Making the Grade

As I idly leaf through the day’s mail, mostly ad circulars and credit offers, the print on the outside of one envelope leaps out at me: Come to our 40-year high school class reunion! Of course it comes as no surprise—neither the number of years I’ve been out of school, nor the fact that a reunion is in the works. No, the little jolt that just shook me comes from the sudden realization that it’s too late to lose 20 pounds.

The fact that this particular reunion invitation is for my husband’s class—not mine—makes no difference. We attended the same school, and though he’s much older than I am (by one class year), if I’m lucky I will be recognized by many of his classmates, perhaps even some of the ones I had crushes on in high school. And if I’m unrecognizable, undoubtedly we’ll all be sporting name tags to allow fellow reunion-goers to pretend otherwise.

But … do I WANT to be recognized? Besides the body bulges, other things are sagging and graying and whatnot. So … do I go with him to the reunion, or do I find myself otherwise engaged that weekend? Maybe schedule that root canal? For crying out loud (I say to myself), get a grip! Like everyone will be focused on YOU! Like no one else has aged! Like your outward appearance defines who you are! What are you, still 16? Haven’t you matured at all in the past 40 years? Thus chastised by myself, I tell Curt to sign me up, and proceed to prepare for the event as if capping the BP oil spill hinges on my teeth being pearly, my hair freshly highlighted, and my outfit properly accessorized.

So we go to the reunion of Ankeny (Iowa) High School’s great class of 1970. Of course no one with a modicum of common sense will believe me if I say that I don’t notice how people look. Obviously I’m still the same shallow person who considers scheduling elective dental work to avoid others’ scrutiny. Let’s just be honest: Curiosity about how certain people “turn out” is one of the main forces driving us to attend these things. There’s a certain unseemly satisfaction one gets from seeing that everyone else is also in their late 50s, and many of them wear every year of it.

But reconnecting with those who meant something back then is the really fun part. A couple of Curt’s best friends from days of yore introduce us to their wives. A quick rapport develops, and Bryson and Mary invite Paul and Juli and us to their home so the guys can reprise their garage band (“House of the Rising Sun,” anyone?) and the wives can get acquainted. Bryson and Mary like to go to bed early, but it’s nearly 2 a.m. before we tear ourselves away amid vows to get together again soon. Though we all live in the Midwest, our respective cities are fairly distant. The next week, the women email one another to plan a weekend without the guys—in Las Vegas. These new friends are an unexpected bonus for me.

I’m glad to say I learned something valuable from this whole experience, which I hope to remember next year before the invitation to my own 40th reunion arrives in the mail. Something about making new friends, and keeping the old? Something about what’s on the inside mattering most? Yeah, yeah, blah, blah. The really valuable lesson is that next year I need to start my diet in January.

A Fine Mess

Following a night of raging thunderstorms last weekend, we woke Saturday morning to find our grandkids Jack and Autumn sitting quietly watching TV. They casually mentioned, as though we may or may not be interested, that the bedroom carpet downstairs was wet and squishy. (I surmise that they thought twice about waking us early on a Saturday.) Curt rushed down and found the cat’s litter box floating in the utility room where the sump pump is; the water had also seeped under the walls into the bathroom and both bedrooms and closets. The insurance company puzzled with us as to why the sump wasn’t running even though the electricity stayed on.

Ho, hum. This was a recurrence of the same scenario from three years ago. No explanation then either, but the faithful insurance company came to the rescue. That time, instead of recarpeting the whole “lower level” (the term we pretentiously prefer to “basement”), we wisely upgraded to ceramic tile in all but the two bedrooms.

In yet another incident last fall, a hose burst in the first-floor laundry room, flooding the kitchen and the newly installed hardwood floor of the living and dining rooms. Of course, water being water, it trickled and streamed its way down the ductwork and through floors into, you guessed it, the “lower level.” The insurance company came through again, and we even ended up with some spiffy new upgraded trimwork.

This third time, it’s just a matter of moving stuff around, drying it all out and re-laying the same carpet—an inconvenient mess. Our friends Paul and Nancy had been using the Welsh B&B while their own grown kids took over their house, so we were forced to downgrade their accommodations to an air bed in the upstairs TV room.

Well, fine. If we’re to learn from experience, there’s got to be a lesson in here somewhere. Might we be a bit “incident-prone”? Should I apply for a job in the PR department of Nationwide Insurance? Should we allow the "lower level" to revert to a "basement"? I think I may be missing something here.

Entertaining for Dummies

Without our awareness, fogeydom probably set in early for Curt and me as we became parents in our teens and took our grown-up responsibilities pretty seriously. We gave up partying in our early twenties (no, not immediately upon the birth of our first; reality took a little time to set in), went early to bed, paid our bills on time, sang in the church choir; in short, tried to be proper role models. The pitfalls of extra-young parenting are well documented, and while maybe not textbook cases, we muddled through much of it.

But don’t bust out the violins: As a benefit of young parenthood, we are treated to young grandparenthood. (Right now we’re at five and counting.) It’s hard to see any downside to our good fortune of being the grandparents of the two pre-adolescents who just spent the weekend with us. While undoubtedly we were never as cool as we thought, we marvel that Jack and Autumn need no coercion into hanging out with us.

So, how do you entertain a 13-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl for a couple of days? Here’s how we did it:

1) Lay in a supply of brownie fudge ice cream.
2) Choose up teams to vie for the World 8-Ball Pool Championship, as an Eagles concert DVD blares in the background.
3) Laugh uproariously at fart and burp jokes. (I have to admit that this took some effort for me, having raised only girls, though it came worryingly naturally to Curt.)
4) Order a giant takeout pizza (but don’t try to sneak in mushrooms or green peppers).
5) Allow them to run down the street in a downpour.
6) Go out for breakfast, letting them order whatever they fancy without regard to the price tag on the freshly squeezed strawberry-orange juice that you would never have let their mother order, back in the day. Repeat at lunch.
7) Hug and kiss them in public, and make sure to call them by their pet names, Butterfingers and Buttercup.
8) Play Dominoes till kingdom come, but don’t let them win.
9) Make sure that Grandpa lets loose with plenty of crusty, slightly questionable remarks.
10) Own a drum set, complete with cymbals, and a couple of guitars. The kids will be unable to resist the allure of accompanying Grandma as she belts out the chorus of classic rock tunes such as “Smoke on the Water” (DUM DUM DAH-DUM! A fire in the sky!)
11) Help them hone their sense of humor by borrowing a “Best of Chris Farley” DVD from the public library.

In short, we just have fun. On a recent weekend road trip, my heart was warmed as Autumn remarked, “I’ve laughed until my stomach hurt three times on the way home!” Me too, Buttercup.

Hide It Under a Bush?

Root canals have gotten a bum rap.

There have been times in the past when I’ve (either silently or aloud) tossed off the phrase “I’d rather get a root canal” when confronted with an unappealing alternative. It’s a more sarcastic but admittedly overused equivalent of “Hell, no!”

Do you want to go running tomorrow? “I’d rather get a root canal.”
Let’s take a camping vacation! “I’d rather get a root canal.”
Wouldn’t it be fun if we all dressed up in crazy hats and sang ”Happy Days Are Here Again” at the staff meeting? (Umm … you get the idea.)

But those times were before I’d actually experienced the procedure under discussion. Yesterday I learned the truth—that due to the advances of modern dentistry, a root canal is no more painful or even uncomfortable than getting one’s hair highlighted. Sure, it costs ten times as much; for me, a confirmed nickel-squeezer, that part does smart some. But come on, what rational person WOULDN’T rather have a root canal than go running? You get to lie still in a recliner for an hour and a half! No changing clothes, no sweating, no blisters. Weirdly, though, the aftereffects for each activity—the drooling and the mumbling—are pretty much the same.

The problem is, now I need to retire my careworn, not-so-snappy riposte. When a suggested activity has less appeal than watching an instructional DVD on the essentials of sound design (which, believe me, really could be suggested around here), I’ve got nothing in my arsenal.

But wait a minute. Remember the old Sunday School song "This Little Light of Mine"? My friend Erin, as a child, thought the lyrics went: “Hide it under a bush? HELL, NO! I’m gonna let it shine.” You gotta admit, that kills.

Home Sweet Home

You probably have a particular emotional attachment to a certain dwelling from your past. Perhaps it’s your first apartment, replete with parental castoffs and cobbled-together bookshelves stacked with a portable black-and-white TV, stereo components and Crosby, Stills and Nash albums. Maybe it’s the house you bought while in the first bloom of love as a newlywed, furnished in Early Salvation Army. Or the home you rehabbed by the sweat of your brow, gutting and plastering and plumbing and sanding and ruing that you pigheadedly married for love instead of money.

Me though, I’ve never become attached to those physical spaces in which I’ve lived. In our first 17 years of marriage, Curt and I changed residences 10 times. Don’t get me wrong, I loved living in some of those places, but it wasn’t the rooms where we lay our heads at night that have me waxing nostalgic. No, the best places have some sort of magical aura having nothing to do with the size of the closets or the number of bathrooms.

Such was my state of mind as we drove into my old neighborhood in Ankeny, Iowa, last weekend. Every time we’ve been back over the years I’ve wanted to drive by the house my parents built and which we moved into when I was in sixth grade, my little sister Pam in second, and my brother Jay a sophomore in high school. How I loved that house! The closet-inside-a-closet in which I held secret club meetings. The laundry chute I could stick my head inside and listen to my idiot sister’s friends act like dorks downstairs. The pool and pingpong tables in the large rec room, perfect for hosting boisterous slumber parties. The back stairway built so my mom would have easy access to the clothesline out back, but for a teenager the perfect accomplice for sneaking out at night.

So many times I’d wondered how it looked inside since my parents sold it around 1975. I’ve even seen this house in my dreams. Well, this time we didn’t just wistfully drive by. This time, there were people in the driveway. “Just pull in so I can say hello,” I told Curt.

And, you guessed it, they invited us in for a tour. The young family has lived there for 10 years, and were eager to tell me why they loved the house, and were equally as eager to hear how I and my family had loved it. Surprisingly, not a lot had changed. All the important stuff was still there: the closet, the laundry chute, the back stairs; I could feel my sister practicing her clarinet as I turned up the bass on the console stereo to drown her out. I could see my mom’s little dog barking at Borgy the garbageman at the picture window. I could hear my elderly Dutch grandma rounding the corner from the hallway, unabashedly passing gas, long and loud, as my friend Sue and I tried to keep our faces straight while burying our noses in Sears catalogs.

But the best part? The homeowner herded me into the bathroom and pulled out the vanity drawer next to the toilet. “Maybe you can clear up a mystery for us,” she said. “We’ve always wondered who Pam is.”

“Pam stinks. B.W.” Carved for posterity into the side of the drawer. That house, by God, I do love still.

Pushing Up Daisies

Today, boys and girls, the topic is Death. Not because I or anyone dear to me is dying. Actually, of course (dramatic pronouncement by Captain Obvious) we all are. I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on that fact. At least I didn’t used to; each passing year seems to make the concept a little less abstract, a little more personal. I’ve been fortunate in the fact that, unlike many others, I’ve not had to face the passing of many beloved friends or relatives, except for elderly ones. The age thing always seems to make Death more palatable, or at least more understandable.

When Curt saw I’d put the foreign movie Departures—yes, as in departing this world for the next—in our Netflix queue, he naturally thought I’d confused it with The Departed, starring Jack, Leonardo and Matt. My taste generally runs to comedies with soul (think Best in Show, Napoleon Dynamite, and The Invention of Lying) and occasional documentaries. Though I’ve quite willingly watched a lot of movies, I’m not what you would call an aficionado; if you ask me whether I’ve seen a certain one I usually can’t remember without some serious memory jogging. They just don’t linger in the memory bank. (I could fill a thousand pages writing about what I can’t remember if I could remember it.) But I digress. I reassured Curt that Departures won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film, and it came recommended by a friend whose opinion I value. Even though it’s in Japanese, with subtitles.

Lacking his usual enthusiasm (but buoyed by a large vodka martini with three feta-stuffed olives), Curt cranked up the DVD player (I’m still unsure of how to work it). Gramps the 18-pound cat settled contentedly on Curt’s belly and we reclined our respective ends of the sectional, ready to be creeped out.

Instead we were treated to a moving, fundamentally beautiful depiction of how, in caring hands, death can be treated sensitively and respectfully—up close and personal—to bring great comfort to the bereaved. There was an intimacy and a sense of closure that seems to be missing in our 21st-century American treatment of the subject. By treating it as an almost taboo topic, we’ve invested it with a sense of the macabre. Well, we agreed afterward, in this movie at least, death wasn’t creepy at all.

Moral of the story: If at some point you tire of Hollywood blockbusters and venture to try a foreign film, first make sure your pantry is adequately stocked with specialty olives.

The Importance of Proper Attire

The title of this blog needs some explaining. See, I don’t actually run in jeans on any regular basis; I don’t actually run, period, though if properly motivated I can walk pretty fast.

One day in the not-so-distant past, bedazzled by the athletic prowess of my more energetic friends, I made an impromptu decision to start a running program. Right then and there. So I laced up my shoes and flew out the front door. I can do this! Once around the subdivision’s half-mile circle—with a few steepish hills thrown in—and I was draggin’ my wagon, let me tell you. So my newfound burst of enthusiasm met with an untimely demise.

Unfortunately, my daughter Christina was there at the time. Why do we rear daughters, if not to bear witness to our every weakness, foible, and embarrassment in life? And further, to embellish and blab it to whomever will listen? The first to hear the news were her two sisters, Kim and Angie: “Mom went running in JEANS today!” Much to my confusion, hilarity ensued. Yes, I was wearing jeans. Was that wrong? I have to plead ignorance here, because if I’d known that sort of thing was frowned upon I would have changed into culottes. (Look it up! It means a skirt with legs. Honest.) Kim imagined the neighbors’ casual observations: “Why, there goes that nice Mrs. Welsh. She seems to be in some sort of hurry. I do hope she’s all right.”

My running program lives on in the unprovoked eruptions of mirth when the girls or their friends (Rachel, I’m talking to YOU) find a way to work the phrase “running in jeans” into the conversation. You’d be surprised how often it comes up. But to show what a good sport I am, I’ve named my blog just to bring them a smile. Kim, Angie, and Tina, this one’s for you.

What Should I Be When I Grow Up?

As a child in the fifties and sixties, I dreamed of being a singer like Eydie Gorme. Never mind that the only thing I knew about her was that she was glamorous and famous, based on a fuzzy picture cut out of a celebrity column in the Des Moines Register. Dovetailing nicely into that dream, I pictured myself singing fabulously into the microphone to pluck the Miss America crown from the baton-twirling Miss Texas. So what if I was overweight, pimply and extremely nearsighted (corrected with a pair of my sister's hand-me-down owl glasses)? I’d transform myself, like a prim librarian on TV who removed her spectacles and let down her hair bun to astonish everyone with her previously-masked beauty.

As it turned out, my dream never evolved; in fact, I’ve reached middle age singing along with great gusto to Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt and Carole King recordings. Problem is, I never pursued that dream, or ANY dream. Instead I blithely went about life, reacting to whatever happened to me and just letting it unfold—as life tends to do–without identifying with an ambition, a raison d‘être. It never even occurred to me that I needed one. After all, I’m not exactly a focused, driven world-beater.

Until I read Ken Robinson’s book The Element, I had just a vague notion about something my friend Pat and I had touched upon during one of our many soul-searching sessions—the underlying feeling that we weren’t DRIVEN by anything. Or TO anything. This seemed reasonable for oh, say, my first 50 years. But what about the next (optimistically) 50? I’m not always going to be able to coast on my looks, charm and brilliance. Robinson’s book awoke something within me: the idea that even I, the consummate hopeless slackass, may have a talent lurking within me about which I could become passionate. And that, if awakened, it might prove compelling well into old age, and even help me make some sort of mark in the world.

Some people, one might even say sensible people, concern themselves with this business well before they reach the age of 56. And I’m nothing if not sensible—just a look at my Dutch heritage will convince you of the extreme practicality of my nature. That’s why I’ve always been so responsible—it simply didn’t make good sense to take dance lessons or attend concerts or buy records. Waste of money! You can’t make a living that way!

“Start a blog!” my friends Judy and Madeleine urged over shortbread and iced tea at one of our Panera-based gabfests. They know I fancy myself somewhat of a writer, and that I’ve often fantasized about writing a book. Is a blog a good way for a confidence-deficient, “there’s-always-tomorrow” kind of person to cut her teeth on the discipline of writing regularly? Bless their hearts, they think so. And they swear they’ll read this stuff. Women friends are just the best.

Don’t worry that I still harbor any illusions that I’m the next Lady Gaga. But sixty is the new forty, right? Robinson’s book is full of inspirational examples of people who flew WAY below the radar until their sixth decade of life and beyond. So, just like Bob (you know, in What About Bob?), I take my first hopeful baby steps.