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             I can’t wait until it’s over.

             Ordinarily I’d feel the need to explain further, but I’m certain everyone reading this knows I refer to the presidential campaign, which has dragged on for, oh, seventeen years now.  At least that’s what it feels like.

             It hasn’t been a pleasant ride, either.  While it’s been exciting to find people energized by the candidates, it’s been equally disheartening to find that excitement morph into new levels of ugly at a moment’s notice.  Fear-mongering, name calling, out and out lying—the methods deemed necessary to get your vote call to mind the Salem Witch Hunts more readily than they do the current race for the greatest office in the country if not the world. 

             The campaign ads are full of the hatred and invective, as are the newspapers, (some columnists are particularly vituperative) but so are our families, friends and neighbors.  It’s long ceased to be a contest about the differences in platforms and plans.  Now it’s just a contest about mean.

             I speak here from personal experience, as my husband and I reside on opposite sides of the political fence.  There have been lots if interesting “discussions” in our household over this one.  To give my husband credit, he’s not usually the one yelling.  That would be me. 

             Also, I live in an area where one’s political leanings are presumed a given by pretty much everyone living within a ten mile radius.  To be fair, I imagine it’s the same in most neighborhoods.  However, anyone who dares publicly express a different viewpoint risks incredulous stares by horrified neighbors who all but cross the street when they see you coming.  It’s not quite like wearing a scarlet “A” emblazoned on your chest, but almost.

             My friend had her Obama sign stolen from her front lawn.  When she reported it to the police they basically told her to join the club.  Signs for both candidates have been disappearing faster than tickets to the World Series. 

             What is going on?

             The fact is, I don’t like yelling at my husband.  He’s a great guy.  And while I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as “great,” I’m not usually evil.  Neither are my family, friends and neighbors.  Neither, I’m willing to bet, are those who craft the ads, write the articles, or even steal the signs.

             To my mind, it boils down to one thing: fear.  The economy stinks, the war lumbers on, people are losing jobs, homes, health insurance, and Bin Laden is still out there.  We’re all afraid that the sky is falling, and the politicians and their minions are playing on those fears, and playing us, like fiddles at a country hoedown. 

             I think we all want the same things—basically, health, peace and prosperity.  We just think “our guy” is the one who will deliver.  The fact is, neither one will deliver all of the goods, at least not right away.  And neither guy is the devil incarnate.  The world won’t end regardless of who gets elected.

             I’m hoping that when it’s all over but the shouting that the shouting will stop and we can get back to the business of being decent human beings who don’t view conversation and opposing viewpoints as invitations to participate in a blood sport.  

             I look forward to the day when I can again voice my opinion freely, without someone looking for three sixes on my head if I happen to disagree with them.  But for now, I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.  One way or the other, someone’s going to want to pin a scarlet letter on my chest.

             And scarlet doesn’t flatter my complexion.

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               I spiraled uncontrollably into every technology user’s nightmare.  I turned on the computer, which teased me with a single burst of light on the screen followed by a quick descent into total darkness.

             I tapped key after key and pushed button after button to no avail.  Retrieving my manual from a drawer, I plodded through every page, scrutinizing and executing every “troubleshooting” suggestion without result.

             Defeated, I reached for the phone to make the dreaded call for “service.”

             To my mind, at least until I found myself forced to ask for some, the word “service” was synonymous with “help.”  As in, someone else would fix a problem which I was unqualified to address.  As in, when you have a “service contract,” a company “services” the customer’s needs.  As in, the reason I’m calling you people in the first place is that I can’t fix whatever it is that’s wrong, so send someone out here to fix it for me! 

 Somewhere along the line, though, “service” has come to mean, “We don’t think it’s really our problem, but if you have a screwdriver, we’ll try to talk you through it.”

             At least, that’s what it means according to my computer company, which shall remain nameless for all of the obvious reasons.

             Finally reaching a live human forty minutes after placing the call, I patiently explained my problem.  “Do you have a screwdriver?” my customer “service” representative asked.

             “Yes, I have a screwdriver.  Why do I need a screwdriver?”

             “I’m going to help you fix the problem,” he answered.

             Three hours later, with my computer in pieces all around me, my new friend threw in the towel.  “Well, I don’t know what’s wrong with it.  I guess we’ll have to send someone out there to fix it.”

             “Excuse me for being ridiculously naïve, but that’s why I called you in the first place, to send someone out here to fix it.  I have no idea what I’m doing.  Why did you tell me to take this thing apart?  Shouldn’t you have just sent someone over here to repair it?”

             “Lots of times, it’s a small problem that the customer can fix on their own.  And even if you need a part, we try and have the customer pinpoint what the trouble is so we can just send out that particular piece with the service technician.”

             “So you admit that there is an actual service technician?”

             “Sure.  We just don’t like to send them out for every little thing.”

             I won’t repeat my response, but suffice it to say that they sent someone, and it took almost a week, but my computer is fixed.

             Later that same day, my mother called from her cell phone.

             “Why are you using your cell?” I asked.

             “There’s something wrong with my house phone.  When I called the phone company, they asked me if I had a screwdriver and could get to the black box on the wall in the basement.  I was down there for over an hour, trying to help them figure out what was wrong.  They finally decided they need to send someone out to fix the problem, which I could have told them in the first place,” she said.

             People, I smell a revolution in the offing.  If you have a service contract, demand service.  Demand it, insist on it, expect it and accept nothing less than being a satisfied customer.

             And the next time someone asks you if you have a screwdriver, say, “No, but I’ll be happy to go and mix myself one while you check on the date that you’ll be sending out a service technician.”

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            I found it. 

             About a year ago, the powers that be in the Catholic Church decided that there was no Limbo.

             For you non-Catholics, Limbo was the place that you hung out in if you didn’t have the credentials to make it into Heaven or Hell.

             Limbo was populated by unbaptized babies, who couldn’t get to Heaven since they didn’t have the required paperwork.  Even though they were babies and hadn’t had the opportunity to sin, there was the pesky matter of the Original Sin—the one Eve committed by eating that darn apple. 

             According to the Catholic Church, everyone is supposed to be baptized to wash away Original Sin.  Unfortunately, if a baby passed on before someone washed away the sin, it was off to Limbo, which, if you ask me, is a rather hefty price to pay because some lady you don’t even know took a bite from a lousy apple. 

             Limbo didn’t have much going for it.  From what we were told, the place was populated by little souls with wings who spent their time flying around, and that was about it, since there wasn’t anything else to do.  Limbo was one of those places you were pretty sure you weren’t getting out of.  That state of unknowing and being basically stuck is such a scary thing that the Catholic “Limbo” came to mean “a place of oblivion” in everyday language according to Webster’s Dictionary.

             Needless to say, we felt sorry for the babies in Limbo and the nuns were always telling us to pray for them, which I found sort of odd since, as far as anyone knew, there was no escape hatch in Limbo.

             But back to Limbo’s current status, which according to the Church, is non-existent.  Given the laws of physics, once a thing exists, can it ever just not exist?  Doesn’t it have to end up, in some form or another, somewhere?

             That being true, I think I’ve found Limbo.  It has been moved to your neighborhood post office.

             When I was away this summer, I thought Limbo had become the sole province of the Ocean City Post Office, a formidable place if there ever was one.  The building is a massive stone structure which all but swallows you whole once inside.  It’s also gray.  The whole thing, inside and out, including the people.  Once you’re in, you’re not going anywhere.  No one moves, yet you’re afraid to try and walk away, lest you lose your spot in the Limbo line.

             Somehow, after a near eternity, I escaped the Ocean City post office, and I thought my Limbo days were behind me.  Until, that is, I naively decided to mail a package at a post office in Bucks County.

             I’ve since realized that there are no windows or clocks in any post office, so you never know if it’s day or night, or if you’ve been standing there for several minutes or three days.  Kind of like Las Vegas, but without the fun.  You don’t move forward and you don’t move backward.  It’s populated by souls “in a state of oblivion.”

             From now on, I think the Catholic Church should leave well enough alone.  Look what happened when they messed around: A place once relegated to the spiritual world has now taken up residence in our earthly lives.

  With the holidays upon us, you’ll likely make a trip to the post office.  When you go, keep your eyes opened for the escape hatch.  And if you get out, hold the door open for the flying babies.  No one should have to live in Limbo.

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            It’s supposed to be a little miracle worker that fits in the palm of your hand.

             According to legend and folklore, it can keep track of your appointments via a calendar, send and receive emails, send and receive text messages, take pictures, make movies, play music, oh, and send and receive phone calls since it is a phone.  Or so we’ve been told.

             My husband, busy guy that he is, figured that he should probably jump on the technological bandwagon and get himself one of those fancy gizmos that can all but fly the space shuttle in addition to handling something as simple as phone calls.  So, when his last cell phone contract was up, he decided to become a member of the electronic wizardry club. 

             Dave contracted with a major carrier and bought himself a Treo, a gadget similar to the Blackberry, granddaddy of phone gadgets.  (I probably shouldn’t say which major carrier, but since you’ve twisted my arm, it was Sprint.)  Given the hype, the device should have rendered life chaos-free.  Instead, it took my husband hostage.

             Part of the problem is the phone itself.  Why, when our aging eyes are, well, aging, do we purchase products with teeny, tiny buttons, with even teenier, tinier numbers on said buttons?  We can’t see what we’re dialing.  Heck, half of the time, we can’t even find the phone itself, as I realized the other day when my husband reached for the house phone instead of his cell.  I thought nothing of it until I heard “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” playing in the living room. 

             “You’re calling yourself, aren’t you?” I asked.

             “I can’t find my phone,” he replied sheepishly.

             By the way, “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” is our one nod to progress.  In lieu of the standard irritating jangle of chimes ringer, our son downloaded his father’s favorite tune onto the phone.  Score one, and only one, for us.

             Thankfully, that time, Dave didn’t have to answer his phone as he was calling himself.  Because when he does answer his phone, he can’t hear the party on the other end. 

             “Hello?  Hello?  Hello?” he says, with increasing panic, as he frantically pushes buttons.  Conversely, when he calls me from his Treo, I can’t hear him either.  I pick up the line, hear nothing, and the conversation goes like this:

             “Hello?  Hello?  Well, I guess this is you, Dave, and as usual, I can’t hear you, so I’m going to assume you’re calling to tell me you’re on your way home.  I’ll see you when you get here.”  Occasionally, Dave will break in with, “Hello?  Can you hear me?  Fran?  Can you hear me, now?” at which point he’ll repeat what I just said.

             But the real nightmare began when Sprint enabled email on my husband’s phone.  What they didn’t tell us was that when they enabled it on the phone, they disabled it on all of our computers.  This was our business email, which we were then unable to use at our business for over six weeks!

             Oh, they swore it wasn’t their fault, until they realized that it was and reprogrammed some settings they had put into the “system” (a vague and terrifying force with the ability to wreak havoc on lives, or businesses).

             The email problem is finally straightened out, but neither of us is thrilled with the Treo or Sprint.  Frankly, I think we’d do better with two tin cans and a string.

             So call if you must, but if you want to talk, be patient.  Dave will get to you—once we get through the instruction book on how to answer the phone.

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            During the cold, dreary winter months, they serve as subtle reminders of balmy days past and those to come.  Yet, as they huddle together in forlorn looking flocks far from their coastline homes, one can almost begin to feel sorry for the black and white birds that epitomize summers on the Eastern Shore.

            Almost feel sorry for them.  However, do not let appearances deceive, for there is nothing, absolutely nothing, sympathetic about seagulls.

             In fact, I’ve come to believe that during the winter months, just as children must leave the shore to return to school, the gulls move inland not to escape the harsh weather, but rather for a more dark, insidious purpose: seagull terrorist training camp.

             How else to explain the aggressiveness of birds which, during my youth could be shooed away with a wave of the hand?

             These days, a wave of the hand and a cry of “Scat!” are met with a disdainful look from the gulls that seems to taunt, “Is that all you got?” as they throw their heads back and laugh in defiance.  (They aren’t called “laughing gulls” for nothing.)

             Seagulls make a clear case for the adaptation of a species to its environment.  By nature, the coastline is home to the birds, which are supposed to feed on the many forms of sea life available in their habitat.

             However, as we humans have continued to encroach on beaches, building boardwalk eateries and bringing all manner of snacks, treats and goodies to sustain us for a few hours in the wild, the gulls have gotten wise.

             Why bother flying around for hours trying to scope out a few minnows or a lone crab when these people provide enough food during an afternoon to feed an entire flock?

             Whether on beach or boardwalk, seagulls can spot the tiniest morsel of food from a distance of at least two miles.  They hover and circle, deciding if they’re in the mood for a funnel cake, or if a handful of potato chips will more readily fit the bill.      

             Knowing full well that we are more afraid of them than they are of us (as evidenced by the evasive maneuvers undertaken by even the most virile man when he’s been targeted by a gull) the birds dive in with kamikaze-like precision on their prey.

             They will often swoop in amid a great flapping of wings (done for effect to frighten the hapless human) and snatch the object of their desire directly from the hand unfortunate enough to be holding it.   And woe to that foolish person who voluntarily tosses a gull a French fry.  He will find himself under fire from a screaming mass of scavengers that will cease only when the last fry is but a memory and he has been gifted with several helpings of seagull poop.

             Should the food not be in plain sight, the gulls walk fearlessly over beach blankets, hunting and tossing things aside until they find that bag of Cheetos, which they recognize by the label after spending the winter months in supermarket parking lots watching us, studying our buying habits, and waiting for summer, when they can put their knowledge to use.

             By the end of a season of munching on calorie laden junk, the birds are so fat that they can survive the colder months with ease, as they establish camp around grocery stores, passing their fiendish tricks onto the younger gulls, and biding their time until the oblivious humans once more flock to the shore—or Steven Spielberg begins casting for a remake of The Birds, whichever comes first.

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It’s where all old rock stars go to gasp their last, and old rock fans go to wheeze their support.

            Tune into your local PBS station on any given night and you will likely bear witness to a disturbing and increasingly common trend—former (dare I say “washed up”?) rock bands reuniting to perform their old hits in front of an audience of decidedly more wrinkled and weighty fans than in days of old.

             These icons of classic rock represent the baby boom generation in the most basic of ways.  They reaffirm, publicly, loudly, and occasionally tunelessly, our determination to not grow old gracefully. 

             As they warble or screech through their hits of yesteryear, these reminders of our lost youth prance across the stage, frequently attired in clothing that they shouldn’t have worn twenty years ago and should be arrested for wearing now.

             We, their aging and ever loyal fans, balding, bespectacled and bulging about the waist and elsewhere, scream our approval, shouting things like “Rock on!” which only serve to underscore the fact that we are hopelessly no longer “with it,” and should have turned out attentions to smooth jazz (when in public at least) about ten years ago.         

             As if to confirm our refusal to grow up and continue life’s journey with some shred of dignity, the collective geniuses who put together the Super Bowl halftime show treated us to a surreal performance by those grandfathers (and I do mean that literally) of rock and roll, the Rolling Stones.

             I know that messing with the Rolling Stones is blasphemous to anyone who grew up loving their hard rocking sound.  And I will be the first to admit that the Stones were likely the greatest rock band in the world—in their prime.  But as I watched sixty-two year-old Mick Jagger strut and fling himself about the stage, I couldn’t help but feel I was watching a Saturday Night Live parody in the making.

             Mick and his emaciated band mates clashed about for twelve minutes, while we were treated to the sight of Mick’s arm flab (the biceps looked okay, but the under arm wing span!) waving in the air while Keith Richards teetered around, somehow managing to remain upright for the duration of the set.  (I swear Keith was in on the joke, as he appeared to smirk through the entire performance.)

             The group was surrounded by screaming fans, most of whom seemed far too young to have witnessed the band in their heyday, but only too happy to cavort enthusiastically for the cameras.  The result was a live action Dali painting; nothing looked quite right.  (My discomfort was echoed by my twenty-year-old son, who called to vent his disgust, re-christening the band the Decrepit Pebbles.)

             As for PBS, despite their high brow proclamations, they are not above tapping into our delusional youth obsessed vanity to make a buck.  In fact, those reunited rock concerts are huge money makers, something they won’t easily give up.

And I’m not suggesting we give up our “classic” rock and roll.  Our generation has redefined many things, aging among them, and I’m nowhere near ready for a rocking chair myself.  I’m merely recommending that we use a bit more discretion when indulging and stop encouraging our former icons to parade about publicly, trying in vain to recreate the magical moments that existed decades ago.  I love hearing the music; I just don’t like worrying that the performers may suffer cardiac arrest while performing it.

To Mick and the boys, I’ll add only this:  I think your grandchildren are calling.  And for heaven’s sake, eat something!

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              I’m seeing too much green.

             Green is in; it’s everywhere.  Green is the color of the moment in oh so many ways.

             A few weeks back we had Earth Day.  Everyone from politicians to celebrities to the man on the street had ideas about what we need to do to keep our planet green.  Most of the proclamations were pretty sound.  Use cloth sacks instead of plastic bags for store purchases.  Fill up re-usable containers with tap water instead of drinking the bottled variety.  Carpool, walk or bike to work or the store.  But I think some of us may be carrying the whole green thing a bit too far. 

             My best friend, Chris, and I walk regularly through our suburban neighborhood in our attempt at fitness and fat control.  In actuality, we walk to provide each other with our own personal therapy sessions, thereby saving our husbands hundreds of dollars in doctor bills.  Either way, our wanderings through the surrounding streets provide plenty of time to talk and to observe just who is doing what to their homes and the environment.

             And lately, we’re seeing too much green. 

            Oh sure, it’s spring and the trees are blooming; flowers are blossoming; grass is growing.  And therein lies the problem.

             The grass is way too green.

             My friend, Chris, and I know this because our grass is not green.  Well, it is in some places, but it’s also yellow and white and puffy in spots.  In fact, our respective lawns are remarkably similar in their appearances, kind of like Chris and me, somewhat splotchy and uneven.   (You know someone is your best friend when you can call them splotchy and uneven in the paper and they don’t mind.) 

             The point is our lawns, despite the fact that they are supposed to be primarily composed of grass, are most definitely not wholly and exclusively green.

             We have decided this is a good and natural thing.  In fact, it is so good that Chris and I have decided to crown ourselves queens of the subversive new movement “The Sisterhood that Loves Ugly Grass” or SLUGS (since that is how we frequently feel on our 8 a.m. walks) for short. 

             As founding SLUGS members, we have decreed the following: 

 1.      That the new standard for suburban lawn beauty shall rely on lawns which boast at least six different shades of green thriving on a single quarter acre of dirt, trumpeting their diversity of grasses and thereby proffering a model which we humans would do well to emulate.

 2.      That further enforcing the theme of diversity, lawns shall also offer a proliferation of pretty little yellow flowers, which shall prove so hardy that no matter how many times you pick them, they will reward you by spreading and multiplying to provide you with endless bouquets.

 3.      That thick, uniform stretches of singularly green lawn shall be hereby banned as discriminatory.  In order to combat such discrimination, neighborhood children will gather dandelion puffballs from politically correct lawns and blow their fluffy white seeds on the offending stretches of green.

              Like I said, this new movement will of necessity operate on the fringes at first.  For generations, solid expanses of Astroturf-like green lawns have been the Holy Grail of the suburban landscape.  And I’ll admit it won’t be easy to get the chemical addicted masses to embrace our weeds.  (Yeah, let’s call it what it is.  You know it’s bad when you only use a weed whacker to cut your lawn, as your lawn is composed entirely of weeds.)

            But we SLUGS shall overcome.  And if the Earth is lucky, this time, it will be a little less green.

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When it first started happening, I admit I was a bit suspicious.

             On my morning exercise jaunts at the shore (and trust me, I exercise strictly to diminish the guilt brought on when I consume yet another ice cream sundae later in the day), I noticed something odd.  Almost without fail, when I passed another person on the street, whether they were biking, running or walking a dog, the individual looked directly at me, smiled and said “Good morning.”

             At first, I looked around in confusion, for surely a friend of the speaker must have been somewhere behind me, out of my line of vision.  But no, further inspection revealed not a soul but me on the street.  The smiling face and greeting were aimed at me.

            Now, I’m a Philly girl, born and bred, and while we Philadelphians are a lot nicer than the rest of the world thinks, given that our Eagles fans have “booed” Santa Claus, we don’t generally go around smiling at people on the street and saying “Good morning.”  At best, you might get a scowl, a half-nod and a “Yo,” and then only if it’s your mother passing by, but a smile and two coherent words—yeah, right—or wrong, to be exact.

             I was disconcerted and thought it must have been a fluke.  Some vacationing mid-westerners (like my friend, Chris, from Minnesota, who insists on smiling at everyone despite my trying to break her of the habit) must have forgotten that they were on the East Coast and slipped back into that whole politeness thing.  But as time went on and I continued to be greeted and smiled at on the street, the numbers just didn’t add up.  At least some of these people had to be local.

             So I started smiling and saying “Good morning” back, although I shortened it to “Morning,” so as not to get too familiar.  And a funny thing happened; I started to feel pretty good.  Something about the act of making eye contact and exchanging a simple greeting with another human being was, dare I say it, uplifting.

             In a world in which we’re constantly talking, you’d think we’d be communicating with each other.  But most of the time, we’re talking on some cell phone, or “talking” on the computer in a language unintelligible to half of the population of the country.  We’re talking “at” each other, not “to” each other, because some electronic gizmo which is supposed to aid in communication ironically disconnects us from the very people we want to connect with.

             Now, I’m not advocating that we all wear nametags and shout out greetings to every stranger on the street, as suggested on a Seinfeld episode (remember, I’m from Philly), but a little smile, that I can do.  And it doesn’t have to go farther than “Morning,” since nothing shuts down the desire to communicate faster than too much information.  (As evidenced by the little girl in a stroller who rode past my daughter and I last week and announced to us that she goes potty in the big girl toilet now.  Did I mention that we were eating a slice of pizza in a restaurant at the time?)

             A friend of mine once said, “If you want to like someone, don’t get to know them too well.”  But these days, we really don’t know each other at all.  A little nod, a smile and a word can go a long way towards reminding us that we’re all part of the same species.

             It’s simple and it don’t cost a thing.  And in this day and age, communication like that is priceless.

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