Stick-to-it-iveness

We received a wedding invitation in the mail the other day. Included in the attractive nuptial announcement was a magnet bearing the theme colors of the future event. How clever! Now we can stick the invite on the refrigerator with its own sticker-on-er! Mind you, we possess enough magnets to festoon every fridge in East Oreland, but the more the merrier!! 

Things that can stick to other things have been a lifelong source of fascination for me. I recall the drawings I made in childhood that I always anointed with gobs of Elmer’s glue. For some reason I preferred to draw on one side of two different pieces of paper, then attach, rather than just turn one piece over to decorate. My few surviving masterworks from the Early (Crayola) Period are therefore quite lumpy and bumpy. I also LOVE utilizing Scotch tape, rubber cement, staplers, paper clips, ribbons and string—in short, anything that joins one item to another. I do defer to my hubby when it comes to his copious use of duct tape in prop-making (you should see the Town Crier’s horn in Cinderella, made out of a funnel taped to a tube taped to a kazoo!) But otherwise, I’m the Stickum Queen of the household. In the kitchen, I find all binding agents deeply satisfying (flour, cornstarch, etc.) as I use them to join butter and milk to form a magically thick sauce. I love making sticky buns, and eating sticky rice. Hanging random stuff on walls with Command strips? Yes, please! 

 

Young Peter seems to be following in Nana’s fingerprints. Give that kid a pair of safety scissors and a glue stick and he’s happy for hours, cutting paper into itsy bitsy pieces and then gluing the snippets together. Makes perfect sense to me. 

 

I have been told on occasion that I am “the glue holding the family together,” which I don’t believe, really—I think the Seyfried clan does a pretty darned good job maintaining themselves as a team. But of course it’s flattering to imagine that I am THE necessary ingredient, with my home-cooked and needlessly complex meals, my frequent, overdone displays of affection and incessant chatter, and my various neuroses. Someday, I muse, when I’m fully “retired” to that 55+ community in the sky, my children will gather to mourn and reminisce about dear old Mom. “Remember how she’d always freak out over nothing?” they’d recall, tears in their eyes. “And she was afraid of EVERYTHING! Driving, the dark, thunderstorms, driving in thunderstorms in the dark…” “It’s a wonder we weren’t completely screwed up.” 

 

Wait a minute, this is not how my musing is supposed to go. 

 

But seriously, connections are vitally important to me. I love making a new, or deeper, connection with someone else, binding over shared taste in movies or books, or finding a common friend. I love feeling that, deep down, we are all interconnected in so many important and wonderful ways.

 

Ways that don’t even require Elmer’s glue.

My amazing family (they're actually the ones who hold ME together)

Taking a (Mental) Shortcut

 

Musical superstar couple! Totally unbiased opinion!

I’m all for shortcuts! Whether it’s finding a quicker way to the mall, or streamlining a recipe, if it gets me from Point A to Point B in a speedier manner, shortcuts free up my very valuable time! Now, please don’t ask me to ACCOUNT for all that freed up time! Let’s just assume that I make the most of every single saved second—ironing the pillowcases, say, or working on a cure for cancer (though I do have a theory that too much ironing may be a contributing factor to arm cancer).

I was reading an interesting article about bias the other day. I had time to read this because of my new and nifty housekeeping shortcut: I ask myself, “Is what I am about to clean/tidy just eventually going to get dirty/untidy again?” My answer is usually “Yes,” so then I say to myself, “So there’s really no point, right?” This little internal convo has revolutionized my cleaning routine, and now I can stretch out on my handily unmade bed guilt free, and read articles about bias.

 

“Bias” is a word I’ve been bandying about for years without understanding the full scope of it. Usually I think of it in purely pejorative terms—someone is biased against people of another race, say, or a different religion. Or, conversely, when I talk, as I am wont to do, about Aiden and Peter’s brilliance, artistic talent and sports acumen, I’ll often end with, “Of course, I am a little biased!” which allows me to brag on and on because hey! At least I admit my favoritism!

 

But “bias” refers to a wide variety of tricks by which the mind can arrive at a course of action faster than by deliberative thought. There’s Confirmation Bias, where people tend to pay much more attention to information that confirms what they already believe, than information challenging their beliefs. This is being played out large-scale on the political scene these days, of course, but I also recognize that I am much more inclined to listen when “experts” say that running is bad for you. I extrapolate that walking, the gateway drug to running, should also be avoided when possible.

 

Then there’s Hindsight Bias. Looking back, you knew all along the Cubs or Celtics or Yankees would win (or lose) that big game, didn’t you? Hindsight Bias is not very useful when placing pre-game bets, which are all about foresight, but it’s great for later pontificating at the bar or on sports talk radio.

 

Other biases include Actor-Observer (I failed the test because the teacher’s questions were too tough! Billy failed the test because he’s stupid!), Optimism Bias (I don’t wear a seatbelt and I’ve never been in a car accident, so I’m good!) and Anchoring Bias (I’m most influenced by whatever I heard first). 

 

All biases are mental shortcuts, and I should try not to use them to circumvent critical thinking, which takes time. And critical thinking, unlike ironing, truly is time well spent.

Overlapping

If that's what they're after, they're out of luck

As I write this, I am mere hours away from a new “acting” gig (oh joy!) For the past few years, Steve has been doing more and more film work. Most of this to date has been the blink-and-you-miss-him variety; for instance, he's in Adam Sandler’s new movie, Hustle--as an extra in a basketball game scene. But there have been some bigger roles, and I’m proud of him for getting out there. 

Which brings me to this morning. Steve was hired to film a spot as a tourist at Valley Forge Park, and the producer thought it’d be nice if I came, too, to play the role of…wait for it…Steve’s wife! At last! 45 years of training are paying off! We will be filmed roaming around various locations in the park. Rumor has it that a bicycle is involved as well; I think the original idea was that we would be riding merrily along on two wheels. As everyone in the world knows by now, I do NOT know how to ride a bike (nor do I have the remotest interest in learning). Deal breaker, right? Au contraire! It will apparently be OK if I merely stand NEXT to a bicycle (yes, they do sound pretty desperate). Stay tuned!

 

This (getting back into acting) was not how I envisioned spending my retirement. At all. Let Angela Lansbury accept her lifetime achievement Tony Award at age 96 (which she did the other night)! Hasn’t Angie gotten sick and tired of gracing stage and screen for those multiple decades? Wouldn’t her life have been much more interesting if she had switched careers at some point? Angela Lansbury, dental hygienist? Or maybe, school crossing guard? In contrast, I prefer MY life to be neatly compartmentalized. So: The Children’s Theatre Years, The Church Worker Years, now The Full Time Writer Years. This well-organized method of existence will make things much easier for my future biographers! 

 

But seriously, life is all about the overlaps, isn’t it? When DO The Parenting Years end, exactly? Not when they graduate from school. Not even when they become parents themselves. I can still work myself up into a state thinking of Evan’s recent wilderness training school adventure—he spent five days with no food, no shelter, licking water off leaves, for Heaven’s sake! Had I been anywhere nearby, you can bet I’d have left a stash of granola bars and Gatorade hidden under rocks for my poor baby to find! And it’s the same with my other kids—I never stop being their (neurotic) mom! 

 

And so, as is typical in this messy and overlapping world, I’ll put down my pen for today and become (briefly) an actor once more. It’ll actually be fun to work with Steve again. 

 

But just to be on the safe side, I intend to do a really mediocre job, to prevent being called into service in the future. Hey, producers? Next time you need a bicycle-riding tourist, may I suggest...Angela Lansbury?

Pretty is as Pretty Does

 

Gorgeous...I guess

I’ve been wondering lately, why some creatures (great/small) elicit “aawwws!” and others “eewwws!!” I mean, except for their coloring and that adorable stripe, what is the diff between chipmunk and field mouse? But the one we enjoy, and the other we hire people to eradicate. Sans the fluffy tail, squirrel and rat are indistinguishable, no? A lovely mourning dove perched upon a branch in our maple tree vs. a tough and dirty city pigeon, strutting the mean streets? They honestly look alike. But we are hard-wired to tell the difference, and to label the one as lovely and the other as yucky.

 I’m not an insect fan. At all. But, even as I shriek and flail away at stink bugs and hornets and mosquitos, I love the ladybug, for example. Is it all just perception born of cultural bias? I mean, I cannot imagine being thrilled when a beetle without that red-with-black-polka-dot coloring, lands on my arm. But should Miss Ladybird perch upon me, I am utterly delighted.  Go figure.

I’m also crazy about fireflies. And butterflies. But not emphatically NOT house flies. And while I set traps to capture those disgusting pantry moths before they burrow into the whole wheat flour, the appearance of a huge green luna moth on the screen of a bedroom window yesterday was cause for celebration and photo snapping. Is it their rarity? Their hue? I have no idea, but we were all not spooked, but rather charmed. 

 

There are (often changing) standards of outer beauty in the human world, of course, and I’ve spent a lifetime trying vainly to attain them. If only I could have lived in the Victorian era, when long, perfectly toned legs were not an attractiveness requirement! Indeed, legs of any description were completely hidden away beneath voluminous skirts, including at the beach. Ah, those were the days! Back when women couldn’t vote or own property in their own name or…never mind.

 

What if our fickle and shifting ratings system extended to the animal and plant kingdoms? What if, for example, wolf spiders became all the rage next week, while people shrieked at and stomped on small, winsome grasshoppers? Can you imagine tulips and daffodils suddenly becoming eyesores, as folks lovingly cultivated lawns full of gout weed instead? But no, in the natural world our attitudes are fairly consistent and fad-free. Pretty is hummingbirds and roses, not cockroaches and kudzu, and that has been true for millennia. 

 

But here's what has also ever been true: some of the most physically stunning specimens of the human variety have the ugliest personalities. And vice versa. My Grandma Berrigan would say, “Pretty is as pretty does” when reflecting on the nasty behavior of a beautiful looking person. So it behooves me to look beneath the surface (my surface too), and not worry so much about outward appearances.

 

I may have no control over the length of my legs, but the extent of my compassion? That I can, and should, do something about. 

Degrees of Difficulty

Beautiful Taughannock Falls, Ithaca

Steve and I are marking my recent retirement from church with a short getaway to Ithaca, NY. Ithaca is one of our favorite places. There’s spectacular natural beauty that once (42 years ago) inspired me to strap on cross-country skis. Of course, I only recall the intense and futile effort expended to stay upright, and (equally of course) I haven’t done it since. There’s amazing food (Ithaca is home of the Moosewood Restaurant, a famous and fabulous vegetarian place that has its roots in the hippie days). There are two great colleges: Cornell University and Ithaca College, so there’s always something cultural (concert, play) going on. We leave on our trip later this morning and I’m really looking forward to it.

Anyway, I thought I’d do a bit of research about walking/hiking trails in the area, making note of the ones labeled “easy.” Buttermilk Falls Trail sounded splendid, but it’s a “moderate,” so no go. Potter’s Falls Trail (“easy” and about 3 miles long) seemed perfect—until I read the reviews. One mentioned that the second half of the trail was so steep the reviewer had to climb on all fours (!) so I guess it’s easy if you happen to be a dog. 

 

I cry foul when I hear or read about any physical activity, from bike riding to bowling, described as “easy.” My friends, NONE of it is remotely “easy,” at least for me. Heck, I can’t even float in a pool, and that is something you don’t even have to be alive to master!! And I am equally baffled by: technology, card game rules, piano playing, foreign languages, woodworking and gardening. And so on.

 

So what AM I good at? 

 

Well, I like to think I’m a pretty fair writer (though you may draw your own conclusions). I used to think I was a decent actor until the first negative review of one of my dinner theatre performances in 1978 (“Elise Cunningham was stilted and unconvincing as the daughter”—see, I can still quote the darned thing!) From that moment on, my theatrical confidence fell below zero. Oh, I got some kudos acting in children’s theatre but, face it, gang, kids are not that hard to impress (their idea of a fabulous performance is the maximum number of comic pratfalls). There’s gotta be something else I can do with little effort…

"Little Goldy and the Three Riding Bears" --the pratfall queen!

Oh, yes! Cooking! I find cooking and baking “easy.” My listeners’ eyes glaze over as I describe homemade cakes that involve four layers and two kinds of frosting. “It really is easy!” I protest. “Just try it!” But now I have a reputation: no one on earth believes me when I rate a recipe as “simple” (even though that 22 ingredient stew is a snap. Honestly.)

 

Degrees of difficulty are so individual, aren’t they? One person’s “elementary” quantum physics equation is another person’s “beginner’s” violin tune. Therefore no one should rate anything, I say! 

 

Or maybe rate toothbrushing as “challenging,” and give everyone one daily victory?