Recently in Everyday Drama Category

What do you do for a cold?  What makes it shorter?  Is there anything that will prevent it?

I'm asking for a reason.  When my kids were little, I had colds constantly.  Then they passed the constant-cold phase, I started taking Vitamin C, and I had no more than one cold a year or two.  Now the colds are back.  If this is the price of being a Grammi to very young grandkids, I'll gladly pay it.  But how to deal?

Here's the immediate problem ... 

Thanks to all of you who entered the contest I ran this summer. I'm pleased to announce that Barbara Braun of Michigan and Jackie Kenny of Rhode Island have won the last two Family Tree knitting kits. Congratulations, Barbara and Jackie. Your knitting kits will be on their way to you ASAP. For the others of you out there who want to knit up these patterns, which were inspired by Dana, Elizabeth, Saundra, and Lizzie, please visit your LYS (that's local yarn store). Alternately, you can order the Family Tree Knitting Collection straight from Berroco.

I highly recommend it, because, now that September is here, we knitters are thinking of warm wools. In my case, it's hats ...

This blog is not about politics. It's about survivorship, and it will be short.

Ted Kennedy is a survivor. He has lost family members under tragic circumstances, has seen one son battle bone cancer, a daughter battle lung cancer, another son battle drug addiction. He has broken his back in a plane crash, and lives with the guilt of driving the car in which a young woman died, an accident that derailed his greatest political dreams. But he keeps coming back ...

I’m from Boston, where one’s first thought on hearing the phrase “going green” is that it must be St. Patrick’s Day. That’s a big day around here – a holiday, actually. Oh, the holiday is formally called Evacuation Day, but it means that state offices are closed, so local folks can enjoy St. Patty’s Day parades.

But that’s not the green I mean. I mean the environment. And wow, am I bad about some things. I use paper towels like they’re going out of style. I buy bottled water by the case, drink those little plastic suckers dry, and toss them out. When I’m cold, I raise the heat.

That said, I’m starting to think green, which means that I feel guilty when I do the above. I was mystified last week, listening to a news piece about oil fields in west Texas that were abandoned twenty years ago but are now being reopened with new technology that can bring up oil the old technology could not. Hey, I’m thrilled for the locals. But when are we going to put our efforts into producing alternative fuels – renewable fuels?

In a recent speech, Hillary Clinton referred to “green collar jobs.” Now please. I am not endorsing Hillary Clinton, simply borrowing a phrase from her speech. “Green collar jobs” is a great term. I had never heard it before, but I do believe that we need to develop an economy around alternative sources of energy. Of course, that’s still a ways off. So what do we do in the meantime?

Well, I bought a hybrid last spring. Granted, it’s an SUV, but it’s still a hybrid, which means that instead of getting 18 mpg, I’m getting 27 mpg. That’s an improvement of 50%, which means significantly less gas used.

I’ve also purchased reusable supermarket bags. They’re nice green things with the supermarket logo on the front, good storage space inside, and long handles. I keep them in the trunk of my car – that’s my hybrid – and take them with me into the market. I get a nickle rebate each time I use one of these bags. That’s four bags totalling 20 cents, times five visits per month, equaling $1.00. Bingo. I’ve paid for one reusable bag in full.

My latest green endeavor is one I picked up while working out last week to the TODAY show. Do you get endless catalogues? How many do you read? Me, I toss half of them in the recycle bin (hey, there’s another good thing!) on my way into the house from the roadside mailbox. Think about the waste – of wood, paper, water, time, effort, muscle (my poor postman!) – I could go on and on. But that’s where www.catalogchoice comes in. Click on it and register, then start declining those catalogs. I registered right after the show, and now, each day, I take the catalogues as they arrive in the mail, go to my computer, pull up www.catalogchoice, and click “decline”. If you have a customer number, great, but it’s not necessary. You do have to be careful to enter the name to which the catalogue is addressed; some use my middle initial, some do not. But even adding names is simple, which means I can decline on my husband’s behalf as well. The TODAY show says it may take up to ten weeks for a denial request to take effect. But that’s better than nothing. And I feel good in the process!

Next up? Those spiraling, fuel-efficient light bulbs.

What do you do to help the environment? I’d like to hear.

I don’t know about you, but I’m growing wary of expiration dates. Reach for the Tylenol in your medicine chest, and it seems that the expiration date on the bottle has just come and gone. Same with a tube of Neosporin, a container of Airborne, or a sheet of cold tablets. Same with eye drops and rubbing alcohol. Same with vitamins. And these are non-prescription items. Prescription ones are even worse.

A doctor’s prescription is only good for a year – and I can understand that, given the all-too-frequent abuse of prescription drugs. But once you have a tube of prescription face cream in your possession, is there a problem using it past the “discard after” date on the label? Is it about potency – that the strength decreases with time? Or simply that when you toss the old one, you have to buy a new one, which means more money for manufacturers and vendors?

What made me think about this was the Thanksgiving holiday, when my son was home and looking for mayo in the fridge. There was an unopened bottle … whose expiration date was last month. He chose to use mustard on his sandwich instead. So, was there a danger in using the mayo? Had it gone bad by the expiration date, even if the bottle hadn’t ever been opened?

What about bottled water, whose expiration date is a year after it is produced? Does it go bad after that first birthday? Does canned soda lose its fizz? There looked to be plenty of fizz last month when I systematically opened a dozen cans of soda and dumped the contents because the expiration date had passed. What about all those canned juices, soups, and fish that some of us stockpile for the epidemic of bird flu about which the media terrifies us from time to time? Does it go bad by the expiration date, even if it’s sitting unopened in a cool basement?

Some things we can eyeball, like lettuce. The printing on the bag says, “Best sold by such-and-such a date,” but does that mean we shouldn’t use it after that date? What if it looks, smells, and tastes perfectly good?

Tea bags have an expiration date. Same with oatmeal. And olive oil. And toothpaste. Even my cat’s food has an expiration date, and it is dry, hard food.

Are expiration dates nothing more than scare tactics to ensure new sales? Or is there a very practical and important purpose for them?

I’d love some feedback on this. Any of you work for drug companies and want to give it a try?

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and here I am, at six in the morning, with a little window of time. The prep work is done -- turkey in the fridge, counters lined with feast-makings, sofa-beds pulled out and made up, PackNPlay assembled, car seats installed -- and, on their end, the kids are getting ready to leave home for the airport to fly to see us.

My family is well and happy, and I have four beautiful grandchildren to celebrate this year. I am thankful for that.

I am thankful that my husband and I are healthy, and so looking forward to having our whole family around us. It isn't often that it happens. Once adult children get married, they have to split holidays between in-laws. This year we've lucked out and are having everyone here. I'm thankful for that.

I'm thankful for my friends, who have put me so well on a path toward a Happy Thanksgiving, and I'm thankful for my agent, my editor, my assistant, who take care of business while I write.

I'm also thankful for you. Without my readers, I'm no writer at all. So please know how appreciated you are, wherever you are, on this Thanksgiving. And have a wonderful holiday!

I’m thinking of libraries that have suffered from fire or flood and are trying to rebuild. I have a book stash in my basement and would love to send a CARE package of backlist titles, but believe it or not, I’ve had trouble getting the names of libraries in need.

Do you know of any? I don’t mean libraries with funding problems. Sadly, they all have those. At this time, though, I mean libraries that have been hit by catastropic damage. Katrina victims are obvious targets, but I’ve already exhausted those.

Help!!!!

The penalty against the Patriots and Coach Bill Belichick for videotaping the opposing team has made me think about the ubiquitous presence of cameras. In the instance of the Patriots, the equipment used was large and obvious – after all, they didn’t think they had anything to hide. Now that the authorities have decided that the Patriots’ filming activity was illegal, videocams on every field will be watched with an eagle eye to make sure nothing like this happens again.

But it seems to me that some time ago we lost the ability to monitor what’s being captured on film and what is not. Cameras are everywhere, some so small that they fit in the palm of a hand. Watch a concert, and hands in the air are holding cameras as often as they’re clapping; watch a baseball game, and fans are taking pictures as often as they’re doing the wave. You can’t buy a cell phone that doesn’t have a built-in camera – and these can prove useful. Remember the recent tragic collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis? People who took tapes and photos as the bridge collapsed helped the authorities zero in on possible structural causes. Amateur photographers captured license plate numbers that helped police trace the identities of missing cars that subsequently slipped into the Mississippi.

I used to be a photographer. I was very sensitive to those people who happened to be in my line of fire – and for good reason. My camera used film and a sophisticated telephoto lens. That camera was large. If you took someone’s picture, they knew it. I can’t tell you the efforts I went to making sure that I had the okay, preferably written, of those who appeared on my film.

Not so today. We’re photographed all the time, often in the name of security, so we’ve become inured to it. The rules have changed, and it’s just the beginning. The Patriots may come to look like Saints, if we learn that other teams have been using smaller, hidden cameras.

Then again, if that’s the case, we may never know.

I can't open things up. I'm talking mouthwash, Clorox, pill bottles -- all those caps that you have to push down on and twist at the same time. Oh, I press and twist, and still the cap doesn't open. I repeat the motion once, twice, and maybe then I succeed. If not, I call on my husband to help, and then I start wondering what's wrong with my hands.

Is it just me?

I have this problem with peel-back tops, too. Like with the little cartons of egg beaters and yogurt, with the fine foil lids that have to be pulled back. I grab the tab and pull. And pull. I let go, dry my hands, and try again, then shift and try with the other hand. Finally I take a knife and cut through the foil, which, of course, makes things messy. And then there are "pull-tabs," the things that are supposed to let you open a mailer, say, a book you've just received from amazon. You pull the tab, and it tears off. You try the other side, struggle with it, then grab a pair of pliers, grit your teeth, and pull.

Is it just me?

And those plastic containers -- you know, the 8-pack of batteries or the new card reader for my camera or, goodness, even the cat toy I just bought for Chelsea. Cat toy! Ok, I go straight to the scissors for that kind of plastic packaging, and not my little knitting scissors or even my normal kitchen scissors. I grab the heavy duty scissors and cut one end of the package, then try to tug it open. Nothing. I cut the other end of the package and tug. Maybe I can squeeze part of the item out now, but more often than not I have to cut a third edge before the whole thing comes free.

Is it just me?

I do understand that manufacturers are trying to deter theft. But really. All of these items have the store's little electronic tab that sets off the alarm at the door, so isn't this kind of mega-packaging overkill? My sister suggested that manufacturers are also trying to deter people from neatly opening a package and, undetected, inserting something that shouldn't be there (like poison), and I can actually buy this argument. But how sad it is that we have to worry about this. The world has become a scary place.

That's the reason I buy relaxation CDs. I get them home, remove the thin plastic wrap (with a knife, thank you), then struggle with the label that holds the case closed. If you pull, you get the label torn raggedly and not open at all. If you pull too hard, you risk breaking the CD case itself. If you use a knife, it slips and you cut yourself. I actually got a how-to tip once from a young woman at the checout counter of a music store. Mind you, she knew nothing about New Age music, which was what I wanted, but she did open lots of CDs. She suggested that once the outer plastic wrap was off, I gently disengage the bottom hinge of the CD, raise the now-disconnected top lid and, still gently, peel the label from the bottom lid, then peel it from the top, re-engage the hinges, and -- bingo -- done! I does work ...

... which means I have soothing music to listen to while I struggle to remove the tiny labels on each of twelve new juice glasses I just bought at Crate and Barrel. Next time I buy glasses, I'm going to get everything to the register, pay for it, then tell the clerk I'll return it there and then unless he removes the labels before I take the glasses home. Can you imagine if we all asked that?

Or ... is it just me?

I have a convertible. It is eleven years old, and we’ve taken good care of it, so it remains in mint condition. As with so many convertibles, the visibility out the back window is marginal, so I only drive mine with the top down. My very favorite season to do this is spring, after a long winter inside, when the air is starting to warm and the sun to gain strength. I’ve been known to drive with the top down on a cool but sunny April day with the heat blasting.

Okay. So there I am on the road, driving around with the top down and a sense of freedom second to none, and I come to a four-way stop. Here in Massachusetts, we have a lot of these now, and I like them. First come, first served. You stop, then proceed in the order in which you reached the stop sign. On occasion, it’s questionable as to who got there first. When I’m driving the convertible, feeling relaxed and benevolent, I usually gesture for the other driver to go ahead, which he always does. Does he wave? Or nod? Or even smile his thanks? Not usually.

Same with when I’m turning off a main road toward, say, the drive-thru at McDonald's for my trusty medium Diet Coke, no ice. If a person is waiting to exit, I wave them on before I turn. Same with most any turn I make when I’m in laid-back mode. I'll confess that when I’m in the convertible, it’s partly self-defense. I’m smaller than most cars and am not about to pick a fight. But I also drive an SUV and many, many times will wave someone on before me. Do they acknowledge this? Rarely.

I do acknowledge another driver’s politeness. If I’m coming from a side street and someone motions me forward onto the main road, I make a point to wave or smile or, at the very least, nod vigorously. This makes me feel really good, like I’m contributing to a civility that we seem to have lost. When I let people go ahead of me on the road, it makes me feel polite and generous. It actually makes me feel more in control.

I’ve often thought that what we need in our high-tech cars is a mechanism whereby we can press a button and light a sign saying, “Thank you,” or “You go first,” or even “What’s your rush, bub?”

Coincidentally, I was in the middle of writing this blog when I paused to watch the Mid-Day News and saw that the Pope has issued a Ten Commandments of Driving. Now there’s an idea, too. Give it some thought.