NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND...or...The Story of My Day

Saturday (?): My cell phone rings. “Remember when you used to answer it?” Hubby asks, from his permanent location on the west end of the couch. “There’s no point. The face-recognition feature no longer recognizes me. I think it’s my neck. It’s gotten crepey.” I didn’t mention the extra poundage that has found its way onto my frame in the last few months. “Maybe it’s your hair,” spouse says. “It’s turned into a wall.” What he means is that my hair has grown upward and outward, exploding like a mushroom cloud. Oh, and it’s now an interesting medley of bleached blond and natural gray. “I notice there is a gathering of ducks in our driveway,” spouse says, changing the subject. “It’s not ducks. It’s the newspaper. Several newspapers.” “Shouldn’t you go get them?” “What’s the point? I’d just have to wash my hands again. I’ll collect them next Friday when I go to the grocery store.” “I guess we can get the news from TV,” he says. D’uh. The ad for Farmer’s Dog comes on the screen and Toby, in his permanent spot in the middle of the couch, doesn't even look up. Normally he’d be jumping up on his hind legs, ripping the paint off the $800-dollar TV stand, and barking at the top of his lungs. “What’s the matter with the dog,” spouse asks. “Is he sick?” I eye the mini-goldendoodle from my seat on the east side of the couch. “I don’t think he can see.” Toby, of course, has not seen the inside of the grooming studio in about eight weeks. I heave myself off the couch, lurch the twelve steps down the hall to my computer and dial up You Tube where I find a relevant video. And that is how Toby and I came to spend TWO HOURS watching a professional groomer shaving a full-sized golden doodle. Toby was fascinated and no wonder. By the end there was enough hair to make a second dog. While he watched, I turned on the dog shaver I’d ordered and experimented. Afterwards, we returned to the mothership (couch.) “What’s that crevice in the middle of his back,” Pete asks. “I can see his skin.” “My first swipe. I wasn’t sure how to hold the razor.” “His ears look kinda short.” They do. “And his mustache is gone.” It is. “But I can see his eyes. Good job!” The dog food ad comes on the screen again a few minutes later. Once again, Toby doesn't react. This time, though, it is because he's focused on consuming the Frosty Paw I promised him for being a good boy in the barber’s chair. “What are going to do tomorrow,” Pete asks, when it finally got dark enough to go to bed. “Hm. Maybe take a walk. As far as the end of the driveway.” “To get the newspapers?” “Sure," I say, still flush with a sense of achievement. "Why not?"

RAMBLINGS FROM THE LOCKDOWN, or Emily Dickinson did it. What is it so hard for us?

Today I awoke to an email message from something called “Pelgrip” (?) which addressed me by name and offered seven suggestions of ways to avoid anxiety during social distancing. Number six is: do a little online shopping. Way ahead of you Pelgrip. My kitchen table is littered with boxes and bags of clothing/jewelry/a breadbox, and shoes that don’t fit/I didn’t like/I don’t have room for/I didn’t need in the first place. Binge-watching shows on Amazon or Netflix is suggestion number three. My husband, who will agree to watch anything if it means I will stop talking, and I are in the midst of the series “Absentia” in which a beautiful FBI agent is kidnapped for six years and returns to find her hunky husband married to someone else. On top of that indignity, she is suspected of much mayhem and has to go on the lam to clear her name. What stood out to me was the scene in which she hopped into a truck, found some random clothes, and changed into them to avoid detection. All I could think of was that, in the same situation, I would never be able to fit in any random clothes. And that brings me to another quarantine universal truth. We are told not to limit our trips to the grocery store and I can see from Facebook friends and acquaintances that some are staying away for weeks at a time. Sunday I shopped during the sacred “seniors hour” and spent several hundred dollars stockpiling food in an effort to stay home for two weeks. Today is Tuesday, and I am beginning to panic about the rapidly diminishing supply of fresh fruit, peanut M&Ms and Entenmann’s crumb-topped doughnuts. Pelgrip’s list does not address what to do when you wake in the middle of every night with a hacking cough/ suspected fever/ pressure in the chest and/or visions of sitting around in a germ-filled emergency room waiting to be told you are too old to bother with. Of course that is imaginary. Probably. To tell the truth, the only hard part of this, for someone like me, is having to stay six feet away from family and, by that, I mean seven-months-old Josie. Missing her like crazy. And our little boys in New York. On a better note, the chalk drawings made yesterday on my driveway survived this morning’s rain. I can still see “Abby” and “Molly” in big letters and just looking at them makes me happy. It’s just those doughnuts…. Stay safe and healthy, friends.

HEALTH CHECK-IN: AFTER A CERTAIN AGE IT'S JUST PATCH,PATCH,PATCH

Among the challenges of relocating are having to learn the location of the traffic circles so as to avoid them, resigning yourself to hours of staring at the packing boxes marked unessential as you contemplate what to do with the set of Christmas plates from your mother, the beer steins from your uncle and the diplomas, pictures, correspondence, yearbooks and other family memorabilia that date back over a century. And, if that weren’t enough, there are the new docs. I don’t mean documents, although there are plenty of those, too. I’m talking about doctors. And, in your golden years, that means, lots and lots of folks. We spent the first months getting spouse set up, traipsing back and forth to downtown Cleveland multiple times, sometimes in the dark, sometimes in the snow, one time we had to trial-and-error our way home without Google Maps as I had spent a three-hour appointment playing Solitaire on my phone. But in January, we began to concentrate on the rest of the family. A couple of get-to-know-you appointments for me resulted in a series of exciting discoveries such as I needed a new crown for one of my back teeth, a bone density scan, a mammogram, a colonoscopy (always my favorite) a flu shot, a pneumonia shot, a shingles shot, blood tests, urine tests, hearing aids and a (suggested) weight-loss program. My new doc is young, delightful and blunt. When I showed her the nails on my hammertoes she said, “that one in the middle has a fungus. These others might be Melanoma. That’s not a diagnosis. I’m just saying. Melanoma can be fatal. You’d better see a dermatologist.” Dermatologists are scarce on the ground here in Northeastern Ohio so I am still waiting on that. Meanwhile, because I am not a fan of dieting or exercise, I made an executive decision not to worry about the weight issue until or unless I get cleared on all the fatal possibilities. I mean, there’s no point in joining weight watchers if the prognosis is negative. As one rebel wrote in her novel (and I am paraphrasing here): “I decided to forget about losing weight. Shucks. When I die they can just dig a wider hole.” Then, last week, we finally got around to meeting our new veterinarian. The biggest issue for Toby? You guessed it. He is out of shape. “You’re supposed to be able to feel his ribs,” the vet said, plunging his fingers into my dog’s sides. “All I feel is fat.” “What should I do,” I asked. (Like I don’t know.) “Well, you have to change the dynamic so that he is using more calories than he is taking in. You can either do that by feeding him less, walking him more, or” he gazed at me over the tops of his glasses, “best case scenario, both.” And that’s why, in between my hearing aid appointments and follow-ups Pete’s cataract surgeries and follow-ups, and all the other medical stuff, I will spend Valentine’s month dragging Toby up and down the streets of Chagrin Falls. Believe me, I wouldn’t do it for anyone else.

DEATH AND CLEANING AND ME

Our first Christmas in Ohio was filled with laughter and tears, the sharing of jokes and some all-too-serious discussions about the future. When it was over and the out-of-town families had returned to their homes, a small, anonymous package appeared on my doorstep, delivered by my current best friend, the Amazon delivery person. Ruth. Intrigued, I opened it to find a cunning little book titled, “The Art of Swedish Death Cleaning.” My first thought was that I already owned it. My second, and lingering thought was that my children were trying to convey a message: Get rid of your stuff. It seemed an unfair nudge considering that I have downsized two households (mine of 36 years in Virginia, my mom’s of 60 years in Michigan) during the past year and I’ve gotten rid of A LOT. My 1,300 square foot bungalow is not overcrowded (note I did not claim that it was clean). Then I took the stair chair down to the basement and surveyed the acres of boxes containing model trains, doll furniture, books, cookbooks, family photographs, trophies, sheets and towels used during vacations to the Shore, books, more books and even a few pieces of furniture that I knew, even before the move, would never fit into our new home. “Maybe they have a point,” I said to Pete, who had no idea what I was talking about. “What?” “Cleaning. Downsizing. The kids.” His gaze shifted to the colorful daycare-type cubbies in our living room that contain magnetic paper dolls, crayons, stuffed llamas, a dress-up box of princess items and the solidly built dollhouse my grandfather made for me in 1959. “I thought we already downsized the kids,” he said, referring to the trio of small granddaughters that brighten our days. (He didn’t actually say that. But I’m sure he was thinking it.) “I guess I really should do more sorting and cleaning,” I said, hoping, in vain that he would argue with me. However, I am nothing if not gifted at avoiding any sort of cleaning so I moved on to another topic that had come up during the holidays. “What happens to us after we die?” After a brief pause he replied, “burial?” As if not certain of the answer. “Well, right. But where? I mean we’ve just moved to Buckeye land where we literally know fewer people than there are fingers on my right hand. We’re strangers in a strange place.” “You’re afraid no one will visit?” “It’s not that.” (I am not a fan of visiting gravesites or hanging onto the ashes of dearly departed dogs.) “I just don’t want to be lonely, you know? I mean, you spend your whole life building a community of family and friends because being with people takes away the shadows and makes you happy. You know, it takes a village. Why wouldn’t the same principle apply in death?” “You couldn’t talk to them,” he pointed out, correctly identifying my main concern. “I know. But it would be nice to be surrounded by, you-know, loved ones. Where are your parents are buried?” “Pennsylvania,” he said. “Or, Delaware. There was a tree.” “Yeah. I don’t remember, either.” “Ann Arbor,” he said, referring to my beloved hometown. Of course I knew what he meant. “That’s complicated.” It occurred to me that we must have discussed this sometime during our forty-two-year-marriage but it seemed like a new topic, for some reason. “Many moons ago my paternal grandparents bought four plots at a local cemetery intending to accommodate themselves, and my dad and mom. But then, when one of my brothers died at age thirty-four, they reversed course and decided to go with cremation so there would be room in the remaining plots for my folks and both of the twins.” As I told the story, the old resentment sprang up. Naturally, neither the original plans nor the revised version had included me. It took me back to the days of family vacations and the motel rooms with two double beds and a cot. Guess who always got the cot. Pete had nothing to say to my grievance so I called my brother. “Have you thought about where you’re going to be buried,” I asked him. “Sure,” he said. “We found a cute little cemetery near us. There’s a tree on a hill and the place is lousy with gravestones marked “Emmons.” “What about the Ann Arbor cemetery,” I asked. “Well, I really can’t see the point of having my body – or my ashes- or whatever shipped out to Michigan. Too expensive.” “Maybe you should just stay in Ohio,” The choice of least resistance. He had a point. “Or, maybe, dad’s prophesy will come true. Remember he used to say he thought he would be the first exception to the rule. Maybe I just won’t die at all.” “Forget it,” said my brother, who has seen my basement. “There’s no way around it. You have to get rid of more stuff. That’s why I sent you the book.”

LEAVING THE NEST WITH GRACE or The way I did it, kicking and screaming at Kohl's

Thanksgiving 2019 should have been a lovely, fitting farewell to six decades of family life in a 1957 tri-level tract house on Buckingham Road. In some ways, it was lovely. The turkey dinner thoughtfully provided by Whole Foods was excellent and my mom, at age 99, was both appreciative and cooperative about downsizing decisions needed to allow her to fit into a one-bedroom apartment in a brand-new assisted living facility. There were just enough irritating issues - clogged toilet – leaf build up that prevented opening backdoor requiring Toby to become a mountain goat to get to the grass – insane thermostat that turned the downstairs into a sauna during the nightly marathon watching of Perry Mason re-runs – that should have made me eager to finish sorting, pack up and leave. But that’s not what happened. Instead, I spent most of each night lying in the bed I’d once occupied at my grandmother’s house, staring at the herald trumpet saved from a Junior Theater play some fifty years earlier and remembering. We left our cozy bungalow on Yost Boulevard (I know, an amazing coincidence) and moved into the construction in Ann Arbor Woods in 1959. I left all my friends and classmates in my fifth grade class to switch to Pattengill Elementary in the spring which meant that the first order of business was to find new friends. Accordingly, I hopped on my bike at every opportunity and cruised the neighborhood. I was lucky enough to find what I was looking for: Libby Tupper on Medford Court, Nancy Piepenbrink on Manchester. Kathy and Kay Bradley, on Nottingham, Susan Woods and Charlotte Maxwell directly across the street from each other on Essex. A couple of years later, my best friend from the first grade, Sally Strack, moved into a house on Essex and my joy was complete. My other early memories involve building forts. I created a crater in the top of a mound of construction dirt across the street that was like an eagle’s nest. My friends and I would meet there. My sanctum sanctorum at home was not my large, light-filled bedroom but the attic hideaway (plywood planks on the garage rafters accessible by two-by-four steps. I’d take a flashlight, molasses cookies and a Nancy Drew book up there to read. I loved watching my dad from my bedroom window shoveling snow under the street light on our corner. I loved the scent of grass when he cut the lawn in the summer. I loved watching him “spank” the tomato plants out of their containers to put them in the ground under my window. I loved the tetherball court he set up for me and my friend Anne Johnson. I loved the scent of my mom’s elegant perfume in my parents’s bedroom. And I loved the nearsighted family members had of removing our glasses and gazing at the glowing colors on the Christmas tree. When all the houses were built and filled with families, my folks and the others initiated picnics, softball games in the court, spoon-and-egg races, fireworks watching on the fourth of July and all sorts of get-togethers. It was a wonderful neighborhood to grow up in and, though I can no longer name all (or any) of the families on the street, the memories of the Dickinsons, Olsens, Mirageas, Margesons, and Kolbs, remain. Although I did few chores around the house, I nearly always had a job. My dad was a major networker and year after year he’d find me in the lounge chair in the backyard on the first day of summer to announce that he’d gotten me a job as a babysitter, a camp (Michigania) counselor, a salesgirl (John Leidy’s), a printer’s apprentice (Miracol), or a librarian at the Ypsilanti Press. In retrospect, I am grateful. I left the house for the last time last Saturday, going through the side door to the car parked in the driveway where, for years, I bounced a tennis ball against the garage door (breaking more windows that I can count.) I noted my mom’s ancient tobaggon still in the rafters and, for the last time, I touched the signature left on the wall by the brother who died in 1986: David E. For some reason, leaving the house I ceased to live in in 1972 was harder than the one in which Pete and I raised our children in Northern Virginia. Not that I am leaving Ann Arbor, my spiritual home. I will continue to come see my mom, but it will be different. I will be a visitor. Oh, for those of you who managed to muddle through my maudlin memories thinking they would be funny, the Kohl’s story is this: I’d ordered huge pallets of moving boxes from Amazon only to discover they weren’t needed, but to get a refund I had to haul them through Kohl’s to the Amazon return line. It was not a pretty sight and, in the midst of it, I got a call from my mother reminding me to stop at the Produce Station to pick up cole slaw (informational point – cole slaw is seasonal) and then another from my well-meaning brother to shop the Black Friday sale at Best Buy for a new TV for my mom. “And she says don’t forget the new set has to get the Perry Mason channel.” .

FEEL THE BERNIE

I’ve always liked Senator Sanders because he’s a passionate curmudgeon. But I fell in love after reading of his interview with the editors of Cosmo. My favorite exchange was this one. “Cosmo: What’s your skincare routine? Bernie: Not much. Cosmo: Do you moisturize? Bernie: I put on something. I got something, the doctor gave me something years ago, I put it on. I’m not quite sure…” That’s when I knew that Bernie and I were siblings on the skin. I can’t tell you how many home skincare parties I’ve attended (to help out friends trying to start a home business or, in some cases, under coercion.) I used to always come home with a pink bag full of boxes and wands and jars and lipsticks in appealing sounding colors like Peach Parfait (who could resist that?), and peppermint ice cream and coral glaze (doughnuts) – do you see a pattern here? Anyway, the societal push for skincare is intense. Not just moisturizer but products for cleansing, pore opening, overnight repair creams, hydrating lampoules, illuminating face oils, cleansers, face masks, eye masks, toners, active serums, eyecreams, sunscreens, collagen extract, etc. Purify, detox, balance that blasted ph. The list goes on. My favorite question at these home parties (aside from the request for you to schedule the same sort of event in your own home with the same set of friends) is the same as Bernie’s: What is your skincare routine? I never answered “not much.” There was a time that I confessed the truth and replied, “uh, soap. Diale soap. In the shower.” The response I got was not as forgiving as the one Bernie received from Cosmo, but then he’s a true star. I haven’t been invited to a skincare party in years but the miracle-slash-curse of internet shopping has seduced me into buying dozens of containers and tubes of various miracle products promising to make the wrinkles disappear and bring the roses back to your cheeks. I’ve ordered them, paid for ‘em and have set them up in a tray in my bathroom. But I still don’t use them. All except Peach Parfait. Seriously. It tastes like peaches.

MIXED NUTS or Random thoughts about my new life as a Buckeye

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR Whenever we had grilled cheese and milk (when I was a child) I pretended to be Heidi, living in the Alps with her grandfather and her two goats, and staring up at the stars at night from a bed next to the window. I am still eating grilled cheese and drinking milk and I still think about Heidi. My bed is next to a window (it’s a pretty small room) and I live on an Alp. People say “you’re so lucky to have that great view and still be able to walk into town.” I guess they’re right. I think we’ve made the .3 mile trek twice on foot but we can see the library from our living room and almost hear the falls. BE CAREFUL OF WHAT YOU FEAR I spent thirty six years in the same house in Virginia and, outside of my family, my dearest wish was to keep my friends and neighbors close. I died a thousand deaths every time someone important to me announced she was going to move. I mean, really. I just closed up and lurched into denial. Last week I met one of my new neighbors, a lovely woman named Colleen. She welcomed me, offered any help needed and added with a smile, “you know, Pam, who lived in your house? She was my best friend.” The next time I met her, Colleen invited me to come drink wine on her front porch. OUTLAWS CAN BE THE BEST Our move took us to within a few miles of the other set of grandparents which made me wonder if we would wind up in cage matches to get time with the tiny granddaughters. It hasn’t happened. Apparently there are enough hours in the day (and week) for all of us. In addition, those outlaws have ushered us closely and carefully and supportively through some major events, i.e. installing a wireless carrier, installing a television and chauffeuring us to the rather intimidating Cleveland Clinic. They are also our friends. NOTABLE CONVERSATIONS My favorite conversation since we’ve arrived was with Abby. At her five-year-old check up, the new doctor told her to eat more green. She told me this with a speculative look in her eye. “Nannie, is ice cream green?” “Sometimes,” I said, cautiously, wondering where this was going. “There’s mint chocolate chip. That can be green. And lime sherbet.” “What’s lime sherbet?” I explained as best I could. “What about marshmallow cakes?” I have, for some unknown reason, started to use up the marshmallows I brought from Virginia by adding a Skittle on top and calling it a cake. Abby is very fond of the concoction. “Not green,” I said, regret in my voice. “White. Oh, but there’s another one. Pistachio. Can you say pistachio?” “Fistachio.” Pause. “What is that?” “It’s green ice cream that has nuts in it. Pistachio nuts.” “Oh.” Another pause. “Nannie? Have I ever ate-en it?” “Probably not.” “I know,” she said, jumping off the couch. “You can make me a marshmallow cake with a green Skittle!” “Sure,” I said. “That’ll make the doctor happy.” UNPACKING PROGRESS REPORT: Large basement still filled with unpacked boxes. Large garage filled with unpacked flatpacks from IKEA. Two week countdown until new baby.