The haunted apartment

As long as I’m poaching Unca Rob’s blog posts, I might as well go all the way. I’m taking the big one.

This is my family’s classic ghost story.

You can read the account straight from the guy who saw the ghost, so really, you don’t need me. My version will be more condensed, and from my mom’s perspective. She remembers some of the details differently.

My mom had a boyfriend with an apartment in a nearby town. His room was on the second floor.

One night he told her he was awakened by the front door’s opening and closing. He thought it was his roommate.

He said he heard the usual vibration of the iron stair railing as someone ascended, but didn’t get an answer when he called his roommate’s name.

Then he saw a figure walk into his room, stand over the bed a moment, then disappear into the closet. Scared the heck out of him.

About a week afterward, my mom was in Auntie Martha’s living room with her brother (Unca Rob), her cousin (Uncle Chauncey), and Chauncey’s wife, Dena.

They were telling ghost stories, but nobody believed any of them.

Then Mom told what was happening in her boyfriend’s apartment.

Mom says Chauncey’s eyes got real wide. He asked for the address.

He said he lived in that building two years ago.

Uh huh. This is the same guy who told mom and Rob Frankenstein lived behind the university.

He described thinking his roommate had come in. He heard the iron railing vibrate. A figure came in the room. It disappeared into the closet.

Dena was nodding. She remembered it all. My mother wasn’t liking this.

Chauncey said, “It was Apartment 45, wasn’t it?”

According to Mom, “Everyone was freaked out.” A legend was born.

Vocabulary

In the English class I taught today, I made a list of big words and gave meaningless bonus points to students who could define them. It’s amazing how badly children want imaginary points.

I pulled from former ‘word-of-the-week’ terms at my house. I used to put a vocabulary word on the fridge every Sunday — ignominious, wan, penultimate. If my kids used the word 10 times that week, they got to choose something out of the prize drawer.

This was right up my daughter’s alley.

My daughter was loquacious right out of the womb.

Her first word was a sentence: Read-a-book.

By 18 months she was conversing clearly. People who heard her for the first time always whipped their heads toward me in surprise.

I confess I cheated. During her infancy I was finishing my linguistics degree, with a focus on language acquisition. She had better have spoken early.

When she went to the doctor for her 2-year check up, the nurse tested basic mental and motor skills. She asked her to point to the balloons on the wall. She asked her to hold up three fingers.

Then she gave my daughter a piece of paper and a pencil. “Can you draw circles?”

My daughter nodded, “Side by side or concentric?”

“Nevermind,” the nurse said. “I got what I needed.”

So did my daughter. I have it in her baby book, under first bonus points.

A high school prank

When I was in high school I hung around with a guy I enjoyed every minute of.

He messed with people, but he did it smart. He made me laugh all the time, and the best part was that he included me, like a conspirator.

He was also a brilliant tennis player.

One afternoon during our junior year, he, his best friend Kirk – who was boisterous and friends with everyone – and a quiet, smart boy named Kiwon were on the court. They took turns being the spectator sitting next to me.

When it was Brian’s turn off court, he picked up Kiwon’s wallet and slipped out a 10-dollar bill.

Then it was Kirk’s turn to sit out. As they passed, Brian handed him the money, “Oh hey, here’s that 10 bucks I owe you.”

At the end of the match, Brian looked distressed. He went over to Kiwon and said, “Kiwon, buddy, I can’t even believe what I think I saw, but if I’m right, while we were playing, Kirk took some money out of your wallet.”

Kirk heard this too. I wish I could show you the face he made. He was used to Brian, and loved him as much as I did, so I knew he wouldn’t be angry.

I was dying of laughter as Kiwon checked first his wallet, then Kirk’s, which was lying beside it. Kiwon showed us a side of himself we’d never imagined as he gave Kirk what for.

Last summer the three of us were together at our 20th high school reunion. It was the best moment of my year being with these guys again. I remembered that episode to them, and we all laughed as Kirk made his panicked face.

Brian ordered us a round of kamikaze shots and we toasted our memories.

He told the bartender his name was Kiwon, and to put them on his tab.

Memorial Day

Today is supposed to be in memory of people who died in service to our country.

I don’t know any.

But I know a lot of people who were willing to.

I know that my grandmother (on my mom’s side) married my grampa immediately before he was shipped to Europe to fight in World War II as a member of the Army Air Corps. There was no communication for three years. She didn’t know, during all that time, if he was alive.

And I know that Granny (on my dad’s side) spent every night of the Vietnam War watching fish swim around her tank. My dad was in Da Nang. He had enlisted in the Air Force, and she couldn’t do anything but watch the fish and try to keep breathing.

And I know Boom Boom lost her job when her husband was sent to Afghanistan. She was unable to work nights and be a single mother of four girls. Her employer couldn’t accommodate her shift request. That only added to the stresses of having a husband at war.

Whether being at war was a wise move or a mistake, supported or protested, right or wrong, they volunteered to do whatever was asked of them. They and their families sacrificed comfort and safety so people like me could enjoy the life of freedom, comfort and safety this country has to offer.

Arthur Anderson, Tony Aulbach, William Badgely, Bob Barton, Fred Bauman, Sandy Beach, John Berry, Bill Buchanan, Ramon Cesneros, Howard Chapman, Stephen Chapman, Newton Cole, Neal Derry, Summer Duval, Jason Frey, Bill Garcia, John Guerrero Sr., Harold Houser Sr., Skip Howard, Sam Irwin, Jay Johnson, Albert Landeros, Dan Landeros Sr., Danny Landeros Jr., Eddie Landeros, Raul Landeros, Lee LeBlanc, David Lowy, Joseph Lucero, Tom Martin, Bill and Marie Elaine McClintock, Aaron Mello, Chris Miller, Edwin “Bill” Momberger, Chris Nicholoff, Donald Park Sr., Joseph Park Sr., William Park, Carlos Puma, Tim Radsick, Phil “Sonny” Romero, Alex Salmon, Rick Sforza, Kyle Siegel, Elbert “Smitty” Smith, Monte Stuck, Charles Wheeler, Vickie Wilson, and their families.
Not all of them are still with us, but they all came home.

Not all of them are still with us, but they all came home.

To those on my list and those I neglected to mention, thank you for your service.

Widow’s Night

Until I was 21 I thought members of my family were immortal. But in a couple of days, one of my grandmother’s sisters is going to die.

She’s 96, and she’ll be singing ‘I Did It My Way’ until the curtain closes.

There were nine of them — six sisters and three brothers – and until a few years ago, eight of them were going strong. Suddenly we are about to be down to three. There is an update. Please see comments.

The youngest is 80, but you wouldn’t believe more than 60 if you saw his tanned, laughing self dismounting his motorcycle.

I’ve got great genes.

Starting in 1992 and within eight years, all the sisters’ husbands died. Just after, I was in the grocery store buying avocados, and an old lady struck up a conversation about guacamole mix.

“I buy this Holy Guacamole,” she said. “My husband died, and there’s no point cooking a meal for just one, so every night I heat up frozen taquitos and make this Holy Guacamole.”

She told me she eats in front of the TV while Wheel of Fortune is on. She followed me around the produce section talking about Pat Sajak. This was a lonely woman.

I imagined all my aunties eating microwave taquitos in front of Wheel of Fortune. I thought, ‘I fix a homecooked meal every night. It would be no big deal to double the recipe have the aunties join us.’

So I called them all up and invited them for dinner and games. We had a blast. We decided to do it the first Friday of every month. We called it Widow’s Night.

The news of our private parties spread quickly through the family, as my cousins tried to plan things with their moms. They got denied. Widow’s Night was sacred.

There was laughter, especially with my kids’ answers in Balderdash or clues in Taboo, or when the sisters criticized each other’s card dealing, but there were tears too.

They talked one night about how it felt to give away their husbands’ clothes.

Auntie Martha saw teenagers at the mall holding hands, and realized she would never walk around holding hands again. The others nodded. ‘We had the same moment.’

Auntie Roxie heard her husband’s voice one night telling her it was late, put the book down and turn off the damned light.

Sometimes Auntie MaryAnn would get on the piano and play songs from back when, and the others would dance around. They rarely left before midnight.

We did this for years. Then we started our kitchen remodel and had to put it on hold. During this time Auntie Martha died. Then my son started high school and football games got in the way. Then we moved to a house with no dining room.

Auntie Mags died last spring at 97. Auntie MaryAnn is Hospice care. We’ll be down to two widows.

I was wrong to let all the ‘and thens’ get in the way. Widow’s Night was supposed to be sacred.

Link to photos

Suicide

I run a dead pool, you know, and keep track of  celebrity death. On this date in 2009, I got up to check the latest, and there were a bunch, and every one of them was a suicide.

First, 54-year-old gay rights activist Rodger McFarlane ended his life, according his note, because of constant back pain.

Right after him, 28-year-old Spiderman 3 actress Lucy Gordon was found dead by suicide in her Paris apartment.

And rounding out the set, former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun jumped to his death from a 100-foot cliff while on a hike. He was 62. Roh Moo-hyun was elected on an anti-corruption platform, but was presently exposed having accepted $6 million in bribes. The scandal was too much for him, according to the suicide missive he left on his home computer.

Statistics claim there are almost twice as many suicides as homicides.

I can’t get past wanting to organize these people.

A headline on CNN that very morning read, ‘Would-be suicide jumper pushed off.’

This is what I’m talking about.

Doesn’t it just make sense for the  homicidal to choose their victims from a pool of volunteers?

Some people have nothing but answers

My mother-in-law is one of those problem solvers.

These people’s social skills are completely dependent on their giving advice. I always seem to know one person who has this personality trait.

When that person moves away, another one comes into my life. I picture a nondescript person on deck, rocking in readiness to advise me.

My mother-in-law must write to every comedian she’s ever seen on TV: Dear Mr. Seinfeld, why don’t you pack your own tuna sandwich when you go to the airport. . . ?

In the movie, “White Men Can’t Jump,” there’s a scene where Rosie Perez tells Woody Harrelson she’s thirsty. He gets her water and she explains to him that she doesn’t want someone else trying to solve her problems; she wants someone to say, ‘I too have experienced drymouthedness.’

Can this concept really be that complicated, if people who watch Wesley Snipes movies can get it?

So last week I’m at my current problem-solver’s house making conversation. I say, ‘I spent the silliest time this morning trying to clean the shower curtain.’

The whole bottom two feet of the decorative outer thing always gets covered with fur.

‘I was sponging the fur off, but, because I was there, so was the dog, so he was putting it right back on.’

I did that burst of exhaling through the nose thing that’s the offline equivalent to LOL.

I was looking for this: Boyohboy, dogs are hard to get mad at when they’re so darn cute.

Or maybe even: Ha ha ha. One time when we had our black Lab….

She said, ‘Why don’t you tuck the curtain into the tub?’

I never know what to do at this point.

I have my reasons for not tucking it into the tub, but I don’t think she’s really asking why. Plus, if I tell her, she’ll give me more suggestions.

In my mind I’m saying this: Lady, you don’t know what the Internet is. You’re not my go-to.

But I just say, ‘Well, I suppose I could.’ And we sit there in silence.

Anyone have any advice for me?

My prom story

Tonight my son’s friends are throwing a private prom at my place. They strung little white lights in the wisteria arbor overlooking the orchard. It empties onto the carriage house deck, which they made into a dance floor.

My son will put on a tux to stay home.

I hope it turns out better than my prom experience.

Here’s what happened. My boyfriend didn’t have the money to ask me to the dance, and my best friend was between beaus.

She and I grabbed a can of Pam cooking spray and beach chairs and went to Whitewater — a creek just outside of Palm Springs — for some after-school tanning.

Our friends Craig and Eddie showed up on Craig’s motorcycle and asked us to go, as friends, to that night’s prom.

Eddie and my best friend went back in my car, and I hopped on the back of the motorcycle.

The boys left us girls at my house, where we put on our leftover homecoming dresses.

They picked us up on time. Mom took pictures. We were off.

We drove to Rancho Mirage, parked and walked up to the door of the prom facility.

That’s when the boys admitted they hadn’t bought tickets.

We leaned across the open door to exchange waves with people inside, got back in Craig’s mom’s Camaro and went to Carl’s Jr. for dinner.

Then they took us home.

It was awful.

Though he won’t say it with regret, my son and I will both be able to say we spent prom night all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Mayor McWho?

I was on the Betty’s Attic Web site, and I found McDonald’s character action figures for sale. They have the Hamburglar, the Grimace and Mayor McCheese.

I’m incredulous.

About two months ago my son and I were in a McDonald’s, and I was remembering the character cookies I used to get when I was a little girl — little Fry Guys, Officer Big Mac, Captain Crook and such.

I asked the girl behind the counter if they still had them. She said, “What characters?”

“Have you never heard of the Grimace and the Hamburglar?”

“Never.”

Wow. I have Ronald and Hamburglar pillow dolls I got as part of a promotion when I was 3. The Hamburglar has a removable cape.

The Hamburglar is an icon. I was crestfallen.

So I did a little investigating. As far as I can surmise, McDonald’s was sued by Sid and Marty Krofft over an ad they made. This was the invention of McDonaldland. They weren’t credited. You can clearly see Mayor McCheese’s resemblance to H.R. Pufnstuff.

McDonald’s lost the lawsuit, and in 1987 scaled back to Ronald, Grimace, the Hamburglar and a new addition — a bird with aviator glasses.

Then, when child obesity became a hot topic, the restaurant promised not to aim advertising at children. McDonald’s abandoned all of its characters.

My parents’ generation all remember where they were when JFK was shot. As for me and mine, we have Mayor McCheese.

Some kind of funny guy

This weekend I was hired to deal a satellite game for the upcoming World Series of Poker. This is an annual tournament held at the house of one of the guys in my poker league — a former bureau editor I worked with.

The first year John held this, he was the winner. He represented our league at the WSOP, and got knocked out by Phil Ivey.

John’s house is decorated in signed posters and other memorabilia from old movies.

Years ago I was chatting with him in line for the bathroom — which has Bates Motel towels and a sillhouette of a stabber with a bun on the shower curtain.

I asked him how long he’d been married.

He said, “Eight years, four months and three weeks, and I haven’t regretted a day of it.”

How sweet.

“The day I didn’t regret was August 13, 1996.”

Funny, but the credit goes to Jack Lemmon, in “How to Murder Your Wife.”

I like old movies too.

The James Bond theme

My son and husband just rented Quantum of Solace. They’re doing their guy thing in the living room, while my daughter and I make baby clothes for my brand new niece.

We have Grey’s Anatomy on. It’s making us cry. We are not doing the guy thing.

I have never seen a James Bond movie. It’s my son’s first.

One Christmas I got the game Cranium. My son and I were a team, and I drew a name-that-tune card. It was the James Bond theme.

Shoot, I didn’t know the James Bond theme.

So I hummed the Mission Impossible theme.

My son yelled, “The James Bond theme!” and we won the game.

Yeah, we’re that good.

The shortest distance between my nerves

Whoever coined ‘The shortest distance between two points is a straight line’ did not take basic geometry.

I never use this expression.

For one thing, a line is straight by definition.

And worse, a line goes on forever. How can that be the shortest distance?

I say the shortest distance between points is a segment.

This is what’s in a name

I was born with an unusual name. It’s not an uncommon word, but it was spelled differently so teachers mispronounced it.

I hated the way kids and some adults felt they had to make a comment when they were introduced to me.

Often people would say, “That’s your name?” which was always followed by “Where are you from?” or “What nationality are you?”

I was from here, same as Jennifer and Suzy.

Once, in elementary school, I was getting a drink at the fountain and a boy I had a crush on said loudly, “See that girl? Her name is  (insert name here.)” The boys laughed and I cried.

I started trying to get people to call me different names at age 3. I was Rose, Mary, Linda and Dianne. At age 10 I found one that fit, and it’s my legal name today.

I had a normal name for 13 years, and then I married a man with a last name people giggle at. It was destiny, I guess.

My children are great sports.

Last week my daughter performed in a concert. There were thousands in the theater.

The woman to my left said, “Look at this kid’s name.”

Her son looked at her finger on the program and read my daughter’s name aloud. They tittered.

I imagined identifying myself, which made my ears hot and my heart pound. I am a great big chickenpants.

An hour later my daughter’s group took the stage.

The woman said, “Here comes that kid with the funny name.”

The boy said her name. This was my chance.

I turned to her and said, “That’s my daughter.” My heart was thudding and I was breathing funny. I’m not cut out for confrontation.

“Who?”

“The child you’re laughing at.” I faked calm.

“Chivus?”

What? “No,” I said my last name.

She effected a puzzled face. “We were talking about Chivus.”

She’s insulting me with denial now?

I didn’t respond. She turned toward her son, put an arm around him and kissed his hair.

I debated telling the children what happened, but I can’t have a story inside me and not tell it.

They took it well. They asked, “Where was she from?”

Here, obviously, but I wish I had asked her anyway. Meow.

My friend, the dirty old man

I have a friend who just turned 84. Shame on me for not running this on his birthday, which is one month gone.

He is probably the most interesting person I know. He is a published author of fiction, photography and a memoir; a celebrated photographer (Those famous photos in LIFE magazine? His.); and a survivor of Nazi Germany.

He once told me a profound story of his childhood at the beginning of the Holocaust, which would have made my greatest post to date, but he won’t let me blog it.

He told me, “It’s not your story.”

What can I do? He’s my most faithful reader; I’m at his mercy.

But this story is mine:

One night my poker league was over for our weekly game. The table was down to three players. Several of us were  in the kitchen area, dancing to “Shake, Shake, Shake Senora.”

Fred called me the next morning, as he usually did, to tell me a joke. I’m pretty sure it was about a matador and his balls.

Before he hung up he said, “I tell ya girl, the way you were shakin’ around that kitchen, why, if I were two years younger… .”

Korean confusion

My sister is visiting from Hawaii. This is an enormous treat for me.

After work today I swung by her mom’s house. The girls were there, and there was great visiting going on. They were talking about family history, and interesting or funny stories. My favorite.

My grama was telling us about her stepdad. He was Korean.

He came to the United States because he was involved in some kind of covert political business.

Nana said when he got his driver license the DMV employee was among the many Southern Californians at the time who had never heard of Koreans.

In response to ‘What is your race?’ he thought he heard ‘Aquarian.’ That’s what’s on the license, which Nana says she still has.

My aunt Doreen said that during World War II he wore a button on his shirt that said, ‘I am Korean,’ so he wasn’t mistaken for Japanese. This was protection from being taken to a Japanese concentration camp.

A button? I’m astounded. Why didn’t the Japanese go get some of these buttons?

My sister wanted to know about Korean dishes that may have become family recipes.

“Oh, yes!” all the women said. They described Korean noodles, a soup with pork, cabbage, celery, soy sauce and thick noodles.

“How could I never have seen this in Hawaii?” my sister asked. “There are a lot of Koreans there.”

“Maybe you’re confused,” I said. “Maybe they’re all Aquarians.”

A proud moment

On Oprah, which I now tape and watch, thanks to my grama, they had an episode about children who commit suicide because of bullying.

It was heartbreaking.

But then there was one woman who shared a bright story, about a group of kids who saw a child being bullied and stood up in a circle around her. Their standing up for her, the psychologist said, gave her the confidence she needed to handle taunting in the future.

This reminded me of a phone call I got when my son was in second grade.

A man I didn’t know called and asked if I was my son’s mother.

Uh-oh.

He identified himself as Alyssa’s father. He wanted to know if I had heard what happened at lunch.

Uh-oh. “No, sir, I haven’t heard a thing.”

He was quiet a moment. Then when he started talking, I could tell he was trying not to cry.

Alyssa had gone home and told him some kids were calling her names like ‘gay,’ ‘nerd’ and ‘loser.’

Awwww. Alyssa was a sweet, tiny, timid thing who wore glasses.

He said Alyssa told him my son stood in front of her and yelled at the bullies. He told them to stop it. He said to be nice to her. He said Alyssa was his friend.

By that point the dad had given up trying not to let the tears come.

Me too.

The leg waxing

Many of the guys in Boulder were cyclists, including my close friend Jer.

They had to keep their legs free of hair or it would get caught in the gears. I have this wrong. Please see the comments for a correction.

My roommate was from San Clemente, and we used to joke that the only way to tell the guys from the chicks in that hippie town was that the guys shaved their legs.

One year a girlfriend of mine got her esthetician’s license and was preparing to hang her shingle in a spa. She invited Jer and me to get a free facial or something so she could practice.

I’m not the facial type, and neither was Jer, so we asked to get our legs waxed instead.

I should have taken the facial.

Even after Jer hollered like a little girl, she told me I was the biggest baby she ever heard.

The angel story

This morning I was reading a book we bought at the Winchester Mystery House. It’s California ghost stories.

I was reading one to my daughter while she skimmed the pool, and she said to me, “What if you were those people? Would you move?”

This made me laugh. “I didn’t.”

Tonight we were at my mom’s for Mothers Day dinner, and I told her what my daughter had asked. She laughed and said, “We didn’t.”

As you know, we lived in a haunted house until I was 18. Just like in the story I read my daughter, we heard voices and footsteps. The appliances turned on. We got the whole show.

Before we moved in, it was vacant and the toilets flushed. We were standing right there.

Anyway we got to talking about spirits contacting the living, and I remembered when I wondered if my grampa had reached out from beyond.

He had been a watercolor artist before he died. Everytime we see a sunset I announce he painted it for me.

I don’t believe it. I just say it.

When he died the mortuary gave us a selection of sappy poems for the program. I rejected those and wrote my own sappy poem. I ended it with a take on something I stole from the movie ‘Fried Green Tomatoes.’ A character said some angels walk around this earth disguised as humans.

Three years after Grampa’s death, we took a road trip in his van around the whole USA. At sunset on the last evening of this month-long adventure, we drove straight into a beautiful sky of purple and yellow. I said, “Look at the sunset Grampa made us!”

And everybody yelled, “Whoa! Look at the cloud! It’s an angel!”

It was clearly a full-body profile of an angel crouching and blowing something off the palm of her hand.

I didn’t think it was a supernatural occurance. At first.

But then Aerosmith’s ‘Angel’ came on the radio.

The kindergarten craft story

On Mothers Day when my daughter was in kindergarten, I got a matchbox on a ribbon. It was a necklace.

My daughter had glued heart-shaped pasta to the outside and a photo of herself on the inside, locket style. The box and pasta were sprayed gold.

It made a perfect lanyard for my press ID. I wore it everyday.

One night a month later there was an evening school event. The kindergarten teacher threw her arms around me.

Unbeknownst to me, her husband had been getting a haircut when I took my son to the barber that afternoon. He saw the necklace dangling over my suit.

She explained to me that her staying up late spraypainting the projects gold irritated him. He suggested it was a waste of time .

My going to the barber earned her an apology.

Happy Mothers Day back atcha.

The penis-on-the-front-page story

I volunteer guest-teaching journalism for various school newspaper programs. Today I gave my popular ethics presentation.

I show photos that may or not be ethical to run. They deal with issues like invasion of privacy, gore and the moment before death. I give them what-would-you-do scenarios.

And we talk about the difference between libel and ethics. I have lots of newsroom stories where my paper violated ethical standards, but not the law.

One ethical guideline that’s pretty much universal in newsrooms is avoiding photos of dead or nude people.

When I worked at the paper in Boulder, we would get the paper to bed about midnight and wait about an hour to proof the first copies off the press.

Each proofer took a job — page numbers, jumps, headlines, etc.

The longer the proofs took, the less thorough we were.

If they came to us after 2 a.m., we did was called a ‘f**k check’: We were to scan for the F word and approve the edition in its absence.

When we proofed with care, it seemed we never found anything that needed changing, but when we ran a f**k check, we ran a lot of corrections.

One such time got us into hot water.

The centerpiece photo on the front page went with a big feature we did on health care for the elderly. I remember glancing at it and thinking the photo felt washed in orange. I didn’t like the way it made the page look.

At a glance, it was an old man on a bed or gurney in a busy facility.

At a post-lawsuit-threat inspection, it was an old man inadequately covered by a thin sheet. His penis was exposed.

To add insult to infirmity, the man died during the night we were printing that paper.

The family’s grief was met first thing in the morning with this ignominious final photo.

With one feature, we proved both Murphy Law’s and Andy Warhol were right.

The chandelier story

The only department store in my small Southern California town is going out of business.

Every day the teens on the corners with signs are showing a larger percentage discount. The store still looks full through the glass, but apparently ‘everything must go.’

It was a pricey store. If others are like me, they’re waiting for that percentage to get to 85 before biting.

This happened once before here.

We had a decoration-type place called ‘House to Home.’

My favorite Realtor had given us a gift certificate for sending her business.

My husband and I went to spend it – meaning he went to look at stuff he wished we could get, while I decided we would get throw pillows, a light-switch plate and a plant stand.

The living room of our craftsman home sported a gaudy dripping-crystal chandelier that we both thought was comical, so I wandered lustfully through the lighting section as I looked for my husband.

When I found him, I said, “I found the chandelier of my dreams. I can’t believe how much I love it.”

He said, “I’ll go check it out” — not ‘Which one is it?’ or ‘What does it look like?’

Then he returned to my side at the checkout. “I love it too, but it’s 500 bucks. You need to find Rhonda four more homebuyers and put those throw pillows back. Plus there’s tax.”

It was 500 bucks. It was the only one that was 500 bucks. Amazing.

Months later teens appeared on the corner with signs. The percentage off was 40.

Suddenly I was quick with math. “Honey, that chandelier now costs about 300 bucks.”

“Wait,” he said.

“But I love it really bad.”

“Wait,” he said.

Everyday I drove past those teens with the signs twice. Sometimes the percent on the sign was lower on my way to work than on the way home.

I kept doing math. My husband kept saying, ‘Wait.’

When the sign said 65 percent off I stopped to make sure they still had my chandelier. There was one left, in an unlabeled box. I took it to another department and hid it under some bed frames.

A friend of ours offered advice. He said, “If it’s worth $200 to you, then it’s worth $200. Go buy it.”

I waited.

Finally, it was down to $100. I went in and bought it.

We took down the crystal tear-drop monstrosity and put up my new lighting fixture of love.

I was positively giddy.

My immediate thought was that if I’d known how good it was going to look there, I would never have risked its being sold.

I would have paid the 500 bucks.

Click here for photo.

A linguistic distinction

Same-sex marriage was legalized in both New Hampshire and Maine yesterday.

I’ve been convinced, by acquaintance and scientific reports, that people who are gay are born that way.

In light of this, I don’t think ‘sexual orientation’ is the right term.

Gay, straight or bisexual, I refer to it as one’s ‘sexual affliction.’

And to maintain a sense of reality, when we play The Game of Life, I make all the players draw their spouse pegs blind.

Might be pink; might be blue. You get what you get.

Apparently this is the way it’s meant to be done. Imagine my surprise when I went to the official site to link a photo of the spouse pegs .

The song story

I was driving home one morning from dropping kids at schools, and I heard a snippet of ‘I Wanna Kiss You All Over’ by Exile.

When I first met my husband, this song ran through my head every time he held my hand. After I flew home, I recorded it on a cassette and mailed it to him. I couldn’t help it.

He thinks it’s a dorky song.

He told me he had a Peter Gabriel song he was going to reply with, but he had to get his record player needle fixed first. I have no idea what song it was going to be.

So 17 years later this snippet reminds me that he has never sent me a song.

I was all kinds of mad walking into the house.

I recognized I was unreasonable, but I was mad, and that was that. It was one of those times I felt sorry for anyone married to me.

I headed for Internet poker, my drug of choice for an unbalanced chi.

When I turned on the monitor, I got the e-mail ding.

My husband had sent me a short note, “Let’s see if this works.”

There was an attachment. It was this song.

I cried all over myself.

It was way better than my dorky song.

I was touched and amazed. How many days are there in 17 years? Those are some long odds. Maybe we have one of those psychic connections I’ve heard tell about.

It was one of those times I felt anyone married to my husband was very lucky.

The pool

I love to lie on a raft with a book. This is the first time I’ve ever had a pool, and I’m enjoying it every chance I get.

I was puzzling over why my raft always goes to the shallow end. I have to shove myself back toward the deep end, but it just goes right back.

This is bad, because the shallow end is shady. I don’t understand wanting to be in the shade.

I finally figured out why it does this.

The pool is tipped.

Boulder weather

We’ve just pulled into the driveway from my daughter’s Bach concert this morning.

As we wended our way home through the palm trees and orange blossoms, a hawk soared above us. The sky is a perfect blue. People are out walking their dogs.

It’s 83 degrees.

As I got out of the car I heard maybe four varieties of birds singing. Our property is in full bloom, and the greenery is lush.

According to the Internet, it’s 41 degrees in Boulder, Colo. There’s a little picture of an angry cloud spraying a black sky.

I lived there for nine years.

That’s a solid 3,287 days I was a complaint machine.

In the winter, which begins in September, it’s cold. We had a heating system, but it was not possible to warm the house. In season, the best we could do was keep it warmer than outside.

When I have to wear a coat in my home, I get pissy.

Then summer comes. It’s miserably hot, and the only air conditioning is at the grocery store.

It’s not sunny heat, either. The days are gray, and there’s a thunderstorm at 3 p.m., come hell with high water.

I have nothing nice to say.

Compounding my thermal discomfort were all the people from Minnesota — how can so many people be from Minnesota? — who found Colorado weather mild. That was their favorite conversation topic.

When we started talking about moving back to California, which you may remember was largely because of the JonBenet Ramsey murder, it was January. The temperature had not reached zero in 16 days. And by ‘reached,’ I don’t mean ‘dipped to.’

There’s also something called ‘wind chill,’ which I do not fully understand, but I get that I don’t want any part of it.

Then one day in March the thermostat hit 60. Everyone went outside.

People put on shorts and grabbed their Frisbees.

I needed a sweatshirt. I can’t think of how to phrase how crabby this made me.

My girlfriend and I put the babies in the stroller and went for a walk. I was thinking, ‘Why do I live here?’

There was a 60-something woman on her knees, gardening in a sun hat and Mickey Mouse gloves.

She looked up and smiled at us. She said, “Isn’t this wonderful? Days like this remind us why we live here.”

I hope I didn’t growl at her, but I kind of think I remember a growl.

Now that we’re back in Paradise, I think about that nutcase 330 days a year.

I think, ‘Days like today remind me why I don’t live there.”

The stewed tomatoes story

I’m taking a break from brewing up some spaghetti sauce with meatballs to write this post.

I’m not sure how much food will be left when it’s done cooking, because my daughter is stirring it.

My daughter is pigging out.

When she was a toddler I was making lasagne while she played with her blocks.

I put meat, garlic and onions in my pan. I opened two cans of stewed tomatoes and set them on the counter.

I prepared the cheesy layers, and filled the noodle pot.

Then I reached the first can to dump it with the meat, but it was empty. I peered into the other one, and it was empty too. Bizarre.

I thought of places I might have absent-mindedly poured them. They weren’t in the meat. They weren’t in the bowl of ricotta and parsley. They weren’t in the sink or on the floor.

Finally I decided I had to run to the market and buy more, but I was reluctant, because it was an admission the tomatoes were actually gone, which I couldn’t fathom.

I scooped up my daughter and called for my son.

Aha. She had tomatoey fingers and cheeks.

She must have sneaked in, stolen the tomatoes, eaten them and replaced the cans — all while I was filling the noodle pot.

That kicked off 13 years of having to guard my tomatoes.

On the other hand, I can leave a hamburger on the table and my dogs won’t touch it. They’re better trained than she is.

I hit a parked car

This morning on my radio show they did a round robin to see if people ‘fessed up when they hit something in the absence of witnesses. I did.

I had been at my friend Scotchie’s apartment playing poker with other friends from work. It was the best night of poker I’ve ever had, and I don’t remember if I won.

Rodney Dangerfield had died that day, and one of our photographers was doing impressions. He had memorized all Dangerfield’s best jokes. It was tons of fun.

At 6 a.m. we wrapped things up, and I gave one of the reporters a ride home.

He lived on the narrowest street I’ve ever seen. It was so narrow, as I came out the driveway I backed into a car parked across the street.

That car had about 20 political bumper stickers on it.

I left a note that said, ‘I backed into your car. Here’s my cell number.’

That morning I had a funeral to go to. A copy editor, a young one, had died of stomach cancer.

From the reporter’s house it was half an hour home. I primped and drove 45 minutes to the funeral.

By the time I was ready to head home I was a hollow shell of a woman. I was emotional from the service, I hadn’t slept, and I had hit a car. That’s when the guy called me.

‘I can’t believe you left a note,’ he said.

‘I liked your bumper stickers. We must stick together.’

‘In that case, don’t worry about it. I’m throwing your number away,’ he said.

I was terribly relieved. This meant I wouldn’t have to tell my husband.

I said to the guy, in my best Dangerfield voice, “Last night my wife met me at the front door.  She was wearing a sexy negligee.  The only trouble was, she was coming home.”

He hung up on me.

An out-of-print book series

This would have been my father-in-law’s birthday.

My father-in-law was a collector. He had old toys, Lionel trains and military artifacts. When he sent my daughter teddy bears, they were always limited editon. He sent the boxes separately. That’s how hardcore he was.

At the time of his death, I was reading a historical novel series that was eight thick volumes long. I was on book five. I owned the first six.

I knew that my father-in-law had read and loved this series. I knew he had tried without success to get his son to read it.

What I discovered when I was helping my husband empty the bedroom was that he displayed the entire set, still in its original shrinkwrap.

The painful part of this story is that the series by then was out of print. I had planned to hunt online for used versions of the final two books.

My husband said, “Look honey! What a big stroke of luck.”

“Oh no,” I protested. “Your father went out and got this set after he read a different copy. He knew they went out of print. He meant this set to stay pristine in its packaging. I’m not breaking that seal.”

My husband tattled on me to his mommy. She insisted I take the books.

I left New York without the books.

Back in California UPS brought a box with the clothes and sentimentals my husband had chosen to keep. At the bottom was the set of books.

My mother-in-law had put an end to the discussion. The cellophane was slashed in a big Z.

It bothered me to betray what was obviously my father-in-law’s wish.

I’m trying to even the score by fulfilling a different one. I’m reading the series aloud to his son. We’re on book three, and he’s loving it.

Explaining Easter

It wasn’t until we moved to California that my mom introduced religion into Easter.

For me it’s all about the Reese’s peanut butter eggs.

Everything I know about the Bible I got from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Monty Python.

So our first Easter here, my daughter, by then 3, was confused. She entreated her brother for clarification on the way home from their first Easter church service.

“It’s all about ta-da,” he said authoritatively. “See, Jesus died and they put the body in a cave blocked closed with a boulder.

“When they moved the boulder, they saw an empty cave.

“But they turned around and Jesus was behind them going, ‘Ta-da!’ “

I had no idea Jesus had so much pizzazz.

The blood-drive story

My son called me Friday at work, asking to forge my signature on a permission form for the blood drive, going on that minute. In the few weeks before I was kicked out of my law class, I learned that signing someone’s name with permission — and a witness to the permission giving — is not forgery. I gave him my grace by speaker phone and had done with it.

Naturally, I have a story about giving blood.

I’m afraid of needles, and have been delighted always to be ineligible to participate. You have to weigh at least 115 pounds and not be pregnant.

One evening I came home with a Band-Aid on my krelbow. Fun fact: The word ‘krelbow’ is the word in my house for the inner elbow. I came home to Boulder from a visit with my family in California showing off this new term. My husband, who taught anatomy at the time, laughed at me. ‘Where did you get that?’ I learned it playing Scrabble with  my aunties. ‘How much is the K worth?’ I was suckered, but my pride demands I continue using the word.

My husband pointed at the Band-Aid and raised his eyebrows.

“I gave blood today.” The blood bank used to hold drives every season in the conference room when I worked at the paper.

“Sure you did.”

I did. I lied about my weight, because I wanted the free booklight. Also the cookies were chocolate chip.

My husband shook his head chucklingly. “And how did it go?”

After some sadist with gel in his hair took the needle out, I stood up and swooned. They made me lie down for a half hour with cookies and my novel. I liked that part.

Imagine, after all I went through, my husband having the nerve to tell me the booklight was too bright.