Success Without the Tsuris

While my husband Michael packed our suitcases in preparation for our return trip home from five wonderful vacation days in London, I gathered all of our used sheets and towels, stuffed them into a single pillowcase (as my Jewish male Martha Stewart-like husband had taught me) and carried the sack into kitchen where my friend and hostess Lisa was having breakfast before attending a class. “Do you want me to wash these?” I asked her. “Just leave them,” Lisa said. “I’ll get to them later in the week.”

When my father-in-law gave me and my husband Michael a birthday gift of sessions with his personal trainer, I realized that I had a choice: I could choose to be offended (as my mother-in-law was when he tried – and failed – to gift her a bathroom scale for her birthday) or I could choose to see this as an opportunity to get myself whipped into shape. Since I genuinely like my father-in-law, and he’s not known for beating around the bush, I chose the latter perspective. Michael and I booked our appointment with the trainer, Mona, and got ready to turn our flabs into abs.

Hello Muddah, hello Fadduh,
Here I am at Camp Grenada
Camp is very entertaining
and they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining.
I went hiking with Joe Spivy
He developed poison ivy
You remember Leonard Skinner
He got ptomaine poisoning last night after dinner.
All the counselors hate the waiters
And the lake has alligators
And the head coach wants no sissies
So he reads to us from something called Ulysses.
- Allen Sherman, “A Letter from Camp”

Growing up in Manhattan, I didn't need to drive. But after three years of living in Michigan, where buses and subways were no longer at my doorstep, it was time to learn. I passed my driver's test (because it didn't require me to parallel park), and bought a used red-and-white Plymouth Reliant K. My parents quickly insured my purchase with something they knew I would need to support my fledgling skill set - a AAA membership.

This past December, I wrote my (secular) New Year's Resolution article for the Jewish Week called, "Live Like a Movie Star.". In that article, I made a commitment - in print - that I would stop thinking about myself as a coach who just happens to write a column of careless musings, and to start regarding myself as a real writer.