My father has recently experienced sudden sensorineural hearing loss. One day, out of the blue, he just totally lost the hearing in one of his ears. This has disturbed him greatly and frankly who wouldn’t be a little upset.

The thing about it that’s making me very sad is that it seems to have changed him. I don’t know if it’s a permanent change or not, but he’s different. He’s normally a pretty feisty bastard but over the last few weeks he’s been somewhat soft, very kind, warm and I hate to say it, but almost sweet. If it weren’t brought on by the fear of death I would think it was fantastic. The conversations we’ve been having make me miss him so much.

Even though he’s only 72, I know it is because he sees this as a step toward the inevitable physical decline into death, a reminder that he’s in what he’d see as the last phase of life. My grandmother (his mother) was similar. I remember from the time she was in her 60’s until she finally died near 90, when I saw her and it was time to say goodbye she’d hug and kiss me, give me some piece of jewelry she had on and tell me it may be the last time we’d ever see each other. That’s about 30 years of predicting your death. Wow that must be exhausting, not to mention a strange burden to put into a child’s mind.

So I’m feeling a bit nostalgic and wishing I could travel back in time every now and then. I’m wishing I was laughing in the backyard being tossed around by my father and getting to ride on his shoulders.

I actually had a little free time this evening so I decided to use the camera for something other than snapshots tonight. Poor camera, she’s so sad, it’s been like using a racehorse for pony rides.

August’s SPC theme is self-portrait with pattern. I realize it’s technically still July, but I’m going ahead with the new theme because it’s easier and I don’t have to leave the house to do it. I don’t get to leave the house at all much any more, and if I do I’m never alone. Feels a bit like I’m under house arrest at times. It’s oddly confining and some may think it strange that I’d say that since I’m naturally somewhat of a recluse, but it’s different when it’s my own choice I guess.

(large version)

Oh, poor me. When I was a kid and acting like a pitiball, my mother would mock me mercilessly. She’d probably repeat some part of what I just complained about in a snively voice, followed by “boo hoo, I feel for you but I just can’t reach ya.” Man I hated it when she did that and I hate it even more that every time I whine a little bit that’s the first thing that pops into my head now. I didn’t actually even understand what she meant but I did know that I sure wasn’t going to get any sympathy.

Mom wasn’t big on sympathy in general, she was pretty tough at times and I always attributed it to her being German (because that’s what my father told me not because I was gifted at stereotyping). Well, I suppose it cut down on a lot of needless attention seeking and hey, no one can ever accuse my sister and I of being mollycoddled. Not that anyone has ever even come close to labeling me the victim of mollycoddling mind you, I just wanted to use the word.

I’ve always been good at things you can do with your voice. When I was a kid I spent an inordinate amount of time in my room alone in front of my mirror practicing sound effects, accents and impressions. I would take my little tape recorder and record my favorite TV characters then play them back and repeat after them over and over until I felt I had the impression perfected.

My favorite was probably Rosanne Rosanna Danna. I was not allowed to stay up late enough to watch Saturday Night Live at that time but I’d sneak into my mother’s sewing room where she kept a little black and white TV, poised on the edge of my seat with my microphone waiting for anything Gilda Radner was going to do.

I probably recorded every skit that featured Gilda and began to memorize anything Lisa Lubner or Rosanne Rosanna Danna said. I could repeat it all verbatim and in character. This became a very popular party trick once I was in high school and I was happy to have something to entertain a crowd with. Sadly, all those memorized lines have vanished from my brain. One day they were there and the next they were gone. At least I can still imitate the sound of a pigeon taking off. While I realize that this ability is certainly something worth bragging about, this post is not about my great talents, but rather my horrible shortcomings.  

It has to do with something vocal that I was never able to perfect on a consistent basis—yodeling. Given my (useless) talent I should by all means be able to yodel on command, but I cannot and this makes me quite frustrated. I am totally impressed by yodelers and have always wanted to add it to my repertoire. No dice so far, but it’s not over yet, there’s still time to fulfill my dream. I will one day conquer this yodeling monster that has taunted me for so many years.

I rely on the wise words of my childhood governess Maria. When she spoke of my desire to yodel she said it is ”a dream that will need all the love you can give, everyday of your life, for as long as you live”…

Climb ev’ry mountain
Ford ev’ry stream
Follow ev’ry rainbow
‘Till you find your dream

For all you other fans of the yodel, here’s the “Yodeling Queen,” Janet McBride.

Damn she’s good! I believe Janet taught LeAnn Rimes how to yodel, I wonder if she does workshops? That would be so cool.

Continuing on with this month’s Self-Portrait Challenge theme of “bits,” I thought I’d give my Gumby fingers a little exercise for this one.

Most of the time the fact that my fingers do this doesn’t bother me at all but it makes writing very tiresome and sometimes painful. They’d frequently just go numb. Back in the days before computers were commonplace, when you wrote all your homework and term papers by hand, I’d often have to tape the joints to prevent them from bending like this.

It also added a little extra challenge to playing the various instruments I was learning at the time. These fingers sort of act like trick knees, one minute they’re fine and then woops, they snap. My piano teacher was always so frustrated with my tremendously poor hand position. I would try to explain to her that I couldn’t keep my fingers in the proper form but I guess she was one of those smacked asses who don’t listen to a word children have to say.

We all knew I was no Vladimir Horowitz anyway, so when I eventually gave up out of frustration, nobody tried to stop me. I played three other instruments so my parents were probably happy to save a couple bucks on the piano lessons.

Thanks to bluberd for loaning me the 50mm, you can’t beat that f/1.8.

You can see more bits here.

Yippee, another holiday behind us. It’s a shame I look at things this way now, I used to love Easter as a kid. That was usually when we took our big vacation for the year. We’d load up our 25′ long turquoise Cadillac and drive from New York to Florida usually to spend a couple weeks at the beach and Greek Easter with my father’s family.

The drive was painfully long and I can only imagine what a grizzly torture it was for my parents. It would start out fine but usually around the Baltimore or Washington area, just when my parents would be getting stressed out from the nightmarish traffic, things would start to fall apart. My sister and I would have had enough of each other at this point and some sort of brawl would break out in the back seat. The Cadillac/land yacht was so huge that my mother couldn’t reach far enough from the front seat to smack us and this would cause my sister and I to burst into maniacal laughter as we would cling to our doors just out of her reach. Suddenly we’d become an evil duo banned together for one purpose, to cause the mental collapse of our parents.

I’d like to say that I now realize how not funny it was for us to act like that at such a critical part of the trip when my mother had to read a map and give directions during rush hour in Washington. But for some reason I still want to laugh when I picture my father having a conniption fit banging on the steering wheel and ripping the tape out of the tape deck while my mother was flipped around in her seat swinging madly at us like someone who should be locked in an asylum.

There was one year, she really woke us up. Same scenario as usual, utter chaos, Mom flips around in the seat, but this time she had her knitting needles in her hand, surprise! No more flailing at us, she was now fencing. I don’t recall her actually stabbing either of us with a needle but it did get our attention. We of course found it highly amusing but thought it best to shut our yaps and laugh secretly in silence.

Luckily nobody ever lost an eye and my father never drove the car into an embankment. We always made it to Florida unscathed although my parents were probably hoarse. How could they ever enjoy the vacation knowing that there was the drive home looming over their heads and what kept my mother from hopping into the back seat with a roll of duct tape and hogtieing us?

The drive wasn’t all bad, there was a lot of music, singing and games and one year my dad bought a CB and we talked to truckers all the way to Florida. Eventually there were different family members and friends scattered down the east coast and the drive was broken up into several days as we’d stop and spend the night here and there, but it still sucked and we still managed to bring my mother to tears by the Carolinas most times. Poor thing, I remember her chasing my sister around a Stuckey’s once with a pecan log in one hand and a rubber tomahawk in the other.

Ah, good times.

Have you ever lived with someone a long time, known them even longer and assume that they know anything of interest about you and have heard all of your stories probably more than once? But then one day you discover that there is still a tidbit from your past that has somehow gone undetected. How exciting.

The other night I was tap dancing in the kitchen and decided to try and teach the associate the old “shuffle, ball change” maneuver, a nice simple beginner’s step I thought she could handle. Let’s just say, tap is not her gift. Anyway, halfway through the lesson she stopped me and said “did you take tap lessons or something?” “WHAT!?” I said in amazement, “yes I did, and you don’t know that? Wow!”

No, she in fact did not know this about me.  Sure, it’s just stupid tap dancing lessons but for some reason it made me so happy to have something new to reveal.

Here I am before my big dance recital, probably around nine years old.

Don’t you just love that stage of growth where the kid’s head is too big for their body and their teeth are too big for their head.

Today I almost lost an eye while hastily trying to put the vacuum cleaner away. It has one of those retractable cords that you give a little tug on and it winds itself back up all neat and tidy. But today, it just wasn’t moving fast enough for me so I yanked it like I was trying to start a lawnmower, the cord started retracting at the speed of light and whipped itself around the floor and into the air just grazing my eyelashes. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “what an incredibly stupid way to lose an eye that would have been” (well, that’s the cleaned up version). Not that there’s a smart way to lose an eye but it would have just been to embarrassing to admit that I lost mine while trying to clean up faster.

This got me to thinking about other self-inflicted mishaps I’ve had in my life. There are far to many to list in just one post so here are a few other eye related injuries:

• When I was little my grandmother was visiting us for awhile when one day I decided to snoop through her cosmetic bag and found her razor. I proceeded to play with it and one thing led to another—I ended up one eyebrow short. When questioned about this new look, I lied and said I got too close to a candle and burnt it off. I guess my parents bought it, I didn’t get in trouble. (Why didn’t they wonder what I was doing 1/2″ from a candle? And why was that ok?)
• Probably around second grade my elementary school bought a kiln for the art class which they kept in a tiny closet like room across the hall from the class. The clay was great fun and I was obsessed with sculpting mushrooms. When the time came to fire the ceramics I was so excited I couldn’t contain myself so I asked to go to the bathroom which was way down the hall. Once free to roam the halls, I just had to see how my precious mushrooms were doing in the kiln so I snuck into the the little room and crept up to the kiln like a mouse. I remembered the warnings about keeping away but it meant little to me as I slid the cover over the peep hole and peered inside. What I saw was evidently the bowels of hell and before I could turn away I got a burst of heat in the eye that I wouldn’t soon forget. I knew I had just made a BIG mistake and was now afraid of being caught so I scurried down to the bathroom thinking the worst was over. Once there I took a look at my face to make sure my eyeball hadn’t melted and realized that I had burnt all the eyelashes right off my face, (I thought something smelled funny). I don’t recall getting in trouble for this one either, perhaps I told them I fell on my grandmother’s razor and it chopped off my eyelashes?
• My favorite eyeball story happened only a few years ago. Late as usual, I was rushing to get ready for my friend’s birthday party. I had just gotten dressed, put a bunch of lotion on my hands and began to put some makeup on. It was going just fine until I got out the eyelash curler. (Okay, this next part still makes me shudder, I can barely write this without feeling the pain.) So I proceeded to race through curling my eyelashes with my freshly lotioned hands when the curler twisted in my greasy fingers ripping every single eyelash from my eyelid in one swift move. The shrieking that came from the bathroom must have driven any dog within earshot absolutely mad. I looked at the eyelash curler and it appeared as if someone glued an entire set of fake lashes to it. The horror. I couldn’t even bring myself to look in the mirror for at least 15 minutes and when I saw my swollen, red bald eye I nearly lost my mind. It definitely took me some time to regain my composure. I don’t remember how long it took for them to grow back and I was afraid they never would. They did finally return but I had to draw a dark line on my eyelid for a very long time to give the illusion something was there.

I have so many more accident stories but they’ll have to wait their turn. I’m sure I’ll do something else soon that will trigger the memory of the time I got my arm trapped in a 10 gallon drum of glue and then I’ll tell you about that one.

It’s been a few days since my last post. I’ve been busy with Christmas stuff and too much work and haven’t had much time to write. 

It always seems that this time of year is so stressful to me. It’s a lot of running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off and not much else.  I don’t think I’ve really been able to enjoy Christmas since I lived with my parents. The good old days when my only responsibility was getting presents for my family and a couple friends.

Looking back now I realize just how much my mother actually did during the holidays. She took care of everything—cooking, cleaning, decorating, baking, mailing presents, sending cards, wrapping presents, driving us around, going to holiday parties, playing Christmas carols on the piano—essentially creating a magical environment for everyone.

Now, I wasn’t an ingrate, I knew she made the house beautiful and baked more cookies than anyone could ever eat but I never realized just how much effort the whole “Christmas experience” actually took. I suppose I always just thought that’s what Christmas was, I had nothing to compare it with at the time and it always seemed so effortless to me. I’d go to school one day and come home to a winter wonderland—poof! For all I know she could have been bitching and moaning all day long. Maybe she had a nervous breakdown at the post office as she stood in the longest line she’d ever seen just like I do every year, but I doubt it. She just had everything under control and I’m pretty sure she also has super powers, which gives her an unfair advantage over mere mortals like myself.

Tonight I decided to calm down for a second. My associate is out of town on business and usually that would mean that I’d never stop working, but I forced myself to leave the office, put on a little Keely Smith and proceeded to have an unstressful and surprisingly pleasant evening. No swearing, no veins popping out of my forehead, no frantically trying to complete some client’s project. I just wrapped presents and put the lights on the tree.

I think I should call my mother tomorrow and express my gratitude and complete admiration of her tremendous abilities.

Visit the Self-Portrait Challenge for more “red” self-portraits.

As I previously mentioned, my father is something of a jazz aficionado. He favors swing, cool jazz, west coast jazz and the great ladies of jazz. I spent many an hour with my father, his music collection and his monster stereo getting schooled in the glorious history of jazz (as he saw it).

I loved every minute I spent with him and the music. When he thought I needed to know the finer points of a song, he’d get out a giant set of earphones (about the same size as my head) so I could hear the nuances and understand just what he was talking about. For example, he’d want me to hear the silky swish sounds on a drum and the delicate “ting” of a cymbal that brushes made versus sticks or he’d point out how if you listen carefully you could hear Erroll Garner grunting in the background of a particular track.

My father would get swept up in the music at times and he’d grab my mother and start dancing in the kitchen, seeing this made me happier than anything in the world (and still does). One of my parent’s fortes was their semi-professional dancing ability. Cha Cha, Mambo, Jitterbug, Foxtrot, Samba, you name it, they were fabulous. Whenever we’d be at an event where there was dancing (like a wedding or a night at the country club), my parents would start up and shortly thereafter the floor would part and they’d be in the center with everyone gathered around to watch. People would come to our table and lavish them with praise, I found it very exciting and romantic. (Watching ballroom dance competitions chokes me up to this day.)

He would teach me to dance as well and I had a great time. I hooked up an elastic cord to the doorknob of my bedroom so I could practice alone and then impress him with my progress when we next danced. I would often put an album on my record player when he came home from work knowing he’d be unable to resist the music and we could dance. 

Whenever I hear the first two notes of the song featured below I instantly think of my father, I picture him getting out his drum brushes and drumming the table and using my head as the cymbal. If I’m feeling particularly homesick it can make me cry.

From Erroll Garner’s Body and Soul, here’s The Way You Look Tonight:

So I not only love this music because it is great, clearly, it is also for sentimental reasons. It lifts me up and transports me to a place I cherished as a child and continue to cherish now.

Sadly, I only have one terrible photo of my father dancing with me when I was probably 16 or so, bummer.

Here’s another one by Keely Smith for you Gary. Get out there and dance with Zuzu, I bet she loves it.

The Song is You from Spotlight on Keely Smith (Great Ladies of Song)

Dean never fails to bring a smile to my face, I’ve been in love with him forever.