#KillTheGroundhog

Those of you who know me, know I would never really hurt an innocent animal (mice and snakes in the house, are an exception).
The Groundhog has got to go.
Stand down PETA! You are dealing with a woman who just doesn't want another six weeks of winter. A woman who wrenched her back this morning while learning to use a snow blower (because she should not be shoveling), so that she could make a much-needed haircut appointment.
Made it up and back on a handful of Advil and sat down to write this before a muscle relaxer does its magic.
I had already been thinking about the need for the big rodent's demise before the Chicagoland area got 50-plus inches of snow and started to refer to the Polar Vortex as the new state of the union.
The additional 6-8 inches that socked in our already shrinking driveway today only added to my frustration. Worst winter in memory (of course I did get to live in Florida for 18 years, where a hard frost is a reason to panic) . 
When we moved to the Midwest from Orlando 17 years ago, one of my new friends here couldn't believe it and would call me after every first snowflake to question why we moved here.
Weather aside, it has been a great relocation for our family. 
My real Florida friends have also stopped calling me between blizzards to see how the weather is up here.
That not-so-new-anymore Chicagoland friend now knows better than to rub in the weather. A hardy native, she is also willing to hunt down the groundhog.
Punxatawney (Pa.) Phil, in all his furry glory, "saw his shadow" on another gray overcast Feb. 2-day and sentenced us to six more miserable weeks of the weather that has packed an extra 15-20 pounds on a lot of my stay-at-home friends. My neighbor told me her Weight Watcher friend said she is suffering from "Polar Vortex eating." I feel her pain.
Couldn't have been the fact they woke Phil from his snug burrow and surrounded him with inquiring minds and intrusive cameras and lights that sent him down under for another six weeks?
My hairstylist and confidant pointed out that she heard the groundhog only had a 48% accuracy rate. Professional meteorologists at AccuWeather find Phil has only a 80 percent accuracy rate. NOAA National Climatic Data Center claims Phil has no prediction skills at all.
I am glad to see this is being researched and debated by finer weather watchers than I.
Several other groundhogs compete with the Pennsylvania prognosticator each year. In Washington DC they use Potomac Phil, a stuffed stand in, to make their own winter prediction. This does not surprise me.
I had to cancel my coffee group coming over for coffee and conversation this afternoon because of my back pain. Too bad they won't get to see my great haircut. Most of them were already out and about running errands and carrying on as the people around here do, despite the weather. It takes more than a few feet of snow to stop Chicagoans.
That is unless O'Hare shuts down.
My sister and 600,000 fellow Philadelphians are suffering without power right now. Might not be back up for a couple of days with all the downed trees and power lines.
A neighbor helped her exhume her car from the garage and she is hoping to get a train into the city to get a shower and be closer to her office for work tomorrow. You don't want to know what she has been texting me about the groundhog.
You know that expression let sleeping dogs… ? Next year let's let sleeping groundhogs do the same.

There she was, Miss America

Miss America was a lot taller when I was a child.
Being in the same building, the same common area and the same auditorium with Nina Davuluri, Miss America 2014, briefly on Saturday, was a larger than life experience for me.
I was nearly as giddy as Amy Farrah Fowler when Sheldon gave her a tiara on The Big Bang Theory. But I reeled it in.
Davuluri was at our community high school to headline its World's Fair and promote her platform and philanthropy.
The high school was raising money for Circle of Women* as part of its Student Diversity Council's two-day program to appreciate foreign countries and cultures. The Iran booth was next to the Israel booth. This year there was a North Korea booth to match the South Korea booth. The China delegation had ping pong and mahjong tables at ready. And there was food of all flavors and singing and dance performances followed.
I went as the guest of my friend whose daughter was behind the South Africa exhibit. In the seven years my children attended the high school I never went to the event. Miss America's attending was probably what lured me there.
Growing up in the Philadelphia area, the Miss America Pageant was one of my favorite seasonal events. Despite signaling the end of summer, it ranked up there with the Mummers Parade and watching "The Wizard of Oz." I never dreamed of being in the pageant, but I sure always wanted to attend it.
I'd walked the same Atlantic City boardwalk growing up, the contestants still parade down. You knew it was the end of summer when the stores and restaurants began taping photographs of the contestants in their windows.
Once, with a nearly third-degree sunburn, I dragged my grandmother a good hour down the boards to try and sneak inside the Atlantic City Convention Center -- the epi-center of the most important pageant in the world. 
The Miss America Pageant was conceived in 1920 to extend the summer vacation season at the Jersey Shore beyond Labor Day Weekend. In my house it meant TV dinners in the 60s and 70s with my Grandma Fisher (mom's mom) and watching way past normal bedtime to see who would be crowned America's "ideal" young woman.
The contestants from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, were like Barbie dolls that had come to life.
My grandmother and I would of course always root for Miss Pennsylvania but we had other favorites. The talent competition was our favorite part. I liked the baton twirlers and singers, she loved the piano players. Davuluri performed a Bollywood fusion dance in the talent segment.
I remember thinking Miss America, at 20-21, was really old. Now I feel really old thinking that I could be Davuluri's mother.
I'm sure the current Miss America's mother is kvelling about her daughter. Davuluri, 24, whose platform is diversity and cultural competency, is one of only 93 women in the country who can call herself Miss America.
She was at Lincolnshire's Adlai Stevenson High School on an official crown-on-her-head Miss America visit, one of thousands she will make during her 12-month tenure that puts about 20,000 miles on her each month. She is never in one city for more than 18 to 48 hours.
You can actually book a Miss America appearance on line on their official website.
I am not a fan of reality pageant shows. I really am not comfortable with the whole bathing suit issue. But those of you loyal blog readers know I am not comfortable with bathing suits at all.
Davuluri, who mentioned to a whole room of teen-agers that she has dealt with eating issues in her life, defended that suit segment of the competition as a way to show how healthy and fit contestants are. She insists proper eating and fitting in an exercise routine even on her busy schedule helps her maintain.
The reality is the Miss America Pageant has handed out $45 million in scholarship money to its contestants. Davuluri won $50,000 with her title and crown. Thru the pageant system the former Miss New York has accumulated $91,000 in scholarship money to offset her undergraduate degree in brain behavior and cognitive science at the University of Michigan. She has already completed post-baccalaureate work and plans to go to medical school in 2015.
The way she captivated the audience and educated us on the hard work that went into her becoming Miss America, I found myself secretly wishing that she would run for the U.S. Senate.
Davuluri is the first Miss America of Indian descent, the second Asian to wear the crown. I only mention this because of all the crap from the crazies she took after being crowned. Somehow being born in Syracuse, NY was not American enough for a certain segment of the population. 
She was raised by grandparents in India before moving back to the USA to live with her parents in Oklahoma, Michigan and New York.
English was her second language, when she moved back to the states from India. On her journey to becoming who she is, she had to deal with racism and discrimination until she found her comfort level, and a few more "brown" people like herself, in college.
She has launched a social media campaign to encourage constructive and civil dialogue on diversity issues. The daughter of a physician and IT specialist, she has also promoted STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to high school and college students. 
There she was, looking like every one's daughter in very high heels and comfortably holding a microphone. Earlier, before taking the stage to talk about perseverance, she took photos while wearing her crown for the Diversity Council's charity.
The crown has four points on it -- representing the pageant pillars: style, service, scholarship and success. Miss America gets to keep the crown she had pinned to her head the night of the pageant, when her reign ends. The organization holds onto a copy just in case it gets, misplaced, stolen or broken, while she tours.
Even when it isn't on, Davuluri embodies those pillars.

* Circle of Women is an organization that builds and supports secondary schools accessible to young women in developing countries.

Shoe repair

The sign on the door said the local shoe repair place would be closed January 17and 18. The dilemma: It was the 22nd. 

My husband had already stopped by on Saturday, the 18th, but the shop was closed. A mountain of unclaimed shoes and luggage behind its locked door. Frost on the insides of its windows.
But no cobbler,  only a locked door and the handwritten note that said the shop would be temporarily closed. 
Anyone who has attempted to pick up shoes there knows it is never open on Monday. It was Saturday (the day his boots and our daughter's dancing pumps were to be ready). Closed. Something must be wrong. 

There was no point to going by on Sunday, the day the cobbler rests. And I knew not to go by on Monday. 

The same note, that looked like it had been scribbled by Pinocchio, was hanging on the door on Tuesday. 

It was gone on Wednesday when a short parade of cars pulled up and people, including me, put on their flashers and left the warmth of their vehicles to peek in the yet still locked door. 

I don't know the man, the artisan, who has reheeled our shoes for more than a decade. Not even sure if his name matches the sign on his shop, but I was beginning to worry about him. 

No one answered the phone when I called. There was no recorded message. 

I was hoping he would be okay in a few days. 

Maybe he was mourning the closing of the strip center's grocery store. Maybe he got out of the Polar Vortex for a few days.

Maybe he got tired of rooting about the shelves of unclaimed wares, persisting til he plucked out your proper pair. According to friends, even with the claim ticket that warned patrons to pick up within 30 days, it was never certain he would find your repaired pair. 
We have been lucky. He has always made our shoes look like new and we have never lost items in the chaos of his small workspace. 

Wednesday I inquired in two of the neighboring business if anyone knew the inside story. Nope. So much for small business owners watching each others' backs.
Thursday, after voicing my concern over the cobbler's health and the well-being of my family's footwear, to my friends, I called again. Thursday morning a wheezy voice answered. 

I confirmed that the shop was open and would be open in the few minutes it would take for me to drive there. 
"Yes," he weakly said. 

I parked the car in the empty parking lot and was relieved to see the OPEN sign ablaze. Even more relieved when the door opened and that familiar smell of leather, glue and polish permeated my nostrils. 

I told him I was beginning to worry about him as he began to search for the footwear that corresponded to my weathered ticket stub. He found the pumps.

"I was in the hospital," he shared. "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry,'' I replied. 
I felt horrible for him and he was now apologizing for any inconvenience.

 The boots he remembered were not yet fixed. He would have them today at noon, he promised. 

I resisted wrestling the boots away. I told him Saturday would be fine. I'd send my husband. 
And maybe some chicken soup.

More mind games

Collectively, we are losing our minds. I know this because I am writing more and more notes to remind my friends to remember to do certain things. 

Add those notes to the notes I already write on my iPhone notebooks so I can remember what I need to do each day, and you will understand the callouses on my fingertips. Note to self: paraffin treatment and manicure for birthday treat. 

My mom and I used to joke about taking Ginko Biloba or St. John's Wort or some other magical herbal treatment to improve our memories. Alzheimer's and/or dementia didn't run on her side of the family. While the bodies of the matriarchs on her side of the tree began to fail in their 80s, their minds remained sharp and intact til the end. We joked about not being able to remember the name of the supplements, or even when to take them. Sometimes, before she passed in February, we laughed about not remembering having the conversation about memory loss.

The Hallmark people are not helping me. They have not expanded the selection of birthday cards enough to prevent me from sending the same birthday cards to friends year after year. One kind friend just pointed out at lunch today that that card I picked may just be the perfect card for that perfect friend. 

Another one of my friends suggested we just resend the cards we open, back and forth, each year. For a while I was buying a lot of belated birthday cards because I could not remember dates. My iPhone has helped fix that problem.

Recently I re-received a fantastic cookbook from my girlfriend in New York, penned by Sirius radio personality Frank DeCaro, one of her dear friends. It was inscribed to me, thanking me for a Fiesta ceramic dinnerware bowl I sent Frank for his collection. 

I have never met Frank, but I remembered he was a collector. The things I do remember. Fiesta collectors have to stick together to preserve the integrity of the original pieces and colors from the 1930s. 

Funny, the reason I sent Frank the rare Fiesta piece was because he had already sent me the same cookbook, at my girlfriend's request, when it first came out. She remembered my son was a foodie and a fan of celebrity chefs. The first book was also inscribed to me. 

My girlfriend -- whose mom was also one of the sharpest, wittiest women I have ever known, until her body gave up the fight -- and I also had a good laugh when I shared the story with her about her cookbook gift that keeps on giving.  She vowed to keep a better gift/card list. I vowed to actually look at the one I have, wherever it is.
Meantime, now both of my children will inherit a copy of a very clever cookbook. 

I use staving off losing my memory as a daily excuse to do Sudoku puzzles and play Words With Friends. My children are fourth generation Scrabble players. My grandmother and mom both insisted the game swept the cobwebs away. I studied for the SAT in the 70s by constantly playing Scrabble with my mom. Even when her vision was impaired by macular degeneration (another bonus in my gene pool), she could still beat me in Scrabble.

At the peak of my sports editing days I kept track of some 75 Florida high schools' coaches and athletes for readers in eight counties. Now I find myself with four bottles of the same mustard in the cupboard because as I peruse the grocery aisles, I can't remember if I am running low at home.
Most of my book group read the book Still Alice (hold on I am Googling the author -- Lisa Genova ) a few years back. It's a story about a 50-year-old professional woman with Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease. Most of us, along with the main character, flunked the cognitive tests peppered throughout the book's pages. We passed around dessert and chalked the symptoms up to peri-menopause. Luckily we all found our car keys, our cars and our the way back to our own homes. 
I have been trying to return assorted trays and dishes friends left at my house during the holidays. As if meshing each other's schedules is not difficult enough, if both parties are forgetting stuff, little stuff gets done.
After remembering to put said trays in the right car to deliver, I texted my friend  -- a woman I worked with for months to organize the senior class party at our kids' high school -- to find out when she would be home today for a handoff. Her text response:
"Don't know. I don't know how long I'll be at work. If I remember, I will call you when I leave."
I am sooooo happy to not be alone*.

###

*After I first posted this my friend called to tell me she remembered to call and she came by to pick up her platters.
Also Brian Williams, of NBC Nightly News fame, reported on the SAGE (Self-Administered Gerocognitive Exam) test the folks at Ohio State University put together to help people detect early signs of Alzheimer's. For more information, go to http://sagetest.osu.edu/ or check out the the Nightly News' link.

The Nest is Empty Once Again

It is impossible to write from the empty nest (the focus of this blog, when I stay on task), when the laundry room is piled up and the nest is not empty.
I have not blogged for a month (thank you to the four people who noticed, not including my loyal and devoted husband). I will use as my excuse technical difficulties, travel, the comings and goings of our children and my husband's recent job change.
Today I have plenty of time to catch you all up. It is minus-15-freaking degrees outside and I am not leaving the house. I flipped a coin. Heads write. Tails clean out the refrigerator. 
Here we go.
Our daughter flew the nest Saturday, for Paris, where she will be working and studying, while waiting to hear from graduate schools. She prepared for this exodus for months so the weekend blizzard that paralyzed the Midwest was not going to get in her way. She would have helped to de-ice the plane if she was asked.
After three weeks of R&R, meddling parents and searching out summer internships, our son was going back to college in North Carolina yesterday, even if he had to run there. It was 60 degrees there.
Mother Nature did her best to sock-in my family during the past 72 hours. But we prevailed.
Adding to the anxiety of going off to au pair for a family she had only Skyped with, our daughter was not going to let "a little" snow get in the way of her Saturday night departure. The most stressful part of her travel was packing clothing for six months and three seasons without having to fork over extra luggage fees.
A savvy traveler, who has been flying around solo since middle school and battling consulates in several languages for last-minute visas, our daughter opened a credit card that would wave foreign transaction fees and give her more bang for the Euro/$$$. The card also claimed to give her a free checked bag.
Lost in translation: Free for domestic travel (like she would ever send a bag thru on a domestic flight). Travelers already get one free 50-pound bag for foreign travel. That second bag, even with the braggart credit card, $100, not so free.
Did I mention she was going overseas and away for six months and three seasons? As per usual we were packing too many pairs of boots, lots of sweaters and bathing suits only hours before, trying to now beat the airline at the luggage game. 
The space saver bags and vacuum cleaner were in play. So were a 30-inch roller bag, a 21-inch roller board, an unstructured duffel bag and a backpack.
No one could lift the duffel when we first packed it. It was obviously over 50-pounds, weighing more like 80 pounds. We did the math. Pay $200 for a bag over 50 pounds or $100 for an extra 50-pound bag. 
No brainer, divide and conquer. We arrived at the airport, where some folks had already spent three days trying to get out of Chicagoland, with one bag weighing 50.7 pounds and the other 38 pounds. Combined weight of backpack and carry-on roller board, maybe around 60 pounds. No ask, no tell. 
Kindness of a weary check-in agent -- priceless. He did not charge her for the  second checked bag after hearing the saga of the credit card and looking up at the growing number of people standing behind her in line.
After waving and saying bon voyage and blowing kisses from the security line as she stuffed her cross-body purse into the small roller board, so as not to exceed the carry-on rules, my husband and I headed for the car and began the quiet adventure home in the storm. 
As we exited the airport our son called to let us know his Sunday, 2 p.m., flight was cancelled and the airline had already booked him on a Tuesday flight. Not going to work. And, that airline's automated system was down so we could not even call them to tell them this was not going to fit into our son's back-to-school plans. 
Stuck at a railroad crossing that was compromised by the gates getting stuck in the falling temperatures and snow and sleet, my husband used a hands free phone call and his super powers from flying too many miles on a different airline to get our son on a flight Sunday morning out of O'Hare that would at least get him to Charlotte (where it was a balmy 55 degrees). 
Our son would have been happier if we had just swooped him up and returned to the airport to get him on another flight to Atlanta,  Saturday night. So would a lot of other people, as hundreds of flights were being cancelled.
Sunday we left for the airport at 4:30 a.m. to make sure our son would catch the morning flight my husband booked for him. The phone app said the flight would be leaving "on time," so we were encouraged despite being one of only a dozen cars of people out and about in the horrid weather.
We literally dumped our son at the curb and wished him Godspeed. We then drove off for breakfast, to a wonderful place our daughter once worked at that pays for her wanderlust. We were the lone customers.
While standing in an endless security line our son was already texting frat brothers to arrange back-up rides from Charlotte, should his Chicago flight be delayed.
"Delayed" was all the app allowed, as we tried to follow his departure. After several SOS texts that documented the plane's next few hours of sitting at the gate, de-icing and moving to the tarmac, he signed off to preserve his phone's battery. 
Despite the app still saying the flight was delayed, he landed in Charlotte hours later and was swept up by a friend after missing the connecting flight to Raleigh. Two hours later he dropped his single clean-clothes-stuffed-duffel in his room and all was good in Durham.
He was actually back before the original cancelled 2 p.m. flight would have had him on campus.  However, it took longer to get him to Durham than it took our daughter to get to Paris.
Just so they both are safe and happy. So many people are still fighting the weather and the airlines today.
This morning I was awoken as my husband, who twice yesterday had to clear the driveway as the snow continued non-stop in northern Illinois, could not get the garage door to close in the sub zero weather. The sensors were wigging out. I had to bypass them by holding the button in as he backed out the car and rushed off to catch a train to his new job in the city. Thank goodness he was no longer flying.
I put up a pot of half-caff. Started to flip imaginary coins.
Now I am off to clean out the refrigerator. 

Technical difficulty

Loyal readers, I am having WIFI issues while on the road. Hope to be posting soon. Thanks for your patience and support. 

Regifting at another level

I had to shake off my food coma and waddle to the keyboard to work on this post.
It has been a decadent five days of feasting. We polished off the leftovers tonight.
The weekend guests have returned to their respective zip codes. 
Table clothes have been laundered and folded and put away.
I figured tonight would be as good a night as ever to catch up and blog.
I figured if I started typing I would stay out of the kitchen and stop eating.
So in order to procrastinate just a little bit longer, I turned to my December issue of O The Oprah Magazine and was sad to find that it was too late for me to enter to win "The 12-day Give O-Way." I had been meaning to enter. I had even marked the necessary icons scattered throughout the magazine. You had to go on line for 12 days and register the icons for a chance to win. 
It would have been a chance to do some of my holiday shopping without shopping.
If I had been one of the 12 lucky winners, who actually entered the contest before the 11/25/13 deadline, I would have given almost everything away. 
For years Oprah was bigger than Santa Claus in adult circles by giving away her "Favorite Things'' to lucky TV audiences. And a lot of those items wound up on EBay quicker than the UPS trucks delivering them could back out of the recipients' driveways.
Pretty ungrateful and nervy if you ask me. And every year when this gifting and selling would take place it really bothered me.
If I had been more focused and entered this contest I would have given away or auctioned off for charity most of the 60 items on the list.
My sister was definitely getting the UGG boots. My husband would have been the recipient of the PerfecTemp Cordless Electric Kettle. I would let the children wrestle over the Beats headphones and the Samsung Galaxy Gear watch. 
I would have kept the lounge gown by UrbanMuuMuu. 
I would wear it while writing this blog.
Okay, I just looked into ordering it in orchid, using the OPRAH code to save 20 percent on a ridiculously priced gift to myself. Happy birthday to me. The fact it was made in the USA makes it even more tempting.
Have I mentioned Oprah and I, and one of my dearest friends who lives in New York, share the same birth date?
The rest of the "Favorite Things," after also spoiling a few wonderful friends with gifts, I would auction on EBay for charities. 
As always most of the stuff on the O List is soooo-O not on my list of favorite things. My favorite things start with family and friends and then there is chocolate, purses and Molly the yellow lab that lives up the block. But never truffle products, unless they are chocolate truffles.
I wanted to win to avoid shopping. Unlike the 141 million shoppers who got involved in the Gray Thursday/Black Friday crazy, I went to and watched movies. The "Hunger Games" on the family room PC until 1 a.m. and HG No. 2: Catching Fire on IMAX in the theater. Both with my visiting college-aged son. Priceless!
According to figures released by Walmart, 2.8 million towels were sold during the big shopping weekend. And 2 million televisions and 1.9 million dolls were whisked away from the big box retailer.
None of these items were on the Oprah list. A fight over towels at a Walmart in Arkansas also made the news.
According to USA Today, the National Retail Federation reported shoppers spent a lackluster $57 billion going into Cyber Monday shopping. That was down from $59.1 billion last year.
The average shopper dropped between $400-500. If Mrs. Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, is reading this she should skip the next sentence. Oprah is sending her a $500 Thomas Keller Black Truffle Risotto gift box that was on the the "Favorite Things" list. A whole page was devoted to truffle products.
Oprah is not your average shopper.
Neither am I. I have 30 minutes to see if the UrbanMuuMuu lounge gown becomes a Cyber Monday special.