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So this is me…after a trip to Mr. Joseph’s. There are no before images because I destroyed them. Kidding. Let’s just say the day-to-day look of this writer is not documented.
Except in laughs between my parents and me.
Because on most days, I’m in my pajamas at 4 p.m. Haven’t brushed my hair. And am likely sporting a scarf because when my neck gets cold it crinks up.
Leopard print slippers complete the ensemble.
But every 8 weeks, I go to Mr. Joseph’s in Southington.
And slips into stylist Pamela’s chair for some much needed fixing.
I get my hair highlighted and lowlighted and trimmed and styled. I swear she sprays pixie dust on me because I always leave feeling and looking better.
The wild and untamed Einstein eyebrows are trimmed and waxed. The village of chin hairs is removed.
And I feel like a pretty person again.
‘Course I’ll be working into the wee hours to catch up on all the stuff I didn’t do during my three hours of getting prettied up.
But I think it was worth it.
Do you notice how much better you feel after a trip to the salon? Do they have magic brushes? It is the luxury of letting someone else take care of you? Or the joy of spending time on yourself?
Jenna Bennett’s blog post on her life in books made me want to join in. It’s fun to answer these questions based on titles you read in 2012 and try not to repeat any titles.
Describe yourself: Fortune’s Hero (Jenna Bennett)
How do you feel: Between Shades of Gray (Ruta Sepetys)
Describe where you currently live: The Fault in Our Stars (John Green)
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: The Future of Us (Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler)
Your favorite form of transportation: If Fried Chicken Could Fly (Paige Shelton)
Your best friend is: Second Sight (Cheryl Klein)
You and your friends are: Immortal Beloved (Cate Tiernan)
What’s the weather like: The Book of Lies (Brad Meltzer)
You fear: Market or Die (Jennifer Fusco)
What is the best advice you have to give: Live to Tell (Lisa Gardner)
Thought for the day: Deadline (Chris Crutcher)
How I would like to die: Nightshade (Andrea Cremer)
My soul’s present condition: Timeless (Gail Carriger)
Lots of amazing books didn’t make it on here because the titles didn’t quite work as responses. Made me realize how many books I got to in 2012 and how many more I want to read in 2013. 
If you decide to play the My Life in Books game, let me know. Or if you have one perfect title for a question, please post it below, I’d love to read it!
1. Keep Calm but assume the worst (that power is off indefinitely)
2. Don’t believe the estimated fix time on the website. It will only upset you more when it’s pushed back repeatedly.
3. Even if it’s still light out and the house is warm, your battle against the cold starts now. Begin lighting candles to produce heat and maintain house’s warmth. More comfortable for you, safer for your pipes.
4. Make sure candles have nothing that the flame can catch nearby–give them lots of free space around flame width and height.
5. One flame produces a small amount of heat; a dozen is like a mini-fire. Safest way to do this? Get a glass bowl and fill it half-way with water, then light 10-12 tea light candles and let them float in the water. Serious heat safely delivered. I had 4 set up to keep downstairs warm late into the night.
6. Use computer, iPad, and Iphone sparingly. Once the battery is dead, it’s dead.
7. Accept that your plans for the day are derailed.
8. Realize that time moves so much slower without technology. Read. Do exercises for spine. Realize only an hour has passed. Read some more.
9. Make sure to check the candles often. At least every 20-30 minutes. Only keep candles burning on the floor of the house you are on.
10. To keep light and heat in the bathroom and kitchen safely, burn a votive candle in a holder inside the sink. No way that flame is going anywhere.
11. Don’t open the fridge or the freezer. Even to get your frozen bread–because the toaster doesn’t work. Food should stay for 24 hours if you avoid the fridge.
12. Pray the power comes on in 24 hours so you don’t burn through all your candles and lose hundreds of dollars in food.
13. Be grateful for electricity.
14. When the power comes on after midnight, cheer and then clean up all the candles.
Journey back with me to Christmas Day. A day of Grandma H moments…
Grandma H and I sit side by side eating ham at dinner. It was a buffet-style dinner so everyone had to grab their own utensils.
She has a fork. I have a fork and knife and spoon.
Not for long…
She says, “Give me that knife.”
I say, “I need it.”
She says, “So do I.”
I hand her mine and ask my cousin, “Can you grab me a knife?” I’m seated against the wall trapped beside Grandma H and she doesn’t move when she’s eating.
I get my knife and commence slicing my ham. Grandma H looks over at me. “I’ll take that spoon too.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
I have nothing on my plate that requires a spoon. Plus it’s Grandma H so I hand it over.
We eat for a bit in silence. Then I look over. She’s slicing her ham with the knife but holding it in place with the spoon.
I ask, “Why are you using the spoon like that?”
“Because it’s easier to scoop up the juice.” She sounds mildly annoyed by my ignorance.
“But to hold the meat in place when cutting?” I ask.
“It’s how I like to do it.”
******
Later we are sitting in the living room. Grandma H decides to start a conversation by asking, “So Steve, do you have water in your basement?”
It’s the weirdest conversation starter ever. I giggle.
Steve however goes with whatever topic is thrown at him and launches into a story about his basement flooding in the past but no longer.
*******
Later, we sit around talking about an old family friend. Someone calls her to touch base. The phone gets passed around.
Unbeknownst to Grandma H, the call is ended.
The family then chats about the old family friend.
Grandma H looks to be stewing.
As the conversation gets louder, she shhhs everyone and says, “She’s still on the phone.”
My aunt says, “No she isn’t.”
Grandma H points to my cousin and insists, “He’s holding the phone talking to her.”
My cousin unfurls his hand which was beside his temple. “No, I was just resting my head on my hand.”
“Why would you do that?” Grandma H asks in a huff.
Everyone bursts out laughing.
I get in the car with Grandma H and pull out my lip balm. (It’s in a tube)
Grandma H asks, “Is that lipstick?”
“No,” I say, “It’s lip balm.”
“You could put on a little lipstick.”
“I don’t like lipstick. It dries my lips out.”
“But you’d be so pretty with a little lipstick,” she insists.
“I’m good with chapstick.”
“But you could put on lipstick.”
“I could also have sex with ten men,” I say.
She giggles. “Well, sex with ten men sounds better than lipstick.”
I burst out laughing.
*******
We are shopping in the mall at Sears in CT. She is drawn to a boucle tan sweater jacket.
“Oh, this is nice,” she says.
I check the price tag. “It’s 120.”
“Dollars?!”
“No pesos,” I say.
She bursts out laughing.
*****
We are in IHOP talking about my eating low carb again.
She says, “You look good, stick to it.”
“I plan to.”
“Maybe you can get a boyfriend?” she asks.
“Yeah, once I lose the weight. I’m just not comfy getting naked in this body.”
With extreme vehemence, she says, “Oh no.” And shakes her head.
“It’s not that bad,” I say.
She realizes how disgusted she sounded and starts to laugh. That silent shoulder shaking, going to pee myself kind of laugh.
I can’t help joining in.
******
I stop by Grandma H’s house and she’s sitting at the table drinking orange-red colored stuff.
I ask, “Is that tomato juice or sauce?” (This is a valid question with Grandma H)
“It’s something eight,” she says.
“Something eight?” I ask.
My mom jumps in. “V-8.”
“Ah,” I say.
******
We are at IHOP and I tell her how people keep asking me where my cousin has been. It’s annoying.
Grandma H says, “Tell them he has toemain poisoning.”
“Toe what?”
“Toemain poisoning. It’s a real thing. Google it,” she tells me.
I look it up. It’s spelled ptomaine poisoning and you get it from canned foods.
So I ask, “Where did you learn about that?”
She shrugs. “TV.”
I’ve been going through a rough patch with my writing. I really started to feel like all these agent rejections left me facing a dead-end road. So I’ve been down the past few weeks. Grandma H picked me up for our outing two weeks ago and my mom cautioned her to be careful because I’ve been feeling low.
So Grandma H tries to be upbeat about my writing and be supportive. She talks about how much I’ve accomplished.
I start to laugh and say, “You know every time I’m optimistic about my writing, you piss all over it.”
She replies, “I don’t mean to. Do I really do that?”
I say, “Yeah, you piss on it.”
She confides, “I really don’t mean to piss on it. That’s terrible that I piss on it. I won’t piss on it.”
After she works piss into three sentences in a row, I can’t help laughing.
******
Grandma H goes to the doctor for a rash on her face. He gives her some cream and tells her it’s rosacea. He warns that stress will make it worse.
Grandma H comes home and announces, “I have wastoria.” She then taps her nose to show us where it is.
“You have what?”
“Wastoria. It’s this red rash on my nose and cheeks.”
I ask, “You mean rosacea?”
“What?”
“Rosacea.”
“Yes, rastoria.”
When my uncle comes in the room she says, “Don’t stress me out or my rastoria will get worse.” She taps her nose again.
I’m at Ihop with Grandma H and she says, “You should go to a drive by.”
I ask, “You mean a drive through?”
“What’s the difference?”
“One I get shot at, the other I order my food to go.”
She giggles. “The other one then.”
******
We are sitting in Ihop and I start to take off my long sleeve shirt because it’s warm and I’m wearing a tank top underneath.
Grandma H exclaims, “Are you going to strip?”
“Just to my tank top today.”
*****
When we are seated at Ihop, an older couple is seated behind Grandma H. We all get our menus at about the same time. Grandma H and my food arrives. We are half-way done eating, when the waitress appears at the table behind us and they start asking lots of questions about the menu.
Grandma H asks, “They didn’t order yet?”
“Nope.”
She whispers, “Are they old?” (Note: Grandma H is in her early 80s.)
“Yeah, they gotta be pushing 90.”
“They don’t have time for this,” she says.
I snort.
“They’ll be here all night,” she says.
I mention, “It always surprises me how much slower people get when they are toward the end of their lives. You think with that limited time, they’d do things faster.”
She cackles, “I know.”
A while later, the waitresses come to sing “Happy Birthday” to the little girls at the other end of our row of booths.
Grandma H says, “I hope that’s not for the old couple, they’ll be dead by the time the singers get down here.”
******
We are walking through the mall and a man is covered from scalp to toe in soot or grease walks toward us. Grandma H uses her outdoor voice and demands, “Where did he come from?”
I remind her, “That was really loud. Try to use your indoor voice or keep those kind of thoughts in your head.”
“Alright, but WHERE DID HE COME FROM? You saw him. Covered in dirt. Walking around. He must have escaped from prison.”
“Or he was working underground or as a mechanic.”
“He was filthy.”
“Maybe he needed to run an errand on his lunch break.”
“He shouldn’t come out in public like that.”
There is one word.
One word I utter one time.
No matter where in the house Emerson is, he comes running.
It’s his magic word. The thing he drops everything for. The thing he loves most in the world.
Strawberry.
I’m not sure how it became the ultimate for him. It just is.
Blueberry might get him to come on the fifth call.
But strawberry is like a beacon in the night summoning Bat-Dog.
Which made me wonder, what is my magic word? Coconut? Publishing-deal?
And what is yours?
- Free congratulatory lunches with my closest friends!!! Thanks Ant and Lin for celebrating my successes with me. It’s amazing to have had decades of our life journey together.
- The awesome reviews by fellow bloggers, family, personal friends, writing buddies, and unknown but always appreciated reviewers. You guys took the time to read my stuff and share your thoughts. That is so precious to me. As a writer, your support and feedback is invaluable. Thank you!
- People now believe I am a writer. Despite the 5 years of writing, placing in an international contest gives me “Writing” creds. What’s always been a serious venture to me is suddenly serious to others too.
- I’ve made my parents proud. They took me to dinner to celebrate. But more importantly they’ve been supporting my writing for years and now they get to share in this “win” with me. Every round that I advanced we screamed and danced together. Except Dad, er, he doesn’t dance.
- I’ve gotten a couple requests from agents on the novel.
- It’s a definite confidence booster to have several individuals judge my work and move it forward in the contest.
Emerson, my shih-tzu lhasa apso dog, is probably the most vocal dog I’ve ever known. At night, he prefers cuddle time with grammie on the couch while we watch tv. If I try to pick him up, the video above shows what happens. He has this dove-like growl and sometimes I’d swear he’s saying Noooooo.
It completely cracks me up, so I tried, and I emphasize tried, to video him on my cell. This is beyond amateur work. But I thought it was cute enough to share.
Happy Friday!
