What Am I Missing?

You know when you’ve lived somewhere all of your life and realize that you haven’t done most of the things tourists do when they come to your fair city?  Watching the Thanksgiving Day parade, I realized just that.  With the most fabulous city in the world—sorry, San Francisco; pardon, Paris—right in my backyard, I realized with shock that I am a lousy New Yorker.

Or, as many a jaded New Yorker might say, just a normal one.

I had the pleasure of visiting the lovely Laura Bradford last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, and asked her what her holiday plans were. 

“We are going to the parade in the morning,” she said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

See, I’m a native New Yorker.  We hate traffic. We loathe crowds.  We avoid both like the proverbial plague.  We opt, instead, to watch parade organizers blow up the balloons for the parade rather than stand in a crowd watching aforementioned balloons drift by.  We do not go to the parade.  (Or at least this native doesn’t.)  I looked at her as if she had just said, “we’re going to search for the Loch Ness monster and then look at the eclipse without sunglasses.”

Then I realized that going to the parade sounded like a whole heck of a lot of fun, crowds and traffic be damned.  The Bradford clan had the right idea:  do this quintessential New York thing and enjoy yourself while doing it!  Now there was a novel idea, foreign to many New Yorkers.

If it weren’t for my kids’ class trips, I never would have been to Ellis Island and even though my grandparents didn’t come through its hallowed (and kind of scary) halls, it was still fascinating to visit. If it hadn’t been for a friend who worked at Windows of the World, I never would have been inside the North Tower of the Twin Towers (as we New Yorkers always called them back in the day).  A work event brought me to South Street Seaport—in 1989 and never since.  Am I lazy?  Disinterested?  Hard to know.  But I do think I need to see some of our city’s amazing sites and participate in some of its special yearly occurrences.  I am making a resolution in 2013 to do just that.

It got me thinking about the other things that are truly New York and what make our city special.  Here’s a list of things that I haven’t done:

1.     Climbed to the top of the Empire State Building.  Sure, I’ve passed it a hundred times or more while walking to another destination but I’ve never been inside its art deco walls or even climbed to the top. 

2.     Been to Coney Island.  And I’m from Brooklyn originally!  Of course, Coney Island may need a few months to get itself back up and running after Hurricane Sandy but a visit to the Boardwalk and the famed aquarium are definitely in the cards for the new year.

3.     Taken the Staten Island Ferry.  From what I gather, there is no better view of Manhattan island than from the bow of the Staten Island Ferry.  And it’s cheap!  Like a dollar or some ridiculous sum.  Why haven’t I been on the ferry?  Why haven’t I taken the kids?

4.     Visited the Intrepid.  I’ve driven down the West Side Highway a thousand times and every time, I think, “We should really go to the Intrepid.” But we never have?  Why?  Nobody knows.

5.     Walk along the Highline.  In my defense, this is a fairly new attraction but at least 90% of my friends—and their kids—have been to the Highline.  Not us!  Why?  Again, we are not sure.  Heck, it’s tough to get out of the attic (where I write); it’s even tougher to draft reluctant family members from the couch.  But we will walk the Highline in 2013.  Mark my words.

So, Stiletto friends, what fantastic sites or events in your neck of the woods have you missed?  Why?

(Oh, and by the way, EXTRA CREDIT, the seventh installment in the Alison Bergeron/Murder 101 series, publishes next Tuesday, December 4th.  Something tells me there will be a contest shortly...check back for details!)

Maggie Barbieri

Post-Sandy Reflections

My last blog post romanticized waiting for the storm to hit.  We had wine, chocolate, and enough junk food to last a few days, so what was the problem exactly?  The problem was that the power went out and didn’t come back on for nine days. 

And we were the lucky ones.

I learned a few things during that time and they are listed below:

1.     The radio comes in handy.  I, like most Americans, listen to the radio while driving.  Otherwise, I have my iPod in, controlling the music I want to listen to, or I’m watching television. To be completely dependent on the radio for a link to the outside world was something that I hadn’t experienced ever.  My son certainly hadn’t.  He and I stuck it out until Election Night when we decided that we couldn’t take the sub-freezing temperatures in the house anymore, sleeping my big bed with our animals, listening to either news radio or sports radio until we fell asleep.  In the dark, our breath coming out in freezing puffs, we lay there and listened to the stories of people far worse off than we were as well as updates on the subways, commuter trains, and businesses in and around New York City.

2.     Living in a house that relies completely on electricity is a bad thing.  I thought of this while I stood in front of the barbecue grill, making the dog’s special food (she’s on a diet for her skin allergies that requires me to cook for her) in a frying pan. I lamented the fact that every appliance in our house runs on electricity, even the stove.  Many of my friends have gas running into their house so never lost hot water or their stoves; many, like me rely completely on electrical power.  Others, in the worst-off category, have well water and hence, couldn’t flush their toilets for up to twelve days, depending on where they lived and how quickly the local power company restored their power.  The situation at my house, however, prompted me to go to Home Depot and snag the last generator that apparently existed: one that had been returned by a neighbor of mine (I didn’t know at the time that I bought it that it had been hers), the timing of which coincided with my desperate visit.  Now we have a gas-powered generator that will help out during storms but living in an old house without a garage means nowhere to store it.

3.     Don’t underestimate the luxury of showering in your own house.  We were lucky enough to have family members and friends who did have hot water; unfortunately, going to one of their homes meant driving, in one’s pajamas, and bringing clean clothes and toiletries along for the rid.  After the thought of doing so on day five seemed too daunting, I decided I would be brave and take a cold shower, something hubby and child #2 listened to with glee; heck, the sounds I made were better than anything they were listening to on the radio.  Once you have taken a cold shower and you stop shivering, you do feel refreshed.  However, your feet are numb for most of the day and your hair really isn’t very clean. But at least you aren’t driving in your slippers, looking for a place to land.  There’s that.

4.     You start to go a little crazy.  I was fine from day one until day seven.  On day eight, I snapped.  I’m not sure what it was about that point in time, but it was on that day that I was officially broken.  I had sworn I wasn’t going to leave the house before power was restored but with the temperatures dipping into the twenties for the second night in a row, I realized I couldn’t take it anymore. It was election night and I didn’t even see the returns for some of the early-voting states before my head hit the pillow at my in-laws and I fell asleep, in a warm house, for the first time in over a week.  (We got power back the next day at 11 a.m.)

5.     People are wonderful.  It’s sappy and clichéd but people really do come together in a crisis.  Granted, no one here in my little village lost their home and the damage was relegated to trees and felled power lines and telephone polls, but people really stepped up the generosity and opened their doors to their cold, unshowered neighbors.  And two organizations in our village organized pot-luck suppers for people who still didn’t have power and wanted hot, home-cooked food, events that remind you that we’re all in this together.  It was an especially good reminder during an election week when the vitriol dial was turned to “11.”  Although we were uncomfortable and didn’t have our creature comforts for far longer than was acceptable, for a few days, we had each other and that reminded me of why I live here.

My heart goes out to the people who lost homes, and even worse, family members. Not having television made it hard to picture the devastation but once power was returned and I started seeing what had actually happened, I was overwhelmed.  I spent a lot of my formative years at the Jersey Shore and realize that it will never be the same.  But I hope we can build back these beautiful areas of the East Coast and hopefully weather more storms that are sure to come our way.

Maggie Barbieri

Social Media and the Art of the Reasoned Debate

Is it my imagination or does everyone seem to be at cross purposes these days, lambasting one another for their tightly held ideals, political views, and opinions?  Has social media made it appropriate—if not convenient—to start political debates that go nowhere fast?

Count me out.

Put simply:  I read Facebook for the updates on what everyone had for dinner, cute kitten pictures, funny memes, and George Takei’s thoughts on life.  If you’re going to spew about this candidate or another—or God forbid, any of their spouses—please keep the vitriol to yourself, because I am just not interested.  Consider yourself not “unfriended but “hidden.”

I know for a fact that a few of my fellow Stiletto wearers feel the same way based on what they have posted on their own pages.  And one, in particular, agrees with me on this point:  you’re not going to change anyone’s mind, so just leave it alone.

I read a fascinating interview in O Magazine last night that really drove this point home for me.  Donna Brazile, a woman who has worked on dozens of Democratic political campaigns and who helmed Al Gore’s presidential campaign, and Mary Matalin, spouse of Clinton friend James Carville but a staunch conservative, are best friends.  Crazy, right?  Well, turns out that they do discuss politics and other charged topics but they both know that their hearts are in the right place and that their opinions stem from individual lives lived with sincerity.  They discuss topics but never try to change each other’s minds and if they are to be believed—and I have no reason not to believe them given the frankness of their answers—they do not go for each other’s jugular if they disagree.  They have dinner together, they travel together, they drink together, they even dance together, yet fall on completely opposite sides of every imaginable political issue.

Mature, right?

The one thing that struck me about the interview was that the women still had high standards when it came to good taste and manners.  They felt that discussing politics without bringing respect and politeness to the conversation was the height of rudeness, something their mothers would not condone.  Stirring the pot at a cocktail party, in their opinions (and mine), was just in bad taste.  Finding a proper forum—and having a discussion with the proper decorum—was what made a good debate.  Yelling, talking over someone, or spouting negativity in the name of supporting one’s ideals…not so much.  And this applied equally to face-to-face discussions and those that take place virtually.

I am a fan of social media.  It makes life for someone like me—an extrovert who works alone and at home—more enjoyable.  I love seeing what everyone has to say about what they’ve got going on in their lives.  What I don’t love is talk of politics of any ilk, particularly when it is filled with half-truths, disparaging comments and an assumption that if you’re on the other side of the debate, well, you must be just plain dumb.  (And this applies to both left-leaners and right-leaners.)  We all bring our own life experience to bear on our beliefs and that doesn’t make them right or wrong—just ours.

So, if I haven’t commented on Facebook your definition of socialism or redistribution, or given my opinion on how 5 trillion dollars can be cut from the federal budget, or discussed how I feel about birth control and who should pay for it, it just means that I’m staring at a cute photo of a kitten tucked into the warm cocoon that its mother has made for it.  Or that you’ve been “hidden.” Don't worry:  once the election is over, we'll all be friends again and you can unhide me, too.

Maggie Barbieri

The END

I have a joke with a few of the writers here on Stiletto that when I’m just about to get to the end of a manuscript but have run out of ideas, my inclination—one that I have never acted on, by the way—is to write “and then they all died.”  Because let’s face it, by the time you’ve written eighty thousand words or so, you are bone tired.  Tired of your keyboard, tired of your characters, tired of finding new ways to say “murdered.” (I personally like “bought it.”)  Eventually, knowing that that is not an acceptable way to end a story, you walk away from your computer and figure out how to tie up the loose ends by not killing all of your major characters, and by extension, your writing career.

I happened upon this topic because I just read a recently published book that skyrocketed to the top of the bestseller list, loving every single page, every single word until I got to the last chapter.  Then, the book completely fell apart for me, no resolution to the main conflict that existed for the better part of four hundred words.  Several friends and even my mother read this book and I anxiously awaited their comments when they finished.  They were all the same:

Loved the book.  Hated the ending.

Now don’t get me wrong:  I don’t necessarily like everything tied up in a very neat bow, every single loose end resolved in such a way that there is nary a question or concern upon my finishing of a book.  However, I do expect some justice for the aggrieved, some sort of comeuppance for the perpetrator, so to be left hanging leaves me feeling…well, for lack of a better word…aggrieved.  Obviously, though, in the case of the aforementioned bestseller, the author didn’t feel the same way, nor did their editor, I can only assume.  They both thought that the non-resolution brought forth by the main characters was suitable, maybe more like life itself? I’m not sure.  But it did leave a bad taste in my mouth, but not completely diminishing the joy that I felt while reading the book.

The ending of this book didn’t approach my favorite “and then they all died” ending but more like “and they lived…maybe not happily…maybe not forever…but at least for a little while.”  It was interesting to me that my visceral response was shared by everyone I knew who read the book as well as a bunch of really ticked off online reviewers whose consternation practically jumped off the screen.

How do you feel when you finish a book and are dissatisfied with the ending?  Does it affect future purchases of the same author’s books? Would it drive you to post a vitriolic rant on Amazon?  Would it depend on just how unsatisfying the ending was?

Maggie Barbieri

You Can't Have It Both Ways

I tripped over the skateboard in the front hallway and cursed under my breath thinking about what I would say to child #2 when I finally saw him.  “Get that damned skateboard out of the hallway!” was my first choice, something that would be followed by a litany of other crimes against humanity he had perpetrated with his strewn-about cleats, sneakers, and pieces of sports equipment.

Then, I stopped myself.

Yes, I’m the same woman who has been bemoaning the fact that child #1 leaves for college in less than two weeks, and about how fast it all went.  The same woman who laments that she wishes she could stop time and get her babies back.  I stopped, put the skateboard back where it was, and took a deep breath.  In a couple of years, unless Jim and/or I take up skateboarding, there will be no more skateboards in the front hall, no Converse All-Stars to trip over, no crumbs strewn across the countertop in the kitchen after someone makes a sandwich or a snack.

You can’t have it both ways.

You can’t complain about the trappings of childhood while feeling bereft about how fleeting it is.  When I think about it that way, the minor annoyances that living with children bring—no one walking the dog, stuff everywhere, dirt underfoot—now seem as trivial as they should be all the time. While they are growing up and getting older—as they should be—they are still residents here and with that comes a lot of stuff, some of seemingly annoying, but for now, I’ll take it.

A lot of my Stiletto brethren have gone through the process of letting go, so my question today is:  how do you make it easier to get through the happiest times in your child’s life while dealing with your own sadness? In other words, how do you not ruin everything with your own selfish musings on how quickly childhood goes?

Maggie Barbieri