Driving Daisy Almighty to Shawshank

I’m worried about Morgan Freeman. I know he survived the car accident in Tennessee and is recovering nicely. But still, he isn’t a young man. And when he dies, who will do all the important voiceovers for commercials, movies, and TV shows? I grew up with him on the Electric Company, mesmerized by his role in Driving Miss Daisy, Seven, and his recurring character of Dr. Alex Cross in the James Patterson adaptations. I was soothed by his dulcet tones in The Shawshank Redemption, War of the Worlds, and now in the Visa Olympic commercials…not to mention, who better to play God in Evan and Bruce Almighty??

I think the powers that be need to get together and have Morgan record every single word in the English language, so that when he does depart this earth, proficient sound editors can put his voice to any future dialogue written and, in essence, he can live forever.

Wii- Don't try this at home!

Video games have never been of any interest to me aside from the Ms. Pac-Man and Centepede arcade games I played when I was a kid. I never got into the whole Nintendo-X-Box-Wii craze...probably because I am, in essence, uncoordinated using anything but a computer mouse. Give me more than one button to push and I quickly morph into spaz mode...my brain just doesn't fire the proper signal to my limbs and I turn into a flailing mess.

I remember when Wii was first introduced and there were reports of people getting so into the games that they would send the remote flying into their television screens or chucking it at their game partners' heads..then the strap was added, so those little misshaps wouldn't occur.

Hanging out in Chicago, I was introduced to Wii sports games. Boxing was fun, but bowling was even better. It took a few tries to figure out the movements, but impressingly enough, it was just like doing the real sport, albeit virtually. I played my first game of bowling and beat my opponent...Ha! Eat that, Cary! I was eager to try my hand at it again.

We had a small gathering of friends over last night, complete with a couple of pre-pubescent kidlets who mesmerized me with their coordinated talent at Mortal Kombat. Time for bowling and I jumped at the chance to play and show off my never before realized skill at the game. I used to bowl in grammar school, so I have my "form" down solidly. First frame...8 pins and a spare. Second...Strike!! By the third or fourth frame, I was getting cocky. My turn again, and I held my hands in front of me and gracefully executed my stellar technique and armswing...until...BANG...my left foot hit something solid. I dropped onto my right knee not wanting to screw up and gutter the ball...I got 7 pins down and then the throbbing started...

I held it together with a smile on my face as I passed the remote to someone else and told them to finish the game for me. I sat on the couch, eyebrows knitted in obvious duress, sweetly asking for my stash of painkillers and some water. Soon after, the company dispersed and I let out a wail of agony. My pinky toe was smashed for sure. The swelling was immediate and the prospect of walking was completely shattered. After icing it on and off for a couple of hours, Cary helped me up the stairs and into bed, foot raised and a pair of old crutches fished out of the garage by my side.

Third day into my ten day trip and I'm a friggin' cripple! So much for all the fun activities planned. The next week is gonna be movie watching, ordering in, and surfing the net. Thank goodness I'm comfortable where I am...negotiating the stairs should be fun, but the crushing reality is that my Wii days are over as fast as it begun.

Danger: High Voltage

I’ve heard every house has a heart complete with its own personality and quirks. Some homes are warm and cozy, others cold and stark…and then there’s my place, which appears to be possessed and in cahoots with my cat, Calvin, in trying to “off” me. Yes, it’s that time again…my annual battle with the apartment I live in. In the four years I’ve owned my place, this is the third year that something major has gone wrong.

Flash back to summer 2006: the huge hole in the side of the building that was not only growing plant life, but letting in water by the gallons from the crazy rainfall we had that year…water that went directly into my apartment, turning the walls into cottage cheese, harboring mold and warping the floorboards into a mogul like ski course.

Summer 2007: moisture that was never sopped up from the previous year’s menace caused the wooden floorboards to crack and lift once again, dangerously tilting my bedroom furniture, crashing into the newly painted walls and making middle of the night trips to the bathroom an exercise in agility.

Fall 2007: Some brainiac from the planet "Smartron" flicked a lit cigarette off one of the terraces, which amazingly enough landed on mine and into the flower pot causing a small fire, singing the leaves and melting the plastic pot it was in. Dirt everywhere and disgusting burnt plastic smells stayed in my apartment for close to three days.

Now it’s Spring 2008, and last night was a doozy. I fell asleep rather late and as I was finally drifting into my REM cycle, I heard a loud *pop*. Dismissing it as one of cats’ nocturnal antics, I rolled over in bed and tried to settle back in. Moments later, my nostrils were met with an acrid smell. My eyes popped open and tried to focus on the cable box to check the time…it wasn’t there. I shifted to see the alarm clock by my bed and that too was blank. I gingerly stepped out of bed to get the emergency flashlight from the living room, and I noticed the whole apartment was pitch black. I looked quickly into the hallway, and saw that the lights were on there, so it all must be coming from my place. I made my way over to the fuse box and flipped the switches on and off to no avail. The smell of something burning assaulted my senses. I began to panic…

I grabbed my cell phone, keys, and Clio (who was purring loudly in her sleepy state) and ran down to the lobby to ask the doorman to get one of the porters right away. The guy came up to my place and covered his nose at the smell. He went directly to the fuse box and played with the levers until finally, the lights came back on. I asked if we should call the fire department but he assured me all was well and I should just hang tight until morning when the electrician could come up and have a look. Needless to say, I was not consoled.

I spent the night on the couch, trying to stay vigilant in case it happened again and burned my house to the ground. Come morning, the head custodian arrived at my door and saw that although the electricity appeared to be working, one wall was completely “dead”. Of course, this was the wall I had my phone and computer attached to…and not having either working was making me increasingly agitated. He poked around the outlets, but couldn’t find the source of the problem. I moved my phone and hooked up my computer to another outlet across the room via a hefty extension cord and was told he’d try again tomorrow.

So far so good though…no outages since then, but hell the day ain’t quite over yet. Meanwhile, I shudder to think what colossal damage 2009 will bring.

Caffeine Jitters

When the weather gets warmer I take pleasure in a few things: light weight clothing, longer daylight hours, blossoming trees, and my all time favorite: iced-coffee!! Yesterday was a stellar day for that. Not only was it a perfect and sunny 72 degrees, but Dunkin Donuts was having their free iced coffee day. From 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. every DD in town was offering this tasty treat. Here in NY, DDs are about as plentiful as Starbucks locations, so I plotted my course through the day making sure after each speech session, I would pass one and stop off to get what was mine. I was like a woman possessed, frantically pulling up to the curb in a lopsided park to rush out and order my 16 ounces of cold caffeine and sugar every hour and a half. By the time I was on my way home, I was WIRED and my bladder was near exploding, but I just had to make one last coffee stop before the deadline.

Mission completed, I began my journey home, driving one handed as I sucked the straw and chatted on the Bluetooth, twitching slightly from the rush. I rounded the corner to enter my garage, when I saw this huge city bus barreling up the road headed my way. My block is an uncomfortable squeeze for two midsized cars as it is…and it’s certainly not on a bus route. I had to blink in earnest to make sure what I was seeing was real and not some iced coffee hallucination, but there it was still coming straight at me. I veered my Honda as close to the parked cars on my side as I would dare, feeling helpless with nowhere to go. I thought about unbuckling and lunging into the passenger side of the car, but there was no time. I clenched my eyes shut and muttered a string of curses that would make a sailor blush and then I started to squeal: “pleeeeeeeeeeease don’t hit meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!” I held my breath as the bus passed by, peering out of one eye, squinting up at the driver in a silent plea to let me live. I kid you not, there was about an inch of wiggle room between me and that steel beast.

Everything went in slow motion, the huge front tires sliding by, the smiling faces and bold print of the advertisement plastered to the side, the rear lights …all mere inches from my face. I realized I was clutching my coffee cup in a death grip and biting down on the straw. As the final part of the bus slid by, my whole car *tharumped*. The rear tires pushed into my little auto causing it to rock. The cup in my hand exploded as I squeezed it in fear dribbling cold coffee down the front of my shirt. I was immediately shaken from my trance. I stared open mouthed at the departing bus in the rear view mirror. I was in utter disbelief that I made it out unscathed. Too freaked to even get the license plate number, I slowly made my way into the garage and parked. Not a scratch on me or my car, I thanked the powers that be, tossed the ruined plastic cup into the trash and spent the rest of the evening shaking off the day’s events while coming down off my caffeine high.

A Lady Down to her Fingertips

There was only one person on my father’s side of the family who I felt a close connection to from the time I was little through my adult years. A beautiful brunette with lips painted a cherry red, her signature white lace gloves, and a classic Chanel style. A lady down to her fingertips, her name was Rebeline, but she was known to us all as “Needie”.

When I was very young, Aunt Needie, Uncle Harold, Susie and Michael, their two teenage children, lived in my neighborhood in a corner house with a picket fence enclosed front yard. I would have my birthday parties at her home, and spend Thanksgiving and Passover there as well. We had a small family and her modest sized house was perfect for such intimate gatherings.

Being the youngest in the clan certainly had its perks. I was the favored niece, who was indulged to entertain everyone with my impromptu singing performances at age four. I was doted on and showered with darling little gifts of dolls and sweet treats. Aunt Needie was like a grandmother to me.

When I was five, they sold their house and moved into a Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan. I loved visiting her there, running through the house with her dog Scottie, and looking out at Central Park from her terrace. She had many dinner parties where family and friends gathered to talk, laugh, and share memories of the “old days”. Harold was ever present serving drinks from the bar and talking about politics with the men folk. He would look over at Needie, stop what he was saying for the briefest of moments and you could see a warmth come to his eyes. They were very much in love.

One winter when I was six or seven, Aunt Needie asked me to spend an entire weekend with her. We played games with Susie and Michael, watched TV, and in the morning after a heavy snow fall, we all bundled up and went sledding in Central Park. Chilled to the bone from my snow drenched clothes, Aunt Needie plopped me into her huge bathtub, filled it with bubbles and sang songs with me as I warmed up.

A few years later, her daughter was moving and had to ship her dog, Murphy, to her new destination. Susie and I had an incredibly fun afternoon out on the back stairs decorating Murphy’s crate with shiny acrylic paint. Of course that wasn’t nearly as much fun as painting each other’s skin, hair and clothing silver and gold, which we did with gusto. Needie grinned at the sight and promptly whipped out the turpentine to get me cleaned up before (as she said) “Your mother has a fit!”

In the mid eighties, after her children went their own way, Harold and Needie moved yet again to a smaller apartment on Park Avenue. I liked the new place, but Fifth Avenue was where most of my childhood memories were made. She still had dinner parties a few times a year, still doted on me, although she now had other nieces and nephews and grandchildren of her own to split her attention with. She left her job as a school librarian, but continued to volunteer in schools and donating money to the NYC public library.

Harold died a few years after my father passed. It was very hard on Needie, but she went on with her life, always impeccably dressed, making daily plans with her friends and became very close with Mom. They used to attend dinner theatre every week and once in a while, I’d tag along.

Needie became ill with Lyme disease, and her health deteriorated rapidly. She couldn’t walk on her own and was soon using a cane, making her jaunts around the Manhattan streets she so loved difficult. A wheel chair replaced the cane a few years after that. We didn’t see Needie very much anymore.

In late August 2007, Mom and I coaxed Needie out to dinner with us. She ate delicately and sipped red wine in her Chanel suit. It was a beautiful evening filled with laughter and so many stories. It was the last time I saw her alive.

Aunt Needie passed away in December just shy of her 86th birthday. I remember sitting on the couch in my living room when Mom called to tell me. I hung up with her and just sat in silence. Quiet tears fell while flashes of her cherry red smile and easy laughter flooded my mind.

Two nights prior to the funeral, our small family, made even smaller by death and distance, gathered together to say good bye. Photo albums time lining her entire life were laid out on tables for us to look through and reminisce. My aunt was so easy to adore that every co-worker still alive, every nurse and rehab specialist Needie ever had, every domestic attendant who worked in her home, her hairdresser, her manicurist…all were there.

The funeral was held on Park Avenue not far from where Needie lived, the same place Harold was honored ten years earlier. When her son, Michael, got up to speak, Needie and Harold’s black and white wedding photo was projected on the wall behind him and Moonlight Serenade lilted through the chapel. He spoke about their 50th wedding anniversary when they danced to that very song. It was so hauntingly beautiful, I had only to shut my eyes to see their images swaying to the music.

We all made our way to the cemetery and watched as the coffin was lowered into the cold ground beside Harold:”Proud American” etched on his headstone. As sad as it was, it just seemed right. They were together again at last.

Puppy Love

Hallelujah! After 2 1/2 years, Mom is officially out of her old apartment. She hasn’t been living there since she bought her place in my building, but instead has been using the two bedroom, 2 bathroom dwelling as an expensive storage facility. The silliness of paying rent on top of a mortgage and maintenance is at last at an end.

Every week or so, she would come to my apartment with a bag of my old belongings in hand: old clothes, notebooks, textbooks, pictures, and teeny bopper magazines. Usually, I would sift through these things and end up dumping them in the trash. If I hadn’t thought about them in 20 years, I certainly didn’t want to clutter my apartment with them now. But her last trip brought me back something interesting…a bag full of letters.

My goodness, I can’t believe how many there were. It seemed foreign to me to have to read actual handwriting when I’ve been so accustomed to e-mails. There were letters from friends I remembered from my youth, and others that I had no idea who the hell they were! Some were from people I must have met in passing, others from my acting days and a smattering of notes from interested young bucks.

What caught my interest the most was a bundle of correspondence from a boy I met when I was traveling around Egypt and Israel back in 1984. His name was Anthony. A blond haired, brown eyed 14 year old from England, who I fell into immediate puppy love with while cruising down (up?) the Nile. Seeing the postmarks, I realized we had written back and forth for nearly a year. And, oh, the drama of it all! It’s amazing how teenagers earnestly try to mimic adult love affairs.

There was a bunch of hand written letters and mushy greeting cards all with iridescent, sparkly sticker hearts decorating the envelopes. He professed his undying love to me in each one. And also in almost every exchange, he was begging me to come visit him at his summer house in Italy. This I remember vividly: the crying and screaming matches I had with my parents begging them to let me go.

Of course, I wasn’t allowed to travel to Europe by myself at that age and thus, never saw him again. I never understood why they were so against this until I read his letters with an adult’s eye. Yeesh! A 15 year old adolescent boy with raging hormones only had one thing on his mind, and I was too innocent to realize it. Thanks Mom and Dad!

I still have my old high school yearbooks to look though. That should be an interesting trip down memory lane. I will relive my infatuation with the senior I was so desperately in love with. There is an entire folder stuffed with journal writings, pictures and letters attached with that one. Hmmm…I wonder whatever became of him?

Childhood's End

I got started with my love of Science Fiction with Arthur C. Clarke. Today, he has passed from this world to the next. I will cherish the memories of my youth as I eagerly devoured the pages of his books filled with wonderment and awe inspiring ideas.

"Sometimes I am asked how I would like to be remembered," Clarke said recently. "I have had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer and space promoter. Of all these I would like to be remembered as a writer."

And so you shall...

Thank you for Childhood's End, 2001: A Space Oddyssey, Rendezvous with Rama, The Songs of Distant Earth, and all the other stories I have read or have yet to read...

Rest in peace.

Got Milk?

I’ve been working in my school for a decade now and thankfully, I’ve never gotten in trouble nor admonished by anyone. About twice per week, I stroll into the lunchroom after the morning bell to greet the cafeteria workers and get a small 8 oz. container of milk for my coffee. I’m always met with smiles and hearty “hellos”. But last week, it was a different story. I made my usual small talk, went into the fridge and took my paltry container and suddenly a hair netted, scowling face was in view.

“I love the way you just breeze in here…”
“Pardon?”
“You just come in and smile and take milk. It’s so disrespectful…”
Again…”Pardon???”

She went on and on about the milk. And I just stared openmouthed. I apologized profusely and explained that in ten years no one ever mentioned anything about a milk shortage nor had anyone denied me when I asked. I even offered to pay the 40 cents for the product…

Plus, after each school day is done, the unused milk containers are then opened and poured down the drain. Talk about being wasteful! Alas, nothing I said seemed to warm her cold heart. And after all was said and done, she extended her hand to me, shook mine, and made a show of opening up the refrigerator and saying magnanimously “And now you can have some milk…” I wanted to kick her.

I didn’t know what the woman’s name was, but I found out later that it was the mother of one of our teachers…the one who gives her daughter free breakfast and lunch from the cafeteria when we all have to pay for the food. Had I known, I might have said something…but in retrospect, I’m glad I kept my mouth shut as I might have been carted away by the food service police.

Needless to say, I have taken to bringing a small amount of milk from home in a little Tupperware container as I am loath to even walk into the cafeteria for fear of being taken out back and beaten by the Milk Nazi.

Dirty Girl

About two weeks ago, one of my co-workers comes up to me, bends down and closely examines my neck. “What eees dat?” she inquires in her heavy Nicaraguan accent. She touches the area near the hollow, I think its called the “jugular notch” (my anatomy is a bit rusty). “Joo better look at dat”. So, I run into the bathroom and take a peek. There’s a small brown blotch visible. I touch it…its smooth. I take a paper towel and some water and wipe at it a bit. It’s still there. Ok, so now I’m nervous. The bell rings to signal dismissal time. I leave the building, get into my car and immediately call Ann. “What does skin cancer look like?” I ask.

For the next week, I was asking everyone I could grab to look at my neck and tell me if its something I should worry about. The mark wasn’t fading or getting worse, but it was there and that was enough to set me off. I took to wearing turtleneck sweaters, grateful for winter, but every evening when I came home, I’d rip off my top and examine the area. I investigated dermatologists and made the earliest appointment available which is for next month.

Yesterday, I had my annual physical with my internist and I decided to ask him his opinion. He looked at the blotch, brow furrowed, and said “Wait a minute…” he went over to a counter, grabbed an alcohol swab and rubbed at my neck so hard, I thought I was going to choke. He pulled the swab off and showed me. It was stained with something brown. “It’s gone” he said. Well, shit, if only all things could be “cured” so easily.

I laughed all the way home at this typical Steph story. I called Ann. “Guess what? I don’t have skin cancer…I was just dirty.”

All Messages Erased

I’m a saver. Mostly of correspondence. Whether it be in the form of letters, cards, e-mails, IM chats or phone messages…I tend to keep them. I have things dating back to junior high. Hell, I even have old notes passed in class still folded up and worn.

Back when answering machines were audio tape and not digital, I saved the used cassettes. The ones that mean the most to me are the sound of my father’s voice and that of my friend Ted. They’ve both passed on, and its good to know I can hear them speak whenever I want to…although I now would have to dig out my mini cassette player to do so.

I bought a new phone answering system over a year ago, but haven’t set it up because of the saved messages I still had on the old one. The earliest message I had was from 5 years ago. Ex boyfriends, old friends…I never listened to them, but I just wanted to know they were accessible.

Yesterday, when I was deleting a message from one of my friends who I already returned the call to, my finger twitched slightly and I pressed the button twice instead of once…the automated robotic male voice announced: “all messages erased”.

I stood there staring at the machine, waiting for that sinking feeling of dread and loss to settle in, but it never came. Perhaps it was high time I let the past go. Maybe I’m ready for a fresh start. And I think I will begin by hooking up my new answering machine still in its dusty plastic encasement.