Sounding Off

Last month I promised (threatened) to write about all the things that annoy me about living in the suburbs. But I have decided to reduce it to one overriding complaint--NOISE. I have a low tolerance for noise. As a result of the pressures in my head from coughing throughout my babyhood, I lost an eardrum in my right ear. Hearing in my left ear will not win a prize, either, but I do not seem or feel impaired. I put it down to the concept that you can't miss what you never had. Doctors have offered me hearing aids promising great results, but I am loathe to follow through. I have always lived in a quiet world and I really like it here.

Enter the suburbs. I have never been more bothered by noise than I am living here. Perhaps it is the constantly shattered expectation of quiet that makes this worse by far than the city, but it is undeniably worse. Right now for example, I'm am sitting in a lovely spot of my own creation. My little backyard has a pretty redwood deck festooned with flowers and plants--all my favorite varieties, comfy outdoor furniture and my bird feeders. My freshly bathed dogs are by my side and I can look beyond my computer screen to a lovely little, newly mulched garden beyond. The only sound is the faint tinkling of a delicate glass wind chime, bird chatter and a dog barking in the distance. It's all the paradise I need. And yet, it is frequently off limits to me on account of NOISE. Any minute, and I can never know when, a landscaper's truck might pull up and in the blink of an eye it's paradise lost. There seem to be no limits as to when someone can make noise, how loud it can get and how long it can last. Landscapers arrive across the street as early as 7:30 AM ready to assault nature and my quietude with full mowers, blowers, whackers and trimmers ablaze. Sit out on a Sunday morning and there's no stopping a neighbor from marching out to the garage and firing up every noisy device therein. Today as I filled my coffee cup intending to drink it al fresco, an enormous truck parked outside the house and idled for about 40 minutes as it made a delivery of God knows what using a forklift. I am sure whatever was deposited in my neighbor's driveway is going to result in even more noise as it is built, installed or applied. Yesterday it was a different neighbor with a power-washer that drove me indoors. It never ends.

And it's not just me being overly sensitive. It's become a running joke among the Mayor, the boy and me. No sooner do we get comfortable outside than boom, we encounter some form of decibel challenge. I would have thought that my reduced hearing would make this all the more bearable for me, but it doesn't. All the hearing loss has done is make me appreciate a quiet world that increasingly does not exist. Shopping at the mall the other day for the boy amid the insistent, obnoxious music at Hollister and Aeropostale had me running  home for the xanax. We recently spend a beautiful day at Great Adventure where my only problem all day was that there was no place to come in from the loud voices and piped music.

In my mind, the greatest hero of the present day is going to be the person who invents the silent motor that powers all the lawn taming, hedge trimming, debris clearing devices we use to beat our environments into submission. In fact, I think that same individual ought to be considered for the Nobel PEACE prize.



Divine Rituals of the Suburbs

Over the years I've made no secret of the fact that I feel living in the suburbs is a disappointing letdown from city life. In fact, it's a dead horse I've beaten to such a tedious degree that I'm surprised the Mayor hasn't already relegated me to an efficiency apartment somewhere in downtown Jersey City just to shut me up. I'll have to keep beating.

Some day, I'll blog about everything I dislike about suburbia, but today I am singing its praises. For we are in the midst of suburbia's high holy days--truly spiritual days of searching the dark recesses, purging and purifying and hopefully by the end of it feeling deeply cleansed and reborn. On Saturday we paid homage as a town to Our Lady of the Immaculate Garage. We asked ourselves the hard questions, "Will Nana hate me from heaven for getting rid of her old toaster oven? Surely there's no chance of me being 'blessed' with another baby, is there?  And isn't it some kind of sin for a family of four that's down to three in the house to own and store eight bicycles?" Days we spent in preparation--sorting, cleaning, carting and pricing our meager, dust-covered offerings and laying them on the sacrificial tables of the Borough-wide Garage Sale. Pilgrims from all over town and the towns nearby filed solemnly by street by street, yard by yard, offering alms for the once sacred symbols and now sad relics of our devoted consumerism. It was an exhausting, yet gloriously gratifying event. Nary a soul came away from the day without feeling a great weight lifted from them. And yet, it was just the beginning, a mere precursor to the main holiday that will occur on Thursday.

I refer, of course, to The Feast of St. Bulk--the bulk trash pick-up extravaganza we look forward to every year at least as much as, if not more than Thanksgiving. In fact, and excuse me for being somewhat irreverent, but we probably ought to subtitle it, ThanksTaking. With the powers that be smiling down upon us, we can divest ourselves of everything we do not want any longer. Big things, small things, ugly raunchy things that we cannot believe still exist in the temples of our daily life can be placed on the side of the road and will miraculously ascend into the belly of a giant beast that takes them away forever. Friends and relatives from other towns must beat back the dual temptations of envy and the desire to lay their junk at our curb. One must keep them strong in their resistance, for it is wrong for them to covet their neighbor's Bulk Day and illegal for them to participate. The Feast of St. Bulk attracts its own pilgrims, too, but it's a leaner, meaner crowd. They come on a mission with their trucks and vans, leaving their loved ones at home, to forage for the holy grail of garbage.

All in all, it's an exhausting week of service and sacrifice. In the end, one always asks oneself, "Could I have done more, contributed more, worked harder or turned away from more earthly possessions?" Occasionally, there are regrets and recriminations--"how could you have thrown away that fish tank I've owned since I was ten? What kind of heartless daughter of Satan tosses a box of well worn, once loved stuffed animals?" But within a few days, a feeling of calm and contentment takes over as we forget not only that we gave things up, but that we ever owned them in the first place. We walk into our attics and garages without tripping and begin thinking of all kinds of new crap we can buy to fill up all that space. Ah, Suburbia!

Going Veg--It Ain't Easy

Try as I might, I cannot get the hang of this vegetarian thing. I know people do this everyday with ease and, in fact, just had a conversation about this with a college friend who said multiple times, "being a vegetarian is pretty easy, really." And that is possibly true if the factors that make my conversion so confounding are not present--namely, still having meat eaters to feed every night, disliking in the extreme most of the meat substitutes I have found and maintaining an attempt to limit carbohydrates, too, so that I don't become the world's fattest vegetarian. There is also the little problem of still liking the taste of meat--the only reason I'm eliminating it is because if you do any research at all, you find that factory farming is plain and simple just another phrase for animal torture.

I looked into humanely raised and slaughtered meat and it's a great option for anyone who is able to pay 2-3 times as much for their meat as they would for factory farmed meat. That's not an option for me. So back to square one: dealing with vegetables. I am not a great cook and I am not a foodie. I did start out liking to cook. But, for me, the fun went out the exhaust fan when it became my job to feed people other than myself on a daily basis. The restrictions of catering to everybody's likes and dislikes are incredibly tedious. It leaves very little room for creativity when regardless of what you decide to make, you are faced with somebody's disappointment. Except occasionally when entertaining, I seldom delight in cooking anymore. Out of necessity, I became a competent and fairly healthy cook. I can consistently put a tasty, decent and balanced meal on the table in an hour or less. But, all of my repertoire is either meat-based or involves pasta. Take those staples away and I got nothing.

At the heart of my problem is the mindset that it should be quick and easy. As a result of not enjoying making dinner, I've compartmentalized it to the point where I can't readily conceive of it taking more than an hour. Anything beyond that is too much trouble and an expansion of a chore I already dislike. In my mind, I liken it to rediscovering how to do laundry by hand--uh, no thanks! Whether it is or it isn't, I regard it as a lot of trouble to take a bunch of fresh beets and trim, peel, cook and prepare them. Draining an eggplant for however long it takes is a recipe deal-killer. This is what I have to change. I have to find some way to rediscover what is fun about cooking. Time is sometimes a consideration in my life, but not always. It doesn't necessarily need to be quick. Right now, I look at any time spent cooking as time away from things I like to do. Can I learn to like it again? I don't know. But I've got to try. I can't go back to meat; I can't eat veggie burgers all the time (I hate them). At least for now, I have to cook meat for the boy (the mayor's game for anything, but likes his meat, too). But I also have to find vegetarian recipes that are healthy and delicious and tack them on to my regular cooking. I have to learn to feed myself again after all these years of eating whatever is easiest and receives the fewest complaints. Let me go get that eggplant out of the vegetable bin. I'll drain it and see what happens.

Voice Male

Lately, I've found myself getting irritated with the boy when he speaks to me. But somehow, I've known it isn't him, it's me. He isn't doing anything unusual or saying anything unusual. But something about him is definitely rubbing me the wrong way. Am I overtired? Is it hormones? I just don't know. Then suddenly, yesterday, it occurred to me exactly why I'm perturbed. His voice has changed and the new voice is not familiar to me yet. I neither know it nor love it yet. And it's silencing his "real" voice.

We recognized that his voice was cracking and changing over the past few months. But now, I think, the changeover is complete. My child's voice is gone for good and I miss it. I don't just miss it in that nostalgic, "oh he's growing up" way. I miss it in more like a little part of my heart is broken kind of way. I loved his voice. I cherish every secret he told me in that voice, every joke he made, every cute, crazy little thing he ever said. I find myself wondering what I have recorded, if anything, that I can play back so I never forget it. If I think about this too long, I can bring myself to tears. I'll never forget him singing "Where is Love" from Oliver for an audition. He carries a tune well and I've never heard it sung better and now I'll never hear it again. Generally, I've been all for his getting bigger, faster, stronger and smarter. But this little change has tripped me up.

I love male voices, but I've never been a fan of male teen voices. They tend to sound monotone and tinny to me. The association is there with goofy, awkward teenage boys I have known and that is not how I see my boy or want to see him. Now that I realize what I've been reacting to, though, I can get back to taking the boy at his word rather than unconsciously reacting to his voice!

Foot Fail

Tangle Toes

I know I've been forbidden by the boy to latch on to the "fail" lingo, but seriously if the shoe fits . . . Or, more appropriately in this case, when the shoe does not fit and will not fit for six weeks, I am hard put to think of an expression that better sums up the situation. Take a look at the picture and try to imagine what happened to this sorry looking appendage. Did you say, "Stamped on by an elephant?" "Beaten with a sledge hammer?" "Run over by a bus?" To result in something this incredibly ugly, it must have been huge right? Not so much. It's a stress fracture from dancing to motown barefoot on a friend's living room rug. Bet you had no idea how dangerous that could be.

This was two weeks ago yesterday and I have to say, it's been quite a set-back. As always, denial was my first resort. I hobbled to bed thinking I'd feel better the next morning. Sunday morning--10 times worse so off to the ER. Xrays negative. I'm thinking feet up a few days, all better. Wrong again. This thing is NOT going down easy!To compound the situation, my laptop chose that weekend to cease functioning. It takes the guy a week to repair it which is exactly what happens when you get a computer to repair on Monday and do not look at it until Friday. Grrr.

So, bad two weeks and now I've been booted. The stress fracture diagnosis has resulted in my having to wear a giant hideous black boot on my foot FOR SIX WEEKS! But at least I can get around. The pain is ridiculous and unpredictable. I'm not a big baby about pain, but this smarts. Out of the woodwork come everyone and their brothers' stress fracture stories and the upshot is, this will really go on and on. No amount of denial will help me out of this mess. After four years of zero infirmity, I have to dig out my inner invalid and cope. I must say, I was better at this years ago. Attitude adjustment in progress, please stand by!

A Little Schmaltz Never Hurt Anyone

Now that it's become all the rage to dismiss greeting cards as passe and declare certain holidays like Valentine's Day and Mother's Day "Hallmark Holidays," I think it's time someone stand up in defense of the greeting card tradition, if not the overreaching greeting card industry. Ok, ok, I'll do it.



Two favorites from my birthday this year.



With a smidgen of shame, I will confess that I can spend an absurd amount of time in a card store. Always could. I read, I laugh, I cry, I finger the pretty paper or marvel at the pop-ups. The addition of sound was a delight. I like the idea of finding "just the right card" and imagining the kick the lucky recipient will get out of it. In the same vein, I love receiving "just the right card" and have held onto many over the years that have touched a chord with me. I think part of the fun comes from being a word oriented person and part from having a thing about anything that smacks of stationary (it's hard to tear myself away from a decent office supply store, too). My Irish twin sister has the same propensities and because of this, we can quote past cards to each other and will often buy more than one card for each other for the same occasion because we just can't choose. I have "card friends" for whom the right card is essential and non-card friends who couldn't care less.

A doctored up card--sad.

Funny cards, cards that are snarky, ones with first-rate cartooning, funny photos from the past--those are often the best. Animal shots can be good, too, but are often ruined by the words. And sometimes the sentimental ones are so on target it's uncanny. That being said, I will admit that in recent years, it has been more difficult to find truly funny or dead on sentimental cards. If I find a particularly good one, I might get several to send to different people. Yesterday, I searched in vain for the perfect card for the boy's 14th birthday (TODAY). It was grim. I wanted a joint one from the Mayor and me. There were three choices--two were religious, one was stilted and artificial. So I had to resort to pluralizing a mediocre card intended for one parent to give. Very disappointing. A friend's mother was turning 80 a few months ago and the pickings were also slim (although there were two 90 year old cards on hand and even a 100).

The very worst thing about cards today is the price. It jars me to turn over a small piece of what is essentially thick paper with a few words printed on it and see that it costs $3, $4 or even $5. It's not right. I'll pay it, if it is perfect for the occasion or the person for whom I am intending it. But if I nose around for a half-hour and still have to settle, I will go to the cheapos that say essentially nothing, but don't break the bank. And that is a sorry state of affairs.

It is fair to say that grandparent's day, boss's day, secretary's day and various other johnny-come-latelies to the holiday scene are occasions invented and ginned up by the card and gift industry. But Valentine's Day has been celebrated for centuries in some form or another and who can argue with the sense and appropriateness of Mother's and Father's Days. Nothing against grandparents, bosses or secretaries, but their "days" are not the same. People are right to view them with a somewhat cynical eye, but maligning greeting cards as a whole because of the manipulativeness of the industry is a bit of the tossing of the baby with the bathwater.

Homemade cards--I treasure them all.

More recent favorites.

Look! Up in the Sky!

The noble house finch

One of the more life-affirming interests I have taken up in my quest to actually get a life, is birding--the pastime previously known as birdwatching. When I long ago closed the mental books on birds, sometime around 1974, I could positively identify sparrows, blue jays, cardinals, sea gulls, ducks and pigeons with no more specificity than that. My father taught us what we knew when we were kids, but I seldom gave wild birds a thought as an adult, except to note their occasional contributions to my windshield. And for most of my life that was enough. Then one day as the boy and I were walking at a local park, an enormous bird whizzed by us (not on us, thanks goodness) at eye level.  Its round, golden eye seemed to look directly into mine as its wings, spanning about 6 feet, flapped and fluttered my hair as it passed. 'What the hell was that,' I thought. And moreover, I wondered how I can live so close to such a magnificent animal and not even know what it is. It was a bird awakening.

Turns out that spectacular bird was a Great Blue Heron. And because of Mr. Great Blue, I signed up for an introductory birding class. I demanded a decent pair of binoculars for Mother's Day. I bought books, started a journal and set up a birdie smorgasbord in my backyard so that I didn't have to trek out to a local park alone at dawn after my class ended. (Sometimes I still go, but it is scary to be the only person in the park, so I only go when I have a birding buddy, ie. almost never.)



My photo of an oriole on my deck.



Now amazing birds that I have managed never to notice before appear to be responding to my new interest in their lives. Could it possibly be that the nuthatches, goldfinches, chickadees, woodpeckers and orioles always stopped by my yard in the spring? If so, how could I have overlooked them. It is like that weird phenomenon where you learn a new word and suddenly you read and hear it everywhere. It seems it is just a matter of tuning in to their existance and the whole aviary world opens up to you. Now if I walk outside and hear a lot of squawking jays and screaming squirrels, I know to look around for that hawk that occasionally circles the neighborhood. When I feed the birds, I have to remember to spread some seeds on the ground for the mourning doves that can't use the feeders. In the winter, I keep an eye peeled for the dark-eyed juncos that seem to magically appear with the first snow. It came as a surprise to me that the brown-headed cowbird is notorious for laying its eggs in the nests of other birds so that others can go to the trouble of raising their young. Knowing these things delights me and makes me feel more connected to the natural world.

With birds, there is quite a bit to learn. For example I was only vaguely aware that many birds will look different in the spring from the way they look in the fall. Juvenile birds might not really resemble the adults of their species for a long time. So with any species of bird, you have the male, the female, the seasonal plumages and the age to take into consideration before making a determination of what bird has stopped by. The American Birding Association's list of North American birds includes 930 species. What with the various looks, behaviors and calls to take in, birding is a hobby that can keep you going for a long time.

The undesirable brown-headed cowbird stares at me from my fence.



Personally, I do not plan to become an expert. I don't want to get neurotic about this. It is enough for me to keep my journal, photograph the birds that come to the feeders and look for unusual birds when I'm out and when I'm on vacation. I can't wait to go on my next trip to the Caribbean or somewhere closer to the equator. I've already alerted the Mayor and the boy to the fact that my camera is no longer sufficient for taking photos of birds and have suggested that an upgrade would make an ideal Mother's Day gift this year.

I don't know if you can experience a bird awakening second hand, but I hope it is possible. It would make me happy to share this particular delight with others. To get you in the mood and see if it might possily take hold, I've included a link to the Eagle Cam at Duke Farm in Hillsborough, NJ. Click every day to observe a pair of eagles incubate, hatch and raise their eaglets in real time from now until they fledge in June. Happy Birding!

http://www.dukefarms.org/Education/Eagle-Cam/