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~ This is What Happens When You Begin to Age Out of Middle Age

The Write Side of 59

Monthly Archives: July 2013

The Cicadas are Dead and Gone, But They “Leave” Behind …

31 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by Lois DeSocio in News

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Cicadas, Lois DeSocio, News, The Write Side of 50

cicada main

… Dead Leaves.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

Almost as fast as this summer’s coming of the cicadas came and went, so did all news about it. But thanks to Victoria St. Martin’s article in The Star-Ledger a few days ago, I have an explanation for the mass of brown, dead leaves that hang from the trees in my yard – not unlike Christmas ornaments made out of paper bags. The cicadas did it!

I noticed this weeks ago. At first I thought it must be a weather-thing. The poor trees. We’ve been living in the extremes for a while now – alternating heat, cold. Drenching rain; whole-tree-toppling winds. And the trees must be suffering for it. But there’s something about the synchronicity of the brown deadness, and the resulting, natural, designedly-spaced, dark tips – like freckles. There is also a hint of a reddish hue to the leaves. And they’re not falling off the trees, despite a few doses of “tree-toppling winds.” cicada 3

Turns out these leaves aren’t really dead – the cicadas just sucked the life out of them.

According to Ms. St. Martin:

The swarms of cicadas that infiltrated New Jersey have pretty much died off, but the eggs they laid in their short stay are now beginning to hatch — the precursor to their offspring setting an alarm clock for 2030 … Experts say that just before adult female cicadas die, they poke several holes in the end of tree branches and lay up to 600 eggs. The act cuts off the water and food supply to the tree, causing the leaves to turn brown.

The article continues to explain that these holes are made, “with tubes that are attached to their bodies … they can lay 25 eggs in each of the holes, which are as small as a pinprick, and the nymphs that emerge from them are as tiny as a grain of rice.”

Apparently, the nymphs then jumped out of the trees and bore down into the ground for the next 17 years – until 2030 – when they will return in, perhaps, even bigger numbers than this year.

So, in my backyard of six or seven said trees – each dead leaf, in each cluster of 30 or more dead leaves, means that those branches were drilled with dozens of pin-prick size holes. And each female cicada (remember there were billions of them this year – so I’d guess half were female), can lay up to 600 eggs. Quite remarkable.

I don’t know where I’ll living be in 2030, at the ripe old age of 75. But I hope all my trees are still here, and ready for the onslaught of those grounded nymphs, when they bore up, climb up, grow up, propagate, and eventually “leave.”

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Having My Cake and Wearing it Too

30 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by Lois DeSocio in Confessional, Men

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

confessional, Frank Terranella, The Write Side of 50

frank belly

Frank Terranella Presents.

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

You may recall, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” Alfred Hitchcock’s television show from years ago. It started with a silhouette of a man with a large stomach, and Mr. Hitchcock coming onscreen to fill out the silhouette. Hitch was not ashamed of his girth. He flaunted it. It was his trademark.

sweets

No gym needed. I do enough heavy lifting.

I have come to understand that point of view. It’s sort of like, “I earned this large middle from years of good living. I don’t apologize for enjoying food and hating exercise. That’s just being human.”

Personally, I would prefer to be slim. Clothes fit better, and it’s certainly a lot healthier – or so my cardiologist tells me. But the reality is that I love sweets, and I have not seen the inside of a gym since high school. Years ago, when I was 123 pounds, I was talking with a guy from Georgia who had migrated north. He had a huge gut, and when we kidded him about it he said that when he went home to Georgia, his family was pleased with his size. They would tell him, “You look like you’re doing well up there in Jersey.” His girth was the look of prosperity to his family.

The truth is that I was a skinny kid, and never had to worry about my weight until I hit 40. Then my metabolism slowed down, and my appetite for candy, cake and ice cream did not. Soon I was 20 pounds overweight, and it was up to 30 pounds by the time I had a heart attack when I was 47. That got my attention weight-wise, and I lost 20 pounds. But after a few years, I put it back. I found that all diets were like that. You lost some weight, and you put it back. The whole diet thing seemed unhealthy to me.

So now I have forsaken diets. I have taken to the treadmill to burn off calories, and I have cut back on sweets. Notice that I say cut back, not eliminate. I still enjoy my cake and ice cream occasionally, but it’s now a special occasion. My weight goals are more modest than they used to be. Losing one pound a week is the plan. But I have come to accept the fact that for now I have a stomach to rival a pregnant woman. But I know that someday that will change. For now, I am embracing the Hitchcock look.

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Duane Reade: “Be My Guest.” No Thanks!

29 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by WS50 in Concepts

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Concepts, Julie Seyler, The Write Side of 50

Don't call me guest.

BY JULIE SEYLER

I am thinking about the most minor and insignificant of annoyances that pop up when what was once the common and the usual, shifts to a new code of unfamiliar nonsense.

At the moment, my pet peeve is being called a “guest” as in “next guest” at my local drugstore. Really? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines guest as a person entertained in one’s house. Since Duane Reade is not an abode, and I am not visiting to be entertained, I am hardly a guest. I am merely someone who has stopped by to drop money on assorted sundries.

But my question is: when and why did my “customer” status morph into guest-dom? Did some marketing wizard send out a memorandum:

To all Employees:

Profits can be increased 50% if our paying public feels warm and cozy!

Give them the feeling that they are entering our living room!

Make them feel special and connected to the cashier.

They are our GUESTS!

But I do not want to be a guest. I just want to be told I’m next in line so I can move on. And get out of the drugstore.

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The Saturday Blog: Look

27 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by Lois DeSocio in Art

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Art, The Saturday Blog, The Write Side of 50

Look

Photo by Julie Seyler.

Never stop looking.

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License to Age: The DMV Has Digitally-Enhanced Me

26 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by Lois DeSocio in Concepts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Concepts, Driver's License, Lois DeSocio, NJDMV, Skip the Trip

License Digital Enhance

Amended license.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

I’m not curious in the least as to how I will look in four years. It helps to not really know what I look like now. I only glance at certain parts of me in mirrors – mostly to make sure there is no food in my teeth, and that my hair is having a good day. I try to be in the background, or look down, when a camera is in my face. I believe it’s tonic to have a light-hearted approach, across the board, when it comes to getting older.

How old I look is better reflected by how young I feel, and ultimately what I exude, rather than that stark reality offered by a mirror (Mom?). I choose to believe that I don’t look a day over … um, 43. My mirror-image will certainly fall short of my mind’s eye, so I try to not mess with my head.

So, props, and a, “Gee – thanks a lot,” to the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles (NJDMV) for reminding me that I’m getting older, and for giving me a hint, ala milk-carton fashion, as to what they think I will look like when I’m 62.

In November 2012, the NJDMV initiated a driver’s license renewal program called, Skip the Trip.

If you were born before December 1, 1964, you don’t have to make the trek to the local motor vehicle agency to renew your license. Which means, you don’t have to take a new picture. Which means that my last photo for my license was taken in 2007, when I was 52. My new license expires in 2017, when I’ll be 62. I did a double-take when I opened my new license that came in the mail. Through some DMV digital-manipulation (can’t really call it enhancement), they have, albeit gently, aged me.

I’m still wearing that jean jacket that I tossed years ago. Even though my 2013 hair has lost its red-and-brown hue, and looks instead like a bad, black dye-job, my 2007 perfectly-placed bangs have not so much as moved, much less grayed. But I see no wrinkles! Just one eye bigger than the other, a smooshed nose, and a set of hollow, saggy, sad cheeks. And all of me is more oblong, sallow, and encircled (eyes included) by dark, bluish hues.

I called the NJDMV. I wanted to ask them: How’d you do this? What parameters do you use to age someone? Is it a standard formula, or do you investigate lifestyle, income … gene pool? Do you have forensic artists in a back room? I could find no information through Google, or on their Web site, and after 20 minutes on hold, I gave up.

But it could all be part of New Jersey’s exclusive, nifty, new facial-recognition software (which apparently doesn’t work if you smile too much for your license picture), one of a number of states that employ this system for security purposes. Our driver’s license photos are now all in national databases for the FBI and the police. And the State Department.

So a sense of humor is in order here. I figure that when I really am 62, even if I gain 35 pounds, am all gray, with circles under my eyes as dark as Eye Black, topped with saggy, saggy lids, or, even if I have a plastic surgeon do some heavy lifting that makes me look laminated and waxy (like the shiny sleeve that now comes with a driver’s license), I will most likely look better in that driver’s license photo than in any other photo, and for that matter, than how I will really look. Rather than reminding me that I’m continuing to age, my 2017 driver’s license could potentially serve as a feel-good, pocket-sized rear view mirror.

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Our Early Morning (and Undercover) Dig for Nightcrawlers

25 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by WS50 in Men

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bob Smith, Men, Night crawlers, The Write Side of 50

The plump purplish flesh of the slithering nightcrawler.

The plump, purple and fleshy nightcrawler. By Julie Seyler.

BY BOB SMITH

When we were in our early teens, my older brother Jim and I used to sneak out of bed at 4 a.m. on summer mornings to go trout fishing. It felt forbidden, secretive, and slightly dangerous, which made it glorious fun. I hope some kids today still do it. If so, they’ll need this primer on a critical part of the fishing ritual: gathering the bait.

Some people think you go fishing for trout with worms, but that’s strictly bush league. We used nightcrawlers. To call them worms would be an insult – worms are pink, small-bore, garish wrigglers. (See Margo’s blog on worms in apples.) Nightcrawlers, on the other hand, are lumbering logs of plump, purplish flesh that slither along the ground, regal and snake-like. Catching them required that we be nightcrawlers too – around 11 o’clock at night, after the day’s heat had dissipated, and the dampness that would be the morning dew was just starting to coalesce on the grass. Jimmy and I would grab a couple of empty coffee cans, and head for our friend Steve’s backyard. The yard was deep and dark, and there was a broad expanse of lush grass where nightcrawlers thrived. We would kneel down a few feet away from each other, each with a coffee can stationed by our side, and gently place our hands down on the ground in front of us. You had to be careful even then because if you came down too hard you might find one right under your hand, and be rudely reminded that they’re just tubes of juicy guts. Needless to say, when they burst, the mess sometimes travels straight back up into the face of the human crawler who caused the calamity.

Catching them was tricky. Once touched, the nightcrawler contracts as if electrocuted, instantly pulling its body back into its hole in the ground. The trick is to pinch its body between your fingers and your thumb as soon as you feel any movement under your hand. You have to pinch quickly, before its entire greasy body snap-slithers back below ground, and firmly enough to arrest its movement, but not so firmly that you pinch it into two pieces. Half a nightcrawler is a sad and useless thing – it wriggles blindly for a while but quickly withers to an inert purple stub in your bait can.

Once you firmly grabbed a crawler, you had to wait patiently. The worm would eventually start contracting back in the direction of the hole it started from, and that would tell you the direction you needed to pull to effect the extraction. If you pinched and tugged too soon, you might be pulling the wrong way, and only hasten the nightcrawlers’ journey home to its hole Every millimeter it got back into the ground made it less likely you’d be able to pull it out whole again.

Occasionally you’d come across one that was fully out of the ground, and you just picked it up, twisting and slimy, and dropped it into the can with the others. Other times, only an inch or two of a five-incher was protruding, and you pinched at air as the tip ducked from your grasp. For the rest, you waited – pinching firmly while waiting for the worm to tip its hand (so to speak). As soon as it pulled one way, you tugged in the opposite direction, maintaining firm but steady pressure on its plump body. Eventually, the worm would tire and its resistance would fail. Then the nightcrawler would lay slack, exhausted, and you could pull its entire length from the hole. In the can he would go, and you went back to gingerly patting your hands ahead of you in the dark grass.

On a good night it took us less than an hour to gather two dozen nightcrawlers – plenty for a morning of trout fishing. But we never put more nightcrawlers in the can than we needed for the next day of fishing, because catching them required that we understand them, and with that came, strange to say, a measure of respect for their right to live.

They taught me a valuable lesson, too: when life grabs you really hard, the direction in which you pull; the person or place you reflexively retreat to, is home.

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Roasted Leeks (Enough Said)

24 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by WS50 in Food

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Food, Julie Seyler, Leeks, The Write Side of 50

A Leek and tomato tango

A Leek and tomato tango

BY JULIE SEYLER

I have on rare occasions made leeks vinaigrette and potato leek soup. But now that I have discovered roasted leeks, I am addicted to them:

*Slice off dark greens

Off with the stems

Off with the stems

*Lovingly peel each layer
*Gently wash and dry, and lay the curled leaves in a pan.

Leeks waiting to be roasted

Leeks waiting to be roasted

*Spritz with olive oil and salt, pepper, basil and oregano.
*Roast until they slither across the pasta (or plate) like caramelized snakes.

Tangled leeks

Tangled leeks

And feel completely noble eating them because leeks are one of the healthiest vegetables in the world.

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Where Are They Now? Check Facebook

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by WS50 in Confessional

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

confessional, Facebook, High School Reunion, Julie Seyler, The Write Side of 50

Sandpiper%202[1]

Even the high school yearbook has become, “so yesterday. ” Photo by Lois DeSocio.

BY JULIE SEYLER

My, and for that matter Lois’s, 40th high school reunion is coming up in September. Ten years ago, invitations went out by paper, so I walked into the party ignorant of my classmates’ lives. Not this time. While we sped along from 48 to 58, Facebook popped up. Even if I haven’t seen someone since 1973, I will know who is having a ball with the grandbabies. No need to rely on the generic, “What’s new?” Facebook, my hyper-local source for all news good and bad, has clued me into weddings, births and, sadly, deaths.

And then there is e-mail. When we were on the left side of 50, invitations for the reunion arrived by snail mail. These days details of when and where the party begins show up in my inbox, and those responsible for organizing everything (and a thank-you to you if you happen to be reading) can send out a general e-mail blast asking us to “please tell us if you are coming.”

In mid-July, in response to one of these gentle reminders to RSVP, someone e-mailed that she wished she could come, but it would not be possible because she was taking care of an elderly parent. Someone else responded to her with kind words and sympathy, and a brief synopsis of his life over the past 40 years. And someone else chimed in as to how great it was to hear from him, and the e-mail floodgates burst open.

Weigh-ins on the days of yore, and the days of now, and the hellos, and surprises, and the memories of the way we were just kept bouncing like ping pong balls from North Carolina to Texas to California, and back to New Jersey. Far be it from me to divulge the reminisces of our 18-year-old selves, or the fascinating revelations, and fabulous successes of so many people. But I admit to opening my e-mail every day with a tinge of anticipation, because it was fun to read about the past antics and present accomplishments of my high school class.

The flurry of communications has since died down. I guess we are all busy with summer, and sort of wanting to wait until we see each other face to face before more news is exchanged. But it seems this brief trip down memory lane was very healthy.  According to this recent article in The New York Times, which came out exactly when the e-mail chain was at its pinnacle, there are great benefits to indulging in nostalgia.

Research shows that a romp in the past enhances bonhomie and good cheer, and makes “life seem more meaningful and death less frightening … people (whom) speak wistfully of the past … typically become more optimistic and inspired about the future.”

So I guess as the Class of ’73 congregates, schmoozes, slugs a few cocktails, and trades tales of the good-old days, when we knew 58 was really old, we should also be patting ourselves on the back for engaging in such a healthy pastime.

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Baseball Hits Home Run for Bridging Gaps, Bonding Males, and Recollecting Past

22 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by Lois DeSocio in Confessional, Men

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Tags

Baseball, confessional, Frank Terranella, Men, Yankees

arial view of stadium

Photos by Frank Terranella.

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

As we move past the half-century mark, it’s natural to be bit by the nostalgia bug. More and more of our sentences begin with, “Remember when …” and “Years ago …”

It occurred to me recently while at Yankee Stadium that baseball is the nostalgia sport. The lords of baseball go out of their way to try to make us remember that long-ago September when Bucky Dent shocked the Red Sox, or the October when Reggie hit three home runs in one game. In my family, we all remember the April opening day in 1996 when we sat in the cold, and watched Andy Pettitte pitch in a snowstorm. The team went on to win its first World Series in 18 years. Yankee stadium

Because baseball is a sport that worships its past, it’s a great generational gap-bridge. It’s not unusual for three generations of a family to go to the ballpark together. During the Vietnam War, baseball was often the only way that many fathers and sons could have conversations that didn’t end with, “You’re an idiot!” Or “Get a haircut!”

Baseball kept the lines of communication open just long enough for mature and cooler heads to prevail. Back then, fathers could take their families to the ballpark, and the entire day would cost less than $100 – including hot dogs and beers. Today, two tickets will usually put you over $100. Add $12 beers and $7 hot dogs, and a trip to a major league ballpark has been converted from a regular pastime to a special occasion.

family sign

They spelled our name right.

My family recently planned one of those special occasions to Yankee Stadium. We had 22 people with us, so we qualified to buy tickets from group sales. That also qualified us to have our name on the scoreboard for a few seconds as the Yankees welcomed the Terranella family and friends. It was neat. In keeping with baseball’s mission of glorifying its past, Yankee Stadium features a full-blown museum in addition to Monument Park. This is like a mini hall of fame where plaques commemorate the legendary players of Yankee history. Grandfathers walk through, and point to Joe DiMaggio’s plaque and say, “I remember seeing him play in the 1949 World Series when they beat the Dodgers.”

Fathers point to Mickey Mantle’s plaque and say, “There was nobody better. Ever.” Sons look at Don Mattingly’s plaque and say wistfully, “If only he had played a few years later, he’d be in the Hall of Fame today.”

Now please don’t get me wrong. I know that women love baseball as much as men. My mother has been a fan for as long as I can remember. But I mention fathers and sons because I think that baseball is a key component of male bonding. But more than that, it fosters family bonding. Oh sure, there’s always one contrary family member who refuses on principle to root for the home team, but the ribbing that ensues is all in good fun. Baseball itself takes a lot of ribbing over being so slow. But I prefer to look at it as leisurely. Along with golf, it’s age-appropriate for those of us old enough to remember when there were only 16 teams, and pitchers batted in the American League. But it’s also age-appropriate for a five year old, who comes for the Cracker Jack and cotton candy. Come to think of it, I can’t think of a better way to spend a summer’s day.

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The Saturday Blog: Simplicity

20 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by WS50 in Art

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Tags

Art, Brittany, France, St. Pierre de Quiberon, The Saturday Blog, The Write Side of 50

Across the street from the train station is St Pierre de Quiberon

Across the street from the train station in St. Pierre de Quiberon. Photo by Julie Seyler.

This white house with black windows, on the bluest of summer days, speaks for the beauty of simplicity. It sits across from a train station in the French village of St. Pierre de Quiberon in Brittany. Saturday should be devoted to keeping it simple.

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