that ran its course with no regrets. How many people can say that? This doesn’t minimize how much I will miss our leisurely nightly calls and monthly weekends together. Her laugh, her insights, her contentedness that set the bar high, yet provide a great role model, for when I reach my walker years, if I do.
Pedaling back toward the Manhattan Bridge, I pass an African Arts Festival and shops shuttered for the Sabbath with names like Schenkel’s Fish Market, just the kind of travelogue Mom would have loved.
[Cheesy alert!] On the bridge, high over the river, I feel a bit closer to the clouds, closer to Mom.
My Worrywart feels self-serving linking to/promoting my other articles as I write this about losing my mom, yet she would be all for it! She loved hearing about my writing, both the substance and the successes and even the flops. And, we had so much fun writing a number of my Home Goes Strong articles together:
MY MOM’S DO-IT-YOURSELF DECORATING TIPS
DELIGHT YOUR GUESTS WITH MY MOM’S PARTY GAMES
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE JEWISH TO MAKE GREAT CHICKEN SOUP
EASY, ELEGANT ENTERTAINING: MY MOM’S PARTY FOOD
By susan fishman orlins Only eight weeks ago, I was on a half-hour bike ride home, all uphill, when I called Mom for our daily shmooze. We caught up on
 Mom looking at photos as we sped North on Rte. 95 political scandals, Sarah Palin, literature, Oprah and Mom’s latest Bingo game. While we talked, mounting the hill was effortless.
Shortly after that, her doctor determined she could no longer live alone, so my daughter and I flew to Florida, where she was living, to accompany her to a nursing home in Philadephia near my brother’s family.
In a hospital bed, Mom sat propped up like a queen looking at photos on my laptop as our medical coach, a converted 42-foot RV, sped north on Route 95. After an hour of eating pretzels and giving commentary, I needed a break. A bit later Mom fell asleep and soon my daughter Emily and I began laughing as we read email responses from the rest of the family to my “Rte. 95 Travelogue.”
Mom opened her eyes and asked “What am I missing?”
So Emily and I climbed into her bed and we all read and laughed together. After the emails, Mom said she wondered how well off her family had been when she was growing up. She concluded they were pretty comfortable, given that her mother was always able to give away coal and still have enough for the family.
My mom has always loved conversation. But now her 92-year-old body is shutting down. Sometimes she is fuzzy from the morphine being administered for discomfort related to her heart condition; and some of the time her mind is good.
One of many frustrations is that she can’t seem to vocalize. We can tell she wants to express something but nothing comes out.
My sister tried giving her pencil and paper but Mom didn’t want that. Plus her hands are very shaky.
As her voice began to fade, so did her expression. There was no inflection in the little she was able to say.
When I go to see her this weekend, I thought I would try some yes and no questions, beginning by asking if she even wants to try to communicate, say, by lifting her hand for yes or wagging a finger for no.
Yet, that may be a total flop. I’m hoping some of you, my readers, can help. Any suggestions for how to assist my mom in expressing herself?
Maybe you know someone who has been through this. I’d love to hear from you and if I do get a variety of responses, I’ll write an article for Huffington Post or Home Goes Strong, so I can share what I learn with a broader audience.
Thanks for any help!
X
O
Some of my related articles on Home Goes Strong:
By susan fishman orlins
Hobogies-add oil, vinegar, soy sauce, wrap in foil and grill
Welcome to my periodic series: Antidote to Worry (oh dear, is that now a commitment?), in which I highlight food I ate over the weekend.
Consider it a “Worry Break,” as in one of my Tip Day tips.
Plus, much to my pleasure and surprise, I turn out to be a food writer, among other things on the NBC Website Home Goes Strong, my specialty being recipes that are generally quick, easy and healthful–often but not always vegan or vegetarian–with not a lot of ingredients and no lemongrass or other stuff you wouldn’t find at the average A & P.
Also, whenever possible, I subscribe to creative measuring.
This weekend my daughter and I made hobogies, whose ingredients you can see in this photo. You can read how to make them on Home Goes Strong. The fun of preparing hobogies, especially with friends, as well as eating them is today’s Antidote to Worry!
Pair your hobogies with drinks from my new post Refreshing Summer Drinks for July 4th Parties or Anytime.
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: See my recent post CARING FOR MY DYING HUSBAND AT HOME: BETH’S STORY (AS TOLD TO ME)
By susan fishman orlins
 Bathtub buffet
Bathtub snack: Ham, aged gouda, fresh multi-grain bread, spinach, arugula, mushrooms and strawberries.
And to wash away any lingering woes, red wine from Chile.
Before your bath, why not work out at your treadmill desk? Burning calories aren’t the only benefits!
For more great ideas for bathtub buffets, try some of my delicious healthy recipes with fat-burning foods.
By susan fishman orlins 
Unrelated Announcement, my new article: CAN SEPARATE BEDROOMS SAVE A MARRIAGE? Weigh In!
It wasn’t like I had a choice when, at the breakfast table, my then-21-year-old daughter Eliza presented me with documents to sign. The whole family had to swear to confidentiality or the plan was off for her to be a contestant on “Survivor.”
If I refused to sign, the plan was off for her to continue being my daughter. So I signed.
Her father, my ex-husband, reassured me “CBS makes too much money from the show to let anything happen to her.”
But I had seen the episode where a contestant fainted and fell forward while huffing to augment a campfire. Cameras rolled as he lifted his face from burning logs with the skin hanging off his hands.
I tried to be excited for her. After all, I would have applied for the likes of “Survivor” when I was her age. But I kept thinking up things like What will happen to Eliza’s teeth if she goes six weeks without flossing?
The closest I ever got to TV fame occurred when I was 22, during a micro affair with Chuck Barris, creator of “The Dating Game.” He offered me a gig to go to Colorado Springs as a “Dating Game” chaperone. My training consisted of one instruction: Make sure the girl doesn’t get pregnant.
Worry is relative. My daughter’s 26-hour trip on three flights to get to her “Survivor” destination, including one on Air Vanuatu, would have been enough to make me go on a hunger strike. But the idea of her starving on an island, one I’d never heard of, trumped the aviation rumination.
Thankfully it was pre-tsunami.
I got through it, perhaps calling on the same resources that help me worry less now that my daughters no longer live at home. Although they go out in cars and subways till all hours among drunks (themselves at times driving sleepy, which is the same as driving drunk), I can at least pretend they are snug in their beds when I turn off my bedside lamp at night.
How do you cope with worrying about your loved ones?
By susan fishman orlins Call me Ms Memory, with 2 recent articles:
21 WAYS TO REMEMBER PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING!
11 EASY WAYS TO REMEMBER PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING
But last week I go upstairs before my dentist appointment to change into something cooler. I take off my sweats, pee, and then head downstairs to get going on my bike. Halfway down the stairs, I realize I forgot to put on my pants.
Should I be worried about my memory?
SEE MY LATEST HOME GOES STRONG ARTICLE: 27 Awesome Ways to Dye, Decorate and Display Easter Eggs
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