MSCRANKYPANTS.NET

Ms. Crankypants is moving on up!

2012-06-15T02:50:14Z

And you are the first to know.

Ms Crankypants is joining the bloggers at Chicago Now, a network where hundreds of bloggers are read by thousands of readers every day.

She will continue to cover the same beat - big and small outrages in the news, popular culture, and around the block that need her critical attention. As always, she will have piles of helpful suggestions to correct the indignities she digs up.

You must come along. It wouldn't be the same without you. So come to www.chicagonow.com/mscrankypants and Subscribe. That way you don't have to remember the link. You know how you are.

While you are at it, don't hesitate to share with your real friends, your Facebook friends, anyone else you can think of. Ms C doesn't do this for her health, you know. She needs readers.

Speaking of Facebook, let's be friends at CB Crankypants.

See you at the new place!

Torn from the Jerry Sandusky headlines

2012-06-14T13:51:14Z

One question. Just what is in that giant black notebook that alleged serial sexual predator Jerry Sandusky carries in and out of court every day?

Imagine the tabs: Boys I abused in the shower at work. Boys I abused in the basement at home. Threats I made. What to say if Bob Costas shows up again. I hope he has one for Prisons.

And why does he keep smiling like that getting in and out of the car on the way to and from. Isn’t he listening once he gets in there?

The hero of this tale could have been the psychologist who evaluated him after early allegations and nailed him as a predator. Unfortunately, her opinion was countered by another counselor who didn’t believe the allegations because such a good guy couldn’t have done such things. It must have been that smile.

Here we go again with the politics

2012-06-04T16:03:04Z

Ms Crankypants has complained before about the toxic effects of politics, and here is more evidence. First, the nice-seeming Ricketts family buys the Cubs. Suddenly, there is innovation in the air – Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney play there, so does a football team, even though they didn’t really have room for the end zones, and people could ice skate all winter, until we had no winter. Amazing and effective distractions from the actual performance of the baseball team.

Long-disgruntled fans began to inch toward new expectations. Maybe these people could return the Cubs to baseball respectability, even success.

But then the Rickettses started panhandling, asking the famously broke state of Illinois for money, which is like asking a desert rat for a nice cool glass of water.

Then they asked the cash-strapped City of Chicago which had been plundered by the pet projects of its long term and recently departed mayor, for money. Since they’d already sold off our assets like the skyway and street parking for the next few decades, it’s hard to imagine them saying yes. Unless you are NATO of course.

By then the Ricketts might have still had a chance. The Cubs are intrinsically lovable in a sad and defeated sort of way, and there’s still nothing like a day at Wrigley Field.

Enter Grandpa Ricketts, apparently a major moneybags. News gets out that he is a politician’s dream, or nightmare, depending on your proclivities. A staunch conservative, he was looking for the best way to spend $10 million to defeat White Sox fan Barack H. Obama. One possibility – who leaked this anyway? - was to fund advertisements to resurrect the fear and controversy around BHO’s longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright. To his credit, he decided against that option.

We don’t know our new mayor all that well yet, except that he doesn’t exactly seem warm and fuzzy. But the least aware citizen, given BHO’s role in Rahm’s career success, could predict his reaction to Grandpa’s plans.

So, now we have the cellar-dwelling Cubs, two broke governmental units, a mayor who won’t answer his phone, and a family in turmoil. I wonder if Grandpa’s going to get an invite to the Ricketts Family 4^th of July picnic. There will be fireworks.

Detaching from attachment

2012-05-29T15:45:13Z

Has anyone seen the pendulum? You know, the one that swung from the 1950s when the Baby Boomers’ parents had to be tough and stern so the kids wouldn’t get the Big Head; and swung on through the post-Dr. Spock period of earth mothers and LaLeche League?

The pendulum that proceeded to set the Baby Boomers, in direct opposition to what they’d been taught, out to install each of their children on their own little pedestal where their self-esteem could flourish and their heads could swell.

Which clearly backfired as it somehow led to this current Dr. Sear-encouraged attachment parenting thing that led a nice-looking woman to pop her boob in the mouth of her toddler right on the front of a national “news” magazine.

Clearly, there has been a failure of communication here. Any woman who has retreated to the total-devotion-to-her-child ethic that leaves her sleeping with her child instead of her husband (or just herself), and still breast feeding children who could make their own sandwiches has missed something. Even the devoted moms of the 1950s took time out for a Martini and a smoke.

Where are the boundaries, people? I thought we’d figured out that women got to have lives apart from their children to fulfill their own potential, and help save the world which needs plenty of help. Sure, having moms devote their energies to themselves as well as to the members of the household leads to a complicated juggling act. Everybody in the family has to participate, including the little darlings who pick up some responsibilities as they mature. They learn how to soothe themselves, see to their own needs, and make way for others’ priorities. Nobody gets everything they want, but everyone learns something about sharing the load.

If we don’t stem this tide, we are going to see a generation of over-functioning mothers trying to meet impossible expectations, raising indulged and entitled children. Talk about the Big Head.

We’ve got to find that pendulum and set it to rest in the middle: Love your kids, prepare them for independence, and become the most evolved version of yourself at the same time. It’s all in the boundaries.

Andy Warhol, career counselor

2012-05-21T23:26:20Z

When I was first a mental health therapist, people would avoid me at cocktail parties because they thought I would try to diagnose them with some sort of terrible disorder. My clients would avoid me too, reluctant to own up to the trouble in their lives. I used to say that in my next lifetime I would simply supply something everybody needed and actually wanted, like paper. It’s just as well I didn’t listen to myself though. Who knew that we’d go digital and paper would go out of style?

When I was an addictions counselor, I used to say that if I wanted to earn some real money, I got in on the wrong end of that business. Instead of serving as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, I would have had three other choices: I could have either produced alcohol and or other substances, distributed them, or sold to eager consumers. By the time I realized that fact, it was too late for me. I knew too much about the havoc mind-altering substances cause in the wrong hands. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep. The fourth option suited me better: trying to help undo the trouble. Once again, people weren’t lining up to get what I had to offer.

When I became a writer, I used to say that I’d just write a book, send it to Oprah, and she would fall in love with it and crown me the new self-help darling. But it turned out that some other projects of mine came first – a few websites, and seminars, journals and the like – and when I finally looked up, it was too late for the Oprah scheme, as she’d packed up and moved to California. Even before she got out of the guru business, she’d backed off on lionizing authors anyway. Thank you, James “I made it all up” Frey. I smelled a rat when I read his book, as many did. Imagine an employee of world-renown treatment center Hazelden tromping into a cocaine den on a rescue mission. Really. That’s the trouble with being Oprah – you can accept bigger than life because you are living it yourself.

What do I say now? That I must accept that I have an unruly brain that spins off ambitions like a dandelion scatters seeds. My lists will always be long; I will never complete them. Not everyone will want what I have to offer.

My best bet is to listen to Andy Warhol. He advises to stop overthinking and get to work. It may be a stretch to classify what I do as art in this wise quote of his, but he's not here to stop me:

Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make more art.

Six more months of this?

2012-05-10T03:13:48Z

Politics normally brings out the worst in people, but I think I’m an exception. It seems to inspire me to deeper and deeper insights. And now that the reality show portion of the political season is over, with the selection of the least zany Republican contestant Mitt Romney, I would like to share my latest understanding.

We still have six months plus of additional nonsense before we either have a new president or the same old one, so we could use some new awareness. I don’t criticize the actual political process which at its essence is pretty amazing. The candidates share their ideas about how to make things better, or keep them from getting worse anyway, everybody votes, and we all agree to go along with the outcome. Pretty civilized, yes?

I criticize the surrounding hubbub, like personal attacks from one candidate on another. And piles of money flung back and forth in front of our noses from this PAC to that. And, new development, robo-calls clogging up our phones, demanding that we sit through diatribes when we can’t even get a word in. Click.

I am concerned that this hubbub may diminish the real political news of the day, the trial of weasely money-grabbing cheater John Edwards. It should make mighty fine entertainment, if you can put the needs of his motherless children out of your mind. Although it seems to me that the potential 30 year sentence seems a bit excessive for weaselhood. Murderers get less.

Back to my chance to shine a light on the political swamp we will be in until fall. I used to think that the solution for political pain was to just quit arguing with people you disagree with. We’ve all seen the toll such arguments take on dinner parties, coffee dates, Christmas dinner, whatever. To avoid that is still a good principle, which I try to act on ever since I thought of it, but my new strategy is even better.

Now I see that talking politics with the people who agree with you is just as bad, or possibly worse. Watch how the commentators on TV and radio get their audiences worked up. They not only offer dozens of further justifications that you hadn’t even thought of, but you won’t be able to resist unleashing them on the poor souls who disagree with you.

Also, once they get started talking in the indignant and victimized way that zealots on either side can’t avoid, it puts you on a mission to convert the entire rest of the world to your side. Before you know it, you both think that you are even righter than you were when you started, and that those other guys are not only not too bright, but beneath contempt.

So beware the trap and join me over here smiling and discussing the Cubs’ chances – better make that the Bears’ chances – while the rest of the populace is either working themselves into a lather, or scuffling through a half year of cartoon fighting, wounding and insulting each other in a swirl of dirt.

We still each get only one vote, and the outcome will hinge on who of us is motivated enough to get to the polls that day. I’ll be there. I promise.

In the meantime, I sure hope Jay Cutler is working on that rehab.

The first Ms Crankypants Curse

2012-05-01T02:30:00Z

We are pleased to announce the first official Ms. Crankypants Curse. This occasional designation will be targeted at individuals who commit egregious acts that offend Ms. C’s sensibilities. As you know, Ms. C is through just getting over things, and will regularly highlight here the repulsive, the outrageous, the infuriating, and make every attempt to cause pain for the perpetrators in any way she can think of.

Today’s Ms. Crankypants Curse goes to:

The burglar who broke into my mother’s apartment in 1983 and stole a complete set of silverware, Spring Glory pattern, that she and my father picked out before his early death. You can see that Ms C is more than capable of holding a grudge.

Allow me to address the perpetrator directly:

I hope that in the intervening years you have gotten what you deserve from a just universe, or in a general kharmic way, or from a vengeful punishing God, or from your own conscience. On the last point, fat chance. Why didn’t you at least target someone with the big house and bulging pockets that might have offered you a bigger selection? Maybe the authorities caught you for another caper and you are enjoying our fine corrections system waiting to get out. One can hope.

If you got away with it, and think you are off the hook, under the radar, sitting pretty, which would seem to prove that there is no justice, just know that this isn’t over yet.

Her name was Jessie and you made her feel unsafe in her own home and so angry that she cried. She never cried. Big man, are you proud?

The curse awaits you. It may be around the next corner, or the next, holding out for the perfect moment to strip away your big tough guy exterior and leave you…well, I’ll let you wonder. Let’s just say that you won’t be needing any silverware.

In the unlikely event that you have turned your life around, regret your past bad acts, and consider yourself a reformed man, congrats, but our score isn’t settled yet.

I haven’t quite worked out how I will know when the curse has done its job, but I suspect it will come to me in a dream. Your nightmare.

In the meantime, do you happen to know the guys who stole her car around the same time? Chicago’s Finest nabbed them and they were at least punished, but I’m interested in a word with them too. I think I can handle two curses at once. I’m very motivated.

So that's why they call it Secret

2012-04-18T12:59:29Z

    Seriously? The advance team for the President can’t even keep themselves buttoned up for the few days it takes to plan a visit to Colombia? Just because the locals have a thriving legal prostitution trade doesn’t mean you have to shop there. It makes you wonder what else they can’t manage. If they were in North Korea would they start building their own nuclear weapons?
    I always thought the Secret Service looked so dedicated and intense with their windy little earpiece cords and darting eyes and such good posture. Work hard, play hard I guess is their motto. If they want to have their sleazy bad boy moments, it’s none of my business, unless I’m paying the tab with the tax money they just wrested from my tight fist.
    Let’s take a minute to contemplate how this would unfold if the world was as it should be, with the women in charge. We’d have a cadre of ear-budded women with erect posture using their off time for what? I dare say that we’d find welcome alternatives to more sex. We’d find the best shopping, local restaurants with excellent wine. We’d talk. We’d finally have time to read a book. Since we’d be armed, we could even chance a late night stroll through the town. We’d sleep the blissful sleep of the uninterrupted for once.

We’d come home refreshed, not disgraced. Think about it, fellas. We’re available.

What winter?

2012-04-02T17:57:50Z

You can say a lot about this warm winter we just had. You can say that it turned us into a bunch of cupcakes. Instead of the surly diatribe everyday about who stole the parking space that we had cleared and planted a chair in, we spent the whole season rhapsodizing about miracles.

We talked about the snowblower getting dusty in the corner of the garage. And never wearing the down coat once. And the fact that it was warmer here than in San Diego. All of those are certifiable miracles.

And now it’s the same with spring, which popped up one day fully formed. I have daffodils, we said in March, and the red bud trees are blooming. It went from 50 to 80 degrees in one day. It’s almost beach season and we forgot to lose the 15 lbs. that we ordinarily would with a little warning.

But I’m worried about all this positiveness. I’m afraid this weird meteorological anomaly contains the seeds of our destruction. What is it to be a Chicagoan without suffering? Who would we become if we didn’t have to toughen up to survive the beastly winter?

I remember hearing the story about a child who saw a butterfly trying to work its way out of its cocoon, and decided to help it out. The butterfly, having missed out on the struggle, was too weak to survive. That might be us. A few more years of this panty-waisted type of weather and we might just wither away too. All the activists who are sounding the alarm about global warming might want to get on this one right away.

So, if Old Man Winter really lets us have it next year, it may not be the worst thing for us. Unless, of course we are entering a whole new epoch where Chicago becomes the new San Diego. I’m sure we could adapt to long term cupcakeness, if we had to.

Rod who?

2012-03-24T11:55:56Z

Residents of Illinois and others who can’t look away from disaster:

So you don’t want to think about Rod Blagojevich anymore, now that he is tucked away in the Colorado foothills – unless you are a Chicago newsperson who has been feeding off his leavings and can’t bear to stop, and are probably standing a ladder up to his cell window waiting for him to sneeze so you can break into regularly scheduled programming with a report. Just as Rod overestimated his importance, the media folk overestimated our interest.

But indulge me. Ms Crankypants has to cleanse myself of the Blago stain before I can move on. I had my own Blago moment you know. It was 2008 or so in an eatery attached to the only bowling alley in Streeterville. There I sat, happily chomping on miniburgers with my family. Suddenly, next to our booth, scuttling along the wall, appears the governor on his way to the bathroom.

His eyes darted, his head swiveled; his attention-seeking equipment was armed. He disappeared behind the wall while we whispered to confirm that it was really him. When he reappeared, he resumed his search for eye contact with someone, anyone. I looked down, Mr. C looked down, and he scuttled on by. Our daughter was shocked.

“I’ve never seen you act like that,” she said. “You were so rude.”

“We don't want to encourage him,” we said.

Ever since, in the endless loops of Rod coverage, I’ve recognized the same neediness, and the gross misinterpretation of the recognition he does get as affirmation.

The night of his departure for prison, I heard a talk by a news photographer who had been present at many Rod clamor-fests at the family home in Ravenswood. He pointed out that all these years, Rod could have simply pulled his car into the garage, closed the door, and entered his house in privacy. But he likes his drama.

I’ve enjoyed the recent parade of psychology professionals summoned by the media to explain Rod’s impenetrable grandiosity.

“Narcissism,” they say. “He’ll crash and burn once he is confined.” “He probably believes everything he says.”

But now, in the wake of his flight to the new life, and the slow-speed SUV chase of Rod and his directionally-challenged lawyers (How many lawyers does it take to lose a prison? Two.), it is time to shelve our disapproval and find our humanity. The man will be scuttling along prison walls while his daughters finish growing up, trying to learn how not to be the center of attention. Who will he be without his media moments?
He will miss us far more than we will miss him certainly. But as he recedes from our attention, think of what will capture his - how to stay out of danger and how to recast his ways to fit his new environment. This will be punishment indeed.

Patti's plight

2012-03-20T14:29:35Z

Patti Blagojevich has the same problem the rest of us women have. We go out, find a man, sometimes choosing more hastily than if we were choosing a wedding dress. In fact, I saw a young woman on cable’s Say Yes to the Dress who didn’t even have a boyfriend yet and was out shopping for her dress. The groom-to-be-named-later seemed a footnote. She was an extreme, but we all might be wise to take more time in the mate selection process.

Because once you’ve chosen him and married him, the trouble starts. Then you have to live with him day after day, year after year, decade after decade, as his true personality seeps out, released from the effort to make a good impression.

Which brings us to Patti B. At that first date, could she have foreseen the debacle that her family life would become if she married this man? Were there red flags to warn her of the family feuds, scandals, verdicts and abandonment-by-prison that was to come? Or was his energetic confident personality so overwhelming that she was a goner from the start?

I’ll bet now she’s had the chance to contemplate what life would have been with that nice butcher from the next block instead. Steady, low key, under the radar, not in prison.

I know, I know. She’s a potty-mouth. Why worry about her – she got herself into this and benefitted from it herself until now. But think, if you had lived with Rod, you might have turned a little cross yourself.

The iconic picture of Patti is her solemn face, arm extended backward, clutching Rod wherever she could grab, dragging him out of the spotlight and into the limo or the front door of their home. It seems like the next frame should be her beaning him with a frying pan, not that I advocate violence of any sort.

As the polar opposite of her attention-seeking husband, Patti is far more interesting to me. I hope that behind closed doors she and her potty mouth really let him have it, for disappointing and embarrassing their children, and for risking their future for the big hit that never came. She seems to have a backbone. Isn’t she the one who refused to move to Springfield for six years just because he was governor?

But the rest of us might remember that there but for the grace of whoever your higher power is go the rest of us. Luckily for me I chose Mr C who has yet to have a press conference or a trial.

I understand that Rod can have one phone call a day. I wonder how that will be for Patti the single mother who has a job to find and a house to sell and an independent life to craft. After a year or two or five, will that be the highlight of her day? How long can she stand by her man? The family photos will get dusty, the excitement will die down, and then she will see where her mate selection got her.

Ms C on certain celebrities

2012-03-07T21:52:32Z

I like people who face facts. They deal with reality, and the rest of us want to be like them, so then we do too.

Take singer Melissa Etheridge. The first time I saw her she was a newbie appearing with her band on Letterman for the last three minutes of the show. I looked up from the newspaper I was reading, attracted by the driving beat and plaintive, raspy Janis Joplin-like voice. I ordered her CD the next day.

She made clear early on that she was gay, not a common declaration at the time. When she got breast cancer, she said so. When she found chemo terrible, she said so. When she was asked to sing at the Grammys to salute Janis, she said yes, though she had just finished chemo. She sang Janis’ “A Piece of My Heart” with earthy gusto, bald as can be. It was a brave paradigm-shifting moment.

To illustrate the contagious nature of such an act, the moment was reprised in a scene from “Sex and the City” later on, when Samantha appeared at a breast cancer symposium, also post-chemo. Instead of continuing to sweat under her wig and the pretense it represented, she threw it off to the cheers of the crowd. Other women stood up and threw aside their own wigs. It was a moment to remember.

On the other hand, Glen Campbell used to irritate me. His songs were fine, but that carefully-tended hair of his just needed messing up. You can’t trust a man with perfect hair (reference John Edwards). I can see now that I was wrong about Glen however. He is more than human, touring now even though he’s been diagnosed with Alzheimers Disease. He does interviews as long as his patient younger wife can offer prompts.

As is often the case with Alzheimers, he can still perform the activities that were automatic for him like making music, but recalling details can get away from him. In interviews, he sometimes breaks into song, which makes Ms C smile. You do what you are meant to do, as long as you can, and in his case, without apology.

Another practitioner of such candor is University of Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, the winning-est coach in college basketball history, men’s or women’s, diagnosed with Alzheimers at the Mayo Clinic. The queen of determination, she told her team and her bosses first. Then she hosted a gathering at her house to tell her staff, and ended up comforting them. She went public in an interview with her impressive and articulate 20 year old son next to her. Did she resign? No running and hiding for her; she plans to coach for three more years thank you, though some duties she now shares with her long-time assistants. Speaking of the contagious nature of her conduct, while all this was going on her team went 34-3.

Ms C frequently complains about celebrities and their weasely disreputable ways. It’s only fair to fete these three who are showing me something. They make me non-cranky.

The right Mr. Brown

2012-02-27T20:10:05Z

Ms. Crankypants has a complaint. The wrong people get the attention in this life, which has recently been proven all over again. In one week, we had the two wrong Mr. Browns all over the news.

First, we have Chris Brown, batterer of record of that nice singer Rihanna, appears out of nowhere on the Grammy Awards show. Just how did his instant rehabilitation happen? Or did his exile just reach its expiration date and he gets to crawl out from under his rock straight onto the stage of the Grammys? If I remember the pictures, his crime was no love pat that was taken out of context. It was a focused and effective beating. And what is she doing putting out songs with him again? She might want to keep her eyes wide open.

Next, there is Bobby Brown, former husband and ruiner of the life of Whitney Houston. Bobby had a tough week last week. First he finds out on stage that Whitney died, and dedicates a song to her. Touching. The next day he cancels his dates and rushes to the side of his 18 year-old daughter. But the family won’t let him in. Finally, he flounces out of the memorial service before it started because he wasn’t satisfied with the seating arrangements. Whoever was running the perimeter security this time should have been on duty when he first showed up on Whitney’s doorstep. That could have changed everything.

There’s a much better Mr. Brown to talk about – Mr. Oscar Brown, Jr., Chicago music legend, if you are lucky enough to even know about him. I discovered him long ago when my youth group traveled from Beverly – from the church that’s shaped like a castle; you’ve seen pictures – to the Lake Meadows housing complex on the near South side.

It was good enough that this was our first foray as high school kids into an actual night club. But to encounter this edgy, outspoken, compelling man, this was pay dirt. He sang about injustice and hatred and race, sometimes with humor and other times with such anger that a nice white girl from the leafy South Side was left uneasy.

When I left for college that fall, I took my already worn album “Mr. Oscar Brown, Jr. Goes to Washington” to play on my portable record player in my dorm room. But no one had heard of him.

“Listen to this,” I’d say, and play them “40 Acres and a Mule,” his humorous sendup of the promised and never-delivered attempt to make up for slavery. It was an early lesson about my passions and how they weren’t contagious.

Usually my listener politely moved on to the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” or the Mamas and Papas’ “California Dreamin,” familiar anthems of the time. But occasionally a special someone asked to hear more of Oscar’s gems.

He wrote and sang about urban realities decades before rap and hip hop artists came along and made fortunes. By reports, my Mr. Brown kind of scraped by his whole career, on the road for many years, and finally back home in Chicago until his death at 78 in 2005. In the intervening years, he was also a playwright, poet, activist, unsuccessful political candidate, and author of 1,000 songs. Top that, Chris and/or Bobby.

The last time I saw him was the year before he died, with his lovely daughter Maggie. They put on an outdoor concert on the hill at a local college. They sang the old songs I loved and plenty of new ones. I was left in a puddle of sadness when it ended, suspecting it would be our last time.

He wasn’t a warm and fuzzy approachable-seeming man, which I understand, being cranky myself. So I held back on my impulse to rush up to him and gush about the impact he’d had on me, how his songs got in my blood, and how he’d helped imbed justice and equality into my character.

I was afraid he’d ask me what I’d done as a result, and I’d have to answer, “Not enough.”

Now I see that I should have delivered my message anyway. Maybe it would have given him something to hear from a lifelong fan. I’m making up for it by telling you, so the next time you hear news of the lesser Mr. Browns, you can run one of Oscar’s songs through your head instead. He’s waiting for you on You Tube.

You know? Like, what I mean?

2012-02-16T21:10:21Z

This whole up-talking Valley Girl thing just won’t die. It should have faded away already in the 1980s, but now is taking over again, and I want it to stop. On Monday I was minding my own affairs at my desk, paying bills with TV on in the background so I wouldn’t notice how boring it is to pay bills. HGTV had on one if its shows about people finding somewhere to live. In this case it was a young man looking for an apartment in a new city. The host wanted to know what he was looking for.

“Well, I want two bedrooms? And bike lanes nearby? You know, and granite countertops?”

I looked up expecting to see a burly 13 year old girl who hadn’t lost her baby fat yet, and saw instead a good looking 20-something man up-talking like he was trying out for a Saturday Night Live sketch. Only he wasn’t kidding.

I shrugged and went back to my desk. He did find a nice vintage apartment in an up and coming area by the end of the show, and I was done with my bills. He had served his purpose.

That night I went downtown to session two of my Social Media class. (Ms C constantly strives to keep up, as you know.) I sat down next to a young woman who had her back to me. She was in earnest conversation with her other tablemate, up-talking to beat the band, so that, like, every phrase was its own question. I had a flashback.

“I work for a nonprofit? And we are launching our social media strategy? And now we have a Facebook page for the organization? And next we have to go on Twitter? And…”

You get the idea. I was 30 seconds from having to move or say something. Stopping listening was not an option, because when something is that annoying, it cannot be ignored. Happily, the class started right then.

Back in high school English class we used to count the “uh”s of Mrs. Jordan. I have changed her name out of very belated respect. “Mrs. Jordan” is certainly long-gone by now, and deserves to be remembered for other things, even though I can’t think of one right now. We counted just to keep ourselves awake. It didn’t occur to us to make the class interesting by participating. As soon as we got out into the hall after class, we compared tallies.

“I got 67.”

“No, 72.”

“You’re both crazy. It was 76.”

Of course, no one ever mentioned it to her. There is no real vocabulary for such feedback, then or now.

If you listen carefully to unmannered natural speech, it is peppered with pauses, dead ends, and unnecessary embellishments. I heard a tape of a talk I gave once, and was amazed at how many side roads I’d wandered down. But credit to my audience and their brains. We are story-tellers and our brains know how to follow along and piece things together.

Unless up-talking hijacks the whole conversation. How can a brain search for meaning when it is getting carsick on the sing-songy roller coaster of the lilting up-talker? I ask you.

If I am going to be surrounded by this, I’d better work on what to say next time. Or maybe I’ll just up-talk back.

“I have no idea? What you said? Just now? Try again?”

I’ll definitely have to practice.

Ms Crankypants would go

2012-02-09T14:43:06Z

My last Hawaii post, I left you at Pearl Harbor. Now we will proceed to pretty much the purpose for Hawaii, the beach and the waves.

The first morning, Mr Cankypants and I breakfasted at a beachside restaurant overlooking Waikiki Beach. It was New Years Day and we looked in much better fettle than most of our co-breakfasters. They were in various stages of head-holding and groaning while they waited for their Bloody Marys. It wasn’t pretty.

We turned our attention to the beach where we spotted a German gentleman in a Speedo. I can’t remember if we heard him speak German, or if we just decided he was. We both have German blood, so we get to do that. He stood stock still facing the sun. For the hour we were there, he rotated every fifteen minutes, to insure an even roasting. He was nicely bronzed, but had the blonde hair on top of his brown hair underneath hairdo that screams “I am trying too hard.”

And you know what it’s like to look at someone wearing a Speedo. The last thing you want to do is look, but you can’t help yourself. Isn’t that the intent of a Speedo really, to get you to look? And this was a German, one of those Europeans who are supposedly so comfortable with their bodies that they find clothes unimportant. None of which mattered, since his gaze was fixed firmly on the sun. Passersby mainly ignored him, but occasionally one would pause, examine him, maybe watch for a minute or two and then move on. No one ever interrupted his reverie to ask questions about his method. I’m guessing he didn’t want to risk an unfortunate fold line in his perfect tan. We saw him the next day, same protocol. This man had patience.

Our better beach moments came on the North Shore of Oahu where three of the best world-class surfing beaches line up in a row – Waimea, Sunset Beach, and Pipeline. This was prime surf season too. These beaches host the worlds’ most challenging surfing competitions, including one that only takes place every few years because they don’t bother unless the waves are at 30 feet. Lucky for us, there were dangerous surf warnings up and we got to see the Pacific at close to its peak. Warnings were out about the possibility of closed roads if the waves got out of hand.

The resort took up the northernmost point of the island, so that we were surrounded by waves everywhere we looked. At night, floodlights were set up to illuminate the waves, maybe questionable from a light pollution standpoint but awesome for a wave-lover like me.

One day during the warnings we set out for a road trip along the beach road, and almost immediately ran into traffic. Surfer or not, apparently waves like this bring people out to stand on the beach, on the rocks, on the road for hours, just to look and photograph. It was like Key West’s Mallory Square at sunset, a celebration of nature’s awesomeness, but cooler because it was Hawaii. And rarer – there wasn’t surf like this every day.

We saw no surfers that day however. You would have to be world class, or an idiot, to go out in that, or maybe both are the same. There was local coverage about an inexperienced surfer who had ventured out a couple of days before and been killed. A veteran was quoted in the paper as saying he’d been tempted to dissuade the guy, since his inexperience showed in his choice of board and they way he paddled it out, but he held back because he didn’t want to insult him. How about that, a guy who paddles out in the face of 20 foot waves won’t risk insulting someone’s manhood? Men.

In fact stories abound about dead surfers. The competition they only hold if things are deadly is named after Eddie Aikau, who disappeared in 1978 when he paddled for help near the beginning of a team trip on an ancient route. The Coast Guard later showed up to rescue the group, but Eddie was never seen again. “Eddie would go” is a surfer slogan in his honor. Yes, but if he went, and he died, is that a good example to follow? Another local hero died in a motel room in Texas instead. He was working his way back home after dropping out of a competition in the Carribean. His tale is murkier, but they honor him anyway. As far as Ms C is concerned, anyone who ventures out in that deserves some notice.

Legend says that you should throw your lei into the drink before you leave the islands, insuring your return. I tried, but tossing the wilting flowers along with the tough string, and the polymer spacers that look like flowers but aren’t, didn’t seem right with all that wildlife swimming around just waiting to get tangled up in it. So I stuffed my lei into the garbage with the leftover macadamia nut can and came back home.

Since then I have returned in my own way. I can’t stop watching Hawaii Five-O. I have seen Pearl Harbor (who knew it was a romance instead of a real movie?), The Descendents, and have added others to my Netflix queue, which means they should come up in about five years.

Unfortunately, when I think of the beach, all I can see is that German guy rotating. But the waves I can see clearly. And if I need to, I have about 1.000 pictures to go through, when I’m ready.

Redemption!

2012-02-03T21:39:00Z

See, Ms Crankypants is right again. Give a person constructive feedback and a little time to digest it, and she can see the light. Just hours ago I wrote of my hopes for Nancy Brinker of Susan G. Komen for the Cure to redeem herself for the unfortunate decision her organization had made to strike Planned Parenthood from their list of grantees.

And now she has reversed herself. Admittedly, money may talk a little louder than Ms C, as apparently I wasn’t the only donor to let her know we were cutting her loose.

The whole dust-up got me thinking . Apparently I just can’t stop doing business with folks who disagree with me. Back when I happily worked out at Curves for Women, doing their little 30 minute workout a few times a week, for instance. Instead of feeling outdone like at the health club where I was surrounded by glistening muscley young men staring lovingly at themselves in the mirrors, at Curves I felt on top of the heap. My attendance was excellent. I even sought out the local Curves during vacations.

At about the same time my left shoulder began to ache, I learned the truth – that their exalted founder was a major and vocal opponent of reproductive choice and was donating his money – including what I gave him every month – to that cause.

Goodbye Curves. On the shoulder trouble, I learned that their equipment was geared for the shorter women of the world. On the other matter, I’ll just point out that I could have gone on being their customer if they’d kept their mouths shut about their politics. I never would have known. Loyal readers know how I feel about politics.

But today is for appreciating Nancy’s impressive listening skills. Let’s just see if we can all stay on the same side from now on. It ought to be pretty hard to argue about wanting to eradicate breast cancer.

Susan G. Komen for the What???

2012-02-03T13:29:00Z

You knew you’d hear from me about this Susan G. Komen thing, right?

Not to put myself on a pedestal, but Ms Crankypants tries to be generous. At the end of every year, Mr C and I choose 8 or 10 organizations and send them each a nice check. This year, as usual, we included Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

In their frequent letters asking me for even more money, they never mentioned that the CEO Nancy Brinker is a big Republican, a former ambassador or something, or that a recent addition is an outspoken anti-choice advocate. And why should that even be my business? They are highly effective in an area that I care about a lot. There should be room at the anti-breast cancer table for people of all stripes.

Don’t get me wrong, the Republican thing is not a problem. Some of my best friends are Republicans. Plus there are a lot of Republicans who respect a woman’s right to choose. The problem is taking your politics, whatever they are, and slathering them all over a perfectly good cause that we all can agree on for once.

Given our long relationship, I wrote Nancy a nice civil letter, confident that she’ll read it and see the light.

I didn’t use adjectives like “ham-handed,” “clueless,” or “appalling.” I didn’t use nouns like “betrayal” or “outrage.” People can’t listen when they are being attacked.

I simply mentioned that she had been “unwise” and that this would not be a letter to match her declaration to NBC news that feedback over this decision had been quite positive.

I did mention that she should give the rest of us a bit more credit in that we are smart enough to see through the Planned Parenthood is off the list because they are being investigated ruse and recognize it for what it is – a fabricated excuse to plant a political agenda right in the way of women trying to get essential healthcare.

When you want people to change, you need to give them concrete, specific, measurable goals, so I gave her three:

Rid your organization of influences other than eradicating breast cancer,

Apologize for this lapse in judgment through the media and directly to donors. I reminded her that she has my address.

Restore Planned Parenthood to her list of eligible grantees.

I believe in second chances.

Ms C visits Pearl Harbor

2012-01-28T21:04:07Z

Loyal readers know that Ms C likes to travel. It offers many benefits, like learning about other cultures (recent trips to Cuba, also the Australian Outback and its aboriginal people), other landscapes (New Zealand’s mountains and glaciers), and history (post World War II eastern Europe). It also helps justify the purchase of those new lightweight suitcases. Not to mention the effect on the jewelry box, with opals from Australia, jade from New Zealand, and amber from Poland following me home.

This time, Ms C set off with Mr. Crankypants to explore Hawaii for the first time. It turns out that Hawaii is plunked down way out in the middle of the Pacific, 9 or 10 hours away from anywhere else, at the end of a grueling plane ride. It’s much farther away than it looks. Plus, it’s 4 time zones away so that even though you want to you can’t possibly stay up for fireworks on the beach on New Years’ Eve because to you it’s already 4 a.m.

We started in Honolulu, Waikiki Beach. We thought at first that we’d taken a wrong turn and wound up in Japan, but it turned out that all of Japan had come to Hawaii, to shop apparently. On the main street is every luxury shop, including four Tiffany stores conveniently located within steps of the upscale hotels. The most popular spot of all, oddly, was The Cheesecake Factory with crowds waiting three hours for a table. Just to prove we could, we waltzed in, sat at the bar, ate and waltzed out 45 minutes later. Smug, we were.

As everyone does, we made a sobering visit to Pearl Harbor, where two elderly survivors sat at a card table in the sun under a palm tree, answering questions and signing autographs. We learned a string of disturbing facts that morning.

First, the U.S. had recently installed some of that new-fangled radar equipment north of Pearl Harbor. It did its job when the attack was about to happen by detecting a large number of incoming planes. Sad to say, those monitoring the equipment that morning dismissed any worries, figuring it must be picking up planes expected that day from the mainland. Call it hubris, unfamiliarity, or denial, it delayed our response. Jeez. You’d think we would never let ourselves be so unaware of danger heading toward us again. Until 9/11.

Also, all of the civilians killed at Pearl Harbor, including a 7 month old baby, were killed by friendly fire, which now that I write it is about the most ill-fitting phrase in the language. Her name sticks with me, so I’ll share it with you because she deserves to be remembered, as they all do – Eunice Wilson. Her father was killed too; her mother survived.

We had total confidence in, they say, our peerless fleet of battleships that sat secured side by side and end to end along the harbor. Problem was, Japan had quietly upgraded to aircraft carriers, changing everything. Their planes took off in the middle of the Pacific, and soon arrived to find those pairs of ships easy targets. Our over-confidence set the stage. In that instance, they both out-maneuvered and out-thought us.

That day was theirs, and a tragedy for us, but in the watch-what-you-wish-for department, the Japanese had unleashed their own doom, by engaging us and enraging us.

The bodies of those who died in the Arizona were incinerated by the fires that followed the attack, and remain in the wreckage. We learned that 35 survivors who have died in years since directed that their cremated remains be placed in the Arizona where they might have died but didn’t. Their names are carved into a marble plaque at the site.

What made these survivors want to return to the Arizona, we wondered. To honor their fallen comrades, to express gratitude for the second chance they had, to soothe survivor guilt? They have no reason to explain it to me, but I am curious.

The final thing I am curious about relates to the many Japanese tourists, a fraction of whom joined us at the memorial. I know that people do not think with one mind just because they inhabit the same country – just look at the current pre-presidential election dustups for proof. But the question hung in the air at the memorial – what connection do they feel? Regret, or pride at Japan’s success that day, just interest, or nothing? If we visited Hiroshima, what would go through our minds?

Well, I see that I’ve gone on and on. Travel gives you too much to think about. Next I’ll be back with what we saw on the beaches of Hawaii. Wait for it.

Ms Crankypants, movie reviewer

2012-01-28T20:58:07Z

This debuts a new feature, the Ms Crankypants movie review. Roger Ebert patented thumbs, and everyone else uses stars, so just to be different Ms C will use a continuum from rude comments to glowing compliments: Seriously Bad, HoHum , Well Maybe, and Pretty Awesome.

Our first feature is Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Which gets a Seriously Bad.

Critics: “pulls off the impossible,” “hooks us on all levels,” “heart-racing pulse,” “a bullet train of action.”

Ms C: “Incoherent, nerve-jangling (not in a good way), and annoying.”

They spent $145 million on this thing, much of it I am sure to build a skyscraper lying on its side. Then they taught Tom Cruise to spider walk along it on the ground, so then they can rotate the film ¼ turn and convince us that he can walk up the sides of buildings. Really?

Unless Scientology has actually accomplished some of the stunts they claim and he can really levitate for instance, I think they went off course here. (Although he does seem to have some super powers, like hanging onto that nice pretty wife of his who wasn’t allowed to make a sound while she was giving birth.) But think of what that money could accomplish if put to other purposes. He might want to talk to the Clooney, Jolie/Pitts, Gates crowd on how to do good works with your excess earnings. Though I do understand that having a cult to finance is a heavy load.

I’ll take my observations one by one.

Incoherent: The story has something to do with the IMF, the Kremlin, bombs, and many chases that take place in Dubai and Mumbai and elsewhere.

Nerve-jangling: The pounding frantic activity doesn’t stop for a moment, as if they are afraid if they let up, we’ll fall asleep. Well guess what, I fell asleep anyway because there was nothing to care about and I’d had a long day.

Annoying: Just because you have a franchise that used to be good doesn’t mean you can throw up whatever seems cool to the adolescent male part of your brain and call that good enough.

But you know Ms Crankypants. I never force my views on others. So see it, don’t see it, what do I care? Just don’t take me along.

Wonderful tonight

2011-12-15T14:01:00Z

Ms. C, you will not be surprised to hear, is a student of history. And even though she remains quite a young woman in her own mind, apparently some of what she already lived through could now be considered historical.

Like for instance the era covered in Pattie Boyd’s book Wonderful Tonight. I discovered her photography exhibit of the same name this summer on an excursion with my with my high school pals to Catalina Island. Pattie had a lot to work with. First she was married to George Harrison, Ms C’s favorite Beatle, and later Eric Clapton. And there are pictures.

While Ms C. and said friends were running to the drug store on Wednesdays after school to grab the newest Beatles magazines, Pattie had already left the India of her birth, lived in Kenya where she was left behind by a neglectful mother; then was shipped off to a series of English boarding schools. She was a model and budding photographer in London by the time she beguiled George. I can see now that she might possibly have been more interesting than a conventional Chicago schoolgirl.

The book reads like a case history of addiction, Pattie to her rock gods, and each of them to his particular substance of choice at the time – alcohol, cocaine, heroin, younger women. Pattie might have benefitted from a sit-down with a therapist like me at the time to help her navigate those very murky waters, but I didn’t know anything yet.

She started out taking the high road (no pun intended) as she turned down George’s early invitations because she was seeing someone else. Years later, once she’d withstood George’s shenanigans for way too long and finally yielded to Eric’s blatant and persistent seductions, she was on a different road entirely. When she slid out of George’s bed and into Eric’s, she traded one set of disappointments for a far worse one.

An early photo of herself and George, before their trouble started, shows her to be boobalicious (another way in which she bested the young Ms. C) in a royal blue bikini. George, bare-chested, stares off to the side, tired of waiting for the time release shutter to click. His is a skinny boy’s body. They are a young couple in love who have no idea of the temptations (George) and complications (Pattie) to come.

Pattie reports that after her divorces she remained in touch with both men over the years, and was invited to family occasions by each of them and their subsequent wives. Get this. Eric invited her to the birthday party for his son, the one born to another woman while he was still married to Pattie, which was the last straw in that marriage. He expected her to be thrilled for him. He wanted to stay married and live both lives. She didn’t feel that was possible. But only a couple of years later, she went to the party. This is one forgiving woman.

Where is the anger, the outrage, the murderous intent that wronged women usually exhibit? Pattie isn’t bitter or vengeful. Maybe she’s the one who should counsel others on taking life’s hits and moving on. She does express disappointment that neither of her marriages yielded the child she had longed for, though both of her husbands fathered children with other women.

Maybe the rock gods and the woman who loved them are not much like you and me. Pattie makes me review my conventional life and wonder whether missing out on sex, drugs and rock and roll was a good thing or not.

Last night I listened to George’s Something (Something in the way she moves/attracts me like no other lover) and Eric’s Wonderful Tonight (I feel wonderful because I see/ The lovelight in your eyes), both written about Pattie. What must it be like to have been loved so well but temporarily, now so long ago? If Pattie and I had the chance to sit down now to reflect on our differing paths and what we learned, I’d have to ask.