Holy Crap, We Are Old Now

Scene opens on the living room. Rick is in his chair, researching something with his laptop. Nance sits on the couch with her laptop open, reading the newspaper online. Behind her are perched the two cats, mildly interested in what lies outside the window. Maybe.

Rick: So if we have Amazon Prime, we have Amazon Music, right?

Nance: Yes. Which reminds me, earlier this week, when I was coming home from the store, I had the radio on, and--

Rick: (whole face brightens; looks doubly interested) I can't believe I just heard that.

Nance: I know, right? *I* was listening to the radio. Did you know you can change stations right on the steering wheel? I just discovered that. There's a little button right on board, and--

Rick: Haven't you been reading the book? I thought you said you would read the book.

Nance: I have been, but it's terrible. It's all over the place.

Rick: And it's vague.

Nance: Yes. It's vague. Anyway, I had the radio on, and Lose Yourself by Eminem came on, so I cranked it up.

Rick: (grinning and wholly amused) I cannot believe what I'm hearing right now. Go on.

Nance: What? That I like that song or that I cranked it up?

Rick: All of it. Go ahead.

Nance: By the way, you can crank it up using the same button that changes the stations. So, I'm blasting Eminem and doing some car dancing and it's really alleviating my stress from shopping, and then it's over. The next song is some boring song by Diplo and somebody.

Rick: Who? Who is that? I never heard of him.

Nance: Not important. Anyway, I don't feel like listening to that, so I switch stations and try to find something else. I find something briefly, then I decide to go back to the original station, figuring Diplo is about done. Next thing I know, here comes Eminem with Lose Yourself again!

Rick: What the heck?

Nance: I know! So I crank it back up and car dance like crazy. All I can think is that a lot of these stations are automated now. They don't even have DJs anymore, just preprogrammed lists and ads and it's all autopilot. It's probably a glitch in the program. So as I'm sitting at the light acting like some hyped-up senior from 2002 on the last day of school--in my Prius--I'm laughing and wondering if the next song is going to be Diplo again.

Rick: And?

Nance: I was already pulling into the driveway, but I actually sat in the garage and waited to see if Diplo was next. It wasn't. They must have fixed that glitch. But now that I'm thinking of it, I want that song on my phone. The Eminem one. I'm going to download it now. (looks at Rick, who is shaking his head and laughing) What?

Rick: Just...everything. All of it.

Nance:  I know. It's a lot.

End scene.

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The Dept. of Nance Is Ten!

The Dept of Nance is ten!

You know, I almost missed it. Ten years ago this month, I started writing here, and I'm still at it. Along the way, lots of things happened: I outlasted a president (twice!), a major hurricane, plenty of blizzards, and The Recession. I saw the election and re-election of the first Hawaiian President of the United States who also happens to be black. We've had three popes and three new Supreme Court Justices. Gay people can finally get married. Lebron James came back to Cleveland. Arthur Miller and JD Salinger died. Nutella finally got real and stopped advertising itself as part of a nutritious breakfast.

To celebrate the Dept.'s Tenth Anniversary, I've decided to do Ten Posts Of Top Ten Lists. Assisting me will be Jared, who not only gave me this idea, but who has also co-written some list posts with me before.

Today's Top Ten List will be just mine. But before I begin, let me thank all of you, Dearest Readers. In the early years, I was writing, it seemed, just for me. Then, suddenly, there You were. And I cannot tell you how Very Much Better it has been ever since.

Shall we on, then? Here is the list of

10 Things That Happened To Me In The Last 10 Years

1. Retirement
2. Text Messaging
3. Driving
4. The Radio
5. Cats
6. Frozen Shoulders
7. Leggings
8. Shrinkage
9. The Menopause
10. Fantasy Sports

These are, of course, in no particular order, and this is not a comprehensive list. A few do require brief explanation. A few do not, but I'll probably talk about them anyway.

1. Retirement continues to be blissful and wonderful, and it's a damn shame that I couldn't have started it much sooner. I cannot begin to tell you how gorgeous it is to be able to slide into my day in my jammies with a cup of coffee rather than jitter into it full bore with high heels and a broken copier and a screaming hallway full of recalcitrant tardies.

2. Oh, yes; absolutely I am The Person who said that I would never, ever tap away on a teensy keyboard to anyone, ever, and I do it regularly now, even to my 85-year old mother who has an iPad and sends me text messages right back. Please feel free to scream I TOLD YOU SO! with a big, smug smirky face. It's perfectly justified.

3. Previous to my retirement, I drove almost nowhere. I drove the Capital Beltway alone in dense fog earlier this summer. I used to be a fearful driver. Yesterday, I passed a dump truck. And a Mustang. At the same time. Laughing at them...because I drive a Prius.

4. When I was teaching, I could not stand to listen to the radio in my car. Maybe, maybe NPR for five minutes. But never music. It was too much for me. Now, I listen to music all the time. My current favourite: Shut Up and Dance by Walk The Moon.

5. In the past ten years I have sadly said goodbye to two cats, TravisCat and EmilyCat. I was blissfully hair-free for a few years, but lonesome for a pet. Enter Piper and Marlowe, whose hair is everywhere. I am on a Three Lint Roller Program: one in the car, one in the bedroom, one in the bathroom (where the light is merciless).

6. I had two bouts of adhesive capsulitis, one of which was misdiagnosed as a torn rotator cuff and for which I was operated on, unnecessarily as it turned out. What a horrid, horrid time this was, for everyone.

7. Yep! You get to feel superior again. I think I banished leggings in a post once; now, they're my fall and winter uniform. Do I make absolutely certain to wear something that tastefully and discreetly covers my derriere, like a tunic or long sweater or duster? Of course! Is said long overshirt loose and not clingy? Obviously. And I wear boots. That outfit is so much warmer than jeans or regular pants and shoes. Bash away at my Hypocrisy. I deserve your scorn.

8. In the course of the past ten years, I shrank from a size 10 down to a size 0. Part of it was from Topamax for migraines, part of it was illness. I settled in at a size 2 for a good long while until...

9. The Menopause. Basically, this is the stage in a woman's life when her body turns against her and gives her The Finger. Everything went to hell. My migraines went crazy. My weight went up. My skin and hair got dry and my nails got peely. Is it worth it to stop having to buy Tampax? Now that things have rebalanced...YES.

10. What in the hell am I, a retired English teacher, whose other interests are decidedly not sporty, and who has never played a sport in her entire life, doing with a Fantasy Basketball Team? For four years running? It's so, so silly. But I love it.

There's lots more, but that's pretty good right there.  Again, thank you so much for Being There.  Perhaps in Comments, you can tell me How Long You've Been There, and then you can tell us all what you've been up to in the past 10 Years.

Oh, and do have some cake!

littlecowcreativecakes.co.uk

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Oddments And Doodads And Road, Oh My!

In lieu of a lobotomy, let's see if an offload of brain litter might help me get rid of some of the Distraction and Scatter that I feel in my head lately. Honestly, I can't even read a book anymore, and it is with Great Sadness and Terrible Alarm that I confide that to you. Naturally, I'm going to pin all of it on that handy Scapegoat, The Menopause, even though technically, I'm probably done with it. But humour me and let's Go With It, shall we?

Oh, thank you.

~*~THERE'S A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE. Rick and I were on the way to our Dinner Date (!), and my omnipresent GPS suddenly displayed, ever so helpfully, this:

O-Kay,  I am grateful, however, that this selfsame GPS never had a bout of The Menopause like this as it navigated me past Washington, D.C. (ugh, the Capital Beltway!) or through The Traveler's Oasis (how I hate the Breezewood exchange on the PA Turnpike!). Or any other routes I have driven, so I will forgive it this minor Episode.  (For the record, Road had a name, and we were, in fact actually ON it, not askew between the river and ... whatever.)  Yikes.

~*~HOW SOON WE FORGET. So, I chopped all of my hair off in a fit of boredom and faux bravado. Oh, yes I did--all of it. I have one of those spiky pixy dos and I am now thoroughly disenchanted with it, but oh well. It's not that I dislike it, exactly, but it's a case of "Okay, I did that, so...can it be over now?" Why I didn't read all of my old posts from the last time I cut off my hair, I really don't know. What I should have done is asked my mother, who came right out and told me just a few months ago, when I cut my hair like this

that she didn't like it. I think her exact words were, "Nance! You cut your hair! Why? I guess I just liked it better the other way." For the record, this time, with the pixy, she keeps staring at it and saying, "It's very attractive." I think word got back to her about the last time.
(P.S. Mariska is still on My List.)

~*~WHAT'S IN A NAME? Oh, everything when it comes to my Fantasy Basketball Team. Previously, it has been named the West Egg Gatsbys and then, after a tragically mediocre draft, I renamed it the Puppycats. This year, I'm in mourning after losing Paul George of the Indiana Pacers to a horrific injury (Seriously, don't even watch it when you Google it unless you have a very strong stomach.) during the summer league. I'm trying to decide whether to go back to the original name, keep Puppycats, or get a new name. Last year, I named one of Sam's fantasy football teams The Fluffy Bunnies. He went on to be the most fearsome, most dominant team in the league and won the championship. Imagine the men sitting at home, setting their lineups and saying, "Damn, the Fluffy Bunnies are kicking ass, and I have to play them this week" or "You got the Fluffy Bunnies this week, Craig? Good Luck!" or "I hate those effing Fluffy Bunnies!"

~*~HEY, GREAT JOB! My Maryland buddy Leanne, fabric hoarder and quilter extraordinaire, recently received this confirmation of her shipment of fabric from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. I don't sew at all, but I might drop them a line just to express my admiration for their Wonderfulness. Or to ask for a job. Here, read:

Thanks for your order at the Missouri Star Quilt Company!

We just want to let you know that your quilting supplies have been meticulously gathered, placed on a red velvet pillow, and delicately escorted by 25 of our finest employees to our shipping department. Our master shipper has dutifully performed his craft, lovingly packing your order in the finest materials known to man.

Our team gathered to give your package the proper send-off it deserved. Tears of joy were shed, speeches were given, and there was even a farewell cake. Following the festivities, the whole group, led by our local high school marching band playing the song Leaving on a Jet Plane, ushered your order through downtown Hamilton, Missouri. No, we don't own a Jet Plane, but your package was placed in the care of a roguishly handsome man who is riding in a majestic horse-drawn carriage which is on its way to your home as you read this.

Although the products you've ordered will be sorely missed here at MSQC, we are overjoyed that they have found a good home. Take care of them, treasure them, and when you make something beautiful with them, make sure you share it with us on facebook, twitter, or just send us an email; we love to see what you make!

*Note: the above is a slight dramatization of what actually happened with your order, but seriously, we did ship it, and here is the tracking info:

Holy crap. I want so much to meet that person, that one employee who is making his/her job so much more awesome than it has to be. That person right there is A Difference Maker.

~*~FOLLOW THAT CAR. I'm not a bumper sticker person; I wouldn't put one on my car unless it was an election year and I wanted to make a very specific statement politically. I do enjoy, however, other people's statements on the back of their cars, and I'm entertained by so many of them. Today I was actually moved by one that I saw. I had been listening to NPR's guest, who was giving a very dismal assessment of things in the Middle East, and suddenly, this car pulled ahead of me in the next lane.

I wanted very, very much to believe it, but at the very least, it reminded me that while there are chaos and ugliness in the world, and violence and brutality, so, too are there paintings and literature, sculpture and architecture, poetry and music.  I took a deep breath and changed the station to something lighter and poppier, feeling a twinge of gratitude for the woman in the black Honda Accord.  (Coincidentally, 90.3 is NEO's NPR affiliate station.)  She was, for me, A Difference Maker.

Brainwash

Mariska
thanks to Leanne for the shipment email

A Box Of Books, A Case Of Wine, NPR, And Thou

Not sure if you got the memo or not, but

I'm Retired.

For real now, as of about 9:45 on July 22nd.  I completed my remaining 14 days of service that were required to Top Off My Tank and put me at a Full Thirty Years, and now I'm Officially Done.

It's...anticlimactic, thus far, really.  I'm on Summer Vacation, but it's starting to sink in, thanks to all the Back To School commercials and displays everywhere.  I'm still scatterbrained and fragmented, but I'm trying to pull it together so that Rick doesn't stick me in a Home.  To that end, I thought I'd dump a little of all my Cranium Crud on you.  Lucky, lucky.

~*~ For the 14 aforementioned days, which I referred to as My Fake Job, I unpacked 72 cartons of a Scholastic Guided Reading Program for an elementary school.  I diligently unpacked 60 books and 2-4 plastic tubs per carton, put a sticker on each book and 4 stickers on each tub.  Then I repacked each carton carefully so the books would not incur any folding or bending, then stacked the cartons back up.  I was in the room alone each day.  The best part was the book titles.  The ones for the littlest kids were so unintentionally funny.  One of my faves:  Chickens Aren't the Only Ones.  Some seemed sort of ominous, like I Know Karate and What Is It?  And lots of them had exclamation points, like Look! and We Like to Play!  I got extremely confused when I unpacked the Nonfiction Focus carton and found a Harry Potter book and an Ursula K. LeGuin book about flying cats. Hey, not my problem.  Retired!

~*~Rick bought me a GPS for a retirement present, and although it is not yet in my car, I am spending more time driving.  I am also trying to listen to the radio more, now that there is more quiet in my life.  True, I listen to NPR instead of music, but I'm starting slowly.  Which brings me to my next topic:  Oh, NPR, when I try to imagine for whom you are designing your programming, I become disoriented. Sitting in horrific traffic last week, cursing and making terribly dire assertions about the character of people I didn't even know, I suddenly became aware that the person on NPR was carrying on at length about the predation of bush pigs and how it was affected by the full moon. That is almost a quote, by the way.  Come on, NPR!  That is as bad as the last program that made me break up with you, which was the endless segment on Norwegian Folk Metal Music.

~*~Male readers--and former students who are easily embarrassed-- may want to skip this part.  It would seem, and I am typing one-handed whilst the other hand is rapping on the end-table--that my body has seen fit to shut down all of its Monthly Bullshit.  Finally.  Because let me tell you--and my children will attest to this--it has been no lawn party for anyone.  Alrighty then.  (It figures, I had just gotten the Massive Multipack that takes up the entire undersink cabinet, Boy Scout that I am.  Like undies, not the sort of thing you sell at a garage sale....)

~*~ We got some gorgeous wines on our jaunt to NotL, about 5 cases.  We were focused on reds, having drunk reds all during the fall and winter.  (We'll drink up all or most of our whites and roses this summer and restock those in October.)  I behaved myself and stuck to my vow to only taste reds, but Rick was all in--he tasted everything.  We found a really fun fruit wine this time, a plum wine at Caroline Cellars.  It's not real sweet, but very light and frisky, almost as if it were carbonated, but it's not.  With a good chill on it, it's the perfect summer patio drink. It would be lovely with spicy Asian food or tequila lime chicken wings.  Our uberscore was a case of '07 Merlot from one of our favorite Bench wineries, Vineland.  This wine was a special deal, and we couldn't resist.  Unlike Miles from Sideways, we do enjoy a Merlot, and this one is drinking so well right now.  Very nicely fruit forward with lots of dark cherry, cocoa, and a little mocha in the finish with smooth tannins.  We won't make this one wait.  And there are more, so many more!  And new wineries, too.

When people find out I am retired, the first thing they say is, "Congratulations!"  The next thing they say is, "What will you do now?"  Everyone expects more from me.  I don't know what to say.  Maybe I'll just make things up, like, "I'm going to medical school" or "I'm taking a wing-walking class" or "I'm selling Amway."  That last one would shut them the hell up.

Not sure if they got the memo or not.  I'm retired.

The Day The Music Died

These days, everyone's got an Ipod and everyone's listening to them practically 24 hours a day. Many of my students arrive to my class "plugged in," and the first thing they have to do is yank the buds out of their ears and wind up the wires and stash all the equipment. (I have a "no electronic or digital equipment of any kind" rule in room 245, period. Even their calculators can record, store text, and serve as Cheating Devices. It's incredible. But I digress.)

I have an Ipod. I got it by default. My husband had it sent to him free as a promotional gift because he is a Cleveland Cavaliers season ticket holder. It's one of those Ipod Shuffles. I was the only one at the Dept. who didn't have an MP3 player, so I ended up with it. Rick loaded it up with a bunch of MP3's that were on our computers, leftovers from the Napster Frenzy of CD Burning, and I was presented with my Very Own Customized Collection of Music.

Which I almost never listen to.

I also rarely listen to the radio or CD player in my car, put on the stereo or radio in my house when alone, or listen to any music when I'm taking one of my 45-minute baths. Right now, I'm typing this post alone in my home office, and the only sound is the forced-air furnace and the tapping of my keyboard. I could put on a CD, bring up Pandora in a separate browser window, or turn on a radio. I could even stick the earbuds of my Ipod into my ear and listen to my favorite songs. But I won't.

It's odd, isn't it, this lack of music in my life? Sometimes I think about it and try to trace back to where it began. It's relatively recent, I think. I don't know when music stopped being pleasant and soothing and started to simply add to the cacophany of my life--serving as yet one more thing I had to think about.

Radio is the worst. Too many commercials and interruptions. And, no, I'm not going to start paying for radio. It's bad enough I have to pay for television. I'm not in my car long enough to really listen to radio much anyway. But if I actually would hear a song, it would be at the end or in the middle. Or, if I heard a song that I didn't feel like hearing, then I had to flip stations endlessly. It's too annoying. So, I gave up on radio, except for NPR, but when I found myself listening to someone droning on and on about--and I'm not kidding here--Norwegian Folk Metal Music--I realized that I was turning into something that wasn't fit for society. I leave the radio off.

And I don't even keep CDs in my car. Again, it's just become noise to me. A CD by one artist invariably contains one or two that I don't like. And then, I have to skip. Or, I get bored. Or I find myself trying to figure out irksome lyrics. Pretty soon, I'm driving and trying to get a handle on the music stuff.

I'd rather have the quiet. I'm a public school teacher in a building of over 2000 teenagers. My whole day is full of talk and chatter and humanity. But no music. I still wonder at my new aversion to music.

When I was younger, my taste in music was largely informed by my older sister, Patti. She was a child of the sixties and a Beatlemaniac. In addition to the Fab Five, she turned me on to artists like Three Dog Night, Carly Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, Yes, Electric Light Orchestra, and The Moody Blues. I'm forever grateful for that.

Later, I listened to Seals and Crofts, Cat Stevens, and anything Elton John put out. I went through a brief KISS period (didn't everyone, now really!) and bought KISS Alive! on vinyl and wanted "to rock and roll all night and party every day." But I got over that and moved on to disco like everyone else and stopped following actual artists and sold out and just went to clubs and danced to horrid music that had an incredible backbeat.

But then came the Eighties, and that's the music that I really still love. Or loved? Or choose to listen to when I think of music. My Ipod has Duran Duran on it. And "Voices Carry" by Aimee Mann, then with Til Tuesday, and Flock of Seagulls and Thompson Twins and Bowie and Dire Straits and Fleetwood Mac (so 80s--they ruled the 80s) and Frankie Goes to Hollywood and George Michael (before all of that) and Rod Stewart and Talking Heads (come on, "Once in a Lifetime!?" listen to it!) and Wang Chung and The Cars.

Now? Hell, there's like, no one now. Music, quite frankly, stinks now. I hate most of it. Rap? Please. That's not music. It's nagging. If I want to hear someone yammer at me, I'll call my mother up and finally tell her some of the stuff I used to do in college. Awhile back, I liked Train. But their latest song is crappy. I liked Anna Nalick. But she only put out one album; I played it to death and her career is, apparently, dead. Not too long ago, Gina put up a video of a good song by a band, Aqualung. I liked it, so I had Rick download, er, get me some more songs by them. But I've only listened to them a couple of times and I don't like all of them. That's how it is with me and music. I get disappointed and I give up.

But, my point--and I believe I did have one and I am getting back to it--is this: at some point, the music left my life. I find it disconcerting and aggravating to listen to any kind of music. I am bewildered by the number of my peers for whom music is still a large part of their lives. I wonder if silence is anathema to them, or if they do balance the music with quiet. I realize I am in the minority; it is I who is the oddity.

And it wasn't always this way.