I got stuck in the car wash today

Wow! I can't believe I haven't posted anything in the last two months! I've got to get my priorities straight--too much time on breast cancer advocacy and not enough on fun, quirky observations.

Today, armed with my list of the 99 things that I still must do for the Thanksgiving holiday, I ran into a roadblock. I got stuck in the car wash. It was one of those drive-throughs where you sit with the car in neutral as spongy tentacles of a soapy octopus apparatus envelop your car and a track slowly pulls you along from spraying to sponging to brushing to the final phase of an air jetted wind tunnel. Many years ago, vying for parent of the year award,  I remember being quite oblivious to the potential fright this could engender in a small child and being rewarded by the screams of a terrified toddler, as if this was indeed the attack of a giant octopus.

As I drove around behind the gas station to the car wash entrance, I had a bad feeling. The distracted attendant was in a side lot, busy cleaning the windows on his own car and clearly annoyed that I interrupted his paper toweling ritual. He took my $5 dollar bill, hosed off the car and hit the conveyor belt buttons, returning to his post of wiping water marks from his car. I sat there a minute and then blew the horn. Lots of machinery clanging and moving but I was still sitting in my car going nowhere.

He shuffled over and hit a few more buttons and then I was off and running, embracing the monster. A few feet into the tunnel and I stopped again. I assumed a vigilant employee would have been monitoring my progress, but--- No. He had returned to his own work. I blew the horn again and this time he returned with a large mallet and proceeded to bang around the general area of the tires. I was hoping two things: One that he was actually hitting the conveyor track and not my tires or hubcaps and two that he would not slip and be crushed by the rotating brushes. Perhaps, too many episodes of Dexter, but I watched closely for spurts of red instead of soapy residue. I'm not claustrophobic, but I was starting to sweat and plotted my own escape. What if the car suddenly popped a tire, jammed the machinery and the entire track twisted and threatened to crush me?

He managed to get the car moving again and the yellow mallet disappeared from sight. Wildly, I was checking my side mirrors which had already retracted and swiveling my head around to see where he had disappeared. For a rather tall, lumpy youth, he slid easily back out of the narrow confines. I'd be lying if I didn't point out that the entire car wash ride normally traverses the distance of about three car lengths, but I viewed the light at the end as a beacon of salvation. I was so close... Then the car jolted to a stop again, I beeped the horn several times and the mallet wielding attendant mysteriously re-appeared. Was this the twilight zone? Was I doomed to travel forever in a small car with the enormous black rolling brushes thwacking against the trunk of the car. I imagined the paint slowly chipping off, worn down by the incessant scraping. "Shut down the line!"

The mallet didn't work this time and he slouched past my window in search of help. The other attendant then proceeded to gesture to me in an absurd game of charades. He motioned to move the wheel left and right. I hesitated. The sign had been quite clear: foot off the brake; hands off the wheel, put it in neutral. I was suddenly an overexcited child driving my imaginary car on the kiddie rides, turning the wheel, beeping the horn, waving to Mom and Dad. I was so close to the end, the exasperated senior attendant finally gestured to put it in gear. With visions of my tires shredding, I eased into drive and tentatively lurched forward.

Freedom at last. I inspected the hubcaps and yelled to attendant #1--"Look what happened." He looked, I looked, but on closer examination most of the hubcaps had a few scrapes, as did the car in general. he shrugged and said,
"I hate this car wash."
"Roger that, buddy."

Attendant #2 asked if I had paid.
"Yes, can I have my $5 back?"
"Well, you did get your car wash," he said as he handed me the owner's number to call if I wanted to complain.
"They don't listen to us," he said. "We've been having a lot of trouble."
 But two other cars were parked by the vacuum machines, their owners whistling while they busily cleaned the interior. The sun was shining, their cars gleamed.

I hurried home, satisfied at least that the attendant never would get the water drop marks off his car. And, oh yeah, completing that list of the 99 things to guarantee a successful Thanksgiving?--not even close.

Fantasy Football

Never thought I would see the day when I was in a Fantasy Football League--The Jersey Bowl. Son Eric decided it would be great for Thanksgiving dinner conversation (and now he's not coming home), but the game has taken on a life of its own.

The two football newbies fought over the sports page a few days before the draft.

I was worried about how the draft would work and then I discovered Auto Pick. I already had my team name--Ginny's Giants, but the computer did not pick even one Giant, so reshuffling of plans. We are a league skewed toward Giants-Jets fans, so the favorite quarterback was passed over until it came to me. Tom Brady of the New England Patriots--boo, hiss--I got  a lot of smack talk for that, changed the team name to The Brady Bunch and now must (secretly) check the Patriots game score to see how I'm doing.

This is week 3 and I finally printed out my team roster. I knew I had Brady and Mike Wallace (not the newsman), but couldn't remember anyone else. I even made a few switches in the lineup since my RB was injured.Also put in a WR from the bench and contemplated changing my W/R/T. What am I talking about? By end of season I may know what these all stand for and at least I'll recognize a lot of player names.

My favorite part so far has been the creative team names and the smack talk.
Rough Riders (can you guess the Teddy R fan?)
Gangrene (the perfect blend of Gang Green and Infectious Disease)
Flux Capacitors (back to the future)
Stella Flippers (high school team name)
Clint Eastwood (who invited the Republican?)
The Big Blue Sack (who invited the pervert?)
and
H.A.G.S (have a good summer)

See if you can match these quotes to the correct team:
1. oh no--they play on Thursdays, too? 
2. having two fantasy football teams basically makes every NFL game important to you. Should be a fun season!  
3. I hate this. My team sucks. 
4. Giants rule!
5. Are there really 15 more weeks to go?
6. Auto pick rules!
7. HAGA- have a good autumn?
8. My team needs antibiotics-stat.

I am labelled the "underdog" this week against H.A.G.S. but I'm hoping he doesn't update his roster before tonight. I know he doesn't read this blog right away, so here's hoping he misses the potential injury problems he has--players recovering from ruptured spleens and bad knees. Don't tell him!

I'm still betting on Brady and Auto Pick to take my team to the FF Super Bowl. (I hear Bruce might appear along with Toby Keith)

Happy Birthday Gary!

Best wishes from a few of your friends:

relax and read a book today---Abe

have some rip roaring fun---the cowboys

wear your cowboy hat and get outside!- Ron

remember the buck stops here--Harry

watch out for the raven-- Ed

fight for freedom ---Fred

Stage IV ad for Komen - Is this a crack in the pink wall?

I copied below a blog entry I wrote this week for the MBCN blog.

I was absolutely shocked to see this ad in the October issue of Prevention magazine:

This has to be the first time that Komen has publicly acknowledged Stage IV as part of their marketing campaign. Hopefully, Komen will have more ads about Stage IV in October.

Organizations are slow to change and whether this is partly due to the Komen organizational shakeup or the Metastatic Roundtable Komen hosted last February to seek information from 10 metastatic breast cancer patients, it is a welcome, small step forward and one that many of us would never have anticipated.

The ad, of course, is certainly not perfect, as it seems to imply that Bridget would not be surviving 7 years without her active, hopeful personality or her doctor’s ‘fighting’ for her.  Does that mean that those who died sooner had the wrong medical team or the wrong personal attitude? Certainly not.

Call me crazy, but maybe some day we’ll actually see a Komen ad that says this:

“The true source of HOPE for metastatic disease is research. That’s why we at Komen are dramatically increasing funding for research into the cause of metastases (the spread of cancer) to stop it in its tracks and save the lives of the estimated 155,000 women and men living with metastatic or stage IV breast cancer in the US, as well as the lives of 30% of early stage survivors who will have metastatic recurrences in the future.”

What should be our reaction now? I think we should be open and supportive of the change at Komen. Contact your local Komen organization and let them know you are metastatic (or Stage IV) and appreciate the metastatic support cited in the ads and hope Komen will be increasing funds for research into the causes and process of metastasis.

I know this will be particularly difficult for many of us who have deep feelings of estrangement and resentment toward Komen and the pink ribbon culture. But some within the Komen organization are trying to change things and that needs to be encouraged and supported.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
(Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher)

Ginny Knackmuhs

MBCN Board member

Olympic Spirit

To anyone who is finally emerging from withdrawal symptoms due to the disappearance of Olympic coverage, I offer this short story of Olympic Spirit.

My kids were always amazed that I had never been on a sports team, not uncommon for my generation of pre-Title IX women. Especially those of us with a solid Catholic education knew that phys ed was considered a frivolous subject, excluded from most parochial school curriculums. In my Catholic girls high school, we did finally have gym class with Mrs. Betty B, tall and knock-kneed, her silver whistle dangling from her neck and her annoying voice exhorting us to run or play ball, so we could return to class a sweaty mess. I hated her because she did not recognize my innate potential Sport teams were limited to basketball, and after being cut the first round of freshman tryouts, I harbored ill feelings to Betty B for the rest of my four years. I still went to the basketball games, where one of our fiercest rivals was St. Ann's Home for Wayward Girls. Games were played after school and spectators from the neighboring boys Catholic school were banned from the gym for fear of inappropriate comments.

My sad sports career continued, as I flirted with suburban tennis in my younger days and was happy to have mastered the scoring and where I was supposed to stand on the court when playing doubles. Now I'm tackling golf.

On a recent vacation Gary and I were golfing in North Carolina at 2 pm on a sweltering 97 degree day.  It seemed we had the course to ourselves--All the Carolinians were probably relaxing at the beach or sipping drinks by a pool. But, we finally caught up to a foursome of men who must have been tourists, too. They had all already teed off on the par 3 hole, but marked their balls and waved us to play through.

Gary went first, landing just off the green and I miraculously had a similar shot from the ladies' tee, landing my ball within a few inches of his. Gary chipped his ball too hard and it rolled about 15 feet past the hole. My turn. I could feel four pairs of eyes on me, but managed to put the ball about three feet from the hole. My gallery of men chuckled.

Gary missed his long putt and I stepped up to the green. Sweat was rolling down the middle of my back. Should I line up the shot in every direction? Walk around and pick up the stray leaf ? Squat down and eyeball that shot into submission? No, I just wanted to get it over with. I concentrated on my pendulum swing and tapped the ball. It wobbled over the 3 foot span and disappeared into the hole!

The gents erupted in laughter and applause and I gave them a smile and nod. I wasn't quite ready for a Tiger Woods fist pump, but echoes of legendary Olympic announcer Jim McKay's voice rang in my ears--"the thrill of victory!" So this is why people play sports. Wouldn't Betty B be proud of me-- that gawky girl in a scratchy white gym uniform, complete with skirt and bloomers had grown up to actually do something right in sports!

I could get used to this feeling and I crowed about it all day (poor Gary), even as my game deteriorated and McKay's "agony of defeat" kicked in. But, oh, how sweet it was!

Anger Management at the Stop n Shop

My youngest brother always enjoys these little rants from me---like the time at Thanksgiving, when I was ready to punch out the attendant at the YMCA. I'll never live that one down. I had my foot firmly in the door, blocking her attempt to shut us out and send us into the rain because, after all, it was 7:56, not 8:00 when the Y officially opened.

Well, this time it was the Stop n Shop deli on a Friday night at the shore. The store seemed pretty empty and I just wanted to pick up a few cold cuts for sandwiches on the beach the next day. Two young women employees, suntanned and ponytailed, manned the counter and only one other customer was already having her order filled, so I figured I didn't need to print out a number.

First bad sign was that neither employee made eye contact--no problem for me--long day, sick of customers, watching the clock? I didn't need to be Chatty Cathy with the local deli girls. The dark haired employee was waiting on the one customer, while the blonde employee was very busy, slicing meat, rewrapping it, tidying up, so I called out. "We're not together here", gesturing to Customer #1, a short older woman sporting a gray haired Dorothy Hamil wedge hairdo and a handbag embroidered with beach umbrellas and seagulls. She had just replied affirmatively for the 6th time to the inquiry of "Anything else?" I wanted to ask her: "Do you ever cook? You now have a quarter pound of just about every meat or cheese on sale." Maybe one more and her weekly shopping would be done.

Meanwhile, the cone of silence surrounded the blonde employee and she continued robotically slicing, wrapping and puttering around.  I scrutinized her for earbuds, but found none. She was just customer deaf, until I wandered over to the completed orders shelf, where shoppers who had left an order while they cruised the rest of the store, could return to pick up their order--no waiting. I poked around the 5 orders, wondering if I could find one close enough to what I wanted, when the formerly deaf employee found her voice.

"Do you have a ticket, ma'am?"

I took a deep breath, but then heard Customer #1 saying : "I'd just like a large dill pickle and that will do it," so I gathered in all my anger management skills and continued waiting politely. The end was in sight.

Deli Girl #2 disappeared into the back room for quite a while. Was she rooting around refrigerators for the pickle or perhaps catching a quick smoke? She finally emerged with pickle in hand, only to confront a line of 5 more people awaiting service. I moved aggressively to the middle area of the counter and looked customer #3 ( I considered myself #2) squarely in the eye. "I'm next. I've been standing here for 10 minutes." She was easily cowed but Deli Girl #2 decided to explain to me in detail the numbered ticket system. She pointed to Customer #4 who had now abandoned the line in favor of the ordering kiosk. He unwittingly became part of her defense team. "See," says DG2, we take the customers in number order, even the ones who fill out an order to be be filled while they're shopping.

"Ah," I say sarcastically "so you could have 5 or even 10 people in line here, but instead you will continue to fill orders for those shopping around the store?" I gestured wildly toward DG #1 who was cramming yet another pick up order into the shelf cubbyholes, as the rest of the line shifted weight and sighed. "And," I continued, "these customers won't be back for at least 15 or 20 minutes?"

Yes.
That's ridiculous.
Yes, but I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.
Oh, so you have to avoid eye contact with customers. That must be the #1 rule.
Yes. It's company policy.
Not to make eye contact?
No, but to fill all orders by number. We hate it. Go complain to the manager. They don't listen to us.

I looked at her more closely now and the telltale lines around her eyes and slightly leathered skin made me revise my initial estimate of her age. Definitely approaching 40 and not a young, bored, apathetic kid like deaf blondie next to her.

I stalked off to find the manager, but now I felt some empathy for the deli girls and a job that sucks. The previously empty store was jumping and the earnest manager was scurrying around, looking for help he could assign to open another register and finally settling for bagging groceries himself.

I was suddenly very tired and slipped into the self check out lane. I would fight another day.

My bad luck continued, however, as I was behind another senior buying 2 Rollo bars with cash. I didn't think that was even possible at self checkout, but she was shoving quarters in like it was an old time slot machine. I had to wonder what kind of Rollo craving she had that she had to pop out to the grocery store on a Friday night. No milk, no bread on the conveyor belt, just 2 lonely Rollo Bars spilled down toward the bagging area. I turned to the woman behind me and rolled my eyes. "It's madness," she said. I smiled--a kindred spirit--took a deep, 'serenity now' breath and waited patiently. The night air was cool and refreshing, as I finally strolled across the parking lot and into my car.

Peter Yarrow

When I first saw the announcement in the community bulletin I was conflicted. Should I be really happy at the opportunity to see Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, for $10 on a Tuesday night? Or should I be sad that a former folk legend was reduced to playing in a senior village community center at the Jersey shore? I felt better when I learned that Peter is good friends with one of the residents and does the program as a favor to her. I still had doubts, though, about the fan base among the community. They just didn't seem like veterans of the tumultuous protest movements from Civil Rights to Vietnam, in which Peter, Paul and Mary were prominent voices. Here, for example, is the entrance to the center:

I felt I should add an addenda to the sign: .....and Damn the Leaders who Commit Us to Unworthy Wars. Or perhaps, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

I settled into an aisle seat and surveyed the crowd filing in. The chairs were a random assortment of upholstered maroon ballroom chairs (preferred) and hard white plastic ones (avoided). I figured choosing a white chair with several others in a row would isolate me from the crowd, who nodded inquiringly at me, as if to say How did you get in here?  But, I was wrong. A lady asked if I were saving seats and then plopped down next to me. "Hi, I'm Helen. I live at 22 Boulevard--you know, the house with the controversial wheelchair ramp." I responded in kind.  "Hi, I'm Ginny-- from the Boulevard, too." I remember my mother talking years ago about "the controversy," which was a staple at the neighborhood meetings. Apparently residents were dismayed that the ramp, because of the steepness of the driveway, had to zig zag up the front lawn in an unsightly manner. My mom loved to hear the old biddies complain about it because it added a little zest to the meetings and also steered her away from the more vociferous complainers. I felt bad this woman, years later, still felt compelled to wear this as her scarlet A.

Helen was a talker and I kept turning slightly to my left to see what Peter Yarrow was doing. He was dressed in a maroon tee shirt, slacks and senior oxfords, chatting with people in the back corner. Helen barely came up for air and the saga now included more people than I could keep track of. Was Keith her husband or son or the son's friend or the mason who did the work?

At last Peter Yarrow approached the stage and sat on the stool, guitar in hand. At age 74 he knows his peers. "Do you remember your first love?" he asked the crowd of about 80 residents and then sang Lemon Tree, a sweet ballad of love found and lost. He followed up with The Wedding Song, which I was surprised many people didn't know. It was one of the songs at my own wedding, so I was happy to hear it and a little smug that I was more of a PPM fan than most that were there. This was later confirmed when someone requested he play Stewball and only three hands went up as knowing the song.

The beauty of folk music is that it's easy to sing along and most people joined in--in fact they loved that part. Peter joked that he would signal when it was the chorus, so we would know when to sing, but he also added that he knew some would sing chorus and verse because they didn't know the difference or because they just wanted to!  That was also OK with him.

Yarrow has a comfortable stage presence. I wondered if he had ever tried to calculate how many times he had sung If I Had a Hammer or Blowin in the Wind. He joked with the audience, mimicked a heavy Jewish accent at times, sang the Colonoscopy Song and had an amusing anecdote for each song. You have to love the senior crowd, because toward the end, one older woman on a walker said a bit too loudly, "He's talking again; I can't sit this long." She was shushed as she headed out the door. Another lady had stage whispered earlier to her friend: "That's John Denver's song, not his." (Turns out she was half right: John Denver wrote Leaving on a Jet Plane, but it became a signature hit for Mary Travers and PPM)

He got serious at times, talking about the civil rights movement and about performing in Veteran's hospitals, but did not mention Vietnam protests specifically. I think he knew his audience. After singing the requested antiwar anthem, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, he opened his Apple computer to share a recent recording of the song in English and Ukrainian. He marvelled how that would have been unimaginable in the height of the Cold War. He also talked about his current initiative, an antibullying program for schools in the US and around the world that uses music and song to build a foundation of acceptance for all kinds of kids.

I was not the youngest one there. Two twenty-something French girls had been visiting one of the residents. Hard to imagine what kind of exchange program that was, but the girls seemed nice and friendly and not bitter that they had been sent to live in a retirement community. Afterwards, they spoke to Yarrow, and together they sang a few lines of different songs in French. Peter speaks some French, but his daughter, he said, is fluent in both French and Spanish. Behind me in the crowd of autograph seekers, one woman remarked, "Well, you'll need Spanish the way this country is going." "Hey, what about all that singing of peace and brotherhood?" I wanted to ask her. I shook hands with Yarrow, told him I first saw them at Cornell in 1969 and had The Wedding Song when I got married in 1973 and had really enjoyed the evening. As I left, my new friend Helen called over to me, "Hope to see you again--Ginny of the Boulevard." What a great evening and it was still only 8:30.