Microwave meltdowns, teenage trauma, and true love

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, December 29th, 2010


My microwave is on the fritz, or is it “on the blitz?” Whatever we call this abode of dying appliances, the Great Electric Elysian Fields of Junk, my microwave oven is headed there. In spirit, it’s there already, but in the physical, its carcass remains hulking over our stove, its electronic display forever taunting me to “Press Clock” to reset the time.


It’s a long story. Do you really want to hear it? I guess that depends on what my competition for your attention is: A crying baby? A pile of bills? The Washington Post?


Thank you for peeling yourself away from that engrossing nutrition information label on your jug of milk.


My microwave has been shutting itself down in stages. It started this summer. It wasn’t one of those dramatic events, like when a toddler or preschooler has a complete, and of course, public, meltdown. There was no sudden clunking sound, no shower of sparks, no disturbing smoke. It was nothing obvious like that. It was much more subtle and invidious, like carbon monoxide poisoning, or the creeping sarcasm of a teenaged child, which sometimes feels like the same thing. My microwave slowly and painfully dug its heels in and refused to cooperate in matters that it had once anticipated and gleefully participated in. It so happens that my microwave is about five years old. In my estimation, that equates to fifteen in microwave-years?


I first noticed that the “5” on the touch-pad wouldn’t work. Perhaps it would work; but it refused to do so for me. The more pressure I applied at the keypad, the more insistent it became. Nothing could make it produce a five. Was it a nuisance? Yes. Was it debilitating? No.


Microwaving and parenting are a lot alike. It’s not that you get wonderful and instant results with a warm and toasty feeling. It’s that you learn that there’s only so much pressure you can apply to any one point without the child balking altogether.


But fear not. It’s commonly believed that parents are smarter than their progeny, despite repeated attempts at the offspring to prove otherwise. Microwaves are the same way. We could work around this. If you needed to heat something for “1:45” we just avoided the situation by heating it for one second less or more, thereby avoiding the 5 altogether. This is the same way we avoid certain triggers for certain children. Mushrooms cause a meltdown? Never serve that child mushrooms. Housework causes a child to sulk and do a slovenly job? Toss all the yard-work and lifting chores at that one.


There are even intricate ways of tricking the microwave. Bribes work well with children, but they hold little appeal for appliances. For five exact minutes of heating, one could start the microwave with four minutes and then press the “Add 30 sec.” button twice, so Ha! The microwave was not quite as clever as it had thought itself to be. Another alternative was to punch in “4:60” as the cooking time. I wish all of life’s problems were this simple to solve. Ditto on parenting.


Did I still love my microwave? Don’t I love my children? Of course I did, and of course I do. We all have our flaws (although most of us spend a lifetime seeking ours and wondering, if perhaps, we might not be that rare exception to the rule). We cannot let minor aggravations steal our joy. So the five wouldn’t work, and we could live with that. Then, the Auto Defrost button decided that it had put in a full lifetime’s worth of service (in this case, five years), so it didn’t plan on working either. Not that big of a deal, because we could at least use the Quick Defrost button repeatedly. Sometimes I feel like our whole life is a series of work-arounds.


When news of the non-cooperating microwave made its way around the house, someone suggested we apply the Master Reset Philosophy, usually reserved for computers with blue screens, to the microwave. Just unplug it for a few minutes and then plug it back in. That should reset the circuits, and all would be well.


I decided to give it a try. What could it hurt? After restoring power to the microwave, not only did the 5 and the Auto/Defrost not work, now the 7 had defected to the enemy camp. It, too, refused to work.


By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I had to instruct my daughters as they came home from college that, “Oh, by the way, the 5,7, and the Auto Defrost” buttons don’t work. They gave me a look that seemed to say, “Is that the cause of, or the result of, our father being in the hospital at the moment?”


My husband is the sort of person who loves gadgets, which is supposed to define the stereotypical male. But his love extends beyond the lusting state, and also includes the maintenance aspect of love, which is a truer, and sadly, rarer, form of love.


To finish this love-story will require another week, and possibly another microwave.

The politics of Christmas

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, on Wednesday, Dec. 22nd, 2010.

Do you know that exciting feeling when you realize that you know someone who is rich or someone who is famous, or better yet, both rich and famous? I know; we’re supposed to be immune to that sort of worldly thinking, but there are some things that are universal, and some instincts that are so primal that you cannot control the tingle of excitement.

 Imagine my surprise when my parents and sister returned from a political fundraiser in South Carolina a couple of months ago. I was surprised, first, that they had gone, because they aren’t that politically active, but I was even more surprised by the family connections behind the event.

 You probably do not have any reason to keep up with South Carolina politics, (most people barely keep up with their own area) but the new Governor-elect, due to be sworn into office in about three weeks is an Indian-American woman by the name of Nikki Haley. Her maiden name is Randhawa, and her given name is Nimrata.
 I actually know this woman! OK – that’s a bit of a stretch. I should say, more accurately, that I knew her as a child. OK – even that’s a bit of a stretch, because when I “knew” her, I was about nine years old, and she was a mere three-year-old, a preschooler, when our families got together. That was in the mid-seventies. The 1970’s, thank you.

 Back in the seventies, before being Indian immigrants was commonplace enough to have us lampooned in cartoons or integrated into movies and TV shows as actual elements of real American society, if you were Indian, and you knew another Indian, you became best friends. Automatically. The common background and the huddling together against the foreignness and the newness of the society you had entered and wanted to be a part of, without being changed by it, were a significant enough base on which to form a tight bond.

 My parents have life-long friends and friendships that they formed that way, in addition to the American friends that they have made and stayed in touch with over the years. Surprisingly, they have maintained contact with these friends, even though their friendships were formed in “prehistoric times,” back in the Dark/Slow Age that predates the use of email and Facebook.

 We lived in a tiny town called Denmark, South Carolina. My father taught at a Black college called Voorhees College. In the patch of land devoted to faculty housing, with about fifteen apartments, there were three other Indian families. That’s a pretty high concentration of Indian immigrants in the middle of the rural South. So the families got together often. Remember, we didn’t all have cell phones and have cable television then. In addition to our fellow apartment dwelling families, there were several more established, whether more financially savvy or more secure in their immigration status, who lived in houses in the area.

 The Randhawas were one such family, and we four children would play with their four children. I, being nine, was obviously too sophisticated to be playing with the preschool set in the gathering. I was busy, I believe, doing cooler things like running into the sliding glass door in my rush to get outside to their backyard to play.

 What, you might be wondering, does any of this have to do with Christmas? See what I love about you? As if being the reader of a local newspaper in print wasn’t already enough to qualify you as an exceptional individual, you once again show your astuteness. You are wondering what, on Earth, does name-dropping have to do with this holy time in the Christian calendar.


In a few weeks, someone I knew superficially as a child will come into power. She will hold the highest office in her state. Perhaps this entitles me to call upon her or ask for special favors or privileges. Unfortunately, I never got to know her as an adult. I highly doubt that she knows me.

 For many people, Christ is that little baby in the manger. In their minds, He is forever fixed there, happy and gurgling and awaiting the gifts of the wise men who sought him from afar. They do not know much else about what He grew up to teach, how He turned our concepts of right and wrong and love and hatred right up on their heads.

 He is One on whom we can call, One who knows us and who will never forsake us. He holds a higher office than any office we can envision or approach, and yet He makes Himself available to us. We can seek Him out and petition Him. And He answers. Merry Christmas, all year long.

Marie Antoinette And The Triple Amputee

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, 12/17/2010 and in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, 10/11/2005.


With Christmas just days away, I’ve been thinking a lot about toys. Well, not a lot, but for the past five minutes, at least. I know I’ve had months to think about, if not act upon, it. After all, the Christmas shopping season officially began on July 5th. It used to be August 1st, but faced too much competition with the Halloween displays that now go up concurrently with the back-to-school specials. Next week, look for Valentine’s displays.


Are my kids the only ones who continue playing with toys they have destroyed?


When my eldest daughter received a porcelain doll for her fifth birthday, both she and the younger daughter stood with mouths agape, marveling at this beautiful object. Being only slightly over two-and-a-half, the younger one was allowed to touch it only under severe supervision by the elder.


A year later, the elder received a second, larger porcelain doll from my parents. This was to be the start of a collection. (My eldest son started a light bulb collection at age three; in practical terms, it was all the same to me. Those were his admired fragile objects.)


My daughter tends to be overly generous, and typically regrets it later. Soon after she had neatened the new doll’s dress, she looked at her younger sister who was still months away from turning four. She carefully brought down the first doll. Yes, the very one that had been dressed, redressed, and kept so carefully for an entire year. “Here,” she said gravely, “now that I have a new doll, you can have this one.”


The little sister looked up in wonder at the generosity of this benevolent being. She smiled, hugged it gently, cradled it, and held it to the light. It was a moment to remember, a Kodak moment if ever you saw one. And then…the doorbell rang.


It doesn’t matter how many times you tell the kids that the Boogey Man could be lurking outside the door, that he would be just the audacious type to ring the doorbell before swooping them out into the dark of night. No, tell them fifty times, and still, when the doorbell rings they all hurtle forward, jockeying to be the first to get it.


Our three-and-a-half year old daughter had been the proud owner of that coveted porcelain doll for about two minutes when the doorbell beckoned. There were the usual shouts of “I’ll get it! No! I’ll get it!” when we heard a “chink” followed by a dampened thud. I don’t remember whose eyes and mouths were rounder, but there it was…the doll had been decapitated.


That look of regret passed over the eyes of the six-year-old. You could see she was reconsidering, just a bit too late in this case. Each of them, considering the doll to be her own, was crushed, even more than the doll itself.


We thought of gluing the doll, but in the meantime, she was dubbed “Marie Antoinette.” Oddly enough, the younger continued to play with the rest of the doll, putting its stockings, shoes, and dress on and off. If there are any psychologists out there, kindly do not call me. I can get all the advice I want from the grocery store bag-persons who have, in the past, psychoanalyzed my child seated in the cart. Dressing a headless doll might seem a bit macabre, but you must agree that, minus the head, it is loads easier for small hands to accomplish.


Then, because we laughed our heads off (pun absolutely and disgustingly intended), they had to know who Marie Antoinette was, so we checked out books and read about her. About a year later, we finally did hot-melt-glue the head back on, and while the doll was never restored to its original condition, it continued to be quite a conversation piece.


I’ve noticed that the third installment of the Toy Story movie is out, just in time for the Christmas theater experience. I remember when the first one came out. When my middle son was two (a decade ago), he was thrilled to realize that the big Woody and Buzz Lightyear dolls (sorry, “action figure” is the masculine term required here) were associated with the movie. He would stand at the head of the stairs, shout “To-itty and B’yond!” and repeatedly toss the hard plastic Buzz figure in attempts at aviation. Buzz did not fare very well.


What was left of this doll was just the trunk and one complete arm. As a testament to the engineers, its wings and voice still worked. The helmet, head, and amputated limbs were stored safely away, just in case, even though it was beyond the scope of our usual panacea, hot-melt-glue. The kid continued to play with the Buzz torso. What is wrong with my children?


This year, to simplify things, I plan to give my children a cardboard box with bubble wrap, Styrofoam peanuts, sticks, and dirt and water. That’s what kids really like to play with. If you’re interested, I’ll make you a package too. For you, just $ 19.99, of course.

"What's in your wallet?"

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, December 10th, 2010 as "How much cash do you have on you?"

“Do you have any money on you, Vin?” my sister asks me. She doesn’t need any cash. She’s just checking up on me, like any good older sister would.


Isn’t that funny how, even though I’m 44 years old, in the presence of my sister who is two years older, I can instantly revert to my status as The Baby of the Family: the one who needs to be checked up on.


I’ve always been her pet project. I was her first charity case when she was 16 and I was 14. The first job my sister had was as a cashier at a grocery store. She was making the big bucks, with minimum wage being $ 3.35 an hour. By working every chance she wasn’t in school, she could sometimes bring home paychecks that exceeded $100. That was big bucks.


She worked at a store called Bi-Lo, which proudly advertised itself as “Bi-Lo Quality Foods.” The names of the stores used to crack up my cousins who would visit from New Jersey. Everything about the South would crack them up. “Ha, ha,” they would roar with laughter, “Who wants to buy low-quality foods?” The humiliation of living in such a backward place as South Carolina could only be heightened when we drove past the “Piggly Wiggly.” They had never heard of a stupider name. And yes, I’m allowed to say “stupider.” I grew up in rural South Carolina. Remember?


My sister would buy me circus peanuts at the end of her shift. I loved those gigantic, overly orange, super-sweetened fake things. They even tasted good if they got stale, if ever I could leave them alone long enough to get that way. I come back to reality.


“Oh, yes – actually, I have $15!” I say with a measure of triumph in my voice, knowing I just aced this particular test. This is vastly more cash than I normally have on hand, because it’s so much easier just to swipe and pay for things, and then reckon with a single bill at the end of the month.


My sister rolls her eyes. “No, really. Do you have any money on you?” she asks in exasperation. I think she means money with a capital M.


What am I going to need money for? I am in the hospital, waiting for my husband to regain consciousness, and at most, I say to his intubated and IV-laden body, “I’m just stepping down the hallway to go get a cup of coffee, okay?” I say this in an abnormally loud voice. Is it because I want him, somewhere deep below all the medications and tubes, to hear my voice and make a recovery that would be fitting for the final four minutes of a made-for-TV drama? Or is it because I want the medical staff in the ICU to hear and know that their patient, who is the sum of all their readings and measurements and charts, is my husband, and I would not normally just walk off and leave him without saying where I’m headed and when I’ll be back. “I’ll be back in five minutes, okay?” I again say too loudly. At most, I will need two dollars for the coffee. So fifteen dollars can last a week. Besides, they take cards at the hospital canteen.


My sister starts fishing around in the bottom of her handbag. “Here,” she says as she starts counting large denominations into my hand. In all, she presses two hundred dollars into my hand and refuses to take it back or to be thanked for any of it.


“Now, you always, always, should keep a hundred dollars with you – just in case.” So one of the hundreds is for spending – just in case. And the other hundred is for keeping, also just in case.


I had to laugh, remembering the time last year when I had to dispose of an hour and a half after school before a classroom potluck dinner. I planned to take my two youngest who attended school with me to a corner McDonald’s and have them eat and tackle their homework.


Inside, I saw the signs indicating that the debit/credit card readers were down. We would have to resort to primitive methods, like using cash. I had just unloaded my children and their homework folders, and I wasn’t about to reverse the process as minutes ticked away. I fished about in my purse. All I could come up with was $1.54. They each got an apple pie and they shared a cup of water.


It wasn’t exactly the fries and chicken nuggets they were hoping for, but on the bright side, they appreciated what they got, had more time to get all their homework done, and actually had an appetite for the potluck dinner.


You would think I would have learned my lesson about needing to carry cash. But like with many things in life, this was an ambivalent lesson. It worked out.


And don’t worry about my carrying too much cash around. I don’t have a hundred dollars in my purse.

How much is that ride in the high-tech whirligig…the one that could save your life?

published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, Friday, Dec. 3rd, 2010
 I have decided not to write about my husband and his heart attack this week because I am afraid I might be boring you. It is not a good thing to beat a dead horse, and it is even worse when you use your spouse as that defunct equine. (Also, the man is now conscious and able to read this column, so I shall have to be more careful about what I reveal.) There is much more to be said (or written) on this topic, but I will save it for later, because I doubt you want to read the serial, unabridged version of my family’s crisis, week after week.

I wish this column were interactive. I could check whether your eyes are glazing over or whether you are rushing off to check the obituaries. I could ask you what sounds more interesting: a column about my progressively degenerating microwave, or a column about the myriad misadventures of my children. Perhaps family emergencies look more appealing.


I don’t have any Christmas lights up yet. I can barely understand how it came to be December so suddenly. (This is a little deceptive on my part, because I just made you think that I usually have lights up at this time. In truth, I wait until my children are on break from school or college and let them mess with the bundles of lights and whatever meager and mismatched decorations are to be propped up about the house. I am no Martha Stewart. Our formal dining table has not been seen for sometime, as it houses microscopes, gadgets, papers, and other junk associated with modern life. )


The last I recall, it was November 8th, and my husband’s heart had stopped. In some ways, that’s when time stopped too. Oh, thank you, I see you will tolerate one more column from me. But if you plan to smash a tomato on this page to register your vegetarian displeasure, let me advise you that it is better to eat it, and it is better when cooked than raw, apparently. Tomatoes are a heart-healthy food.


Last week’s column left off with my husband being airlifted to Fairfax Hospital on the day that I entered my time warp. “My only free helicopter ride,” he would say later, “and I was asleep for it!” Although I was (and daily am) immensely relieved to have him back, I had to gently inject some reality, “True, you weren’t conscious for it, but I have serious doubts about that ride being free.”


Want to know how much such a helicopter ride costs? I haven’t received a bill yet, but I’ve been able to see online that our insurance company is balking at the charge. They have disapproved of the $ 18,504 high-tech, lifesaving ride.

I will tell you upfront that I am not a big spender. To me, “expensive” is a pair of shoes that costs $ 19.99 at Payless. I much prefer to buy them on clearance, when both the temperature outside and the price of the then-useless sandals have dropped to the single-digit range.

So it might seem odd to you, but I am not in the least bit concerned about the $ 18,504 that might eventually, however slowly, have to come out of our pockets. Indeed, if every dime associated with his transport, hospital stay, and his miraculous and complete recovery (and that’s upward of ten thousand dimes) needs to be produced from our pockets, I will still not be afraid.


You might think that I am in some sort of financial denial. Granted, a charge of $ 18,504 appears to be as distant a star as a charge of $ 185,040 from my perspective, but here’s how I figure it: having my husband here, and having this brilliant and engaged father of our six children here, is worth far more to me than any mountain of dimes. I am ashamed to say that in our 24 years of marriage, I have not always felt this way. It has taken this emergency for me to realize that and to appreciate him.


And here’s what else I figure: if the God I serve is able to take a situation like this, and if the God I serve heeds our fervent and heart-felt prayers to answer and restore life, then He is not going to abandon me now. It will all be well.


I know that we must all go to meet our Maker at some point. We cannot extend life in our various carapaces indefinitely. I’m glad that my husband’s time was not now.


Please don’t think your local columnist is putting out a tin cup. I have already been overwhelmed by the care and generosity of our community and friends and family. I would not need another act of kindness, because already, my cup runneth over.


So, if all those years of saving money on shoes can now be used towards the technology, skill, and care that went into saving my husband’s life, then it has been money well saved and now, money even better spent.