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 For my recent article on Home Goes Strong about Happiness at Home, I interviewed my blog crush Gretchen Rubin, whose book The Happiness Project–the same name as her blog–was a #1 New York Times best seller.
 All that goes on underneath my roots Gretchen keeps a one-sentence journal, which she admits sometimes expands to 4 sentences.
Says Gretchen, “The idea of keeping a proper journal was far too daunting, so I decided instead to keep a ‘one-sentence journal.’”
This is me again. Years ago, I gave up journal writing. Between living alone and blogging about my life, I exist so much inside my own head that I’d decided, enough already!
Today, however, I opened my long-neglected journal document and began to write . . .
Thinking about doing a one (or 4) sentence journal a la Gretchen Rubin. This got me thinking about going back to journal writing and seeing what happens. Look at me, here I am in the second sentence of my journal and already it has given me an idea for a WW post about whether or not to journal.
And therein lies the problem of too many ideas.
Question: Is it good or bad that a journal generates a flow of new ideas? Idea management overwhelms me.
When I kept a journal previously, I was always coming up with new projects, like:
- Have a Habitat for Humanity singles party!
- Go polka dancing!
- Play piano, take a painting class, write a children’s book!
As it is, I have no time. Susan’s Law is the opposite of Parkinson’s Law that says, Work expands to fill the available time.
Susan’s Law says, No matter how much time you have, you will always plan more to do than you have time for.
I’ll never finish all there is to do: sew the hole Casey made on the couch, learn to use my new camera, make squash soup.
I love the way starting out to write about one thing brings on a whole other topic. In that way, I’m a psychiatrist’s dream, so to speak. The underlying story finds its way to the surface.
I shall continue to try Gretchen Rubin’s 1-sentence journal, even though it’s so much harder to write one or four sentences than 10 paragraphs where you can just ramble. How do I decide what snippet to capture on the page?
Yesterday, I sat in traffic and was late for the treasured visit of the month to Emily’s kindergarten class [my daughter Emily teaches at 
a charter school]. Worried I’d miss the whole afternoon, I did childbirth breathing to keep calm.
Finally I arrived with a hard-boiled egg and the gizmo I’d bought for making a peeled egg into a cube. I’m not sure if the kids are wise enough to be as wowed as I am by that. At least they were totally engrossed to see what would happen.
Then I read The Golden Egg Book about a bunny and an egg, from which emerged a duckling. “And no one was every alone again.”
I’m pushing the limits of Gretchen’s one-sentence journal, but it’s okay for Susan’s one-sentence journal to be longer.
This is fun! I can’t wait to see what I decide to write in the journal tomorrow.
Hi, this is non-journal me again. Now I’m getting my hopes up that every day a blog post will emerge from my journal. After all, isn’t that what a blog is, a web log?
MORE [too many?] OF MY ARTICLES ABOUT WRITING [When will I ever learn that less is more?]:
By susan fishman orlins OccupyDC provides photo ops. Here are a few and, at the end, a link to my salade nicoise recipes. There’s a tie-in, sort of.
 Committee Meeting  Home Sweet Home [
 Two Medics: A Muslim and a Jew  Family Time . . . This father said he's already collected 1,000 signatures for his petition to join the coastguard and keep his dreadlocks.  "This land is my land, this land is your land . . . " Notice there's a guy with a bass, several drummers too.  A melting pot of old, young, disabled, abled, Asian, Latino, Black, White, children, pets.  I bike home to my pet, Brad Pitt  And enjoy a salade nicoise. Lucky me! (knock wood) Check out my quick, easy, delicious, low-cal Salade Nicoise Recipe with Countless Variations.
What has struck you about the protests sites, either if you have seen them live or in the media?
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 When I’m in New York, I like to hang out and write at Jack’s, a coffee place in the West Village with a patina that suggests long afternoons of sipping lattes and tapping on laptops. The overall look is shades of brown, like paper bags and coffee.
Jack’s is so small it has no bathroom. The other day, I had to pee, so I walked up the block and stopped at the first restaurant, a dark Villagey place called Low Country, another brownish space, where I was greeted by–as you can see from his picture–a fit, attractive bald man with smooth, mahogany-colored skin, wearing a dark t-shirt and black blazer.
With a dip of my right eyebrow, a sort of pity look, I asked “Would it be okay if I used the bathroom?” in the way that, when I was in my twenties, got me anything I wanted.
The man responded with a broad white-toothed smile, “Of course.”
In the bathroom, which was papered with pages from a Faulkner paperback, I began thinking about all the kind restaurant hosts who have welcomed me into their bathrooms.
And one who didn’t. It was a few years ago in D.C., up the block from the White House, a mediocre wannabe kind of place with white linen on the tables, where the maitre d’ rejected me. Admittedly, I was mid-bike ride in shorts and sneakers and with sweaty helmet hair.
I then crossed the street to the Bombay Club, an upscale restaurant with fine Indian food, a favorite of the Clintons and some of Washington’s elite journalists.
The maitre d’ welcomed me warmly and led me to the rest rooms. When I returned to thank him, he walked me into the bar and told the bartender to give me a drink.
I must have look pretty pathetic. When I left, I over-thanked him and mentioned, to show I wasn’t just a bathroom moocher, that I had eaten there and that I would be back. The afterglow of his kindness lasts to this day.
Back to Low Country. On the way upstairs from the Faulkner bathroom, I decided to tell the host how much I appreciated his hospitality.
He again graced me with his sparkly smile and introduced himself. We began talking and I told him I was a writer and that I blog, and he said he had recently started blogging. We exchanged cards.
The following day he emailed me:
| Susan,
It’s your new friend Chad from Low Country. Your blog looks really funny! I can’t wait to read some, especially religion.
It was nice meeting and chatting. Let’s meet for lunch sometime and share life. I love meeting new interesting people.
Cheers and make today an amazing day!
Chad
P.S.
Here’s the link to my first blog post! http://www.africa.com/blog/blog,hip_hop_saves_lives_an_introduction,418.html |
He wasn’t hitting on me; he is somewhere around half my age of 65.
Chad and I are different. He’s writing to help people in Chad and Sudan, and my blog is a platform for my white girl worries, which I mentioned when I gave him my card. As for religion, he’s a believer and I get nightmares about the 23rd Psalm.
But back at Jack’s I was sitting on the bench outside when Chad came along to unlock his bicycle, which was parked right next to mine (technically my ex-husband’s that I borrow when I’m in New York).
I’m a schmoozer and a reacher-outer and I love the way Chad wrote “I love meeting new [ahem] interesting people,” expressing his wish to get together. I am going to use that next time I email a maitre d’ or someone else I’m eager to know better.
How do you reach out?
What are your experiences with using restrooms in restaurants where you are not a patron?
If you or someone you know likes cupcakes, don’t miss my article TLC’s Georgetown Cupcake Sisters Share a Chocolate Cupcake Recipe & Their Recipe for Success!
By susan fishman orlins Public Service Announcement: Help my article “Dear Customer Service: Thoughts While on Hold” go viral, so companies get the message! Please tweet, comment on it, share!
 Mom as a little girl at the shvitz w/ her mom, getting beaten with fans Up until I first got my period, I was Susie. In high school, I was Sue. After reinventing myself in college, I became Susan.
My mom and, hence, other relatives continued to call me Susie.
My dad called me Sooze, (pronounced Sooz, not Soozie) starting when I was 20 and began selling my cutesy pen and ink and watercolor pictures, the kind homeowners hang in their bathrooms. In order to further cuten up the faceless creations (gag/blush), I signed them Sooze.
This quadruple-split in my moniker causes angst when signing an email; frankly, I’m wiped out by the time I’ve figured out whether to write XO or what.
It would feel preposterous to sign “Susie” in an email to my cousin. She knows I’m now Susan. Yet it’s like she’s referring to someone else when she leaves a voicemail, saying, “Hi Susan, it’s your cousin . . . .”
This has been going on for years with Cuz and it’s too late, not to mention too weird, to say, “Please call me Susie.”
 Sue CHS '63 I’ve trained myself to sign Sue on emails to my Cheltenham High School peeps, with whom I correspond sporadically.
It would simplify matters if I were to sign S on all emails, but I’ve tried and just can’t bring myself to represent myself as a single letter. I’m not knocking anyone who does: lots of friends sign just an initial.
In fact, I don’t know any single-initial signers who use upper case. Are they saving time bypassing the shift button?
I, myself, am guilty of pondering whether typing one space or two after a colon or period takes more time; it requires effort to unlearn typing two spaces. Other time-wasters I seem unable to sidestep include proof-reading casual emails and correcting typos.
If I can’t sign S, there’s no way I could sign s. Do I think so highly of myself that a small s just won’t do? Or, am I so insecure that I need a great big SUSAN to prove how unimportant I am NOT?
I cannot even talk about my email exchanges with Kay, a dear, brilliant, creative woman who has helped me part-time for 15 years, cleaning, paying my bills, dogsitting, catering parties and sharing family stories.
When we first met, she called me Mrs. Orlins, and I didn’t say right away “Call me Susan.” Then it became too late to change.
If it’s impossible to sign Susie, S or s, similarly there is no prospect I could sign Mrs. Orlins when writing to K, so I don’t sign anything.
Unable to call myself anything, reminds me of 1965, when I was unable to call my first set of in laws anything. Back then it was de rigeur to marry and overnight convert the in laws from Mr. and Mrs. Fiance to Mom and Dad.
My niece sends me emails without any name. She starts right in, and I always wonder whether her salutation-less emails mean she’s not sure what to call me.
 Brad Pitt
All that said, I like the friendly sound of nicknames; I call my kids Lizie, Beanie and Emy. And I call my beagle-basset, who’s name is Casey, everything from Casemaster General to Caseminster Fuller to Cary Grant.
Speaking of names, is there a point at which you transitioned from what you called your parents as a kid? Is it infantile that, even in my sixties, when speaking with my siblings, I refer to my parents as Mommy and Daddy?
How do you sign emails? With angst, like me?
XO
Angst
AS MENTIONED ABOVE, VISIT “DEAR CUSTOMER SERVICE: THOUGHTS WHILE ON HOLD” VENT AND SHARE!
CHECK OUT SOME OF MY OTHER EMAIL PONDERANCES:
How do You End an Email Thread?
Worried What You’ll Think
TIS THE SEASON TO TRY THESE AWESOME PUMPKIN SEEDS:
PUMPKIN-CARVING TIPS AND RECIPES FOR ROASTING PUMPKIN SEEDS!
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 Beware of asking me to rant. I am liable to start today, five days after autumn began (also National Good
 Happy National Pancake Day Neighbor Day and National Pancake Day), and never stop until Flag Day.
If you really want to hear loud and wild talk, ask me about the leaf blowers whose noise is banging around in my skull as I write.
It reminds me how we have just gone from the noisiest of seasons to the noisiest of seasons.
My sentiments from summer about the batball game vacationers play on the beach get aroused all over again. That shattering of one’s tranquility is really something to make a furious commotion about.
On more than a few occasions I have wished a grizzly demise for the one who invented that head-splitting, rackety seaside diversion for the yuppie class.
There have even been times when–glued to a rectangle of terry cloth by a teaspoon of drool, then yanked into consciousness by the thwack-thwack-thwack of the dreaded toy– I have whispered to God that all paddlers deserve to be stuffed into a giant garbage disposal and ground into a mishmash.
Then sleep would be further delayed by my conscience tweaking me with: What if my brother is one of those gameplayers? (He just might be.) Sometimes I go back and revise the part about the disposal.
 My family playing the dreaded game And recently my kids have taken up the sport, (with four bats and two balls!) so now I have to go back and revise my entire position with higher authorities who may have heard me rant.
At least my kids know to avoid earshot of sleeping moms.
I have tried dragging my towel to another spot when others start batting near my personal zone. But you can’t count on hearing only the tweedle-dee of gulls and the smack of waves upon the shore.
What’s to prevent some muscled peacock, slippery with sweat and oil, from strutting up to a patch of sand, not four feet from my ear, and planting roots, immediately after which he engages in a lengthy confab on his iPhone? (Let me assure you, however, that no matter how hateful this fellow may be, he is never as uncharming as the ones with paddles and balls.)
If I wait it out, performing the deep breathing trick they teach for childbirth that doesn’t work at all for childbirth pain, there comes a time when the sun sinks behind the roof of the bathhouse, and the paddlers, the peacocks, the kids with sand stuck to their snotty noses pack up their ball games, their i-This’s and i-That’s and shuffle home to their pizza deliveries.
Then it’s quiet.
And the flies arrive.
What noises drive you to rant?
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: Check out my Dinner Menu: Recipes for my Healthful, Delicious 30-Minute Meal.
Also, tis the season for chicken soup. You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Make Great Chicken Soup!
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
 Season 8 of “The Family Vacation” has ended. Back from The Hamptons to their everyday lives are “Family Vacation” stars: the exes—since 1998—Steve and Susan (yours truly) and their three twenty-something daughters, Eliza, Sabrina and Emily.
Let’s take a look back at Season 1, Summer of 2004.
“The whole family’s in the pool,” my oldest daughter observes in a tone as sparkly as the cool water after I ease in to join her, her two sisters and their dad, Steve.
Even though Steve and I divorced in 1998, the five of us are in East Hampton, New York on what we call The Family Vacation.
It started that summer of 2004, when camps, trips and jobs allowed only 9 days that all three girls were available at the same time. Steve called me to discuss how to divvy up the time.
I searched my mind for a way to get 5 days to his 4.
But then I had a eureka moment and suggested that rather than each of us taking a mini holiday with the kids, all 5 of us could go away together for twice as long. Without hesitation, Steve agreed.
I relished the novelty. Steve and I had both recovered sufficiently from the bruises of our union and its dissolution. And we each had new love interests; neither of us was pining for the other.
Even during the worst moments, we had managed to compartmentalize our differences and problem solve whenever issues arose regarding the girls. In fact, I was often secretly grateful for a crisis, so I could experience the fuzzy feeling of good will between Steve and me.
As soon as I enter the rented house on the first day of that first family vacation, I scurry to check out the bedrooms and stake claim to the one that best suits me.
Steve cares about quiet; I care about openings to the outdoors. He is happiest in a room away from the kitchen and girls’ rooms; I like the pj-party atmosphere when my room is near the kids.
Steve avoids bickering; I am a better bickerer.
In the Season 1 house, I bicker better and get the bedroom farthest from the kitchen, the quietest but also the one nearest the girls’ rooms and the only one with a door to the outside. Steve ends up in the room closest to the kitchen and the morning rumpus.
We go to the beach every day no matter what. Steve has Weatherman in his DNA and sometimes he has us set out while it’s still raining, but by the time we step on the sand with our folding chairs, the sun is peeking through, as he’d predicted.
On such weather days, we are practically the only ones at the water’s edge. We are all alike in our fondness for slouching in beach chairs and reading. Everyone loves the ocean, except for me. I dislike the feeling of water on my face and I’m afraid of waves.
Once when Steve and I were dating, we ventured into the water together and the surf was bigger than I’d thought. One after the other waves washed over us, never pausing long enough for me to get out, the same way, when my labor was induced for my first child to be born, the contractions came back-to-back, no break, no exit strategy. Bang, bang, bang.
At night we like to cook and eat in, only occasionally venturing into the town, which is dense with city folk clad in expensive sports clothes. We go only to prowl the bookstore, get ice cream cones or see a movie.
Most nights we line up in front of the TV after dinner, each of us with a laptop perched on our thighs. It’s the 2004 Olympics and Steve and the girls like watching the competitions. Steve gets teary during athletes’ personal stories and when unexpected victories and heartbreaking losses occur.
I don’t mind watching the Olympics, though it makes me sad that kids are packaged into mono-track lives that deprive them of their childhoods. No one agrees with me. I’m a Debbie Downer when it comes to the Olympics.
The only thing that feels odd over the 9 days, is that it feels so normal to all be together. Everyone agrees we should do this again next year.
This is such a win-win-win-win-win situation for our family. I wish more divorced families would vacation together. Please share this; maybe it will inspire others to try. Of course, it takes 2 willing parents.
SPEAKING OF SUMMER, CHECK OUT MY HONEST-TO-GOD, SECRET, ONE-MINUTE WAY TO STOP A MOSQUITO BITE FROM ITCHING
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 Getting ready to go with my daughter to the cobbler on our bikes on this lovely summer day.
Passing under a doorway, I start shaking while the house is quaking. Dare I run to get the dog who is barking at the front door or stay here where it’s safer?
Things are falling off the shelves. The little ice fishing figure I bought after going ice fishing falls and it’s head breaks off.
I panic. My daughter, who gets hysterical if her gazpacho isn’t tangy enough laughs, saying, “Mom, calm down, it’s just an earthquake.”
Then, though my hands are still trembling, the earth has stilled.
The construction guys pour out of the house next door. The neighbor across the street, whom I’ve never seen, comes out and says “Is it ok to go in?”
“No,” I yell, “stay under the doorway.” The construction guys laugh.
It’s like after a blizzard in my quiet D.C. neighborhood, everyone is out.
My daughter goes on Facebook and learns of all her schoolmates who are in D.C. Everyone is posting.
Her aunt on Long Island tells her Cousin, there’s an earthquake. Cousin says, “No, Mom, it’s your pacemaker.”
My oldest Eliza tweets link to FEMA.
But I’ve already been there, having Googled what to do during an earthquake.
Venturing out on our bikes now to get shoes repaired. Life goes on.
What a fun way to turn an ordinary day into an adventure, even for a worrywart.
By susan fishman orlins Yesterday one of my daughters told me, “Dad sounds unhappy with me.”
When I asked why, she said because he had left a message on her phone three days earlier and he hadn’t heard back from her.
Then she told me, “If you want to reach me, text.” She added, second best is email, which she usually checks at least once a day. If you leave a voicemail, it sounds like you’ll be lucky to hear from her at all.
So I want to get better at texting, which takes too much time. I’m always worried about time.
If you are half my age or less, this may sound silly, but today’s Time-Saving Texting Tip is: In order not to have to switch to the symbols page for exclamation points, type i’s, as in “Greatiiiiii”
I hope this is helpful to some of youiiiiiiii
And, btw, do your emoticons : – ) and : – ( really need noses? : )
For more time-saving tips, see:
50 TIME-SAVING TIPS FROM SMART, BUSY WOMEN on Home Goes Strong
9 EASY WAYS TO SAVE TIME on Huffington Post where one commenter said my tips sounded like bad satire. Others totally didn’t get the benefits of boiling half the amount of water in each of 2 pots with lids to speed up the pasta-cooking process.
I don’t get that they didn’t get it. In any case, the comments are the best part.
Please share in the comments your time-saving tips!
SPEAKING OF WHICH, FOR TIME SAVING MEALS, TRY “SANDWICHES!” (don’t miss the dark chocolate and brie panini)
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 With President Obama on the verge of crossing the half-century line, age-wise, I recall my own (embarrassinglynarcissistic) 50th birthday party on Home Goes Strong. I thought I’d share with you the invitation I’d sent.
Author’s note: I no longer pee a droplet whenever I sneeze.
YOU’RE INVITED (TO MY FIFTIETH)
I’m changing colors like autumn trees.
I pee a droplet whenever I sneeze.
My schnozz has grown, I’ve lost a tooth,
Even my earlobes have started to droop.
Errant whiskers sprout overnight;
They’re hard to spy with failing eyesight.
All my hormones are nearly gone
While my daughter’s rage like a summer storm.
I moisturize with religiosity.
I’m awaiting hot flashes with morbid curiosity.
Octogenarian sex no longer sounds odd.
I’m turning fifty! Oh my God!
“You still have your looks,” my mother stated.
Ma, you like how my upper lip’s corrugated?
I guess I actually do look young
When I’m at her Florida condominium.
Although for decades I have seen
That I’m older than models in Seventeen,
Still, I had always been confident
That I’d never be older than the President.
But, listen, it’s not my aging anatomy I dread,
It’s having more time behind than ahead
Worried about my imminent burial,
I consulted tables actuarial
To find out how many waking hours remain
For me to write a book, ride the train, complain. . .
The average American of fifty years
Has thirty-three point one more before she disappears.
From my pre-school age lop off half,
Add six point nine for renouncing decaf,
Compare waking hours since ’45,
With total anticipated till 2035.
(Don’t forget to include the excess–
As you get older you sleep much less)
That’s how I solved the riddle
Of how fifty is only the middle.
Though I turn forty-nine and five-twelfths in May,
I’m having a fete for my fiftieth birthday.
(At this point what’s seven months, more or less, anyway?)
Friday, May 19 join Steve and me to celebrate.
Or if you prefer, we’ll commiserate.
Since my memory’s practically shot,
Can you recount incidents I’ve forgot?
Some trouble I’ve caused–if you’re inspired
(Although I won’t object to hearing what you’ve, ahem, admired).
Enclosed are all the details you could possibly desire.
YOU CAN READ ALL ABOUT MY 50TH BASH ON HOME GOES STRONG
UNRELATED: ALSO READ ABOUT EVERYTHING TOMATO: RECIPES, STORING, FREEZING, PEELING, HARVESTING AND MORE.
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  Why put a cold, hard fork between me and my dinner, when the visceral experience of eating, the intimacy between me and my green beans is so enhanced by pinching the bean between thumb and forefinger and depositing it into my mouth?
Yes, I’ve had boyfriends who find this offputting and I understand that it looks out of the ordinary when I pick up a piece of lettuce between my fingers and lay it on my tongue.
I guess on a first date I should try to use a fork.
Using a fork instead of my hands feels so removed, like hearing about sex second-hand rather than having it myself, though I realize that’s an overstatement since, unlike with hearsay sex, I do get to finally make contact with the food when using a fork.
As for soup, I have neither the patience nor dexterity to balance a microliter of liquid in the bowl of a spoon and get it to my mouth without any drips. I prefer to drink soup out of a mug; in restaurants I order something like finger-friendly shrimp cocktail instead.
After a recent foursome dinner, I emailed one of my co-diners to acknowledge my fork was clean at the end of the meal.
She wrote back:
This used to be an issue for me. I love and do the same thing. There were men (dates) who were really turned off (we’re talking 70s, 60s, not sure still true) when I ate with my hands. I always did and always will. I am totally with you on this. And everyone else either does it - or (more likely) is WRONG. I am not tolerant of intolerance on this issue.
Jewish girl thing?
In a follow-up email she wrote:
we’re sensual women and free spirits . . and everyone else is uptight.
Y’know, then I got thinking, wondering how I’d react if I were out with someone who picked up a lamb chop with his hands (which I don’t do until it gets to the bone) and getting all greasy in the face. Ick, that would be bad. I think if someone were picking delicately at a salad it wouldn’t bother me.
Come to think of it, whereas it’s commonplace to eat watermelon without utensils, I like to cut watermelon. As with lamb chops it’s less messy with a fork and knife.
A good middle ground for me is chopsticks; I like picking at my peanuts with wooden sticks.
I’d love to know your take on the finger-food universe. How can I enjoy eating without utensils without being offputting?
Do you ever eat with your hands either when you are out or home alone? What other eating habits are you willing to share (drinking milk out of the carton? licking your ice cream bowl? Etc.?)?
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT:
See my Easy Chicken Dinner With Green Beans Amandine and Corn.
TECH APOLOGIES: Two odd things occurred this week. I accidentally hit publish for this instead of draft a few days ago, before it was finished. I unpublished it right away, but the link went to subscribers, but it led to an error page.
Also to my subscribers, an old post (A Week in the Life of Me and My Imagined Live-Along) may have shown up today in your RSS feed or email, and I have no idea why. Sorry
By susan fishman orlins Rather than calling them conversations with my dog, I might more accurately label them monoversations or nonversations.
 Casey, just awakened with the prospect of a game Sometimes they include laying out my plans for the upcoming hour as in “Come to the office, Boo Boo; Mommy’s gonna work.”
Upon hearing me say, Boo Boo or any of my names for him, his ears flap forward. The rest of him remains motionless.
He knows I will then say, “Come on, come to the office!”
And still he remains still.
Then I say, “Come for a treat!” and the only thing he’ll do is raise his eyebrows over his black marble eyes that are pasted to me at all times.
This is part of the game where I say, “No? Okay (in a tone of you’ll be sorry).” Then, a second after I turn my back, he ambles toward me and I toss him a treat.
“Good language, good language,” I tell him.
He roots around all over the place to find the treat, with his tail wagging as furiously as windshield wipers in a downpour. Then, the second he finds it his tail drops. To boost his self-esteem, I tell him. “Good game, good game!”
My praise always seems to come out in pairs, as in “Good no bark, good no bark” on those rare days he comes down to the kitchen, spinning in circles in anticipation of breakfast, without barking.
(Scatological alert coming up) So today I was walking Casey and, as I often do, I plugged in my earphones and made a phone call. My call went into the voice mail of the leasing agent I was phoning on behalf of my daughter.
After I left my message, I bent over to clean up after Casey and, as I have done twice a day for the past 12 years, I told him, “Good poop, good poop.”
For no apparent reason, I kept at it, “My Poopie is such a good pooper, yes he is” and I continued rambling on with this kind of thing you would say only in front of your dog.
Then, with my earpiece still in my ears, I looked down at my phone and noticed I hadn’t ended my voice message.
So far I haven’t heard back from the leasing agent.
What are some monversations you have with your pets?
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: See my recent articles . . .
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 Losing a Kindle or an iPad, it could happen to you (White Girl Worry alert) . . .
I flew home from Boston on Friday night of Memorial weekend. At 2 a.m. before getting into bed to read, I emptied all my bags and clearly I’d left my Kindle on the plane.
I figured finding it was hopeless, but I phoned the airline, who told me I had to contact National Airport’s lost and found.
I called National Airport’s lost and found and a voice message told me I had to contact the airline. To make matters worse, the airport office would be closed for the three-day holiday.
I also called American Express, who told me I had passed the 3-month limit on their insurance protection but encouraged me to submit a claim anyway, which required documentation of the loss report, receipt, etc.
I notified Amazon and they “blacklisted” my Kindle so no one else could use it.
Luckily I could read myself to sleep (now 3 a.m.) using the Kindle app on my iPhone. For a reader as slow as I am, less on a page is more, so much so that I questioned whether the iPhone was actually an improvement over the Kindle.
Nonetheless, I ordered a new Kindle with money I would have used to replace my aging camera.
Mostly I was sad about losing the pleather cover I had bought in China for $4. It was slim and lightweight and even at a big price there was nothing like it here.
Then on Tuesday I received a call from Christianne at the airport, who said, “We have dozens of Kindles and iPads in the safe. What flight were you on?”
I gave her the information and she checked the safe. “We found two Kindles on that flight and yes, we have yours. When would you like to pick it up?”
I was so delighted and amazed that I wanted you to know not to give up hope if you leave your Kindle or iPad on a plane.
The worst part of the whole experience was at the customer service desk. The USAir employees were pleasant, but each person in the line had a heartbreaking story of travel gone wrong.
Take, for example, the man who flew here solely for his son’s birthday party. His flight was due in at 6 pm but had been delayed, and it was now 8 pm. His ride had left and the party was underway, close to an hour away and prohibitively expensive by taxi.
I can’t imagine how someone could work there 40 hours a week and on top of that remain smiley and not need to take Zoloft.
And why does the birthday dad’s story linger and make me feel so sad?
What lost and/or found stories do you have, airplane or otherwise?
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: Check out my article CARING FOR HER DYING HUSBAND AT HOME AND THEN PLANNING HER OWN DEATH: ONE WOMAN’S STORY.
On a more upbeat note, check out some my Refreshing Summer Drinks for July 4th or anytime.
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 There’s a gadget for everything these days, I’m pretty sure.
I’m not worried about this gizmo, ‘cept I have no memory of how it got in my kitchen drawer.
And I’m really curious what it’s for.
It seems to be a scooper of some sort.
gizmo For mashed potatoes? Or something that had froze? Or unfroze? Or doughs?
But then what’s the hole on each side of the silver hemisphere about?
It’s not a lemon juicer. I have one of those. And that’s not how the juice comes out.
Thingamajig How do you Google what something is when you don’t know it’s name?
Trying to figure this out is like a lateral thinking game.
I could try to describe it in a search.
But it’s more fun if you help me out of this lurch, So I can ditch the gizmo woe and instead get gizmo mojo!
Whatchamacallit
If I had already fulfilled my fantasy of ordering Worrywart t-shirts,
I would make this a contest to attract some kitchen-gadget experts.
And, for my blog, new converts.
I’ve heard Web surfers love contests and t-shirts.
How embarrassed should I be if no one gets back to me
with either a clever guess or the solution to my quest?
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: Check out my recent articles
After my Husband Died, Dealing With his Possessions: One Woman’s Story
Romantic Design Ideas From an Exquisite European Boutique Hotel
Treadmill Work Stations Can Burn Calories, But They Have Other Important Benefits Too
By susan fishman orlins The going-into-treatment excuse didn’t work as well for Anthony Weiner as it had for me.
Though now I’m a compulsive truth-teller, in tenth grade I considered myself an adept liar.
Early one week, I had accepted a Friday night date with Joe. Then Artie called that very Friday to ask me out for the same night. I could never refuse Artie of the sky-blue eyes, so I said yes.
When Joe phoned during dinner to say he would pick me up at 7:30, my father heard me lie to Joe that I was being punished for fighting with my brother and couldn’t go out.
After I hung up, my dad said breaking dates was not permitted–if I did not go out with Joe, then I could not go out at all.
“Okay, Dad,” I said, “I’ll call Joe back and tell him I can go.”
Instead, I ran to my room, locked the door and phoned Artie. Since my parents knew Artie, I asked him to have his friend, whom I would introduce to my parents as Joe, come to the door to pick me up. The scheme worked, or so I thought.
When I came home from my date with Artie, my father was waiting. “Where were you?” he boomed.
It turned out that after I’d left, Joe dropped by to see how I was doing, at which point my father left the house and spent the rest of the evening cruising between The Hot Shoppes and Carol Yaffe’s house, the two hangouts he knew about, trying to track me down.
I had no choice but to acknowledge the deception.
“I think I need to go to a psychiatrist,” I said.
It was the only way I could think of to weasel out of my predicament; otherwise, I was afraid my father would confine me to my room until graduation.
In the case of Anthony Weiner, the going-into-treatment excuse didn’t work and he was forced to step down. But the going-into-treatment excuse worked well for me.
It also worked for my parents in that I made an effort to stay out of trouble, because I felt guilty about all the money they were spending to send me to therapy.
Do you agree that the going into treatment is, at least partially, a convenient excuse for these infamous texters and sexters and twexters and Tiger Woodses?
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: Share my post with the sandwich generation and others, Driving Safety for Teens, College Students and the Elderly (and just about anyone else)
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