Have a Nice Guilt Trip Read online

  Francesca answered, gently, “Mom, Manhattan is an island. And they call it the Eastern Seaboard for a reason.”

  But while we were dithering, Mayor Bloomberg announced that her building was in a mandatory evacuation zone, and she had to evacuate.

  Yikes.

  So our decision was made for us, but by then, we didn’t know how to get Francesca home. I worried about leaving the puppies for that long to go pick her up, and she couldn’t take a train, since Amtrak doesn’t allow dogs, even in a proper carrier.

  Yes, dogs rule our lives.

  But we’ll blame Amtrak, for being anti-canine.

  In fact, let’s add Amtrak to our spaghetti bands list. After all, they call it the Northeast Corridor and there’s no corridor.

  The point is, words have meaning, people. Especially in an emergency.

  But as luck would have it, my best friend Franca was in New York that Sunday, running in a race with her daughter Jessica, because that’s the kind of cool girls they are. Franca generously offered to pick up Francesca and bring her home, and I took her up on her offer, so Francesca arrived home in a driving rainstorm Sunday night.

  In the nick of time.

  We lost power an hour later, and for the next four days, but we could rely on the generator until it ran out of propane. We had no Internet, TV, or phone, so we were cut off from the world, like an involuntary writer’s retreat. We worked and met our deadlines, and when the power returned, we switched on the TV and learned how very lucky we had been, and how many people were suffering in New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and so many other places, having lost their possessions, homes, and businesses, and some even their lives.

  But we also saw police, firefighters, EMTs, the National Guard, and neighbors helping each other, and we talked about how lucky we were in Franca, who had gone so far out of her way to bring Francesca home.

  And we thought about the true meaning of words. Not words like Eastern Seaboard or corridor, but words like friendship, gratitude, and love.

  Thank you, Franca, for being such an amazing friend.

  Lisa and BFF Franca having fun at a 3D movie.

  And thank you to everyone who has gone out of his way to help someone in need because of Hurricane Sandy.

  You’re all invited over.

  For spaghetti.

  Rolling Without Homies

  By Francesca

  You can’t feel yourself grow up, but every so often something happens to show you a change has occurred. This is about one of those times.

  I live near the Hudson River, a great place to go running, if you like that sort of thing. I don’t. I make myself run to stay in shape, but I hate it. It was on a recent slog—I mean, jog—that I noticed people zipping by me on Rollerblades. I loved rollerblading when I was a kid, but I thought the sport had gone extinct in the nineties. Now seeing these people glide by with the wind in their hair, I felt jealous.

  So I flirted with the idea of getting Rollerblades but felt too self-conscious to actually do it. My indecision became a running joke between me and my boyfriend, and we were kidding about it at a party, when a tall, beautiful girl overheard us.

  “Ohmigod, do people still Rollerblade?” she asked, her glossed lips sneering.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “But, why not? They’re a good workout, they seem fun, and even if they don’t look cool, as a woman, don’t you get tired of having to work it all the time?”

  “I don’t have to work it,” she said, as to leave no doubt that I do. Meanwhile, she was wearing five-inch platform heels, a skintight dress, false lashes, and color contact lenses.

  I guess irony didn’t go with her outfit.

  This mean-girl’s input was just the push I needed. As soon as I got home that night, I went online and purchased a pair of inline skates.

  In the absence of courage, defiance will suffice.

  My mother was supportive, provided that I purchase bubble-boy levels of protective gear. She encouraged me to join a club so I’d have people to skate with, but that seemed like a hassle. I emailed a few friends to persuade them to get Rollerblades, too, to no avail.

  Still, I was giddy with anticipation. I tracked the delivery of my new toy from UPS Santa daily. When the skates arrived, I didn’t care that I had yet to recruit a single friend; I went out on them that day.

  I’m not going to lie, I sucked at first. My street runs downhill to a major road, so I clung to the fence of the neighboring buildings, feeling my way along the hedges and tree boxes. Waiting to cross the street, I held on to streetlights and stop signs like my life depended on it—because it did. And more than once I willfully wiped out to avoid rolling into oncoming traffic.

  But soon I got the hang of it, and it was a blast. I saw the sun shimmering over the Hudson, I found the best view of the Statue of Liberty, and I even got some tips from the expert trick-skaters who hang out in Battery Park.

  And the few times I did fall, there was always a handsome runner to make sure I was okay. Is this what they mean by a “runner’s high?”

  Coming home from my solo ride, I ran—or rolled—into one of my neighbors, a young woman who I recognized but hadn’t met. Turned out she had a pair of Rollerblades in her closet, and within minutes we made plans to go out together later that week. She’s since become a new friend.

  Yay!

  If my other pals had been reluctant before, my newfound enthusiasm convinced them to go ahead and get skates of their own, marking my first time as a trendsetter.

  Who knew?

  And although I’m happy to have company, I’m even happier to find that I can enjoy something alone. I surprised myself to learn that I didn’t need any validation to try something new, even something I wasn’t particularly good at. Being alone is a skill. Having fun alone is empowering.

  After all, a grown woman doesn’t need anyone’s approval to have fun like a kid.

  Happy Thanksgiving

  By Lisa

  I just saw on the TV news that women are getting their toes cut off to fit into high heels.

  Great idea!

  I’m wondering if I should cut off my butt to fit into my jeans.

  This being Thanksgiving weekend, after turkey, stuffing, and pie, you might be thinking the same thing.

  In fact, I bet you are. You probably woke up wondering, what can I hack off to fit into something I don’t wear?

  So don’t put away that carving knife.

  Put it to good use!

  I’m still trying to imagine how you carve out a waist. Maybe like a blazer? Take a little off the sides?

  By the way, I’m not making this up. I saw it on an actual news report, that women are getting their toes cut off or shortened to fit into sexy shoes. When I watched it on TV, I remembered I’d heard it somewhere before, then I realized that it was in an old-school version of Cinderella I used to read to Francesca when she was little, which gave us both nightmares.

  It’s not a magic slipper, it’s a magic clipper.

  The TV news report said that most women get centimeters taken off their second toe, which is the common culprit. That, I couldn’t relate to. My second toe is one of my favorites, so I’d never stick it in the guillotine. But my pinky toe is another matter. When I’m barefoot, it looks stuck to my fourth toe, like a clingy friend.

  Still I wouldn’t cut it off.

  It’s not ugly, it’s needy.

  In fact, it’s leaving on its own. Each year it gets smaller, and I’ve gone from having an amazing disappearing toenail to an amazing disappearing toe.

  In other words, this little piggy went wee, wee, wee, all the way home.

  And never came back.

  Wee!

  The TV news report said that the women are very happy with their foot operations, and so are their husbands.

  This, I don’t believe. I give men more credit than that. But if he exists, I’d like to meet the man who wants his wife’s toes cut off so she can fit into high heels.

  I’
d like to introduce him to my carving knife.

  I’m not sure which part I’d cut off first.

  The choice would be between helping him fit into his pants, or helping him fit into his hat.

  And if you ever saw me carve a turkey, you’d know I’m a lousy tailor.

  The news report also said that 87 percent of women’s foot problems are caused by high heels, and that got me thinking, too.

  How can we get that number up?

  We’re slacking, ladies.

  Too many of us aren’t trying hard enough to be sexy. Maybe if we cut the peep-toe larger, we could cut off more toes and get more peeps? Or maybe we could just cut off all our toes but one and have one giant toe, which would make the shoe fit perfectly.

  Hubba hubba.

  I also noticed on the dumb reality TV shows I watch, like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, that the women wear such high heels that they can’t walk around by themselves, but have to hold on to their husbands’ hands so they don’t fall. To me, this is poetic justice. If you cut off your toes to please your man, he should have to walk you around like a toddler.

  Because you cut off your nose to spite your face.

  But in the end, I’m not criticizing women for the dumb things they do. I’ve done plenty of dumb things myself, and I’m thinking especially of my second marriage.

  Luckily, there’s a carving knife for that, too, and it’s called divorce.

  And for that, I give thanks.

  Novelistic

  By Lisa

  Life is like a novel.

  You never know when you’re gonna get a plot twist.

  And you hope the ending is happy, and not a surprise.

  I learned this last week, though I have been writing novels for twenty years now, some twenty in all.

  I might be slow on the uptake.

  We begin with some background, which adds irony, always a good thing in a book. In my old broke days, when I was trying to become a writer, I spent five years being rejected before anybody published me.

  Like I said, slow on the uptake.

  Even after I was published, I still didn’t earn a living wage, worked a day job, and also had a mountain of credit-card debt to pay off, since I essentially lived on credit while trying to become a writer.

  Turns out Visa is a passport to a new life, albeit at 21 percent interest, back then.

  In any event, during this time, I obviously couldn’t afford health insurance, so I didn’t have any. And by “this time,” I mean ten years.

  So for a decade, I prayed that I stayed healthy, because there was no insurance company to rely on if I got sick. Things are no different now, when I have health insurance, but still don’t rely on an insurance company if I get sick.

  Because I have Personal Choice, which evidently means that, on any given day, my insurance company has a personal choice about whether to insure me.

  Guess the answer.

  But back to the story.

  Amazingly, I only had one serious injury during that decade, a tear to a rotator cuff, occasioned by carrying grocery bags into the house. I knew that it was a rotator-cuff injury because I went to a doctor, on my Visa card, and he diagnosed it, telling me my options were surgery or physical therapy. I couldn’t afford surgery, but I could afford a few sessions of physical therapy, where somebody taught me how to strengthen the torn muscle by lifting cans of tomato purée.

  Fun for Italians!

  Miraculously, this worked, but only after I had moved an entire warehouse full of purée.

  Now, fast-forward to the present day. Little Tony has been limping around for about three months, with a torn rotator cuff.

  If you didn’t know dogs had rotator cuffs, join the club.

  The vet tried to treat it with medication, but it didn’t work, and so Little Tony went to a doggie orthopedist, which is another thing I didn’t know even existed, and he decided Little Tony needed either surgery or physical therapy.

  Yes, dogs can have physical therapy.

  The day they have talk therapy, we’re all in trouble.

  (It will be ruff!)

  I decided against physical therapy, because God knows if I could find tomato cans tiny enough.

  Happily, I could afford to do surgery on Little Tony, so my dog had the operation that I couldn’t, way back when. It was supposed to be routine, so I wasn’t worried about it, and I was driving Daughter Francesca back to New York when the doggie orthopedist called.

  “We have a problem,” he began to say, and that’s all I needed to hear before I pulled over.

  I won’t keep you in cheap suspense, and the story has a happy ending.

  Little Tony survived and lies snoring at the foot of my bed, on an array of narcotics that would impress Dr. Drew. Long story short, the dog had a bad reaction to the anesthesia, and we almost lost the little man.

  And it got me thinking, because I didn’t see it coming.

  It wasn’t anybody’s fault, and it wasn’t in anybody’s control.

  It just happened, because anything can happen, and at any time.

  Both good, and bad.

  And though I think of myself as someone who daily counts her blessings, I took for granted that Little Tony was lucky to have the surgery. It never occurred to me that it could kill him.

  But now I know better.

  And that’s the kind of thing that makes life worth living, and novels worth writing.

  And reading.

  It was a plot twist of fate.

  Post-Puberty

  By Lisa

  You may have heard that AARP started a dating site.

  Now we’re talking.

  Get my walker.

  And my blood-pressure meds.

  Mommy’s going shopping.

  The site is called, “How About We…”

  But I’m not sure what they mean by that name.

  “How About We … Compare Our Cholesterol?”

  Or “How About We … Have a Cup of Decaf?”

  Or “How About We … Take a Nice Nap?”

  So I went on the AARP website to cruise for menfolk, er, I mean, to learn more about the organization. The first thing I noticed was that AARP membership begins at age fifty.

  Huh?

  AARP stands for American Association of Retired Persons, but if you live in America, you can’t retire at fifty. You can’t retire at a hundred and fifty. I’m thinking that my tombstone will read, RETIRED … FINALLY.

  In fact, if you’re a man who retired at fifty, I want to meet you. Maybe you’re on “How About We … Retire While We Still Have a Heartbeat?”

  In any event, I read through the website, which was full of articles with titles such as, How To Have Sex Without Intercourse.

  Fascinating, but I’ve been doing that for quite some time now.

  Sex without intercourse is chocolate cake.

  I read the article, but I still wasn’t sure what they meant. There were too many euphemisms, presumably because I wasn’t old enough to be told the truth.

  So I skipped to another article, entitled “Ten Great Cities for Older Singles.”

  Stop right there.

  I’m not an “Older Single.”

  An “Older Single” is a slice of cheese that’s past its expiration date.

  I haven’t expired yet. I know because I’m still working.

  Still, I read on and found good news. According to the article, Philadelphia was the eighth greatest city for us older singles.

  Wahoo!

  The article suggested that “icebreaking opportunities for first dates” include a trip to Independence Hall.

  What an idea!

  When it comes to the forefathers, who doesn’t think foreplay?

  The article also suggested a first date to the Philadelphia Zoo.

  Another spot that spells romance!

  Who hasn’t felt primal at the Primate House?

  But of course, the more I read through the AARP website, the more I actually
began to find articles that interested me, even though I’m not retired. I started to think that maybe I should join AARP. It felt fraudulent, since I’m not retired, but that seemed kinda technical. And two friends of mine, both my age, joined, and they got discounts at the movies.

  I clicked through to the membership page, which said it cost sixteen bucks a year to join, which was cheap enough. I would have saved money if I joined for five years, but by this point I was feeling so old that green bananas were off my shopping list.

  Still, I couldn’t decide whether to join.

  I felt ambivalent about classifying myself as Officially Old.

  I told myself, I may be middle-aged, but I’m not aged.

  And after all, Mother Mary is an AARP member. Would I really want to join a club that would have us both?

  But that may be a different question.

  Just when I was mulling this over, an email request came in from my book publicist to go on RLTV, a channel that I’d never heard of. So I went online and found out that it was Retirement Living Television.

  Me? Fresh cheddar that I am?

  It’s a funny thing.

  Puberty is a line that’s clearly delineated. Your breasts pop.

  But how about old age? Your breasts drop?

  Enough said.

  I went online to the RLTV website, which had photos of people I admire, like Jane Pauley and Bob Vila. Neither of them are retired, but they’re still cool, even though they’re as old as I am, or even older.

  Except that the website did have an article on “Benjamin Franklin—Science Superstar.”

  Yikes.

  But still, that kind of thinking seemed mean-spirited and wrong.

  So I joined AARP.

  I love being my age, and I’ve learned that age is arbitrary, anyway. So what if I’m lumped in with sixty-, seventy-, eighty-, and even ninety-year-olds?

  I consider myself … lucky.

  Gym Rat

  By Lisa

  How many people can say this:

  I don’t belong to a gym, but my dog does.

  Little Tony had shoulder surgery, and now his vet has prescribed rehab for him, or physical therapy.

  I had no idea they had physical therapy for dogs, much less that I would open my wallet to pay for it, but I always find the dough for my pets.

  I take it out of their clothes budget.