GREED, LUST, ENTITLEMENT, VANITY & FEAR
GREED, LUST, ENTITLEMENT, VANITY & FEAR
Because my husband and I watch a lot of television, we are forced to watch a lot of commercials. Even though most of the time we remember to mute the sound, the pictures shout out to us, loud and clear.
We started a little experiment the other night. We decided to analyze each commercial as it came up. The question we posed was, “What are they selling here?” The answers were interesting – and had very little (if anything) to do with the products.
Each commercial appeals to one of our most basic (or base) human characteristics.
For example, let’s look at the “all you can eat” commercials for chain restaurants. That’s obvious: greed. Another example in the greed camp is the one-minute infomercial for some kitchen gadget. Invariably, they tell you that the product is a “sixty-dollar value”. Then you see a big red X through the $60.00 sign, and underneath is “Only $19.99”. (What is it with $19.99? Everything in infomercial land seems to sell for $19.99). Then, just as your common sense is telling you that the product was really only worth $19.99 to begin with, they say, “BUT WAIT! Call within the next thirty seconds and you’ll get a free (fill-in-the-blank)! All for the unbelievably low price of $19.99!” About this time, I’m thinking that this product must be really awful if they’re selling it this cheap. But I do understand the allure: The allure is in the message, “Look how much you can get for almost nothing”. In a word: Greed.
Now, let’s talk about lust. Lust is always easy to spot. Victoria’s Secret ads are the most obvious example. But if they’re selling a pick-up truck with a gorgeous model in a halter-top and Daisy Duke shorts in front of it, they’re selling lust. If the product is mouthwash, and the ad promises to make you “kissing sweet”, while showing an attractive couple swallowing each other’s tongues, they’re selling lust. And, by the way, if the product is a video of some promising young girl who happens to be half undressed – I don’t care how good a singer she might be – they’re selling lust.
Entitlement often overlaps with greed, but it has a different feel to it. Whenever you see the luxury car commercials, which promise things like, “rich Corinthian leather”, or “stylish appointments”, they’re selling entitlement. Whenever the commercial features an attractive young couple standing outside what appears to be an English Tudor-style mansion, they’re selling entitlement. There is a wonderful example of an entitlement commercial. The product is a gargantuan, British-made SUV. It is rolling through the narrow streets of what appears to be a South Asian country. It stops to allow a local entourage to pass. The royalty in the small parade appears to be a gorgeous young princess in native garb. She waves her slender hand to allow the gargantuan British SUV to pass. The last shot of the commercial features a single word, “RESPECT’ (and then the manufacturer’s name). I guess the message is, “Drive this vehicle and you will garner all the respect you so richly deserve, since you are the great white buana!” That’s entitlement.
Next comes vanity. Vanity is simple. Anytime there is an implication that by using a certain product you will emerge looking like the model on TV, that’s vanity. It could be a diet commercial, soap, shampoo, clothing, perfume or cologne. It doesn’t matter that cologne couldn’t possibly make you look like the model, because remember, we are in our TV mode now, and common sense does not apply. If there were still cigarette commercials on TV, they would be vanity commercials, too. Cigarette commercials used to always strive to make you think you would look cool and sophisticated with their brand of cigarette between your lips.
Now we come to fear. Well, fear covers a very broad spectrum, and I can’t do it justice for today. Suffice it to say that fear is probably the most common human emotion covered in commercials. There is: fear of bad breath, fear of dandruff, fear of body odor, fear of social ridicule, fear of strangers, fear of boredom, and of course, fear of death. Most of those commercials for prescription medicines play on your fear of death. Of course, if you turn up the volume and really listen to the hushed, rushed list of caveats at the end of the commercial, you will notice that in many cases “death” is one of the rare unpleasant side effects of the medicine. Once again, however, we are in TV mode, where common sense is not an issue.
Anyway – I envision a day when commercials as we know them will be done away with completely. All commercials will be embedded in the story line of the shows, which is already beginning to be the case. You won’t need a Folgers coffee commercial because the can of Folgers will be prominently displayed in the Pine Valley kitchens of “All My Children”. You won’t need a Sears commercial because the Sears and Kenmore logo will be all over the appliances used in “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” (whoops – that’s already happening). It will be a little trickier to spot the true message of the embedded commercials, which will make them all the more effective. You won’t know you’re being sold. (Isn’t that the definition of propaganda)?
© Robin Munson, 2005
LOST IN SPACE
LOST IN SPACE
No, I’m not talking about the television show. I’m talking about my own tendency to lose everything I touch. My husband and I laugh together about my “visio-spatial impairment”. He thinks it’s cute – thank God. I laugh because, if I didn’t, I’d cry.
It came to mind this morning because my husband temporarily misplaced his keys. Notice I say “temporarily misplaced” when he does it. When I do it, I’ve “lost” the keys. But what I notice most of all is that whenever anything is lost or “temporarily misplaced” in our household, I immediately think I’m the culprit. I race around the house frantically checking my pocket book, my jacket pockets, and my nightstand. I am sure that – if something is lost – I’ve done the losing.
This is not as crazy an idea as it may seem. I started my career as a loser at a tender age. I remember losing shoes and socks when I was barely old enough to speak. I don’t know anymore how I did it. One little white shoe would be properly placed by my bed with one sock nearby, the other would be nowhere in sight. My mother would be so exasperated. She would say things like, “Well – They don’t have legs! They must be here somewhere!” (I was too young to come up with the rejoinder, “Well, but they do have feet!”). And anyway, I felt too guilty. I knew deep down inside that it was some profound failing on my part that I could not keep track of my belongings. . Eventually, the other shoe and sock would be discovered on the downstairs landing or by the toy box in the den.
Another aspect to this losing thing was that, the more precious a possession was to me, the more likely (and the more quickly) I was apt to lose it. I remember receiving a beautiful birthstone ring from my parents on my eighth birthday. It was a tiny gold band with a tiny, tiny peridot in the middle. I was thrilled! I went over to my friend’s house across the street to show off my prize. Somehow, in the midst of showing it off and putting it back on, I lost my birthday present. Telling my parents was so painful. I don’t remember them punishing me or yelling at me. I guess they felt that losing my treasure was the most fitting punishment of all.
Later on when I was taking voice lessons from a kind but stern diva in Pittsburgh, she entrusted me with her only copy of a Mozart piece. I can still see it in my mind’s eye. It had a creamy white binding and the pages were slightly yellowed with age. There were penciled-in notes my teacher had made for herself in the corners of some of the pages. She was very clear that this was a prized possession, and she wanted it back promptly. As you must have guessed by now, I lost the blasted thing. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when. I know that I was using it for practice, and that I practiced in our living room, so I’m as clueless now as I was then as to where it could have gotten to. My mother helped me to scour the house for days.
With each day that drew closer to my lesson I grew more panicked. Finally, having no choice whatsoever, my mother took me to the local music store and I bought another copy. Of course, the binding was not creamy white, but burgundy, so she would know immediately upon seeing it what had happened. My teacher sniffed and barely concealed her anger and disappointment. I was humiliated and barely got through my lesson.
Now, being older and wiser, I have developed habits, which make it harder to lose things. I have a designated zipper compartment in my purse for my keys. I have a designated holder for my driver’s license, as well as a special place for my credit card. I do not buy purses that do not have special compartments.
When I park my car in a parking lot (oh, yes – I can lose a car as easily as the car keys) I take a thirty-second break to look around and notice where I am. If there are landmarks, such as a particular store entrance, I make a mental note of that. If there is a designated level and color, I make a mental note of that. If I know that I’m in a particularly scattered mood, I might even write down the designated level and color on the back of my parking ticket. Even so, I have spent nearly an hour in a frantic effort to hunt down my car. Too many times I have been the frazzled, dazzled woman with the wild look in her eye walking up and down the endless, spiraling corridors of a multi-tiered parking lot, wishing that Security would happen by and take pity on me.
If I were anyone else, I would worry that I was developing some form of dementia. As it is, I give that possibility only the most fleeting consideration. After all, I’ve been doing this all my life.
I think the real problem is distraction. My body goes through the mundane motions of picking up, putting down, parking, walking, opening doors, closing doors, stuffing in pockets and hanging up jackets. My mind, meanwhile, is off somewhere entirely different, and while I am going through all those mundane motions, I am mulling over things like the meaning of life, the origin of the universe, and extraterrestrial beings.
In spite of my best intentions, I don’t believe I will ever completely conquer this tendency. It goes with being a dreamer. (I’ve talked to a lot of my dreamer friends, and they report a similar tendency). And since I don’t see myself changing identity any time soon, I guess I’ll just have to be content to remain as I am. Lost in space.
© 2005, Robin Munson
SUNSHINE
SUNSHINE
We’ve been enduring five days of non-stop rain here in Southern California. Some communities were flooded. There was a huge landslide yesterday in a tiny town near the ocean just south of Santa Barbara. There were several fatalities and people are still missing in the rubble. A house not too far from us in the Hollywood Hills was completely destroyed. Miraculously, the father and his two children, who were inside the house when it collapsed, were safely rescued. The rain was so heavy and relentless that people everywhere were complaining of “cabin fever”. If you drove, you took your life in your hands. The skies were gun metal gray for so long that we didn’t think they would ever be sunny again.
The weather forecasters were telling us yesterday that the worst was yet to come. They told us a cold front down from the north, and the “pineapple express”, a front of warm air from the south, were due to collide at about 3:00 a.m. this morning in the L.A. Basin. The result would be more heavy downpours, high winds, thunderstorms, and possible tornados. This last storm was supposed to last until noon today.
I looked at the steep hillside which overlooks our property, as well as the humungous house that is built right out to the edge of the property that forms the top of said hill, and I thought that maybe this time we wouldn’t be so lucky. Maybe this record-breaking series of storms that had dumped over 20 inches of rain in the past two weeks would finally cause our carefully terraced hillside and all its trees and groundcover to tumble down and destroy our home.
In any event, I didn’t want to spend one more sleepless night lying awake listening to the wind howl and the hail beating against our windowpane. I suggested to Art that we spend the night in a hotel. To my surprise, he didn’t tell me I was crazy. It turns out that he wasn’t looking forward to a night of lying awake, either. So we packed up our cat, Henry, and all his gear, packed toothbrushes for ourselves, and off we went to the hotel just down the road.
You know that expression about “making lemonade out of a lemon?” Well, that’s exactly what we did. Once we had Henry settled with his food and his kitty litter, we went downstairs to the lobby and ordered a glass of wine. We took our wine up to the room with us and finished it while we watched TV. I took a hot bath and worked on the crossword puzzle. We slept like babies. The room was mercifully dark and so insolated from the weather that we didn’t even hear the rain. We woke up to see that the sun was out and the rain had stopped. We had breakfast at the hotel, then packed up Henry and our toothbrushes and came home.
When we got home, the hillside was still intact. Our home was unscathed. The terrible storm that was supposed to have lasted about nine hours had only blown through and then taken a turn to the south. So maybe we overreacted to the forecast. Maybe it was a crazy idea. And maybe it was overly extravagant. But I’m glad we did it. After all, if we had stayed in our house instead of going to the hotel, I’m sure the storm would have been all they had predicted and more! (It’s some kind of a corollary of Murphy’s Law).
Of course, the power was out when we got home, and it stayed off for several hours. But when we took our daily walk, all the neighbors were out of doors, just enjoying the sunshine. Everyone was friendly and talkative. We all knew we had dodged a bullet.
© 2005, Robin Munson
SINGING IN THE STUDIO
SINGING IN THE STUDIO
Today I’m going to be singing in the studio. (That is, God willin’ and the crik don’t rise). It’s been raining relentlessly for about three days, and there’s a leak in the vocal booth, so I guess as long as I don’t stand in a puddle and touch the microphone at the same time, I’ll be alright.
I love singing. It’s really my oldest passion. When I was little, I used to listen to my mother’s records – Judy Garland, Sarah Vaughn, Doris Day – and my own records, like Disney’s “Alice In Wonderland” and I would sing along, imagining that I was singing not only the lead, but all the vocal harmonies as well. (I had a rich imagination). When I was a tiny little thing, I used to wake up long before the rest of the household, totter down the stairs to the spinet, and plunk out little tunes that I made up out of my head, singing at the top of my lungs. I don’t know how my family stood for it. My sisters used to complain, of course, but my parents, for some reason (maybe because they were up an extra flight of stairs above the kids’ rooms) used to just let me have at it.
By the time I was eight, I was ready for piano lessons. (My older sister was ready for lessons by the time she was three! I was clearly not in her league). I loved my piano teacher, who was kind of sweet and sour at the same time. Mr. Gross was a wonderful musician who taught sensitivity as much as he taught technique. I stayed with it longer than I might have with anyone else. But the truth is, all I really wanted to do on the piano was accompany myself so that I could sing.
I started taking voice lessons along with the piano lessons at an early age. Once again, I was willing to do whatever it took to make myself a good singer, so I made a great effort at singing in the “bel canto” style, learning arias and art songs. I was also taught to sing a la Julie Andrews with songs like, “I Could Have Danced All Night”. It gave me discipline, but I’m afraid, little else. I was never going to be an opera singer or a concert pianist.
I began writing songs while I was in college. Back then, I had so much teenage angst. Heartbroken love songs and what they refer to as “kiss-off” songs in Nashville were my specialty. I also had a kind of folksy flair, which made me sound like a cross between Joan Baez, Judy Collins and the not-so-folksy Laura Nyro (if you can imagine that). My songwriting was infused with the old influence of my classical training and exposure to “legit” musical comedy. I think I would have taken to country music, what with its story-telling element and its cry-in-your-beer love songs, at a very early age, except that my father hated country music and made fun of it, so it would have been sacrilege to bring it into the house.
In my twenties and thirties I made a living as a “chanteuse” singing top forty during cocktail hours and late nights in clubs (saloons). I was the pretty girl in the long dress at the piano with a brandy snifter atop the baby grand. I hated it. That’s what made me decide to learn to type. Anyway. . .
Much, much later – it took me until my early forties – I finally rediscovered country music. It was a total revelation to me. I was listening for the first time to a Reba McIntyre tape in my car, and I got the chills after about two measures. “Oh my God!” I said to myself, “This is the way I want to write!”
My husband and I wound up moving to Nashville in 1994, right after the Northridge earthquake here in Los Angeles. (I’ll tell you about the culture shock another time, but for now, just imagine going from restaurants that serve soy cappuccinos to restaurants that only serve Maxwell House coffee, and then extrapolate from there). We were in Nashville for six and a half years, and I learned a tremendous amount, not only about writing country music, but also about writing in general. The people were wonderful. The music business was what it always is, no matter where you go. (Sigh – also a conversation for another day).
Well, today I’m recording a scratch vocal (that means a guide vocal for another vocalist) for a country song that my sister and I wrote just before Art and I moved to Nashville. Wish me luck, and pray that I don’t step in a puddle and kiss the mic by mistake!
© 2005, Robin Munson
WHAT EVIL LURKS?
WHAT EVIL LURKS?
So, I’m making the bed this morning, just like I do every morning, and of course, I have the television on because (as we all know) I’m a television junkie.
I’m not even paying attention to the movie that’s on, when a commercial cuts in. It’s a commercial for a “thriller” – something about a village where there are some kind of evil spirits or something. It is obvious from the announcer’s tone of voice that it is meant to really scare you. Then about five minutes later there is another commercial. This is for yet another “thriller”. This is a Stephen King story, and it seems like it has something to do with a roller coaster gone haywire. The announcer (same announcer, I think) intones, “Death is coming!” I almost laughed out loud.
Now, you have to understand that I am not a brave person or a thrill-seeker. I’m quite the opposite. All my life I have avoided “scary movies” like the plague. Up until very recently, I wouldn’t even watch the trailers for them because I found them too disturbing.
I must admit there was one exception. When I was a little girl (back in the olden days) I used to watch “The Twilight Zone”. Rod Serling’s stories were not just scary, they were allegories that helped us to discern right from wrong and warned us of the consequences of human weakness. They were beautifully told, concise (because they had to conform to the half-hour format), well acted, well directed, and they scared the bijeezuz out of me. I loved “The Twilight Zone”, even though it gave me many a sleepless night. Maybe even because it gave me many a sleepless night. It seemed easier to worry about monsters in the closet than about the very real monsters I encountered every day at school. Maybe that is one of the reasons that such entertainment is so popular.
The most basic premise of “thrillers” and “horror” genres is that what we think we understand about our world, the laws of nature that we take for granted, may not always hold true. They scare us for the same reason that an earthquake scares us. Something happens that shouldn’t happen. This calls into question all of our neatly organized assumptions about the world, our metaphorical terra firma, which is no longer so “firma”.
I don’t know exactly why such ideas no longer scare me as they did for so many years. I am guessing it’s because I have finally come to see that the basic assumption I cradled in my bosom for so many years – that the world is a safe place – has finally been overwhelmed by a tsunami (you should pardon the expression) of evidence to the contrary. Between man-made disasters (like 9/11) and natural disasters (like the tsunamis), it is clear that all of us have one foot on a banana peel and one foot in the abyss.
Evil spirits? Absolutely. Death coming to get me? No question. Things not what they seem? You may rely upon it. There is something liberating about finally admitting to yourself that in fact, the bogyman is out there and there is not much, if anything, you can do about it. That frees you up to enjoy life. It may be that knowing we might get wiped out by a meteor some day just makes us appreciate our lives more.
So bring on the ghosts, the goblins, the vampires, the “undead” and the truly dead. Bring on the evil spirits, the malevolent roller coasters, the gigantic ants, and the killer birds. All of it pales in comparison to what’s really out there.
Life may not be safe, but in spite of all that, it is very sweet.
© 2005, Robin Munson
ATONEMENT IN JANUARY
ATONEMENT IN JANUARY
In the Jewish faith, we have a Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). It is celebrated in September some time. I always have a hard time scraping up enough sins in the early autumn to make for a meaningful experience. I think we ought to move Yom Kippur to January and make it a secular holiday.
In November and December, all the news is about two things: Holiday food (and holiday parties), and buying gifts for the holidays. Turn to almost any channel, open a magazine, or peruse the newspaper, and that’s what you will see. There are catalogs filled to the brim with gourmet delicacies (only the fattening need apply), cashmere sweaters, esoteric little gizmos that fulfill needs you didn’t even know you had, expensive video games for the kiddies, and clothes that can only be worn to Christmas galas.
You cannot escape. Even in the grocery stores the P.A. pipes in cheery seasonal music, ever reminding you that the countdown is on. The pressure to overeat, overspend and overindulge is, well, overwhelming. The results are predictable.
So – Here we are in January. Turn to almost any channel, open a magazine or peruse the newspaper. It’s all about two things: Diets and budgets. It is a given that all of us, to some degree or another, have succumbed to the pressures of the holiday season. We have all overeaten, overspent, and overindulged. We are overwhelmed.
Now the purveyors of modern media come charging to the rescue. “No problem”, they declare, “We’ve got your diet/budget/organizational solution right here!” There is an overall mood of penitence. We open our burgeoning bills with an air of resignation. We are like puppies with our tails between our legs. Yes, we’ve messed up. Yes, we saw it coming. But, no, we couldn’t help it.
But living in the age of Dr. Phil and Dr. Laura, we at least recognize that we must “get real” and “take responsibility” for our own actions. Yes, it was I at Macy’s proffering my shop-worn credit card along with the rest of the sheep. Yes, it was I at Williams-Sonoma tasting the free samples of cocoa. Yes, it was I at the groaning board of the Thanksgiving feast diving headfirst into the candied yams. Yes, I accept full responsibility for my sloth and avarice. NOW HELP ME!!! I’M FIFTY POUNDS HEAVIER THAN I WAS LAST OCTOBER AND ON THE VERGE OF BANKRUPTCY!!!
Wouldn’t it be nice if, instead of getting all this sensible advice in January, we were warned back in September and October of the impending holiday onslaught? Imagine if the cover story on all the magazines went something like this: “The Holidays are Coming: Do You Know Your Spending Limit?” or “The Holidays Are Coming: Lock Up Your Cuisinart”, or “The Holidays Are Coming: Twenty Polite Ways to Say ‘No’ to Fruitcake”, or “The Holidays Are Coming: Explaining Keynesian Economics to Your Kids”. (Ho! Ho! Ho! huh?)
Well, they’ll never do it. And if they do it, they’ll quickly come to realize that such dour headlines do not sell magazines or create TV ratings. No, I’m afraid it will have to be an underground, grassroots movement: “The Christmas Liberation Front”. “The Holiday Revolt”. “The People’s Anti-Claus”. (Something like that).
And yet. And yet we know better and we still do it every year. We know people who tell us it’s wrong and we still do it every year. We have the clothes that we grew out of many Christmases past, and we still do it every year.
Time for an organized “mea culpa” so we can get it all over with and be ready for the cycle to repeat itself next November.
© 2005, Robin Munson
FEAR ITSELF
FEAR ITSELF
Yesterday I was talking about “just in case” scenarios and how we spend so much of our time and energy (and money) preparing for the worst.
Then I remembered another one.
A couple of weeks ago, Art and I bought a car. We had done our “due diligence”, reading up on the various models in Consumer Reports, and we had settled on a car that got good marks all around, but especially in the category of reliability. Reliability was of particular interest to us, since our last car had been such a lemon. (Don’t ask – Suffice it to say that our last car was a luxury import from a country famous for its oom-pah-pah and strudel). This time around we went for a family sedan from a country famous for its sushi and Kabuki dancers.
In any event. In retrospect, I think they have something of a “good cop-bad cop” game going on at the dealership. The people who sold us the car were very sweet, very affable, and very friendly.
After we had negotiated our best deal, especially paying attention to the well-advertised low interest financing, we were feeling pretty good. The car was being spiffed up and prepared for us to take it home. Then they brought in the “finance person”. This was a woman who was very buttoned up, very straight-faced, and who was having no nonsense from us.
She started by offering us the famous “extended warranty”. Yes, for about an extra thousand dollars, we could have a warranty that goes beyond the standard three-year warranty. I was confused. Here, this woman’s colleagues had just finished assuring us that the car we had selected was the sturdiest, most reliable we could have chosen. We were congratulated on our good taste and our shrewd ability to discern between the wheat and the chaff, so to speak. But this martinet warned us in hushed tones that our chosen car (although it’s a good car, of course) does have a history of problems after the three-year warranty has run out. I wondered, “Which is true”? Thankfully, my husband is much more decisive than I am. He cut her off at the knees: “That ain’t happening!” he barked.
She then moved on to the special warranty pertaining to the paint. “The paint?” I repeated to myself. “What’s wrong with the paint?” I queried. Well, nothing, but after years of washing, normal wear-and-tear, and sun damage. . . “Nope”, quoth my husband, “Nevermore”. (We had to sign an affidavit stating that she had warned us about the paint, and we had foolishly rejected her generous offer).
She did manage to talk us into keeping the existing alarm system, which is an anti-theft device. Art had to go out to check on something, and while she and I were alone in the room, she told me that, even though she has the alarm system (which she said is a “deterrent”) and the Lo-Jack system (which nabs the crooks in the act), her own car (an exact replica of our car) had been stolen three times in the last year. She explained that the unassuming, low-profile car we had chosen was actually the second most stolen car in the country. When Art came back I tugged on h is sleeve and said, “Maybe we should get the alarm system, honey”. He grumbled and negotiated the price a little, but he acquiesced.
Finally, we left the showroom with our brand new car (streaming little dollar bills as the car’s value depreciated). We discussed the scene in the office of the “finance person”. Art told me that the reason he was so opposed to any of those extra protection warranties was that all of them were based on fear. He was right, of course. All of the “what if?” scenarios are based on our deepest fears.
If you watch enough TV news, read enough newspapers, peruse enough magazines, or indulge in enough cops-and-robbers movies, you can become convinced that the world is a pretty dangerous place, full of hidden pitfalls and malevolent forces. Call me naïve, but the sun is shining this morning, and I just refuse to believe it. To quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.
© 2005, Robin Munson
JUST IN CASE
JUST IN CASE
Well, it’s come again. I can’t avoid it anymore. It’s the yearly clean up. This is the beginning of a process wherein I gather up all the papers from the past year, file them away in big cardboard boxes with labels like, “Bank Statements, 2004”, “Business Receipts, 2004”, etc., and then stack them up at the front door so that Art can take them down to the basement storage. We must have about 500 square feet of storage space already filled from the past seven years’ worth of records (which I understand is generally how long you have to keep your receipts just in case the I.R.S. wants to audit your tax returns). It’s kind of like the lotto in reverse. You know that your chances of being audited are slim to none (although, alas, not as slim as your chances of winning the lotto). Still, one must be prepared. The weird thing is – I think I just finished putting away our 2003 papers last week!
If you count up all the “just in case” things we do in modern life, you realize that we devote a great deal of time, energy, and money to the various gloomy hypotheticals that clutter our thoughts. There is insurance for every contingency. There is fire insurance, home or renter’s insurance, earthquake insurance (here in California, anyway), flood insurance, auto insurance, and of course, health insurance (even for our pets). There is business insurance in case your warehouse or office is destroyed by a natural disaster. There is even insurance to cover your mortgage, just in case you should slip on a banana peel and be rendered permanently unable to pay (or dead). Oh yes, that reminds me – There is burial insurance. Just in case you should die. There is vacation insurance (just in case your cruise is rained out). There is flight insurance, so that if your plane goes down your estate can sue the airline. (That’s just too creepy for me).
Oh, and then there are emergency supplies. We are constantly reminded to keep canned provisions and bottled water on hand – just in case. Duct tape. (There really are a million uses for duct tape, not all of them laughable). Then there are Band-aids, hydrogen peroxide, paper plates, flashlights, batteries, battery-powered radios and TVs, aspirin, extra toilet paper, propane stoves, generators, and of course, a bottle of whiskey (for medicinal purposes only). I also like to keep an emergency suitcase packed in case we have to leave our home in the middle of the night unexpectedly.
Then there are the things you do “just in case” you should get very lucky. I don’t know what the name is for this. For example, you might buy a Rolls-Royce key ring, just in case you do win the lotto. You might buy a formal gown just in case you should ever win the Oscar. You might learn French, just in case you should be named Ambassador to France. You might take up dance. just in case Broadway comes calling. Or in my own case, you might send a song to Reba (just in case she is looking for exactly the song you wrote). Notice that my list of “just in case” good stuff is a whole lot shorter than my “just in case” bad stuff.
My husband says I worry too much, and maybe I do. My therapist once told me that this was the result of Jewish ghetto mentality built up over thousands of years and, I guess, genetically imprinted on my brain. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. But – what if I’m right? I’d better keep worrying, just in case.
Anyway, I’d better cut this short and run my errands in town. Just in case there’s a torrential downpour later that floods the roadways.
© 2005, Robin Munson
CREATURES OF HABIT
CREATURES OF HABIT
This is one of those days that make you want to sleep. We are receiving our third drenching in a week. When I woke up, the rain was coming down hard and fast, and the skies were heavy with charcoal gray clouds. There was a chill in the morning air that made me want to stay under the covers and read a good book (which is exactly what I did until 8:00 a.m., at which time shame got me out of the sack). My husband, Art, on the other hand, suffers from no such shame. When I tried to roust him at 8:15, he asked for more time. I looked at the clock, “It’s 8:15”, I cried. “What is happening to us?” He shrugged and said, “I don’t care!”
You see, Art and I are in the happy category that is euphemistically referred to as “semi-retired”. This means that we don’t have jobs. Our time is only as structured as we want to make it. Usually, we are ruled by habit. Our usual schedule dictates that we rise between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m. We have breakfast at approximately 7:00 a.m. Although the fare is simple – cold cereal, toast, this is always a long, drawn-out meal, with lots of time to talk about the day’s news, share a pot of tea, and announce our aches and pains for the day. I do my blogging at about 8:00 or 8:30. Then I clean the kitchen and make the bed.
We usually have our daily walk around 10:00 or 10:30, so that we arrive back home in time for our tea break (11:30 or so). Art usually busies himself in the studio working on projects from about 12:00 noon to 5:00, with the occasional break to do odd jobs around the house. I usually run household errands in the afternoon. Sometimes Art and I are working on a music project together, which means that I let the house go to hell and work with him in the studio during my housewife time. And by 5:00 or so, it is time to begin preparing our evening meal. (We eat so early in the evening that I’m not sure whether our third meal of the day really qualifies for “supper” – I guess it’s more of a “dinner”, as in “Senior Early Bird Dinner”).
Sadly, we have acquired that all-American habit of watching the news while we eat our dinner, which means that you have to digest death, destruction, and corruption along with your salad and your baked potato. We relax in front of the TV for a couple of hours, and we try to be in bed by 10:00. Before sleep (and I really don’t know why) we usually have another round of death, destruction and corruption (news), which means that our sleep is light and dreams are peppered with strange visions.
I confess all of this to you for two reasons: First, in case you’re anything like we are, you can stop feeling like you’re the only one. I suspect that most people in this world have habits that they can’t rationally explain. Second, so that you can see that none of this is written in stone.
Between the holidays of the past several weeks and our unusual weather, which has necessitated moving our walks to “whenever it’s not raining”, our neat little behavioral pattern has been completely upset. This morning we didn’t begin our breakfast until 8:30, so I am a little late with my blog. The rain is just beginning to let up, so I don’t know when we will actually get our walk in. And since we ate such a late breakfast, our teatime may be postponed until 1:00 p.m., which means that dinner may indeed become supper, and bedtime will probably be past 11:00 p.m. This means that we may actually miss the six o’clock news, which would not break my heart, and who knows? Maybe we’ll skip the news altogether for one day. And since we’re already off our schedule, we might even work in the studio tonight and maybe even – Write a song instead of watching a rerun of a sitcom we’ve seen half a dozen times.
We may be creatures of habit, but remember – Where there is life, there is hope!
© 2005, Robin Munson
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
One last day for 2004. (Perhaps for some of you reading this, it is already 2005)!
Here in Southern California, the Good Lord has chosen to force us into a day of contemplation. The rain is coming down fast and furious, and as you probably know by now, Angelinos do not travel in rain. We hunker down in our homes, doing yoga, writing screenplays, and talking on our cell phones. (You probably also know by now that you should avoid talking on landlines during thunderstorms lest you be zapped).
My to-do list is strange and varied:
1) Write blog.
2) Pick up turkey at store for my sister’s wedding tomorrow.
3) Make pasta salad for my sister’s wedding tomorrow.
4) Make a pot of vegetable soup (We’ve still got to eat tonight).
5) Practice song I am to sing for said wedding.
6) Figure out what to wear for said wedding.
7) Figure out what my husband will wear for said wedding.
Listen to reasons husband will not wear suggested attire for said wedding.
9) Take a walk if there is a break in the weather.
10) Get on Health Rider contraption for a half hour if there is no break in the weather.
11) Call family back East to wish them a Happy New Year.
12) Do laundry so there will be clean underwear for said wedding (if the electricity doesn’t go out again).
13) Shower and wash hair so that I will not offend at said wedding.
14) Clean entire house for the new year (or whatever I can accomplish in half an hour).
Not glamorous. Not even coherent. Just what is (off the top of my head, actually).
And one more item for my list: 15) Try to avoid any new year’s resolutions.
I can’t even remember what my new year’s resolutions were for last year, so I can’t tell you whether or not they had any impact on my life. What I can tell you for sure is that such resolutions achieve only one thing for me – guilt, as in, “Oh look! It’s only January 3rd, and already you are in flagrant violation of your own New Year’s resolution!”
Okay. So actually, I do have a resolution for the New Year: Resolved. Not to make any New Year’s resolutions!
I wish you and yours a happy, healthy, and peaceful New Year.
© 2004, Robin Munson
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