When “The suddenly’s” happen with more frequency, we take stock of how to best preserve our closeness through memories. 

When dear, long standing friends show up we double hug, catch up on the so and so’s and order our vodka with lemons to accompany our shared appetizers. 

And so on we went, picking up where we left off, recalling memories that only we remember. Soon our drinks are gone:

“Take care of yourself. . . .”

“We ’ll talk again soon. . . .”

Sometimes we wonder which one of us will be the first to not answer.

Make it an easy on yourself Monday.

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four

WHEN IT COMES UP AS A MEMORY- REMEMBER IT!

A -my name is Alice and my husband’s name is Al, we come from Alabama and we sell Apples. As we open the cupboard on memories, bouncing a Spaulding as we sang the A my name is Alice rhyme, lifting our leg over the ball with each bounce was an all time great walk around the corner and under a tree. A veritable, primordial work out and creative singing lesson all in one. 

My sister Bettie Ann and I grew up together and hung with the girls on the block. We stopped playing and walked home for our tuna sandwich or the treat of salami on rye, only made better with the delicious taste of deli mustard. 

After lunch we would walk around the corner to the all purpose grocery store. I can vividly see the barrel of pickles prominently sitting next to the left of the front door. We would use part of our allowance to buy candy. Our first go to was a stripped pixie stick, a straw filled with lik-m-aid. For those in the know it’s a tasty sugary retrospective in time. The original version of Fun Dip. We would then mosey over to the red licorice and marshmallow peeps. At Halloween the chicks turned into orange faced pumpkins. 

Fast forward 55 years. It’s 6:00 A.M.Time to put up the coffee, my turn to “make the donuts.” 

We woke up salivating for a piece of my past, inside that grocery store. My sister Bettie Ann and I would bring our bag of goodies up to the counter. The man would take the pencil he harbored behind his ear and tally up our treats on a paper bag.

With our visual bounty in hand we would skip our way home and unveil the contents, perhaps trade a piece or two. 

Our afternoon were often consumed through adventures with Dick and Jane, The Bobbsey Twins or figuring out if Nancy Drew was ever going to hook up with one of the Hardy Boys. 

As we felt the heat of the oven cooking sweet potatoes we knew they would soon be sitting next to the lamb chops and canned peas for our dinner. A welcomed pre- dinner activity was watching Patty Duke and her identical cousin navigate their way through high school. We often tried to distinguish the subtleties in their looks. Hmmm!

We long for those days of innocence when the doctor appointments took place as we sat upon the kitchen table. The local store that sold glass bottles of milk and farmer cheese made no room on the shelf for ammunition. 

Everybody in Grovers Corners looked into the grocery store and the drugstore once a day in. Our Town by Thornton Wilder. It is with older eyes and wiser hearts that we live life. So, for today  reach for the red licorice after a very sour pickle and make it a dejavu Saturday.

“Don’t throw your past away, you may need it some rainy day.” Hit it Peter Allen. Rewind upon request.

“I See Friends Shaking Hands- saying how do you do.”

When the leaves were orange and the living was easy. What does the tooth fairy do with all the teeth? Why do the people in the front of the picture appear so much larger than the people toward the back? “What did Grandma do with her real nose when she changed it to her fake one?”- shout out to Grandma Robo- Out of the mouths…

The days when Ozzie and Harriet made parenting look like a breeze and we were pretty certain Susan Lucci never used J-date or Match to help find yet another husband.

We re-dialed land lines after our friends phone was busy the first time and screeched with excitement Conrad Birdie style, over our anticipated girl/boy party that evening.

We left it up to Wally and Beaver to make sure there would be enough Fresca,TAB and Potato sticks. They were heavily endowed with the Cleaver organizational skills

The back ground sound on our transistor radio, as we primped for the evening, was set to 77 WABC Cousin Bruce’s Saturday Night Rock and Roll Party.
We crooned to Build Me Up Buttercup, in The Still of the Night-while we sat under a hot dryer with beer can sized rollers in our hair flpping through Cosmopolitan Magazine.

We were almost ready as we brushed away the fumes from our eyes left by Aqua Spray.

The decision to curl our hair rather than iron it straight was a good one, it came out just right.

Getting ready was the excitement. Our new madras blouse, alpaca sweater and matching “skort” (remember?) hung prominently in the front of our closet right above our shiny, new cordovan colored weejuns. Bright, Penny, dated 1969 heads up in place.

A touch of revlon blush and a glimmer of “coffee bean“ lipstick proceeded a spritz of Shalimar, Joy or Ambush and we were on our way.

With dejavu on our breath we can still euphorically recall how it felt as we clasped our yellow slicker coats.
We proudly walked in, en masse, as if we were auditioning for the Miss Pre-Teen of America contest. Can you say In-Crowd?

The boys gathered on one side of the room as the girls sifted through the 45’s on the other.

At this point there was no bottle to spin in sight. Would the Angels sing tonight as our Soldier Boys danced under the Blue Moon?
We snapped our fingers in unison to Brian Wilson’s tune-
“If you should ever leave me. Though life would still go on believe me. The world could show nothing to me. So what good would living do me? G-d only knows what I’d be without you.” This just could have been the theme to our impending heartbreaks along our path. He left for camp and only wrote once. “See you in September”- well maybe.
The evening was a success. We twisted and shouted and moved around as we were invited to the dance floor to do the Loco-Motion and The Peppermint Twist.

The specialty years of pre-teening had a wonderful life of its own. We made room for our daydreams filled with Johnny Mathis lyrics and wondered if we would ever sit starry eyed on a rainbow. We hold tightly to our memories of days where we would “climb way up to the top of the stairs and all our cares would just drift right into space.” All the while Jay and the Americans knew as the “lion slept tonight” those were our “Magic Moments.” Shout out to Herbie Frankel. Have a good Wednesday.

Have an egg roll Mr. Goldstone.
Have a Matzoh Ball, maybe two.
As we celebrate liberation we’ll stand proudly as a Jew.
Leave an empty chair at the sedar table.
Pray a hostage will show up.
Take a sip of Manichewitz, from the half full sedar cup.
Pray that pestilence, war and famine.
Finds their way outside the door.
On the precipice of unlevened bagels.
We will Daven to end the War.
So Mr. Goldstone here’s your matzoh ball laden with a carrot maybe two.

  So on this first night of Seder.

  A little fuss, a little muss.

“Smote the land of Egypt,”

   On the eve of Exodus.

And Repeat!

Dear Acid Reflux, 

Where were you all our lives?

Tums, Rolaids and Pepto.

Helped our parents stomachs thrive.

Proton uptake inhibitors.

Add an endoscopic search.

Waiting for results, clearly keeps us in the lurch.

We love to eat pastrami, deli mustard piled high.

A half a sandwich later.

How will we survive?

We take our little purple pill.

Go along our merry way.

Hello Acid Reflux are you really here to stay? 

A cough and then a tickle.

Is our stomach that high up?

Please hand me the mylanta,

Perhaps a half a cup.

Our stomachs have gotten older.

Our eyes still on the pie.

The days of a la mode, have quickly passed us by.

Let’s try the milk from Almonds.

Lactose intolerant too.

We are so very over, the limitations in our view.

A spritz of just plain seltzer, a ginger ale was quite the cure.

Our dietary habits, we need to re-explore.

Forget the mozzarella-deep fried, sauce on the side.

Our days of grabbing a slice, 

Makes our stomach wanna hide.

We love a little bolognese.

Tossed on pasta piled high.

We wake up at 2:30 and hear our stomachs cry.

Now we’re planning dinners.

That are as bland as all get out.

Dear Acid Reflux, shut the door on your way out.

When the planning you do for the immediate future coincides with destiny you consider it a match and proceed with caution.
With no maudlin overtones we get the bigger television, incorporate it into a Barbecue and watch a Movie night and sail into the-new category of the “what we have planned,” with hope that it manifests into our syllabus of events. Run on sentence.
On the precipice of one door closing we will optimistically run into the arms of fate. Here’s to enthusiastically swinging the new door open and welcoming our next room crowded with Bashert.

The new rage on how to age with grace.

Who can touch their toes?

As you are on the way down traveling south past your new hip, you might bypass the pins and screws in your knee or perhaps an ankle. 

Destination our newly coiffed toe nails. We stopped at “Dr. You Nailed This,” before we picked up six bialys to freeze from The Boys.

We change our shirt, put on some lipstick and get ready to meet our canasta group at Poppies for the early bird dinner/lunch for tomorrow.

 We ask to have our table changed  a few times as the A/C was  blowing right on us. We put on our new cardigan sweater we got at the Flea Market on Sample Rd. 

After we pool our medical updates and order a cocktail we ask for the bread to be heated. We then wait for 20 minutes until we see our waiter again. Ok then, the conversation ensues with a new pill for this, a new procedure for that. As long as our “funny bone” is intact- we got this. A tennis game, a round of golf a pilates class or two. 

We acclimate to the “back nine” with our new cataract less foresight, becoming our new hindsight. 

So just for today we will put on our prescription less rose colored glasses. We will go to the we got lucky dept. at Bloomingdales and be grateful when we get a text that a table opened up at the new Mediterranean restaurant on Federal Highway. They give us all the hummus and Baba ganoush we can eat as we watch the belly dancer shake her age appropriate belly fat from table to table. 😎 Next stop fro-yo to claim our free (after ten times punched on the card) dessert.

Have a great Thursday – a.k.a. senior discount day at Publix.