Tag Archives: Lois DeSocio

Spines, Heads, Menopause and Fish

28 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Concepts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

FISH HEADS SEATTLE

Photo by Julie Seyler.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

The two fish pictured above, whether staged for sale, or captured in their final moments, gills packed, mouths agape in a gasp for “air,” moved me with its perceived spirit of, “Don’t give up!”

I’m drawn to fish faces, whether viewed in tanks, or when snorkeling and swimming with them. There’s something in their eyes. Perhaps because they are always open.

When my kids were little, we had a goldfish, named Cootie, which had a nice big tank all to himself. (We decided it was a he.) We loved him. He would swim to the edge of the tank and nostril-up to the glass whenever we were in the room, and stay there. I assumed he was happy as a clam, because he was always smiling. And he lived so long, that he grew to be the size of a carp. When he died, we buried him in the back yard.

There are barrels of studies that suggest a connection between fish and people, including:

We owe our heads to fish. (In utero, our eyes are on the side of our heads.)
Fish were the first to have a backbone.
They make friends.
They help each other when one is in danger.

And especially fascinating:

Female guppies go through menopause. (Cool, that doctors recommend fish oil for easing symptoms of human menopause.)

So, let’s give a Friday salute to the two fish out of water above, which were undoubtedly sold, then eaten. Let’s, instead, weigh them on the scale of our homogeneity of the human kind.

I Did What She Did. Only Barefoot

26 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Confessional

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

toes

I’m on my toes.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

Julie’s post yesterday about growing up in Asbury in the 1960s and 1970s – the cards on beach, pinball on the boardwalk, and the Palace carousel with gold rings, was spot-on. I did the same things. Except I did them barefoot. I am a barefoot girl – have been so for as long as I can remember. To me, to have heels and toes mining the outside with nothing but skin on earth is one of the rudimentary pleasures of being human. It’s visceral. Let my skin feel the dirt, the grass – even the man-made earthy delights like pavement, concrete, wood, and floor. It feels boundless, worldly, and borders on the sensual. The blitheness of it all tickles my toes, then sings its way up. I feel real, healthy, alive; sure-footed.

When I was in my early teens, I would ride my bike to the beach in the summer (I was at least a mile farther away than most of my friends), barefoot. My mother used to worry about my exposed, pedaling feet against the street, the spokes, the chain. (Not an iota of concern for my bare head.) I could have potentially been out for 12 hours sans shoes. I’d go from beach to boards. From scorched soles to splintered toes. I would walk into snack bars, pinball arcades, (bathrooms!); ride the merry-go-round with bare legs and feet splayed out perpendicular to the horse. And then I’d ride my bike home. Sometimes in the dark. I think all of this is against the law today.

I still refuse to put sandals on when walking on a beach with hot-as-red-coals sand. “Suck it up!” I’d advise my kids, when they were younger, and would scream, then run towards the water.

“Pishaw!” I say to people who warn me, still today, that I shouldn’t walk across that parking lot that is rife with broken glass and rusty nails.

Even the gazillions of now-dead cicadas that own the outside of my house haven’t caused a cover-up. I just tiptoe more.

dead cicadas

My house is bugged.

The love of going bare-footed could be a growing-up-in-the-sixties-on-the-beach thing. I sometimes feel, though, as if I’m part of a small group. I notice most of my friends and family shun it, and shoe-up. Even inside.

If there is a down side to 50-plus years of exposed feet (I never, ever wear shoes inside my house), it’s foot-bottoms as hard as pigskin, a bevy of broken, sprained, and twisted toes from years of tripping over door jams, and banging into walls without protection. I’ve inadvertently stepped on slugs, a dead squirrel; been punctured by rocks, stung by bees; slipped into a head-cracking fall on mud; sliced off toenails on steps.

But, I’m a lifer. Even come winter, there are no socks between my feet and boots or shoes. Though I may no longer ride a bike barefoot, I take my shoes off when I drive.

So, I stand by my bare feet. Forever. Yes, bury me with my boots off.

Seven Months In (That’s Six Longer Than We Expected)

19 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Confessional

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Champagne to celebrate!

BY JULIE SEYLER

Lois and I launched this blog on November 19, 2012. I was recovering from hip replacement surgery. Our goal was to see if we could keep it up for a month. We did not want unnecessary burdens on our shoulders.

As Lois said: “As long as we’re having fun. When it’s no longer fun, we’ll stop.”

Seven months later: We are still having fun.

So, my seven-month anniversary toast is devoted to the perfect partnership. I am a deep-brow worrier; Lois waltzes through the thunder. Better yet, she never gets tired of telling me that I do not need to worry. The water in my glass is usually a little below the halfway line; hers is flowing over the top. But we manage to crack up over the same things.

So, here’s to you, my friend!

HERE'S TO YOU

Here’s to you.

The Saturday Blog: Converging Paths

15 Saturday Jun 2013

Posted by in Art

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Converging paths. Path trains. Journal Square, Jersey City.

Converging Path trains. Journal Square, Jersey City. Photo by Julie Seyler.

It’s possible to come from different places and meet in the middle.

There’s No Tiptoeing Around The Hair on Our Heads

13 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Concepts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Hair...a mind of its own. Photocollage by Julie Seyler

Hair…a mind of its own. Photocollage by Julie Seyler

BY JULIE SEYLER AND LOIS DESOCIO

The blog has weighed in on eyebrows, so why not meander onto other post-50 hair issues? Like the way it morphs into a foreign object in strange places (ear and nose hair, mostly on men), or pulls a disappearing act (where’d the hairline go?), or simply re-invents itself from a thick flow of trestly curls into a plate of limp spaghetti strands.

There are thousands of documented scientific, genetic, chemical, hormonal explanations for these unsuspected changes, but they do not cure the shock of the switcheroo. And just as you get accustomed to one specific change, such as adapting to fine hair after a lifetime of dense curls, it becomes even finer – so fine that if you touch it, it ends up in your hand instead of staying nicely in place on the top of your head. Aging is body betrayal on tiptoes.

Here, plucked from The U.S. National Library of Medicine and The National Institutes of Health, is the science that gets to the root of aging hair:

Hair thickness change. Hair is made of many protein strands. A single hair has a normal life between 2 and 6 years. That hair then falls out and is replaced with a new hair. How much hair you have on your body and head is also determined by your genes.

“… nearly everyone has some hair loss with aging. The rate of hair growth also slows.

Hair strands become smaller and have less pigment. So the thick, coarse hair of a young adult eventually becomes thin, fine, light-colored hair. Many hair follicles stop producing new hairs.

Men may start showing signs of baldness by the time they are 30 years old. Many men are nearly bald by age 60. A type of baldness related to the male hormone testosterone is called male-pattern baldness. Hair may be lost at the temples or at the top of the head.

Women can develop a similar type of baldness as they age. This is called female-pattern baldness. Hair becomes less dense and the scalp may become visible.

As you age, your body and facial hair are also lost. But hairs that remain may become coarser. Women may lose body hair. Facial hair may get coarser, especially on the chin and around the lips. Men may grow longer and coarser eyebrow, ear, and nose hair.”

Phooey. It doesn’t have to be that way. Errant nose, ear, chin, and hand! hair can be plucked and snipped, shaved and sheared. But here’s the dirt on the hair on your head: Don’t wash it. You can still shower, of course. But just rinse. And run your fingers through it under the spout. Massage the oils out and throughout. Shun the shampoo part starting on Monday, and by Thursday, you will have the hair you had in your 30s. A little grease adds heft and sheen. There’s a reason that the hair follicles, those sebaceous glands, are full of natural oils. Keep any loose hairs in place by not brushing them. Instead: Scrunch. Tousle. Repeat.

And research supports that, along with good nutrition, exercise will keep hair healthy. So, hit the gym, steer clear of shampoo, and add some sweat to the grit. Skeptics might imagine that this combination would lead to nothing but a bad hair day of “limp spaghetti strands.”  No –  you will, instead, sport “a thick flow of trestly curls.”

When One Door Closes …

07 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Confessional

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, , ,

photo

BY LOIS DESOCIO

I love my house as much as a person can love a structure. To me, who is not really materialistic for the most part, it is the most wonderful composite of wood and glass; stone and grass. I’ve pretty much humanized it. I talk to it. It comforts me. And as I prepare to move out of it – and take the 15 years of me, and my family, away from it – I feel like it, too, is sagging a bit from roof to root in sadness and loss.

spindles

I do believe we fixed this missing spindle. Twice.

Yes – get a grip, Lois. Although my heart is being tugged daily from my chest to my gut, my head does reign. It’s time to turn things over. For me, it will be my new leaf. For my home – the deed.

But this house (my fourth and final) is hard to leave. It is enchanting. It’s rambling, old, and solid. It comes with some history (Abraham Lincoln has sat in front of my 200-year-old marble fireplace), humor (stairway spindles have gone missing without notice), a mix of modern-day convenience (floor-to-floor laundry shoot), and old-time charm (buzzers on all floors, and a bicycle bell on the kitchen wall).

There’s lots of space to be alone, but it’s not so cavernous as to allow loneliness. It can be filled with people, and not feel crowded. The whole downstairs has allowed my kids, when they were smaller, and as present-day strapping young men, to run in circles with our crazy border collie throughout, until she pants and slides herself into a sideways floor-flop – as happy as if she had just run through a field of Kentucky bluegrass. It is also dotted with curves and corners for intimate gatherings alongside leaded glass windows that make the sun sparkle and shimmer when it comes inside. And it has long kitchen counters that beckon: “Lean on me.”

Moving

Off the walls. Pulled out of drawers. Into boxes.

Preparing to move has meant that gerunds and present participles (those “ing” words) have ruled for a year now: Hauling (disposing), Packing (sweating), Cleaning (back-breaking), Staging (announcing). Crying. But with no menopause in sight, and without warning, lately, after I break into a wet mess of gulping, heaving sobs that take me to my knees at the thought of leaving – in a flash, I then rise up into a twirly, heel-kicking danseur – prancing from room to room, ears plugged with iPod music, arms and head ceiling-ward, with my heart less tugged, and more joyful, in tribute to every bit of the wonderful space I got to live in.

So, now that the contractors, who have been renovating my home, and have become an extended family for the last seven months have left, and the realtors who will be selling my house are “moving” in, I have done some unpacking. Specifically, the unpacking of some new “ing” words. Like: Breathing. Arising. Fulfilling.

Cicadas on My Trees, My House, My Cup. And Me

30 Thursday May 2013

Posted by in Confessional

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

photo

BY LOIS DESOCIO

The cicadas are landing on me. First one was on the head. Second one was on the shoulder. What makes a cicada landing so freaky, aside from their baby bat-like size is, you don’t know it’s coming. There’s no buzzing. There’s no warning. There’s not even a bite, or a sting, to let you know that it digs you like a tree limb. And it does not shake off easily, despite my shrill, piercing shriek, the girly up-and-down jumping, the arms flailing like rubber. And once shaken or flicked off – I suggest a stop, drop and roll, because their unwieldy and languorous flying can take them from your head or your shoulder – smack! – right into your face.

The few people with whom I’ve shared my cicada touchdowns, and resulting freak-outs, have all responded, across the board with,”Really? I haven’t seen that many.”

Really?

As Bob and the news media has informed us – we are in the midst of the cicada sojourn. The first one in 17 years. They don’t stay for long, but billions of them, for the next month or two, will be drilling up from the ground beneath us, where they’ve been getting in gear since 1996. They then hatch, climb, crawl, and the courting male fills the woods with its clangorous, rackety mating hum. I can now hear it when I’m inside.

But were it not for the errant flying and subsequent mountings (on me), I could embrace the cool-factor of the cicada, and the science class offered right outside my back door:

IMG_0320

IMG_0319

Underneath the lampost light:
lampost

Hanging on the corner:

IMG_0313

In my dryer vent:
IMG_0310

This one got inside:
IMG_0308

But perhaps what is most freaky of all, is this cup that I found yesterday morning while cleaning out the outer reaches of my china hutch. I don’t know where it came from, or to whom it belonged, but it was the first time I’d reached back there in 15 (that’s almost 17) years:
IMG_0312

Newark is Nothing New to Those of Us in the Know

24 Friday May 2013

Posted by in Food

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Forno's of Spain

Fornos of Spain. All photos by Julie Seyler.

BY LOIS DESOCIO AND JULIE SEYLER

My little New Jersey town conveniently straddles two big cities – Manhattan and Newark. I can make it to downtown Newark in 15 minutes, and on a Sunday, sans traffic, can drive to Manhattan in 20.

But it’s a hard sell to get my Manhattan friends to bridge or tunnel it over to the Jersey side for anything, much less dinner. Why would anyone leave Manhattan to eat? And eat in Newark? For the 25 years that I’ve lived nearby, a suggestion to dine in Newark has provoked comments from the uneducated about how they don’t understand how I could live so close to a city that they consider to only have bragging rights as a murder capital. Given that Newark’s Ironbound district rivals any Manhattan neighborhood for flavor of both the palatable and neighborhood kind – they are missing out.

But Julie was recently open to giving it a go, and took the PATH to Newark, where we met at Fornos of Spain – a somewhat touristy, but still tasty, Ironbound fixture. Shocking that Julie, a born-in-Jersey girl, who will fly for seven hours to eat tapas in Madrid, had never, in 50-plus years, ventured anywhere in Newark beyond its Penn Station platform. Dare I say – she and her camera were smitten? At least with the name:

In the Ironbound section of Newark, New Jersey there is a restaurant called Fornos of Spain. It is readily accessible from Manhattan via either the PATH or NJ Transit to Newark Penn Station. Last week, Lois and I dined there with our contributor buddies, Frank and Bob. We reveled in clams casino and gambas al ajillo; grilled grouper, paella valencia and filled-to-the-brim pitchers of sangria. I am pleased to say the sangria was not cloyingly sweet, as I, too, as this New York Times article points out, remember it being when I was drinking it in the 1970s.

Paella Valencia.

Paella Valencia.

Sangria.

Sangria.

The next day I set about looking for the Fornos, you know, the restaurant “of Spain.” I assumed that the Newark joint was a scion of a famous place in Spain, probably Madrid. An Internet search just turned up thousands of reviews of the Newark restaurant. I discussed the dilemma with Lois, who had a simple explanation: ‘Well, Jule, fornos means ovens in Portuguese, therefore the restaurant is actually called the Ovens of Spain.’ What? I mulled this over. That doesn’t make sense, because if fornos means ovens in Portuguese, why didn’t they call the restaurant Fornos of Portugal? And even that is not the final word on the subject because couldn’t there be a family named The Fornos? Maybe they came from Spain. So, what’s in a name? Whether it’s forno, or Newark? What I do know is that I want to go back to Newark’s Ironbound and find a Portuguese restaurant without “Spain” in the name.