stories

“This old thing?”

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‘How to respond to a compliment’

Perhaps you’ve noticed this: women are funny about compliments. Approach one with “Wow, what a pretty dress!” or “Gee, I love that coat” or — as I exclaimed at a recent party — “I seriously want to bonk you over the head and steal that bag!” and she is apt to reply with an abashed “This? I’ve had this for years.”

Or, if you live in New York, like I do, she may very well reply with “This? It was an absolute steal at a sample sale.” Or “My brother-in-law is a furrier.” Or, simply, “I got it at Loehmann’s.”

Yup. I got that dress at Loehman’s. Wore it to so many parties that, at one, a woman said, “Oh, we’ve met; I remember that dress“

Whether a dress, a coat, earrings (“They were my grandmother’s”) or even a haircut (“I know a guy in Chinatown”) — whatever draws your compliment, it seems to be a feminine gambit to deflect it.

Sporting the fur that a blog fan sent me (seriously!)

Guys don’t do this. Or at least not many of them do. At The Child’s wedding (which was amazing, and which you can read about here), when I complimented a man on his dinner jacket (It was also amazing; white silk), I got, “It was my father’s.”

Amazing white jacket at the amazing wedding

But that’s pretty rare. Usually you just get a “whah?” look, like they completely forgot what they have on. Which, if we’re talking about The Dude, is probably the case.

No one complimented Dude Man on his “raincoat.” Though it would have been fun to hear his reply

I won’t try to analyze or explain why it is that some women have such a hard time with compliments. I say “some women” because my mother has it down. You say, “Omigoodness, those earrings are gorgeous!” and she’ll smile and say, “thank you.” That’s it. “Thank you.”

Mom showing off the earrings Favorite Only Sister Laura brought her from Mexico

I wrote a piece called “How Much is Too Much to Pay for a Party Dress?” that proved pretty popular. (Thank you!) It was about my CPW Theory, “CPW” standing for “cost per wearing.” Basically, it means that you divide the cost of an item by how many times you wear it. That 20-buck purple H&M top costs a full $20 if you wear it once; whereas that Burberry coat I’ve worn hundreds of times? It’s practically free by now.

And the compliments I get? Priceless. In fact, another way to interpret “CPW” is “compliments per wearing.” Which, thanks to my mother, I’m learning to accept with a smile — and a modestly murmured “thank you.”

Or maybe not-so-murmured (!)

Amagansett, New York. May 2023

 

 

 

 

Happiness by the foot

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‘The surprise and delight of shoes’

I love shoes. There’s something about looking down and spotting a snappy pair that makes me smile.

Check out (hah) these leather Vans. (Smiley face goes here)

My Mom is the same way. I look forward to my Kid of the Month Club visits not just because I get to see my super-fun Mom, but also because I get to see her super-fun footwear.

Mom in one of her many pairs of cute shoes. Her even cuter accessory? Youngest Younger Brother Doug

What is it about shoes that so delights? Well, compared to clothes, which can mysteriously “shrink” — or even lengthen — in your closet, shoes that fit well when you buy them pretty much stay that way. (As for clothes that get longer, see ‘Skirting the Issue’ for a tale of trailing taffeta.)

Shoes also seem to be an immune to “mutton dressed as lamb” syndrome. (In case you’re not familiar with that particular phrase, it refers to an older woman wearing clothes designed for younger people. It’s not flattering — either the phrase or the wearing.) I’ve written a post about this called “Just Because It Fits Doesn’t Mean You Should Wear It.”  But with shoes, as long as you have good legs — and, even more important, good balance — even heels are okay when you’re, um (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) over 70.

As for the surprising aspect of shoes, it’s fun to top off (or underline?) a conservative outfit with a jolt of the unexpected. Just yesterday I attended a big fancy meeting wearing black and white — plus these babies:

If I followed the Yellow Brick Road in these, I wouldn’t be able to see my feet

A quick note about when and where to wear cool shoes. Don’t waste your time if you’re going out to dinner. You’ll be seated at a table and no one will see your feet, much less your kicks. Concentrate instead on fun up top: necklaces, scarves, fun frames. A tiara.

What was I wearing on my feet? Who knows, and who cares? It was all about that tiara, baby

Shoes get a better chance to shine when worn to places people can actually see them. Think cocktail party or art opening. Someplace you’ll be standing. Or, if sitting’s more your style, think lectures. Recitals. Especially boring ones where people’s attention — and eyes — tend to wander. Trust me, your fellow coop board members will appreciate a fancy upper.

I broke my rule and wore the Vans to dinner. Where they drew no admiring glances. And actually disappeared into the floor

You can even surprise yourself with shoes. If you buy them off-season when there are deep discounts (like I do) then put them away, you’ll get a big kick out of “discovering” them months later. “Gosh,” you’ll say to yourself as you open a Tory Birch box stored with your summer clothes, “I forgot all about these! What fun!”

Look what I found in the back of my closet! Thank you, Tory Birch

New York City. May 2023

 

 

 

Mr. Malaprop

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‘”But that’s what I’ve always called it,” and other Dudeisms.’

I flew home from my Mom’s yesterday, and boy are my arms tired. Almost too tired to peck away at my keyboard. But I already missed last week’s missive — because I was at Mom’s — and I daren’t let too many postless weeks go by or I will lose my thousands of subscribers. Kidding.

Three Mom Amigos at a lilac garden

So. Mom’s visit. It was super satisfying, what with outings to lilac gardens and riverfront eating establishments and such, plus plenty of Sister Sightings, which are always my favorite part. Sigh.

Hanging out at Laura’s. Even more fun than a lilac garden

But back to the topic of today: Dude Man’s somewhat trying and definitely hilarious habit of peppering conversations with words or phrases that are, well, somewhat off. Not quite wrong, like insisting that “night” is called “day” or “black” is called “white.” But pretty close. And, what’s even more Dudelike, insisting, when gently corrected, that his usage is correct.

For example (speaking of “night” and “day”). The Dude and I have been trying to incorporate morning walks into our daily routine. Since his office hours start around 7:30 — he is a doctor, as you may recall — these walks have to start early. Like around 5:30. AM.

Which means we get to see the sun rise over Central Park. (Gorgeous, BTW.) Invariably, His Dudeness will look out over the Lake as we’re crossing Bow Bridge and say, “Ah, look at the lovely twilight.” Then, when I point out that the appearance of first light is called “dawn,” and that “twilight” refers to the fading of light in the evening, he insists that “twilight” works just fine — because “that’s what I’ve always called it.”

I don’t have a photo of us in Central Park at dawn (er, “twilight”) but I do have this one (and the one at the top of this post), showing twilight in Brazil

Another example. As you may recall, I’m sort of never not knitting something. Baby sweaters, usually. Because they’re little and fun and fast, but mainly because I’m hoping somebody out there will take the hint, already. The last one I did was a cardigan.

One of my latest sweaters. Definitely not Dude-sized. And definitely not a “button-down.” It’s called a “cardigan”

Dude Man duly admired it, then asked if I could knit him one too. (Larger, for sure. And probably not pink.) Since he never wears the many sweaters I have already knit for him — which have lived in a lonely stack in his closet ever since he discovered Polarfleece — I asked what would qualify this hypothetical sweater for actual wearing.

Oh, it would be a vest. So it would fit under jackets. (He has vests, I point out. Vests he never wears. Under jackets or anything else.) Oh, I’d like one that buttons down the front. You know, a button-down.

One of the many vests I have knit him. It does have buttons, but only part way down the front

A “button-down?” I say. “A button-down” is a shirt. A shirt with buttons that hold the collar down.

No it’s not. A “button-down” is anything that buttons down the front. Like a shirt. Or a sweater, he insists.

A cardigan is a sweater that buttons down the front, I insist right back. If you go in a store and ask for a “button-down,” they’re going to bring you a shirt with those little buttons on the collar. They are most definitely not going to bring you a sweater that buttons down the front.

Well, he huffs. That’s what I’ve always called sweaters like that.

Another sweater that Dude would call a button-down. And that everyone else calls a cardigan. This one wasn’t for him either

Okay. I give up. (Big sigh goes here.)

This post is reminding me of one of my father’s favorite jokes — one that he taught The Child to tell at family gatherings. Here goes:

A woman is walking down a country lane carrying a duck. A man walks by and asks, “What are you doing with that pig?” The woman replies, “That’s not a pig — that’s a duck.” Man: “I was talking to the duck.”

New York City. May 2023

The Grammy Awards

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‘And the winner is…’

Last weekend I had the pleasure of greeting a new grandchild. No, this was not my new grandchild (fingers — and toes — are firmly crossed hoping for that Blessed Event) but a very fine grandchild indeed. I mean, just look at this baby.

Even if you are not usually fond of babies, you must admit this one is a dandy

No, the latest winners of the Grandparent Lottery happen to be Dude Man’s cousin and his wife. They had us over last weekend to meet little Elouise. There was eating and drinking and laughing plus funny-face-making, high-pitched cooing and, of course, much cuddling. I swear that baby got passed around more than the wine bottle(s).

The latest winners of the Grandparent Lottery

I say “latest winners” because little Zachs and Esmes and Orens and Sophias and Madeleines and Francescos seem to be popping out everywhere like flowers after the rain. And, since I knit baby sweaters for the progeny of people I am related to and/or like a lot, my fingers have been getting a workout. (Which, of course, makes it harder to keep them wishfully crossed.)

Oh, and Elouise got this little number. It has pockets. You know, for her pacifier. Or car keys

But enough about teensy knitwear. All these new grandchildren got me thinking about my own grandmothers. How wonderful they were, but how different.

A rare occasion when both Grammas were in the same room at the same time: Gramma H on the left (with undyed hair!), Just Plain Gramma to the right, also undyed (as usual)

One was wiry and skinny, wore slacks, worked in a factory and — most fascinating to us kids — dyed her hair. Why was this fascinating? Well, we kids didn’t know from hair dye. We just knew that Gramma Henry’s hair was a different color every time we saw her: sometimes brown, sometimes reddish, sometimes almost black. (We kids also didn’t know about false teeth. There was a scary lady in my home town who used to push her partial plate out at us to keep us out of her yard.)

Gramma Henry (with Laura and Mom) aboard the Sir Launch-A-Lot. Gosh, she has undyed hair — and is wearing a dress

My other gramma — my mom’s mom — was kinda plump, always wore a housedress, worked on a farm and most certainly didn’t dye her hair. She even wore an apron. Pretty much all the time.

Classic Gramma (Peterson) at right. Housedress: check, apron: check

Incidentally, my mom’s mother was known as “Gramma,” while my dad’s mom was called “Gramma Henry.” True, we saw my Peterson gramma more often than the Henry one, and my mom and I even lived with her while my dad was off serving in Korea. But, still, I bet that stung.

Our Korean Conflict family unit: Gramma and Grampa in the middle, Aunt Marilyn on the left, Mom on the right. Oh, and me on the lap. Read about what happened when my Dad returned in “Kissing Daddy Good-night”

(Back then, no grandmothers — at least no grandmothers that I knew — were called anything but “Gramma.” Well, maybe “Grandmother,” but that was only in books. I certainly hadn’t heard any parent of a parent referred to as “Nana” or “Gigi” or “MomMom” or even “G-Ma.” Yes, I wrote a piece about this.

Gramma beating Aunt Shirley, Mom and me at Scrabble

Yes, they were different. One played poker and one played Scrabble. One drank plum wine, and the other something she called “silver tea,” which was a cup of hot water.

But both of them deserve a Grammy Award for being so wonderful. Thanks for jogging some fine memories, Miss Elouise.

It’s exhausting being a baby. And a parent (!)

New York City. May 2023

“All I have is prickly heat”

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‘Fun facts about Youngest Younger Brother Doug on his birthday’

Okay. I am officially Older Than Dirt. A person whose diapers I used to change has just turned sixty. Gosh. It was shocking enough when I turned sixty.

Me as a B-Team Mom. That’s Baby Bro Doug fidgeting in my lap

The person in question is my Youngest Younger Brother Doug; the diaper-changing happened during my B-Team Mom years, which, if so inclined, you can read about here.

This brother is so much younger than me that, for all intents and purposes, we grew up in entirely different families. “Confessions of a B-Team Mom” talks about that too. Heraclitus is mentioned. (A name I still find rather, well, unsettling.)

Me, the year I left home for college. Doug was four

But enough with stuff I’ve already written about. Today I’d like to tell you about this Marvelous Man who was once the object of my babysitting attention. My Baby Brother Doug.

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Let them eat Bunny Cake

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‘An Easter treat that’s hard to beat’

I just realized that I really should have posted this story before Easter. That way you all could have whipped out your cake pans and created a bunny to dig into after your ham or lamb. (Note: we never had lamb at Easter; my mother swears it smells like “hot wet sweaters.”)

Speaking of sweaters, here’s my latest. I haven’t gotten it hot or wet, so I don’t know if it smells like lamb

Oh well, you still could “do” a bunny cake. They’re awfully fun to make, and, what with the coconut frosting and the jellybean whiskers, tasty too.

Besides, bunnies don’t really have anything to do with Easter. Not really. Bunnies and eggs were pagan fertility symbols that the early Christians appropriated; they decided they were symbols of the resurrection of Jesus. Though I have a suspicion that the real reason for “stealing” those heathen bunnies and eggs was to cheer up an inherently downer holiday. (Crown of thorns? Dying on a cross? I mean, even rising from the dead isn’t exactly cheerful.)

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Sifting through a big ole flour sack full of feelings

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‘Emotionally ambushed by a humble household gadget’

So I’m unloading the dishwasher and putting the clean dishes away when the cutting board hits a jumble of Tupperware lids in the back of a cabinet and refuses to slide all the way in.

(Incidentally, I read somewhere about somebody who has two dishwashers in their kitchen — one for clean and one for dirty — so they never have to put the dishes away. Also regarding dishwashers — and this is something that really happened, not something I read about — one time my sister-in-law, in a fit of misguided helpfulness, unloaded the dirty dishes and put them all away, a fact I only discovered when I grabbed a “clean” plate to find it gravy-glued to the one beneath. It was weeks before I found all the sticky ice cream bowls, egg-crusted forks and coffee-besmirched mugs hidden in my cabinets like Easter eggs.)

An Easter egg decorated by Her Childness lo these many years ago

Anyway. This being a below-counter cabinet, I got down on my hands and knees to untangle the Tupperware jumble and happened to spot the flour sifter jammed way in the back.

Well. It wasn’t Memory Lane that flour sifter triggered — it was a whole Four-Lane Memory Highway. A virtual Long Island Expressway of memories.

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The Emotional Support Rock

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‘When it comes to The Kidlet, no stone is left unturned.’

I know I wrote about The Child (AKA “The Kidlet,”) just last week. About how she can recite pi to like a googillion places. (Cool word, googillion. Thanks, Spelling Bee!) But tomorrow’s her birthday. And besides, I thought of a cute story about her Kidletness that I don’t think I’ve told yet.

This is about how, when she was small, The Child would carry a rock around with her pretty much all the time. This would not be a big rock — more like a pebble. (See the photo at the top of this post for a great example sitting right there on the picnic table.) Fortunately, she was attached to just one rock at a time, sort of like mineral serial monogamy. But she had to have that rock on or near her person at all times, usually in a pocket. (Yes, I’d have to check before doing the laundry; we almost destroyed a dryer once when I forgot. You never heard such clunking.)

Look closely and you’ll see a rock clutched firmly in that little toddler paw

It wasn’t just rocks she liked. She was into stuffed animals, too, and had a whole menagerie of plushy friends. There was Lion and Penguin and Bear and Squirrel. Also Cow and Lamb. Their names? Lion and Penguin and Bear and Squirrel and Cow. The Lamb was the only animal with a more namelike name. She called him (her?) “Lammie.”

The Child wasn’t the only one in our house who liked stuffed animals

When we’d go on a trip, she would select an animal to accompany us. “Squirrel got to go to Gramma’s last time; now it’s Penguin’s turn.”

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“Watch the birdie!”

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‘And watch out for water balloons!’

Not only did I promise to pry some bird photos out of Dude Man’s camera and share them with you this week, I forgot to tell you about a pretty important part of our trip.

Here’s a Green-Backed Trogon. Nice, huh?

And that’s the fact that our birding expedition to the wilds of SE Ecuador happened to coincide with Carnival. Now, we do celebrate Mardi Gras, sort of, in some parts of the good ole U S of A. Once, in fact, I almost had a heart attack when The Child traveled to New Orleans with a group of college buds to participate in the revelry there.

Her Childness and Friend meet a shark on the streets of New Orleans

But trust me when I tell you that no one celebrates the days leading up to Lent (AKA “Carnival”) like our neighbors to the South.

But first — even before Carnival — there was The Wedding. We arrived on a Thursday and went to our very nice hotel near the airport to rest up for our trip further south the next morning. (This is the place featuring Sylvester, the Hotel Cat. Last week’s story has a photo.) Little did we know that the hotel was hosting a wedding. (We did see the white tents, and had our suspicions.) Soon enough, we were assaulted by the sound of happy wedding guests dancing the night away. And it wasn’t even the wedding yet. This was just pre-party stuff. Thank heaven for ear plugs.

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“People people people!”

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‘Meet the Energizer Birder’

I just flew back from Ecuador, and boy are my arms tired.

Well, maybe not my arms, but the rest of me is pretty darned tuckered out. Because, speaking of flying, we’ve just returned from another of our wacky birding trips.

Wayne enjoying every second of our latest wacky birding trip. That’s the Energizer Birder on the right

I have written about these trips many times before, of course. About how you get up really early, tramp around jungles in sweltering wet weather, eat strange foods (durian, anyone?) and feel darned lucky at the end of the day if you can manage to stay awake long enough for your hair to dry before your pillow can mold it into strange overnight shapes.

Or sometimes you freeze yourself at 14,500 feet. Doesn’t matter about your hair getting molded into strange shapes — it’s always crammed under a hat

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