No Shrinking Violet

My 97-year-old Aunt Ruth is the incredible shrinking woman. However, although she has lost inches, she has never lost her moxie. Her body may be frail, and her hearing may be failing, but her keen wit is as sharp as ever---as illustrated when I interviewed her during my recent visit to her home in Buffalo, New York. Yes, she still lives in her own house.

Esther: Aunt Ruth, what is your secret to getting old?

Ruth: I refuse to die!

Esther: What is the best way to raise little children?

Ruth: Let them do whatever they want, unless they crawl into bed with you too early in the morning.

Esther: What is the secret to being a good wife?

Ruth: Be your own person, and if he doesn’t like it after he marries you---to Hell with him.

Esther: Who was your favorite person in history?

Ruth: Napoleon. Because he was smart enough to go to Elba where no one would bother him anymore.

Esther: If you could have a conversation with anyone in the world, who would that be?

Ruth: President Obama.

Esther: What would you say to him?

Ruth: When is Congress finally going to leave Washington? I can’t take it anymore!

Esther: What is your favorite time of day?

Ruth: My favorite time of day is evening, because it’s almost bedtime. I like to sleep. I sleep very well, because I read the funny papers before I turn off the light. I don’t think the funnies are as funny as they used to be years ago. Why do you think that is?

Esther: This is my interview Aunt Ruth. You can’t switch it on me.

Ruth: Well, I tried my best.

Esther: What is your favorite story?

Ruth: I like the one about the seven dwarfs. I like their pointed hats, because I imagine they are hiding something under there.

Esther: What is your favorite book?

Ruth: That’s easy. I love It’s A Big World Charlie Brown. I have always liked Peanuts because he is such a pitiful little fellow. I would like to help him, but he never learns.

Esther: If you could have anyone here to visit you, who would that be?

Ruth: Well, dead people don’t walk, but I’d like to see my husband. He had his ups and downs---but then, so did I.

Esther: What do you think about cell phones and computers?

Ruth: They are helpful, but the time will come that no one will leave the house, and you won’t know your neighbors. That could be a good thing, but you’ll never know.

Esther: What is your favorite swear word?

Ruth: Let me think about that. There are so many good ones. (In Polish she said)

“The cholera should get you.”

Esther: I didn’t know you spoke Polish.

Ruth: I don’t, but I can swear in Polish.

Esther: What do you think of today’s television shows?

Ruth: I don’t watch reality shows, because there is no such thing.

Esther: Why do you want to eat cake before dinner?

Ruth: Because I’m hungry for cake and not chicken.

Esther: What do you think about the winters in Buffalo?

Ruth: It’s always colder in Rochester.

Esther: Is there anything you’d like to say to end our interview?

Ruth: If I’m in the room---don’t forget that I am here.

 As if anyone could---my dear Aunt---as if anyone could. You are unforgettable!

Esther Blumenfeld (Watch out for the walker. She’s Hell on wheels.)

Who Was That Masked Man Anyway?

When I was a little girl, my mother read me the grim story of Hansel and Gretel written by brothers of the same name, except theirs had an extra “m,” because there were two of them. She read me that story several times in order to warn me not to wander off or talk to strangers.

Today, I do tend to wander about, but never “off.”  However, talking to strangers is one of my favorite activities, since they are often a source for humorous material. Also, I remember that The Lone Ranger was a stranger who used to ride into town when no one else had a good story to tell. Of course, I am rather selective about the people with whom I engage in conversation, and judiciously avoid old crones who live in sugar candy cottages in the middle of a scary forest.

People are only strangers until you talk to them. My mother-in-law had a friend who sat next to a young woman at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. While waiting for their plane, they began to chat, and my mother-in-law’s friend took a liking to the personable young woman. As, she prepared to board the plane, she said to her new friend, “My son lives in Chicago. Would it be okay, if I gave him your telephone number?” “Sure,” said the young woman, and my mother-in-law’s friend turned a stranger into her daughter-in-law, and they resumed their conversation for 40 more years.

I volunteer for a worthy organization, and my duties include sitting at the front desk, greeting people, and entering data on a computer. Last week, a man came into the office. He was early for his appointment. As he sat down, he said, “How’s that computer working out for you?” “It’s great!” I responded, “When it works. When it doesn’t work, it’s not so great.”

At that, this stranger proceeded to relate a story, which I am happy to share with you now:

He said, “I have a friend, who had a problem with her computer, so she telephoned for technical help. When the computer technician started to explain how my friend should repair the problem, she didn’t understand his instructions at all, so she said, “Wait a minute. My five-year-old son is really good with computers. Let me put him on the phone with you”---which she promptly did.

The five year-old easily understood what the instructor was telling him, and followed his directions step by step. The little fellow had no problem at all, until the technician said, “Now, press the Command Key with your right hand.” “Okay! Okay! Okay!” said the child, and then he shouted---“Mommy, Mommy, which one’s my right hand?”

I don’t think my stranger was the Lone Ranger, but he sure rode into town with a good story.

 Esther Blumenfeld (Hi-yo Silver Away!)

Between The Lines

My first car was an exceedingly ugly Plymouth with no power steering. In order to parallel park that sucker, I’d have to get out of the car, bend down and manually shove the tires to the curb. Not really, but the pull forward, back it up, tote that wheel, lift that barge action wore me out. Once parked, I never wanted to move it again. Unfortunately, I lived in Chicago, and we had to move our cars to the other side of the street every other day.

Power steering makes maneuvering an automobile much easier, but parking a car well is still an art form that few people have mastered. For instance, visualize this: A parking lot is almost empty. A Porsche and a BMW are parked at the far end of the lot with a space between them. What happens next? If it’s my choice, I will fill in the gap between those two expensive cars because:

If that space was good enough for two rich people, the spot in the middle is perfect for me.

At least one of those cars will shade my car and protect it from leaf blowers.

Expensive cars will be careful backing out.

A thief will prefer a BMW or Porsche to my 2004 Saturn, which General Motors doesn’t even make anymore (and, yes, I am very angry with them, but that’s another story.)

People who drive expensive cars won’t give my car a bump in order to make the parking space bigger. The only time drivers of expensive cars park next to me is at the grocery store, because they want to use my car as a shield against run away grocery carts.

Where you park your car matters! Even on a lunch break; funeral directors know not to park a hearse in front of a restaurant. I would rather walk a mile than give my car to a parking attendant. Usually, these attendants are 12 years old, and their job experience involves driving bumper cars at the county fair. On the rare occasions that I have turned my car over to one of these characters, they invariably lose my car. I guess the little old Saturn doesn’t leave the impression that I am a big tipper.

I don’t like parking next to trucks. First of all, when I am backing out, it’s difficult to see past their long rear ends, and often those drivers are scratchers, and don’t seem to mind leaving a little ding on the side of my car as a souvenir of our time together. Parking next to a wall or tree is good, unless you hit the wall or the tree attracts prune-eating birds.

Once you have parked your vehicle, it helps to make a mental note of where you leave it---“My car is parked in the 13^th row, 25 spaces down from the school bus.” Of course, if you don’t remember if that was east or west of the school bus (which has already left) you can wander about looking miserable until eventually pushing the “someone is breaking into my car” panic button on your key chain. Everyone will know you have lost your car, and no one will call the police.

My mother used to say, “If you don’t have it in your head, you have to have it in your feet.”

Esther Blumenfeld (why do all cars look alike?)

In Days Gan Bei

When traveling to a foreign country, many Americans don’t attempt to speak the native language. They rely on the premise that “Everyone speaks English.” I, on the other hand, make an attempt---feeble as it may be---to learn a few words, so I can skid and slide into the culture as best I can. My trick is that if I can’t come up with a word or two in a foreign language, I just make them up. I have discovered that most of the time when I invent a few words, people assume that I am mumbling, or they don’t really listen anyway, so it’s usually not a problem.

However, several years ago, I was an honored dinner guest at an elegant home in Mexico City. It was a rather large crowd, and the host was the only person (other than I) who spoke English. Luckily, I had my handy-dandy English/Spanish phrase book with me, and I was able to nod and smile a lot, but unfortunately, at dinner, a woman sitting next to me asked me a direct question---just when the host was called out of the room for a telephone call.

Suddenly, the room fell silent and everyone looked at me expecting an answer in Spanish. I thought she had asked me a question about my son, so after flipping through the phrase book (which was no help at all) I valiantly attempted an answer. Whatever I said left very little oxygen in the room, because it brought on a universal, shocked intake of breath around the table. Happily, after looking at each other, and then seeing my bewildered expression, everyone burst into gales of laughter. To this day, I don’t know what I said, but the hostess spilled a dish of flan into my lap. I think it was an accident.

In Barcelona, I ordered tapas in Spanish and was served a dish of fried critters that were delicious, if you could avoid looking into their tiny eyes. The problem with learning only a smattering of several languages is that I tend to mix them up. If I can’t remember a word in French or Italian, I fall back on my lame Spanish and hope that the romance languages are close enough to soften the heart of my listener. I can speak kindergarten German, and have found out that German sounds best when you have postnasal drip.

Japanese is easy, because if you keep bowing and handing out business cards, you never have to say a word. Only two languages have a single word that means “Hello, Goodbye and Peace”---“Aloha” in Hawaiian and “Shalom” in Hebrew. I always suspected that Hawaiians are the lost tribe of Israel. Everyone understands you in Russia when you shout “Vodka!”

For me, foreign languages have always been a grand adventure. I figure that even when people speak the same language, too often they have trouble communicating, so I might as well try a few more along the way.

Esther Blumenfeld (Skall! Prost! Salut! Gan Bei! L’Chaim! Kampai! Noroc! Nostrovia!)

What Do You See?

Besides thinking about what I should prepare for dinner, I have also been thinking about the difference between how we view ourselves, and others see us. When I mentioned this to my friend, Sally, she responded in her best English teacher voice, ”Ae wad some pow’r the giftie gie us to see oursels as ither see us.”

She claims that, Scottish poet, Robert Burns thought that one up when he watched a large bug slowly climbing heavenward on the back of a woman’s elegant hat in church. The woman was praying, the bug was preying, and “Rabbie” obviously had his head somewhere else.

So many times, I have heard someone say, “ I can’t retire. I don’t know what I would do with myself. I am my work.” If done well, retirement is an art. I have a friend who retired from being a banker. His professional reputation and lifetime work does not impress his toddler grandson, who already knows what really matters in life, and whose eyes light up when he sees, “The Grandfather!”

Children of celebrities don’t see the Nobel Prize winner or the “sex symbol”. They see mom and dad. When being interviewed, CNN journalist, Anderson Cooper, (whose mother is Gloria Vanderbilt, the famous designer) said, “I could never understand why girls in jeans had my mother’s name on their butts.”

So how do you see yourself? We all know that anorexics look into a mirror and see obesity. Tragically, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” doesn’t work for them. Mirrors should probably be banned, or at least heavily taxed.  Teenagers see a pimple and think everyone will notice. Little do they realize that their peers are so self-absorbed that they won’t see the pimple.  As a matter of fact, they probably won’t notice that anyone else is in the room other than themselves.

A mother who thinks she is “helpful” may have a child who sees her as “interfering.” An office worker who prides himself on “taking charge,” may be viewed as an “overbearing boor.”

A bit of sensitivity to the self-image of others can be helpful. Waiting in line for a movie ticket, I overheard a young ticket taker being berated by an extremely irritated customer. When she left, I suggested that the young man could avoid such confrontations in the future if he would say, “You’re not old enough for a senior ticket are you?” rather than, “Do you want a senior ticket?”

I read people pretty well. If someone is smart, he doesn’t have to tell me how smart he is---I will know. Most people like friendly folks, and they avoid rude and nasty people. If you want no friends, cultivate your nasty side. It works every time, unless you meet a masochist. He will think you are terrific!

I’m not sure if it is an urban legend, but one of my favorite stories about Tucson, Arizona involves an establishment that sells extremely expensive pianos. The store is located near some railroad tracks. People in Tucson are quite casual and unassuming. Maybe it has something to do with 350 days of sunshine. But I digress. Clerks in the piano store were trained not to approach anyone who wanders in, unless the prospective customer sits on a piano bench.

One day, a young man, wearing a torn tee shirt and sloppy jeans wandered into the store. No one approached him until he sat down and began to run his fingers over the piano keys. At that, an experienced salesman said to a new hire, “You go take care of that guy. He’s probably just a bum who wandered in off the tracks.”

The rookie salesman approached the young man and politely asked, “May I help you?” The man replied, “I like this piano. How much does it cost?” “$45,000.00,” replied the clerk. “I’ll have my man pick it up in the morning,” said the young fellow. The customer was Paul McCartney.

So the moral of this tale is:  Don’t be too hard on yourself, and be careful how you view others---unless they are nasty people. Then, “What you see is what you get.”

Esther Blumenfeld (“Here’s looking at you, Kid.”)