Our Ghost

I finally met our ghost. I’ve been spending a lot of time around the house lately, convalescing after hip replacement surgery. Could the Vicodin I’m taking every four to six hours have something to do with my ghost encounter? Maybe, maybe not…

This is a ghost that, so far, only the kids had been able to see. As babies, both Augie and Lulu would often stare into a corner above or near our bedroom door. They were definitely watching and interacting with something or someone that we couldn’t see. When Lulu was younger, we asked her if she was seeing a person, and she said yes. We asked if it was a little girl or a little boy, and she said it was a boy.

At four years old, Augie doesn’t see the ghost anymore. Lulu is two-and-a-half and has begun to react negatively to the ghost. Until recently, she was still sleeping in our room and would wake up frightened and in need a reassurance several times during the night. One evening not long ago, we were playing in the living room before bedtime when she froze, staring at something down the hall. She suddenly jumped up from the floor and into my lap where she hid her face while surreptitiously checking down the hall every couple of minutes. I asked her what was wrong but she just pointed down the hallway. I asked her if she was seeing the little boy, and she shook her head no. I asked her what she was seeing, and she finally whispered, “Ghost.”

She’d never used that word before regarding our ghost so I asked her if that’s what she’d said. She said, “Yeah Mommy, ghost.” After about ten minutes, she peeked again down the hall and then sat up straighter in my lap for a better look. Seemingly satisfied, she got up from my lap and returned to playing with Augie as if nothing had happened.

A couple of weeks ago, the day before my surgery, the kids and I were playing on the bed in our room when Lulu abruptly latched onto me in a tight hug, hiding her face in the curve of my neck. She wouldn’t even let me sit up. I kept asking her what was wrong but she wouldn’t speak. Every once in awhile she would peek at the space above the armoire, near the heating vent and then tuck her face again to hide. It became clear that she wasn’t joking and that she was very scared. I asked her if she was seeing the ghost but she still wouldn’t answer. Sometimes, she would look into the space above the armoire for five to ten seconds before hiding her eyes again.

I asked Augie if he saw anything but he didn’t and thought it was a joke. After about fifteen minutes, I was still unable to get Lulu to move or to even let me up so we could move to a different room. I decided to try a new tactic. More for Lulu’s benefit than anything else, I began talking to the ghost and telling it to go away because it was scaring Lulu. I had to scold it for quite awhile. I said that we didn’t mind it being here with us but that it wasn’t okay to scare people. I told it to go away, right now, because it was scaring Lulu.

After another minute or so, Lulu cautiously raised her head and looked around the ceiling and then the rest of the room. She finally sat up. I suggested we go and play in Augie’s room, and we all left.

Several nights ago, I was having a dream that I don’t even remember now except for the strange noise that began penetrating the dream. It became louder and louder until it was deafening and woke me. I lay in my bed still hearing the sound fade away as my heartbeat slowed to a normal rate. I realized that it had been the sound of heavy, strident footsteps coming down the hall and into our bedroom. I looked around the room to reassure myself that it was only a dream, and that we didn’t have an intruder in the house. A movement caught my eye however, and I looked up above the armoire where there seemed to be an apparition of sorts moving in an agitated manner. It was a pearlescent sort of vapory light hovering and vibrating with jerky movements.

I watched, waiting for it – a trick of the eye, a remnant of my dream – to fade as I came more fully awake. It didn’t fade but it did become more placid. It was still a shifting, gossamer mass but it was not going anywhere. I stayed in bed just watching and trying to figure out how this might be explained. Was it a reflection of the small amount of light filtering in from the hallway?

I finally got up to go to the bathroom. When I returned, I looked again at the space above the armoire. The shape was still there but it wasn’t as vibrant or as well formed. As I watched, it lost its mass completely and all that was left was the slight reflection of light from the hallway.

I realized later that I had, at least once before, been awoken by these same pounding footsteps. At the time, I assumed they were part of a dream and went back to sleep, without even bothering to look around the room. I wonder now how many times before our ghost has tried to get my attention.

Please, Somebody Tell Me.

It used to be that I only worried about spinach in my teeth, mascara smudges around my eyes, or the occasional booger in my nose. As my eyesight weakens, I now have to worry about stray hairs to be plucked and the disaster that is old lady makeup. I’m sure you’ve seen the grannies with their uneven lipstick application or the too heavy blush. They just can’t see what they really look like anymore.

My mother used to have a lot of stray eyebrow hairs. As a child, I wondered why she didn’t just pluck them out. They were so clearly renegade hairs from her otherwise lovely, shaped brows. At the time, I chalked it up to her being too busy with work and trying to corral ten kids. Now, I’m starting to understand that it was probably a combination of that and just not being able to see the hairs.

I was shocked after finally deciding that I needed to take a look at my own eyebrows using a magnifying mirror and reading glasses. Oh my God! I couldn’t believe how much I’d been missing by using only the magnifying mirror. For the longest time, I didn’t think I had a problem with hairs on my upper lip. Now I could see them all hanging out there, looking like a modified Fu Man Chu.

My partner teases me about the fact that I now seem to have reading glasses in every room of the house and in both cars. I need them. I can barely read the directions on a pasta box much less read a map without help. I’m even wearing glasses now to read bedtime stories to the kids. It’s amazing how much of the detail I’d been missing.

Now that I can see my face more clearly in the mornings, it has me wondering. How painful could a chemical peel really be?

So Unglamorous

My hair salon is a sprawling, luxurious salon in the heart of Beverly Hills. I didn’t seek this out. This is where Richard, my hairdresser of fifteen years, happened to move about eight years ago. I do, however, enjoy the pampering and the atmosphere.

Of course, all this space and luxury come at a high price with expensive haircuts and a lot of tipping. No, I suppose you don’t have to tip the shampoo girl but come on? You know how great it feels when she takes an extra five minutes to just massage your neck muscles for you.

When I was working at Paramount Studios, I would often set up lunch appointments and drive over to get a haircut. Those were the days. I would leave my fancy car with the valet and stroll into the salon in my beautiful suit and expensive shoes. I’d go every six weeks like clockwork. It just wouldn’t do to have my hair growing out of its cut. God forbid!

Now I’m at home with the kids and can barely afford the time or the money to go there more than once every few months. I’m not so fancy now.

Richard recently began giving “recession haircuts” once every couple of months at half his normal fee. I guess I wasn’t his only client going less often. The deal is, we arrive with clean hair (no shampooing) and either blow-dry our own hair or just leave it wet after the cut. Of course I jumped on the deal and made an early afternoon appointment last Tuesday. Our babysitter (who is awesome) arrived on time but before I could make it out the door, my two-year-old’s peanut butter hands smeared my blouse. I quickly changed into a tee shirt from the top of the clean laundry stack (a short-sleeved Gap (red) tee shirt from four years ago) and headed out the door.

I was limping pretty badly after walking the three blocks to the salon from where I’d parked. I refuse to valet the dirty minivan. Besides, who can afford the eight-dollar valet fee? I limp into the salon and open my soda water for a cooling sip. Of course, it bubbles over from all the jostling and runs down the front of my shirt. Nice.

So now I’m holding the notebook I always carry in my purse “casually” up against my chest as I walk through the large, main floor to the changing rooms. I hang my old tee-shirt on the fancy hanger and notice that it actually has several small holes along the collar that I’m sure are there because the kids have a habit of pulling and biting the front of my tee shirts just for fun and/or attention. Honestly, I do recall noticing the holes before but didn’t think they were bad enough to take the shirt out of circulation. Well, they are that bad.

I go on to have a relaxing haircut, and Richard, God bless him, tells me how beautiful I am and what great hair I have. I don’t get that much lately – the kids don’t care about that stuff.

Thank goodness my tee shirt has dried by the time I’m done, but now I’m hyper-aware of the holes. I pay at the massive reception desk then make the mistake of leaving out the front door instead of the alley entrance. Now I have to walk past three blocks of upscale shops and restaurants with large, outdoor dining areas – at prime lunchtime. I’m not prepared for this. I bravely clutch my Tod’s handbag and hold out my Cartier watch like a shield as I limp past the Beverly Hills lunchtime crowds out enjoying the beautiful afternoon.

I remind myself that this is simply a tough day – a fluke. I can still be cool, I know I can.

Cheating

I recently read a thought-provoking article in the April issue of Esquire Magazine. It was entitled “Why Men Cheat, an Explanation”. I found it to be very frank and informative. Here is the link so you can check out the article for yourself.
http://www.esquire.com/features/reasons-why-men-cheat-0410?click=main_sr

Before I go any further, I want to differentiate the run-of-the-mill infidelity from the Tiger Woods / Jesse James type infidelity. Theirs seems to follow the pattern of a true addiction. In my opinion, sexual addiction is an entirely different situation with its own set of behaviors and obstacles to overcome.

The author of the Esquire article (who is understandably anonymous) postulated that men cheat because it’s a way of doing something that is solely about them and their desires and not at all about how they are supposed to behave. So their cheating is actually self and life affirming in a way. The author also tried to cast some of the blame on current society and our having to work too many hours at often mind and soul numbing jobs. I don’t buy that part of it. I don’t at all believe that men’s proclivity to cheat is anything new or surprising.

Most men seem to want to have sex with almost any female, anytime, and it becomes a numbers game. Some will hit on twenty women in a day with the hope that sooner or later, one of the women will respond to their charms. I do agree with the author that marriage, and all of the expectations that go with it, is not a natural state for a man – especially the fidelity part. Men in general (I adore generalities) seem to be driven to have sex with different women, and this desire and/or actual sex can have nothing at all to do with how they feel about their partner.

Where does this leave me as a lover and writer of romance? The beauty of a romance novel is that it generally deals with the early stages of a relationship. For my taste, the courtship is tumultuous and intense – as is the sex. Generally, at the close of the book, the couple has accepted that they need to be together, have overcome some problem or obstacle, and have committed to each other. We get to have our happily ever after without delving into the day to day issues and blindsiding reality that can shake your very foundations as a couple. We also don’t have to watch our couple’s sex life mellow and become less and less frequent.

The romance novel is an idealized snapshot of a relationship that we get to hold close to us and keep in our psyche. We don’t have to let reality impinge on our fantasy.

The Minivan

Trading in our zippy Mercedes wagon for a used, Dodge minivan was bittersweet. Our baby boy was getting bigger, and we knew we wanted to have a second child. Kids come with a lot of gear and very large car seats, so the smaller car just wasn’t practical anymore.

I never pictured myself driving a minivan. Minivans are not cool or hip no matter what kind of a spin you put on it. I’m sorry – they’re just not. They are, however, practical. Minivans also hold a lot of stuff.

It was thrilling the first time I took the minivan to the hardware store to pick up several large sheets of plywood for a project I had going. The guy helping me carry the wood out to the car was sure that it wouldn’t all fit when I told him I hadn’t had time to take the seats out. My mini-van and I had been together for several months at that point, and I had gotten to know it pretty well. I was confident in my plan – without even pulling out a measuring tape to double-check. As it turned out, I was able to slide all five sheets of wood in behind the front seats and then slide the door closed with no problem.

It may not be glamorous or get great gas mileage but the minivan does shuttle us around town without a problem. If I were able to get to the carwash more often, I might even pull up to the valet parking from time to time… or maybe not. It is still a minivan, and I am still that vain.

Puddle Dancing

Why Puddle Dancing? The title of my blog is about embracing life. It’s running out to play in the rain and dancing through the puddles the first chance you get. Puddle Dancing is also about irreverence for the rules. When I’m splashing through puddles, I’m not trying to stay dry or neat, and I’m definitely not worried about how I look while I’m doing it.

Sometimes I do get muddy and wet and uncomfortable but that’s all a part of the dancing.

Julia