A Byline Worth Humblebragging About

A Byline Worth Humblebragging About

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

No comments

As always, I have plenty of things to say, but for once, I am too tired to put together any words. My big work conference ended on Sunday, & I slept for 18 hours when I got home - & counting! I'll be back soon with a pretty cool update (you might've already seen it on social media, but I want to write about it, too), but in the meantime, I wanted to share another cool little update.

If you're one of the folks who's been following along with this blog since way back when: A) thank you, & B) you might remember my semi-regular posts about "grandmaisms," documentation of some of the many ridiculous things my beloved grandmother said during our times together. When my grandma died in 2012, a few readers told me that they grieved for her because they felt like they'd come to know her through my blog posts.

Today, I'm honoring my grandma's memory & part of the legacy of gratitude that she passed down to me in an essay for Country Living magazine titled "Why I'll Never Let Emails and Texts Replace Thank You Notes."

I'd love for you to check it out - &, as always, thank you for your support & love & readership. (If you want that handwritten, I'm happy to oblige!)

Read More

Remembering My Grandmother: The Great Olive Garden Debacle of 1990-Something

Remembering My Grandmother: The Great Olive Garden Debacle of 1990-Something

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

No comments

My grandma loved Olive Garden, & even though I love to poke fun at (usually Midwestern) folk who believe that Olive Garden represents the epitome of classy Italian dining, I was always willing to give my grandmother a pass. The lady was 82, you know? She can like whatever spaghetti she damn well pleases. And she was more cultured than anyone I knew, despite living in a town with very little of it; she went out of her way to experience the arts & film & music (are those "the arts"?), so she deserved a pass on processed pasta.

Nathan & I had dinner at Basil T's last weekend for Jersey Shore Restaurant Week, which is patently not Olive Garden but rather an upscale Italian establishment that is, as it happens, approximately 30 steps from the front door of our apartment (-so it cannot be said that we were going out of our way to experience classy Italian dining, but I can't help it if we live someplace awesome). As we were being seated, I caught a glimpse of the dessert tray: mini cannolis & tiramisu & a chocolate torte & some apple thing & God know what other confectionery delights that would absolutely crush my Weight Watchers daily points allowance.

As I caught a glimpse of this decadent dessert tray, I remembered this time when I was a kid, & I was at Olive Garden with my family because grandma loved it (& probably I did, too, so I shouldn't be all high & mighty on this one). As we were being seated, we walked right past the dessert tray, & do you know what my grandmother did? She wasn't even that old at the time, maybe in her late 60s or something, so there's really no excuse for this: She stuck her index finger into a piece of fancy-looking mint chocolate cake, just plop! right into the middle of it. And the icing sort of squelched out with out around her finger as it went in, just like that, because cake is obviously a really soft matter, & apparently my grandma used some force with that dessert poke.

Staring at that piece of cake, I was mortified: "Why would you do that?!" I asked her, & when I looked up to face her, I found her looking back at me, mouth open, eyes wide, just as mortified - & maybe even a little bit more.

"I thought it was fake!" she exclaimed. "I thought it was fake! I just... oh, why would I think it was fake?!"

And we laughed & we laughed, & I remember thinking that this was such an absurd thing to do & my grandmother was not at all an absurd person. But she was like that sometimes, a little bit unexpected, this classy, artsy woman who painted watercolors & loved the orchestra & drove 45 minutes away to Dayton to see movies that didn't make it to the one theater in her small town, but sometimes she'd just do something a little bit wacky like that, like sticking her finger in a piece of cake because she assumed it was made of plastic - which is an absurd assumption in itself, & even if it were plastic, why poke it? But it still makes me laugh, even as I write this, & I can hear her voice, her laugh, her horror at realizing her mistake.

Dessert trays have always reminded me of her, ever since then, which feels like my whole life. I cannot remember a time I looked at a restaurant's dessert tray & didn't recall my grandmother plopping her finger into a piece of mint chocolate cake.

It has been 365 days since my grandmother died, & I miss her every day. I still think, "I should call Grandma. It's been awhile," before I catch myself & realize that it will always have been awhile, from here on out. Sometimes I miss her so much I can feel it, like my body is closing in around my heart & I can't breathe, can't imagine that she's really gone for good & that this is just what life looks like now, without her, forever. And I know she'd hate to see us crying about her, crying at all, because as far as I can recall throughout my whole life, my grandmother almost never cried. But she did laugh, & she made me laugh, even when she didn't mean to, so I'm telling you this dessert tray story & hoping you'll laugh, too. Because it hurts so badly some days that I just don't know what else to do.

Read More

Positively Ageless: A Tribute to my Grandmother

Positively Ageless: A Tribute to my Grandmother

Thursday, April 12, 2012

No comments

My grandma died on Tuesday after a brave go-round with a rare form of lung cancer. She was 82 years old & still full of spunk, even at the end.

I keep telling myself that for a woman as on-the-go as she was, it must've been agonizing to be confined to a hospital bed, at the mercy of others for everything from using the restroom to brushing her teeth to filling a glass of water. It's better, then, that she went out near the top of her game, only a few months into what could very well have become a long, drawn-out battle. We all expected her to pull through this challenge, so it still feels freshly shocking that she's truly gone - but if the options were death or a loss of her dignity, I know she would've chosen the former.

I flew home on Wednesday to be with my family at my grandma's home in Lima, Ohio. The funeral was held this morning, with a burial at the Jewish section of the local cemetery, where her husband & parents are all laid to rest. It was a moving, meaningful ceremony, conducted by her favorite rabbi & attended by more than 50 of her friends & family members, a tribute to the full & busy life she led.

I had the honor of delivering one of four eulogies for my grandmother, joined at the podium by my two younger cousins. Though it took me nearly 48 hours to figure out how to appropriately pay tribute to the most amazing woman I know, I found that once I discovered the words, the delivery was the easy part. The mourners in attendance laughed as much as they cried; together, we celebrated the beautiful, long life of a woman who loved nothing more than being alive.

The full text of my eulogy is below, & I hope it gives you a sense of the kind of woman my grandmother was. To say she will be missed is an understatement; to say she will continue to be loved is even more of one.

I spent the last 48 hours agonizing over what to say in a eulogy for my grandmother. What could I possibly say? How could I narrow it down? Last night, I found inspiration in an unexpected place. As I rummaged through my her vanity for a nail file, I came across a drawer full of moisturizer called "Positively Ageless." Simple as it was, I was struck by it because I realized that that was exactly the phrase I was looking for to describe my grandmother: "Positively ageless."

I distinctly remember being nine years old and at the Ohio State Fair with my grandparents, who let me stop to play one of those guessing games, where you get a prize if the fair employee guesses your age incorrectly. The guy guessed my grandma's age at 51; she was 64. But it wasn't just her youthful looks that made her ageless; it was also her outlook & her active lifestyle. My grandma wasn't one for naps or sleeping in; to her, life was worth waking up early for, & she always said, "I'll sleep when I'm dead." When other grandmas were baking comfort foods like chocolate chip cookies, mine was making things that were a little bit more unconventional, like soy chili and lemon sorbet. When other grandmas were curled up in front of fireplaces knitting, mine was walking miles a day, traveling all 50 states & across the world, to Japan & Greece & Israel & beyond. When other grandmas were slow-paced & laid-back, mine was living her life full steam ahead.

My grandma was a character in the very best kind of way. She was a fantastic, talented, creative painter, and her basement was filled with watercolors and supplies and dozens of works of art in progress. She was a bit of a neat freak, & whenever she came to visit my mom & me, she'd clean our home so well that we'd be unable to find anything for weeks after she left. She was thoughtful: For more than a decade, she sent me Milk ads torn out of all her magazines for my ever-growing collection, and she wrote me a check at every holiday, even Halloween. She went by her middle name, like me, but didn’t think it was a problem, like I do; when I was a teenager, she accompanied me to the DMV to argue with them when they refused to put my middle name on my driver’s license – and, of course, she convinced them to change their minds. A proud liberal, my grandma campaigned for John Kerry & Barack Obama, even in conservative little Lima, & she regularly sent letters of political protest to her Republican Congressman. She was on the board of the Friends of Lima Public Library & of Temple Israel Shaare Zedek, &between those & her other commitments, it sometimes seemed like she knew everyone in town. She was funny, too, whether intentionally or not, & one of my favorite memories is of the time I asked her for a plain bagel, & she told me, “Oh, I have something similar. It’s called an everything bagel. You just brush the stuff off," which I pointed out to her was the exact opposite of a plain bagel. Headstrong, whip-smart, & more than a little stubborn, my grandma was the matriarch of our little family - but she was also our peacekeeper, our cheerleader, & our friend.

Cliche though it may be, I will always remember my grandmother as someone who truly lived her life to the fullest. This is a common thing for people to say about their loved ones, but in this case, it couldn’t be more true: My grandma was one of the most incredible people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, much less of being related to, & we are all better off for having known her. She was an active participant in her own life, & she refused to let age or even illness affect her relentless optimism - something we could all take a lesson from. Instead of sitting back and letting time pass her by, she seized – and created – opportunities for learning and adventure.

Cancer may have caused my grandmother’s death, but it certainly didn’t take her life. She was, in a phrase, "positively ageless."

Read More

Words for Times When There Are No Words

Words for Times When There Are No Words

Sunday, February 26, 2012

No comments

My grandmother is 82 & has always been the healthiest, most with-it person I know. When other grandmas were baking cookies, mine was making zesty lemon sorbet with me, complete with little pieces of the peel in it. When other grandmas were curled up in front of fireplaces knitting, mine was walking miles a day, traveling all 50 states in the country & all across the world, to Japan & Greece & Israel & beyond. When other grandmas were being old & crotchety, my grandmother was busy living her life, not giving a damn about age or any other societally imposed restrictions upon her active life.

My grandma is a character in the very best way. She sends me Milk ads torn out of all her magazines. She once told me that Rooney reminds her of the Beatles. She writes me a check at every holiday, even Halloween. She does not cry, ever. She goes by her middle name, like me, but doesn't think it's a problem, like I do. She says crazy, hilarious things. She campaigned for John Kerry & Barack Obama & regularly sends letters of political disgust to her conservative Congressman. She is a Scrabble master. She emails my coworkers when she admires their work. She is on the board of the local library & synagogue, a small-town celebrity. She is a fantastic, talented, creative painter. She bought my non-Jewish boyfriend an argyle sweater for Christmas. She pre-toasts bagels & leaves them in a basket on the kitchen table for late risers like me.

It is the summer of 2011 when my grandma begins to experience severe shoulder & elbow pain that keep her awake at night, reducing her to tears I've never seen her cry & leaving her no choice but to take painkillers she otherwise avoids. At my cousin's wedding in Chicago in July, my grandma is all smiles as she reunites with her cousin, two old ladies remembering their pasts & marveling at their presents - but when no one but my mom & I is looking, she dissolves into an uncharacteristic mess of pain & sleeplessness. A doctor has told her that the pain likely stemms from a torn rotator cuff, bursitis, tennis elbow, & to come back in two months; in two months, I tell her, an 81-year-old woman could be dead. "Find another doctor," we insist.

She does. They run tests: blood tests, breath tests, tests I can’t pronounce. “Emphysema,” they tell her, “and COPD,” but neither of those explains excruciating shoulder pain - & nothing explains why a healthy woman with no history of smoking would end up with lung diseases like that. So they keep looking, kept testing, & we keep waiting.

“They found a spot on grandma’s lung,” my mother tells me on the phone one day, & I ask her to just keep talking - don't stop, don't give me time to cry. When we hang up - the connection lost, my façade undone - I spend two hours in bed alone, sobbing. Over the course of the next few days, weeks, months, the details became clearer: a Pancoast tumor, "also called a pulmonary sulcus tumor or superior sulcus tumor, is a tumor of the pulmonary apex." In other words, lung cancer, the rare kind; Pancoast tumors comprise fewer than 5% of all lung cancers. Survival rate is approximately 15%.

"I'm going to fight it," my grandmother says, because that's how she is. Even at 81, there's no chance she'd go quietly into the night, so the woman who never cries commits to chemo & radiation in strong doses, both at the same time, to try to shrink the tumor before doctors can attempt to remove it. Her children make visitation rotation plans, hire my aunt's friend as a part-time caregiver for the times when they can't be in town. The week of her 82nd birthday, she begins treatment.

It has been four weeks since my grandmother began treatment, more than half a year since that wedding in Chicago that saw her unable to sleep for the pain. Four months since we learned that her sickness had a name my family knows all too well: cancer. She has not yet lost her hair, but a wig is on standby; she no longer wakes up early or stays up late, taken down by the illness that now consumes her body & her mind. Last week, she woke up & couldn't move, used her LifeLine to call for help. This week, she did not recognize my mother's voice across the phone lines.

"I can't believe she's going to die like this," I say to my mother, "& she is. Going to die from this." My mother confirms what I've feared all along. She asks me not to come home, not to see my grandmother this way, to remember her as she was when I last saw her, at Thanksgiving, before the cancer had taken hold. But all I can think about is that at Thanksgiving, I fought with my grandmother about God knows what, something unimportant; I fought with my grandmother as though she wasn't sick, as though there would be more days, more years, more Thanksgivings. When we said goodbye at the airport, I never dreamed it would be the last time I saw her. I knew she had cancer, but I never thought it might be the end of her.

My grandmother is the healthiest person I know.

My grandmother is dying.

Read More

Still Cynical But Always Thankful

Still Cynical But Always Thankful

Thursday, November 25, 2010

8 comments

Here I am in Lima, Ohio, home to my lovely grandmother & also the setting for "Glee." I woke up at 10:30 & missed most of the parade; now, I'm listening to my mom, grandma & aunt prepare Thanksgiving dinner, & the converstion is going something like this:

Grandma: "I feel like the turkey is my friend."

Mom: "Well... so long, friend."

Because posts titled "Thankful" are all the rage throughout the blogosphere on Thanksgiving Day, I figured I ought to join in the fun. So on this day, Thanksgiving 2010, I'm thankful...

• that winter weather makes it acceptable for me to be a homebody.
• that I have a boyfriend who actually wants to get up at 4a.m. to go Black Friday shopping, or at least tells me he does.
• that my grandma bakes a mean poppyseed honey cake &, relatedly, that I don't need to be drug-tested anytime soon.
• that my half-Jewish, half-Gentile family compromises & exchanges holiday gifts tomorrow evening.
• that my family loves my boyfriend so much that it's even making them like me more.
• that I still get cell phone service in the boonies of Ohio.
• that my oversized GAP cardigan that will hide all most Thanksgiving-induced stomach bulges. And most stomach bulges that are not Thanksgiving-induced.
• that my family no longer forces me to "just try!" the turkey. Or the stuffing. Or the rutabagas. Or anything that's not the rolls & the marshmallow salad. (Please see previous bullet point.)

And on the more serious side,

• that I was able to quit a job that wasn't right for me without having to also start living on the streets.
• that I can live in my mom's house while I figure my life out, even if it sometimes resembles an episode of "Hoarders" & is always at least three degrees too hot or too cold for my liking.
• that I'm not flat broke yet. Yet.
• that I actually do love Ohio just as much as I thought I did.
• that I still have a handful of really truly good friends back in my hometown who I can talk to about everything from politics to Disney princesses. And of course, whatever comes between.
• that I have more than a handful of really truly good friends in D.C. & across the country, even in foreign lands like Rwanda & Brooklyn, who I hope I always consider the best of the best.

And on an even more serious side (HOW MANY SIDES DOES THANKSGIVING HAVE?),

• that I had the opportunity to spend three rich, happy years in the District that changed me for the better - and for good.
• that I took it upon myself to create the opportunity to start something new, whatever it may be. And to keep changing & growing & loving & learning.

Happy Thanksgiving, kids.

Read More

And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going

And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

17 comments

I got my first two pieces of mail at my new/old place - one was "No Country for Old Men" from Netflix, & the other was a card from my grandma. You remember her, right? (I know. How could you forget?!)

In this card, my grandma expressed a concern that seems to be common among some of the readers of this here blog:

Yes, a number of you have asked me if I plan to stop blogging now that I'm out of D.C. Whew! I guess I did a good job of working the city-living angle, huh?

But let's back up. In 2007, I started this blog as a space to tell stories about my crazy new life in the capital. Stories like:

• The time a dude threatened to kill me on the Metro & another dude stepped in to save me
• The time I thought I was robbed by a soft-spoken, middle-aged woman who spoke little English
• The time I called the cops because my car had been stolen, except it hadn't been

I guess I'm a story-teller by nature, & I wanted to put all of these to paper so I could look back on them fondly later on down the road. Maybe "fondly" isn't the right word for death threats. You get the idea.

The blog became a place where I wrote about other things, too, like my battles with feisty vermin such as centipedes & roaches, my sometimes-wacky trips home to Ohio & to other places like Philly & California, my love/hate relationship with D.C.'s constant gaggle of tourists, & a few serious things, too, like my dad's cancer & my ex-boyfriend's suicide. And, of course, I still tell stories. Like the time I lost all my pants. But they're stories about all kinds of things, not just D.C.'s many quirks, because I have a tendency to stumble into ridiculous situations, no matter the city.

The fact that so many people feared I'd shut down this space after leaving the District actually comforts me; it means I've done my job well, steered this blog in the direction I'd aimed for, made it look like I had some sense of purpose. It also means that I'm not speaking into a black hole, which is, you know, really nice. Thanks for liking me, seriously.

But you can't get rid of me that easily.

Will the focus change? Sure. Then again, it's always changing. Do I have any what I'm going to write about tomorrow? No, especially because I plan to spend the day locked up in a back room at the library applying for jobs, which isn't the stuff titillating blog posts are made of. But that's not the point. The point is that, you know, I'll still be here. And I'll still be telling you stories, even if they're not D.C.-centric anymore. And I hope you'll stay with me.

All that said, I'd love to hear what you want to hear from me. What do you wish you read more of on Suburban Sweetheart? Let me know in the comments or in this fancy poll I'm quite excited to have created. Even you lurkers can play along! The poll is 100% anonymous, so I have no way of knowing you've stopped by.  Your anonymity is safe (& maybe creepy, but I respect your Internet-assured right to creepitude).

Anyway. Tell me stuff. Me love you long time.

Read More

Grandmaisms, The Sequel

Grandmaisms, The Sequel

Friday, June 19, 2009

5 comments

My grandmother is in town! Before posting tonight's entry, I read back through my first "Grandmaisms," the last post I wrote about the amazing matriarch of my little family - & I laughed hysterically, especially at the bagel comment, which is still my absolute favorite thing she's ever said. Fear not, though: She's only been in the District for a mere 28 hours & already she's provided me with quite a few comedic gems. Enjoy!

• After I bumped into her while we were both putting our makeup on in the bathroom & apologized: "It's OK! My bum just wanted to say hello to your bum."
  
  
• While walking through the Cleveland Park Metro station looking at the ground: "You always have to look where you're walking in case there might be some spit."
  
  
• Stopping by my office before finally grabbing a very late lunch: "I like that time before I eat when I'm REALLY hungry. It makes me feel thin."
  
  
• Sitting at a bus stop: "Are you sure this is a bus stop?"
  
  
• Checking out the bus driver's neon orange & yellow WMATA vest: "I thought that was some jazzy African cloth, but it turned out just to be her bus driver attire. I almost asked her where she got it. I'm glad I didn't!"
  
  
• After my observation that California Tortilla's new teriyaki burrito sounds absolutely foul: "Well, that's a bastard child if I ever saw one."

Not wanting her photo taken:


But payback's a bitch:


But let's get serious. I got some good genes!

Read More