LOTS TO DO

Boredom has never been part of my DNA. Even in these restricted coronavirus times, I can always find something to do—other than getting into my car, driving to a store and bringing back a bag filled with viruses to distribute to my neighbors.  Consequently, I am staying in my apartment, and doing a daily walk-about in my beautiful neighborhood.

However, this morning, while examining two overly ripe bananas, I got an insatiable desire to bake banana bread. I waited for ten minutes for the feeling to go away, but it did not, so I proceeded to take the stored pots and pans out of my oven allowing it to do what it was intended to do—Bake something!

Then, I stood and stared at the oven dashboard. There are no dials. All of the appliances in my apartment are state-of-the-art and this dashboard was probably adapted from the dashboard in a 747 airplane. In order to turn the heat on, you place your finger on the area that says, “Bake.” I figured I can do that. Then nothing happened. I stared at the oven and said, “Well, start baking.”  That didn’t help. Then I put my finger on “Cook Time.” It lit up and I pressed 375. Miracle of miracles, the numbers began to advance from low to high and stopped at 375. By then, the cake was ready to go into the oven. I was too intimidated to press the “Timer.” I figured, I could time the bake time on my trusty wristwatch. However, I did press  “Oven Light,” and my cake pan was lit up.

So far, so good. My cake was finished, and I touched “Off.” The oven heat went off, but the oven light stayed on.  I kept pushing “Off.” Then I got out the instruction book. My husband used to say, “When all else fails, follow the instructions.” The book gave instructions what to do if the light does not go on, but even in Chinese, I am sure that nothing was advised about if the light does not go off.

The oven was cool. The light remained on. I called the apartment maintenance department, and luckily one of the good guys was in the apartment next to mine, so he came right over. He opened the oven door,   slammed it shut and it was obvious that when he touched “Off” he had scared the light to death. Now I know that slamming is the modus operandi.

Feeling unusually brave, I turned my refrigerator ice-maker back on. I’m not sure if it will work the way it is supposed to, because the last time it was on, the cubes enthusiastically overflowed and filled the bottom of my freezer compartment.

Also, I am not sure if the dishwasher is supposed to take 2 1/2 hours to clean the dishes, but they come out clean, and I figure,”What’s the hurry? I am retired.”

I learned quickly not to overload the washing machine. The dryer is sitting right on top of it. The first time I overloaded the washing machine, it shook and rattled and I thought that both the washer and drier would shake themselves out of the closet and chase me around the room.

Nope! It’s not boring around here—-not boring at all!

Esther Blumenfeld

LEFT BEHIND

These days, people who subscribe to newspapers feel very superior to those loony-tunes who desperately drive from store to store looking for toilet paper. Even A-I can’t help. It only goes to prove that during urgent times, on-line shopping is no substitute for the Sears and Roebuck catalog. Stockpiling toilet paper, because of the coronavirus, makes no sense, since the only diarrhea connected to the disease is the verbal kind coming out of politicians mouths.

So, just for fun, I decided to look on the shelves at Target to see what people left behind. I wandered over to the soap section, and a sign was posted, “Only one soap product to a customer.” Most of the soaps were gone, but I noticed that body washes were still available. After all, the CDC instructed us to wash our hands—not our entire bodies. So, what body washes were left?

If I had purchased the first body wash, I could,”Smell Like Rain.” I’m not sure what rain smells like, but when it rains in Tucson, Arizona, the place smells like Creosote bushes. I don’t want a “Musky,Earthy Smell,” that helps my body preserve water. The  Spanish name for Creosote is “Hediondilla” which loosely translates into “little stinker.”

The next bottle of body wash was a “Limited Edition of Ocean Drift.” I figured it was probably limited because the oceans are drifting around filled with plastic waste, and I don’t want to smell like I’ve been recycled.

Then there was the “Flower Child Fragrance.” For those of you who remember the unwashed bodies of the Woodstock Generation—NO THANK YOU!  

Nor, did I want to smell like the next bottle that had a “Sea Kelp Fragrance.” I remember swimming in the ocean in Florida and getting that stuff tangled around my feet. I guess that would be a great body wash for people who enjoy smelling like dead fish.

Finally, I bought a bottle of “Vitality Shower Gel.” I don’t know what it smells like, but I hope that it will give me the survival capacity that I need—-if I run out of toilet paper.
Esther Blumenfeld

ROCK-A-BYE BABY

Shortly after we moved to Tucson, our son, Josh visited. Perusing the newspaper, he discovered that a very famous Rock Band was in town, whereupon he said, “Mom and Dad, you have never been to a Rock Concert. Well, now’s the time before you get too old.”

We couldn’t argue with logic like that. Unfortunately, three tickets had become available in the balcony. So, gritting my teeth, and stuffing cotton balls into my purse, we headed to the theatre. After we climbed to the balcony, I whispered to my husband, “Glad our seats are up here and not too close to the stage.”

When the musicians blew onto the stage (30 minutes late) the entire audience stood up and began to scream and sway. It was kind of like a religious revival, and I thought I had died and gone to Hell. Well, if you can’t beat them—join them. So, I stood up, let out a blood thirsty shout, waved my arms, and then sat down and stuffed cotton into my ears. I offered cotton to my husband, who by this time was so traumatized that he looked catatonic. I hadn’t heard this much noise since the County Road Department was breaking up concrete on our street.

Mercifully, there was an intermission. I knew it was intermission, because my ears stopped ringing and everyone sat down.This was my favorite part of the concert. Then the commotion began again, and I fished out some fresh cotton for my ears.

With this experience in mind, I came up with some rules that audiences at rowdy Rock Concerts should follow:

Stay Home! But, if you can’t do that, leave your machete at home, because you can expect a pat down.

Don’t ask people in front of you to sit down. They can’t hear you.

Don’t yell out, “Sweet Adeline,” when a performer asks for requests.

If you are going to drink in your seat, buy something in a can or bottle, because when you push your way back to your seat, you are sure to be bumped, pushed and jostled.

And, for God’s Sake do not spend the whole time looking at the band through your cell phone. For that, you could have sent a friend to the concert and stayed home (as I suggested in the first place).

When our experience at the Rock Concert was over, Josh enthusiastically said, “Wasn’t that great!” And, my diplomatic husband replied, “Son, that was really something. Please don’t ever make us do that again!”

Esther Blumenfeld

THE PAYOFF

Once again, my morning newspaper stimulated my thinking. This time it was an article about “Negotiating Your Salary.” It made me reminisce about all of my jobs throughout the years, starting with babysitting when I was nine-years old. I guess that doesn’t really count, because the baby was my brother, and my parents didn’t pay me.

I do remember not being able to reach him when he was crying in his crib, because I was short, and I couldn’t lower the side. So, I climbed up, bent over and got my knee caught in the slats. Baby and I both cried for awhile until I was finally able to pry my knee loose. I called my parents to come home right away. Since they were next door it didn’t take very long. On that day I learned about job safety—no baby sitting without knee pads.

When I was thirteen, I started babysitting for other people’s children for real money. Not much money, but it was real. I was paid $0.25 an hour until I negotiated it up to $0.35. After all, I could earn $0.25 from a lemonade stand in my front yard. Then the mean kid across the street undersold me, and I began to sell cheese sandwiches with my lemonade until Mother shut me down. That’s when I learned about supply, demand and bankruptcy.

At fifteen, I got a job selling items in a children’s clothing store. The owner didn’t trust me at the cash register, so I became a salesperson who had to hand my sales to another clerk. When the owner ordered me to go clean the toilets, I flushed the job! I don’t remember what she paid me, but that’s when I learned about job description.

When I turned sixteen I worked every summer vacation in the offices of a mens’ trouser factory. I started at $3.50 an hour, and my job was to fill in when an office employee went on vacation. I learned that punching a clock had nothing to do with my fist. Sometimes, it meant typing on a manual typewriter for eight hours a day. I needed the money for college. “No pain, No gain.” One time the factory went on strike, and I didn’t know if I should cross the picket line, until one worker shouted, “Go ahead kid. No one wants your job!” During the summer before my senior year,  I did negotiate a raise up to $3.75 an hour.

After college, I married Warren, a graduate student. Unfortunately, his salary, as a teaching assistant, wasn’t enough for both rent and food, so I went to work for the Head of the Sociology Department at Purdue University. A nice professor hired me, but I was to discover that my future boss was out of the Country. After I accepted the job, I also  discovered that so many secretaries had quit working for him, that the employment office at the University informed him that I was his last chance. I had wondered, Why, with my poor typing skills, did I get that job?  Unfortunately, I had not done my homework, and I needed the blasted money.
The newspaper article never did cover—needing a job so you won’t starve.

When my husband continued school to earn his PhD, I decided to create a job. So “practicing my pitch,” I approached the principal of the local high school and asked, “Do you have an attendance counselor?” When he said, “What’s that?” I knew I had it made.  I said, “The monies you get are tied to attendance, so I can keep track of that for you.” I had made it up, but he thought it was a great idea—even the salary I quoted him.  So, when a young voice called the school and said, “This is Mr. Jones and my son, Bucky is ill today.” I would say, “I am so sorry, Mr. Jones.  I will call you back to see how he is doing.” Suddenly, I was then in the business of miracle cures, and school attendance improved.

All this time, I had been writing and selling articles, but after my husband’s graduation, I started writing full time, and everything I did involved contracts. First, it involved being paid regularly for  columns and articles in magazines, and then payment for my books that had been accepted by publishers.  With my books came money advances on royalties. Although the royalties belonged to me no matter what, there was little negotiation involved, because the additional money depended on the sales of the books. Happily, I did quite well.

That career led to teaching classes at the Evening Program at Emory University, and speeches at large conventions and meetings around the Country. I wrote my own contracts and naturally learned the hard way when I made a mistake.

Two dumb mistakes:  One book title had been changed without my knowledge by the book editor, because I did not have “title approval by author” in my contract.

I was not paid for one speech for six months, because the convention treasurer had gone abroad. From then on contracts stated: “immediate payment at speech conclusion.” Who would have thunk it??

Playwriting is a whole new bag of worms. Luckily, as a member of the Dramatists Guild of America I had the benefit of an attorney to check out the contract, but financial negotiation was up to me. I knew that I was paid the high end of what was available for my first play, HERE AND THERE for the Detroit Repertory Theatre, and felt it more than fair, and although the theatre sat only around two-hundred people, the play was going to run for two months—six performances a week.

The second play, UNDER MIDWESTERN STARS was a different story. It was to appear at the very large  Kansas Repertory Theatre (for a month) that  seated around six hundred and fifty people each night for (also) six performances a week. The cast had been selected from Broadway actors and the director came from Los Angeles (as well as the set designer). Bridge music (between scenes) was written by a composer from Chicago.  It was a $500,000.00 production, and I had to negotiate my advance on ticket sales. Here’s how it went:

I arrived at the business office of the theatre, and faced five people sitting behind a very long table—kind of like facing a parole board. The chief negotiator smiled and said, “I think we can offer you $.” I replied, “I don’t think so.” He conferred with the others. Then he smiled again and said, “Well, then, How about $$?”  I looked at him, shook my head and said, “I don’t think so.” By then, I was grateful for my strong bladder.

 Back to the parole board, and then—not smiling—he said, “ $$$ is the best we can do.” I paused, looked at all of them. No one was breathing, as I cheerfully said, “Okay, that should work.” My advance belonged to me, no matter what, and then I negotiated what percentage of ticket sales would go to me.

I understand that, now, in big cities, some baby sitters get $25 an hour, and I’ll bet that they have some lawyers on retainer, so they can sue if they get their knees caught in crib slats.

Maybe, I missed my calling.

Esther Blumenfeld

HERE AND THERE*

An article in the Chicago Tribune, “The Skill of Sympathy,” by Judith Weinstein, offered “tips for saying the right things to a grieving person.” As I see it, the problem with sympathy is that in the place of consolation lots of well meaning blabber mouths manage to say just the wrong thing.

Her article brought to mind my play, HERE AND THERE that appeared at the  Detroit Repertory Theatre from November 6 to December 28, 2003. Loss is universal, and mine happened in 1998 when my husband, Warren died. After that, I thought I’d never write again, until someone said,”You do widowhood so well, you should write another book.” I couldn’t do that, but I figured that I could enter into a duel with grief by writing a humorous play about death based on my truth.

HERE AND THERE has six characters: A grieving wife named Becca, a son named Josh, two friends Sherlyn and Teddy, and Aaron—the deceased husband with whom they all converse in order to get from“There to “Here.” Among the stupid things that people say, I added this true interchange: “A month after Aaron died, a woman approached me in the produce department at the grocery store. Waving a stalk of broccoli in my face, she said, ‘That certainly was a beautiful obituary in the newspaper, but it didn’t tell what your husband
died of. ‘I looked her right in the eye, and I said—-‘I shot him!’”

The play begins with Becca: “For the past year, I’ve become more aware of things that aggravate me. Yesterday, I arrived at a florists shop, it’s locked and there’s a sign on the door, ‘Back in five minutes.’  On July 1, 1998, I put a sign on my husband’s chair, ‘Back in five minutes.’ On July 1, 1999, I threw away the sign. It was a year since he died. I got the message. I guess he’s not coming back. The aggravating thing about dying is that it’s so damn permanent.”’ In the Tribune article, a clinical psychologist advises that a bereavement group might be helpful to talk things out.

I won’t quote the dialogue in the play (based on my one time experience) that Becca tells her friends about the  support group she attended, but I will tell you about one of the attendees named Fred, who had been attending the group for two years since his wife, Bertha died.  They used to love camping, so he had a “mission.” He was determined to “scatter her ashes on at least one campsite in every State in the Union,” which proves that truth really is funnier than fiction.

Teddy’s reaction in the play is: “That’s got to have been one big Bertha,” and Becca says: “And he’s polluting the whole Country with her.” The grief group wasn’t much help other than good material for the play. I did however, go home, run up and down the street flying a kite. The neighbors all locked their doors.

When someone dies, not only family members have to deal with the loss, but death also affects friends. However, it is normal to feel terrible for the spouse who has been left behind, along with a sense of relief that it didn’t happen to you—just like viewing an automobile accident on the highway. I dealt with this phenomena in the play when Becca gets a call from her friend Sherlyn that Teddy has been taken to the hospital with a suspected heart attack. I wrote a conversation between Teddy (who is in a hospital gown) and his best friend Aaron (who has died).

Here is just a bit of that conversation:  Teddy: “I’m feeling anxious. I think I’m going to die.”
Aaron: “The most exercise you ever got was jumping to conclusions.” Teddy: “I miss you, pal. I wish we had spent more time together.” Aaron: I never saw a headstone that said, “I wish I’d spent more time with nincompoops.” Teddy: “I’ve never been very religious. Do you think I should start praying or something?” Aaron: “Go ahead if it makes you feel better.” Teddy: “All I can remember is my Bar Mitzvah speech. Do you think that will work?” Aaron: “Wasn’t your Bar Mitzvah speech something about Jericho and the Crispus Attucks High School Football Team?” Teddy: “You remember.” Aaron: It’s hard to forget, especially the part about the children of Israel blowing down the walls of Jericho, and you called it their ‘Hail Mary Shot.”
Teddy: “That didn’t go over real big with the rabbi. I try to be a good person, but I guess I’m not what you’d call religious.” Aaron: “Teddy, being a good person is being  religious—better than the fanatic who thinks he is doing what God would do, if God only knew the facts.”
Teddy: “Do you think I’m going to die?” Aaron: “Yes, my friend, but not now
—-someday for sure—but not now.” (Teddy gives him a bear hug).  Aaron: “The last time you did that, I thought you’d never let me go.” Teddy: “I didn’t want to. I knew I’d never see you again. I didn’t want to let you go. I don’t want to let you go. You are my friend.” (THEY EXIT.
Sherlyn, Becca and Josh enter) Sherlyn: “A bee sting! A bloody bee sting! I am so sorry I dragged you both down to the hospital, but when he passed out—I am so sorry!”

The Tribune article ends with a statement, “There is no statute of limitations on grief.” After Warren died, I was told by many people that after a year, I should find closure. When I asked my father, Rabbi Karl Richter about this, he replied, “Honey, it’s not a real estate deal.”

So, the next time you visit a grieving friend it’s probably a good idea to bite your tongue, give a hug and just listen.

Esther Blumenfeld   (*Here and There, copyright January 1, 2000)