nanny

On a balmy July night in 1982, her left knee gave out. She fell, more from shock than from anything else. She rose, unharmed to her knowledge.

Now generally speaking, the knee is not the most vital of all body parts. A lung going out, for example, would cause pandemonium of sorts. But a knee? Simply a doctor's visit, an "Apple a Day" speech, and a $10 bill to the smiling receptionist named Sue.

After all, a knee's just a knee.

*****

Her eyes began having problems focusing. She had a cataract in her left eye and her perfect 20/20 vision was suddenly not so. For the first time in 82 years, she would have to rest blue plastic-rimmed frames on the tip of her nose.

She didn't mind. They went perfectly with her short white hair, favorite blue pantsuit and pearls.

*****

Born in Germany in the early 1900's, Esther moved to California when she was six, accompanied by mother, father, brother and sister. Upon arriving in America and facing financial struggle, her mother turned to sewing for a living and her minister father turned to alcohol. He died several years later, they would joke, of severe alcoholism and weak liver.

She went to school and excelled, fascinated but limited. She met her future husband Benjamin Prather there, became a registered nurse in Des Moines, and gave birth to three children, Robert, Dee and Kay. As their lives progressed, Esther learned a little something extra about her husband. He, like her father, was a raging alcoholic. She filed for divorce, something almost unheard of at the time, and neither she nor her three children ever spoke to Benjamin again. He was rumored to have died from cirrhosis of the liver two years later.

*****

After all three of her children moved to California, Esther decided it was for the best if she made the move out west too. She settled into a house on Peach Street, where, unbeknownst to her at the time, she would spend the rest of her life. Friends, family and nurses would come and go from that little house, but she would never live in a retirement or nursing home. Before her death, she would joke that this was simply for the fact that she couldn't drive herself there. She had never learned how.

*****

The best description of Esther was vivacious until the end. She would talk about current events and politics till the sun rose. She would feed her great-grandchildren gummy bears when their parents weren't looking, and dress-up Barbies and set up obstacles for G.I Joes. She would joke with the adults about her age and about the day that she would need a wheelchair to roll through airport terminals.

*****

At first it had just been her left knee. Then the pain spread up and down her left leg like tar, slowly and slickly maneuvering itself so that her leg would never feel quite the same. It moved on to her right leg. It wasn't easy to get out of bed anymore. What used to be a day -to-day routine had suddenly become a day-to-day struggle. Where it might have taken five minutes to stretch and reach for her glasses, it was now taking forty-five.

*****

Once the doctors diagnosed her with a failing circulatory system, she understood why, ever since that fateful July day, her legs had been bothering her. Blood simply wasn't being distributed where it needed to be. The doctors warned her this would be a hurdle she could never completely overcome. A major blood vessel in her leg would need to be replaced, and even then walking would never be the same. She would never want to shop again. She would have a hard time strolling the block for exercise. She would need a wheelchair to roll through terminals.

*****

The replaced blood vessel didn't help much. She hired a nurse who came by twice a week to monitor her, grocery shop for her, and make sure she had everything she needed.

Kay spoke with the nurse one afternoon while Esther was napping. The nurse informed her that she had found Esther in the bathroom on this particular morning, sitting on the toilet seat. She had gone to the restroom two hours earlier, and had never been able to get up following. She was stunned Kay didn't know just how bad Esther had been feeling.

Kay hired the nurse full-time to stay with her mother. She and her husband Bob paid for the expensive nurse, partly because they would have anyways, and partly because of those Reader's Digest assholes.

*****

She loved Reader's Digest. With every donation she made to them, she asked that they write her back to tell her where her money was being applied. For fifteen years she wrote once a month and everytime she sent a five-dollar donation. The checks were cashed. No reply letter was ever sent.

After she died, Kay found copies of her letters and donations under Esther's bed, like a little girl keeps old copies of love-letters. She called the Reader's Digest National Office and informed them that her completely broke, elderly mother had continued to send them money and letters for fifteen years with no reply. They said they were sorry and sent her a year's subscription.

Reader's Digest doesn't seem to be on the stands much these days. Hopefully they filed for bankruptcy and then went to hell.

*****

No one was sure whether or not she knew she was dying. She would wake up from time to time, feebly gaze around, and offer a weak smile. "My goodness!" she would say. "You're all here! What a surprise!"

They all played along. Proud as she was, knowing or otherwise, they knew she would never want to see them acknowledge the ending of her life or feel an ounce of pity for her.

After several days of holding onto a last shred of life, she took a deep, shaky breath. It would be her last. The nurse came in. Everyone already knew. Esther Prather was pronounced dead at 4 p.m. on June 22nd, 1997. The beginning of a new season, the end of an old life.

*****

Shortly after the funeral, my great-grandmother's belongings were divided amongst the family. Grammy wanted only the sentimental things. So did Uncle Buzz. My mom took her beautiful old-fashioned German birth certificate and framed it above our mantle. The rest of the grandchildren took what they remembered her best for, and Aunt Dee wanted everything else. She was always a bitch.

And I myself have been fortunate enough to take away the memory of her smell, her touch, herself. Never having seen death firsthand, I have still learned this from my great-grandmother's: No one loves the shell of a body. You love traits, like "vivacious." You love memories of blue glasses and pearls and gummy bears. But above all, you love a soul. Hopefully you pick up pieces of that soul along the way, and adopt them as your own. And this somewhat cancels the concept of death-because it is through this that people live eternally.

roman numerals are tricky

I have an obsession with odd numbers. Everything must be odd in my mind. If I have two drinks, I need one more. If I have written four blogs, I will immediately compose another lame one about numbers. The only exception to this rule is the number "9", in which case I always want to make it 10.

vodka and dr. zchivago

Viola is Russian. Her lips are dark, her nails and clothing exclusively black. She has warm blonde hair and a small frame. Her teeth are not perfect. The incisors overlap the laterals and they retain a warm yellow color, due mostly to the coffee and cigarettes she ingests daily. But Viola does not see her teeth as a flaw. In fact, she barely notices them.

This is because Viola is obsessed with her eyebrows.

Everyday, Viola wakes up two hours before work. She showers. She dries her hair. She eats a Nutri-grain bar. She brushes her teeth. She gargles. She applies her mahogany lipstick. She walks naked toward the mirror to check for patches of cellulite. Still dimple-free. Depending on her mood, she may make her bed. She dresses. And she sits.

She lights a cigarette, turns on Bette Midler's Greatest Hits and flips the switch to employ the 150 watt bulbs above her mirror. She takes in the moment with a deep inhale and a puff outward. She often inches her face so close to the mirror that her nose bumps into it and she has to angle slightly sideways. With the hand that isn't clutching the Pall Mall, she picks up her 200 dollar pair of Shu Uemura tweezers, and she removes them from their plastic case. (They originally came in a metal one, but Viola worried that the metal would dull the tip). And everyday, she spends an hour and thirteen minutes looking for non-existent eyebrows to pluck.

She knew it was getting bad when her eyebrows started resembling Whoopi Goldberg's, but she couldn't stop. She would pull a single one out, then tap the mirror with the blade of the tweezer, leaving a remnant brow behind, clinging to the mirror by its root. Instead of satisfaction at having removed a stray, she felt she needed to remove another. And another. And another. Until, of course, the point came when there were none to remove.

So now Viola has had to invest in a very expensive eyebrow pencil. While very expensive, Viola has not quite mastered the art of the color-in, so usually one of her eyebrows looks slightly more arched than the other. Her appearance is rather off-kilter.

the resurgence of the scrunchy

In what feels to be an inner battle between good and evil, man vs. himself, fight vs. flight, I have lately been entertaining the idea of wearing a scrunchy.

Yes, a scrunchy. You remember them. A wisp of colored cotton encircling a bit of elastic, wrapped snugly and carefully contorted around a ponytail. And the simple word itself probably brings back glorious visions of teased bangs and hairsprayed curls. Perhaps you remember wearing a red and green plaid one on Christmas, or taking your yearbook picture in one, or learning to ride a bike with one around your wrist. Perhaps you remember wearing one when you had your first crush or true love, or during a multiplication lesson, or that one time when you fell and skinned your knee and cried in front of the whole playground (hey, so I’m not an athlete).

Well, as the old saying goes, time stops for no man, and the eighties turned to the early nineties, and the early nineties turned into the mid-nineties, and alas, the scrunchy’s sartorial day in the sun was nearing an end. No longer were the fashionistas sporting them, but more so mothers living in Minnesota, doing their housework and eating dinners at TGI Fridays. So mass production is stopped, they are tossed like used tissue to the bottoms of drawers and trash cans, the very word can ignite a shudder. The world of fashion is a cruel, cruel, fickle one.

And yet, here we are, ten, twenty years later. Clearly fashion is ever evolving and recycling, and the 80’s and 90’s are here with a vengence. Hipsters around the city are wearing bright, tight denim with high tops and Henry Holland inspired t-shirts. High-waisted everything showed up on the runways of YSL, Phillip Lim, etcetera (though I’m certainly not implying this came about in the 80’s, just that “high-waisted” often conjures up images of stonewashed mom jeans from that time). Leggings as an entity are far from over for the masses. Flannels of the early 90’s have already been re-rocked by the Olsen twins.

Yes I just referenced the Olsen twins. I love those little Marlboro Red-smoking ladies.

So this is my question. How long, I ask you, until the scrunchy returns with a vengeance?

Perhaps it will be an extra, extra large scrunchy, editorial if you will. Or maybe it will follow the ongoing metallic or patent leather trend? Lucite? What are the limits? Will Nicolas Ghesquiere at Balenciaga make a matching one for future blazers? Will Dolce and Gabbana show an insanely tight corset-scrunchy stretching down the ponytail? Will Donna Karan design an “I Heart New York” one?

Most importantly, do I give into my inner battle and rock the scrunchy that very well may be put back on the map in the near future? Or do I fight the urge, fearing pre-fad ridicule?

All I know at this point is I will never re-wear my Hair-Deenie. You don't even want to know.