Bugles

Like so many kids who grew up in the seventies, Saturday nights for me and my sisters were about watching The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. “Julie McCoy” remains part of the language of our generation as [n.] the person who does all the party planning, and I bet we can all call up our best Herve Villechaize to say “Boss, boss! Ze plane, Ze plane!,” the way he would every week. Sometimes, we’d have special snacks while watching, especially if my parents were out at a dance at one Polish Home or another--maybe a bag of Stateline chips, or a box of Bugles to share. Who can honestly say they didn’t put a bugle on each fingertip, and maybe recite a little from the Wizard of Oz (I’ll get you, my pretty!), and then eat them one by one? Well, if you didn’t, you missed half the fun.

None of the three of us really wants to say that we were poor, afraid of the stigma, or afraid to hurt our parents’ feelings since they worked so hard for us…but looking back, it is clear that we were definitely working class folks. Lower middle class. We had a house over our heads and a car in the driveway, and there was always food on the table, in copious amounts on holidays, but we didn’t have a lot of extras. The extras we did have came our way because somewhere our parents did without. They didn’t tell us that. I just know. I didn’t then, but I know now. And I am in awe.

Somehow, they raised three daughters and sent us all to college on blue collar wages. I have a Masters Degree now, and I work as a teacher; with no children of my own in diapers or braces, I suffer mild panic attacks if my car needs work. $350 for a water pump and timing belt puts a dent in my budget. I can’t imagine if I had tuition bills to pay. They came to this country, not knowing the language, and took their best shot at the American dream.

So I’m not embarrassed to say we grew up without extras, that we were a working class, blue collar family. It makes me proud of my parents to acknowledge their, our, humble beginnings.

And it makes those Bugles taste even better.

Dignity

Life lessons often come in strange packages, not like in the movies--when a parent sits a kid down and has a heart-to-heart talk--although sometimes they come from the movies. While I don’t remember the title or the plot, I remember a line from a black and white film I happened upon and watched part of, in which a mother of several children says to one of them who is crying, "a person with inner dignity is never embarrassed." The line stuck with me and has become one of my mantras. I use it to remind myself that if I have inner dignity, I can rise above a potentially embarrassing situation. If I carry myself with dignity, I can walk away from it with my head held high. A situation is a moment, and not a reflection of me.

I don’t remember if I was a teenager when I saw this or a young adult, but would guess it happened after childhood, when I recall being embarrassed frequently and when I probably would have been too young to understand its meaning. How good it would have been to have this kind of self esteem when I misheard or misunderstood my first grade teacher who said something about snack time, not “it’s snack time,” which prompted me to take out my pink wafer cookies and her to come to my desk and tell me to put them away. It was an honest mistake and due in part to a language barrier I had then I think, with Polish as my first language and English as my second, and I don’t think Mrs. Fulton was admonishing at all, but to me it was horrible experience. I wish I could have crawled into a hole back then and for years following.

Fortunately, the movie line rescued me from remaining embarrassed about The Cookie Incident in perpetuity. Likewise, it has stifled shame in situations where I might publicly make an honest mistake, or get to the front of a check out line and realize I have neither cash nor the right card with me, or be in the company of someone who is a little drunk, for example. A person with inner dignity is never embarrassed, I remind myself, as I stand corrected or quietly walk away without my groceries or with a boisterous imbiber. This doesn’t make you stupid, or classless, or white trash. It’s a moment. You are more than this. You have dignity. Feeling good about myself is so much more pleasant than worrying and being insecure, and though I still have to work at it with other daily mantras on my way to work, more often than not I am confident and secure, and my inner workings reflect the façade I donned decades ago.

A few years ago, when I was in Florence, Italy, I remember setting off for the day feeling just great. I was happy that I was there, proud for taking the trip by myself, pleased with my tan, and loving my outfit. Nothing could stop me, nothing could go wrong…Until I was strolling along the Ponte Vecchio, a popular and romantic tourist destination, and next thing I knew I was face down on the cobblestone and my packages, having become detached from my hands, were sliding down the bridge like a puck on an air hockey table. It’s okay to laugh. I do every time I tell the story. I actually made a call home to the states that night so I could share the story and have a laugh with someone. But at that moment, I did not laugh. Three men came to my rescue from different directions and helped me up as their wives looked on with a little pity. I got up, thanked them for their help, "Grazie, Grazie," I said, even though they too were probably American, and brushed myself off. Literally. I had cobblestone dust on my black capris, but fortunately hadn’t ripped them, and my hands were filthy from breaking my fall. My white crocheted sweater had somehow survived unblemished. I walked into the closest jewelry store and asked them to use their rest room so that I could wash up and check that I really was okay. Then I continued my day.

A person with inner dignity is never embarrassed.

Snow Days

On the topic of snow days, within my faculty there are two factions: those who would rather not have any snow days, and those who, more like students, enjoy snow days and look forward to them. The former says they'd prefer to get out earlier in June. I, a member of latter group, respond to those in the former with "we're still getting a long vacation. Whether we get out on the 16th or the 20th, we still get two months off." We live in New England, so we're going to have snow storms and, therefore, snow days. Why not enjoy them?

I see snow days as a little gift from God that says, Have an extra cup of coffee today. Or Spend time with your kids. Work on that project list. Even Get caught up on correcting. Make yourself lunch and take longer than 20 minutes to eat it. I know it is difficult to engender sympathy with non-teachers because of our summers off, but teaching is a difficult and stressful profession. In the throes of the school year we only get one personal day, and it is often more difficult to call in sick than it is to go to school while not feeling well...Which is precisely why I enjoy snow days, and why I can't understand my colleagues who would rather do without.

That being said, it is March, and I'm ready for spring and could do without any more snow days. I've had my share. Still, I enjoyed my day today. I made the most of it, knowing it will probably be the last. Tomorrow I will put away the lucky snowman that sits on my file cabinet and that I touch when a storm is forecast, and that my students are familiar with because of the big deal I make when I put him out in December.

I guess maybe there are three factions then: those opposed, those who appreciate, and those who are as "bad" as the kids. Tee hee.

Breakfast of Champions

As I begin my missive on breakfast, having just finished eating one, I feel compelled to proffer a disclaimer, to tell you I am not a heart attack waiting to happen. I have written herein that I struggle with being overweight, and have professed my love for pork products, so I think it's also important for you to know that my cholesterol levels are acceptable and my blood pressure is good and has been as long as I can remember--even when I was a regular smoker. On more than one occasion I have seen a puzzled look come over the face of an LPN after she fiddled with an extra large arm cuff and watched the sphygmomanometer read 110/68 (a benefit of teaching A&P: knowing words like that), and have felt compelled to joke at my own expense. I know, I'm a bit of a medical miracle: overweight smoker with good blood pressure. If it saved my arm from getting squeezed again to within a millimeter of its life, it was worth it. Similarly, eating lots of vegetables, cooking with olive oil, and looking at label information to choose the higher fiber option if given one, is worth keeping weekend breakfast in my rituals. Honestly, the vegetables and olive oil aren't even a forced effort. I crave salad if I haven't had one in a couple of days and could eat a plate of spinach--sauteed in olive oil with some garlic, salt and pepper--for dinner. But that's another post. Today I'm talking about breakfast.

Sunday breakfasts have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Every Sunday, after church, my family and I would sit down to breakfast. Sometimes this took the form of bagels and a tub of cream cheese, sometimes a platter of cold cuts and cheese with fresh rolls. Eggs might have accompanied either of these or could have been the costar of a breakfast with toast and bacon. Usually a dessert course--fruit salad or some fresh baked cake or quick bread-- was also served; always, in the summer, a plate of sliced tomatoes, garnished with sliced scallions or chives, from my mother's garden was served. The latter is not a particularly American breakfast accompaniment, but a savory addition as second nature to us as ketchup on the table is to other families.

While my parents still enjoy a family breakfast that includes my sister Mary and her husband and children (and where I know I am also welcome), I more often than not enjoy mine alone. Most Sundays, after a load of laundry or two and my exercise DVD and maybe a quick trip to CVS for the newspaper, before my Sunday chat with Deanna, I sit down to a perfect breakfast.

These days a perfect Sunday breakfast for me is 2 eggs over easy, 2 slices of toasted rye bread for dipping in the yolks, and 4 slices of center cut (lower fat) bacon. Depending on my plans for the rest of the day and my mood that morning, Sunday breakfast (which takes place close to noon) may also include a mimosa (or three) or a Bloody Mary (or two). It is perfection on a plate: a combination of colors, textures, and flavors that sets me right for hours and makes a mockery of the 90 calorie Special K bars I eat in the car on the way to school or bowls of Cheerios I scarf standing in the kitchen.

The meal is a ritual and a celebration. It beckons memories of my childhood and thoughts of my family as it calls to mind leisurely weekend brunches at Bartol Hall at Simmons. It celebrates the weekend and acknowledges the need to slow down and savor the simple things in life. For now, being active (enough) and making (mostly) healthy food choices keeps Sunday breakfast on my weekly menu.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure I could ever give it up, even if--God forbid--medical assistants no longer look puzzled. Knock on wood that I am in good health and know enough to make some good choices. But if one day my blood pressure reading meets their expectations and I am no longer an apparent anomaly, I bet you'll still find me practicing the egg flip at my stove on Sunday morning.

Room Service

I just returned from a few days in Boston, a couple of which I spent at a hotel in the Back Bay. I love Boston, and the Back Bay, and on occasion when I visit I like to splurge to stay in the middle of it all. For me it most closely mimics the life I had there when I was a resident, when I park my car in the hotel garage and spend a couple of days without it--walking, taking cabs and the T-- since my life now depends on a car and I can't get from point A to point B without it. Of course the similarity ends there, as the luxury of eating out three meals a day and staying in a luxury hotel is nothing like my life there at all, although the business trips I used to take from Logan trained me well.

Truth be told, I didn't stay in a hotel until after college. I never went away on spring break, and I didn't vacation with my family during the summer. I took to it quickly, however, and my comfort level with room service and concierge queries has been a frequent source of laughter at my expense, especially with the late, great Jimmy J (father of my brother-in-law, Liz's husband, also named Jim), who knew that staying in nice hotels was an acquired taste. Mr. Johnson (I called him Jimmy J to make him chuckle, but it still seems more respectful to call him Mr. Johnson) always got a huge kick out of my room service stories and my credo that time is money. I'd tell these stories and he'd laugh. "Oh, Herself!," he would chuckle, and as soon as he would regain composure, would ask me to repeat the details of my high school employment at Roy Roger's, where in the drive-thru I would have to say to customers--while donned in pseudo-denim wrap around skirt, red polyester shirt and straw cowboy hat--"Howdy partner, may I take your order?"

Jimmy J/ my brother-in-law's late father/Mr. Johnson was a great man. It was serendipitous, really, that I knew him at all and that he had the affect on me that he did. He kept me humble and made me proud in the same breath. He enjoyed living and faced every day in a way my brother-in-law emulates and tries to pass on to my niece and nephew. I have more than once seen a note Jim has left for my niece that says "Pay attention, I want you to get ahead," his father's credo. How I would love now to sit at dinner with him and talk to this man who devoted his life to his family and to education, but died shortly after retiring as grammar school principal. Among the dozen things I'd tell him, all sure to evoke a Herself! response, I'd also ask him for advice on how to talk to Meredith and Charlie about him that would celebrate his legacy without being morose. Maybe I'd simply ask him for the strength not to tear up when I tell Meredith that when she lights up with genuine excitement I see her grandfather in her.

This February vacation marked another anniversary of Jimmy J's death, but I believe I thought of him more because of my stay at the Hilton and my room service order than because of the passing of another year since his passing--as I'm sure he would want it...And which why I am trying to coordinate an afternoon in La Jolla this April vacation--for Liz and Jim and Meredith and Charlie and Jill and me--where Mr. and Mrs. Johnson visited on my recommendation after his retirement during a trip west. "Oh, Joanne, George's at the Cove!" he said when they returned....

If you look close, Meredith, I'll say, you'll see those rocks aren't rocks at all. They are sea lions. We can take a walk down later, if you want. And see those trees? Dr. Seuss used to see them when he wrote his books... Your grandfather liked it here too. I wish he could be here with us. He'd be so proud of you. He'd be so happy to see how happy you and Charlie are; he was a happy man, too.

Sleep

As I grow old--gracefully, I hope--I wonder how I ever lived on 5 or 6 hours of sleep. Or why, for that matter? Did I need less sleep in my 30s? Or was it a passive-aggressive expression, a way to extend the day as long as I could as a denial of my work self, because going to bed acknowledged that I had to get up for work again the next day? How silly is that? I love sleep. I don't go into 12-hour depression hibernation or anything, but I love getting 8 hours of sleep. I love feeling the restorative power of sleep. I love that I know myself well enough to understand my sleep needs, and that I honor myself enough to meet them.

I know a lot about myself these days, and it pleases me. The arsenal of facts is not replete with prettiness, but the self-knowledge and self-acceptance I appreciate. I know that despite my mother's urging to wear my hair short again, I look better with longish hair that I maintain in its original, God-given shade (which I also think looks good), with the help of my stylist. I know that I don't look good in khakis and would rather not provide an opportunity for someone to make a game out of counting the dimples in my thighs if I wear them. Nor do I look particularly good in jeans--at least the ones hanging in my closet at present (but I'm trying). I know that spiked heels hurt the balls of my feet after only a few minutes and from the get-go make me look like an orange on toothpicks, so I get a height boost from wedge heels these days; they balance me a little better. I know that if I eat late I get a bad night's sleep--especially if it's a restaurant meal that is typically more rich than anything I might make myself at home. And I know that I should never eat caramelized onions unless I'm going to be home alone later and not sharing a car ride to get there.

I know that I cry easily. I'm not talking about when my feelings are hurt or if I'm in pain. Play the national anthem and see me weep. Show me again the passengers on the flight that went down in the Hudson meeting Captain Sully and his crew, I'll cry again. Extreme Makeover Home Edition? Exactly. I know my feelings are hurt more easily and often than I like to show. I know that I will struggle for longer than I should before asking for help. And I know I will spend the rest of my life trying not to be a Marshmallow Kid.

Somewhere in my life--in conversation, perhaps in a college course in Psychology--I learned of an experiment in which children were tested for impulse control. From what I remember, the primary investigator or research assistant, i.e., some soft spoken, friendly grown-up, would sit down with the child subject at a table on which sat a plate of marshmallows. The adult would say, "I'm going to leave the room for a few minutes, and I'm going to leave these marshmallows with you. You can help yourself while I'm gone, but should you not eat them, I'll put another treat on the plate when I get back." Well, I don't even like marshmallows, but I know that those marshmallows would have been in my mouth before the door was shut behind the tricky grown up who then would have watched me chew them from behind a two-way mirror.

I know that being a Marshmallow Kid, among other things, has contributed to my life long battle with weight. With being overweight. Fortunately, as an adult, I have learned that when I exercise I am more successful at feeling better and losing weight, and am happy to report that I have been exercising again. Most recently, in an effort to keep on top of current research for the my A&P class, I have learned that sleep deprivation has been linked to diabetes and obesity and a myriad of other conditions.

On that note, I think I'll skip the marshmallows tonight and head up to those comfy sheets.

Past Perfect

My years in Boston often feel like another lifetime to me. If I refer in my classroom to an experience from another career, I'll joke "in my past life, before I was a teacher." For the decade that is my past life, I tried new things and experimented with new careers. I would even joke at interviews, which occurred approximately every 2 years, about my checkered past, taking poetic license with an expression meant to convey a shameful past in order to relax myself and my interviewers.

That I have been teaching for more than ten years (notice I didn't say "over ten years," which was one of the usage-error-pet peeves of my executive editor when I was a textbook editor) still astounds me, especially since my job satisfaction waxes and wanes. Life was easy in my twenties when, if Boredom came knocking, or Disinterest tempted its evil twin: Poor Performance, I looked for a new job, or it looked for me, which is--in fact-- how I came to be a textbook editor after a stint as a Coordinator of Adolescent Services at a health clinic in Boston (a "settlement house" in Dorchester, to be more precise).

I loved that job. I loved the physicians with whom I worked and ordered pho from the Vietnamese restaurant across the street during Thursday night clinic. I loved the doctors who chose to practice medicine there and do rounds at Boston City Hospital rather than at one of the hospitals in the Longwood medical area. They were some of the most intelligent and compassionate people I have ever met or had the pleasure to learn from and work alongside. I loved also the nursing assistants who taught me how to take blood pressure readings and liked to order from the Irish deli down the street. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the adolescents I tried to help I still think about. One patient in particular, I wonder about often.

Looking back on that lifetime ago makes me nostalgic. I shared an apartment on Beacon Street between Cleveland Circle and Coolidge Corner. I didn't own a car and took the T to work. Not surprisingly, I read more than 50 books that year, all purchased from the Brookline Booksmith to which I would walk often--especially on Saturday afternoons, where I would spend hours but only a few dollars, mostly on hardcover bargains. I discovered new authors and great books while standing on those creaky floors, checking out the shelves of employee recommendations. I went to readings and sat rapt, then waited in line to meet some of those authors, in the basement there. If I had extra money after my book purchase, I might stop for a falafel sandwich to go from Shawarma King that would take the rest of Saturday to eat.

My Friday night treat was even simpler. Although I was younger then, I was still tired at the end of the work week. Thursday nights our adolescent clinic ran until 9 pm and I didn't get home until at least 10. I'd watch ER, and start all over again at 9 in the morning and be exhausted on the T ride home. If I had an extra 10 dollars in my messenger bag I'd ride past my stop and take the T all the way to Cleveland Circle. I'd walk in my favorite Thai restaurant and would order 1/2 pint of white rice and a side of peanut sauce. In the five minutes I was asked to wait, I'd walk to the end of the block and buy a six pack of Rolling Rock. When I got home, I made it through half the rice and sauce, stopping occasionally to wipe my brow and sip 3 or 4 of the beers before going to bed happy. Especially if my roommate wasn't home.

Last night, on my drive home from a great dinner with a great friend at a great little Thai restaurant, as I worried about my missing brake light (I wonder if that would bug by former supervisor; should we call it a broken or non-functioning brake light?) and reminded myself to record the $40 debit in my check book, I couldn't help but think that a brown paper bag with a $1.50 worth of rice and peanut sauce and a $6 six pack of beer used to do the trick.

At least I don't have a roommate to worry about anymore.