Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?: True Stories and Confessions (5 page)

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Old and New

By Lisa

It's the New Year, and they say, “Out with the Old, and in with the New.”

But I disagree.

I don't think we have to get rid of the Old to bring in the New.

You'll disagree, too.

If you're Old.

I think Old and New can live together, in peace, at the same time. For example, the Christmas tree that Daughter Francesca and I decorated this year had a bunch of New ornaments but plenty of Old, if not Ancient, ones like:

A wooden reindeer with one remaining eye and only two legs, which I bought for Francesca when she was two;

A red glass ball with the word “Joy” written in glitter, which Francesca made in middle school for a beloved horse who passed away;

A twenty-year-old glass snowman whose eye was so worn away that we drew in a new one with a Sharpie; and

A little wooden tree that has three clay golden retrievers with the names of our goldens Lucy, Angie, and Penny, all of whom have passed away.

You get the idea.

If you're maimed or dead, you're on our tree.

See what I mean?

Old is good.

Old is sweet.

Old still matters.

Same with our Christmas music. When we open gifts on Christmas morning, we always play the Charlie Brown CD on a continuous loop, even though it's twenty-five years old and skips like a record.

Please tell me you know what a record is.

Still, we never get sick of hearing it. Francesca knows every note, and I know every skip.

And for the meal, we wanted to make something New, which we hadn't made before, so we found a recipe to honor my late father, whose parents lived in Ascoli Piceno, Italy. The region is known for its stuffed olives, and Francesca found an Old recipe, one that's been around for hundreds of years.

Unfortunately, it took hundreds of years to make it.

First we made the stuffing, then stuffed a zillion olives, then breaded the olives, then fried the olives, etc., etc., etc. We even had help from my bestie Franca, who came over for dinner, whom you may recall I have known for thirty years.

We have the right idea when it comes to friends, with that saying, “Make new friends but keep the old.”

So let's choose one clich
é
over the other, shall we? And banish that “out with the Old.”

I say this because I often feel that older people aren't appreciated enough for their experience, wisdom, and perspective. There's entirely too much sweeping away of the Old in this culture.

I know many of you agree, even if you're not Old.

And as we get older, many of us experience the feeling of being marginalized or sidelined, simply because of our age.

I've seen Mother Mary condescended to and patronized in public, which drives me crazy.

Dis me, but don't be dissing my mother.

Because time and space, as they relate to people, are completely beside the point.

The Old are always with us, as are those who are no longer alive, whether they're dogs or fathers.

We don't stop loving them, nor do we stop remembering them. Boundaries dissolve, and definitions merge, because those things are meaningless, too.

Nothing Old need be swept aside, to make room for the New.

There's plenty of room in the human heart for all of us.

Happy New Year.

 

Bettor for Worse

By Francesca

If you start betting on guilty-pleasure television, does that make it guiltier?

I created a fantasy league for
The Bachelor.

The Bachelor,
for those who pretend they've never seen it, is a dating game show in which thirty women vie for the love of one man, and after a mere eight weeks of choreographed dates, rose-ceremony eliminations, and much artful editing, he chooses one true love to make his wife.

It's about as progressive as it sounds, and yet, it's compelling enough to last eighteen seasons and counting.

Fantasy-
Bachelor
is just like fantasy football, but with more crying.

I figured upping the ante would make watching the show more fun, so I recruited a few other friends who also enjoy
The Bachelor
ironically (yeah right, we just like it) to join in my pool.

Turns out, being a bettor made me worse.

I thought I liked
Bachelor
because I'm a romantic. But when I had money on it, I became a cynic.

My strategy was that Juan-Pablo would base his choices on sexual attraction alone. He constantly talked about wanting a stepmother for his daughter, but I wasn't buying it. I put only one of the single mothers in my top five, and she was at the bottom.

I don't have money to waste on fairy tales.

Which was good, because Juan-Pablo was no Prince Charming.

I chose Clare as my number one pick, because Juan-Pablo was all over her from the start. If he weren't so handsome, the word would be
lecherous.

Don't hate the player, hate the game. Or game show.

After weeks of Juan-Pablo sticking his tongue in Clare's mouth every time she talked, she initiated a clandestine midnight swim …
et cetera,
an offer he took her up on without hesitation. But the very next day, he chastised her for inappropriately sneaking extra time with him and going “too far.”

Any other season, I would've been shouting at my TV screen for Clare to leave this hypocrite. This time, I had the empathy of Bobby Knight.

Get over it, Clare, we have a game to win.

She forgave him. And from then on, Juan-Pablo's bad behavior played into my bets perfectly.

When his dopey conversation irritated Sharleen enough to bail—great, I had her down as the one to leave of her own accord.

When his narcissism became a deal breaker for Andi—even better, I always had her in the third-place spot.

Juan-Pablo's wrongs were all right with me.

Finally, the unmagical journey was at its end. The two remaining were my star player, Clare, and Nikki, a dark horse I didn't have anywhere on my team. The stakes were high.

For me and my ten bucks, not for the people choosing a spouse on TV.

I invited my girlfriend and fellow fantasy-league competitor over to watch the finale, a typically bloated and boring episode.

Not this time.

Juan-Pablo outdid himself, whispering something to Clare in the helicopter—always a helicopter—that, according to her, was so disgusting and offensive, she couldn't repeat it.

My friend and I had a field day trying to guess what it was
.

But then Clare cried. And I was reminded this wasn't a fantasy league of well-compensated professional athletes. These were women like me.

Okay, like me but with better hair and makeup.

Ultimately, after endlessly jerking her around, Juan-Pablo rejected Clare. And she wouldn't hug him.

Instead, she told him off in the best way possible.

As she said on the after-show, “I had never been able to stand up for myself to a man before. It was so liberating to be able to stand there and say, this is exactly how I feel, and it's not okay.”

We were so proud of her, we applauded the TV.

Twitter exploded, along with my fantasy bracket.

But I've never felt so genuinely happy at the end of a
Bachelor
season. For once, the show and the viewing audience seemed to be on the side of the real woman, instead of just the fantasy.

I lost.

Women won.

 

Geared Up!

By Lisa

They say that you never forget how to ride a bicycle.

Once again, they don't know what they're talking about.

I say this because I got a bicycle for Christmas. And I forgot how to ride one.

In fairness to me, this bicycle came with fifty-four-page instruction booklet and a CD.

Let me first say that I love my gift, which was given to me by my bestie Laura. I know how lucky I am to have a great friend like her, as well as a cool new bike. So don't think I'm ungrateful, but I never thought I'd have to study to ride a bike.

Isn't Step One, Put butt on seat?

Step Two, Point front end forward?

Step Three, Place feet on black things?

Step Four, Press down.

Step Five, Don't fall.

If only it were that easy.

The last time I rode a bicycle was in high school, which was forty years ago. When I got the new bike, I hopped on and tried to ride it around the driveway. I managed not to fall, but I was no Lance Armstrong.

857,938 gears, but no kickstand!

Except not even Lance Armstrong is Lance Armstrong anymore.

Bottom line, nothing about bicycles is the way I remember.

I realized this as soon as I tried to brake by pedaling backwards and almost rode into a tree.

What happened to coaster brakes?

Were they too perfect and too simple to survive the modern era?

I know there's such a thing as hand brakes, but I couldn't find them on the short black stick that is now called the handlebar. My old handlebars curved around to meet me like a warm hug, but this new handlebar is something you have to lean forward to put your hands on. You know you're in the correct position when your back spasms.

And when you look up to see where you're going, you can break your own neck.

Wow!

These new bicycles are so technologically sophisticated, you don't even have to crash to injure yourself.

Plus, I can barely perch on the hard sliver of black plastic they want me to use for a seat. My old bike used to have a cushy black seat shaped like one of those paddles they use for pizza. In fact, my old seat was big enough to accommodate the butt I get from eating pizza.

I miss my old bike seat. If I could stick a Barcalounger on a bike, I would. Maybe I need a recumbent bike, or Craftmatic adjustable bed on wheels.

Then there's the matter of adjusting my new bicycle. The bike allegedly came adjusted, but sitting on the seat was like a do-it-yourself Pap smear.

I tried to figure out how to lower the seat, but I couldn't understand the manual, so I tried to lower the handlebar instead. But I couldn't figure that out from the manual either, and this is why. The manual said, “Your bike is equipped either with the threadless stem, which clamps onto the outside of the steerer tube, or with a quill stem, which clamps inside the steerer tube by way of an expanding binder bolt.”

What?

The manual told me to ask my dealer whether I had a threadless stem or a quill stem, but I'm not asking my dealer.

He doesn't know me that well.

Also, “steerer” isn't an adjective, no matter how you slice it.

I thumbed through the rest of the manual to learn about the gears on my new bike. I remember that my old bike had three gears, which were: the one I always use, the one I hope to use, and the one I will never use.

Then I remember when ten-speed bikes were invented, a certifiable scientific advance. I begged my parents to get me one, and they did, but I never used any gears beyond the aforementioned first three.

My new bike has 857,938 gears.

Guess how many I will use.

 

Mother Mary Gets Religion

By Lisa

I'm worried about Mother Mary.

Because she found religion.

In a manner of speaking, anyway.

We begin when Brother Frank tells me that he'll call me on Sunday, “after church.”

I don't understand. No Scottoline has gone to church in centuries, least of all my mother, who was excommunicated from the Catholic Church after she got divorced and remarried.

Can you imagine Catholicism without a Mother Mary?

I asked, “Frank, did you and Mom start going to church?”

“No, I meant we watch on TV.”

“You and Mom watch church on television?”

“Yes, every Sunday morning, we watch Mass together.”

I don't understand this. I didn't know this was possible. Church on TV? Are there commercials? “Why did you start doing this?”

“Mom wants to. It was her idea.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.”

I ask a few more questions and ascertain that they started a few months ago, and though I feel touched, I'm also worried. My mother isn't in the best of health and though her mind is as quick as ever, lately her speech has slowed. She has a speech therapist, and her doctors say there's no cause for alarm, but still, I wonder if the TV-church thing means she is worrying.

I'm worrying about her worrying.

If she's worried, then I'll be doubly worried. Maybe triple. If you didn't think you could quadruple-worry, you haven't been a daughter.

Or a mother.

So I tell Frank to put Mother Mary on the phone, which he does. “Mom, do you and Frank really watch church on Sunday mornings?”

“Who wants to know?”

I let that go, because you may remember that Mother Mary always answers a question with a question. “Why are you doing this?”