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Garage Door Blues

There is no home-related purchase more boring than a garage door.  Except maybe two new garage doors.  They're duller than sump pumps and boilers, with which you at least have the opportunity to actually develop a relationship.

Bob Vila never waxed poetic over garage doors.  So handing over almost $2,000 bucks to the garage door guy was like a stake through my heart.  They're not exactly up there on a girl's wishlist.  I would much prefer to go shopping for, say, a plush new sofa,  kitchen cabinets with interior lights and a lazy Susan, granite countertops, a spa tub big enough for me and the pool boy a good book .......excuse me, I need to go have a cigarette.

Since I am notoriously unobservant (a couple of years ago I said to my DH of 20 years, "Your eyes are blue... right?"), I was thoroughly unprepared to tell the garage door man what "style" windows I wanted.  So I set out on a walk through the 'hood to check out my neighbors' garage doors.  I discovered that there are, in fact, only a few styles to choose from.   Here are your (and my) choices:

And here's what I chose:

Apparently, garage doors are a capital improvement, so I can add the cost to the value of the house (or subtract it, I forget which).  I only hope the sump pump and boiler don't get jealous.

We came, we walked, we didn't eat knishes

Running a marathon is the ultimate challenge.  It requires absolute dedication, hours upon hours of training, early morning slogs through every type of weather, caring for pulled and tired muscles and identifying just the right type of Lycra that prevents your jiggle from hitting the other runners around you. I have the utmost respect for marathoners, even though they are usually younger, prettier and more slender than I am.

Walking a marathon - as I and thousands of other women will be doing next October as we participate in the Avon Walk for (in my case "against") Breast Cancer - is pretty tough too, only slower and better, because it gives you time to windowshop and grab a Starbucks skinny latte in-between donuts.

The greatest challenge that my training partner (aka "Agent Trader Joe's" because my lawyer is still reviewing the waiver she insists I sign before I can identify her in this blog) encountered today as we tackled our first "long walk" together was turning our collective backs on Gus' Pickles, Russ and Daughters and Yonah Schimmel's Knishes before we walked over the Williamsburg Bridge into the wilds of Brooklyn.  It's one thing to fortify yourself in preparation for exercise with granola bars and Gatorade.  It's another thing entirely to brace yourself with the food of our ancestors, hearty stock who not only came to this country with nothing but the pickled herring they carried on their backs, but somehow managed to make me feel guilty about it 100 years later.

Agent Trader Joe's has been training every day by running up seven flights of stairs - twice! - with a Baby Grand Piano strapped to her back.  Me?  It's a long way down from my bedroom to the refrigerator, but I persevere and make the trek at least 52 times a day.  On my light training days.

Agent TJ's pedometer indicates that we walked nine miles today.  Her inner sense says it was more like six miles.  I'd say four or five.

That's okay.  It's not the distance that counts.  It's the number of clean bathrooms you can find along the way.

If you'd like to support me in my walk, please click through to my Personal Page.

Triple Threat

In the wee, small hours of the morning, when I'm tossing and turning (and sending cats flying) while contemplating the futility of life, Spanx and the quest for an honest politician, I torture myself about the failure of my blog to go viral.

I've read a lot about blogging and know that the most successful bloggers have focus.  They write about business or music or gardening or witchcraft - anything that is interesting to a discrete group of individuals.  Their readers return to the blog day after day to get more of their "fix" of the topic at hand.  And their authors publicize their blogs by visiting other forums, related blogs, or ezines on the same topic - and leaving a trail leading back to their own site, like so many breadcrumbs.

The two of you who read me regularly know that there's no rhyme or reason (or purpose or value....) to this blog.  So in order to right those wrongs, today I'm going to discuss three popular topics - the workplace, relationships and finances. Today I am a focused triple threat to the blogosphere!

The Workplace:

• Do not utter the words "mission statement" in my presence.  I will remove your dashboard and summon up your KPIs.
• Lunchtime was designed to regroup and decompress.  But if you can simultaneously cook the company books or steal office supplies while shoving a turkey wrap down your throat, so much the better - it's so much more efficient.
• Dress for success; dress "up" for the position you want; and, unlike some of the younger folk - -just get dressed before you come to work in the morning.

Relationships:

• Do unto others - before they do anything untoward towards or onto you.  Particularly if they are much bigger than you and have a lifetime membership at Equinox.
• Don't ignore any chance for love.  You just never know when that unexpected meeting in the infectious disease holding cell might turn into something meaningful, permanent and catching.
• Never discuss old loves or disgusting habits on a first date.  Especially if they are one and the same.

Finances:

• Watching Donald Trump's "The Apprentice" does not make you a Financial Tycoon anymore than watching Masterpiece Theater makes you British.  
• Save money for a rainy day -- but don't deprive yourself.  Splurge on some new dental caps or a fresh box of baking soda every now and again.
• Don't feel compelled to leave your children a large nest egg.  It's a tough world out there and it's about time they learned it - and what better place to teach this lesson than at the reading of the will, having already exited stage left?

There - bracing myself now for going viral!  Into the Infectious Disease holding cell - never know who I'll meet.

WINNING! - An Interview with Charlie Sheen

I was thrilled when Charlie Sheen of Two and a Half Vials of Tiger Blood responded to my recent request for an interview.  (Of course, he didn't respond with any words that I can print on this family site, but at least I got a response).

Charlie and I met via Skype between his stops in Detroit and Chicago during his Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not An Option tour.  I found him to be tall, dark-haired and male...even when I asked the difficult questions.

How has your life changed since you went ballistic, embarrassed your family, alienated your fan and bought a new bowling shirt?

It has been amazing.  I'm in it for the strike, got a spare, and rolling down the alley.  Going for commerce, dude.  Yeah.

Do you think that your recent problems have any connection to the fact that your given middle name is Irwin?


No.  Do you think your recent problems have any connection to the fact that you're a Barry Manilow fan?

Um, we were talking about you, Chuck.  You know, Adonis DNA and the fact that your life is so much more bitchin' than mine?


You got that straight, duh???


On a personal note, if I may, where do you find your goddesses?   

Why?  Are you interested in applying?

(Me:  Thinking Skype connection must be a little bit fuzzy) Uh, no thanks Charlie.   Now, in doing research for this interview, I learned that  in 1990 you "accidentally" shot your then fiancee, Kelly Preston, in the arm and that she broke off the engagement soon after.  Comments?


It was an accident.  I swear, I was trying to cut off her head and the gun just ...went... off.
I
So, what's next?  Do your think you'll ever go back to Two and a Half Men?


NO WAY!  Okay, maybe. If they put a sign on my dressing room door that says "Warlock."

Climb Every Mountain

Not Me on Mt. Everest

In the late 1990s, after reading Jon Krakauer's account of the 1996 tragedy on Mt. Everest in which a record number of climbers died in a single climbing season, I became obsessed with Chomolungma.  I read every other new book written on the topic, studied photos of climbing routes and became expert at Everest-speak, throwing around words like "crevasse," "Khumbu Icefall," "Advanced Base Camp" and "crampons" like so many snowballs with a hard ice center.

In retrospect, coming off a central NJ winter during which I barely crossed the threshold of my home because it seemed to snow every other day and the wind threatened to muss my hair, my obsession with Everest may seem strange to you. Well, it seems strange to me too.  After all, I don't care for the cold, snow or ice, peeing off the side of a ledge 25,000 feet up, yak meat, the threat of avalanches, or cerebral edema (that's swelling of the brain at high altitude).  And, oh yeah, my lips get chapped when the humidity gets too low.  (Like a papercut, that's the absolute worst).  Me?  I would never be tempted to climb Mt. Everest simply because "it's there" as George Mallory so famously pronounced.

The only way I can explain my obsession is through my admiration for the indomitable human spirit - that small, still voice that whispers "You can do it!" when one is discouraged, tired, hungry or screaming "MAMA!" while dangling from a fixed rope at 27,000 feet, watching ones oxygen mask fall into Tibet. (The last time I heard that voice I was almost at the bottom of a pint of Cherry Garcia, and I didn't need that much urging).

Fortunately for me, the Cafe Everest Diner is only two miles from my home on terra firma. You might reasonably ask me why, living in chain restaurant paradise as I do here in the unnamed city I call home, with Chile's, TGIFs, and Ruby Tuesdays almost around the corner, I would choose to eat at the Cafe Everest Diner - where they don't even serve yak steak.

Why indeed?  Because it's there.

Stuff you didn't know about me.

Those of you who know me as a fashion icon may be surprised to learn that my pajama top and bottoms do not match.  I don't remember how this started, but it has become my signature evening attire.  Come over for dinner one night and you'll see.  I'll share some Fiber One with you!

There are many fun facts that you probably don't know about me.  Here are just a few:

• In the early 1980s, when the CIA recruited personnel via large display ads in the New York Times, I  scored an interview for a job as a spy .  My interviewer (whose real name I never learned) and I met in a midtown hotel, but we soon both decided that spy-dom was not my calling.  This realization came about after the standard questions about teamwork and personal hobbies, when he asked me how much I would enjoy hanging around seedy European train stations in the middle of night waiting for someone to pass me a note. In fact, I prefer cruises to train travel. (By the way, this is a true story).
• I am 52 years old and I can still stand on my head.  I don't do this very often, as I am hoping to live till at least 53.
• As a baby, I was kidnapped by gypsies and raised by wolves.  Like all market researchers.
• While I may be a righty, I have always bounced a ball with my left hand.  This came in very handy during my brief, but highly successful professional basketball career.

Now that you know all of this, I may have to kill you.  I  might have recused myself from the CIA job, but not before learning a thing or two.