There’s always something.

New and good.

It’s a Monday. And you know what that means, right? A post concerning a Monday Miracle.

The trouble is, I have not been able to think of a miracle about which to write. So, I had this thought: Maybe Monday Miracles could alternate with Monday Moans.

Plenty of material there, right?

Then I saw a butterfly flutter by right outside my upstairs window. It flitted in and out of the branches of my neighbor’s oak tree which overhangs my property–by a lot!

I thought, There’s a miracle.

The truth is twice a year we get quite a number of butterflies. I’m not really up on butterfly habits, but I know that some species of them migrate at least once a year. I don’t know if they live long enoug to head back, or what. But we get a lot of butterflies, and they’re pretty, and it’s fun.

So there’s that.

And the oak tree is another miracle. The Southern Live Oak is a beautiful tree.

There are lots of miracles all around. It’s just that they’re here all the time. And they seem sort of small and mundane. Everybody likes butterflies, don’t they?

The truth, however, is that most of the “moans” I can come up with are fairly small and mundane also. A hundred years from now will it really matter that I haven’t yet figured out what to do about the fogged window glass?

So, my question is: Why is it easier to come up with the bad things? The petty, pesky annoying things? Rather than the good things?

Some quirk in the human brain–or, perhaps, only in how we’ve been conditioned by our society makes many of us focus on the hardships and challenges more than the joys and achievements.

I once participated in a program that started every meeting with “What’s new and good?” and ended with “What are you looking forward to?” because we do focus so often on the negative. Not a bad plan. Not a bad plan at all.

What’s new and good right now is the fact that I’ve remembered this.

And the butterflies.

The Fountain of Youth

It is here in Florida.

They say that you keep yourself young by continuing to learn new things.

I say there’s probably a lot of truth to that.

I also say does it have to be boring things? Scary things? As we get older, suddenly we need to learn about a host of medical issues–bone loss, prostate troubles, hearing aids and more stuff to do with our teeth than the actual number of teeth we probably still have!

Fortunately, I’m still young enough that the worst is yet to come. On the other hand, my husband is a good bit older than I, and I’ve moved a lot closer to my mom.

What actually started me thinking about this post wasn’t the delights of aging. It was thinking about all the new things I’ve had to learn since we bought Casa Lagarto, and the one new thing on the horizon.

I have a well, now. An aerator. Security lights and alarm systems. A septic tank and a drain field. A gas fireplace. One enormous exhaust fan in the garage. A hot water heater, a central vacuum and an air handler.

I didn’t have all of that when I lived in an apartment. And the one thing I did have that made whatever else I had incidental was a super. Yay, Santos! I miss him.

My latest area of investigation–having done the whole air conditioner, fireplace, boat lift thing–is drainage. Because it rained so much in August (30 out of 31 days) and it came down so fast sometimes that the ground could not absorb it. I watched small boggy places grow into puddles and then grow into pools where goldfish could have swum. And then I watched them come up over the concrete slab of the front porch and head for the front door.

My neighbor said, “Did they tell you? If we have a hurricane, you will have water coming in your front door.”

Great.

To be honest, I am doubtful that it will come in the front door. We’ve just had more rain than we’ve had in a hundred years, I’m told. I’m not sure, however, how that is any insurance that we won’t have more at some point. Like the investing prospectuses all say: “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.”

So, I’m looking for solutions to–I don’t know–re-contour the ground? Re-route the water? Gutters, maybe, would be a good first step. There’s a thing that looks like a horizontal set of Venetian blinds that might work. (If I could remember what it’s called long enough to Google it.) I’ve already bought a thing called a Hydrabarrier which looks like it might be quite effective.

Meanwhile, anybody know anything about French drains?

Yes, but–

Red Flag / White Flag

One of the keys to getting what you want is knowing what you want.

Here’s an inconvenient truth.

To some extent, what you want is what you have.

Human beings have incredible strength and determination. Through the ages, many of us, most of us, have picked ourselves up from less than ideal circumstances and improved our lot. All of us can do that.

And now, I hear the collective response coming.

Yes, but. . .

Yes, but I don’t have the money to start my own business, buy a house, go to college.

Yes, but my parents won’t let me, my teachers don’t think I can, my boyfriend will leave.

Yes, but I’m just not good enough, I don’t know how, I’m too old, too young, too white, too black.

The most polite response to all that is “Hogwash!”

There are, very rarely, a set of circumstances that truly prevent you from doing some things. There are what they call “Acts of God” that visit death and destruction randomly and unfairly on people.

In almost every other case, people are capable of the most extraordinary things.

“Whenever you think something can’t be done, look at Helen Keller.” *

So many people achieve so much by hard work and persistence.

If you’ve hit a roadblock and you’re talking to friends, relatives, colleagues–your support system–about it, chances are those people will begin to offer suggestions on how to overcome the obstacle. If you hear yourself saying,” Yes, but…” to those suggestions, maybe you need to ask yourself, “Do I really want to do this? Or would I rather watch that TV show, take that nap, eat these cookies.”

It all really comes down to this: What do you want most? The “Yes, but–” can be a legitimate way to think through the issue, explore the possibilities in any suggestion. It can also be an indicator that you aren’t yet ready to do what it takes to get what you want.

Unless what comes after the “Yes, but–” is the phrase “it’s illegal” or “somebody could get seriously injured,” the “Yes, but–” is a red flag of danger.

Don’t let it be a white flag of surrender.

* Mr. Self Development

90 days!

90 days, 90 days, 90 days!

It has been exactly 90 days since I started this blog. And this is the 90th blog entry. (Actually, it’s the 91st, since there was one day where I posted a quote from Jordan Roth as a second entry.) The point, however, is that there has been at least one blog entry every day for the last 90 days. If you think that’s easy, you have never tried daily blogging.

So, pardon me, while I take this opportunity to celebrate!

Do you think I should have cake? I think I should have cake.

The only problem with that is that it would require me to bake a cake. And then, because my husband doesn’t really like cake (can you imagine?!), it would require me to eat the cake. The whole cake.

I’m thinking that would not be a good idea, since in addition to setting myself the goal of daily blogging, I have set myself a goal of losing a little weight. But, oh! Cake!

Never mind. Virtue is its own reward. (If you believe that, we should discuss the purchase price of that bridge in Brooklyn.)

So…no cake.

There is, however, one reward: a built-in topic for today’s post. Yee-ha!

90 days, 90 days, 90 days!

If I can manage another 90, I will have 180 days. Nearly half a year.

I think it can be done, but it’s surely not the sinecure I thought it would be when I walked blithely and blindly into this. If I had looked up the word “sinecure” in advance, I would definitely not have thought it was the proper term. “Sinecure” means a job both easy and providing a salary. However easy I thought blogging might be, I was well aware there was no salary involved.

That’s not to say there haven’t been compensations. I’ve enjoyed hearing from my subscribers. I’ve enjoyed knowing I have subscribers. And now I get to enjoy a sense of achievement. Because…

90 days, 90 days, 90 days!

(Maybe I will have cake.)

No mercy?

“Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.”

That is a quote from the ever-brilliant Joseph Campbell. It is both funny and true, as the best quotes are.

However, it’s Thankful Thursday, and while I realize most of you will think we’ve gone past this point by this time, I am going to talk about how thankful I am for computers.

I love computers. I know, I know. Two of the most dreaded words in the English language are “computer error.” Almost as bad: when the phone rep says, “the computer is down.” We hate the computerized phone menus that seem to be malevolently blocking us from talking to a human being. We are annoyed when the people we are with keep checking their smartphones instead of giving their undivided attention to our scintillating conversation. We can’t understand how we come to waste so much time on Facebook.

But, oh! The hours of entertainment. The increase in productivity. In my case, the leap from temporary secretary at $15-$20 per hour to computer programmer and over a hundred. Even more important, I sometimes think, was the antidote to powerlessness.

There is no one who has less power than a would-be actor. Almost all other artists can practice their craft in the absence of recognition. If you are a writer, all you need is a pencil and a scrap of paper. If you are a visual artist, you can draw anywhere. A singer may sing in the shower. If you play an instrument, you can play it any time (taking into account consideration for neighbors, of course).

The actor, whose instrument is herself, cannot do much without other actors.

It is the only craft I know where you need permission to practice it. And another hundred people just got off of the train.* The competition for that permission is fierce. Opportunities can be few and frustratingly long in coming. It’s easy to feel discouraged and incompetent and without power.

But. . .you can sit down at a computer, and if you know the right keys to press, you can make it do anything.

I love computers.

* Stephen Sondheim, Company, “Another Hundred People”

Where have all the whip-poor-wills gone?

Long time passing.

Can’t you just hear that sung to a Pete Seeger tune by Peter, Paul & Mary?

All kidding aside, though, where have the whip-poor-wills gone? When I was a kid, they were one of the few birds I could recognize by their call. The other being a bob-white.

For me to recognize them, they must have been pretty prevalent. Now, I never hear a whip-poor-will or a bob-white.

A little research shows that they are indeed in decline, and no one is quite sure why. Destruction of habitat due to building, pesticides that kill their food source, and global warming are the most common reasons cited for the dwindling numbers.

My uncle has another theory, although I’m not sure it holds good for areas farther afield than Florida. He thinks the egrets eat the whip-poor-wills’ eggs. Whip-poor-wills, and for that matter, bob-whites nest on the ground. And egrets have been known to prey on the eggs of sea birds–so I guess it’s possible. I suspect it is also true that the egrets are a more efficient competition for the same food.

They do seem to be efficient. They have very few predators, and as long as humans raise cattle, their habitat will survive. They do okay. First bred in Florida in 1953, they had spread to Canada by 1962 and California by the mid-sixties. A successful species.

So, I don’t know. A bunch of egrets following a herd of cattle is a pretty sight, but I do miss the whip-poor-will’s song.

One of Each

It gets harder.

Had a casting director suggest once that every actor should have an audition monologue from each of the major playwrights. Prior to that, the accepted wisdom was that you should have a classical monologue and a contemporary.

At that point, classical meant Shakespeare or one of the Greeks. If you wanted to increase the odds that the actor in front of you hadn’t just done your piece, you went slightly further afield. Some other Elizabethan playwright–Marlowe and Jonson, for example–or a Restoration writer–Congreve, Wycherly, Sheridan, among them–were possibilities. There were also the French–Moliere and Racine.

Some people thought Ibsen, Strindberg and Shaw counted as classical while others considered them the first of the modern playwrights. For some of us, that meant we just didn’t do them unless they were specifically requested. Why set yourself up with a 50/50 chance the auditor would decide you didn’t know what “classical” meant?

But you see my point, right?

I’ve just listed 11 major playwrights and haven’t even gotten fully into the modern era. And the modern era keeps growing! It’s not enough to have Arthur Miller, William Saroyan, Clifford Odets, Philip Barry. You’ve got to be looking at Lanford Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein, Marsha Norman, Neil Simon, David Henry Hwang, Tony Kushner, David Rabe, David Mamet and a host of others if you really want a comprehensive set.*

So, this is one of those “rules” that is ‘more honour’d in the breach than the observance.’**

It’s not a bad goal to attempt, however. If you go searching, you will have read a lot of plays. If you find monologues you like, you’ll have plenty to keep you busy between auditions. Plus, one of the easiest ways to shoot yourself in the foot as an actor*** is to blow off auditions, and one of the easiest excuses is to not have any suitable material to perform.

So, do yourself a big favor.

Have a monologue from each of the major playwrights.

* I know I’ve left out hundreds of you. It doesn’t mean you’re not major playwrights. It just means my brain doesn’t always work all that well.

** Hamlet, Act I, Sc 4 (Flapdoodle!)

*** For other ways actors get in their own way, see my book How to Be a Failed Actor: 27 Things Actors Do to Shoot Themselves in the Foot – available soon in the bookstore.

The rain no longer raineth every day

Flapdoodle?*

When we first moved to Florida, we were in a drought. I had to buy sprinklers and remember my watering days to have any hope of getting the grass in my lawn to recover.

And then we got Tropical Storm Debbie.

Tons of rain!

The grass–it was so happy! It grew and grew. (So did the weeds, but that’s another story.)

And then it kept raining. And raining. And raining. Almost every day. It’s a good thing the grass started to grow to help keep the dirt from washing into the creek. (A lot of it did, anyway.)

It has rained so much that the split-leaf philodendron is turning yellow. The tomato plant has shriveled up. And one of the vincas has given up the ghost. (That’s a shame, because it was a pretty pink one.) The hydrangea, on the other hand, is thriving.

I know the Midwest is having a terrible time with a drought right now. The cost of everything is going up because of it.

So, I feel guilty saying this, but it seems like a miracle that we’ve had a couple of days without rain. It’s hard to do yard work when everything is soggy. Thunder and lightning interfere with my ability to use my computers. They interfere with my ability to use my treadmill! They just interfere.

It is fascinating to watch the rain over the creek. So, there’s that. It has a habit of raining over the water for a good 5 to 10 minutes before it comes on land–which is weird. Part of that weird Florida phenomenon where it can rain on one side of the street and not the other. (I once drove into rain at a red light and out of it when the light changed. That’s how localized a storm can be here.)

But I’m tired of watching walls of water move. I’m really glad it’s stopped raining–even if only temporarily.

* Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, or What You Will Act VI, Sc 1. Also, King Lear, Act II, Sc 3. (If you got both of them, you get two Flapdoodle points!)

Collections

Do you have any?

I’m of two minds about collections. On the one hand, I think if you don’t have one going, you should be assigned one. Possibly, you should be assigned one at birth for the better buying of presents. It is so much easier, when those birthdays, Christmases, Hanukkahs, etc. roll around for your relatives to be able to pick up something to add to your collection.

On the other hand, collections can be a bit of a problem. Maybe other people don’t have this issue, but there may be a borderline hoarder in me. Because, you know, one Reader’s Digest is a magazine you haven’t read yet. Three are the beginning of a collection. And then what?

Actually, I do all right disposing of magazines after one brief struggle in my teens when I had somehow amassed an inordinate number of TV Guides. I understand, though, that National Geographic has caused some people severe pangs.

Some of my collections may eventually become digital. Books and music are–with varying degrees of time and expense–convertible to a more space-saving format. Some, however, must remain physical presences in my house. And therein lies the problem.

Space!

Fortunately, my new house could have been tailor-made to house my glass menagerie. I have so many windows with wide sills and sunshine. We never thought about it when we were thinking of buying, but it has turned out to be perfect for the glass.

The music boxes…that’s a bit of a problem. I don’t have any rare or expensive music boxes, but I have enough of them that I can’t just give them away. Besides, I like music boxes. There are not a lot of moments, however, when it occurs to me to wind one up and let it play. Mostly, it occurs to me when I’m dusting them. Music box dusting, around here, creates quite a cacophony.

I was fine with the books, the records, the glass animals and the music boxes. But now, I seem to have a clown collection, and I don’t even like clowns. (As figurines, I mean. I have several friends who actually are clowns. Graduates of Ringling Bros. Clown College, no less. I like them fine.)

I now have four clowns:

One is made of glass. You can see how that happened.

One is a music box. You can see how that happened.

Two of them are recent acquisitions–mementos of a beloved aunt whose children and grandchildren have a clown phobia. (Coulrophobia, it’s called. I bet you didn’t know that.)

Anyway, I am happy to have these keepsakes to remind me of my aunt, but you can see my problem, right?

A couple of clowns are just things you have. Four are a collection, and you’re stuck with them forever. So, I hereby issue an addendum to the Collection Rule. I only have a collection when I declare I have a collection. If anybody gives me any more clowns, I’m giving them away.

The Great Dental Detective Story

Move over Agatha

The other day, we had a putative dental disaster. (Don’t you like that word ‘putative?’ I’m pretty sure I’ve never, ever used it before and will probably never use it again. You could watch out for it for the Flapdoodle game, though, if you want.)

This putative dental disaster was very mysterious–because there was no pain and there did not appear to be any pieces missing from any of my teeth.

What happened was this:

In my usual capacity of Queen of Malnutrition, I had gone scrounging for “easy” food. For once, this did not involve chips of any sort. Lo! An apple! And some cheddar cheese. A tasty and nutritious snack. (I should have known this was not meant to be.)

I cored and sliced the apple using my handy-dandy apple slicer. I sliced some cheese. All was arranged on a plate and carried over to the rocking chair by the picture window. Savoring the contrast of the sweetness of the apple and the sharpness of the cheese, I worked my way daintily through my most excellent meal.

Suddenly, I bit down on something hard!

I assumed–as one would–that I had inadvertently taken a bite that included an apple seed. This would not be unbearably surprising, although it did feel somewhat harder than my recollection of previous apple seeds. I removed the item carefully.

It was not, however, black and seedy. It was white and almost plastic-like. Not having any belief in albino apple seeds, I quickly came to the conclusion that it was not that.

I also quickly came to the conclusion that some piece of a filling had broken off. It was disturbing to think of such a thing happening as a result of an apple slice, but I once broke a tooth on a cheese doodle. Anything can happen.

However, as I said, there wasn’t any pain. Canvasing the teeth by running my tongue over them revealed no sharp edges. A closer inspection would be necessary.

Bathroom mirror–but you can’t really see the molars. Flashlight. Can’t really see the upper molars. Hand mirror.

Hmm. All molars apparently intact.

A mystery.

Now, one could leave it there. No pain, no problem. But what was this piece of something that turned up in my mouth? If I haven’t broken a tooth, how did this thing get in my apple.

All those Halloween horror stories popped into my head. Clearly, this was not a razor blade but what? Some sort of BB? Was I going to have to stop buying fruit? What kind of malevolent spirit does something like that?

And then it dawned on me.

The apple slicer.

Sure enough, right where the metal blades meet the plastic handle, a tiny little round plastic piece was gone.

The Great Dental Mystery was solved, and I am a Dental Detective.

Do you think I should open an agency?

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Monthly Archives: September 2012