Don't Ask!

By Roberta Durra

There is no stopping these people. They are brutal and relentless. I dread the encounter. Yet, every day without fail…it happens. I eye the clock knowing full well that the later it gets, the sooner it will occur. I avoid making eye contact. I immerse myself in projects of which I have no interest. I call friends I haven’t spoken to in years, just hoping to avoid the inevitable. But avoidance is futile. No matter what I am doing or where I might be, somehow they manage to seek me out. Whether huddled in my studio, or miles away hiding out in a remote bookstore, come 5:30 p.m. they are magnetically drawn to me. Exhibiting not an ounce of shame, they track me down daily, blatantly accosting me with the abhorrent…“WHAT’S FOR DINNER?”

Geez!! What’s for dinner??? Honestly, I have NO idea. What do YOU think we’re having? Or better yet, what have YOU shopped for and prepared? Do I sound bitter? I’m really not. I’m just tired.

Truthfully, “What’s for dinner?” is a fine question. And if I had pots of aromatic curries and rice simmering away at 5:30 p.m., I would answer with a “Mother Knows Best” smile, a flip of my hair and a quick curtsy. But most often, at the time when I should be making dinner, I haven’t yet shopped for food, or even figured out what we’re having. The problem is that I find the whole dinner routine annoying. I don’t care how much someone likes to cook, and I am a someone who does, but seriously… EVERYDAY? Come on, people. It’s a pain. I try to be creative with it. I make fancy meals to please my eaters; I’ve gone the other way with simple dishes and silly monikers; “Taco Tuesday”, “Meatloaf Monday”, “Weiner schnitzel Wednesday”. None of this helps. The routine is a killer, and I’m no fan of routine. As a matter of fact, I make up different ways to brush my teeth each morning.

And then there’s a daily scene that adds insult to my culinary injury. I can be making filet mignon with béarnaise sauce; lobster tails with garlic butter, double baked mashed potatoes and grilled corn-on-the-cob. Inevitably, the teenager I live with walks through the kitchen, takes a quick peek and says, “Is this what we’re having?” It’s a loaded question and one that no matter how he says it, I hear…”Is THIS what we’re having?” How does a person answer this question without being arrested for teen-slaughter? He swears he has no “attitude”. He’s just asking. Ok then, Mr. Teen, this begs a question in return, and I will ask it with the same “non attitude” that you employ… “For what other use than OUR DINNER do you suppose I am making this food?”

I don’t mean to harp on “Is this what we’re having”, yet it bothers me enough that I have broken it down to better understand the question. I realize now that individually the words do not offend. I have no problem with “is”. “This” and “what” are both fine. “We’re having” I can live with. But put them together and have them come from the mouth of a lad who sings the praises of Taco Bell’s, Gordita Nacho Cheese Supreme, and it’s like having a convention of teenagers simultaneously scratch their nails down a chalkboard.

People in Spain have the dinner dilemma all figured out. They eat their main meal at lunchtime and later in the evening slap down a loaf of bread with wine and cheese, add some olives and call it supper. And after lunch people take a siesta! I would love a nap after dinner at lunchtime.

I’m sure that if I could serve my family dinner at noon, all my problems would be solved. At midday, I’m always in a patient and loving mood. In fact I’m a 12-1:30 p.m. kind of person! I like to cook when I’m fresh and I know for a fact, that if at noon a certain someone would ask me (without any attitude, of course), “Is this what we’re having?” I would laugh and say, “Si Senior! Usted debe ser un hombre muy sabio para hacer una pregunta tan sabia. Elogio a su madre”  (“Yes Sir! You must be a very wise man to ask such a wise question. I commend your mama”). 

The Ride of My Life - part 2

by David Goldman

We were panicked. The Kanc was two days away and we were going to be riding a never-ending climb with bikes geared to ride over flat land. We lived in Illinois and bikes purchased there came with gears meant for little or no climbing. Here’s a bike lesson 101: Low gears allow easier pedaling but give you less distance per pedal stroke. High gears mean greater tension but also greater distance per pedal revolution. Illinois has the terrain of a sheet of paper so our bikes came without the low gears we would need in two days. There was always the option of riding up the mountain in the SAG (support & gear) car, but we didn’t fly all the way out here with our bikes to take a car ride up the hard parts. We wanted to experience the whole thing. We asked the mechanic what we could do. He said the next day’s ride ended in North Conway, NH. and there was probably a bike shop in town. Maybe they’d have the proper gear sets. We had hope. All we had to do was make it to North Conway.

The next day we started out bright and early once again. It was a beautiful ride that day. North Conway is located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Each road is more scenic than the last. Too bad we didn’t see any of it. It seemed like the entire day was spent riding uphill. We couldn’t look at the scenery because we were looking at the road either below us or in front of us and willing ourselves on. We’d switch from sitting on the saddle and pedaling, to standing and pedaling. We’d try to avoid looking at our speedometers which would say we were moving at 2.8 miles per hour, drop down to 1.6 mph, and then rocket up to 4.0 mph. We were constantly riding in our lowest gear and it was nowhere near low enough. I tried to tell myself to look around at how beautiful everything was, but it was pointless. All I could concentrate on was pedaling up the road one pedal stroke at a time.

That day we learned the meaning of a false flat – a road that appears flat but is in fact sloping ever upward. Then there was the woman who, each time we got to the base of a climb would shout out, “lift!” to let us all know we would be climbing again. Chris and I argued over who would have the honor of killing her that night. 

Finally we arrived in North Conway. We were staying in a hotel that night and as soon as we got to the room, I got out the phone book and found the bike shop. I called and told them what we needed based on the specifications the mechanic gave us. Luck was on our side. They had two in stock. The bike shop was a few miles into town and I told Chris I’d ride there, get them, and bring them back. Then we gave our bikes and our new low gear sets to the mechanic so he’d have us ready for the next morning, a day that would begin with The Kanc.

I was never a breakfast person and I don’t usually eat until lunch. I learned quickly though on this trip that I had to eat breakfast. You really do equate food with fuel on a ride like this. No food means no fuel and a miserable ride. Chris and I decided we wanted to get an early start that day. On this tour all the riders had their own set of directions and were encouraged to do each day’s ride at their own pace. By now everyone on the ride referred to us as the Flatlanders. It was our name. Being the Flatlanders, we decided to get an extra early start on the day. We got up, ate and left the hotel. We saw the other people in our group just coming down to eat when we left. 

It was an easy ride to the start of The Kanc, about five miles of mostly forested road. We arrived at the covered bridge which signified the beginning of The Kanc.

We rode through the covered bridge and looked down at the Swift River below us. When we emerged, we started our ascent. At first it seemed reasonable. After all, we now had the proper gear sets so we should have a good chance of making it.

Within about three miles we were both in our lowest gear and struggling. Even though we had ridden about 10 miles, it really wasn’t much of a warm up. Plus, it was still very early and quite chilly. Chris said he brought a tube of Ben-Gay. He thought we could put it on our legs to warm them up. I was willing to try anything, so we pulled over and rubbed Ben-Gay into our already weary legs. We got back on our saddles and started riding again. “I really think this is helping,” I told Chris. Within half a mile we decided we needed more Ben Gay.

We went on like that until the tube was empty. Then, we were on our own with no chemical aids and no convenient excuses to get off our bikes.

In the past three days of riding up various hill and mountain roads we always knew that the climb would break or even go slightly downhill to give us a momentary reprieve. So you could set a goal – there was almost always an end or at least a momentary end in sight. Just make it up to the top of this climb and you can coast or pedal easily for a while. It doesn’t work that way with The Kanc. Once you start going up there are no respites in sight. All you can see is the road ahead of you angling ever upward. It goes up and up and up until it reaches a bend. You go around that bend and you see more of the same. Steady climbing. No flats, no downhills. Just up. It tires you both physically and mentally. You look at your odometer and are shocked to see that all that pedaling netted you four tenths of a mile. You try not to remind yourself that this climb is 34.5 miles longs. The more you try to stifle that thought, the more prevalent it becomes.

We struggled on. We’d encourage each other with, “you’re doing good” in order to fool ourselves into thinking we were. We started setting goals for ourselves. “Okay, see that sign way up there? Let’s make it to there and we’ll stop for a break.” We continued like that and we kept making the landmarks closer and closer. It finally got to the point where we’d go from telephone pole to telephone pole and have to take a break. “Who thought this would be fun?” we asked ourselves. “It’s supposed to be a vacation. This is the hardest I’ve worked at anything in years!” We talked, coaxed, and insulted ourselves slowly up the mountain. There were times when our bikes were moving at 1 mile per hour. A brisk walk is about 3 miles an hour. We considered walking our bikes up. We thought it would be faster. But we decided against it. We came here to ride and we were determined to ride all the way up The Kanc.

After countless hours, we came around a bend and we saw it. The scenic overlook at the top, which signaled we had finally made it, and not a moment too soon.

We pulled into the picnic area there and saw quite a few people from our group. “About time you made it!” was what we were greeted with. Yeah, about time we made it. But here’s the thing, not one of these people passed us on our way up. We were positive of this because we talked about it often. In fact, nobody passed us. All these other New Englanders who had dubbed us Flatlanders had taken a ride up in the SAG car.!! And we’re supposed to be the Flatlanders? This gave the two of us a lot of confidence. We were definitely the most inexperienced climbers in this tour and if we could make it up The Kanc, we could handle anything.

My blood sugars had been crazy that day -- constantly up and down. But I had made it up this damned mountain. 

Too bad we didn’t know the worst was yet to come.

End part two

My Sister's Glasses

By Roberta Durra

A few days ago I threw out a pair of silver framed reading glasses. They were smudged and bent out of shape and too strong for my eyes. They weren’t my glasses anyway. They belonged to my sister, Lois, who died of breast cancer 3 years ago. I have struggled with having these glasses. And now I know that I don’t need them any longer.

Lois was fourteen years older than me. I idolized my sister when I was growing up. I don’t have many memories of actually living with her because she went away to college when I was only 4. But I remember knowing that she was the best big sister. Why? Because she was kind, beautiful, wore cool white bobbysocks and she shared her hairdryer with the big cap.

When I was 7 years old, I was a flower girl at Lois and Stan’s wedding. My nose was red in all of the photos because I cried throughout the wedding. The kind of sobbing that comes from deep in your chest, makes you hiccup, unable to talk, and embarrassed because lots of people are watching. After the ceremony my brand new brother-in-law, Stan, bent down on his knee and tried to console me.

            “Bobbi”, he said. “You are not losing your sister. You are gaining ME as a brother”.

That’s when I really became hysterical. I didn’t want a new brother. I wanted my sister back!

When I was 9, my sister became pregnant with her first child.  Again, I cried.  I worried that Lois wouldn’t love me as much once her baby was born. She sat with me on my bed, in my pink childhood bedroom and promised that her love for me would not change once her baby was born. She told me that she had enough love for both of us. Lois was a woman of her word. She remained my wonderful big sister, making lots of time for me throughout my childhood, always making me feel important. She taught me how to bake bread, let me babysit, and continued to stay involved in my life through my less than pleasant teen years, my self-induced young adult dramas, my various careers, the joyful birth of my child and every other life scenario as it played out.

Lois raised her family in the suburbs of Chicago and stayed in Illinois throughout her life. On the other hand, at twenty-five, I moved to New York and later to California. From that point on, our relationship was one of long distance phone calls and visits that were always too short. We led very different lives, and on paper had little in common.  And yet, we chose to be each other’s unwavering supporter and closest friend.

Although Lois had been living with breast cancer for a year, she became extremely ill very suddenly and died within a two-week period. Her children and I were at my sister’s bedside when she passed. This was the greatest honor my sister could have given me. The weeks spent with her in hospice were filled with love, grief, humor, disbelief and some unsettling scenes pertaining to the end of life that sometimes still haunt me late at night. My sister lived her life in a very full way. She died with tan lines on her feet from the sandals she’d worn during a recent trip to Argentina.

I spoke at my sister’s funeral and stayed in Chicago for a few days. Then I went back to my own life in Los Angeles. When my sister’s belongings were divvied up amongst her children and other family members, I was not there. I ended up being given things that I had once given Lois… a beautiful glass pitcher she had displayed in her living room, a large shell she gave me from her honeymoon (and then took back 20 years later), a scrapbook I made of a recent trip we had taken together and a small clay bowl with the letters L O I S on the front. I made that clay bowl for Lois when I was a kid at camp. I remember working hard shaping the letters. The glaze was a beautiful pearl blue, and I was very proud to give it to her. She kept it all these years. Most recently it was on her kitchen counter filled with paperclips, pens, and a pair of silver reading glasses. When I first received the bowl back, that’s exactly what was in it. It felt like sacred offerings, and I put it in full view on my dresser where I could see it every morning. It stayed there for most of a year.

Then there was a time when some of the scenes from her last days began haunting me again, and I had trouble looking at the bowl. I moved it behind my tall jewelry stand for about 6 months.

This year, I put the bowl back in its rightful place on my dresser, and threw out the paperclips, rubber bands and other miscellaneous items. That’s when I began carrying Lois’s silver framed reading glasses with me. They were just cheap, drugstore glasses. They hurt my eyes. When I tried wearing them they gave me a headache. But they were hers, so I carried them in my purse.

I miss my sister. I still want to call her when something wonderful happens, and want to talk to her when times are rough. I haven’t had many dreams about her, and I feel somewhat disappointed. Her husband died 2 years before she did, and she told me that she often witnessed signs of his presence. A necklace that was very meaningful to both of them once mysteriously appeared in the corner of her living room. She had no recollection of how it might have gotten there. She was certain it was Stan. One time, when I was completely immersed in washing dishes, I had a very strong sense of my sister. It came in a clear wave of emotion, really out of nowhere. It felt loving and pure. I think she breezed in for a quick hello.

I see Lois in my aging body. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflection and I look like her. Sometimes I can see my sister’s hands when I look at my own. I hear her voice in mine when I answer the phone. I never saw these things when she was alive because she held the space that was “Lois”. Now with her gone, I find her energy elsewhere. I look for her likeness in her children, grandchildren, and in myself. Sometimes it catches me off-guard and I feel shaken. Sometimes it feels like a warm hug. But as for the glasses, still smudged by Lois’s wear and tear, they don’t feel like a part of my sister any more. They feel like bent reading glasses that take up too much room in my purse and give me a headache when I wear them.

Where Lois lives is within me.  

The Ride of My Life - part 1

by David Goldman

“You guys must be the flatlanders.”

Those words were the preface to what turned out to be one of the most difficult and one of the most rewarding days of my diabetic life.

My friend Chris and I looked at each other and silently agreed. We were somewhere in New Hampshire after completing the second day of a one week, nearly 600 mile cycling trip through New England. We had become known as the flatlanders.

It had been my idea to go on this journey. I had started doing what I guess you would call, serious bike riding the year before when I won a cheap bike at our work picnic and, started riding it. The year was 1992 and the cycling really brought me back to my youth when our bikes were our primary means of transportation as well as a source of entertainment. That bike fell apart within a few weeks of riding and I went to the local bike shop and bought a good mountain bike.

There are lots of trails through the woods near my home, so that was primarily where I rode. And, as the bike mechanic had said, it was flat land. Illinois is flat, flat, and more flat. But I did a lot of riding that summer and continued it late into the winter until it got too cold. Riding in a Chicago winter with toes that turn numb within 20 minutes is just not practical. As soon as the weather broke 30° the following spring I was back on my bike and riding again. By then, my friend Chris had started riding with me.

We rode a lot that year. I’d ride before work and we’d do a long ride every Sunday morning. We knew we weren’t very good riders but we were improving. We eventually entered a century or 100-mile ride. Chris rode on his road bike, but I was still riding my mountain bike. Let me tell you, riding 100 road miles on a mountain bike is not a day in the park. The bike is heavier, the tires wider, and the positioning is different, all of which makes distance riding on a mountain bike more difficult than on a road bike. But we grew steadily stronger, and our riding skills improved.

 In January of ‘94 I was reading a cycling magazine, and an ad caught my eye. It was small, but I noticed it because of what it said: Cycle New England for the ADA. The ADA is the American Diabetes Foundation. I called and they said it was a one-week ride starting in Massachusetts and going through New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and ending up back in Massachusetts just outside of Boston. The total mileage varied from year to year, but it was always between 500-600 miles. It was a fundraiser for the ADA of New England and each rider was required to raise a certain amount for the charity. As soon as I hung up I knew I wanted to do it, especially since I was a diabetic. The problem was, I didn’t have a road bike and I wasn’t going to attempt that kind of ride on a mountain bike.

A good road bike isn’t cheap, so I had to agree to several cutbacks in my life in order to persuade my wife to let me buy the bike. The one I really remember was giving up my grande, extra-shot latte every morning. That was a tough one! But with her blessing on both buying a new bike and the trip, I headed back to the bike shop and purchased my road bike.

In the meantime, I had mentioned the trip to Chris. He was immediately interested because he loved riding and his younger sister was a diabetic. He already had a road bike and almost immediately said he wanted to do it . So, we were set. We signed up and began training because we were told there was a lot of climbing almost every day of the ride.

I started riding longer distances every morning before work. I’d ride anywhere from 25 – 60 miles every morning and 60-100 every Sunday. My only day off was Monday. I could feel myself getting in better shape for the ride. At this point I was eight years post kidney transplant but I still had the diabetes to contend with. If anything though, the riding helped. It kept my blood sugars lower, although I was still almost always on a roller coaster ride of high and low sugars. But I felt good. Even after the 100-mile rides I felt relatively strong. Come July, I was going to be ready.

Chris and I flew out to Boston separately as he had friends there he was going to visit before the ride. The ride was starting from a motel parking lot in a Boston suburb on a Saturday morning. I arrived Friday and spent Friday night reassembling my bike in the hotel room. Saturday morning I woke and was rarin’ to go. Chris showed up Saturday morning with his head almost completely shaved – a much different look for him. I think he thought he’d be more aerodynamic. As I was staring at him he said the barber told him, “You have a head like a doorknob.” We never figured out what that meant, or if it was good or bad.

The first day was an “easy” ride. It was going to be about 90 miles of “gentle” terrain. We thought we were riding through the Alps. It didn’t take long to realize that no matter how much you ride on flat roads, it cannot prepare you for hills and mountains. It was a beautiful ride. We went through rural Massachusetts, through Walden Pond, and into a small college town. We arrived at the dorm where we would be spending the night, showered, and went to dinner in the town. Our dinner for the whole group (about 30 people) was being hosted at a local restaurant. We all went in ravenous and literally ate everything they had. We left when the restaurant was out of food. We went back to the dorm, and even though it was about 90° in the room, we slept like rocks.

The next morning we woke up early, ready for another day of cycling. We were both sore in places we had never been sore before. Riding your bike up hills uses muscles that we didn’t know we had and certainly had never used before. Plus, there was more climbing this day.

Lots of it.

Everyone else on the tour was from New England, and they were used to cycling these roads. We started hearing a lot of, “Wait till you get to The Kanc” and, “This is nothing compared to The Kanc.” The Kanc is short for The Kancamagus Highway, a scenic mountain road in New Hampshire. As we rode that second day we learned more and more about it. It’s approximately 34.5 miles of steady climbing with the gradient varying between 3°-7.5°. These angles don’t seem very daunting, but when you’re trying to ride a bike up them, they’re monumental.

We finished the second day’s ride and turned our bikes over to the mechanic who came with the tour. That was a great benefit. You could have a trained mechanic work on your bike for anything from general maintenance to a serious problem, and it was all part of the cost. Chris and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to just have him clean and lube things as needed. So, we left our bikes with him and went into the dorm where we were staying that night. We showered, ate dinner, and when we came out, our bikes were waiting for us. We were ecstatic because they looked like they were brand new. We started talking to the mechanic, and that’s when he said it. “You guys must be the flatlanders.” We said we were but we asked how he knew. He said, “Only strong riders or flatlanders who don’t know what they’re doing would attempt The Kanc riding with these!”

We definitely were the latter.

End of part one

I Can't WAIT!

By Roberta Durra            

           “Impatience”, I shall call it by its proper name, has dogged me since childhood and til’ this day continues to be my steady sidekick.  It sabotages many a meal in my kitchen, and wreaks havoc on all kinds of projects. Patience, on the other hand, is very much like my middle name…the name I never use, forget I have, but is there if needed for legal reasons.

            If you think I’m kidding about being impatient…allow me to enlighten you.

I flip to the end of a mystery novel to read the last page before I’m even through chapter 1. 

            I have washed so many wool sweaters in the washing machine, rather than taking time to hand wash, that my niece has an entire shrunken winter wardrobe for her Barbie doll.

            To best illustrate my lack of patience, you can ask my old college boyfriend. He most reluctantly agreed to part with his favorite jean jacket so I could embroider the classic Grateful Dead skull and roses logo on it. I easily drew out the design but then found the tediousness of hand embroidery grueling and annoying. Months later (tail between my legs) I returned his special jacket with a beautifully embroidered letter G, partially embroidered letter R, and only half of an embroidered rose.  

            My impatience has dealt some mean blows, particularly in the kitchen. The meals I prepare range from Food Network perfection to Horror Network nightmares. Take a bite, scream, and run for your life. That’s because I tend to choose difficult recipes, but then don’t follow the directions or measure the ingredients. Sure, a dab here, a dash there often works perfectly, but when it’s clearly not working, I become desperate. I have been known to impulsively dump a half bottle of red wine in the pot, and call it a day. This is right before I dump the whole shebang down the garbage disposal, leaving my kitchen with the sweet, inviting aroma of a home cooked meal, and my family with ‘In-And-Out Burgers’.

            I remember feeling impatient at 8 years of age while playing with a toy called Creepy Crawlers. It had molds of bug-like creatures, into which plastic goop was poured before being heated on an electric hot plate. The idea was to cook, cool, and then carefully remove your creepy crawly bugs with the provided tweezers. I was barely able to make myself wait 15 minutes to cook my crawlers, and completely incapable of waiting 10 minutes to cool them. The tweezers were awkward, so I got some pretty gnarly burns on my fingers pulling out freshly cooked crawlers. Is there a statute of limitations on bug burns, MATTEL?

            At the same time, my cousin had a really cool cotton candy machine. The trouble with that toy was you had to wait until the sugar was fully whipped by the machine and turned in to cotton. If you couldn’t wait for the machine to stop, like a “friend” of mine couldn’t, you’d get stung on your forearms with pellets of sugar. You can imagine that Band Aids on my fingers from Mattel, along with red rashes on my arms from sugar pellets, gave me a very attractive 3^rd grade look.

Funny…or is it, that even now, at this writing, my forearms are sporting 3 burns received during the preparation of 3 recent meals.

            If you’re not yet convinced I have a slight issue with patience, the list goes on…

When I do wear nail polish, it has tread marks on it from touching too early to see if it’s dry.

Put up wallpaper with me and after 45 minutes I will say, “You do it”, and let you finish the job alone.

            It’s not easy walking this impatient path. Why can’t I be more like Arnold Schwarzenegger?  He waited 13 years to tell Maria about his illegitimate child. He is nothing if not a patient man.

            The irony is I have never really considered myself impatient. But my inability to wait was brutally evidenced this Easter when I went to a friend’s egg decorating party. I brought lots of crafts to glue on to eggs. (FYI…a glue gun’s the fastest way to attach anything to anything). It’s just that while everyone was patiently dipping their eggs, letting the colors deeply sink in, I was towel drying my faintly colored eggs and plugging in the glue gun. Impatient or not, the eggs looked damn good!

            Looking back, the piece de resistance came when I was working wardrobe on a low budget movie. I was asked to be the “dead body” in a scene. All I needed to do was lay in a ditch while they filmed the actors talking in front of me. (Patience, by the way, is defined as “The capacity for waiting”). I couldn’t hear what was going on, and I was very curious, so I kept peeking out from the bunker while they were filming, infuriating the director. I’d peek. He’d yell. I’d lie still for a bit, then peek. He’d yell. Finally, I made myself stay still in the hole. This was not easy for me. And where did this great restraint leave me? When they finished the scene, they forgot to tell me, and left me in the ditch.

            At this point in my life, I can honesty say that I have the patience of a baby gnat, combined with the wisdom of a mother gnat who says “Slow down, baby gnat. You’ll do better if you take a little more time with things”. I know better than to rush, and yet…

I’m still the person who opens the oven door for a quick peek when I know perfectly well this will sink my soufflé.

           

Things I don’t need to read on Facebook

by David Goldman

Now that a few of you out there have told me you like what I’ve written, I’m about to piss you all off. I apologize in advance. I have to admit, Facebook intrigues me. I check it periodically and I enjoy hearing what’s going on in my friends’ lives. However, I just don’t get why some people post some things. That in mind, here are things I don’t need to read on Facebook:

I don’t need to know that you’re eating dinner at Arun. I like Arun and I’ve eaten at Arun. But there’s really no need to notify us as to where and what you’re eating. I take this all back if you intend to drop off a doggy bag at my house after dinner.

I don’t need to know that you love Jesus. It’s great that you do and I’m happy that you’re happy. But you’re not converting me by posting this and I don’t think Jesus reads Facebook. Although, he has nearly three-quarters of a million friends which is a helluva lot more than me.

I don’t need to see a video of Mountain playing Mississippi Queen from 1971. I liked Mountain in 1971 but seriously, it’s not that good a song.

I don’t need to know that you like a certain store. Unless of course you’re going to buy me something there.

I don’t need to know that you like Glenn Beck. Besides, you’re joking right?

I don’t need to know that you’re going to the Bulls’ game. I should be going to the Bulls’ game.

I don’t need to know that you bought a new tractor in Farmville. If you purchased a tractor in your real life I might be more interested, but don’t count on it.

I don’t need to know what God wants us to know today. If there’s something he wants me to know I trust he’ll tell me.

I don’t need to hear you apologize to your running shoes because you haven’t seen them in such a long time. If you don’t want to run, don’t run, but please spare me the cutesy conversation between you and your shoes explaining why you’re staying in and watching TV.

I don’t need to hear why people have the right to own automatic weapons. They don’t.

I don’t need to have links you like, posted on Facebook and emailed to me. One or the other okay? I am exempt from this rule.

I don’t need to have a virtual snowball fight with you, but thanks for asking!

I don’t need to be bombarded with pleas to rescue dogs and cats. I understand that there are thousands of dogs and cats that need to be rescued. I have a rescue as a pet. But posting your request on Facebook is not going to convince someone that they should run to the shelter and adopt this dog. If simply seeing a post like this convinces you to run to the pound and adopt, you should be told you cannot.

I don’t need to see pictures of your niece’s boyfriend’s new dirt bike. I’m sorry if this insults him or his dirt bike.

I don’t need to have you ask me to use a different one of your friend’s businesses every day. If I need a recommendation, I’ll ask you. 

I don’t need to be invited to join anything. Besides, I bet if I tried joining without an invitation they’d let me. I try to adhere to Groucho’s rule: I’d never join a club that would have me as a member.

By now you’re thinking to yourself, boy, is he grouchy! I’m really not. So what do I think Facebook is good for? It’s a great place to suggest that people read Stuff We've Written and invite them to follow us!

Cheers! And see you on Facebook!

Childhood Dreams & Hooters

By Roberta Durra

He was just 10 years old, but seemed older. He was average height and thin like a blade of grass. On the rare occasion when he wore tight blue jeans, his legs looked like pencils or the long hard candies covered halfway in chocolate, that my mother kept in her candy dish.

Ian started wearing glasses when he was 3. His preschool teacher said that his personality changed dramatically when he started wearing them. Looking through his lenses, I thought that he changed because suddenly he was able to define a roomful of people who must have looked like large clumps, pre-lenses. He chose Harry Potter frames and with his long brown hair he often had people calling him “Harry”. He never told them that he wore the round frames long before there was a Harry Potter. He liked the attention.

He played violin well and was an avid reader. He had eclectic taste and was happy reading history as well as Calvin and Hobbs. He was well liked by the children at school and by the teachers. He was smart and quirky, an old soul.

One day as I was driving Ian to school I commented how interesting it was that in the fifteen minute drive we had seen: spring flowers in bloom, a man being arrested and a movie crew setting up. Quite normal sightings in Southern California.

        

         He agreed and said,  “And Hooters!”

 

         “HOOTERS?” I said, horrified.

It was true. We had passed a Hooters Restaurant on the way to school.

         “What do you know about Hooters?” I asked, not really wanting an answer.

         “Only that I want to be the manager of Hooters when I grow up”, he replied offhandedly.

I had silently observed as one by one, my son’s ten-year-old buddies had picked out their adult professions. August wanted to be a professional soccer player, Keenan a basketball player, John an artist, Daniel wanted to be whatever August wanted to be, Luka a percussionist, Nick a teacher, and now my son, Ian, had voiced his own childhood dream…Manager of Hooters.

I’m prone to migraines and I felt the familiar thump-thump of my head beginning to throb. We said our morning goodbyes as I dropped Ian off in front of his private school – the school that insisted we cut out our children’s exposure to television and media and replace it with nature, wooden toys and pure imagination. The school that devoted entire periods of learning to handwork (finger knitting, crocheting, cross-stitching). 

 The school that taught Eurhythmy, a physical movement class where the children walked around wearing soft shoes, rhythmically singing and tossing batons in complicated patterns. Their learning was integrated in their bodies as well as their minds. 

They memorized their multiplication tables by tossing bean bags to one another and chanting the numbers aloud. They brought their lunches wrapped in cloth napkins and wicker baskets. They didn’t have gym class. They had games class where they played old-fashioned games of running and tagging and the baseball they played at recess was done with the end of a wooden rake. They were practically AMISH!

I was told that all this sheltering was a gift, an extension of childhood. My son was immersed in a world filled with knowledge and imagination. Alumni came back and spoke about the unusual schooling we were giving our children. They praised the school’s methods. They reassured parents and said that learning without classic textbooks was fine. The graduates were now doctors, lawyers, famous actors, and scientists. Not a Hooter’s manager in the bunch.

The children at this private school were nurtured and taught to listen to themselves and to each other. So when my son told me he wanted to manage Hooters, it was said with strength and conviction, coming from deep within his body. A strength that made me look in to the old soul of my child and say …That’s it. You’re going to public school!