A GREAT DAY IN GAGA LAND

On the emotional scale, I definitely lean toward the more rather than less end. It doesn't take much to bring tears to my eyes. I even cry at those Folger's coffee commercials on TV that they show every Christmas. Anything emotional with kids or animals has me teary-eyed. A friend gave me the book “Chicken Soup for the Grandma's Soul” but I have only read a small part of it since I end up in tears every time I pick it up. :-) 

A column in our newspaper this morning started off with this line: “Life has its ups and downs, but it's important to remember – and appreciate – moments of intense happiness.” Ain't that the truth? Last week I had one of those days (not just a moment!) of intense happiness.

This past Tuesday I was able to spend several hours doing two of my most favorite things – visiting & playing with my granddaughter in the morning AND talking with my son on the phone for two hours that night during his long drive home from the airport. Yep, it was a great day in Gaga Land. The “good emotions” of the day had me welling up with tears a few times.

I take every opportunity to visit my sweet little Charley Ellen. We had our usually fun time of dancing, playing, reading, etc. When it was time for me to leave, I kissed Charley & said, “Good-bye.” She said, “Bye, Gaga.” I replied, “I love you. Can you say ‘I love you’?” She smiled at me & quietly said, “I love you.” Talk about melting my heart! Hearing her say those three little words was incredible! I couldn't stop grinning until I was halfway home.

Charley’s daddy, (my son, Darrin) had been in Germany on business for 9 days. He was flying into San Francisco arriving at 7:40 PM on Tuesday evening. He had emailed me from the airport in Hamburg, Germany, that morning. I replied telling him to call me on his trip home & we could chat for a bit. They live about 140 miles from SFO so he was looking at a 2-1/2 hour drive home. After a long transcontinental flight, I knew a little distraction would be welcome.

Darrin & I are great friends. We are never at a loss for something to talk about. Since he was a teen-ager we've had a tradition of sharing 2-3 hour fast food lunches (usually at Taco Bell or McDonalds) where we converse nonstop. One of the greatest joys of my life is having such a wonderful relationship with my son. Now that he is a husband & parent our lunches aren't as frequent but we still make time to get together every few months, just the two of us.

About an hour after his plane landed, I received a text saying he was in the shuttle to pick up his car after retrieving his luggage & clearing customs. About 9:15 PM my cell phone rang. It was Darrin!

He was excited & eager to tell me all about his trip. Even though he’d been traveling for close to 24 hours with airport wait times & connections, he sounded awake & alert for his long drive home. I listened to every detail of his trip which included a couple extra days to sightsee & explore Hamburg on his own. As long as he wanted to talk I was more than willing to listen. He told me he was armed with a Monster energy drink & a Snickers bar if he started getting sleepy.

BUT we talked for TWO HOURS so neither was needed! I could feel my own exhilaration knowing my son still enjoys my company & knowing that I helped end his long trip on a high note as he talked a mile a minute. Sure there were a couple of dropped calls & several times when the reception cut in & out but we just called back & kept on talking.

I know from my drives to their house that just past Auburn, the cell phone service goes away. When he told me at 11:20 PM that he saw the Auburn, 2 miles, sign I knew we only had a few minutes left. But by then he was less than 10 minutes from home. For the second time that day, I sat there for a long time with a smile on my face after we signed off.

Any day that I can begin with a visit to my adorable granddaughter who tells me she loves me for the first time & ends with a two hour conversation with my wonderful son on a long drive late at night (who also tells me he loves me) is a great day in Gaga Land for sure!

That newspaper column ended with this statement: “Every now and then, we should all try to give in to our moments of pure love and happiness.” This is me, again – I most definitely second that emotion! That's exactly what I did & it doesn't get any better than this!

SMART PHONES, DUMB PEOPLE & COMPUTERS

I am doing my best to sort of stay in this century technologically. It seems that those of us who still actually sit at a desktop computer to answer our emails are fast becoming dinosaurs. Now days you must have a smart phone or a tablet to answer email, use apps, check Facebook & surf the web. Although my guess is that it is no longer cool to say “surf the web”.

How is it that my granddaughter, Charley, seemed to be born knowing how to work a smart phone? At one year old, she instinctively knew how to swipe her finger across the touch screen to change it. She holds the phone with both hands & “texts” gibberish with her thumbs - & she is not even two yet! At a baseball game on TV, a father caught a foul ball for his small child. The boy took out a smart phone & started texting. The announcer said, “He's texting Mom. He's six years old & can work a smart phone better than me.”

Several months ago I decided to take the leap & bought a smart phone. After a long lunch with my son, Darrin, who taught me the basics of using “apps”, & downloading a 200 page user manual, I was ready to learn. I wasn't going to let this 63 year old brain get the better of me. But what the hell? Two hundred pages to work a phone? Come on.

Now about six months later, I really do see the benefits of this device. I can check & send email almost anywhere, see who's posting what on Facebook, & I even know how to work the GPS. I can just speak my destination & it finds it – how cool is that? If Lou says, “I wonder if Ronnie Lott is in the Football Hall of Fame?”, I can pull out my phone & tell him “yes” in a matter of minutes. I am able to text at maybe ¼ the speed of the average teenager BUT I rarely use abbreviations or shortcuts or eliminate vowels, just an old lady thing I guess.

About the only thing these phones don't do really well is make a telephone call. I've had more dropped calls & poor sound quality with this one than I ever did with my old flip phone.

Since I have learned to work my cheapy Android phone to my satisfaction (even though I probably use 1/100^th of its capabilities), I started thinking about upgrading to a newer computer operating system. I've been using Windows XP for a zillion years & really would love to keep it since it's familiar & does everything that I need it to do. But Bill Gates & company, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that we all have to move on. I recently discovered that XP will no longer be supported by Microsoft in a few months. Sigh...

My reasoning for upgrading was similar to getting the smart phone – if I don't learn it now, I may never learn it. And I don't want to end up like my dad who at 84 years old can barely work a cordless touch tone phone with a built in phonebook.

I can maneuver my way around a computer pretty well but apparently I got a little cocky when I ordered a new mini laptop with Windows 8. Yikes! Windows 8 is nothing like my tried & trusted Windows XP. Windows 8 is “app based” but I was determined to learn it & not drive my son crazy in the process. I found tutorials online, joined a forum to ask questions & downloaded another 200 page user manual. Isn't there anything technology-wise that can be explained in 50 pages or less???

Every day for about a week, I put my new hot pink netbook (that's what they call a mini laptop these days) on a TV tray beside my desktop. That way I could read things online or in the manual then turn my chair 90 degrees & try them on my laptop. My brain could only handle about an hour before it turned to mush but I was learning a fair amount. Unfortunately, I also learned that very little between Windows 8 & Windows XP is compatible.

The main reason I bought the laptop was to have something really lightweight (less than 3 pounds) so I could write when we travel & be able to swap photos & documents between my two computers. It sounded like an easy enough plan in my head but apparently it isn't. I'm currently in the regrouping mode while I figure out how to proceed. Damn you, Microsoft, don't make it so hard for us old people!

OLD LADY SKIN

DISCLAIMER: For all you guys out there, this contains some rather explicit descriptions of aging female body parts - so read on at your own risk! 

What is the deal? You wake up one morning & you suddenly have “old lady” skin. If you are over 60 you know exactly what I mean, you rotate your arm a bit & there they are – tons of little tiny wrinkles. What used to be a smooth attractive arm (just wait, Michele Obama) now resembles something that looks like uncooked chicken skin. And it seems to come on quickly, almost appearing overnight.

If you twist your arm just so, hold it really still & tilt your head at a certain angle you can still create the appearance of almost smooth skin. But, alas, you can't walk around looking like a robot with your arms stiffly stuck out from your sides & your neck craned sideways.

It took me several tries to make sure the old lady skin didn't show too badly on my arms & neck in the photo to the right.  One more thought – don't ever, ever look down into a mirror, you will see your grandmother's neck & chin staring back at you. It will scare the crap out of you!

And, oh Lord, the boobs! Even just 10 years ago I had perky, little boobs that we referred to as a nice handful. When I was much younger we had the “pencil test” to determine if you needed to wear a bra. If you placed a pencil cross-wise below your breast & it stayed put, you needed a bra. If it fell to the floor, you were good to go braless.

To my delight for most of my life, the pencil clattered to the floor. But I tried it last week just for the hell of it & the damn thing was really lodged under there. It took a lot of jumping & bouncing to knock it loose. Geez!

When I play with my almost two year old granddaughter, Charley, we sing a song about a dog with droopy ears. It’s a catchy tune & some of you may remember it.

Do your ears hang low?

Do they wobble to and fro?

Etc., etc., etc.

Well, every time I hear it, I want to substitute “boobs” for “ears”:

Do your boobs hang low?

Do they wobble to and fro?

Can you tie ‘em in a knot?

Can you tie ‘em in a bow?

Do your boobs hang low?

Unfortunately, now that there is a little more to my boobs & they can actually be pushed together to create cleavage, (something new to me!), all those little chicken skin wrinkles show up in force on my chest. 

But, you know the best part? I wouldn't change this wonderful time in my life with my granddaughter & her parents & my partner & my family & friends & traveling for all the smooth skin & perky boobs in the world! I've earned every single one of these wrinkles!

ADVENTURES IN PASTA

Throughout much of my life, cooking has never been one of my strong points. Actually, that is probably an understatement. For much of my adult life, I pretty much hated cooking & wasn't too good at it. In my younger days I could have eaten out everyday! In fact, I negotiated with my ex-husband, who enjoyed cooking, that I would do all the cleaning, laundry & most of the yard work if he would cook dinner every night.

These past 15 years or so, I've changed (for whatever reason) to where I don't mind cooking at all. I certainly can't say that I love it, but most days it is somewhat enjoyable. I begin by always cooking with wine – and by that I mean, I pour myself a glass of wine before I start! If I could only see my sports on TV from our kitchen, while preparing dinner, maybe I would learn to love it.

I'm far from a gourmet cook, but Lou is so easy to please that at times he makes me feel like one. Honestly, I could feed that man most anything & he would never complain. A couple times my experiments have caused me to take a bite & say, “Yuck! That's awful,” but Lou would simply say, “It's okay, it's not that bad”. I've discovered that when you cook for someone who genuinely appreciates your effort, it no longer seems like such a chore.

So, last night I'm making dinner – whole grain pasta roni to which I was adding chicken & crumbled bacon. Yes, I do still cut corners using boxes & cans but I add my own touches. Hey, if it requires heat, it's cooking in my book. Anyway, the chicken was cooking on the stove, the bacon was in the microwave & the water was just about to boil. The opened box of pasta was sitting on the counter. I turned around quickly, hit the box & knocked it onto the floor. It didn't just spill, pasta shells went everywhere! They literally flew all over the kitchen floor!

I stood there with my mouth open for a few seconds, uttered a few choice swear words, then made a quick decision. They were going to be boiled for 14 minutes – I was sure that would kill any germs. Plus I would rinse them off in the colander first so I decided to pick them up & use them since I didn't have any more. I know, I know, I shouldn't be telling you this – you'll never come to dinner at my house if you're invited.

Lou comes in a minute later & says, “What was that noise?” I'm sitting on the floor amidst hundreds of pasta shells carefully picking them up & replied, “That was me knocking the box of pasta on the floor. But I made an executive decision. Since they'll be rinsed & boiled, I'm picking them up & we're going to eat them.” To his credit, he squatted down, started picking up shells, kissed me & said, “Well, I just vacuumed in here yesterday so there shouldn't be much cat hair.” I do love that man!

Dinner tasted fine & neither of us got sick so I'm guessing my theory that 14 minutes of boiling neutralized any germs was correct. Instead of the 3 second rule, it was more like the 5 minute rule. :-) Cooking is always an adventure! How about you, any similar stories?