Category: relationships

Boldly going

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Date night, Marriage, no fear

On the ThunderboltMy 51st birthday was this year.

When I picked out a cake and asked the person behind the bakery counter to write on it, this was what she wrote: “Happy 50-First Birthday Karen”.

I know, right?

I decided that might be a sign.  What if,  I thought, I did some things for the ‘first’ time in my 50-“first” year?

And so I have been  (informally) doing just that. The most recent thing I did for the first time was going to the Fryeburg Fair. While there, I went on…wait for it… a RIDE. Okay, so maybe not for the first time ever, but for the first time this decade.

I used to love to go on rides. When I was growing up, my grandmother lived within walking distance of Paragon Park in Hull. Needless to say, I grew up going on the rides-lots of them. My parents actually met at that park. We went all the time and I went on every ride, including the most vomit-inducing rollercoasters, with no problem at all.

I stopped going on rides when I was in my thirties. Somehow, the act of giving birth had reorganized my physiology such that when I even thought about going on a ride I got dizzy and nauseated. Sad, but true. I also joined the legions of people who get car sick when riding in the back set of the car, but I digress. Full disclosure: I did try to ride the Tea Cups at the Acton Fair several years ago, but that did not go well. Let’s just leave it at that.

Anyway, I went on the ride. It was one that I loved from Paragon Park when I was a teenager. It was called something different then: The Matterhorn, maybe? Now it’s called The Thunderbolt, but it was the same ride that I remembered from the 70’s.

I didn’t get sick. Nope. I was laughing and yelling and waving my arms around like a kid.

What I learned from this experience is this: my teenage self? She is alive and well and just waiting for opportunities to come out and play. Maybe yours is too.

An old dog, a new (cheap) trick (part two)

by Karen, posted in local fun, Marriage, relationships

robinThen Cheap Trick (did I mention that’s my husband’s favorite band?) came to town.

Sure, they had come to town before, but he never brought it up and I never did either. It was the elephant in the room until the show date came and went. There were usually plenty of good reasons (child care issues, work schedule conflicts, just a little too far away) why we both couldn’t have gone together to the show anyway. Oh, and also, I didn’t like Cheap Trick. I was perhaps the only person who didn’t think Robin Zander was hot.

Once, years ago, I casually mentioned to my husband that if I spent enough time around someone (read: a guy), I could find something about him to like.  After I got over the shock of realizing that he actually pays attention to what I say, I realized that he also used this to his advantage. Well, to our advantage. He started playing Cheap Trick music in the car when I with him-a cheap attempt to get me to ‘spend some time’ with Cheap Trick.

He also took me to the venue where they were playing a few weeks in advance to get familiar with the area. We spent several hours exploring and learning our way around, thereby exponentially increasing my comfort level.  The end result was this: a week before the show, I was singing along to Cheap Trick songs and looking forward to the show.

Me.

I know, right?

It was awesome. I had a great time. Oh, and now I am perhaps the only person who does think that Robin Zander is hot.

Just sayin’.

An old dog, a new (cheap) trick (part one)

by Karen, posted in Date night, local fun, Marriage, Midlife Crisis, relationships, Turning 50

Cheap TrickYou know how they say that your tastes change as you get older? I have found this to be true in my own life.

  1. I never liked cheese on my pizza. When I was little, maybe 4 or 5 years old, my parents used to scrape it off (and onto their own slices, I imagine) and tell me that they got some cheese-less pizza, “special” for me.  That changed by the time I got to high school, when I ordered my pizza with ‘extra cheese’, just like everyone else.
  2. I never liked seafood. With the exception of canned tuna (white, tuna, in water), and the odd clam strip filched from Dad’s plate once a year when we ate out at HoJo’s, nary a fish crossed my plate…for years. I didn’t start eating (fried only) seafood until I moved to Maine because, you know, it’s the law.
  3. Melted American cheese. No, wait, I still hate that.

To approach this from the standpoint of musical tastes, I also have undergone a transformation. Back in the day, I liked The Cars. The Motels. Face to Face. Fleetwood Mac. Still do.

I didn’t like Kiss. Def Leppard. Guns N’ Roses.  Headbanger music is what I called it.  Poison. Motley Crew…and Cheap Trick. As my grandmother would say, I ‘had no use for them’.

Then I met my husband. The first time I got in his jeep and heard what he was listening to on the radio, I knew that we had, um, widely different tastes in music. I was a Kiss 108 kind of girl. He was an FNX (listen to it? I’d never even heard of it) kind of guy.

We met in the middle with John Mellencamp and Bon Jovi and made the best of it. I didn’t make him listen to my music and he didn’t make me listen to his.

Then Cheap Trick (did I mention that’s my husband’s favorite band?) came to town.

(to be continued…)

Getting married at the wedding

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Date night, Marriage, Midlife Crisis, relationships

wedding 3 When my husband and I got married, we had very little money. To make our dollars stretch as far as possible, we decided to have our wedding at home. We contacted a Justice of the Peace who was happy to perform the ceremony in our living room. I chose a bouquet of mostly carnations with a few roses instead of mostly roses with a few carnations. We ordered a small cake. We kept the guest list short, inviting only our immediate families.

Also, we decided not to hire a photographer.

We had a lovely wedding and I have always been happy with how we did things…except I wished we had a nice wedding picture.

Our 22nd wedding anniversary was in June. As it approached, my husband mentioned that he had been thinking about how he wished we had a nice wedding picture (you know, Great Minds Syndrome?)!  So, we talked about it on and off, here and there, when suddenly we thought:

                                       

                        Why not take a nice wedding picture now?

(At other times in our marriage, we have had blinding flashes of brilliance like this, such as: Instead of waiting  until we retire to move to Maine…why not move to Maine now?)

Once the decision was made, everything just fell into place. We chose our wedding clothes. We scouted locations (and may I say that the Episcopal Churches in southern Maine are beautiful??) and found one we both loved: St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Kennebunkport. My brother, who is an excellent photographer, agreed to take the pictures…and 254 photos later, here we are.

Now my only regret is this: why didn’t we think to get a CAKE?

🙂

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Gratitude continued

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, Gratitude Journal 2013, Marriage

body blanket

January 24, 2013
1 For my husband, who took my daughter to school when it was 1 degree below zero so that both I and she could stay warm.
2. My Grampa’s Garden microwavable body blanket. Enough said.
3. My washer and dryer. I remember hauling laundry to the laundromat.
4. My crock pot. Best winter cooking tool.
5. Hot chocolate with whipped cream (reference 1 degree below zero above).

Ode to snow, part 2

by Karen, posted in Adult children, family, fitness, health, Marriage, Midlife Crisis, teens, Turning 50
http://wintercenter.homestead.com/files/1978vt.jpg
http://wintercenter.homestead.com/files/1978vt.jpg

My thoughts wandered, fueled by cold and the discomfort of muscles that are rarely used screaming their displeasure at being exploited in the manner required by shoveling.

I remember being handed a shovel and instructions to go “do the front steps” of our house. We had a house with 14 concrete steps at that time. “Do the steps” was an hour at least of back breaking work. Should I mention that we lived in that house during the blizzard of ’78?

I had to go outside and shovel with my scaled-to-my-size shovel gifted to me for Christmas by mom and dad when I was four years old. Even though my midlife memory leaves something to be desired (reference I remember nothing by Nora Ephron), I swear, it’s true! I have a picture around here somewhere….

My parents stayed inside and smiled and waved at us kids while we kids were outside shoveling.

As it should be.

The 50 year old mom shouldn’t be outside shoveling while the 13 year old daughter is inside glued to her itouch.

Then I had another thought. When my mother was 50 years old, she couldn’t shovel. She was busy being diagnosed with a stage IV pelvic cancer of an uncertain type. She couldn’t shovel. She was busy dying.

Suddenly, I was very happy to be a 50 year old woman outside shoveling.  A woman with 2 happy, healthy kids, married to the love of my life. A woman with a strong, healthy body for whom shoveling was not only possible, but beneficial cardiovascularly speaking. A woman with a house and yard that needed shoveling.

Wayne Dyer was right: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Moscato who?

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Date night, italian, Marriage, quest for the best

bella bolle

My husband and I have different tastes in a lot of things, and wine is no exception. Years ago, someone gave us a bottle of Moscato D’Asti by Nivole, which (surprise!) we both loved. Every so often we bought a bottle, for a birthday or anniversary or some such occasion.

Then suddenly we couldn’t find it anywhere anymore. Everywhere we went, we looked for and even asked for it, and everyone was familiar with it, but no one actually stocked it anymore.  Which totally sucked.

So, we finally gave up. One day when we were food shopping, I saw a pretty bottle of wine that happened to be a moscato d’asti. It was a different brand, but it met our wine-buying criteria:

1. Pretty bottle

2. Cheap

I’m talking $7. We decided to live dangerously and buy it. It took a couple of weeks to finally open it. If either Bill or I had to be up by 4:30am the next day, neither of us was very interested in sharing a bottle of wine the night before.

The planets finally aligned on Christmas day. We both had the following day off from work so we cracked open the wine. There was only one negative: what a bitch that cork was to remove! Other than that, however, we both loved the wine. I am saving the bottle so we don’t forget what kind it was.

We definitely plan to get this one again. You know, unless this brand goes MIA next.

Oh Christmas tree

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, Holidays, Marriage

Chrismas tree 2012Oh my God, what a big pile of crap Christmas has left in its wake. Wouldn’t it be great if those damned elves showed up after Christmas to help pick up the house instead of before Christmas to help demolish it?

I am usually a put-the-(fake -tree-up-the-weekend-before-Christmas-and-take-it-down-the-day-after kind of gal. This year, however, with the way Christmas fell on a Tuesday (stupid Christmas–no 3 day weekend this year), my work schedule, my husband’s work schedule, the kids’ school schedules…we didn’t get that tree up until late. My daughter requested that we leave it up until at least New Year’s Day to (over)compensate, and we agreed. Now I am second guessing this decision.

It’s making me anxious. You know, the way it’s standing over there against the wall, looking at me. Reproaching me for not taking it down on Wednesday. Here it is Friday, for Chrissakes, and it’s still here, not knowing what to do with itself. What, with the presents all unwrapped and strewn about the house.

“Give it a rest, already!” it seems to be saying.

Anyone else still have a tree keeping vigil?

Back in the saddle again. Not.

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, fitness, health, Karen's Kitchen, Marriage, Midlife Crisis, no fear

I was thinking that now that the kids are back in school, I should resume my walking routine. I used to walk 3 miles or so every morning around 6:45am, before I did anything else…even before I went to the gym or yoga class. I did it every day just like clockwork.

Until I stopped.

Why did I stop? Or why did I tell myself that I stopped?

  1. Because it was too cold.
  2. Because it was too dark.
  3. Because I was too Goddamned tired.
  4. Because skipping one day couldn’t hurt, right?
  5. Because it was hunting season and my husband (well, most of the time) didn’t want me to risk getting shot by an idiot hunter who mistook my white mittens for a deer’s tail. This really did happen to someone (thankfully not to me).

The real reason, though, is this: I just hate to exercise, pure and simple. There are long spans of time when I convince myself to forget this, usually in the summer and early fall, when I can distract myself by looking at the ocean while I walk.
This time of year? Not so much. Like today, for example. I drove to the beach with good intentions. I was going to walk for 30 minutes or so. When I got there I realized that I had not worn my sneakers, plus it was high tide right up to the wall.

I mean, what could I do? I ask you.

Good thing I brought my book and a small baked good (of the pumpkin variety) to ease my disappointment over not being able to get that walk in after all.

Maybe tomorrow…

String theory

by Karen, posted in family, good grief, relationships

I recently attended a memorial service. I didn’t know the woman who died, Mary, very well, but that didn’t stop me from crying almost from the time the first words were out of the celebrant’s mouth. Like Lt. Columbo said, “…death reminds you of death” (or something close to that). Not only was I sad for Mary and her family, I was also remembering the loss of my own mother, my grandmothers, my father. Even though they died many years ago, for grief purposes, it could have been yesterday. Because I’d experienced the loss of my mother, I was feeling an overwhelming empathy for what Mary’s daughter must be feeling.

Something that struck me was this: many of the things that were being said about Mary’s interests and what was important to her were true for me as well. Loves the ocean? Check. Loves her family and friends? Check.  Loves Bingo? Okay, well, as Meatloaf said, “two out of three ain’t bad”. Even though it’s common to hear how people are all different, it feels true that people are really all the same, too.

Between readings, I started to think about something one of my friends said about String Theory.  I can’t recall her words exactly, but I remember that I created a visual of everyone being connected to each other through space and time by string (cooking twine, actually :)). It made me realize that even though I’d only met her a couple of times, because I was connected to people that she loved, I was also connected to her.

Doesn’t this idea give the phrase, “hanging by a thread” new meaning?