Column

I made a terrible decision and want you to know about it so you can save yourself.

I bought a lighted magnification mirror.

Our bathroom is dark. The paint is dark, the lighting is dark.  Every morning I do my hair and face in the near dark. The results range from so-so to comical.

I was thinking maybe it was time to redo the bathroom, paint the walls a lighter color, switch out the light fixture for a brighter one. I even taped a few paint swatches to the wall. The longer I looked at them, the more it came back to me that painting involves ladders, brushes, paint, cleanup, removing hardware, crawling on a tile floor and taping around door frames.

Bam! Just like that the paint chips were in the trash.

Then we stayed at a lovely hotel with a lighted magnifying mirror in the bathroom. I would choose a hotel that has lighted mirrors in the bathrooms over a free breakfast any day of the week. The lighted magnifying mirror was great. I could see what I was doing.

This was it! The answer to the dark bathroom.

So I bought one.

Some mirrors come with 7X magnification, others with 10X magnification and even 15X. I went with a 7X.

Do you know what happens when you’ve been looking at your face in low light, then suddenly illuminate it with intense LED bulbs and a magnified view? You nearly scare yourself to death. At the very least, it adds another five years to your face.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, don’t you have a single soft-focus filter at all?

It’s like the story about two friends having lunch. One points to two old women across the room and says, “That’s us in 10 years.” The friend says, “That’s a mirror, sweetheart!”

There should be warnings that come with magnified mirrors. “For personal safety and wellbeing, start with a 2X magnification, then ease your way up to 3X. If you’re over 50, you may want to stop at 4X.”

I am a woman who has long championed the 30-foot close-up.  Why in the world did I get a 7X magnification mirror?

If you don’t get close enough to the 7X mirror, the magnification distorts your face so that you only have one eye.

It’s worse than I thought. I’m a cyclops.

It’s a tough call. Either you get so close you see every line, wrinkle, stray hair and broken blood vessel in what was once the white of your eyes, or you back up and do hair and makeup on a cyclops.

One of the hard parts of getting older is when you look your age, but don’t feel your age. Then again, sometimes waking up and looking in the mirror can be so startling it is just the shot of adrenaline you need to get going.

Some of the reviews warn that the bright lights fade fast on the battery-operated magnifying mirrors.

Here’s hoping.

Every well-seasoned cook knows there are many ways dinner can go wrong. You’re missing a key ingredient. The meat didn’t thaw. Everything is taking a lot longer than you planned.

Or, you are at the kitchen sink, suddenly hear a thundering behind you, spin around and see a large black lab covered in soap suds, shaking water as he gallops through the house.

Our oldest grand was prepping dinner and minding her little sister as the rest of the family was heading home. Big sister had told little sister to take a bath.

Little sister said, OK, but only if the dog, Ranger, took a bath, too.

Little sister has a voice soft as a summer breeze.

Big sister, prepping chicken marsala, did not hear little sister. Why would she? She was browning chicken, tending mushrooms, chopping parsley, focused on a meal that would be a fine accomplishment for a 13-year-old.

Her concentration on the chicken marsala was broken by the wet dog racing from one end of the house to the other, chased by little sister in a swimsuit yelling, “Get back in the tub!”

Ranger weighs 80 pounds. You brace yourself against a wall, an SUV, or the side of the house when Ranger says hello.

Sometimes when the whole family is at their place, our son will shout, “Everyone up on the deck; we’re going to let the dog loose!”

Let’s just say the 80-pound black lab is high-spirited.

The wisp of a little sister weighs 39.

Asked how a girl coaxes a dog twice her size to get in a bathtub, her eyes dance and she whispers, “A jar of dog treats.”

The truth is, the dog will do anything for this little girl. He shadows her, guards her while she sleeps and licks tears from her face when she cries.

Getting him in the tub and soaping him down had gone well, but when she started to rinse with the showerhead, he bolted.

Once he bounded through the kitchen, there were then two girls—big sister and little sister—chasing the wet dog shaking water. They looped around the table, into the family room, around the sofa, over the sofa, back to the kitchen, down the hall and finally funneled him into the bathroom.

The little one noted that he seemed to calm down once they pulled the shower curtain.

Maybe all he wanted was a little privacy.

Then they did what any responsible kids would do. They closed the bathroom door and waited for Mom to arrive home. They thought Mom might want to hose down the dog, clean the dirty tub and dig the dog hair out of the clogged drain.

Rule no. 1: Always leave the good stuff for mom.

The chicken marsala made it to the table, but the bread in the oven burned during the chase. In any case, dinner smelled wonderful and Ranger, who had been lathered with a lavender-scented soap, smelled pretty good, too.

Only in these days of AI (artificial intelligence) can you create a Vincent van Gogh masterpiece while seated at an Italian restaurant between the time the wait staff clears the chicken parm and returns with the pasta and marinara.

My personal masterpiece was created on the phone of a friend who is the King of Tech. We had been talking about AI when King Tech pulled out his phone and opened the Wonder app, an AI art generator. I gave King Tech a prompt to enter, “kitchen sink,” and selected the Van Gogh painting style. A little circle spun ‘round and ‘round and then a sink tinged in blue, nestled in a bright yellow countertop against a bright blue background, all painted with thick bold strokes, filled the screen.

Amazing.

I was shocked that I could “create” art like Van Gogh.

No doubt Van Gogh would be shocked, too.

Watching the wheel spin, waiting for the art to appear, was similar to the excitement of spinning the giant wheel at a Shoe Carnival store anticipating your discount.

Unlike Shoe Carnival, if you don’t like your first results, you can try, try again, entering the same parameters but getting different results each time.

 

I preferred the second masterpiece to the first. It had more detail, including two orange circular forms on the countertop, which were clearly Krispy Kreme donuts.

That said, my initial reaction to both images was embarrassment. I felt as though I had stolen. From a dead man, no less.

Van Gogh created art from deep within, with an eye for beauty, color, wonder and from a heart often filled with anguish. I had created a knockoff with one eye on a spinach salad being passed around the table.

The power of AI can also create novels, research papers, emails, press releases, sales pitches and love notes, all with varying degrees of sophistication. It can mine data online and harvest the work of others without their knowledge.

AI has elevated the art of cheating. Software that detects plagiarism is scrambling to keep up. Some professors are going old school, requiring exams be written in longhand in blue books.

ChatGPT, an AI language bot, recently passed business, law and medical exams.

A few years from now you may be wondering exactly how a doctor, lawyer, or accountant got that certificate hanging on the wall.

On the bright side, AI can help power surgical robots, enhance cancer screening, perfect navigation systems, organize workflow and perform data analysis at incredible speeds.

It was fascinating tapping into a vein of AI, creating a kitchen sink with a nod to Van Gogh.

But I still feel like a thief.

I am too practical to ever be cutting-edge fashionable.

When I saw a picture of Kylie Kardashian wearing a simple black dress with an enormous life-size faux taxidermy lion’s head attached, my first thought was: Will she be able to pull up to the table when food is served?

How can she keep her balance?

Will she be able to navigate that monstrosity in a restroom stall?

I’m so mundane, I check the weather app before deciding what to wear. My go-to fashion adviser is the local meteorologist.

I’m so void of imagination that never once have I surveyed the possibilities in my closet and thought, “I wonder how an artist’s rendition of an animal head would look strapped to that?”

The faux taxidermy accessory may be a trend that falls under the heading of “fashion regrets.” Far be it for me to cast the first shoulder pad; I live with my own fashion regrets.

Granny dresses with long skirts and big sleeves were popular when I was in high school. I felt wonderfully fashionable swooshing down the hall between history and math. I looked like one of the Ingalls girls from “Little House on the Prairie.”

In my early motherhood years, big lace collars on dresses were the trend. They were feminine and fancy. I tried to talk my mother into getting one. She refused, saying it would look like she rammed her head through a tablecloth. I immediately knew why I always felt like eating off the china when I wore that dress.

Mom jeans were one of the few fashion trends I was in step with. I just heard they went out of style some time ago.

Big hair had huge staying power. That’s the only trend I was ever on top of. Big hair is past, present and future, as my hair correlates with the humidity. Again, with the meteorologist my fashion adviser.

Jane Fonda workout videos popularized leg warmers. Leg warmers were like long evening gloves without the part for your fingers, only you wore them on your legs.

Even now, I ask myself, why? What were we thinking?

Were we thinking?

Today I read that the big blazer is the latest rage; everybody who is somebody is going to be swimming in one. True to its name, the big blazer is huge, with huge, oversized sleeves, and a trapeze cut so generous it could house you and three friends.

If I wore one of the big blazers, one of the grands would ask if I was playing dress-up. Someone else would ask if I wasn’t too old to go trick-or-treating, and I would ask myself if I seriously thought I could get a seatbelt around all the fabric.

One designer was quoted telling women, “. . . embrace the over-size fit and it will suit you.”

That’s exactly what I’m worried about.

If life is a pie chart with different size slices for “eating, sleeping, working,” etc., the biggest slice of my pie would be “looking for my reading glasses.”

I have a main pair, a backup pair in the kitchen, a backup pair on a bedside table and an emergency pair in my purse. It’s not like I didn’t see this coming.

The thing is, I don’t like to resort to a backup pair because that is an admission of failure that I cannot find the main pair.

I’ve stopped asking my better half if he has seen my glasses, because the answer is always the same. Without even looking up, he will say, “Did you check on top of your head?”

OK, so maybe that’s where they are sometimes. Maybe that’s even where two pairs are sometimes.

The man is completely without sympathy, and I can tell you why. He lives in a world with pockets. Nearly every shirt he owns has a pocket—a pocket for glasses. My shirts and sweaters do not have pockets.

The second largest slice on my pie chart would be “looking for my cell phone.”

Pocket inequity is why I also dash about yelling, “I can’t find my phone! Somebody call me! Somebody call me!” Someone whips out a cell phone to call me and I suddenly remember that I put my phone on silence.

To divert attention from the fact that no one will be able to hear my phone, I quickly switch the back to, “Has anybody seen my glasses?”

The third largest slice on my pie chart would be, “Looking for my car keys.”

Ninety-nine percent of the time, my car keys are in my purse, but it is a large purse. Think 50-gallon flex steel trash bag. It is the Bermuda Triangle. I once found a plane in my purse. It was made of Legos, but you get the idea.

I have a memory foam pillow but not even that helps.

The real problem is leaving home without one of the big three. If I leave without glasses, the phone is useless. If I leave without my phone, the glasses don’t matter. And if I leave without keys, but remember my phone and glasses, I wind up sitting in the car catching up on texts on my phone.

Recently, I discovered a fix for making sure I have my three essentials before leaving the house. The key is mnemonics. Song and hand motions are a must.  Remember singing, “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” with your kids? Tweak it a bit (eyeglasses, keys and phone) and you will never again leave home without the essentials.

Just be careful when you do the arm motions and bend over that your glasses don’t fall off the top of your head.

(If you find Lori’s glasses, phone or keys, please email her at [email protected])

Once a year our entire family spends a long weekend together with the highlight being a “talent show.” Talent, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Take the one who asks for volunteers and when his sister, a brother-in-law, a 6-year-old nephew and his own 13-year-old daughter go forward, announces he will guess their weights.

I’m not saying the talent pool is thin, but sometimes you may not be sure what the talent is. Last fall, a 6-year-old tossed a rumpled sheet on the floor, got beneath it and crawled around as others tried to guess her talent.

She was a mole. When you knew she was a mole, it was a pretty good reenactment of a mole.

We’ve had some semi-quality acts and even a tearjerker or two. There was the year a son-in-law played guitar while his three little girls sang “The Best Day” by George Strait. “We loaded up my old station wagon with a tent . . . some fishin’ poles, a cooler of cokes . . . going campin’ in the wild outdoors. As we turned off on that old dirt road she looked at me and said, Dad, this could be the best day of my life . . . I’m the luckiest girl alive. This is the best day of my life.”

That tender moment was quickly offset by a headstand demonstration, which resulted in an entire weekend of people dropping to the floor, doing headstands and asking others to time them.

There has been singing, dancing, a jug band, magic tricks, an escape artist demonstration, poetry recitations, extreme pushups, and a kindergartener spelling hard words like chrysanthemum, dandelion and Tennessee—backward!

A highlight last year was a 4-year-old in a dress-up evening gown and oversized plastic high heels. She stood with hands on her hips, someone cued the music with a thundering bass beat and she began her “model walk.” A model walk is where you dramatically kick one foot back, out, and around while jerking the corresponding shoulder. Left, right, left, right. It’s a high-spirited walk that takes grave concentration and is complicated by periodically jumping in the air and turning a complete circle. Each jump was breathtaking, but she landed upright in pink heels two sizes too big each and every time.

With a talent bench this deep, the husband and I have been reluctant to participate, although one year he called me forward, I went and said, “But we don’t have a talent.”

“Yes we do,” he said.

“No, we don’t,” I said.

“But we do,” he said.

“We don’t,” I said.

“We are doing our talent right now,” he said. “Bickering!”

Funny. Very funny.

Last year we upped our game. Wardrobe, lighting, the whole shebang. Wardrobe involved black clothing and glow sticks taped to our torsos, arms and legs. The lights were cut, Frank Sinatra was cued and we did a glow-in-the-dark grand entry followed by a dance routine to “Fly Me to the Moon.” It bought down the house, not to mention a few pieces of furniture.
We have booked our family weekend for this fall and talent show ideas are rippling through the troops. We’re at a loss. It was probably a “once and done performance.” It may be best to quit now and end on a good note and good foot.

 

I don’t want to point fingers or name names, but you-know-who is the reason I shop Costco alone. If someone else goes along, we are likely to be pushing a cart so loaded you can’t see over the top of it.

I remind him that the reason we joined Costco was because prices at the pharmacy were good when we self-insured.

Well, that and for the rotisserie chickens.

If I had to choose between prescription meds and rotisserie chicken, I’d choose the chicken.

I’d die happy.

He reminds me that we also go for cheap gasoline.

We do. Except that gasoline can be costly, as in, “Since we’re here for gas, why not run in and pick up a few things?”

The last time we went in for a “few things,” the gasoline came out to $17 a gallon. We can’t afford to keep saving money.

In a recent lapse of sanity, we went to Costo together.

I explained that when you shop at a warehouse store you have a list and stick to it. You do not wander around and browse. Browsing is how you wind up with 12 pounds of cashews, evergreen bushes and a 7-piece sectional sofa.

He said he couldn’t hear me. I said in that case he should go directly to the hearing department.

We got what we came for and then began browsing. Not just browsing, it was full-on meandering. Wandering. Drifting. Roaming. Strolling. From giant HD televisions to vitamins in gallon-size bottles.

“Look! Lime jalapeno tortilla chips!” he exclaims.

It was a bag the size you would take to a family reunion.

“Ghiradelli brownie mix!”

We’d need a forklift to get the box into the cart.

Then came the samples. Garlic kielbasa. “You can’t say no to garlic kielbasa,” he says.

“No, but our doctor would.”

“Deep dish pizza!”

He says it with the excitement of remote tribes the first time they saw a Polaroid picture.

“Pretzel crisps!”

It’s an enormous bag—a bag the size mulch comes in.

“Ask yourself this,” I say. “Will I live long enough?”

Pretzel crisps are in the cart. His father lived to be 97. Apparently, he plans on outliving him.

“Tiramisu!” He’s a kid in the candy store.

I freeze. It looks delectable.

“When was the last time you made tiramisu?” he asks.

I take the fifth.

“Six individual servings,” he notes.

I put my foot down—the one with the running shoe. “No.”

We check out and I calculate the cost of gasoline per gallon.

We get home, unpack and open the ‘fridge to scrounge something up for lunch. He joins me as we stare at a smattering of leftovers staring back.

“You know what sounds good?” I muse. “Tiramisu.”

 

 

My phone is listening. Yours is, too, but you probably knew that.

My PC monitors my every move. I’m constantly chased through cyberspace by products, services, time-saving gadgets and apparel I don’t want.

Relentlessly, they try to wear me down. Sometimes they win.

Maybe I do need an immersion blender. Maybe a WeatherTech CupFone holder would be convenient. Maybe a quilted vest with a fur collar now 40 percent off would look good on me.

The other day the husband and I were talking about a fraudulent call he had received asking for his Social Security number. Naturally, he ignored it.

Minutes later he opened Instagram and there was an ad from a security company promoting coverage for all his devices.

Social media platforms and search engines say they are not spying on anybody. Internet providers track the sites we visit and how long we stay there, but they’re not spying either. Tons of information can be harvested from social media but social media is not private (hence the name social), so it’s not spying.

I believe them. I also have a bridge I’d like to sell in New Jersey.

They say it’s simply AI, artificial intelligence, and algorithms that can anticipate personal interests.

I’ve tried to limit my “not being spied on” by going to settings and rejecting cookies. I hate it that life has come to rejecting all cookies. It goes against my inner being and my inner baker.

I’ve also read that smart phones and computers can listen through smart assistants like Alexa or Hey Google.

I’ve never had a smart assistant. I’ve never had a dumb one either.

I do use Siri. Siri is so helpful. So convenient. So ready to oblige. But then, so was Benedict Arnold.

I’ve disabled most everything I can disable, but my phone still knows things about me and still sends ads—not just about things I’ve looked at online, but about things I’ve said.

I can’t beat them, so I’ve decided to join them.

When the husband is away from his phone, I talk to it. I tell it things I think he’d like to know more about.

“Spa day for wife.”

He probably thinks about giving me a spa day all the time and just forgets to mention it or follow through. This way I can help him. What kind of woman doesn’t want to help her man?

“Restaurants near me,” I whisper to his phone when he goes out to get the mail.

“Tour Italy!” I shout when he is in the garage looking for a lightbulb.

“Florence!”

Specifics are always helpful.

Meanwhile, I’m working on my surprise face. If he suggests going out to dinner or taking a trip, I’ll be completely bowled over.

In the event international travel doesn’t resonate with him, I’ve also picked up his phone and said, “Beach rentals for snowbirds.”

I’m not a beach person but he is, so I’m throwing that one into the mix as well. I try not to be self-centered.

I’ve also mentioned Home Depot and Lowe’s when his phone is unattended just so he doesn’t get suspicious.

I’m not spying or manipulating; I’m just anticipating his interests.

I’m his smart assistant.

The symbols for the New Year, Father Time and Baby New Year, are polar opposites on the age spectrum.

Father Time is gaunt and haggard, draping about in a long robe, carrying a huge hourglass and a large scythe. The timepiece appears heavy and the scythe definitely looks lethal. The message is clear: “Time’s ticking – get the lead out!”

Baby New Year wears nothing but a diaper, a sash and a top hat. Baby New Year travels light compared to Father Time. Baby New Year has chubby cheeks, pudgy thighs and fat rolls, all of which are adorable. He’s also ready to party! Oh, the joys of youth.

The message of Baby New Year is “fresh start.” It sounds good, but in reality the kid has no idea what lies ahead. There will be food and digestive issues, toileting matters, sleep problems and people yelling, “Get down from that ladder!” and “What are you doing on the counter?”—all of which also may be familiar to the people Father Time is trailing as well.

Surely, there’s something between “time’s up” and “fresh start.” There’s much to be said for the middle ground of having some time and experience behind you and a horizon still somewhere in front of you.

Life is an ever-expanding canvas painted one day at a time. Some days are masterpieces, others look like wild paint splatters, and many are an in-between work in progress.

Nobody knows with certainty how long the canvas will keep unrolling. Some are told it is growing short then find themselves enjoying a serendipitous reprieve. For others the canvas ends with shocking brevity.

Because of the unpredictability of time, some say we should live each day like it is our last. The intensity of such a challenge would be utterly exhausting emotionally, mentally, physically, and nearly impossible, if not outright debilitating. If we truly did live like each day was our last, one of them well could be.

My New Year symbol of choice is a new calendar, page after page of blank spaces waiting to be filled and roomy margins for notations on special events, anniversaries to remember and new memories waiting to be made.

Twelve months, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Each one a gift with countless possibilities.

Let the unwrapping begin.

 

My mother used to say she dreaded the day she returned to school after Christmas vacation. The standing assignment in that small country school was to write about their holiday and the gifts they received.

Growing up in a large family during the Depression, her family didn’t always have gifts.

“So, what did you write about?” I asked.

“My many Christmas gifts!” she exclaimed.

My mother never suffered from writer’s block, even as a schoolgirl.

Her story of not having much at Christmas as a child, then growing into a woman who took the holiday over the top and embodied the joy of Christmas, has the hallmarks of a classic Christmas tale.

The good ones grip your heart and bring you to tears—the stories and the storytellers.

O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi” is about a young couple strapped for cash. He sells his prized watch to buy a comb for her hair. She sells her beautiful long hair to buy a chain for his watch. The story of sacrifice and love culminates in joy and tears.

In 1965, CBS took a huge gamble airing Charles Schultz’ “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” What many executives thought could well be a dud has become a cherished holiday tradition.

One of the newer additions to our collection of classics is “The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey.” It belongs under the Grumpy Old Men category. It is the tender story of a woodworker with a cold and grieving heart, melted by the love of a small boy and his mother who ask him to carve a nativity set.

First place in the Grump category will forever belong to Charles Dickens’ Scrooge in “The Christmas Carol.”

All the components of a classic are in place—the haves and the have-nots, the thankful and the unthankful, an awakening from death to life.

Hans Christian Andersen’s “Little Match Girl,” is a two-tissue cry. The story about a poor young girl who freezes to death trying to sell matches while beholding a vision of her grandmother escorting her to heaven is a good read and even better antidote for a culture flush with comfort and material goods.

But the true Christmas classic is the oldest one. The story is told in verses, not chapters. The simplicity is stunning.

A peasant couple is alone in a strange town and she is about to deliver a baby.

There are no familiar faces, only the unknown and the uncertain. Finding no place to lodge, an innkeeper directs them to a stable.

“And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths and laid Him in a manger.”

Nearby, shepherds keeping watch over their flock trembled with fear as a celestial being appeared in the sky declaring, “Do not be afraid; I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

Still wondering if they could believe their eyes, a multitude of heavenly hosts joined the angel declaring, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among people with whom He is pleased.”

And so it was, in the dark of night, long ago, in a place far away, stars blazed in the heavens as a baby boy whom angels declared a Savior, was born to a humble couple in a lowly stable.

And that’s not the end of the story—only the beginning.

Nothing tops the original. It is always the best.