OPEN UP

I have trouble opening things. I’m sure it is genetic. My father had butter fingers, and whenever he tried to unscrew, untie, or unwrap anything he’d eventually resort to some creative under-the-breath muttering.

Recently, I hosted a party and tried to uncork a bottle of champagne. Finally, I turned the task over to a strong man, who immediately popped that cork. A cautionary note: Do not loosen a cork for anyone else.  It makes you look really stupid.

Manufacturers have developed all kinds of creative ways to challenge whomever is dumb enough to buy their products. “Push down and twist clockwise” is almost as much fun as, “Squeeze hard and twist counter-clockwise.”  I usually push down when I’m supposed to squeeze hard before pulling the hammer out of my tool chest.

There are several creative ways to open a jar:

A blunt edged knife should release air from under the lid. Accompanied by a box of Band-Aids, this can work.

Hot water run over the lid might do the trick---with a little Unguentine on the side.

Banging the lid of a jar of kosher pickles on the garage floor might work, but be sure to have a broom, a pail of water and a mop nearby.

You can try putting on rubber gloves when wrestling with a stubborn jar top. It will give new meaning to “twist and shout!”

Then there are the plastic packages that contain, batteries, dental floss, toothbrushes, razors and all kinds of products that you need, but can’t get to by simply opening the package. When a scissor fails me I sometimes resort to a razor bladed knife and a box of already opened Band-aids.

Receiving a package in the mail can be a delightful surprise until you try to open it. Usually I have been struggling for ten minutes before I see the instructions, “Open other side.” Then there are the cardboard boxes that contain foodstuffs. They instruct to “Pull up the sides and tear here.” When my eyes fill with water, I understand the “tearing” part.

Plastic screw caps on soft drink bottles cause much consternation. If you can’t get the cap to move, you might not want to ask a stranger to open your bottle, because who knows what he’s been doing with those hands.

So here are my final thoughts on the subject:

If you are stranded on a desert island, do not send a note in a bottle out to sea, because whoever finds it, won’t be able to remove the cork.

If you visit a scientist, and on his desk there’s a brain preserved in a jar---leave the jar closed.

If you have a hankering for hard liquor, take a drive to the Smoky Tennessee Mountains, because a jar of Moonshine opens itself.

Alice in Wonderland found an already opened bottle with a sign that read, “Drink Me.” It was not marked “Poison” so she drank the ingredients. Unfortunately, it made her really short. So, beware of already opened bottles. Eat cake. It will make you taller.

Esther Blumenfeld (I’ve never met a man who can’t open a beer bottle.)

FORGET IT

When my Father was 90-years-old, he called me and said, “Something terrible happened to me today.” “What happened?” I asked. “For the first time in my life,” he replied, “I couldn’t remember someone’s name.” “Dad,” I said, “sometimes, I do that on purpose.” Of course, for a man with a phenomenal memory, he didn’t think my answer was all that funny.

Recently, I saw an ad in my newspaper headlined, “Age Proof Your Brain.” The advertisement claimed that by swallowing an expensive, little pill, all those forgetful brains out there would get a jump-start. I guess it’s kind of a flim-flam jumper cable to the noggin.

The AARP Magazine featured an article that offered some ways toward a fit mind:
Get moving: I think they meant exercise and not moving in with your kids.
Pump iron: I’m not sure if that will make you brainier, but you might end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and be able to write a forgettable memoir.  
Seek out new skills: I have learned to pump gas which is much is easier than futzing around with iron.     
Meditation:  Hummmmm.  Okay, that’s done.  
Eat Like a Greek: That means fish, vegetables, fruit, nuts and beans. However, if none of those are available drink lots of Ouzo. Opa!
Spice it up: I think they mean cur cumin---not phone sex.
Stimulating conversation: “It’s raining outside” is not stimulating conversation.

My friend, who was gone for the summer, returned home and said, ”I open the wrong drawers looking for stuff.” I told her, “I don’t have to leave for the summer to do that.”

Sometimes a short memory can save a relationship, but then again, a memory can last forever. That begs the question, “So what are you going to do with it?”
I suggest it’s a good idea to keep the good ones and file the bad ones into your mental museum.  Remember that Mama’s pot roast smelled so good. Try to forget that it tasted like rope.

Of course, memory lapses are both normal and age related. Teenagers notoriously forget their homework, books and lunch. Children in grade school forget to tell you---until bedtime--- that it’s their turn to bring the cookies to class the next day.

Years ago when my husband and I were out-of-town, our son Josh had forgotten to tell us (or the baby sitter) that he had volunteered to bring the first-grade-class pet home for the weekend. Then they both forgot to tell us that the pet had escaped, and was lost somewhere in the bathroom. What kind of beastie was it? And, did we ever find it? I can’t remember. You might ask the new owner of the house, once she stops screaming. It’s been 50 years; you’d think the thing would have died by now.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Women and elephants never forget.” Dorothy Parker)

FIND THE IDIOMS

So many times in life something happens  unexpectedly, and you are caught completely unaware.  In one of the preview productions of the musical “Hello  Dolly,” the star, Bette Midler messed up a line three times.  She turned to the audience and said, “What do you want from me? I’m old,” and then went back into character.

The theatre stage is often a place where an actor is caught off guard. For instance, in one Broadway production, the sound technician pushed the wrong button, and in the middle of an actors speech, the stage telephone began to ring. The actor stopped talking, picked up the phone receiver, handed it to his fellow actor and said, “It’s for you!”

When my brother, David was on a cruise he attended the Passenger Talent Show. A fellow passenger came onto the stage and belted out the song, “If Ever I Should Leave You,” and like a bolt out of the blue, he dropped dead.  As the curtain was rapidly pulled shut, the audience applauded thinking it was part of the show.

On a different cruise, I also attended a Passenger Talent Show where an inebriated woman got on stage and began to sing, the Sinatra favorite, “I’ll Have It My Way.”  The ship staff was caught by surprise when she refused to stop singing, and they had to chase her around the stage to force an exit.  I think that helped end Passenger Talent Shows.

For a period of time, my son, Josh was a stage actor in New York.  I attended almost all of his plays, but missed the one where he played a notorious villain. After the play run ended, he came to visit me, and to my astonishment, after his, “Hi, Mom!” He said, “I need to go and have the stitches removed from my arm.” Incredulously,  I said, “What happened?”  At that, he told me that the on-stage battle involved a fake switch-blade knife. The blade was fake, but the decorative piece of metal made the knife look real, and in the play’s fight that metal part cut him. He was very proud when he told me that his blood matched the fake stage blood perfectly, and added, “When I got to the hospital, the doctors came to see the fake scar on my face because it looked so real.”  

My son also took flying lessons. When I asked him “How are the lessons going?” You could have knocked me over with a feather when he replied, “Great!” “But, I have to perfect my landings.”

Some of the unexpected is jaw dropping such as a few days ago when I decided to treat myself to breakfast with friends.  I arrived first and a waiter carrying a pot of coffee approached my table. It was his first day on the job. He reached for my cup, picked it up and blew into it.
Astonished, I said, “Did you just blow into my cup?” and he said, “”Yes, there was something in it.”  Whereupon I said, “Do not blow into people’s cups!” “Get me a new one!”— which he did.  He put my former cup on another table.

The unexpected can knock your socks off—or not—such as the time my husband, Warren was invited to give a speech in the ballroom of a large convention hall. A humongous folding screen had been set up  behind him, in order to block the view of the kitchen. As he began his talk, the screen collapsed and hit the floor like a bomb.  He did not turn around, but said to the audience, “I think I am having a religious experience.”

My mother-in-law used to say, “Live long enough and you’ll see everything!” She was right.
Yesterday, someone said to me, “ Esther, you have such a sweet disposition— just like my dog named, Esther. She died last month.” For all of my life, I have never been compared to a dead dog. However, I  found out that, Esther the dog, and I really did have something in common. Neither one of us has ever bitten anyone.       
Esther Blumenfeld

SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT

The cockeyed optimist thinks the glass is half full.  The hangdog pessimist thinks the glass is half empty, and I am happy to have a glass because it can always be refilled.  However, because I am an habitual  worrier, I am always concerned about a possible crack in that glass.

My Mother was a worrier, and I swore to myself that I wouldn’t follow her example.  Unfortunately, I inherited the worry gene that I am now trying to expunge. The problem is that I tend to worry about things over which I have no control such as “World Peace”—Or— “Will the grocery store be out of my favorite milk?”

I do realize that the light at the end of the tunnel doesn’t always have to be an on-coming train, but—“What if it is!” I do have lots of self control and know that worry should not cost my peace of mind, so I try to lessen my diet of daily television news.  That helps until I open my newspaper, and the problems become more local than national. The choice is between getting sucked up in a vacuum or a vortex of worry— or totally dumbing down.

I do sleep like a rock.  I guess that is because I have a good conscience…or have no conscience at all. But sometimes, even in my sleep, worry worms slide their way into my dreams such as— “Did I set the alarm clock?”  or “Will my ride be on time” and— “Will the traffic (at four o’clock in the morning) make me late?”—even though I checked all of those things before going to bed the worry anxiety takes hold.

I have been trying to work on this problem, and maybe I have made some progress, because a recent dream presented me with a solution.  I dreamed that I opened the pocket door to my living room and the room was filled from floor to ceiling with colorfully decorated clay bowls. I didn’t know what to do so I closed the door.  After a few minutes, in my dream, I opened the door again and  the bowls were gone!  However, now the room was filled from floor to ceiling with colorfully decorated clay cups.  So, I closed the pocket door again.  Then I woke up.

In the morning, I hesitated to open the door, but when I did there were no bowls or cups—just my living room. Maybe it meant that I should close my mental pocket door when trying to figure out solutions for all of those problems in the world that I can never even hope to solve.  Maybe I should just close the door and not worry about other events or  people so much. But what if I slam that mental pocket door on my own nose.  Then—-WHOS’S GOING TO WORRY ABOUT ME?

Esther Blumenfeld

A FRIEND INDEED

My mother once told me that I couldn’t go outside to play because it was too dark outside. Nighttime was the only opportunity I had to collect fireflies, so her admonition made no sense to me. I plaintively said, “Mary Lou’s mother lets her play outside when it’s dark.” Whereupon my mother replied, “If your friend, Mary Lou jumped off a bridge, would you jump after her?” I thought about it, and then said, “No, but I’d miss her a lot!

Of course, as the years passed, I lost track of adventuresome, Mary Lou. But I’ve managed to form other friendships along the way, and happily now I can play outside any time I want---with or without fireflies.

Americans use the term, “friend,” very freely. Just sit next to someone on a long flight to Timbuktu, and by the time you land, you will have become best buddies.

A few years ago, I was invited to give a talk to a group in Florida. The woman who introduced me did a credible job, but ended her introduction by saying, “Now I am pleased to present my good friend, Esther.” That was warm and folksy, however I still have no idea who she was.

When my second play, UNDER MIDWESTERN STARS was accepted for production at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre in 2007, the Producing Artistic Director, Peter Altman, came to Tucson to meet me and discuss the play. Before we parted company, he asked me a strange question. He said, “Do your friends think of you as a playwright?” I thought about it and replied, “No, my friends think of me as a friend.”  It took a long time for me to understand why he had asked me that question. I think he was asking, “How do you consider yourself in relationship to others?” Peter is a very clever man, and now I am sure that he was really asking, “How big is your ego?”

The rise of social networking websites has diluted the traditional meaning of “friend.” Now all you have to do is to get on “The List.” You don’t even have to know the other people.

Here’s how I define a friend:

Someone who steals a book from your library, and returns it six months later because he needs his lawnmower.
Someone who isn’t related to you by birth but relates in ways that really count.
Someone who realizes that a conversation takes more than one person.
Someone who knows when to be there and when to back off, and
Someone who laughs with me---not at me.

George Carlin said it best: “One good reason to only maintain a small circle of friends is that three out of four murders are committed by people who knew the victim.”  

Women need their women friends and a telephone. Men are different. As Jeff Foxworthy so aptly put it: “Once we become friends with another man, we may never say another word to him, unless it’s valuable information that needs to be exchanged. Things like, ‘Hey, Jim, your shirt’s on fire.”’

Of course, men and women can be friends. You don’t always have to be on the same wavelength, you just have to develop selective hearing and give a knowing nod. Just be careful when you are asked a direct question such as, “Do these jeans make me look fat?” It’s always good to answer, “Oh My God! I’ve got something in my eye,” and then lock yourself in the bathroom until the next day.

Esther Blumenfeld (I have no old friends---just friends of long standing)