Tenacious G and the Vacationing Memory Cells

Memory is a strange thing.

The other day, I decided to visit my 87-year-old mother earlier than usual—we get together every Sunday—because her assisted-living facility was having a vintage car show with live music and food, and I wanted to get a parking space. They fill up quickly when there's a family event.

 

Mom poses by a vintage car.

I knocked on her apartment door and she answered, surprised to see me at 11:30 a.m. instead of our usual after-lunch meeting time. I reminded her that there was a car show downstairs. I came early so I didn't have to park way down the road from her facility.

"Oh!" she said. "Well that makes sense. But I have to go down to the dining room for lunch before we attend the party."

"Okay," I replied. "I'll wait here until you're finished, then we can attend the party together." She agreed and left for the downstairs dining room.

I sat on her bed and played card games on my iPhone and lost track of the time. I suddenly realized that more than an hour had gone by. The music outside was so loud that it filtered into the room. I decided to go downstairs to see what had become of my mother.

When I walked outside, I saw her dancing in the street with her geriatric friends. I watched for a while and realized that the dining room was probably closed and she had gone outside, eaten picnic food and forgotten I was in her apartment. After the music stopped, I walked over to her and asked if she remembered I was waiting upstairs.

The bell choir in action. Mom is in the middle.

"Oh!" she said, "I forgot about that!" So we walked around looking at all the old cars and I took her picture next to a few of them. The band started up again, but Mom opted to sit in the shade with me until the Big Show. Just as she used to come see me in school productions when I was growing up, I now see her in assisted-living productions.

As 2 p.m. rolled around, the activities director called her bell choir together and my mom took her seat in two rows of chairs that had been set up for them. The bell choir rocked to songs like "Good Old Summertime" and there was also a number where they all played the kazoo. Everyone was snapping pictures and the choir clearly enjoyed being the center of attention.

I found myself quietly chuckling. Whatever possessed me to wait in her room for an hour when they were serving picnic food outside? I had passed the outdoor grills as I walked inside. Was she the one with the bad memory or was it me?

Toe Wars

Or, My Left Foot (the Horror Story)

Last summer, I made the mistake of taking a discount cruise on the Walmart of the Seas. Well, okay, the ship was actually named the Explorer of the Seas, but when we got aboard we were horrified to see that it was populated by the People of Walmart. Unfortunately, the most lasting souvenir I picked up on that tropical cruise was a foot rash.

My unsuspecting toes enjoying a relaxing moment by the pool.

I've never had a foot rash before, so I guess I just assumed, like most rashes, it would eventually fade away. Several months later, it was still camped out on the toes of my left foot. So in the early fall, I dragged myself in to see the doctor, who gave me a prescription for MUPIROCIN 2%. This was an antibacterial cream. There was only one problem with that. I did not have foot bacteria; I had a foot fungus. So after a month of using this cream with no results, disgusted, I called my homeopath. By now, the rash was such a familiar feature on my left foot that I named it Melvin. It was a dysfunctional relationship; I wanted Melvin out of my life.

I'd never had a rash last so long, so it made me feel old and depressed. Why was Melvin making my life so miserable? What did I ever do to deserve this scourge on my left foot?

Winter was closing in as I spoke with my homeopath of 25-plus years. She is perhaps one of the most brilliant human beings on this planet and has never let me down, regardless of my niddling complaints. We spoke by Skype and she said the cause of any continuous rash was twofold. My body was not fighting it well and the topical eruption also needed to be addressed. It had to be battled inside and out. She gave me a constitutional remedy to bolster my immune system and diminish any tendencies toward yeast and other internal infections. Then she recommended I use Dr. Hauschka's organic Neem oil on the rash.

This ship's painting turned out to be a depiction of my foot rash.

In Chinese medicine, the belief is that the longer a cure takes, the better it is. So I try to be patient when using natural remedies. A few months later, I observed that the natural remedies shrank the rash considerably, but did not get rid of it. Instead of applying Neem oil once a day, I decided to apply it morning and evening and the rash actually disappeared. Unfortunately, thrilled it was gone, I stopped treating it with Neem oil and a week later Melvin was back.

As winter turned to spring, I decided to do some research of my own to see if there was something I could do in addition to my current Neem oil regimen that would tip the scales and chase Melvin out of town.

First the inside: To further boost my immune system, I began juicing vegetables every morning. This had the added benefit of making me feel more energetic. Next, the rash: I tried a variation of a remedy that appeared over and over in my research. People with skin problems often convalesced near the ocean to bathe in seawater with very positive effects. However, I could not afford to spend a month by the sea. Instead, I reasoned, why not soak my left foot for a half hour every morning in Epsom salts? It was also recommended that after your foot was soaked that you dry it with a hair dryer to make sure the skin was not damp. After that, I added the Neem oil.

So I did this for one week. Something I didn't realize—although I should have since it is clearly stated on all packages of Epsom salts—is that it is a natural laxative. After one very uncomfortable week, I had to stop soaking my foot. However, during that unpleasant period, something magical happened. My foot rash disappeared!

That was two weeks ago. I am still coating my toes every morning and evening in Neem oil, but have not seen a sign of Melvin since then and I believe he finally hit the road.

Thus, ends my cautionary tale of Walmart cruises, bare feet and fungal co-dependence. May you never suffer the same.

Death by Zumba

Like many Americans, I have spent much of my life tethered to a desk to make a living. The problem with this is that, unlike people who work in construction or in other physically active jobs, you don't get much exercise. After a while, you get used to that and exercise becomes a real effort rather than fun.

Just looking at this illustration makes me tired.

I didn't used to be that way. When I was younger, I enjoyed volleyball, baseball, lacrosse and soccer. Then I got married and had children, worked long hours and helped my offspring with their homework with my remaining waking time. Now my daughters are grown, so I thought I would use their homework time to go to an exercise class. A friend of mine, who is 69, suggested I join her for some Zumba classes at the local YMCA. I had no idea what Zumba was, but it was exercise, so it fit the bill.

I arrived at class with my brand new sweat pants and stylish long-sleeve, moisture-wicking exercise shirt. A woman about my age from South America was the teacher that night. She was lively and cheerful. My friend warned me that I should stand up front near the teacher so I could see and follow what she was doing. So, fighting my urge to lurk in the back row, I took her advice. The class was made up of women ranging in age from their twenties to one woman who looked to be in her eighties. I fell somewhere in the middle.

The teacher started the music. It was loud, fast and contained vocals in which men were crooning suggestive phrases about our body parts in English and Spanish. Our instructor began to dance/exercise in time with it and the class, including me, followed a beat behind as best we could. I swear that this incredibly lithe exercise guru had body parts moving that I have not yet discovered. I confided to another student that I felt like a "tight-assed honkie." Indeed, I was.

Within minutes, I realized that the long-sleeved exercise shirt I was wearing—while trendy and moisture-wicking—was way too hot for this class. I was drenched and feeling overheated within minutes. Still, determined, I continued clumsily trying to copy the rhythmic footwork, kicking, twirling, gyrating motions led by our rubbery teacher.

Picture 60 to 90 minutes of the above with a middle-aged woman.

I only lasted for half the class then sat down on the floor to the side to watch everyone else until their self-imposed torture ended. I was exhausted, drenched and unabashedly panting. I'm a writer, dammit, not a Rockette. My 69-year-old friend, while somewhat damp, seemed to have weathered the experience much better than I. Oh, the humiliation. I comforted myself in the fact that she made her living in a more physical trade, massage therapy, so had not suffered the atrophy that we desk-jockeys endure.

The next day, I was totaled. But as I dragged around the house groaning like a reenactment of a zombie movie, I comforted myself in the knowledge that maybe someday, perhaps before I'm 69, I will be able to last for the entire class without the urge to lie down on the floor and expire. For then, I will know that I have conquered Zumba rather than the other way around.

Tenacious G and the Facade Underneath

Not all facades are on the outside, as anyone visiting a fancy lingerie department might attest. And such was my observation in the latest adventure with my 86-year-old mother, aka, Tenacious G, as we explored the seamy world of flamboyant undergarments.

It all began when I stopped by for my usual Sunday visit and Mom announced that she needed to buy some new bras; her current ones were tattered. Could I take her to "The Store?"

I escorted her to my trusty 2001 Saturn sedan and we drove to the mecca of everything underwear—the local mall. We struck parking-lot gold with a coveted space relatively close to the front entrance. It was a cold day, and I held her arm as we made our way to the front sliding-doors.

Once inside, we passed through the beady, sparkly jewelry department and made straight for the den of iniquity—the undies section. The lingerie department was very colorful, lacy and a tad risqué. It was forested with vertical racks, blooming with undergarments of every size and style, from modest white cotton to the most decadent G-strings and taunting underwire bras.

Mom grimaced and picked distastefully at the offerings, lamenting that the underpants were too short and she wasn't interested in "those type of bras"—she preferred something basic, thank you. It was an odd sight watching a gray-haired octogenarian clad in a practical woolen coat pitted against the racy unmentionables that surrounded her.

I asked her if she knew her size and she didn't. No matter. Her way of solving the problem was to ask me my size and assume that she was a size or two up from that. The overabundance of choices was a bit much for her, so I found some racks that offered no-underwire bras in sensible colors like white or tan. I grabbed several for her to try on.

In her lumbering gait, Mom made her way to the dressing room to determine what would fit. I stood outside the door and listened to the quiet rustling as she tried them on. The first items we chose were too big, so I went out to get the same styles a size smaller, which fortunately, was a more common size. As fate would have it, the style that fit her best was the only brand not on sale. She wanted eight, so I gathered a bouquet of them and headed straight for the register while she was still in the dressing room. I knew there would be trouble if my mother thought she was paying full price for these undergarments. She would make a scene. But I wanted her to have some quality underwear so they would last a little longer than the previous unraveling bunch.

I explained to the woman at the register that I needed to pay for the eight undergarments before my mother emerged from the dressing room because the price would upset her. She smiled knowingly, told me she had a coupon that could be used if I had a store credit card and she reassured me that she would try to speed up the transaction. I think she instinctively knew that this was in her best interest as well as mine.

The sale took a while longer than usual because I didn't have my store credit card with me—the only way to get the discount—so she had to look it up on the company database. She found it, but wasn't sure how to enter the coupon, so had to flag down a passing supervisor. All the while, I could picture my mother slowly reassembling her clothing, getting everything just so, picking up her sensible purse, leaving the dressing room and slowly plodding up to the register to claim her purchase.

The supervisor quickly entered the coupon and my mother received a substantial amount off. Even with the discount, the final cost would be more than she typically paid for underwear.

Just then, I saw Mom leaving the dressing room and heading up toward the register. I signed the credit card screen and pushed the green button to approve the amount. It all seemed to transpire in slow motion like a scene from Reservoir Dogs except without the cool sunglasses. Mom was halfway there. The register made a prolonged noise as it processed the transaction. Just as Mom reached the counter, the lingerie clerk tore the receipt off the register and handed it to me. I turned to Mom and passed her the bag of bras, while deftly stuffing the receipt into my purse.

It was well-timed. Mom was satisfied. The lingerie clerk was spared a public lecture about overpriced, shoddy merchandise. And I returned my mother to the comfort of her assisted living facility for dinner following a thankfully uneventful shopping trip.