Knowing when to say when...

I have always loved the fashion do's and don'ts in Glamor magazine. Granted, Lady Gaga seems to have used the don'ts to fuel her career, but most of us can't pull off meat dresses or pink vinyl hot pants.

Or chaps.

Motorcycle culture has always fascinated me. James Dean, Marlon Brandon, Elvis. There is something about a black leather motorcycle jacket that transcends trends. They're like a LBD or a Channel suit. You can dress them up or dress them down. Motorcycle leathers seem to get better with age and use.

Well sort of.

I have to admit I'm more of a sports bike kinda gal. Fast boys, not fat boys. Not Gold Wing, but Ducati. Sheesh, my one dog is even named after Valentino Rossi. I like my leathers armored, not dripping Swarovski crystals.

Back to chaps and my Saturday morning shudder. Saturday mornings are reserved for running errands - the bank, drug store, farmer's market. In the epicenter of all these stops is my local Harley Davidson dealer. Lucky me, they were having their open house. People in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s all living out their Easy Rider dream.

Would that they had all stayed at the Harley dealer. But no, they wandered into my flight path.

Spotted at my local Walgreens. Two older (like late 60s, early 70s older) folks. A man and woman. Both in brand spanking new motorcycle leathers. His were simpler, more basic. Black leather jacket, matching plain leather chaps, skinny old man butt and slight beer belly. HD baseball cap to cover his bald spot. Her...OMG, her get-up! I could smell how new her jacket was! Indian beaded design on the back, fringe, metal studs. And her flat butt in expensive-looking bedazzled jeans, fashion studded chaps, matching handbag, high heeled ankle boots. Over processed blond hair, tinted glasses with HD logos on the temples.

And their bike? Who knows. I spotted them leaving the Walgreens in their Buick Enclave crossover. I guess you really need those chaps on your heated leather seats.

Know when to say when. Botox if you have to, a little nip and tuck if you dare. But please leave the costumes for Halloween.

And the biker gear to bikers.

It's a love/hate thing

Someone once told me shame was an internal emotion, one we force on ourselves. Guilt, that great motivator, is external, caused by others. Food for thought during the traditional end of the year holiday season.

I'm Jewish, but I have a tree. And a menorah. I hang stockings for my dogs, I place a wreath on my door. Am I guilty of being a bad Jew? I don't think so. I think I suffer the shame of failing to be Martha Stewart on a shoe string budget. I don't have the motor skills to create a Tiffany-style stained glass menorah and artisan bee wax candles or make nouveau latkes with four different types of organic potatoes.

Like many Americans, I am part of a blended family. My parents are Jewish, my brothers Jewish. And their wives are...their wives. One is Jewish (the one with tattoos!), the other two Catholic, one far more orthodox in her faith. Only one of my nieces is being raised a Jew, the rest are being raised Christian. I send birthday gifts and tend to avoid the "which holiday do you celebrate" thing. At least they all love shoes.

Traditionally, I've had a love/hate thing with the holidays. Hanukkah never was a big deal growing up. Potato pancakes, birthday candles substituted for the real thing, a few lame songs about dreidels. Nothing like the lights and pageantry that my Christian friends and neighbors had. We had eight mystical days of lights, they had a holiday that started the day after Thanksgiving and lasted until the college bowl games were over.

Then I got wise. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. The end of the year is about enjoying the gifts of friendship, the seasonal foods, yes even fruitcake, and shopping strategy.

I did my time in retail, first as a clerk in high school, then as a store manager after college. For me, Thanksgiving was a day filled with angst. Not worrying about how dry the turkey was going to be or if I had finally mastered the fine art of gravy, but the silent dread of Black Friday and knowing I had had my last 6 hours of sleep in a row until after inventory.

I ran away to the Car Carnival and spent my holidays on the road. Halloween in Birmingham, watching scary movies on TV and wearing fangs with my Oldsmobile suit, Thanksgiving in San Francisco, eating late dinner at the Palace Hotel Bar, under the Maxfield Parish "Pied Piper" mural. Christmas was spent at an airport, winging my way to our nation's capital for the last auto show of the year. New Year's Eve in Georgetown bars, Easter in New York, watching the Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue.

This year, as I tuned out the holiday displays in August at my local Target, the Christmas carols at Halloween at Kohls and Black Friday deals on the Internet, I am secretly glad I can chose to opt out of the holiday madness. No one is going to make me feel guilty about not buying into the myth.

My One True Love

My one true love is leaving me soon. I know it, they know it and we are coming to terms with it.

14 years ago, I bought my first house. I had help from my mom, but this was my house, mine to decorate and populate as I saw fit. I moved in with all my books, clothes and a bird. A bird I had given my brother as a gift that somehow found its way back to me. Yet something was missing. A dog. My dog, Lily Marie.

She was born on Easter Sunday, in the dining room of a house on a nearby lake. Her mother was a pure breed Border Collie that climbed a 6’ fence to get out and party with the neighborhood Black Lab. She’s always been more Border Collie than Lab. She refuses to discuss her mother’s torrid past.

I’ve had a dog since I was 10. First a German Shepard mix named Woof. Then came 25 years of German Shorthairs: Belle Von der Nacht, her son Ch. Snert of Hagar, his daughter Gnomie, a mixed breed called Bell , a GSP rescue Klaus. Old age, cancer and a car ended their lives. I was there in the beginning for a few, in the end for a few and deeply touched by all, but none meant as much to me as my current dog Lily, not even my beloved show dog, Snert.

Lily is dying. I know that. She does too. She’s not ready to go, she just accepting of the process I’m struggling with. She is so very Zen, my rock, my touchstone. She has been there through jobs, men, cars, my own poor health, family craziness and celebrations. She is the smartest dog I’ve ever had. I trust her to tell me when is she is done being old and sick and slow. When car rides aren’t fun, pizza no longer makes her dance with joy and she is ready to finally meet Snert.

She’s here now, lying next to my chair as I type this. Her love and support has always been the quite kind. No cuddling or big wet kisses, no sleeping on my bed. She is content to be nearby, waiting, watching. I remember when she was a puppy and I was housebreaking her. She’d stand by the backdoor, starring at me with that Border Collie look. I don’t think I trained her, she accepted the rules that suited her need for structure and order.

We've fought cancer the last three years. We're holding our own in that fight. We're fighting irritating eye issues now. Eye drops, pills, creams and a small surgery, all in hope of keeping her eye. Her eyes are such a big part of who she is. They are how she communicates, expresses her disdain, orders her pack around.

I'm barely hanging on financially. 18 months out of work, COBRA and unemployment running out. Working 5 small jobs to keep my house, pay my bills. I will sell everything I own, every last piece of jewelry, every antique to keep Lily comfortable until she is ready. She has given me so much these last 14 years, it is the very least I can do for her.

As I walked out of the vet today, tears running down my cheeks behind my sunglasses she licked my hand to thank me for still believing in her and trusting her judgment. I can only hope I am granted my last gift to her. Please let Miss Lily die in her sleep, curled up by her hose, hiding in her jungle.

Blogger's Bounty: A Tale of the Self Absorbed

Why is that blogs and bloggers seem so self absorbed? Me, me, mine, my point of view, all about me...it drives me nuts. Sure there are cooking blogs and gardening blogs and parent blogs, but when you distill all blogs down to their purest essence, they are about the blogger.

I've never considered myself self absorbed. I don't like to look deep within myself. I prefer to give advise than take it. I find it difficult to be selfish or even for myself. I'm not saying I'm Mother Theresa or Gandhi or Santa Claus, I'm just not as comfortable about proclaiming my "coolness" as most of the bloggers I follow are.

(You know who you are. Then again, you are too self absorbed to read MY blog.)

Am I shallow? Or prideful or similarly flawed? Of course I am. Do I contemplate my navel trying to discover my "true self". Um, no. Not now, not ever.

I don't read Dr. Wayne Dwyer either. Self help and self loathing are too closely aligned in my mind.

Maybe it's the peasant stock gene kicking in. Ye olde pull yourself up by the boot straps syndrome. I am firmly convinced that it is just as easy to work out a problem weeding flower beds as it is in a formal meditation class. And don't dismiss the healing powers of a nice long soak in the tub. There's a lot to be said for Calgon. Seriously, have you ever heard of anyone suffering a Calgon hangover after a good soak? Sure beats crying in your beer. Ok, so sometimes you start to look like a prune, but no biggie, really.

What prompted this rant? I met an old friend for dinner the other night. There was a time a few years ago we were thick as thieves. We went on a few dates and discovered we made better friends than lovers. I value my friend's opinion, he's not one to blow smoke up your skirt. We spent some time relieving the past and catching each other up on what's new. At one point my friend turned to me and ask when I had become so self absorbed.

I was stunned into silence. That's huge, as I am one of those people that prattles on endlessly about nothing when I am nervous. I read once small people talk about other people, big people talk about ideas. I've become one of the little people, self absorbed and small minded.

Yikes!

Self absorbed? Me? Really?

I guess I better pick up a pallet of Bounty on my next trip to Costco... and the new Wayne Dwyer book.

Snow Days

When I was a kid snow days were different. The snow was deeper, whiter, made better snow balls, snow men and snow forts. I remember snow days playing with my cousins in their backyard during one crazy St. Louis winter and sledding down Ridge Drive the year we moved to Rockville, Maryland. We used to get enough snow in Maryland that Katie, my BFF from Junior High and I would steal candle stubs from our mom's kitchen junk drawers to wax up the runners on the rental sleds at the big toboggan run at the park.

Maybe I should have stuck with it. No luge or skeleton for me, just two man bobsled. I guess I missed my true calling.

The whole "Snowmarmageddon" thing cracked me up. Come on people, they had to call out the Boy Scouts and the National Guard to clear Washington, D.C. for JFK's Inauguration. It snows in DC. It's just that the population of D.C. seems to turn over with every administration, so any hope for a collective memory is lost.

Winters were simpler back then too. People lined their snow boots with Wonder Bread ("builds strong bodies 12 ways") bags back then. No Uggs or high tech boots for us. I am of the pre-moon boot generation, we got cold feet and were proud of it. We knew we had it better than our parents and grandparents, at least we rode the bus to school on non-snow days and didn't have to walk 10 miles uphill in a blizzard to school.

I still enjoy brief moments of that childhood snow day joy. No more bobsleds, now I play Petter Solberg in the snow, testing how brave I really am. Too bad brake pads and tires cost more than mom's old candle ends. It's been a long time since I built a fort or even a snowman. I still throw snow balls for and at the dogs; there's nothing funnier than watching Lily block shots like a hockey goalie or Rossi hunt for the missing "ball".

Next time it snows, I'm going to get out there with the rest of the kids. I'm going to build the biggest snow fort on the block and throw snowballs at people walking down the street.

Now I just need to find some Wonder Bread bags for my boots.

Excuses, rationalizations and other reasons I have not blogged

I always have something to say about everything. So why is it so damn hard for me to keep up with my blog? It is not as if Rossi ate the mouse, I lost power for three weeks, or zombies sucked my brains out.

Well, maybe zombies did suck my brains out. Then again, as Jeff Goldblum said in said in The Big Chill, “I don't know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They're more important than sex.”

I can rationalize anything, except other people’s excuses. After all, America doesn’t run on Dunkin’, it runs on excuses. And the last two weeks have been overflowing with them.

For example, I recently flew to Minneapolis on a fact-finding mission. I am seriously considering relocating there. There’s a lot to like about the Twin Cities: friends, more friends, career opportunities, the arts, the food, and the people. I just needed to find out if I would fit in or feel like a bull in a china shop.

A few glaring differences between here and there really stood out. Actually, the differences between everything east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon Line stood out. People in Minneapolis are nice; people elsewhere make excuses as to why they don’t have to be.

Being the excellent bargain shopper I am, I found a killer cheap flight to MSP from DTW online. Only downside, I had to fly east to Newark to go west to MSP. No harm, no foul. As my friend T reminded me, I have the time (a hidden benefit of unemployment) and certainly could use the extra airline miles.

I get to the airport in Detroit, land of the Christmas Underwear Bomber extra early just in case I have to be strip searched or something. The skycap at the curb suggests I cut through the Westin Hotel to the lesser traveled, faster moving TSA security clearance area. Excellent time, someone going beyond. A good omen, I thought.

I was wrong.

Get to the gate. And wait. And wait some more. Seems the flight has been delayed due to crew issues. Long story short, flight arrives 45 mins late. And air traffic control being the cluster %$^& it is, we board the plane only to sit on the runway another 45 mins because we lost our window to land at Newark. I scramble on my cell to book a new connecting flight to MSP, the 1.5 hr delay guarantees I won’t catch my original flight. I get a new airline CSR on her first week on the job. She takes 20 mins to find me a flight, but can’t get me a seat assignment. After another long hold, a supervisor steps in to do the job. Of course, the excuse becomes air traffic issues at Newark, not airline staffing issues that made us lose our window.

Have I mentioned I hate excuses, especially when they are lies?

Newark. New Jersey. Land of diners and “The Situation”. And incompetent airport staff. I get off my plane, are sent by bus to another terminal to catch my new connection and…wait, my new flight is in the same terminal I just landed in? I get to ride the bus again? And waste more time? And the person behind the airline customer service desk just oozes “whatever”? Note to self, the money saved was not worth the grief earned.

Minneapolis. Finally. Several hours late. Grouchy from living on mini bags of pretzels and gum. Land of a whole bunch of lakes and not too many excuses. A dear friend picks me up, plies me with alcohol and good food before dropping me off at my Minneapolis base camp.

The return trip was a billion times better. When I explained my inbound flight situation to the nice people at the airline customer service desk I got my baggage fee waved and two free meal vouchers. MSP -1. Newark - ZERO.

Now excuses aren’t just an airline thing. I fired my lawn guy for taking advantage of me this past fall. I always thought he mowed too often, shovel snow too often and was not trustworthy. But he is a neighborhood guy and neighbors help neighbor out. That is until they borrow your lawn equipment without asking, without leaving a note or calling your phone. His excuse for his behavior? I did not answer the back door when he knocked. Let’s see, my office is in the front of the house and I was on a conference call. Oh yeah, earning money to pay him.

So what’s my excuse? I was too busy rationalizing my behavior to blog. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And the check is in the mail and I’ll still respect you in the morning.

In the beginning

I’ve done it. Drank the Kool-Aid, taken the plunge, boldly gone where many of my friends have gone before. Ok, I’m not an early adopter, but better late than…nevar. Randomness and ranting suit my personality. Besides, it is free and I have nothing to lose.

I guess I need to explain a few things. Why did I name my blog “Expired Cheese”? One of my dear friends and fellow bloggers, Salacious Bee has a mother that is as wacked out if not more so than mine. This past Thanksgiving, Bee’s mom brought her famous (in her own mind) green bean casserole (made with FRESH green beans) and Cracker Barrel cheese to the family shin dig. Bee’s mom, not to be confused with a REAL queen bee, spent the evening regaling the other dinner guests with tales of her contribution and the high cost of square, foil wrapped Kraft cheese products. Would you believe her neighborhood market charge $5.99 for said cheese? The horrors! The irony is the cheese had expired weeks, if not months before. Wait, isn’t cheese spoiled milk anyways? Anyways, a big deal over nothing = EXPIRED CHEESE!

So who in the hell am I? I am an automotive job loss trying to reinvent myself. After 15 years of being paid to play with and write about cars I am now looking for new ways to pay for gas for mine. Yeah, being unemployed in Michigan in 2010 sucks just as bad as it did in 2009. I still do some freelance automotive writing and am trying to finish a book I started last summer, but I honestly miss the structure and even the bullshit of working in an office environment. Seriously, I only have myself to blame if someone burns popcorn in the microwave.

More about me. I love little baby ducks, old pickup trucks and…stuff. Stuff that doesn’t seem to go together. Like I love my family, but, well, frankly my family is the stuff bad sit coms are made of. Nutty controlling mom, aging dad and step mom, a couple of brothers and their wives and kids. All in all, an endless source of material. Did I mention I’m Jewish? I guess you can add epic amounts of guilt to the picture too.

I’m not going to be one of those bloggers that posts the mundane daily, I’ll be lucky to post a few hundred words once a week. I don’t do cute and am a little dark. Fair warning…