Looking at life through rose-colored glasses….

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I am as blind as a bat. At least that’s what the optometrist told me when I was 9 years old. When you are 9 and a doctor tells you that you are blind, you believe them. The fact that he had a heavy foreign accent made it more legitimate and scary. I don’t mind saying it was traumatic for me. My poor mom always felt terrible that she hadn’t taken me to get my eyes checked sooner. I have no idea what the catalyst was for her to finally take me, but she was probably around 5 years too late. My guess is if I were born in current times I would be one of those babies with the bendy glasses peeking out from my crib.

So there I was at 9 years old seeing 20/20 for the first time. I could see the clock numbers on the microwave!! I could see the individual fibers that made up the carpet! We had a dog??? Who knew?

Side Note:

After it was discovered I needed glasses my mom said “I wondered why you always asked me what time it was.” It’s true. I would ask numerous times a day and she would answer, “Go look at the clock.” Apparently me getting up from the couch, walking across the room to the clock, and pressing my face right up to it was not a clue. (In her defense, she was busy doing A LOT of crossword puzzles during my formative years). And it wasn’t like anyone noticed or thought it was unusual that I sat right in front of the television. When you are the human channel changer for your dad, you are just naturally two inches away from the tv anyway.

I’m not sure why out of the several pairs of glasses I had over the years my mom always chose to get the lenses tinted. I know, I know, this was the style in the late 70’s and early 80’s; but I when I say tinted, I mean if my glasses were car windows they would be illegal. It was as if non-tinted wasn’t an option. One year she chose purple for me. I am not kidding. They were so dark we had to send them back to have some of the color bleached out. Add this to the hexagon shape and curvy temples (this is the straight part that goes from the lens to the ear. I bet you didn’t know that. Why would you? You have probably never had to write a blog about them before) and you have the makings of a real babe.

Now let me explain some things to you seeing-eye humans. The worse your eyesight is, the thicker the lens. And contrary to what it would seem, a big frame is worse. Instead of the lens thinning out as it gets bigger, it actually thickens near the edge. So I was stuck with big, wide, thick, purple-tinted glasses. I looked like the love child of Charles Nelson Reilly and Elton John. (Google them. It makes more sense than you realize).

You know those hypothetical questions like “If your mom came back to life for one more day what would you do?” I would not be one of those people to take a long walk in the park and discuss death and heaven and the meaning of life. I would be holding up pictures asking, “What in actual hell were you thinking?”

(Follow up questions would be 1) Why did I have to get the kind of braces that went around your whole tooth? 2) Why didn’t you introduce me to tweezers and razors earlier? 3) How could you just let me put my autographed Johnny Bench baseballs in the Goodwill Box?)

Five years later I got contacts. Thirty five years later my eyes are getting worse again. Or better, depending on how you look at it. After years of being near-sighted I can now see much better when I hold a restaurant menu as far away from me as my arms will stretch.

People ask me why I haven’t ever gotten LASIK surgery. My eyes are a part of my identity. I have no idea what it would be like to wake up and see clearly. To not have that feeling of annoyance on a night where I am exhausted but I have to get out of bed to take out my contacts. To not occasionally “lose” a contact in my own eye. These things make me feel like me. They have been me for almost my entire life. So for now, I will stay the way I am. Looking at life through rose-colored glasses. Just not literally anymore.

Left: Fifth grade. 1979. I look like a boy. Actually, with that collar and sweater combo PLUS the brownish tint of the glasses I look like a MAN. Maybe a man getting ready to go to a work party.

Middle: Sixth grade. 1980. If you are a follower of this blog you will recall seeing this photo a few posts ago. Someday I will write an entire blog dissecting how it all went down that day. I remember it vividly. That oversized hexagon shape was all the rage. Fun fact: Believe it or not, the first sentence in my diary from that year reads “1980 was the best year of my life.” I mean, what was going on that was so fantastic while I looked like that? Maybe with the long hair and earrings people now knew I was a girl?

Right: Seventh grade. 1981. Still going for the preppy look. Middle school agrees with me. Relative to the other pictures and years I am a stone cold fox. The glasses are somewhat smaller and better suited to my face. Notice: LENSES STILL TINTED.

Uncategorized

What I learned on my summer vacation

Nostalgia. It’s the only word to describe what I’ve been feeling lately. It’s intense. Overpowering even. It has brought me to my knees on more than one occasion.

Since I’ve had kids, the local pool has always been the standard of time for me. The measure of where my kids are in terms of independence and growth. It seems like just yesterday my friends and I were walking around with our little ones; moving from sand box to kiddie pool to slide, keeping our eyes on them and making sure they were safe. Starting our days early at swim lessons knowing we would stay through lunch and beyond.

Those summers seemed endless. We had over 15 kids between us; energetic offspring always asking us to get in the pool with them. (“But why do you even GET a new bathing suit each year if you never go IN??”) We watched them during tennis lessons; feigned interest in their jumps and dives, their chalk drawings and sand castles. We counted the days until school started.

And then a couple of years ago I could suddenly sense it. The change had been so subtle and gradual that I had barely noticed.

We were in the Sweet Spot.

This gaggle of kids of ours had become independent enough to be on their own, yet still little enough to want to be with us. We moms sat around on lawn chairs chatting and sunbathing, only seeing them once an hour or so when they came to get money for the snack bar. We relished our adult time and basked in their kisses and hugs. They didn’t need us to follow them or open their juice boxes. There were no games to direct, no toddler squabbles to referee. No teenager attitude or drama to deal with yet. It was just sunny days and Friday night pool parties and Sunday afternoon family kickball games. It was the storybook definition of summer and parenthood.

I knew there were few more summers that things would be this way. I was brutally aware. I told myself to slow down and look around. I wanted to appreciate and enjoy this small moment in time. And even though I knew it would end, I still wasn’t ready.

Are we ever really?

The other day my oldest was feeling sentimental and told me, “Mom, I don’t want to forget things.” Oh, buddy, I hear you.

I won’t forget the summer we moms made a pact that we were going to wear bikinis, gosh darn it; we didn’t care that we didn’t look like those hot moms who strutted around so confidently. And we did. And we lived.

I won’t forget the summer the dads decided to revisit their high school talents and form a rock band and perform poolside.

I won’t forget that every July 3rd we would bring cupcakes to celebrate my little one’s birthday.

I won’t forget that the first dad to get in the water was inevitably the “lucky one” who had to swim with 6 or 7 little girls clutching him and each other resulting in a huge human float.

I won’t forget the year “Call me Maybe” was the song of the summer.

And I will certainly not forget the disappointment of finding out the pool was in a “dead zone” for Jimmy John’s delivery.

I’ve been holding on to their childhood by threads. But this was the summer. It finally arrived. The big kids didn’t want to go to the pool anymore. Nobody played Gaga ball or made sand castles. Sports made it impossible to have Friday night pizza. And quite honestly, I’m not sure my body could have handled a kick ball game. This was the first year my daughter didn’t care about bringing cupcakes for her birthday. We’ve wondered aloud if we will even join the pool next year.

My big one only wants to play Fortnite and hang out with friends. My little one will still indulge me occasionally, but that’s fading fast. They rarely, if ever, play together.

It went by so fast. How many times have we heard that? Why is it that the first five years seemed to last forever but the last five years have flown by? Just when it’s getting good it morphs into something else. I miss my babies.

These little girls that were 3 and 4 are now 10 and 11. In one year, the big kids will be in high school. I look at the “young moms” chasing their toddlers at the pool and wonder how that was me not so long ago. How many more years will summer mean the neighborhood pool for us? Are there any? Was this the last one and I didn’t pay enough attention? It takes effort to live in the moment.

The Sweet Spot is officially over. That’s what I learned this summer.

And gosh it makes me sad.

Friendship, humor, sorority, Uncategorized

TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!

An open letter to my college roommate:

My dear friend Carrie,

As you approach a half a century and I think of our friendship of almost 30 years, so many stories come to mind. We met during my sophomore/your junior year. We had rushed the same sorority and lucky for me, ended up being roommates and friends for life. Like all college co-eds, campus life afforded us many memorable shenanigans. This experience was only enhanced by our living in the same sorority house.

There were six of us that lived in that spacious top floor dormitory. We dubbed it “The Penthouse.” I suppose we thought that made us sound sexy. In reality, three of us wore black and thought we were groupies for the Smiths; the other three wore pink and green ribbons around our collars and knew what grosgrain was. (You’re googling it right now aren’t you? Unless you grew up in the 80’s and remember the Preppy Handbook you are probably not familiar with this word.) I came from a small town in the boonies of Michigan. You came from a tony suburb of Detroit populated by descendants of Dodges and Fords.

Somehow, we both ended up in Ann Arbor.

Freshman year I lived in the “Jock Dorm” (Yes, I see the humor. I have no idea why I was placed there. But honestly, where were they going to put me? In the Class Brain dorm? Umm, Michigan. EVERY DORM was the class brain dorm. And when I got to U of M I realized I had nowhere near the brainpower that the rest of the student body had. It kind of made sense I was with the kids that were there because of athletic ability.)

You came from the all-female dorm on campus nicknamed “The Virgin Vault.” That was what probably led to you being voted, “Most Likely to be a House Mother.” Well, that and the fact that while the rest of us were buying stretch pants at Express, you were browsing the racks at Talbots. My guess is by now you have progressed to Chico’s or J.Jill.

I, on the other hand, was voted “Most Likely to be Heard Round the World” and “House Headbanger,” proving that some things never change and some things COMPLETELY change. (Ok, Ok, ….So I DID go to a party once with a guy named “Beast” which MAY have been why I got that last moniker.)

You are the friend that gave me what Ted has labeled the “Worst Housewarming Gift Ever”: A giant bag of tulip bulbs. I loved them; Ted, being the one who planted them all, felt any “gift” that required manual labor was no gift at all. (For years before he had a handle on who was whom, Ted referred to my college friends as “the little one,” “the one who worked for the NBA,” “the one who lives on Lake Shore,” and the “one who gave us all those tulip bulbs.”)

It’s common knowledge that if you are my friend, being a good sport is a necessary requirement. But you go above and beyond. As evidenced by the following stories:

The Friars: The Friars were a campus a capella group consisting of cute boys (with talent!) We have revisited this story countless times and it is still as funny to me now as it was the day it happened. You had a late class. The Friars were coming to sing. I had your composite picture. What more needs to be said? The handsome and talented Friars arrived during dinner to promote their upcoming concert. Greeting them on the door, right above the doorbell, was your formal picture. There you were in a black, off the shoulder drape, smiling at them. I had added a speech bubble, “Welcome Friars! Love, Carrie.” You arrived shortly after. You walked into the dining hall with the photo in your hand red-faced and laughing. Another “sister” wouldn’t have been as gracious with me.

The sleepover: One of the rules of living in the sorority house is that boys were NOT allowed beyond the first floor. Most people adhered to this because who wants to sneak a guy past 65 women and a crotchety old house-mother named Kitsy? It’s also just common courtesy to your roommates to not have a man in your room overnight. Sometimes though, when you are liquored up, common courtesy goes out the window. One night, for reasons I can’t really remember, my boyfriend and I stumbled home from the bar and literally crashed into my twin bottom bunk bed. My five roommates were asleep. My boyfriend was passed out. He was a big guy, 6 ft tall and built like a football player. He wasn’t going anywhere.

The next morning you came in from the shower and started getting dressed. Your dresser was three feet from my bed. Well, I think you remember what happened next, even if I can’t. Let’s just say he got closer to your boobs than he did to mine that day. I MUST INTERRUPT THIS LETTER TO MENTION THAT THE GIRLS IN THIS ROOM WERE WHAT SOME WOULD CALL “CHESTY.” I think we can assume that if my boyfriend were awake at this point there is a good chance it would be HIM telling this story to HIS friends 30 years later instead of ME telling MINE.

That was the last time he stayed in our room.

Side Note:

Sometimes your husband reads a draft of your blog and comments that it is a little long and that perhaps one paragraph could be trimmed and suggests it be the one about your college boyfriend that you haven’t seen or talked to in 25 years and you are not married to and then insists he is not upset but then also says maybe you should cut the part about the guy named Beast you went to the party with because it’s not really funny so you briefly consider building an entire blog about past relationships but then decide you will maybe just add an unnecessary but satisfying sentence describing the boyfriend as “6 ft tall and built like a football player” and call it a day.

To let you know how long my trickery lasted the final story I will tell is one that happened several years after college when we found ourselves both living on the East Coast. I was in Boston and you were in Hartford and we tried to get together when we could. One weekend we decided to drive the entire Cape. We stopped at Plymouth Rock for the obligatory visit. Who knew there was an entire living history museum there on the tall ships complete with actors? Seeing a young handsome lad “playing” an adventurous seafarer was all I needed to try to make a love connection for you. If you think trying to play Cupid with two embarrassed people is funny, try doing it with a person trying to stay in character from the 1600s. He may have told you he was unable to go play mini-golf due to a severe case of scurvy.

I should tell you that my sorority was the best thing that happened to me in college. And not just because of the endless parties and pranks. In a university the size of Michigan, making friends and finding your place is hard. Sorority life WAS college for me. There was no U of M without the house and the girls in it.

Carrie, you are one of a small group of women I have consistently stayed in touch over the past 30 years. You and they have been there for me for the good times and bad. The ones who sent care packages to me and gifts for the kids when Ted was going through chemo. The ones who were game to get down on the floor in cocktail dresses and try to form a pyramid at my wedding. The ones who drove from miles away to be there when I have had family members die.

Here is what I know for sure: The longer you have friends the longer you have them. My closest friends are the ones I met when I was still a teenager, before I really became an adult. These are the people who formed me and made me who I am. The ones that no matter what accept me for who I am. They not only really know me, but also really SEE me. Through the ups and downs of life, and the friendships that come and go, these girls have been a constant for me. Thank you for saying “yes” on bid night.

Loyally in επ,

Samantha XO

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Text from Carrie when I told her my birthday letter to her was turning into a blog post:

“Dear God, this is exactly what I was afraid of. Lol. Isn’t that how I started the conversation the other night? Of course you have my ok.”

Left, above: Carrie and her pilgrim Right above: Carrie’s composite picture

Top picture from left to right: The little one, Carrie, the one who lived on Lakeshore, and the one that worked for the NBA

adolescence, fashion, humor, Uncategorized

“But she has a good personality…”

Did I get your attention? Yes, I thought so. I’ll wait until you compose yourself and stop laughing before I continue……..

Ok, ready?

When I was in high school and even in college, THIS was the photo my brother would bring out when I would bring a new boyfriend home. Can you guess what the results of this particular type of trauma are? PTSD? Good guess, but no. Boyfriends imagining what possible future children might look like and consequently running for their lives? Nope. Thousands of dollars from winning Awkward Photo contests? You would think, but no again. Believe it or not, living through the most severe “Ugly Duckling” stage you can possibly imagine ended up giving me lots of friends and self-confidence. Spending a good part of your childhood looking like this makes you talkative and outgoing. I just naturally had to capitalize on my personality.

Now, don’t worry, this is not a self-help feel-good post. In fact, I’m not even going to pretend and say that “It all worked out the way it was supposed to” and “I’m glad I went through it because I came out stronger in the end.” No way. Here’s the truth:

IT SUCKED.

Believe me, I would have rather been an adorable cheerleader. But sometimes you try out for the cheerleading squad and don’t make it and the next year try out for the pom squad and don’t make it then the next year you are still optimistic or maybe just dumb so you try out one more time and guess what you don’t make it again so then you tell yourself Hey National Honor Society is pretty fun too.

So now I will answer the question you have been asking yourself this whole time: “How on Earth is she letting people see that picture of her?” Well, I think you already know the answer. Because it is So. Darn. Funny. And funny always trumps embarrassing.

I actually remember the day my 6th grade teacher, Mr Sanford, handed out the school pictures. He looked down and saw my photo shining through the clear part of the giant envelope and made a noise I can’t reproduce with words but sounded like he was being stabbed in the eye and let’s face it metaphorically he was. With a grimace on his face, he slammed the envelope onto his chest as if horrified for me. You think I’m kidding. I’m not. This actually happened.

Not shockingly, I have tons of these pics floating around because I never handed any out that year to friends or family. This is one of those times when I wonder to myself, “Why didn’t my mom let me do re-takes?” I am guessing she probably didn’t want to spend the money. This is a topic for another day: Why My Mom Often Took the Cheap Route. With the subcategories 1) graduation pictures, 2) clothes for teenagers who just want to be cool 3) and at-home haircuts.

Anyway, back to me. Recently I was looking through some old pictures and realized that as I “grew into” my physical appearance, my fashion sense seemed to plummet.

SIDE NOTE:

There is no such thing as “growing into” your looks. Unless you are Benjamin Button, you are not going to “grow into” anything except maybe those fat pants you keep in the back of the closet. People always say “grew into” when they want to say nicely that someone used to look terrible and now they are attractive. Because you can’t just say, “Remember how hideous that kid was?” even though you might be thinking it. So you say, “Boy, that neighbor kid really ‘grew into’ his nose.” This is similar to “Baby Fat”. That kid at church your mom wants you to marry does not have “baby fat.” He’s 14 and he’s just plain chubby. When you are 14 you do not have baby anything. I know right now you are thinking I am mean, but it is just Truth. Also, anytime during this post you think I am making fun of someone please refer back to the picture at the top of this page as a refresher.

So back to my lack of fashion sense. I used to think I had a decent sense of style. And that bad choices were due to things like “It was the 80’s!” Or, “I had just had kids!” But after seeing these pics as a whole, I have come to the terrible realization that this isn’t true. What IS true is that I have never been much of a fashionista. And as I ponder this thought, I have come to the conclusion that this is the result of none of my friends or family doing their job of telling me I looked ridiculous over the years. I blame them entirely.

For example, back in grad school someone should have told me that palazzo pants were not flattering on short-waisted, busty gals. (I don’t usually use the word “gals” as it makes me sound like I was born in the 40’s, but it feels appropriate here. By the way, this is the same reason I don’t like the word “slacks”). Or how about the time I experimented with giant stretchy headbands? All anyone had to say was, “Hey, do you have a toothache?” and I would have gotten the picture. And let’s not forget my beret stage. Why wear it in the style of a cute french girl when I could wear it low and backwards like Samuel Jackson? And what about the unfortunate Summer Of The Do-rag? And worst of all was my attempt in 8th grade to look like Olivia Newton-John in the “Let’s Get Physical” video. My short haircut and subsequent perm were less Olivia and more Kid ‘N Play.

Now, I will say there was a short stint when I worked with a bunch of women who had high fashion and influenced me a bit. But in general those days are long gone. Where clothes labeled Ann Taylor and Banana Republic once hung in my closet there are now clothes with tags that say Merona and Mossimo. When I am wearing even the slightest upgrade in outfit (basically anything not stretchy), my kids will do a double-take and ask me “Where are you going? Why do you look like that?” And my favorite, “You look like you have a job.”

I did hesitate to post this blog entry. But not because I am embarrassed. No, my biggest fear about this entry is that it might be the pinnacle of my blogging career. I mean, I really can’t think of anything funnier than this 6th grade picture. I guess the good thing is that when people see this photo, they are often surprised it is me. So I’m going to assume that means I’ve improved somewhat over the last 35 years.

And you know what else? Not one of those boys that dated me ditched me after my brother showed them this picture.

Thank God personality matters.

death, Family, grief, humor, Uncategorized

The Ace of all Aces

The Ace of all Aces!

The King of all Kings!

The Leader of all Leaders!

The People’s Choice!

Ace! Ace! Ace! Ace!

I don’t remember how or why it started, but at some point in my youth, my dad decided to compose a chant about himself. Even more hilarious is that my cousins and I (at this point we were nine girls; honestly, I can’t see a group of boys doing this) would spontaneously cheer these words for him at family functions for no apparent reason.

But I have a feeling my dad was used to getting his way from the beginning. In this picture that is over 60 years old, his handsomeness is still timeless. Your eyes go directly to him; smack in the middle, staring right at the camera. And although it isn’t politically correct to say, he looks pretty badass with that cigarette hanging out of his mouth surrounded by a bunch of girls. You can hardly blame my mom for falling for him at only 14 years old.

Side note:

My Thea Cassie, who is my dad’s oldest sister, told me this weekend that not only is my dad just 16 years old in this picture (believe me, I questioned this and tried to do the math working backwards from marriage and the Air Force and other milestones, but, I came to the conclusion that A) I think she may be right and B) Don’t argue with your 88-year-old aunt)…but that this was a CHURCH event. Which frankly, is more believable than the age part. So basically, my 16-year-old dad who looks about 25 in this picture is smoking and drinking at a church party. Which sounds about right for him.

Last Tuesday marked 19 years that he has been gone. Sunday was Father’s Day. I’ve spent a lot of time this past week thinking about him. And here’s the thing: When someone close to you dies, I mean really close to you, your memories aren’t about significant events or holidays. The things you go back to are the everyday minutiae; the simple details that make a person who they are.

For example:

During family vacations, meals weren’t planned around activities, activities were planned around meals. Before we even finished breakfast Dad would invariably ask, “Okay, gang, where are we going for lunch?” The in-between was inconsequential.

Every Sunday morning on our way to church we were forced to suffer through “Breakfast with Sinatra,” a radio program that started at 8am. Much to our dismay, it went until noon; meaning often we would catch the tail end of the show on the way HOME from church, too.

He only smoked Kent cigarettes. And boy did he smoke them.

He and one of his friends used to go to the track together all the time and bet on the horses. They invited me to go with them once, and we sat in the fancy seats and got waited on while we watched the races. It wasn’t until later that I found out they only took me so I could claim their big win from the day before and they wouldn’t have to pay the taxes.

He LOVED the soundtrack to The Bodyguard. Much to our annoyance, he would blast Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” on the CD player all the time.

He may have been the funniest man on the planet. It was a major win to get him to laugh at anything other than his own jokes. And believe me, I tried. Once, I took wallet-sized copies of my sorority composite picture and put them in random places in his bedroom. My sister and I were hysterical as we put one in his pajama pocket (oh yes, he wore old-timey men’s pajamas that were a matching set complete with front breast pocket), one on his pillow, one on the bathroom mirror. Nothing. Not. One. Single. Word. He would not give me the satisfaction of a laugh. In fact, this would have been one of the times where he would have casually taken the picture off of his pillow straight-faced and said, “I got four kids and none of them’s normal.”

He drank scotch on the rocks. And it had to be J&B. Once he requested it at a new local restaurant that had just opened. They didn’t have it, but the owner remembered and the next time we went in it had been stocked just for him.

He loved catalog shopping. I’d hate to think what would have happened if the internet or Amazon was around before he died. He would buy random stuff all the time: Native American decorative plates, stamp collections, themed chess sets. And his favorite purchase: 2-for-1 twill chinos. They were $6. Because you don’t forget when your dad buys (and wears) six-dollar pants from a catalog.

He was obsessed with celebrity height. You couldn’t get through a television shown without him making some comment about the height of the leading man. “You know, Sal,” he’d say with disdain, “Mel Gibson is only 5’6”.

I’ll end the way he liked to end things, whether it was a party or a vacation or even the close of a long day, by borrowing his signature words:

Well, gang, that’s a wrap.

Happy Father’s Day, Ace. ❤️❤️❤️ I miss you.

Never a Dulles Moment

Finding the absurd in the ordinary

Category Archives: Uncategorized