Brown Shoes

According to the Cole Porter song, Miss Otis Regrets, the lady is saddened that she's unable to lunch because she's just gotten hauled off to the hoosegow for shooting her lover. On Saturday I regretted that I was able to lunch - and even then, it was just barely. 

Brown Shoes by Teece Aronin. Available on products at
redbubble.com/people/phylliswalter.

I have a friend I'll call F. F and I have known each other almost two years and met through the miracle of social media. Because we live roughly two hours from one another, we have communicated mostly via the Face Book game Words with Friends and texting. We did manage to meet a couple of times, one of them for dinner. Maybe you've found yourself with the same problem: you like someone, but you live so far apart that it's difficult to date like other couples. 

So back to F. One or the other of us was always dating someone else or recovering from some star-crossed stupidity into which we'd gotten sucked. 

Anyway, there we were last week, messaging back and forth, and ended up planning a date with each other. It was for yesterday. Then, in one of those, "I-have-no-idea-why-we're-texting-about-this" moments, it was decided we'd share our first kiss. He seemed enthused about the kiss and so was I. I was to drive to his house and we would go from there to a wedding reception. 

Now, I was rear-ended a few weeks ago, and my back and knees waited until recently to start collectively killing me. I've been limping, playing phone tag with my medical claims rep and having a rough time getting things done at work because of the pain. The day before the date it was almost unbearable, so I went to my doctor. I had told F that I would dance with him, but could barely get out of my car. 

"I'm going to a wedding tomorrow!" I told my doctor who wrote me a prescription for a steroid. And then it hit me that I had nothing to wear. Actually, I have very few clothes period. I think some of them are still packed from when we moved last spring. Even at work I dress very casually. So I went straight from the doctor to Marshall's where I limped my way among the racks until I came up with something nice enough for a wedding but not too dressy for work. Then I went home and collapsed. 

Three hours later, F texted to say the couple getting married hadn't received his RSVP so would I like to just meet for lunch? I was disappointed but relieved. I'd had mixed feelings about getting all dressed up and mingling with a lot of people I don't know while walking like Walter Brennan. So lunch it would be. 

That night I was feeling a little giddy about the next day, and the idea of the kiss - which in my mind had become not just the kiss, but the KISS. 

We met at the restaurant, oohed and ahhd over the pot stickers and each had a sandwich and a beer. When the bill came I asked if I could help and he said I could cover the tip if I liked, so I did that. He walked me to my car where I instantly regretted not getting to my mints beforehand. 

It occurred to me that we'd each driven more than an hour just for lunch and that maybe a first kiss in a parking lot wasn't what he'd had in mind, so I said, "I don't know what your schedule's like, but would you like to go do something else?" I was thinking a movie or a park might be a good idea.

No, he said. He had to let the dog out and a buddy was taking him out for his birthday (I had wrapped up a small birthday present for him, but forgot it at home). Then he said, "Well, I'll be seeing you," and started for his car. 

"F, would you like to kiss goodbye?" I asked.

"No, that's okay," he said, and kept walking.

I sat there for a second, a little perplexed then went after him.

"F?"

He didn't seem to have heard me and kept walking,

"Excuse me, F!" 

He turned and saw me and continued getting into his car. When I caught up to him, his car door was still open. I bent over and looked in.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

"No, nothing's wrong."

"But you wouldn't like to kiss goodbye?"

"It's not imperative," he said, not moving except to look at me.

I straightened up, walked back to my car and got in. He was long gone before I'd even managed to get my keys in the ignition. 

I tried to keep an open mind about what just happened. We'd met before, and he had been open about his attraction to me and wanting to kiss me someday, so I didn't think it was an attraction problem. Then again, maybe it was. I started that losing battle so many of us wage in these situations, trying to think what I'd said or done to offend him. There was nothing stuck between my teeth and nothing up my nose. There were no lulls in the conversation and a lot of laughing. What happened?

Then I just felt bad and drove home. 

It's probably not fair to write about this when F and I've not talked about what happened, but for all I know, he doesn't intend to and might have no plans to discuss anything with me again. And besides, if I don't write about things like this, they pile up inside and who needs that? 

Also, F deserves the benefit of the doubt. For all I know, he chipped a tooth on a pot sticker and was too self-conscious to kiss. Or maybe he really does still like me, but didn't want the kiss to happen over his doggie bag. Or maybe the woman he'd just started dating who so far was two for three on date cancellations, texted him while I was in the ladies' room and proposed marriage. I joke, but truly, some very good reason might have occurred to him that made him change his mind.  

And like women, men have the right to change their minds and they also have the right to say no to unwanted advances. 

Imagine all the times Donald Trump must have fought women off. 

Never Depend on a Goose

One of the saddest things I can think of is an animal lying dead by the road.

However, an animal which is probably dead, lying in the grass near the road is worse. There's the possibility that instead of being dead and dragged there by a driver or pedestrian, it dragged itself there and is alive and in pain. Or someone else might have dragged it there assuming that if it wasn't dead yet, it soon would be.

Throw in the misery of a cold, rainy day and someone who doesn't have the sense to just keep driving, and you have the makings of a truly rotten experience.

I had been on the road all day, it was close to 7 p.m., and I desperately wanted to get home to my kids. Suddenly, there was no missing it: about 10 feet from the curb on the lawns of a church was a black goose sprawled on its belly. Other geese trundled by as the rain poured down on all of them. 

I pulled into the church parking lot and thought about calling Animal Control. If it were dead, the goose needed to be disposed of and if it were alive, it needed to be tended to. It took four calls before I got a hold of someone. He said they didn't have anyone on duty at the moment but could tell me who to call, a woman who volunteered for things like that. Her name was Lillian Plentworth. I called the number. 

Ms. Plentworth answered the phone after two rings and within seconds my mental picture was clear: seventy-ish, no nonsense but pleasant, sensible haircut, short fingernails, no polish, and a rain slicker with a pair of waders in the hall closet.

Me: Hello, Ms. Plentworth. I was just driving down Raleigh Drive in Birktown and saw a goose lying on the lawn in front of First Presbyterian Church. I think it's dead but I can't be sure. 

Ms. Plentworth: Well, is it breathing?

Me: I don't know. I got out of my car and tried to check a few minutes ago but I couldn't get close enough. 

I didn't mention to Ms. Plentworth that I couldn't get close enough due to a years-long bird phobia, and having the birds be dead and soaking in the rain just makes it worse. 

Ms. Plentworth: Well, run over there and look again and call me back.

She hung up before I could so much as whimper. After she hung up, I whimpered anyway. 

I got out of the car and walked back to the goose. I'd forgotten my umbrella that day and was already soaked from my first failed mission to assess the goose's condition. 

Looking closer, the goose was probably dead, but I couldn't shake the notion that it was shallowly breathing. And since I'd gotten as close as I could without hyperventilating, I scurried back to the car and called Ms. Plentworth. 

Me: I can't tell if it's breathing or not. 

Ms. Plentworth (sighing): Well, ordinarily I'd come out there, but I just rescued a turkey and now I'm about to take some soup off the stove. I'd rather not come out there if it's dead.

Me: Then I don't know what to do. I mean, someone needs to come get it either way, right? 

Ms. Plentworth: That's true. But if it's dead, that would be someone else's job. I collect them when they're injured, not when they're dead. If I told you where to take it, would you go pick it up?

Me: I'd rather not. 

Ms. Plentworth: Well, let's just assume this one's dead. I'll let Animal Control know to send someone out in the morning. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my soup. Have a good night!

I peered through the downpour, over the shining wet blacktop of the parking lot, and across the expanse of grass, vividly green from the rain. There lay the goose. It's brother and sister geese seemed unmoved. Shouldn't they perform CPR, or if the goose was religious, scratch together some kind of a service? Shouldn't they be conferring over a place to bury him or her?

I had the sudden realization that one should never depend on a goose to hand one an emergency bottle of nitroglycerin tablets. On the other hand, it also seemed sensible that one could use a goose as a model for how to stay calm in a crisis. 

'Okay,' I thought. 'That goose is in no condition to attack me so there's no reason I can't get close enough to it to make sure it's dead. If it's not, I call Ms. Plentworth back and tell her I don't care if her soup gets fried; she needs to come out here and collect that goose. If it's alive, it must be dying and at least a vet could put the poor thing out of its misery.

I approached the goose one more time.

It had probably been a good 20 minutes since I'd first spotted the goose from the road. I took a deep breath and stood a little closer this time. Clearly, it wasn't breathing. If it wasn't dead before, it was now.

Geese can't count on us either. 

Penny Smells Like Bacon

For the sake of anonymity, I'll call her Penny.

Multitasking Me by Teece Aronin. Available on products at

Redbubble.com/people/phylliswalter in the Colorful 

Mod collection.

Penny is one of my best gal-pals and yesterday morning, she became a shining example of what can happen when we multitask.

Remember a while back when I was talking about how part of being mindful means less multitasking, and how researchers are saying that multitasking probably makes us less effective?

Enter Penny. 

Penny had received a faulty communication from a creditor which needed to be straightened out before the next billing cycle. It was morning when Penny called them up and proceeded to spend the better part of an otherwise lovely fall morning navigating voice prompts and hanging around on hold.

Efficient and resourceful, Penny decided to make breakfast while she waited, and fished a package of bacon out of the fridge. After she'd peeled the slices apart and laid it in a pan, her dog followed its nose into the kitchen.

Penny, like a lot of us do with our pets, talks to her dog as though it were another human being. And Penny, like a lot of us, gives her pet all the attention she might give a human being when it walks into the room. So Penny, whose attention was first on the phone call and then on the phone call and the bacon, was now focused on the phone call, the bacon, and the conversation she was beginning with her dog.

Telling me about it later, Penny confessed that it wasn't a high, squeaky, puppy-mommy voice she was using as her dog sniffed her fingers, but a deep, rumbly-purry, big-doggie-mama voice. 

That was when Penny was prompted to leave a message, but because she couldn't hold the phone call, the bacon, the dog, and the conversation with the dog all in her head at one time, she didn't notice the phone prompt. 

And in her low, rumbly-purry, big-doggie-mama voice she said to the dog:

"Does mama smell like bacon? Yes, mama smells like BAcon."

Whoever listened to Penny's recorded message probably understood it better than Penny's dog did - the words anyway. But Penny's intent at the time she uttered the words was anybody's guess - anybody who heard about it at the company, which, by the end of the afternoon was probably everybody at the company. And of course there's always caller I.D. to keep the mix-up from remaining anonymous.

From now on, whenever I talk to my dog, especially if I'm saying something along the lines of, "Young lady, you are not leaving this house in that collar," I'll double-check that I'm not also on hold. And frying bacon.  

And that I'm not using my purry, rumbly voice. 

Timing is Everything

Sometimes awful things happen. Not awful as in complete tragedy, but awful as in extremely unfortunate and highly ironic in a very awkward way.

Image copyright, Teece Aronin. Available on

products at redbubble.com/people/phylliswalter.

I had just been offered a blogger position where I would be given plenty of leeway, and since my then-husband had cerebral palsy, disability awareness, inclusion, and equity were themes I wanted to shine light on.

The night the job came through, my husband and I took our kids, Syd and Jon and my mother out to celebrate. Jon was about seven and Syd was nine. We were gathered around a table in an Italian restaurant with Jon to my immediate right.

This was before cell phones were in every purse or pocket, and since I never wanted to miss a moment, I always had my little digital camera with me. Jon asked if he could hold it. 

As I handed the camera to Jon, I was gabbing away to my mother about how excited I was about this job. 

"I'm telling you, I can't get over how much freedom they're giving me to write about something so important. This is just so perfect!"

"Mommy, can I take a picture?"

"Hang on just a minute, honey."

"And to think I can work from anywhere. I can be home with the kids and still supplement our income!"

"Mommy?"

"Yes, honey?"

"Can I take a picture?"

"Sure, honey. But honestly, getting to write about disability awareness is such an amazing opportunity!"

Jon took a picture of his sister and when the flash went off, a waiter about 20 feet away was immediately launched into a seizure. He fell and the tray of dinners he was carrying crashed to the floor with him.

Everyone gasped and sat motionless except for the manager who was trained for situations like this. He charged from the kitchen, trying to calm the alarmed patrons while he hurried to the downed waiter.

"It's okay, everybody! It's okay! This happens sometimes!"

Then, as if speaking of the scum of the earth, the sub-scum even, the manager loudly sneered: "Someone here probably just used a FLASH CAMERA!"

Jon froze, his eyes huge. The little hands holding the camera immediately lowered to his lap and under the table. Then slowly, like one prisoner sneaking a shiv to a fellow prisoner, he slipped the camera over to me.

And like a fellow prisoner who just happened to have a large handbag on the floor by her chair, I hid it.

The waiter sat up, shook it off and laughed, saying he was fine.

But our table conversation around disability awareness came to an immediate halt since each of us was plenty aware for one night.

Chimes

Aunt Ki had chimes. Doorbell chimes. Long, tubular, brass doorbell chimes - three of them. They hung in an intriguing little wall niche where as a child, I was enthralled by them. 

Image copyright, Teece Aronin

This exotic little altar at which I beheld the "miracle of the bells" every time I visited Aunt Ki, was located in a postcard-sized spit of hallway from which three steps would take you into Aunt Ki's bedroom, two steps into Aunt Ki's sitting room, and another two steps, straight to the sink in Aunt Ki's pink-tiled bathroom. 

Chimes like those were not uncommon in homes built from the thirties into the sixties, but Aunt Ki had the only ones I could get close to. I would stand in front of them, gingerly bumping the shortest one against the middle-sized one and the middle-sized one against the longest one. Then I would ponder the different notes they would intone. 

The chimes were whimsical, like something one might find in an enchanted art deco cottage or a 1930's Constance Bennett movie. Yet they were important-looking, perhaps having first worked their imperious magic inside a mansion vestibule.

Recently, I bought a house built in 1958, and while there's not a wall niche, there is a tiny foyer and a quirky little cove where two walls meet perpendicularly. That gives me two options for installing my own chimes one day.

I found a company online called Electrachime which manufactures these all but extinct melodious miracles. When my budget catches up with my tastes, I will order some. That's not to say Electrachime's products are pricey; they're not. But right now I have to be frugal.

But I'll have them one day. I keep a budget and pay myself an allowance right along with the kids', but something always comes up to keep me from my cherished chimes. Life and elusive chimes are like that.

But that's okay. It will happen. And when it does, peals of welcome will dance across the land - even if I have to stand on the porch and ring my own bell.

I've done it before.

Eyes on the Skies

I am trying so hard to reduce my unhealthy stressors and be a better practitioner of mindfulness. In the course of the last five years, my marriage fell apart, I had to relocate with my kids in order to get re-established, I've moved three times, and my mother died. The last move and my mother's death happened within the past six months.  

"I look to the skies not to see the stars, but to watch for the

shoe about to drop." Moonlight Skinny-dip. Available on 

products in the phylliswalter store's Colorful Mod collection: 

redbubble.com/people/phylliswalter

I've been stuck on vibrate for years and am wondering how to dislodge the battery in my vibrator. 

My fight-or-flight instinct is hyper-vigilant. I look to the skies not to see the stars but to watch for the shoe about to drop. I've been dealing with chronic stress for a while, and finally it's easing up. But there's still that wary unease that any minute now a brick is going to plunge through the ceiling. That sense of artificial doom has got to stop. It's probably not accurate and it's definitely not healthy.  

Hence: my quest for mindfulness. 

Being mindful means slowing down and not careening off in every direction as if a Roman candle were strapped to your backside. It means doing one thing at a time and not multi-tasking, because the science is showing us that multi-tasking probably makes us less productive. It means not just eating the apple but looking at the apple, smelling the apple and chewing the apple - thoughtfully instead of swallowing it whole as if you were a horse. It means being kind to yourself, being kind to others and spending as much of your life as possible on your own little patch of peace. 

It means breathing with purpose and presence. It means meditating knowing you haven't failed just because your mind wanders. 

I'm not there yet, but I'm getting there. My freak-outs over lost keys, lost files, lost credit cards, and cell phones dropped in the toilet are far fewer now because I'm no longer locked in a constant struggle to outrun myself because now it's just semi-constant. 

Last week I attended a seminar on mindfulness presented by a truly gifted instructor. At one point she passed out individual serving size boxes of raisins to each of us participants and told us to take one raisin out of the box. Then she told us to examine our raisins carefully, to notice the different surfaces and textures that make up one little raisin. Then we held our raisins to our noses and inhaled. After inhaling, we held our raisins to our ears and rolled them back and forth between finger and thumb and were surprised to hear our raisins making sounds. Next, we popped our raisins into our mouths and felt them with our tongues, rolled them around our mouths and sucked out a bit of the flavor. 

At last, we were told we could eat our raisins. 

We bit down on our raisins, chewed them thoroughly and swallowed. My neighbor, L was at the same seminar sitting right next to me. She leaned in and whispered:

"So, what were you thinking when you finally got to eat the raisin?" 

"That I felt guilty eating something I'd gotten to know so well," I whispered back. 

And honestly, I wasn't entirely joking. There was a tiny part of me that expected the raisin to scream, "NOOOooooo!" as it slid down my throat. I have always had a cattywampas view of things, and I know that. In the case of the raisin, it meant I haven't yet nailed mindfulness. 

But Om wasn't built in a day. One sign that I'm beginning to master and internalize mindfulness is that I'm now seeing how it can apply to other people's struggles. 

My son, Jon is working hard to prioritize his homework and chores. We were talking about it last night.

"Have you ever heard of something called mindfulness?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said.

"Wow, I'm impressed, Jon. Where did you learn about that?"

He looked at me, a little perplexed. "From you," he said. 

"I talked to you about mindfulness?" I asked.

"Sure. Don't you remember?"

"No." 

Anyway, I'm working to keep my eyes on the skies, not because I'm watching out for shoes, but because I'm falling in love with stars.

Four Chairs and a Chat

I've been experiencing too much of the bad stress lately. You know how there's good and bad stress? Good stress is things like studying for the bar exam and wondering how you'll spend the six-figure income you'd be earning if you pass. Bad stress is the kind you get when your dog tries to retrieve her frisbee from your neighbors' roof using a ladder she stole from their garage and then falls through the roof.  

My backyard, with one chair for me, one for my relaxed self,
one for my stressed self - and one for my dog.
Image: Teece Aronin.

And yes, I know I said dog and not something more believable like kid, but if you know my dog, you know it's more believable that she'd do something like that before my kids would. 

Yesterday I took someone's advice, got up early and sat in the backyard with my morning coffee. I decided that I would strive for an enhanced sense of mindfulness. 

I have four retro-style metal chairs in the backyard and a little metal table. I had wanted chairs like those for years because they remind me of my childhood, but I've barely sat in them twice. Why? Because I've been too busy with the things that stress me out. 

So yesterday I made a cup of coffee, snatched a peach from the fruit bowl and walked with my dog into the back yard. I put the coffee and the peach on the table and sat, eyeing them warily as if they might explode. 

I had planned to leave my phone in the house, but couldn't bring myself to do it. I might get an idea for a column and want to make some notes, I told myself. That was partly true, but the other part was that I couldn't imagine myself just sitting in my chair with nothing to focus on but coffee and a peach - but I had underestimated their power. 

I inhaled the coffee. The aroma and the steam made their way to my nose and immediately helped me unwind. Then I took a sip of the coffee. It was delicious. And when I bit into the peach all I could think of was the Shel Silverstein poem about the farmer who grew a gold and bejeweled garden, but dreamed of "one real peach."

Sitting back in the chair, I wasn't fully relaxed, but felt better than expected. I'd say I was about half relaxed and half stressed-out. I started hearing things. 

"What are those sounds?" my stressed self asked. 

"Those are birds," explained my relaxed self.

"But the sounds they make . . . " said stressed self, a little afraid.

"That's called birdsong," explained relaxed self. "It's okay; it's just the birds calling to each other. It can't hurt you."

"And what is that feeling on my face?" asked stressed self.

"That's the breeze," replied relaxed self. "You loved it as a kid. Remember?" 

"Oh, yes, vaguely," murmured stressed self. 

Then stressed self's eyes darted toward the family dog leaping and playing near the garden.  

"Oh, no - that thing," cried stressed self, pointing. "Look how close it is to the tomatoes!"

"She's a good 20 feet from the tomatoes," cooed relaxed self. "And she's enjoying herself. Here, let's call her over."

The dog came running at the sound of her name.

"Aw, Hope," sighed relaxed self, "I love you so much. Go on," relaxed self said to stressed self, "pet her. See? Just like I am."

So, stressed self petted the dog, and felt calmer. 

By the time I came back in the house, I was a new woman, and an optimistic, energetic tone was set for the rest of the day. I spent good, solid time with my kids, time during which I wasn't distracted by the things that stress me, and later in the day I made a pizza with peppers and herbs I picked from pots on my own front porch. I even baked chocolate chip cookies. They were store-bought and came from a freezer case, but they tasted just as good and looked just as homey on the plate. Just as important, they pleased the kids as much as any mess I might have mixed up in a bowl.

I tried the backyard thing again today and loved it all over again. 

I wonder what tomorrow will bring, the first time I try it on a workday.  And I wonder how I'll compensate once winter comes. 

Maybe I can bring the table and chairs inside and set them next to a picture of themselves from this summer. 

Or maybe not.