A few years ago,  Allan and I attended a financial luncheon.  We were listening to the conclusion of the presentation while eating our lunch when a woman arrived without her husband…45 minutes late.  She sat at our table and whispered to me “Has he discussed transfer of death benefits yet?”

I looked at her with my fork poised in mid-air.  45 minutes late, asking about the transfer of death benefits, and no husband with her. Hmmmm.

I thought her next question would be “And where can I pick up some Hefty bags and a bottle of bleach?”

When one of our sons and his wife were in the process of cleaning out their apartment and throwing a lot of stuff out in preparation for the move to their new home, they decided that their old garbage can needed to be tossed…it was cracked and in ill repair. They put it out with the garbage only to return from work to find the garbage can still standing alongside the cans that they wished to keep. The same thing happened at the next garbage day. And the next. The garbage can goes out…with nothing in it…only to still be there when they return.

So the question is, how DOES one get rid of a garbage can? Short of getting out a chainsaw and slicing it into little pieces, that trash can is destined to stay on the curb and not become landfill somewhere in New Jersey, (because we all know everything winds up in New Jersey including Jimmy Hoffa.) The garbage men have a job to do and they take it very seriously. They do not want to take a garbage can by mistake and toss it into the crusher. They don’t want the residents running down the block after the garbage truck screaming “Bring that back! That’s my garbage can!! Okay, so it’s cracked and there’s no bottom in it, but hey, it still has a purpose in life!!”

So my advice was to just put that trashcan out on moving day at its place of honor on the curb, maybe with a sign attached “Pick Me!  Pick Me!”and drive away slowly. Maybe someone needs to invent a new concept…the disposable trash can.

Our friends in Florida all have porches that they call lanais (pronounced la-ni with a long i sound on the “ni”)

It is such a lovely sounding exotic word, even though it just means a porch…either enclosed or open air.

We have a glass and screen enclosed back porch here in Bethlehem, and I told Allan I was going to start using the word lanai when referring to it.

“Sweetheart, please show the guests to the lanai”. “Be a dear and put the martinis out on the lanai”. “I think I’ll take my lemonade and magazines out to the lanai”. “If anyone calls, I will be napping on the lanai”.

Allan retorted “She was found strangled…on the lanai”.

I’m beginning to realize “Porch” is a delightful word as well.

I was having a glass of wine while reading a friend’s blog and one article on it that was brought to my attention… “Does Happiness Come With Age?”

According to the article…”people start out at age 18 feeling pretty good about themselves, and then, apparently, life begins to throw curve balls. They feel worse and worse until they hit 50. At that point, there is a sharp reversal, and people keep getting happier as they age. By the time they are 85, they are even more satisfied with themselves than they were at 18.”

In the survey, people over the age of 50 were asked whether they experienced the following emotions during a large part of the day yesterday: Enjoyment, happiness, stress, worry, anger, sadness. And apparently, those of us over the age of 50 shouted “Yes, by God! Enjoyment and happiness! Yesterday was a great day!” But, we conveniently leave off the “I think so at least…from what I can remember.”

Well…it’s good to know that it’s all uphill from here. All delirious delight and enchanting elation. All euphoric excitement and blissful beatitude.

But then again, that just might be the wine talking.

As a former New Yorker I have to say, when someone rings your doorbell and you are alone in the house, you usually:

a. Pretend you don’t hear the bell
b. Go to the window and peek out and see who’s there just in case you have to identify them later in a lineup
c. Request that the person shows twenty forms of ID…from their driver’s license and passport to their baby hospital pics and their 9th grade junior high school graduation photo, produce a list of all the medicines they are currently taking, a document of any previous surgery experiences and an assurance validated and signed by their doctor that they have not spent more than a year in a mental facility. It is also helpful to check out their DinersClub Card, cause, hey you never know.

Needless to say, you didn’t open the door to a stranger if you were home alone. You always would read about the good Samaritan who opened the front door to the stranger who claimed their car broke down while on their way to the Mayo Clinic to donate a kidney and half their liver to their dying cousin and they therefore needed to use the phone to call the hospital and explain the delay. While the kind homeowner was fetching the phone for the visitor, the stranger’s “partners in crime” would be sneaking into the back door and carting out the plasma TVs.

Well, we lived in the mountains of Connestee and it had been raining there. Allan was out at a meeting and my doorbell rang. I looked out to see a little elderly lady standing at the door totally drenched and holding three books and a board game in her hands.

“May I come in and use your phone?” she queried, seeing me through the screen door. (Mental note #1: Remember to close inside door when Allan isn’t here!) . “I was walking home from the clubhouse library and got caught in the rain and need to call someone to pick me up. My grandchildren are visiting and I stopped at the library to pick up some things to keep them amused and on my way home, all of a sudden, it started to downpour!”

Now, being a New Yorker, I am embarrassed to admit, I looked her up and down as various scenarios played through my brain. Hmmm…she says she was walking home from the clubhouse. That in and of itself is a feat since the mountain roads were quite strenuous to navigate on foot. I don’t recognize her, so that tells me she didn’t live on my road. It also tells me that this little lady is no doubt in good physical condition as she is quite a distance from her home if, in fact, she actually lived in Connestee. Will she tackle me the minute I turn my back to procure the phone for her?

And those books that were in her hands. Was she carrying them to use as weapons if I didn’t move fast enough when she demanded my jewelry and my aunt Audrey’s Rice Charlotte recipe? Had there been any reports of break ins in the neighborhood as of late? (Actually, in all the years we’d lived there…we’d only heard of one!!) And wait…forget the books. Maybe she actually HAD a weapon…perhaps a knife or a gun hidden underneath those book decoys. (I’d been watching too much CSI).

And what about that board game she was toting. Clue? I mean really. Was she playing that in her spare time to hone in on her skills? I could just see the headlines…The murder was committed by Mrs. Elderly Lady, with a book, in the parlor near the telephone!

I decided I could take her if need be, no matter what, even if she did walk the roads of Connestee, since I had been working out myself and heck, I walked those roads too. Okay, I’m huffing and puffing after the first two miles, but nonetheless. (Allan later said when I told him the story, that I’m so buff, had she tried to shoot me I could have probably grabbed the bullet in my teeth and yelled…”Yeah??? What else have ya got?!!”)

So, I let her in and not only offered her the phone, but offered her a cup of coffee and a towel to dry off with. After a phone call to her home with no one answering, I told her I would drive her home myself. We dashed into the car in the pouring rain and off we went.

Anyway, I came home and thought to myself…it’s so nice that we lived in a community where all you have to do is walk up and ring someone’s bell…and you know you’ve got a friend.

And since I was a New Yorker (and probably always will be in my heart), Mental note #2: Now I know where she lives!!

You know your old when you have to enter your birth year online and you spin that thing like you’re on the Price is RIght!

We were driving in the car today when I spotted a license plate that read “IGH!” Allan thought it might mean “In God’s Hands!”. I volunteered it might mean “I Got Hammered” But actually, that would require two exclamation points.

A few years ago, a friend emailed me a poignant story about a man who was playing his violin in the Washington Metro on January 12, 2007. Everyone passed him by as they rushed on to work and went about their business. A few passerbys tossed some coins into the till but kept on walking. Children lingered to hear the music, but they were prodded to move along by their parents and even though they would look back to try to capture the music in their heads, soon they too disappeared out of sight.

As it happens, the violinist was Joshua Bell, and he played in that L’Enfant Plaza Station for 45 minutes. He played six classical pieces on his handcrafted Stradivarius – the same pieces that he had played three days earlier in Boston Symphony Hall, where the tickets were pricey and where folks dressed to the nines to hear a concert by such an icon.

That day in the subway, he collected a mere pittance for his talent. The people didn’t know who he was nor did they care.

Are we also walking through the subways of life not really seeing or hearing? What better way to start this new year then to take the time to truly savor life and the beauty that surrounds us. In doing so, we too might find virtuosos in the most unlikely of places.

Years ago, Allan and I visited the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Marcelle’s mom, Althea who worked there at the time, gave us complimentary tickets to see the collections and the exhibitions. Tim Burton was exhibiting the amazing sketches he did for the movies Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, and Batman. ..to name a few. He is dark and his characters are scary…but his vision and creativity cannot be denied.

We visited the William Kentridge exhibit – displaying the South African’s works on apartheid and politics. The charcoal drawings that he animated for film were thought provoking, but at times, the point escaped me.

But these exhibits paled dramatically in comparison to performance artist Marina Abramovic’s exhibition “The Artist Is Present” and I do mean EXHIBITION!!!

The exhibit begins with Marina sitting at a table in the atrium of the museum – staring straight ahead for hours on end. Visitors are encouraged, one at a time, to sit across from her at the table and mediate as well. After taking this all in for a few minutes, we ascended to the sixth floor to view the rest of the exhibit.

In order to get in, you had two choices:

1. Walk through a large entrance way.

2. Walk through a smaller doorway where a man and a woman, both naked, are standing face to face, staring at each other and you have to pass sideways between them.

Of course, we all opted for door number two. The male and the female were both well endowed and so brushing up against protruding parts was unavoidable. As I started to embark on my entrance, I turned to face the male and began my sidestep to go through the doorway. Too late did I realize that the entrance was narrower then I anticipated, but on the bright side, I would have had a place to hold my tote bag.

Once inside, the presentations were even more bizarre. One exhibit had two men sitting on chairs back to back with their long hair entwined. They do not speak but just stare straight ahead. I did wonder if they had some sort of “heads up” notification (no pun intended) for each other if one was about to sneeze. I mean really…during a gesundheit, their heads could be snapped backwards with such velocity it would cause whiplash!

Further into the exhibit were films that Marina created from her other live performance art exhibits. We stood and watched in horror as she carved a six inch star into her abdomen with a razor blade. (I mean, not for anything, but most people who cut themselves with a razor blade wind up on a psych unit). Another film being displayed was of women dancing outside in the pouring rain with long skirts on. They were naked underneath their gauzy attire and would periodically lift their skirts high in the air as they danced and twirled and showed all, ostensibly to ward off the rain. This is good to know in case heavy rains are predicted. I could cavort naked in my backyard and possibly thwarted that torrential downpour! (But in the community we live in now, I’d probably need a variance!)

There was a girl, also naked (yes…naked seemed to be the theme throughout. I think Marina has a few Freudian issues…) suspended on a white wall…sitting on a bicycle seat. She had a gorgeous body, but I was concerned that the blood that was pooling in her lower extremities from sitting there for so long could cause a blood clot. (Always the nurse!)

It was quite a show. I didn’t get it at all.

I wonder how they went about finding the people to pose naked for this performance art. Did they advertise in the New York Times employment opportunity section? All the women were pretty buxom, so I guess the ad read “34A’s NEED NOT APPLY”. (I won’t go into what the ad might have suggested for the males.)

I always wanted to be a teacher and back in the 70’s, I pursued a college degree in Elementary Education. After graduation, I accepted what I thought would be my dream job in a parochial elementary school.

Things didn’t turn out quite as I had hoped. My classroom was comprised of thirty-four kindergartners, most of whom, for reasons beyond my comprehension, insisted on calling me Mrs. Nestle. Five of them didn’t speak English and the father of one of my charges kept pleading that I teach his son to hold the crayon in his right hand instead of his left. I was with the same children from eight am to four pm with no break and I also ate lunch with them. The desks in the classroom were nailed to the floor and I soon realized that childhood games like Duck Duck Goose would probably culminate in black and blue knees and law suits. The principal was a proponent of self-directed student learning. I confessed I wasn’t trained in that technique but she replied, “Not a problem. Just let the children play all day”. And for good measure, she threw in a student teacher who would ostensibly learn invaluable “teaching” expertise from me. Days are endless when teaching isn’t an option and I began to have fantasies of overdosing on paste and finger paint. My dream job was becoming a nightmare.

My day always began with a boy named George arriving at my desk and saying “Mrs. Nestle. I don’t feel well”. I would think to myself “I’m not feeling so hot myself George”, but instead I would happily chirp “Oh, George you’ll be fine. Just sit down and play with the Cuisenaire rods”. This went on for weeks until one day George came to my desk with the usual pronouncement and instead of my cheery response, I knelt down, gave a low growl and said “George. You’re fine. Sit down!”

It wasn’t two minutes later, little Madeleine cautiously approached my desk and whispered “Mrs. Nestle. George just thew up in his lunch pail”. And as I mopped up George’s breakfast, I knew the next day I would be handing in my resignation.

Sometimes what we think will be the path to a lifetime career turns out to be merely a stepping stone along the way. I never went back to teaching. I studied to get another Bachelor’s degree and became a registered nurse, had four little ones of my own and worked as a substitute nurse for the local elementary schools. Ironically, as a nurse, I didn’t mind taking care of the upset tummies of kindergartners.

But I often wonder what ever happened to that student teacher. She probably quit school and entered a nunnery.