FIVE REASONS WHY PEOPLE DON’T BUY “MRS. JOB,” and a p.s.

(1) I made the mistake of leaving the Ph.D. after my name, so people think it’s a heavy academic tome – or maybe a self-help book. It’s not. It’s a love story.  

(2) People think it’s a religious treatise because it’s about biblical Job. It’s not. Yes, it is true to the events that happened to him in the biblical story, but it’s fiction built around those events.

(3) Some people think it’s a “liberal” tome, calling into question some biblical beliefs. It’s not. See (2) above.

(4) Many apparently think it’s about working people, or maybe the wife of Steve Jobs, because they don’t pronounce “Job” right.

(5) There are those who don’t buy it because they already have, and liked it so much they’ve been lending it to their friends. And that’s why their friends don’t buy it.

p.s. In reference to the previous blog: I've been getting messages from friends who smilingly complain they can't answer the questions. Thanks. That's the point.

p

X-WORD PUZZLES AND THOUGHTS OF FAME

 X-Word puzzles keep me company in my last minutes before sleep at night, but still I can’t stop my mind from humming. About what? How brief is fame. The thought actually cheers me up when I get bummed because I can’t manage to push any of my books into best-sellership.

Age and good memory (if one has one) help some. Try some of the recent examples from Will Shortz Ed. (2002). Monday through Friday Easy to Tough Crossword Puzzles. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin. By the way, I’m happy with Monday through Thursday – they leave me feeling moderately good about myself. But Fridays?! Sometimes I don’t know the answers even after I see them.

Try these. I gave some help with a few of them.

You’ll find the answers below. It’s up to you whether you want to cheat.

1) 1950’s Wally Cox sitcom

2) Anne Bancroft role of 1967

3) Clinton Cabinet Member – 4 letters

4) Mohawk sporting actor

5) Chuck of “Code of Silence.”

6) Flappers’ Hairdos – 4 letters

7) He sang of Alice – 4 letters

8) Sportscaster John – 6 letters

9) Adlai’s 1956 running mate

10) “I’ll Be Around” composer Wilder – 4 letters

11) “Gaslight” Oscar winner, 1944 – 7 letters

12) Noted traitor – 6 letters

11) Peace Nobelist Bunche – 5 letters

12) Kenton of jazz – 4 letters

13) Show for which Bob Fosse won a 1978 Tony – 6 letters

Okay, so you got them all right. My point still holds. One way or another it comes to an end.

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(1) Mr. Peepers; (2) (Mrs. Robinson; (3) Reno; (4) Mr. T; (5) Norris; (6) Bobs; (7) Arlo; (8) Madden;

(9) Estes; (10) Alec; (11) Bergman; (12) Arnold; (11) Ralph; (12) Stan; (13) Dancin

RECORD HEAT - COURTESY MY NIECE

My niece in Connecticut gave me permission to pass this on in my blog. I think you'll enjoy it.  

"I understand that you are planning to send us potentially record heat.  Please don't. Heat makes me want to cry. It pushes down on me and makes me feel as if I will never go outside again.  It swells my hands, makes me feel like I am not "up to things", or that I cannot possibly endure the challenges of the day. It alters my plans, encourages me to further procrastinate, makes me worry about my ability to make it in the world, suggests that I should give up on plans, makes it hard to think of any reason to actually open my door. I can't shovel it, throw salt on it, add clothing to make me more comfortable (and, lord knows there is a limit to how much I can take off), drive more skillfully, make creative structures from it or wage friendly battles with others, complain about the landscaping service and their plowing skills or those of the town, tell stories about past adventures, put on special foot covering to be comfortable and safer, alter my work plans to fit in with safety warnings, light a fire, bake or cook. And this with central air for which I am eternally grateful and paying dearly.

Heat makes me want to cry

Cold makes me search for a sweater or blanket."

REMEMBERING JENNIE

July 12 was the anniversary of my mother’s 1895 birth, the year before Sigmund Freud published The Aetiology of Hysteria. The fifth child of seven in her immigrant Swedish family, she was the first born in the United States and the only one to finish High School. She searched Titles for the City of Bristol, Connecticut until the birth of my brother when, ‘of course,’ she gave it up because she was now a mother. Fifty years after her retirement her work was remembered in the Bristol Press. I believe her bouts of depression were related to Betty Friedan’s “problem that has no name.”

Jean, my cousin once removed (or something like that) shared this memory, “I can still clearly picture your proud looking Dad and meticulously dressed Mother walking down the aisle at Bethesda Lutheran on a Sunday morning,” That basically says it all. From the beginning when they dated in horse and buggy, the church was the center of their lives. On the days when mother wasn’t sitting by her bedroom’s upstairs window sewing or mending, watching for my homecoming, she was greeting me as I joined her at one of the women’s circle meetings.

Mother’s day was predictable: breakfast ready for us when we got up – orange juice, coffee, toast and cereal or eggs and, for me, a spoonful of cod liver oil followed by a chocolate candy kiss to kill the taste. Lunch ready for my father when he came home for his midday break from the office, followed by clean-up and a nap. She was bathed, refreshed (as if she needed it – always clothed in a pretty dress and apron) when he got home after work. So was I when I was little – toys stashed, hands washed, clothes tidied.

Hallie and I picked violets for our mothers on Mother’s Day. My father frequently picked Lillies of the Valley for her from his beautifully kept gardens. Mother picked herself up when she was needed, like the time we went to the 1939 World’s Fair, carrying our packed lunch, and enjoying it, even though she had a terrible cold. Or when she came for a week to help Lou and me with our firstborn, or home-schooled me when I missed three months of third grade, homebound with chicken box and then whooping cough. Or when she brought me food and treats the weekend I hibernated in their study, finishing my thesis.

Mother achieved the end in 1975, but she’s been looking back at me in the mirror regularly for some time.

REMEMBERING HALLIE

These days my mother tends to look back at me from the mirror, but even more frequently it’s Hallie -- her quizzical smile. I hear her voice often too, usually when I make a stupid mistake or express a thought she doesn’t approve of. “Oh, Mona …” in her distinctive voice. How fortunate Hallie and I both were to live well into our adulthood in the houses we had known from our births. Back yards adjoining, we played, fought, shaped each other.

Today is the anniversary of Hallie’s birth, but she’s not here to celebrate it herself. She’s been gone since 2002. My daughter and I arrived at her home in Cape Cod right after she’d sat with her family for her last breakfast – a glass of prune juice – and asked when I’d be there. Back in the Hospice-provided bed, she energized herself into a hearty Hallie laugh when I recalled out loud some of the adventures we had shared. Then she was gone. Her body carried on until 2:00 a.m. the next morning.

Hallie grew up in a house filled with cigarette smoke. Her mother declared that she smoked because it was good for her asthma, a belief she had good reason for holding. See Tye, Larry. (1998). The father of spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations. New York: Henry Holt and Company, for the tale of how Bernays sold physicians and dentists on testifying in print to smoking's medicinal value. Hallie began smoking when she was 13.

Somewhere in the late 1980s she sought help in hypnosis which worked beautifully. She never again longed for a cigarette. But it was too late. When she died, the doctor declared amazement that she had survived so long with her lungs so badly damaged.

So, Hallie, today I'm celebrating the fact that you are still looking back at me, critiquing my behavior.

CELEBRATION AND COURAGE

Fourth of July and another year that I celebrated in good health, in a place of no bombed out destruction. The Minnesota Orchestra was inspiring on the Excelsior Green. The weather was perfect, as were the comfortable folding chairs I bought earlier in the day from Ace Hardware, with beverage holders for the frozen lemonade to go with the picnic supper. It was moving, honoring the veterans who stood with the songs representing their branches of service. The fireworks were gorgeous (as long as I kept my ears covered.) The crowds were calm and respectful. It was a great evening!

On our recent Holland America Line cruise, we Americans were outnumbered by the Dutch. Everything was announced in two languages, causing me once again to regret my poor knowledge of languages other than English. A majority of the Dutch were well advanced in age, as indicated by the walkers, wheelchairs, canes, walking sticks, and bent backs. But courage! Oh my. Nothing held them back. They made their way on all the walks, working their way up stone steps to enter old houses. Better than what I did. I figure if I’ve seen the inside of one old wooden house, I’ve seen them all, especially if I’m going to experience vertigo making my way down the stacked-up rocks that pass for stairs.

My father defined courage as doing that which one is afraid to do. I try to do that with important things. But for me, another part of courage, and of finally being a grown-up, is admitting I’m scared and avoiding unnecessary risks.

So what does all this have to do with peaceful July fourth celebrations and courage? My chiropractor reminded me that our Dutch companions were of the age that suffered the trauma of the Nazi occupation of WWII. On our last day we visited still-functioning windmills – the kind we think of as belonging to the Netherlands. Among other things, we learned that during the war the position of the blades sent messages like, “There’s a package to be picked up.” With gratitude for my annual good luck, I can only imagine the trauma and the courage of that wartime experience. – of any war. 

SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-CONTROL, AND MENDING FLAWS

The theme of Saturday evening’s sermon, honoring our celebration of Independence, was self-esteem. Of course this psychologist sat up and took notice. These are my reactions. Tragically, the concept has been badly misunderstood in the past decades! The result – narcissism, depression, inability to solve problems, poor appreciation of criticism, and probably more. Genuine self-esteem - based on self-efficacy – is developed by encouragement and recognition of one’s strengths, observation of one’s weaknesses, and the provision of tools for improvement. Or, as Adlerians are wont to say, having the willingness to be perfectly imperfect. 

Instead, too much parenting and education has protected developing individuals from any sense of imperfection, thereby encouraging an inflated and inaccurate sense of one’s worth, lack of tools for dealing with disappointment by self-modification, reacting instead with blaming and striving to correct and control others. Early in my own education and teaching, the value of tests and papers was the pointing up of errors and suggested correction, often painful, but accepted as part of the strengthening of one’s knowledge. By the time I retired from teaching, the goal for many students had become getting an A, anything less, in their opinion, being the instructor’s fault for failing to recognize their worth.

Basic to healthy self-esteem is the courage to recognize one’s own flaws and gain control over them. In summary, if we really love someone or something, we are willing to see it’s correctible faults and point them out, with hope for a strengthening of the honesty, integrity, self-control and consequent power of the object of our affection. Last evening we sang “America the Beautiful” which includes the words: “God mend thine every flaw; Confirm they soul in self-control…”