How the Mighty Have Fallen

No young man believes he shall ever die. . . . There is a feeling of Eternity in youth which makes us amends for everything.  To be young is to be as one of the Immortals.  One half of time is indeed spent – the other half remains in store for us, with all its countless treasures . . . . 
– William Hazlitt 

Getting old bites.  I saw both of my grandfathers over the holidays, and it’s clear to me that they are both not the men they used to be. 

My dad’s dad (whom my brother and I always called Grandfather, but is now generally referred to as G2, because he’s Great-Grandfather to Nate’s kids and that’s what they call him) is 76.  He had a stroke last year shortly after his 75th birthday.  He had a difficult time in the immediate aftermath – a lot of physical therapy, mind exercises, and the like – but was steadily improving.  He was certainly more forgetful than he had been, and his hearing was going, but he was still working 4 days a week, just like before the stroke.  A week or so before Christmas this year, he had what’s been confirmed as another small stroke.  Testing shows he’s mostly back to where he was prior to that, with some small exceptions, but it’s obvious to everyone that this could be the beginning of the end for him mentally. 

He’s a lawyer, and he practices alone.  Word in my family is that Grandfather’s wife, to whom he’s been married more than 25 years, has convinced him to stop working this year because it’s getting to be too much of a struggle for him, between having to remember minute details and trying to hear in the courtroom.  He’s agreed, but the nature of his job is such that he can’t just quit.  He has to close out the cases he has and make sure his clients have other representation if there are outstanding issues.  He’s agreed, though, not to take on any new cases, and he expects it to take him a full year to wind down the practice. 

I can’t imagine what he must be going through.  This is a man who sits at the head of the Thanksgiving table and tosses out legal quandries for the family to discuss, then offers up his solution.  He’s starting to tell the same stories multiple times in one evening.  This is a genius Hearts player who knows in his head exactly what’s left to be played and who took what trick; he’s the official scorekeeper, and when he’s winning, he slyly asks the rest of us, “Does anyone want the scores read?”  The math is getting harder for him.  This is a man who does the New York Times crossword puzzle in pen every Sunday.  The last several I’ve seen on his coffee table have been unfinished.

Physically he’s mostly fine, and people in our family are long-lived, and so I envision a future for him where he has a body that can do everything he needs it to do but behind his bright blue eyes he’s reaching for words that don’t come.  I hate to say it, but if it comes to that, I hope he’s too far gone to know any different. 

My mom’s dad, my Grandpa, is having the opposite problem.  He’s 86, and he has spinal stenosis, which Google tells me is “A condition due to narrowing of the spinal cord causing nerve pinching which leads to persistent pain in the buttocks, limping, lack of feeling in the lower extremities, and decreased physical activity.” 

This is a fairly recent development; I saw him in early June and he either was not symptomatic or he hadn’t had any problems yet.  This time, he’s walking with two canes (I can only assume using a walker would make him feel old) and it is slow going.  It was actually painful for me to watch him try to walk up and down steps, and when we got to wherever we were going, he would find the chair nearest the door and station himself there for the duration.  No one can blame him, of course; he doesn’t complain, but he’s clearly in a lot of pain. 

My Grandpa is a character.  He’s also a lawyer, though he hasn’t officially practiced in years.  When I was a kid, he terrified me because he’s Italian and loud and prone to yelling over the voices of anyone who disagrees with him.  I’ve come to learn that he doesn’t mean any harm by it; he lives for debate, and the yelling was largely a product of hearing loss, which he only corrected with hearing aids in the last couple of years (the aids have not, however, resulted in a reduction in yelling; I think he just knows it’s expected of him).

The other thing about my Grandpa, which makes the physical problems he’s having so hard to bear, is that he is a real get-up-and-go guy, from the crack of dawn til midnight.  He raised six kids with my Grandma (they’ve been married more than 61 years) and worked as a criminal defense attorney for over 50 years, in addition to volunteer work in the community, and since he retired, running the public golf course my uncles own (he’s out on the mowers in the spring and summer, in the kitchen hollering and cooking up a storm, and just generally commanding his troops).  There’s more that he does, but I’m exhausted just telling you all of that! 

Needless to say, being limited to essentially moving from one stationary position to another all day is no picnic for him.  He’s mellowed a bit in his old age, and he’s a good sport about the pain he’s in, but you can tell he wishes he could be as much a part of life as he was before.  He loves to be in the middle of the action getting things done.  It’s hard to watch him watching life going on around him.  My biggest fear is that he’s going to end up confined to a bed.  He would be miserable; no one does things exactly the way he wants them done, of course, and so he prefers to do them himself; not being able to would be a nightmare for him.

I can’t decide which grandfather has it worse – and maybe it’s equally bad for both of them, considering their personalities - but that isn’t the point of this at all.  I love and admire these men: They are pillars of goodness, wisdom, and strength in my life, and seeing them end up human like the rest of us is breaking my heart. 

Memory Lane of Men, Part 1

Still, there is a sense of missed opportunity. Maybe there is nothing, ever, that can equal the recollection of having been young together. Maybe it’s as simple as that. [He] was the person [she] loved at her most optimistic moment.
– from The Hours, by Michael Cunningham

I heard a story the other day about someone whose brother got engaged to his high school sweetheart – the brother is in his 40s, and he and the woman had been out of touch for more than 20 years when they reconnected and fell in love again. I’m a sucker for stories like that, and it made me think of my first love. I’ve had three (what I consider) “real” relationships in my life – one in high school and two in college. None of them lasted longer than 10 months. I don’t know what that says about me. Since then (ages ago, if you must know), I haven’t dated anyone seriously. It’s kind of sad, actually. Anyway, I thought I’d do a little deconstructing of those three relationships and see what I come up with, and lucky you gets to come along for the ride.

So: J. We met when we were 16; we both worked at an amusement park during the summers, and he worked with my best friend. I don’t remember exactly how we met, but I remember that our connection was pretty immediate. We didn’t date right away, at least not officially, because by the time we met, there wasn’t much time left before I was leaving for Spain for four months. We intended to have “a two-week fling” (yes, that’s what we called it – what the hell did we know from flings), but at least on my end, I was head over heels well before the end of the two weeks.

We used to sit in his car in the parking lot after work, late at night, just talking for hours. I didn’t have my own car then, and my parents used to have to come pick me up when I was finished closing. I don’t know how many times I made them wait, or for how long, because J and I never wanted to leave each other. And I’m telling you honestly, for weeks, we didn’t do anything but talk. He’d never kissed anybody before, and I was not that much more experienced. We had our first kiss in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven across the street from the amusement park. It was a Tuesday. I remember what I was wearing and the date, too.

I was heartbroken when I had to leave for Spain. J came over the day before I left, and we spent the afternoon making out and saying goodbye (my mom was out of town, my dad was already in Spain, and my brother was at college). In the weeks leading up to my leaving, J would joke that I would meet a hot Spanish guy named Don Flamenco and fall in love and never come home. As I was walking back up to my house after leaving him at his car that day in September, he called my name. When I turned around, he said with a grin, “If you see Don Flamenco, tell ‘im I said hi.” It was kind of a movie moment.

Spain was torture for me early on. I must have written J 10 letters before I ever got one from him. When I finally did, what he’d written broke my heart. He said he’d started dating someone at school (we went to different high schools), and told me how her eyes sparkled and some other crap I used to know by heart but have apparently forgotten. We had agreed before I left that we could date while I was gone, but I never intended to, and I hadn’t expected him to. I sent him even more letters after that, and thinking about what they probably said makes me cringe. I had a bit of a melodramatic streak back then (which is, I think, marginally more controlled these days).

By the time I got home from Spain in January, J and Sparkles had broken up, but he wasn’t ready to date me again yet. The day he told me he was – “I think we should try it your way” – was probably the happiest day of my high school life. I adored him – he was the funniest guy I’d ever met (and still is), he was thoughtful, I thought he was so handsome (baseball hat, crooked smile, and all) – and I felt like, at 16, I was done. I attribute a lot of that thinking to the fact that I’d never had a real boyfriend before him, and I assumed (from my extensive reading of young adult novels) that “love” was all you needed to end up together. I learned, though, that it doesn’t quite work like that.

Six weeks later, sitting in his car in front of my house, J broke up with me. That may have been the first time I heard “It’s not you, it’s me,” but I can’t be sure (it definitely was not the last). He said that he felt confined by the relationship, that when he was at school and girls flirted with him, he felt bad if he flirted back, like that meant he was cheating on me (since I wasn’t there). The true irony in that is that I used to feel that way with every “boyfriend” I’d ever had before J – I never wanted anyone to know I was “dating” (you know, dating like you hold hands in the hallway, and meet at your locker between classes) a guy at school because what if another guy I liked better than this guy saw me and then didn’t ask me out if he liked me because he thought I wasn’t interested but I really was interested? (I told you I was a little dramatic back then. Next time you’ll believe me when I tell you something.) When I met J, I realized for the first time that flirting is natural, and just because you flirt doesn’t mean you’re interested in that person or not interested in the person you’re dating. I never wanted to be with anyone but him from the day I met him, and I told everyone who would listen that we were dating. Even my parents.

When he broke up with me, I thought it was the end of the world. I thought for a long time, even between and after those other two relationships, that J and I were meant to end up together, and I spent a long, long time trying to make him see that. We danced around each other several times over the years, but he always backed off first. In the end, he married and moved to Texas, and he’s getting his PhD in something ridiculously right-brained like Renaissance Literature. To his credit, he put up with every crying phone call, every pleading letter, every sappy birthday card, every angry email (he wasn’t good about staying in touch – I just cannot imagine why), and we came out as friends at the other end.

A few years ago, I read through all the emails that had gone back and forth between us, and I was aghast. I immediately emailed him and said, essentially, “Dude, I realize I was crazy, and I’m so sorry.” I can’t imagine what it must have been like on his end to get these emails (and letters and phone calls) from me, and what it must have taken for him to not tell me just to leave him the hell alone already. I promised him then that he would never get another email (or letter or phone call) like that from me again, and I’ve kept my word. Partly it’s because our friendship is more important to me than anything else. Partly it’s because I respect him and his marriage. Mostly, though, I think it’s because I grew up somewhere prior to that and realized, as great a story as it would make, that we are not going to end up together. My life is not a movie Becca would watch on Lifetime.

The quote that begins this post brings tears to my eyes every time I read it because I think it’s exactly why J occupied such a huge place in my heart for so long: he was the one I loved when I first learned what love was. I know, looking back, that our relationship couldn’t possibly have been everything I thought it was. We were together for too little time, and I was a fool for drama back then. I overlooked a lot and gave him too much credit. I mean, objectively, when someone says, “I love you, Melanie. I don’t know if I mean it, so don’t hold me to it, but I think I do,” that’s not exactly a solid foundation for a lasting relationship, to say the least. At 16, though, the only part I heard was, “I love you, Melanie.” He was never ready to be what I thought he was, what I wanted him to be, and that’s ok. It’s enough that I got to love him for the time that I did, and that I learned, eventually, that you have to listen to everything, you can’t just pick and choose the parts that fit the story you’re telling in your head.

Things to Be Happy About, Vol. 8

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. 
– Burton Hillis

Merry Christmas to those of you celebrating the holiday today (and Happy Tuesday to those of you who are not!)!  I am in Richmond, staying with my brother and his family.  We will open presents shortly, then get ready for my parents and grandparents to arrive from parts north.  After what will surely be too much food and not enough time, I’ll head back to NoVa tonight.  I was going to be off tomorrow, but I’m going to Western New York this weekend, so I switched tomorrow’s day off til Friday.  I’ll drive to my mom’s in PA Thursday night, then make the 4-hour trip from there to just outside Buffalo Friday morning in anticipation of a mini family reunion that night. 

I’m planning to come back Sunday, even though plans for New Year’s Eve aren’t set yet.  I bet you anything I end up drinking champagne straight from the bottle (try it, if you never have – it’s kind of awesome), alone in my apartment, watching sappy movies.  Honestly, I can think of worse ways to ring in the new year.

Ok, since I missed last week’s list, here’s a double shot of things to be happy about over the holidays:

1. giving lots of little gifts instead of one big one
2.  Christmas lists – not what you want, but who to shop for
3. going to church on Christmas Eve [I don't think I ever feel a greater sense of community than at that time]
4. the feeling of Christmas in the air
5. Christmas carols [and going caroling]
6. Santa Claus
7. Papa Noel – the “Spanish” Santa Claus
8. setting the official time for opening gifts on Christmas Day [when we were kids, this was inevitably super-early; as we got older and learned the value of sleep, it gradually got later]
9. the first snow
10. when the snow sticks
11. turning off all the lights and watching the Christmas tree glowing in the darkness [this is my absolute favorite thing to do on Christmas Eve]
12. driving through the Maryland countryside after dark, seeing the farm houses lit up with Christmas lights from a distance
13. homemade Christmas gifts 
14. a cookie baking marathon extravaganza with a good friend
15. the downtown Richmond skyline at night during the holidays, with all the big buildings outlined in white Christmas lights
Edited to add (12/26/07):
16. the way my almost two-year-old nephew says “Ho ho ho” when you ask him what Santa Claus says
17. decorating cookies and making pinecone “favors” with my three-and-a-half-year-old niece

I hope you all have a wonderful day, however you’re spending it!

So Much for That Idea

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.  
– Jane Austen 

Sorry I didn’t return to regular programming – I got busy dealing with the body shop, the insurance adjustor, a lying student loan company supervisor (Oh, you’ll call me back in 48 hours, max?  Really?  I think someone’s pants are on fire.), and crappy apartment maintenance people (Oh, you can’t come today like you said you would, but you’ll be here first thing in the morning?  Really?  Oh, you’re sorry you couldn’t make it this morning, but it’s after hours now and a dishwasher is not an emergency but you promise you’ll be here tomorrow?  Really?  Oh, you couldn’t make it again today, but this time you super-duper promise you’ll make it tomorrow?  Really?  Suck on it.  If I get West Nile virus from the nasty, standing water in the bottom of my dishwasher, I may go all Lawyer on you.) – and frankly, was not in the mood for Things to Be Happy About.  But don’t you worry, I have a bang-up Christmas edition all ready to go for you – it will be like an extra present for you to open Christmas morning!

So the car: remember how I said how thankful I was that the damage wasn’t extensive?  Either I know nothing about cars, the body shop and insurance adjustor are ripping me off, or I jinxed myself.  I think it’s the first one, but I’m not positive.  We’re up to $2200 and they haven’t even put the car on the lift yet.  Awesome.  Thank god I wasn’t one of those people who said ”Oh, I never get in accidents, so I can handle a $1500 deductible.”  I know myself better than that, and went for $500.  That hurts, especially at the holidays, but it could be worse.

Remember also how I said how great my boss is?  He gave us Christmas presents yesterday, which I was not expecting at all (we already did our “annual round robin gift exchange,” you know).  Two words: Coach wristlet.  If you know anything about me, you know I do not care about labels and I would never buy myself Coach anything, but I was amazed at his generosity.  It’s beautiful and classic – plain black leather – but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it.  Does anyone use one of these?  I’m stumped in the face of such a thing.

Speaking of gifts, I am officially done, and everything is wrapped, as of last night.  Actually, that’s a lie.  I left one thing for my brother unwrapped because I may have to exchange it after I get to his house tonight and see if he already has it.  He won’t be there til Sunday night – he’s on an out-of-town job – so it will be safe.

And speaking of my brother, welcome him to the blogosphere, won’t you?  He’s not a great speller, but I love him anyway. 

Crash

“I started to slow down but the traffic was more stationary than I thought.”
– real statement on an accident claim form, borrowed from Funny Insurance Claims

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Tuesday programming to bring you this breaking news update:

Seriously? I’ve had my car exactly five weeks today, and some jackass stops IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD to wave at his friends on the corner, causing three cars behind him to stop short, which resulted in my hitting the guy in front of me. I’m fine – a little achy, and my head hurts, but that may be from the crying I did at the scene at first as well as the stress and frustration of being in an accident, so I’m keeping an eye on it and will definitely head to the emergency room if I start to feel worse. My brother has assured me that it’s a concussion, not whiplash, where you sometimes go to sleep and don’t wake up, so that’s comforting. The other driver is also fine, but achy as well, he said.

Unfortunately, I was the third car – I’m never “lucky” enough to be the one who gets rearended, I’m always the one doing the rearending (shut it, dirty girls) – and the jackass didn’t get hit or stay behind after the accident, so I’m on the hook for it.

I hit a Mercedes. The last guy I rearended (2005) was driving a Mercedes. I’m sensing a rivalry between my Saturns and all Mercedes in my path. But the driver, a young guy, could not have been nicer, especially after a witness (who was in car #1 that had to stop short) came back to the scene after having trailed the jackass and gotten his plate number and make/model of his car and explained what happened. She also waited with us for the police and offered to speak to our insurance companies as well. The friends the jackass was waving to didn’t bother to stick around as witnesses, which is no surprise, I suppose, but still sucks.

We called the police, and the officer was a bit of jerk at first, but mellowed out by the end. After some ersatz CSI-ing, he determined from my skid marks that I was only going about 20 miles an hour when I hit the brakes. As you can see from the picture, the damage honestly isn’t that bad, I’m just pissed because I love my car so much and driving a car that has body damage makes me feel like a loser. The Mercedes has similar damage on its rear bumper – you can tell how hard I hit the brakes because of how high the damage is on my bumper and how low it is on his.

So, boo. I called the insurance company and filed the claim. I gave them the jackass’s info and the witness’s name and number, and we’ll see if they do anything with it. I just know my rate is going to go up, which bites, and it’s going to be a pain trying to get this fixed before the weekend – I’m going to Richmond Friday night, but I think my radiator is leaking because of the accident, so I might have to get a rental to drive that far. Thankfully, my boss is very understanding, so I have the morning off (and the day, if I need it) to get the car to the body shop for an estimate. Hopefully the adjustor will come soon and I can get everything taken care of quickly. And, on the bright side (it is Tuesday, after all), no one was hurt, the guy I hit and the witness were lovely people, the damage is not extensive, and I have good insurance.

Your regularly scheduled programming will return tomorrow.

The Best Three Minutes of My Day

Art is not the application of a canon of beauty, but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon.  When we love a woman, we don’t start measuring her limbs.  
– Pablo Picasso 

This is gorgeous – a video of women depicted in Western Art in which each painting or portrait morphs into the next.  There are some that are very familiar to me, but many more that I’m sure I’ve never seen before.  I think it’s beautifully done and worth three minutes of your time.  It ends on Picasso’s “Francoise,” which I only recently discovered (through my grandmother, who sent me a Smithsonian article about it with a notation at the top: “She reminds me of you; think it’s the eyes.”), but love immensely (Picasso is by far my favorite artist).  Enjoy! 

Did Someone Say Cookie?

“C” is for cookie, that’s good enough for me!
– Cookie Monster

So the marathon baking day came and went yesterday, and I’m left with approximately 12 dozen cookies to be shared with family, friends, and co-workers over the next week or so. I really wish that I believed in digital cameras, because the bounty truly was immense, and it just won’t be the same after waiting until the other 20 pictures on my roll of film are used up, and the film is developed, and Kodak kindly provides a CD, to post a picture. Karen took a couple with her (digital, thank god) camera, so maybe she’ll be kind enough to send me one and I can share that one with you.

[Edited, finally, to add a picture]

It only just now, after all the cookies are packed up and half sent home with Karen, occurred to me that I ought to have attempted some Smitten Kitchen-style photos of the process and the end results, rather than settling for the rather unceremonious heap-o-cookies-on-Melanie’s-dining-room-table-with-errant-lunchbags-and-not- yet-hung-artwork-in-the-background photos. Maybe next year.

The results are in, and of all the cookies we made, my favorites are the Kris Kringle cookies. Who knew white chocolate, dried cranberries, and chopped pecans could do so much for a standard cookie dough? I only got 5 dozen, not 6, out of the recipe, but that is still a boatload of cookies, so I’m happy.

I was the least impressed with the no-bake Peanut Butter Nanaimo bars. For all that I love the ingredients individually – peanut butter? Check. Chocolate? Double check. Coconut? Check. Graham crackers? Check check. – the combination of the them in the bottom layer was not spectacular. Plus, the top layer of choclate didn’t stick to the peanut butter layer. Maybe that’s because I didn’t wait long enough for the chocolate to cool before I spread it over the peanut butter, I don’t know.

Karen’s cookie to be named later turned out to be peanut butter cut-out cookies, essentially a different version of the standard sugar cookies people make at the holidays. Her sugar cookie recipe uses cream cheese – yum. Unlike Jane, I love to roll out dough and use cookie cutters. I scored a whole container of holiday-themed cookie cutters at Goodwill about 2 years ago for, I think, 50 cents, and this was the first chance I’ve had to use them. We overtaxed ourselves though, with a mid-day shopping break at Target, so we ran out of energy to make icing and decorate the cookies last night. Oh well. People will eat them plain and like it, I say.

Now, off to the store. I’m out of milk!

You Made It!

There are two types of people: Those who come into a room and say, “Well, here I am!” and those who come in and say, “Ah, there you are!”
– Frederick L. Collins

Welcome to my new home at WordPress! What do you think? I’m still working out a few things and playing around with the options, so chances are things will change again before the next time you come back.

I would love to hear suggestions or comments on the new look and layout. Is it better/easier than my Blogger page or did you like that one better? I can’t decide.

Things to Be Happy About, Vol. 7

Happiness, it seems to me, consists of two things: First, in being where you belong, and second – and best – in comfortably going through everyday life; that is, having had a good night’s sleep and not being hurt by new shoes.
– Theodore Fontaine

Let’s get right to it, shall we?

1. Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey [I bought this for my niece when I was in Boston in March, and we read it two times a day for the four days I visited her afterwards]
2. Gerbera daisies
3. the smell of garlic sauteeing in olive oil [growing up, we'd walk in the house and say, "Smells great, Mom, what's for dinner?" and the only thing in the pan would be olive oil, garlic, and onion]
4. Socca, best eaten walking around the Sunday open-air market in Vieux Nice
5. the way wet leaves stain the sidewalk with their colors in the fall
6. when you and the bank agree on the amount of money in your account [my bank has said I have between $7 and $12 more than my checkbook says for more than a year; if I could ever get a consistent difference for 6 months, I'd just adjust it and move on, but it keeps changing]
7. decorating for Christmas, even if you’re the only one who will see it
8. the runt of the litter

After my “alternative work assignment” day today, most of my Christmas shopping is done, I just need one more thing for my dad, and two things for my brother. Karen is coming this weekend with baby Caroline, and we’re having a Christmas cookie baking marathon. I’ve choosen some pretty ambitious recipes, so we’ll see how they turn out. I chose Peanut Butter Nanaimo Bars, Double Chocolate Sable Cookies, Kris Kringle Cookies, and Coconut-Peanut Cookies. I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but the Nanaimo Bars are no-bake, and the Coconut-Peanut ones look pretty simple, so I’m hopeful. Karen has chosen traditional sugar cookies, which we’ll roll out and use my extensive cookie cutter collection on, as well as Snickerdoodles (which, to my surprise and dismay, do not actually contain Snickers), and a cookie to be named later.

Hopefully the results will be great, and I can take a bunch to work to share and save some for my family on Christmas as well. What are you making this holiday?

(Please, people, I like it when you comment, that’s why I keep asking questions at the end of my posts. Don’t be shy, I like to know you’re reading and what you’re thinking – you can be anonymous if you want to. Jane, Lydia, Coll, Becca – thanks for keeping me company!)

Movie Madness

The movies we love and admire are to some extent a function of who we are when we see them.
– Mary Schmich

I was off yesterday, and today was kind of a lazy day, so I’ve been flipping through the channels just to see what’s on. I came across three movies that will make me stop and watch them every time.

Yesterday, Mr. Mom was on AMC. I remember watching this movie as a kid and being terrified by the out of control washing machine. I don’t think we saw it in the theater though; 1983 was a little early for my family to do that. Probably we rented it when I was about 10 or so. Everyone looked so young – Teri Garr, Michael Keaton, Martin Mull. I don’t think you’d cast Keaton and Garr as husband and wife these days; she hasn’t aged as well as he has, although he hasn’t been in anything I’ve seen or heard about recently, so maybe he’s old and gray by now, I don’t know.

The best part of that movie is his descent into bearded, Young-and-the-Restless-watching, grilled-cheese-ironing madness. The day all the repair people come at once and the washing machine explodes (probably because he mixed the powdered detergent with the liquid fabric softener in order to “save a step”), and the vacuum cleaner (“Jaws”) runs amok and goes after the “Woobie”, and the middle kid catches the stove on fire? Pure comedy gold. I have to say, though, that the sexist premise doesn’t really hold up today, but I dig Teri Garr’s 80s-working-woman outfits: jackets with big shoulder pads and those blouses that tie at the neck. Nice.

Today, I came across Stepmom, just as it was starting, and I watched the whole thing. I adore Susan Sarandon, and Julia Roberts was great in this, a break from the usual comedy she does. I bawl like a baby at two points, without fail: first, when Jackie and Isabel meet in the restaurant and talk about the kids’ lives without Jackie. Jackie says, “I have their past, and you can have their future,” and it’s so painful, watching a mother who knows she’s never going to get to see her kids grow up figuratively hand them over to the woman who’s going to be responsible for raising them in her stead.

The second is Christmas morning when Jackie has the kids come up to her room individually to give them each the gift she’s made for them. The little boy, Benjamin, is played by Liam Aiken, and he’s fantastic in this role. Cute, but not precious. His gift is a magician’s cape that Jackie sewed for him, and it’s got pictures of the two of them on it. He points to one of them in the hospital just after he was born, and asks, “Did you know I was good looking right away?” So sweet. But the part that really gets me comes after he asks Jackie if she’s dying, and she says yes, and they talk about what it will be like after she’s gone, how Ben can always talk to her because she’ll be in his heart. He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “Nobody loves you like I do.” There aren’t enough tissues in the house to contain me at that point. Sad city.

Later today, I was having a snack and flipping channels again, and Sixteen Candles was on. John Hughes, in the 80s, was it for teen movies. Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Weird Science. Any of those would freeze my remote in a heartbeat, especially Weird Science. Anthony Michael Hall can thank John Hughes for everything he has. (Huh. IMDb says John Hughes also wrote Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I didn’t remember that, but now that I see it, it makes perfect sense. He also wrote Mr. Mom.)

All of these movies are ones I must have come to by way of slumber party movie marathons (although I remember seeing Ferris Bueller at the drive-in with my uncle and my brother one summer in Buffalo), because they all came out before I was 10, which I find hard to believe, but IMDb assures me that it’s true. They’re so iconic, and so much a part of my history as a teen (“We are what you see us as,” from The Breakfast Club, was popular as a yearbook quote when I was in high school in the early to mid-90s) that I feel like I must have always known about them, but that can’t be true.

Anyway, I love Sixteen Candles. Despite the terrible fashion, I think it really holds up as a portrait of high school angst, as do John Hughes’ other films (minus the “perfect woman” Gary and Wyatt cook up in Weird Science). I loved Dong, I loved Joan Cusack as the girl with the back brace and head gear, and most of all, I loved Jake Ryan. Didn’t every girl dream that the handsomest guy in school would grow tired of the perky, perfect blond and suddenly realize she exists and give her the perfect kiss? My favorite line in the movie comes from Sam’s (Molly Ringwald) dad. She’s sad about Jake – he doesn’t know she exists, and it hurts, she says. “That’s why they call it a crush,” her dad tells her. “If it were easy, they’d call it something else.” So true.

There are other movies, too, that will make me stop what I’m doing and watch: Legends of the Fall (and I make no bones about the fact that this is my all-time favorite movie; I own it, I can recite every line, I’ve seen it a billion times, and I sob during every viewing), St. Elmo’s Fire, Field of Dreams, Stand By Me (the theme music – not Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me,” but the melody that plays at the end when Richard Dreyfuss reads the news about Chris – haunts me, as does River Phoenix’s acting), The Shawshank Redemption (I can hear Morgan Freeman’s Red narrating in my head, even now), Eight Men Out (I’m seeing a trend towards John Cusack; this is probably my favorite role of his).

So what does it for you? Tell me, if you will, what movies make you put down the remote, stop what you’re doing, and settle in?