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At times I can be an anxious little kiddo. And often it's life's little stressors that make me vibrate the hardest. Take my email, for instance. No, really, take my email. Please. 

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Like millions of others I have a Gmail account. You might use Gmail or Yahoo or Zoho or Lycos or any of the other email service providers whose names sound like Western apparel manufacturers or movie villains; that part isn't important. What's important is that email as a sales tool has run amok and is drowning boatloads of innocent consumers in waves of happy-crappy overload.  

I was getting dozens of emails a day and deleting them was like digging in the sand with a toothpick: the few I managed to get rid of in any one sitting were replaced by dozens more by the end of the day. Suddenly I realized how much stress it was causing. There was something so out-of-control about it. Remember the old adage: Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door? It was like that, but all catty-wompas. They had the mousetraps and I was a mouse - a mouse with a door - and a wallet.  

Of course we all know I was the core of my own problem. I was the one who'd said yes to enough cashiers, or foolishly assumed I could shop online without lingering consequences and messy entanglements. 

I was the one who didn't end the relationship after the first layaway.  

Then, what had been so out-of-control was perfectly under control when it occurred to me to simply snake my way through all the happy-crappy content, all the fine print and all the links and then click on the most powerful word in the entire email: Unsubscribe. 

Even now, looking at that word on my computer monitor gives me chills and I swear I hear a chorus of angels in the distance. 

Why this simple fix didn't occur to me long ago, I have no clue, but once it did, the shackles of my oppressors began snapping like twigs, and I was free in no time.  

Well, not quite.

While I was told I had successfully unsubscribed, in some cases I was also told it could take up to 10 days before that particular company's emails would stop. And some people tell me the emails might just come back - with a vengeance. 

And often I was asked if I had made a mistake. Did I really want to part company with the vehicles to so much material happiness or health and wellness wisdom or improved mental acuity? Yes, I'd say. Yes, I really did. 

Last spring I did a lot of online shopping because I'd just moved from an apartment into a house and I needed a lot of things. And while the things I bought for the house have brought me a lot of pleasure, they haven't changed my life. And reading about sales on dozens of items just like them is no life-changer either. I still have to pay for my kids' braces, I still have to get my tires rotated and I still have a gassy dog who scares herself when she poofs. And I would still have those things to deal with even if I bought more stuff. 

Unsubscribing to all that email felt so good. Whether or not my unsubscribing will stick, we'll have to see. 

But for now, it's been like shooting fish in a barrel - very crafty and very aggressive fish in a barrel.   

As I Lay Ploozing

I used to fear death and planned to avoid it for as long as possible. Since my mother's death, however, I've had more than one experience that left me convinced she's perfectly okay.  

Image: Teece Aronin

So, I don't fear death nearly as much now, and when it's my time to go, I'll go gracefully, because if there is a heaven, I don't want people there to think I'm not a team player.

A friend of mine once suggested that his elderly, demanding father was refusing to die just so he could be a burden to his kids. 

"My father," he said, "may never die. He isn't going gently into that good night, nor is he raging. He simply ignores Death."

That was more than 10 years ago, so my guess is that Death has gotten that man's attention by now.

As to an afterlife, here are the reasons I no longer worry:

1. Either I go to heaven, or I don't. Either way, I'm probably fine because I think I've lived the kind of life likely to get me in. If there's not a heaven, I won't know the difference - unless, by some oversight in the recordkeeping, I go to the other place. 

If heaven doesn't exist, I doubt hell does, or purgatory, for that matter. Then again, I suppose there could be an afterlife that's not heaven or hell or purgatory. If it's not hell or purgatory, that would be great, but if it's not heaven, that could be bad, especially since we're talking about an eternity of something other than heaven. And if by some chance, there's an afterlife that isn't eternal, I might have to die all over again which seems totally unfair. Then where the hell am I?

Wait - these are supposed to be reasons I'm not worried, so let me back up. 

2. If there is no afterlife, as I said before, I won't know that. My awareness will be the same as before I was conceived: zilch. Before I came to be down here, I wasn't running around heaven, tugging God's sleeve, and nagging Him to hurry up. My fear of death was predicated on the notion that I would have some kind of awareness of my lack of life, and if that were the case, I would have to be conscious and existing in an afterlife. Then again, I could be in purgatory or hell. Ugh. 

3. I'll get to play the harp. And when presented with the prospect ossibility of acquiring a new skill such as harp-playing, I choose to not sweat little details like how I will suddenly know how to play a harp.

4. After I die, I get access to the vault where they store the answers to all the unsolved mysteries, such as why John Lennon ever let Yoko Ono sing. 

One thing that still bothers me is that many of the words we use to describe the state or process of no longer living sound so death-y.

Rather than die, I'd prefer to plooze, and I think we should replace the word death with plooze and dying with ploozing. 

Let's test plooze out by using it in a sentence:

"Did you hear about Frank? He ploozed last year after a fall."

Doesn't that sound better? Like Frank slipped and took an unexpected trip down a slide at a water park. 

I can joke all I want, but now I'm being serious:

About a month after my mother died, I laid down on my bed and closed my eyes. Mind drifting, but fully awake, I wasn't consciously thinking about her. Suddenly, I heard her voice, blossoming with delight, the state of being in which she spent much of her earthly life. 

"It is so wonderful!" she said.

Having Hope

I have a dog named Hope, and ever since the day we first laid eyes on each other, life has never been the same. 

Hope keeping watch while Silas sleeps.
Photo: Sydney Aronin

We met Hope (we being my kids, Syd and Jon and I) when we visited a local shelter hoping to adopt a dog. We came upon a large cage in which sat one scrawny, black and white mutt. As soon as she saw us, she snapped to attention as if she knew winning the game meant making a good impression. She concentrated so hard on sitting still that she vibrated. Her tail rapidly mopped the floor in a sweeping arc, and she peered straight into our faces. The tag on her cage read "Maybelline."

I'm not sure why, but Maybelline seems to be the default name for all goofy-looking female dogs up for adoption. 

"Guys," I said, "This dog has hope written all over her."

Isn't there an ancient admonition about becoming responsible for beings you have named? If there isn't, there should be, because now I'm responsible for Hope. It's not only that I inadvertently named her, but then I paid her adoption fees, paid for her shots, paid for her license, paid for her allergy tests, and paid for her skin infections. I just generally paid, and paid, and paid, and paid, and paid.  

Complications related to Hope started on the ride home from the shelter. Thrilled to be going anywhere with anyone, she planted herself in the backseat between the kids, a soon-to-be-thorn-in-my-side nestled between two roses. Jon was cheerfully reading her paperwork.

"Hmm . . . This is interesting. It says here, 'Maybelline is partially housebroken.'" 

I nearly pulled a U-turn in the middle of I-96.

"What??? She's an adult dog! How can she be only partially housebroken?"

I was already more than $150 in the hole with this dog. This news was like finding out that I'd just paid people for the privilege of inviting a stranger into my home, and now that stranger was going to urinate all over my carpet. Hope had lots of "accidents" before getting the kids and me trained.

The next thing we realized was that she'd probably been abused. When we'd reach out to pet her, she'd squeeze her eyes shut, hunker down, and brace for a blow. Eventually she learned to trust us but would get into scrapes with other dogs, so we had to be careful when walking her and never will take her to a dog park. 

I've written about Hope here before. You might have already read about the day we moved into our new house. Feeling territorial and stressed, Hope shot out the front door like a fur-clad cannon ball and chomped down on an ancient basset hound belonging to our new neighbor. Hope is a lean and muscular dog with legs like an Olympic marathon-runner. Picture Eeyore plodding along, pausing to sniff a daisy only to have Goofy, all hopped up on adrenaline, screech up out of nowhere and jump him. That's what it was like, but luckily Selma recovered, I paid the vet bills, and my daughter took get well treats over to our neighbor who graciously forgave us.  

Hope is otherwise quite social and likes to share. She likes to share my bed, my rocking chair, my love seat - but only when I'm trying to nap on it - and my personal space in the car. There has to be an important reason for me to drive Hope anywhere. Otherwise I avoid putting that dog in the car just as I would avoid putting myself into a tubful of dirt and drool, because that's more or less the equivalent.  

The other night, I climbed into bed and shut off the light. Hope jumped in with me. Just as I pulled up the covers, she found the top of the blankets and systematically muzzled them to the foot of the bed - like a snow-plow driver. I'd pull the blankets back up, and Hope would push them back down. This went on until it dawned on me that she was trying to burrow beneath them, so I held the blankets up. Hope walked under, collapsed dramatically as if all that plowing had exhausted her, then sneezed against my bare leg like a snorting elephant. 

Sometimes Hope does things that can only be described as inexplicable. One night when Jon was about 13, his friend Miles was staying over, and both boys fell asleep on the living room floor. Hope hopped off the couch, crossed to where Miles lay, and shoved her cold, wet nose into his ear to wake him up. Then she stepped on Miles on her way to where Jon lay and did the same thing to him. After she'd woken both boys, she stepped on Miles again on her way back to the couch and laid back down.  

Hope is also protective of the kids and me. Once when my old boyfriend, Pete was playfully smacking Syd with a pool noodle, Hope barked out a few warnings, then bit down on the seat of Pete's jeans and pulled. She did the same thing when one of the neighbor kids was rough-housing with Jon. 

Another time, when a date came to pick me up for lunch and Hope didn't know him, she repeatedly positioned herself between him and me and glared at him. This man, a self-described "dog guy," explained to me that Hope was "on alert." 

"Right now I wouldn't consider even kissing you hello," he said. 

Another of Hope's quirks is her jealousy of any dog that might be considered in any way superior to her - which some say is any dog ever, including Cujo. For Christmas a couple of years ago, I bought Syd a biography of Rin Tin Tin and Hope chewed it up before Syd got past Chapter One. 

But then something will happen, and like those times when she tries to protect us, Hope shines. A couple of weeks ago, we brought home a kitten, a tiny orange tabby we call Silas. We read up on the popular wisdom for introducing kittens and dogs, and when we finally let them meet, Hope "motherized" him, herding and licking Silas, lying nearby as he slept, and patiently allowing him to maul her muzzle and climb all over her. 

When our other cat, Kitt was perched on the sofa arm, Silas whacked her with his paw. Kitt tapped him on the head as a gentle reprimand, and Hope sent her flying with both front paws to the chest. Then she rushed back to check on Silas. 

So now, not only am I responsible for Hope because I named her, I'm responsible for her because I love her. I love her for being such a well-meaning mama, not only to Silas but to my kids and sometimes even to me. 

But thank God Syd's the one who named Silas; I don't need more responsibility. 

White Caps on Lake Mousey

I started graying in my early thirties, and instead of just accepting it as one of nature's quirks, I made a beeline for the beauty aisle at my local grocery store and bought my first box of hair color.

Image by Teece Aronin. 

We're allowed our own choices about these kinds of things, but to anyone out there still dying (their hair), I will say that I shudder to think how many charitable donations could have been made, how many cruises could have been taken and how many co-pays could have been paid with the money I spent on all that dye. 

And forget having it dyed professionally. I never paid someone to do that for me. I much preferred to spend less, do it myself, and then replace the shower curtain, the shower curtain liner, and the grout between the bathroom tiles after splattering up the bathroom.

And there are all kinds of valid ways to look at things like this. Our appearance is a crucial part of how we feel about ourselves, and like plastic surgery, diet, and clothing, there aren't many wrong choices assuming we have our mental balance when we make those decisions.

However, my mental and even my physical balance are a little toddleresque at times, and I kept dying my hair into my fifties because I cared too much about what others saw when they looked at my aging head. That seems silly to me now.

I have a friend about my age whose salt and pepper pageboy frames her face perfectly, and I can't imagine her looking quite herself any other way. She told me, "Yeah, I started graying in my thirties too, and I just went with it!" When she said, "went with it," the page boy took a little swing around as she merrily tossed her head. She might as well have said, "Yeah, I saw the yawning abyss of advancing age open right in front of me, and I just zip-lined right over it!"

I tried the zip-line thing, too, by dying my hair. In my case, the cord snapped, and I landed on my fanny in the treacherous part of the abyss, the part my friend zipped right over, a part where some women stay and dye until they die. Men too!

Yes, lots of men dye their hair - and their beards - and their mustaches - and since women typically don't do comb-overs, I think that gives women a leg up in the self-image/self-acceptance department - in the health and beauty aisle anyway. Actually, that's probably not true. 

Anyway, now that I've decided to let my hair gray, I'm finding that's not so simple either. If I'd been a blonde, it would have been easier since the gray roots wouldn't have been as noticeable. But I'd been a brunette with redhead tendencies from the get-go, so when I tried to dye my hair blonde so the gray could ease in, it turned out the color of an anemic carrot, and the gray roots glowed ominously. 

Lately, what's been working - kind of - is having my hair cut very short so that as the gray hair at the top grows in and the brown at the bottom gets snipped off, I'm looking more all of a color.

I saw my brother recently after several months apart, and he joked about my "little white cap." Seeing the expression on my face, he then spent the next ten minutes reassuring me that no, it really did just look like highlights.  

Highlights or not, it was time for me to stop clinging to something that's not only unnatural and expensive, but not that attractive on me anymore.

And it was time for me to stop fearing the "abyss," because most of it's not an abyss at all. It's a little like the Grand Canyon: natural, mysterious, beautiful - a little scary - and begging to be explored.

Red, White, and Water

There was a time when I worked as a recruiter. You might be more familiar with the term "headhunter," people whose job it is to track down and court talent at one company, then get that talent to join your client, the competition.

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Most headhunters specialize in specific fields. My first headhunter job was recruiting engineers and technical sales reps. I wish I had a dollar for every time I said these words: "The position offers a 30 - 35K base with an 80 - 100K top end."

Translation: "The position offers a $30 - $35,000 base salary with potential annual earnings in the range of $80 - $100,000 dollars after commissions." 

The only thing I liked about the job was slinging those numbers around followed by a K; there was a certain kool kwotient in that. 

My second recruiting job was recruiting actuaries. I've written about that job before in a post titled Dial D for Dick.

In that post I confessed the hatred of that job that bloomed in my heart from Day One. It wasn't the actuaries themselves, it was the sneaking around on the phone to find the person I was looking to recruit, along with the sense of stealing and trickery I perceived to be going along with it.

That was when I started thinking about priorities and choices and what really mattered. I knew nothing about life coaching or career coaching or all the other means open to help me chart another course. But I was beginning to sense there was a better fit for me somewhere.

Blessedly, I had several gal-pals at that job, my two closest being Marti and Sharon. One day, Marti and I were at Sharon's place, sipping drinks with her by the pool. As it turned out, Sharon also had a hot tub and soon she and Marti and I were in it, sipping Chardonnay and gabbing like little girls.

We were laughing hard about something when Sharon's fanny slipped off the fiberglass seat and she was going under faster than Lehman Brothers. The lower she sank, the higher she held her wineglass in an attempt to keep it from going with her.

Marti and I sobered up immediately and lunged forward snatching the glass seconds before it would have gone down and seconds after Sharon had gone down.

Immediately, Marti and I realized what we'd done, set the wineglass down - carefully - then hauled Sharon back up. We apologized while Sharon sputtered water. 

Then Sharon said: "You did the right thing."

And that was the day it occurred to me, as I poured myself more wine, that deciding what's most important in life can be downright intoxicating. I'm still deciding all these years later, right now with a nice glass of red. But sometimes it's a white, and sometimes it's cold, perfect water, more refreshing than anything a grape could ever dream of being. 

Bottoms down, dear Sharon, wherever you are.

My Mother Dated Mickey Rooney?

The day after my mother's memorial service in June of 2016, I hosted a picnic and invited my family and a few extended folks. There were several reasons for the picnic: to honor my mother one more time, to celebrate my brother's birthday and to give the family an opportunity to go through some of the things my mother had kept in storage.

Image by Teece Aronin

There were photos and dishes and tissue-thin letters, a portrait of me in a little smocked dress and one of each brother taken at the same time as mine, both of them wearing blazers, dress shirts and ties. 

One of us sitting among the piles of pictures held up a framed photo of my father and asked, "Do you mind if I slip the photo out and see if there's anything behind it? You know how people used to do that - slip one picture in on top of another?"

She slid my father's picture out and lo and behold, reposing beneath was a publicity shot of a youngish Mickey Rooney. The room erupted in surprised laughter and those of us of a certain age recalled how, in the golden age of Hollywood, picture frames and wallets were sold holding pictures of popular film stars instead of the fake, paper flower versions of loved ones we see on store shelves today.

Silently I mused how wild it would be if the photo was stashed back there because my mother dated Mickey Rooney before she met my father. How close might I have come to being even shorter than I am? What if my mother, as faithful a mate as any swan, had married Mickey and through no fault of her own found herself Ex-Mrs. Rooney Number Umpty-ump?

What else didn't I know about my mother? Maybe she'd been a studio starlet and met Mickey that way. Maybe she was a cigarette girl at the Biltmore Bowl in Hollywood and caught his eye one night as he wined and dined Ava Gardner. 

I know my mother's past didn't really include Mickey Rooney or even a stint as a cigarette girl at the Biltmore Bowl. She was a kind-hearted, pretty Clarkston girl who met my father before her twenty-first birthday and they were married soon after. And besides, she was allergic to cigarette smoke.   

But for a few minutes, imagining my mother's secret life with Mickey Rooney, I almost forgot how much I miss her. 

Playing the Sympathy Card

There are still days when I can't believe she's gone, my mother who was so full of life - until, suddenly, she wasn't. And one of the harshest truths about grieving is that no matter how debilitated, laid to waste, and torn apart you feel, the world keeps spinning.

Image by Teece Aronin

When my mother died, it was like being dropped in cold, waist-deep water and having to get ready to run. Run and get paperwork to the lender so I'd close on my new house on time; run and grab my laptop so I could pay the credit card bill before it was late; run and get the permission slip in to my kid's choir teacher so my kid could go on the class trip. First World problems, I admit, but still slogging, wet and weighty burdens when you're grieving. 

When all this was too much for me to bear, I'd play my sympathy card and pray that it bought me a little time, a small break, a minute to catch my breath.

I was pulled over by a State Trooper about a week after my mother's death, and I couldn't help it - as soon as my window went down, words came blurting out of me about how I'd just lost my mother, how I must have been distracted, and how I could barely think of my own name right now, much less read a speed sign. Before I knew it, I was on my way with a gentle warning to slow down. 

Then there was a request for paperwork from one of the outlying parties associated with the escrow on the house I was buying. "Please, may I have a few days on this? My mother died about a week ago." I can't remember the woman's exact reply but the gist was: "I'm sorry for your loss, but we really need this done as soon as possible." We ended up closing on the house two weeks early so I'm thinking maybe she's never lost a mother or maybe she never had a mother in the first place.

When the agent handling my homeowner's insurance made a similar request, I played my sympathy card again. I could hardly navigate my way through the grocery store, let alone whatever his request was. Steve (Free-thinking) Freemire leaped into action. He expressed his condolences on the death of my mother, very sincere ones, it seemed to me, and spoke of his own similar loss. Then he told me not to worry about the paperwork and that he would take care of it. Not even, "You Can Have a Few Days," but "I Will Do it For You."

He was one of the few people who not only accepted my sympathy card but placed a little kiss on its cover before offering it back. Those are the people you remember, the ones who when you're going through hell actually do something to help. 

It's been three-and-a-half months since my mother "went away," leaving me the world's oldest orphan. I don't use my sympathy card anymore because my mind is almost as normal now as it ever was, which many would argue, wasn't close to normal ever. 

But to anyone who accepted my sympathy card when it was all I had to offer, especially Free-thinking Freemire, thank you.