This is what hell looks like...

I adore the Willows!  The retirement community that my mother is moving into tomorrow is amazing.  They are so accommodating and they have thought of EVERYTHING that will make her transition smooth and comfortable.  Her apartment is beautiful and best of all there is a 24 hour emergency call button.  No more frantic late night calls that Michael J. Boogie Man is shooting colored gasses through the walls.

Unfortunately, they have forgotten about me and my sisters, who have been slaving away for weeks getting ready for this day and will spend the next few weeks getting her settled.  They should be giving us the gift certificates for massages and facials.  They should be giving us the free lunches.  All my mother does is get dressed up and look beautiful and fold her scarves.  (As she says "scaffs").

My sister told me today that unlike our dreams of being free and happy in our fifties we are all experiencing major traumas.   Either it's our children, our parents, or most probably our husbands.  We realize that for all those years we have been their slaves and there is no one there to take care of us.

Has anyone ever washed your underwear?  Has anyone ever folded your towels?  Has anyone ever brought you breakfast in bed (one year my children brought me breakfast in bed on Mother's Day, and they cooked bacon, and spilled grease all over the kitchen floor).  It took the rest of the day to clean it up.

Valium seems like a good option for tomorrow.  But lacking that alternative I think I will just try to take a deep breath and say what my friend Jane says - "OFF, OFF, OFF."

My good sister just said that the dinner that we all had at a local restaurant tonight was like "Dinner and a Show".  I dropped the F bomb on another sister in front of my mother.  It is all too much for all of us.  Trying to be calm, collected, and supportive, but after weeks of garage sales, packing, diatribes and abuse, something has got to give.  This must be what hell is like.

Forgive me Great Kahuna and make me well again.....

Mad Happy

Of course she is 90 and she is wearing a crown. But the pictures were taken within about 30 seconds of each other. This is what my sisters and I have to deal with in the next few days (and some of them a lot and more intensely than me....). I leave tomorrow to deal with her and the other michigas happening there. Why can't I just sit and read a book???

Moving all of her beautiful things into the "independent living" apartment is going to be a trip. I feel very sorry for the moving men and wish that I had a prescription for Valium.

But today was a good day. The yard sale went splendidly, as did the Farmer's Market across the street, which drew a lot of traffic. Believe it or not there is a French Nun in a habit (complete with wimple) who is selling pastries and breads that she and her fellow sisters make in St. Charles. There is also a Bluegrass Band, beautiful vegetables, cheeses and a knife sharpener. Who could ask for anything more? Why didn't I have Claudia take a photo??? There were really only a few things that I had to put in the trash (where is the dump store when you need it??).

Friends are fabulous and I am lucky to have some wonderful, smart, beautiful and helpful women friends. Claudia even brought Chocolate Zucchini Bread, marketed my house to total strangers, stayed most of the day, and bought a lot of stuff. What more can you ask??

The whole Yard/Garage sale is very interesting. There are people who are really into it and get lots of stuff cheap and then there are those assholes who keep trying to whittle you down when they know perfectly well you were right on about the price.

But good things do happen and I am very happy with the outcome of the sale. My daughter was on the national All Things Considered broadcast, another is going to help me clean (maybe) and the weather is absolutely gorgeous. Mea Culpa????????

But I am extremely happy, since nothing that sold was really important to me. The things that didn't sell are. And so that is what counts.

Pilgrims at the holy sites

This is India. If you don't enjoy crowds, cows and smelly things, then it probably is not the country for you. I love it! For many people paying devotion at holy sites is a typical weekend activity. The Ganges and other natural features get a lot of attention.

But since I don't have a ticket to Mother Country India I set off, like the wandering pilgrim, looking for my holy grail. A really great Garage Sale. Location is very important for us stateside pilgrims. When I was visiting my mother in the Ground Zero of WASP culture we would hit two or three sales a day. That is prime yard sale territory. It didn't matter that she is moving and needs absolutely nothing. Or that I was jetting back to Chicago with one suitcase. The thrill of the hunt made our fingers tingle as we approached the sale site. She bought a couple of things that she turned around and sold at her own premium garage sale last week. People who spend over a million dollars for a home have two or three times the amount of stuff that you and I have. They even hire people to set up their sales for them, and if it doesn't sell these same people will take it to the dump (more likely they take it home for their own sale).

You learn to spot the good sales without even getting out of the car. Big wheels, high chairs, boxes of games missing two pieces, bad paperback books, and the worst thing of all - sad clothes strung along the fence, do not portend good things. Move on. Remember the crusaders, the Hindi mystics, the pilgrims to Mecca. They all take the most difficult path, thereby ensuring that the prize at the end will be well fought for.

Today I opened my own garage to some intrepid bargain hunters. I found out one thing - taking the money and putting it in your pocket when someone has just paid you $5 or $10 for something you haven't used or looked at in years - is FANTASTIC.

Remember your waist??????

Look we had waists! When I worked for the Chicago Cubs, many years ago , I gave my friend Mary Beth a belt for Christmas. One of the notoriously fat secretaries there (remember Smoky Links) said "Belt, what's a belt???"

Mary Beth is still a good friend and the other night she gave me a really cute dress as a late birthday present. Of course when this photo was taken my sister and I could have both fit into it together.

My friend Caitlin from B.C. Canada just told me that I should put some real photos on the site. Don't know if this is real, since that body doesn't exist anymore, but we did have fun with it. And it did bear four c-sections. Chloe says that my fat belly is called a FUPA. Front Upper Pussy Area. That's what I get for having fun.

Still dragging stuff out of the house for the sale on Sat. Ostrich Man says that he wants to cook a pot roast and bring it over for dinner. Mars? Pluto? Saturn?.......

Ram, Ewe and Me.

Did I tell you that Iceland was the greatest? Now these two are going to tell you.

Q: Mr. and Mrs. Ram, how would you describe Iceland?

A: Baaaaaaaaad, but seriously. Where else would you have a lava dome in your back yard?

Q: How about the music scene there? Looks kind of lonely?

A: Why do you think they call her Bjaaaaaark?

Q: I once visited Iceland and a cup of coffee cost about a million dollars. How do you make ends meet?

A: Between us and the lava dome there are a million acres of lush grass. Who needs coffee?

Q: You look like a pretty happy couple. What's your secret?

A: Just keep movin' on and never look baaaaaack. (It helps that the missus here likes my big horns).

Anyone have an extra burka?

I could use some covering of some sort right now.

You can tell that this woman is beautiful. And underneath she is wearing La Perla underwear and Jimmy Choos. And that's all! Who is she kidding?

I had a total meltdown this morning and really lost it when I saw the FOR SALE sign newly erected on my front lawn. Of course it was at that moment that the real estate agent and the photographer arrived to take photos of the house. Right now I am one hot mess. I think a Niqab would fulfill my needs. And that's when Ostrich Man showed up, summoned by one of my daughters who called in the middle of meltdown.

He did mow the lawn and then went through all of the sale stuff. He found the "Learn German" CD's that I had put in the sale helpful. That way he can say "take it off" to the Viennese girlfriend.

I must have 2,000 records. I went through them to pull out the rock stuff and I found a pristine copy of "Thriller". Dollar signs flew through my head and right out again when I realized that there was no record inside. Probably double sleeved with one of the 20 copies of Ravel's Bolero that I seem to own. Ah, the 70's. They were great weren't they? I wish I could remember them.

Curb Your Enthusiasm - redux

Lar-ry, Lar-ry, Lar-ry, {said with the accent of my favorite bit player - dry cleaner, Hamouz, etc.) I was so disappointed with last night's season opener, except for Catherine O'Hara. "Bam-Bam" was fantastic, as always. Why not just hook up with Christopher Guest and get them all. Fred Willard would be perfect for "Curb", when Larry Funkhouser bites the dust. I think he may have a heart attack at Chasen's when Larry tries to his father's baseball ticket once again. I think Monina may try CPR and then charge him for it.

We've been waiting for weeks to see what was going to happen. Chloe and I think Larry is going to get back together with Cheryl, after dissing Loretta, after her cancer diagnosis. And Wanda was back! When she said she was going to nominate Larryfor the NAACP Image Award it was too much!

Ostrich Man came by this morning to sign the papers to list the house. I've been talking about it for months - but of course he waited until 1/2 hour before the appointment to try talk about it. I love our agent. We talked about some renovations what could make it more attractive. She suggested taking the POLICE-CAUTION tape off of the front stairs and filling it with mums. DONE.

Larry has a lot in common with my soon to be ex-husband. Feigning no knowledge seems to be a big common trait. As if pop culture was so common and trivial to him that he pretended to have no knowledge of what was going on in the rest of the world. Once he asked me if I knew who Bjork was. That was before he became "one" with Iceland, even taking his girlfriend there this year to show her all of the sights he knew so well. Now I ask him "Yes, but do you know who Matthew Barney is?" Chances are very good that the answer is no.

Iceland is fantastic - and it only three hours from Boston. It is one of the most exotic places that you can affordably visit. Have you even read "Independent People" by Hadlor Laxness? Talk about a bleak existence. It won the Nobel Prize in 1955 and it is fantastic. It will make you feel lots better about whatever life you are leading now.

I think Bjork is very cool. We once visited an inactive volcano in Iceland where she likes to give concerts sitting in a rowboat in the middle of the collapsed caldera. (see photo).

I hope I can make some serious cash at the garage sale this weekend so I can go and spend it at the thrift store, or buying a ticket to Iceland. The men are totally hot there. - if those seriously nasty fashionistas from Japan don't get there first. Judging from what has been shown in London this week - I could clean up.

It's Complicated

We went to the movies today to see the sadly disappointing "The Informant". I had great hopes since Matt Damon is usually so good and I had heard an interview with the author of the book this morning on NPR.

What was REALLY good was the trailer for the soon to be released "It's Complicated", starring La Streep, super hunk Alec Baldwin, and the less funny than he once was, Steve Martin. (bring back "King Tut") Here the fun loving recently divorced couple are seen lounging around in the bathroom. Seems highly unlikely -

Perhaps I'll just happen to be in the tub when Ostrich Man joins me to sign papers tomorrow so we can get this giant behemoth of a house off of our hands. I went to our annual block party on Friday and told my neighbors we were listing the house. Before I could say "commission" there were 25 people in here - on every floor.

Last week I decided to remove my dining room table from the artisinal knotty pine dining room and turn it into a little sitting room for myself. Painted the table, tried to re-cover the chairs in some old hot pick fabric I had lying around from the Reagan administration, and put it up on the living room platform (don't ask). But tonight I am entertaining and when I went to turn the lights on up there - VOILA! Nothing. Threw all the breakers, changed the light bulbs. Why me? Where is Tommy Looney when I need him. I once asked him to remove an old plug that was about to fall into the fountain in the living room (again, don't ask) and he stuck his finger into it to see if it was live - it was.

Don't you love the Korean supermarket? Mary told me the other day that they had sashimi platters for 6 for $30. You just have to have a party with buys like that. Now if my refrigerator will just hold on for a few more hours.....

Nature - only the best free show.

There was a total eclipse of the sun the other day that could best be viewed in Asia. These women used welder's masks to view the phenomenon.

Once I was changing planes in Frankfurt and there happened to be an eclipse going on. If you have ever been through that airport you know that is the stepping off point for people all over the globe. I walked outside and there were an incredible array of people from everywhere - Africa, China, South America, all totally engrossed in the eclipse. It was one of the ten best experiences of my life. More on those experiences later. ..... A woman gave me a pair of filtering glasses that she must have made. I kept them on top of my desk for years. Nature is the one thing that unites us all, surprises us every day, teaches us something new whenever we walk outside, keeps us guessing, and put us in awe of its power.

A few weeks ago I saw a bird in the back yard that I could not identify. Tried the Google search and then went to the primitive technology. The Peterson't bird book. Unfortunately Ostrich Man had taken them all. I found Birds of South Africa, Birds of India, Birds of the British Isles, but nothing to help me what was in my own back yard.

Just now I was out in the park with some of my neighborhood friends and I saw a star in the sky - it probably was a planet - and couldn't help myself from saying "Star light, star bright....."

If you want a man to work you need to HIRE him.

The basement finally got to be too much for me. So I went up to Pulaski Road and hired two very nice men who worked like dogs shoveling 23 years of shit out of my basement. I gave them lunch and gloves and let them go to it. What a fantastic job Alphonso and Ray did. I had forgotten what it was like to actually have a man help you, instead of watching golf or overseeing their fantasy baseball league. Oh so important .......

But it was so sad seeing about 50 desperate men up there and they were all trying to jump in the car. You know that they are just trying to feed their kids and I wish I could have hired them all - but I am just trying to keep a roof over my head. Or not. I am listing the house on Monday.

Why don't they have a site for women to get work? I could rearrange your furniture, paint it, wallpaper your bedroom, cook your dinner, clean your bathroom, launder your clothes, hey wait! That means I could be your wife! And get paid for it! My friend Judy hired a wife once. What a fantastic idea. She never had to go to the dry cleaner again.

Women are Unhappy - thanks Arianna

Today's Hugffington Post features an article about women's unhappiness. Duh!!!! Did we really need Arianna to point that out? She is going to be featuring blogs from Marcus Buckingham over the next few weeks telling us how unhappy we are. What man can relate to this concept except through surveys, which he quotes liberally.

I really don't get it. In spite of all of the hard work and achievements women have made we are still the lowest dogs on the totem pole. Ostrich Man has even conceded that he never helped with childcare and housework. Doesn't even know where we keep the scissors, or the washing machine. What kind of fool was I? Or course I was unhappy!! Four needy kids, full time job, and no help.

Millions of American women are living the same sham of a life. Working themselves to the bone, trying to be good, caring mothers, and trying to please an asshole who really doesn't care about them. They only care if they have clean socks and towels. We are living this life - but Arianna is going to tell us how it is. What does she know?? Tha't's why she needs Marcus Beerbaum and his statistics to tell us how to live "richer, more purposeful and happier lives".

Walk a mile in my shoes Arianna! At the moment I am covered in black paint, have a pot of chili on the stove, three full garbage cans, a filthy floor, two dogs barking in the back yard, a dryer full of clothes that need to be folded, two resumes to send out, two Quimper pots that need to be repaired, and Jeopardy is on in 25 minutes. What's the priority?? Jeopardy definitely. Alex, you are so cute!

You CAN make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

I've done it. And now, according to the shows in New York this week, you can too. Take this little number by Rodarte. Just cut up that old ugly leather jacket that has been taking up space in the back of your closet waiting for the season when really big shoulder pads are back. I can see a bandolier effect over a bright sweater. More bands of leather around your legs can simulate those gladiator boots that you can't afford.

The sisters Laura and Kate Mulleany who design for Rodarte have used "latices of leather, drapes of plaid cheesecloth and tufts of black feathers" to evoke a condor. I don't quite get that. If you don't happen to have any plaid cheesecloth laying around you can make some. I think I'll try it and be a little more abstract than plaid. I can see a great scarf emerging from my secret workshop soon.

Necessity is the mother of invention and if you aren't lucky enough to come from a family that saves EVERYTHING, then get thee to the thrift store. Some of the big ones are quite daunting so in order for you too to develop "the gift of thrift" I will divulge my three rules of thrifting.

1. It's all about the fabric. Scanning those racks of jackets, sweaters, etc., look for good fabric, rather than looking at every item.

2. When in doubt - buy it. It probably only costs a dollar and it is impossible to try some things on. The worst that can happen is that you re-use the buttons or the fabric. Most things can be spruced up with new buttons.

3. If you find a really well made pair of pants or skirt that are a little snug, or a little loose, buy them. Your local dry cleaner will probably be able to make the alteration for less than $15 if you can't do it yourself.

When you find a good thrift store, guard the information. If everyone goes there there won't be anything for you! One day I walked into my favorite store and saw three young Japanese fashionistas with shopping carts loaded, obviously for re-sale. My hopes were dashed. Luckily, they have not been seen again - and you can bet your grandmother's Birkin Bag that they won't tell anyone where their merchandise came from...

COOTIE GARAGES

What is the greatest accessory of all - that costs no money??? HAIR!!! You can't afford to have it cut every six weeks - so let it grow! This has got to be the most fantastic hairdo of the 21st century. Youlia Tyomeshenko, Prime Minister of the Ukraine, has got it going on. I am SOOO jealous.

Hair is the best accessory you can have and it doesn't cost any money - if you don't have it cut or color it. All those women on the subway with their bad haircuts are losers. Youlia is my hero!!!

I have stopped having my hair cut and am now in the french twist mode. But when it gets longer I am definitely going in for the cootie garages. See this photo from the Marc Jacobs show this week in NY. They are cootie garages, but high up on the head. For those who don't know, cootie garages are where you keep your cooties.....

Go to Walgreen's and invest in some Scunci brand hair pins. ($4.39 for 12). It will be the best investmentyou can make for the ultimate accessory - HAIR!!!

DIG OUT THE BASEMENT

Almost lost the little pup today. I would really have been in the dog house (literally) if that had happened. Wait! I could sell them!! They are probably worth a lot.

I have become a yard sale junkie. Spent the last 10 days creating a store in my mother's garage and now I can't get enough.

I am knee deep - no thigh deep, in stuff. Digging out the trash and trivia from 30 years married to The Ostrich. Do I really need the lobster pot? Can't afford to buy a lobster, so I guess that will go.



I've had some insight into what people will buy now that I have conducted her yard sale. I wish I had some of her stuff.....





For fifty years I have been the queen of trash, second hand clothes, yard sales, etc. So I should have some knowledge. A lot of what I am digging out I actually bought at other people's sales. My friend Mary came for coffee this morning and was very excited to buy my old stuff. I'd like to buy hers!

I am actually enjoying pulling out my old stuff with the prospect that someone will buy it. Anyway you can get it.

Yesterday I was waiting for a plane and they offered a free ticket plus the cash value of your ticket that day if someone would give up their seat. I flew to the counter, only to be beaten by someone else who needed the cash. I think from now on I will look for flights that are totally sold out - and hope for the worst.

THE YARD SALE

Wow! People are crazy. I just spent ten days with my mother cleaning out her beautiful little house in preparation for her moving to a retiement apartment. She had so much incredible stuff. We made over $`1,100 and never even emptied some of her cabinets.

It's amazing what some people will buy. And it blew my mind that noone thought to haggle about the prices! If you play your card right and look at what you REALLY have you would be amazed what peop-le pe will pay for it.

My mother had a bureau full of my grandmoter's costume jewelry. None of it expensive and most of it really out dated. But my sister put a piece on this morning with a sweater and a cardigan it looked fantastic! I am wearing a pair of wooden screw on earrings now with different pieces painted from illuminati manuscripts....totally awesome.

There are people out there with this stuff and they want you to clear it out. I can count at least six people who asked me if I would do the garage sale thing for them and clean out their houses. It is not easy, it is back breaking work and it helps if you have a dump to get rid of bad crap that clutters up your selling area.

If all else fails, the church is always looking for White Elephont items.

Here's a silver tea canister from the 1850's that was just hanging around. Got big bucks for it. I'm wearing a cool necklace, circa 1940. Painted earring from the 30's.

See what your relatives don't want - perhaps they will gove some the of proceeds to you - unless they are fanativ Yankees, like my mother, who wouldn't give me anything even though I was her slave for ten days - OH WELL, beats gewtting drunk on the porch!!!

Who knew??