Whistle While You Work? Let’s Not.

By Sheilah

The new guy who sits next to me is noisy. It all began so innocuously, a little tune here, one there. You think to yourself, what a happy guy. That’s cute. I wish I could whistle. It reminds you of your son who thinks he can whistle, and does so a lot, but it’s more like blowing some air through his teeth. It’s different when a grown man whistles though. And especially at work, at night, on deadline.

Luckily, he moved across the room to collaborate that night. Next to my friend.

We IM. It’s the only way we can talk to each other at work.

She: Who is this dude? Have you heard him?

Me: I sent him your way to brighten your day.

She: You suck.

Me: You can’t trust a whistler. I mean, what’s he whistling about?

She: OMG. I have a pathological hatred of whistlers. They creep me out. I’m sorry he sits next to you. I’d have to move.

Me: Was this a Seinfeld episode? It sounds so familiar. But I agree. My son fake whistles “Ode to Joy” constantly…4^th grade recorder practice. I’m ready to bring his recorder and whip it out and play “Hot Cross Buns” every time that guy wets his lips.

She: Now it doesn’t bother me when a CHILD whistles. But a grown man? At work?

Me: And he’s a new hire. Can’t we fire him for it? And Dylan doesn’t know how to whistle, neither do I, but I don’t have the heart to tell him. 

Well the whistler is still with us, and I'm more suspect of him than ever. He also sings. I'm not sure what will come out of his mouth next. Scatting? Bubble blowing? Crazy person mumbling? 

God help us. 

A Growing Problem

 I have an obsession. It lives within me every day of my life, it never leaves, just hangs around like a bad penny. My obsession to some is annoying, to others a complete waste of time, and to medical professionals a joke. You see, my obsession is about my weight. I can't help it. Historically, it was the byproduct of years of having a poor body image, driven by the need to be accepted by others, but recently it is caused by another reason.

I am not, or never have been, anorexic or bulimic. Ironically, and probably luckily, I love food and have an extreme fear of vomiting, so there is no chance of my becoming either of the two fore-mentioned conditions. I am five feet, five inches tall and an American size six (sometimes an eight on a bad day) so logically I know I am not overweight. But, over the past two years my weight has steadily increased. I have put on ten pounds in total.

Two years ago, I was feeling sluggish, my hair was thinning and falling out, and to put it mildly, I could have killed anybody that strayed in front of me. I was the moodiest person alive, or so it seemed, especially to my family. No amount of dieting or exercise has stopped my progressive weight gain. After many visits to the doctor, it has been confirmed that I have a slacking thyroid, otherwise known as Hypothyroidism. For those of you who are in my camp and suffer from the same thing, you know exactly what I am talking about, the endless battle that just goes on and on.

Hypothyroidism is indeed a pain in the proverbial, but for me it adds extra stress to my self-proclaimed obsession. I have grown sick of the doctors telling me that my weight gain also coincides with my advancing age and slowing metabolism (hello, we are talking thyroid here!). They insist that my thyroid hormone level is now balanced, near perfect, thus rendering them an innocent party in my problem.

However, nothing is ever as it seems and I am getting desperate. Every day of my life I watch what I eat. I size up menus looking for the healthiest options and my fridge is always full of fresh fruit and vegetables. I very rarely eat fast food and I have tried every diet possible. I exercise at least 3 -4 times a week, but I do however sneak an occasional tootsie roll, and I admit, I like a glass of wine or two in the evening. There has to be some pleasures in life! I am still growing and I cannot get anyone to take notice because, I am for now, considered a healthy weight.

Some people have sneered at me when I have mentioned my problem and called me neurotic. I have had doctors intimate I may be imagining this whole connection to my thyroid problem. Some have just looked at me and ignored the weight issue completely. Once a doctor did actually prescribe a diet pill for me, it was a quick fix for two months. I think I wore them down with my moaning about my weight. I lost my weight and got my energy back, it was great, but of course, as soon as I had finished the tablets the weight came back and my afternoon slump returned. Those tablets are controlled, quite rightly so, and are not prescribed on a long-term basis to people like me, people who are not clinically overweight.

So what am I to do? I feel like I am on a never-ending treadmill. If I stop or slack in my ways, I am afraid to think about what will happen. I have this vision of my body growing like a balloon, getting to bursting point and spontaneously combusting at the most inappropriate moment, perhaps at a doctor's surgery – wouldn't that be sweet!

 I know my problem may sound simple, but it really is not. It is a nightmare, a daily one. I have yet to meet another sufferer like myself who has been given any help with this growing problem (pardon the pun!). Therefore, after many hours of investigating and deliberating I have finally decided to try another avenue of help. I am going, later this week, to see a Chinese Herbalist. I have heard many good reports of success taking this route but only time will tell. It will not be covered by my medical insurance, but I don't care. I want off this treadmill, I want to wake in the morning and feel no need to step on those scales, I want to be normal, but most importantly I want to be free, free of this time consuming obsession and finally accept me for me and get on with my life.

Wish me luck!

A List For My Children, On Mother’s Day.

Understand that I am your Mother. I will never hold the place of friend while you are growing up.

I am human and I make mistakes, but I eat my vegetables and so should you.

I love you beyond anything I have ever known and I will fight for you, but I will not lie for you or buy you out of scrapes.

I will call you out when you haven’t done your best, because I know you’re worthy and so very full of potential. You are a wonder and unique in this world. When you do not do your best, you cheat yourself above all others.

My past is mine; I will not lay it on your future. Yours is a clean slate, and you should follow your heart.                 

I do not command respect; I have earned it with every late night filled with worry, with every wipe of a tear from your faces, with every diaper change and so much more.

Each time you mutter under your breath as you walk away, or roll your eyes, or think I don’t get it, is yet another battle scar that I wear well, and I find worth wearing.

Each accomplishment is your own, and I revel in it with you. I applaud the loudest because I know how you worked hard. No one will ever revel in your glory more.

No matter what the future holds, I will always be there for you, as long as God graces me to be here.                                             

Finally, for Mother’s Day, the best way you can honor me, and those who came before, giving me what I give you, is to be loving and kind, thoughtful and giving. To find happiness within yourself and to know you have always been loved.

Confessions of a Peeping-House Tom

I love looking at houses. I could spend days and days perusing neighborhoods and looking into lamp-lit living-room windows. I know, sounds more like a Peeping Tom, but it’s true. The warm friendly glow from those windows is somehow reassuring that someone is home, and some people are longing to be there. For years, I thought that to have the perfect home, I had to have the perfect house, but then I  grew up and realized, what’s perfect?

For years I’ve driven everyone within earshot crazy about how the house should be kept. “Why isn’t this put up? Why didn’t you clean up your mess? Who left their shoes in the middle of living room so I could trip and die?” Does any of this sound familiar? Now I’m not home for the length of hours I previously was, and I can’t help thinking, what the heck was all of that about? It didn’t make my life any easier, and it certainly didn’t make anyone around me happy. So much for the reassuring glow coming from our living room windows. If I’m not careful our house could just be a place to clean and sleep, when what we want is a home.

Because of that, my idea of a dream house keeps changing. Since there really is no such thing as a self-cleaning home, I’ve found that the McMansions that I longed for in yesteryears would be a nightmare for me because unless we hit the jackpot or 4Gaby goes international with tours (hey, help a girl out here), I’m the numero uno who gets to do the majority of the cleaning. Who wants to clean a house for 16  hours on the weekend instead of enjoying family? For goodness sake, I know there are days I’d love to hop in the car and drive till the gas gauge hits empty, but surprise, I really do love my family and I’d like to be with them doing something a little less mundane. I’m not talking hang gliding, but days at the park are a treasure, as opposed to days in our yard.

Our yard is a complete monster! Having privacy between neighbors comes with a back-breaking price tag called yard work. I don’t know the amount of hours my husband and I have put into our yard in the past, desperately hoping that maybe one day we’d get yard of the month. Now I honestly love yard work, it beats dusting hands down because the yard usually stays nice for a few days. I can clean the house and in the space of a few hours it can be demolished. Still, how much time do I want to spend in the yard when the kids grow like weeds and you blink and they’re gone? Um…not so much. My idea now of yard of the month is the kids laughing outside and the family together. Top that pretty committee.

The houses in the little town where I work intrigue me. There are huge plantation-like homes and little bungalows, mixed in with big and little Victorian treasures, and I love walking by them at lunch. I go through a mental checklist; too big, too small, huge yard, needs lots of work, lovely garden, and just right. Every morning I drive by the same houses on my way into work and one little Cape Cod always has its lamps lit in the downstairs windows and I find that somehow comforting yet again. I guess it’s because each house should have its own glow.

By the day’s end, I pull down my own driveway to my messy, tangled yard and walk into a living room way too full of an overly energetic 5-year-old’s toys. I pass by my teen’s bedroom on the way to throw my work clothes into the laundry room and I know it will take a shovel to find the floor in her room. I come back down the stairs and look at a dining room table seldom used and round into the kitchen to fix supper, and then it hits me. We’re around the table, my daughter babbling about her day, my son vying for attention by making ridiculous faces and my husband looking at me with a distinctly glazed and tired face. We bow our heads, say a prayer, and tuck in. We get up together and clear the dishes and the kids go play. Either my husband or I will get our son down for the night, and then we discuss what’s on the agenda for the next day.

We’re home; it’s a safe place where we come together, sometimes in chaos, sometimes in peace. We’re tucking in to make it work, praying and bowing our heads when we’re smart enough to realize we have a house to come home to and be together in. No, it’s not perfect and it never will be. But there are those fleeting moments, now and again where we go “Ahhhhhh.” Be it ever so humble, with or without its lamp-glowing room, there’s no place like home.

Extra, Extra! Just Try to Read All About It.

I learned how to read with the help of my Mama and older sisters, and what really generated the want to read was the Sunday comics. There was nothing like getting the punch line in “Peanuts” all by myself. I found you could converse with the adults around you if they read the comics and liked them. My Daddy seemed to like “Beetle Bailey” and Mrs. Kane, who we called our “Raleigh Grandmother,” loved “Family Circus.”  There was a time when I got into “Prince Valiant,” but then college started and I didn’t have time for the paper.

A few years later the paper was once again in hand. This time the interest was in the want ads; we didn’t have Linked In or computer postings of jobs. The Internet was still neo-natal and we found jobs by meeting people and actually applying in person. I picked up odd jobs and one was tutoring a couple of guys who had difficulty reading English. I found that the comics did it again. Their interest was immediately sparked and they thought “B.C.” was the bee’s knees. Their English writing and reading skills took off after that, and I missed them when they no longer needed me. It was my first experience teaching anything, and it was wonderful.

I started to enjoy more of the paper--Lifestyles, and Art and Leisure were favorites, but nothing beat the Sunday paper.  It was thick with all sorts of surprises. Coupons, free offers, good news, bad news, rows and rows of jobs needed, you could hold the Sunday paper in two hands and build muscles. It took you most of Sunday and sometimes parts of Monday to finish the Sunday paper, cover to cover, and it’s sad to say, but those days look about to end.

My husband has been on a coupon kick and has been getting the Sunday paper faithfully now, if not for the news, for the coupons. I still find myself reaching for the comics first, looking forward to the surprise of a chuckle from someone getting to my funny bone. Have you seen the size of the papers now? Holy microscope, Batman! They’re flipping tiny! I tried to read the comics for 30 minutes before I gave up and got the magnifying glass. I don’t need glasses for reading, but I swore up and down something was wrong with my eyes, because I couldn’t read any of the bubbles over the characters’ heads in “Zits” or “Funky Winkerbean.” Geez! I felt awful until my daughter told me she had a hard time reading them, too.

What a shame. Here I am, a combo of the newspaper and computer age, and the newspapers are cutting down the size so small that those of us who actually appreciate the crinkling sound of the paper when you turn a page can’t enjoy it. We simply can’t see to read it! I know in order to compete in these economic times there have to be cutbacks, but what good is that when you shoot down the quality of a product? Reading the news on the Internet isn’t the same. How will we collect headlines for those special times like our parents did? My Mama had the paper from when Queen Elizabeth and President Eisenhower opened the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The front page of the Canadian paper was in full color and it was a dream. There is nothing like learning about the past by holding its headlines in your hands.

When I went overseas with my husband all my friends asked for little souvenirs. When we came home with suitcases full of newspapers, no one was disappointed. They loved reading the news overseas and commenting on similarities in culture, as well as any differences. While you can pick up a lot online, I doubt you can do all of the above. I understand the need to conserve and save trees, but I thought we had the recycling thing in hand, so I find it hard to use this as an excuse for the demise of the newspaper. It will be akin to losing a good, good friend if this comes to pass. I hope things turn around, I’d like to hear my son belly laugh one day because of the comics, but right now, the funnies don’t appear too funny anymore. 

See what I mean?