Pomp, Circumstance and Crazy Hats

Luckily I chose to watch the Good Morning America coverage of the Royal Wedding with newswoman extraordinaire Barbara Walters as one of those broadcasting live from London. It was okay that I hadn’t read or watched much about the couple or their upcoming nuptials since they announced their engagement, because Barbara was a veritable fount of knowledge on the royal family, the wedding, and young Prince William and long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton.

You know, I was awfully smitten with Princess Diana. I watched it all when she married Prince Charles, 30 long years ago, just a few months after my own (first) wedding. That Royal Wedding was spectacular, but the marriage was sadly doomed from the start. So, I resolved to remain cavalier about William and Kate.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to watch every minute of the coverage of the actual Royal Wedding. Of course I was. I am an absolute sucker for a good (and even a bad) wedding, and Britain’s Royal Family certainly knows how to throw a wedding. Unlike thirty years ago, when I set my alarm to wake up at 5 a.m. and watched the entire five hours or so of coverage of Charles and Diana’s wedding live, I set my DVR to tape the wedding coverage, and figured I would watch it at my leisure.

However, on the morning of April 29th I just happened to wake up at 4:55 a.m., so there I was, watching the pre-coverage of the Royal Wedding, just as the guests were beginning to arrive, all dressed up, with the women in those crazy hats the Brits like so much. They were more objets d’art than just plain hats, and some of them (and I’m talking to you, Beatrix!) were just plain weird.

David and Victoria Beckham walked in, she looking as dour and unhappy as ever. Someone on the broadcast team wondered why they were invited. Barbara Walters explained that it wasn’t just because he was a big soccer player and a national treasure, but because William and he had worked on a project (which she explained in detail) together, and had formed a friendship and mutual respect. Thanks, Barbara!

Elton John was not only there but somehow he scored a front row seat. He was a close friend of Diana’s, so apparently her reign had some lasting effect on the monarchy after all. It also became apparent when Kate’s mother and brother arrived that the Middletons were going to bring some attractive genes to the royal gene pool, another tradition started by Diana.

The Queen arrived, dressed as the Sun, in a bright canary yellow dress and matching hat, with Prince Phillip at her side. A hale and hearty couple they are, at 85 and 90, respectively. I hate to say it, but they look more fit and healthier than Charles and Camilla.

Prince William and Prince Harry entered the Abbey, resplendent in their military uniforms. I couldn’t help but think of how very proud Diana would have been of her boys, whom she adored. They are both handsome and seemingly decent young men. That Harry, though - even if you didn’t know anything about him, you could tell by his swagger and the twinkle in his eye that he would be a hell of a good time at a party.

A bunch of older British types started to get out of cars. Diane Sawyer didn’t know who they were. “I’ll tell you who these people are,” Barbara said, riding to the rescue again. They are the minor royals, she explained, and then she named each and every one of them, including little factoids about their relationships to the Windsors. I’m telling you the woman is impressive.

Barbara and Diane talked about the fact the Princess-to-Be would “never be known as Kate again” – she would now be “Catherine.” At this point, I’m hesitant to doubt anything Barbara says, but it still seems hard to believe that no one, but NO ONE, will ever again call her Kate. And then she arrived.

Whatever you call her, she looked spectacular. The dress was, in a word, perfect. It was like Kate herself – beautiful but not over the top, pretty in a very natural sort of way. Barbara explained that the tiara she was wearing under her veil belongs to Queen Elizabeth.  It originally belonged to the Queen Mum who gave it to Elizabeth on 18th birthday. It was Kate’s “something borrowed.”

When she arrived at the altar after that four-minute walk down the aisle at Westminster Abbey, William looked at her with clear love and adoration in his eyes. I didn’t need Barbara or the lip reader they hired to tell me that what he said to her was “You look beautiful.” An understatement.

And in this crazy world in which we live, it was one perfect celebration of love between one Prince and his lovely lady. I kept thinking how Diana would have loved to see this all unfold and how pleased she would be that we have every reason to believe that this young couple is headed for a long and happy union. My husband – who is my own Prince Charming- just wanted to know when they were going to pick them up in chairs and dance the hora. I assured him that would probably happen later at the untelevised party.

"Hair," There and Everywhere

Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen….
                                                                                                    -James Rado and Gerome Ragni

It was always exciting when my older sisters came back from college for a visit, but nothing beat the time they came home for a break with their Hair soundtrack in tow. Their purpose was to shock my father, who was still listening to Jerry Vale and Lawrence Welk at the time.

Of course, I was intrigued, as any 12-year-old might be, and I eagerly followed the three of them into the dining room as my sisters started playing the album for my Dad. The song “Sodomy” came on, and I was fascinated. Despite priding myself on having a pretty good vocabulary, I did not understand one word of the song. My father suddenly realized I was sitting there, and said, “Sharon, you’re a little young for this, so you’d better leave the room.”

Wild horses couldn’t have dragged me away from hearing the rest of that album, but my father could have if he wanted to. I had to think fast, which was never my forte. I always think of exactly the right comeback about an hour after I need it. However, this time my response was quick and perfect.

“Well, Dad, if I’m really too young for it, I won’t understand it anyway,” I reasoned, “and if I understand it, then I mustn’t be too young for it.” I waited, holding my breath to see if he would buy it.

The three of them regarded me silently for about 30 seconds, Dad suspiciously, and my sisters with a mixture of astonishment and shock. Anyone who knows my family can imagine how rare an occurrence 30 seconds of silence was in our household. Then, my father turned to my sisters, and said, “And just which one of you taught her THAT??” Ha! They were getting the blame. “Oh, no, it wasn’t us,” they quickly defended themselves, “She came up with that all on her own.” It was clearly against his better judgment, but my father let me stay.

I don’t think my sisters converted Dad to becoming a member of Hair’s musical tribe that day, but I was hooked. I loved the album so much that my sister let me borrow it, and didn’t reclaim it until several years later. I listened to it. I inhaled it. I was consumed by it. I spent some of my precious time at the Carnegie Library looking up all the words in the song “Sodomy,” doing my research the old fashioned way, in hard copy dictionaries. Just intellectual curiosity, I assure you, in the interest of improving my vocabulary.

Hair was jubilant, and defiant, and completely captured the hippie scene of the time. It was interesting musically, but the beautifully poetic lyrics about sex, love, drugs, politics, race, war and (naturally) long hair, absolutely took my breath away.

When I was 13, Hair came to the Nixon Theatre in Pittsburgh. My friend Casey was going. Casey was and still is one of my very best friends. Our friendship had its roots in our mutual appreciation for pop culture musical phenomena, namely the Monkees, who hit the scene when we were in fifth grade. We were the most avid “Monkee Lovers” in our class. Casey was very cool, and so it was no surprise that she also had one of the coolest mothers around. Mrs. B. actually took us to see the Monkees at the Civic Arena when they came to town when we were 10. It was my first “rock concert.”

Mrs. B. not only agreed to take Casey to see Hair, she bought a third ticket so that Casey could bring a friend. Naturally, I wanted to see Hair at the Nixon, and I wanted to see it with Casey and her mom. However, despite my parents’ resignation to my obsession with the Hair soundtrack, the stage play involved full frontal nudity which, surprisingly, was not featured on the soundtrack. Casey and I were both sure that my parents would never allow me to see Hair, so she was going to ask friends with more liberal parents. I was envious, but happy for her, and she promised to tell me all about it.

Then a strange thing happened. Those liberal parents of Casey’s other friends said no! Although I knew it was futile, both Casey and I thought that I could at least ask my parents if I could go.

The moon must have been in the Seventh House and Jupiter was obviously aligned with Mars when I asked my parents if I could go see Hair at the Nixon Theatre with Casey and her mom. They barely looked up from their newspapers. Sure, they said, as long as Mrs. B. was with us. My parents would let me go almost anywhere as long as there was an adult chaperone along, and they liked and trusted Casey’s mom. So, suddenly, I was going to see Hair at the Nixon, a dream come true.

Casey and I could barely contain our excitement as we arrived at the theater. Her mother led us to our seats which were…..in the last row in the theater. It dawned on us that Mrs. B. purposely bought tickets in the last row, to keep us at a safe distance from the actors on stage during the infamous nude scene. She might have been the coolest mother, but she was still a mother.

Well, Casey was pretty upset. She accused her mother of treating us like children- we were 13, after all! Her mother was largely unapologetic. I sat between them. Our seats didn’t bother me a bit - I was just grateful to be at this particular party. Casey, on the other hand, was still a little bitter about it when we discussed it the other day.



The program- courtesy of Casey B. 

 The show began and it was absolutely glorious- everything I had imagined and hoped for, and more. Of course they sang all the songs that I knew and loved so well, but it was more than just a show. It was an experience, a happening. It felt like we were hangin’ with the tribe, and their energy filled the theater, to the very last row. The nude scene was so darkly lit that the silhouetted bodies of the actors left me with no more of an idea what the male anatomy looked like than when I arrived. However, I could now say, truthfully, that I had seen Joe Mantegna naked. He played Berger in the show.

That production of Hair was about the closest I would get to living the hippie lifestyle, unless you count my stint as a member of the Folk Mass Group in high school, or the fact that as an adult I went to Grateful Dead concerts when they came to Pittsburgh. I had planned to be a hippie when I went to college, but by the time I got there Nixon was out of office and the war in Vietnam was over, and alas, the hippie scene had also passed.

Because of Hair, though, I get to occasionally revisit that place and time in America’s history. We saw it couple of years ago at Robert Morris University’s Colonial Theatre, with real live college kids who really got into the spirit of it, despite having no first-hand knowledge of the sensibility of the time.

Then last week we saw the revival of Hair when it came to Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh with the Broadway series (a subscription was my son’s generous Christmas present to us). This was a fabulous production with the same exuberance I remember in the first production I saw all those years ago. But this was a really good show, not a happening, because these fine young professional actors weren’t there in the 60’s. This became apparent when one of the young tribe members working our part of the balcony during the show kept high-fiving people. We didn’t do that in the 60’s.

It was clear though that we middle-aged-and-beyond members of the audience were fondly and nostalgically remembering the days when Hair first took the stage. And let’s face it, “Give me a head with hair, long, beautiful hair” had even more meaning than ever for some of us.

A Day at the Museum, A Night at the Theatre

Someone once said, “The definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over again, and expecting different results.” No one knows who said this for sure. It’s been attributed most often to either Benjamin Franklin or Albert Einstein, but it can’t be proved that either one of them actually said it. Of course, this is not the legal or official definition of insanity, used for psychological diagnosis and in legal cases, which is the inability to differentiate what is real from what is not.

Thank goodness, because this means that my husband and I were not insane for going to a museum in New York City the day after Thanksgiving two years in a row. Forgetful? Perhaps. Foolish? Probably. “Both Sides Now” kind of cock-eyed optimists who insist on seeing the good things about clouds no matter how often they block the sun, or rain and snow on everyone? Sure. But NOT insane.

I blame Tim Burton for the first time we made this mistake. It was all because of him that last year we decided to “make a day” of our annual trip to NYC to see a show with a trip to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), which was featuring an exhibit of his work that interested my husband.

Let me tell you how I feel about art museums. You know how sometimes meditation and relaxation exercises involve visualizing yourself in peaceful, tranquil settings? I suppose that most people think of themselves on a lake or in some pretty nature setting, but I don’t really like nature that much, and don’t find being outside even remotely relaxing. I always envision myself in an art museum, sitting and looking at a beautiful oversized piece of art, maybe something by Claude Monet. Every time I visit a new city I make a point of visiting its art museum, and I like going alone. Yes, I adore art museums, and most of the art you find there.

Then there are the modern art pieces. Call me obtuse, but I just don’t get modern art, for the most part. Given that the actual definition of insanity is a warped perception of reality, when I look at Picasso’s work, I wonder if he was ever in therapy. I don’t find anything about paint splattered randomly on a canvas (a la Jackson Pollak) particularly genius, interesting or attractive.

My sister said it best. On my first visit to see her when she moved to Baltimore, I wanted to see the Baltimore Museum of Art. She agreed to take me there (because she loves me). We were having a perfectly lovely time, enjoying the artwork, and our conversation, and then we came to the modern art exhibit. We were politely going from picture to picture, when we found ourselves in front of one of those massive works consisting of four symmetrical perfectly square blocks of canvas painted in primary colors. After regarding it for a few seconds, my sister said to me, “You know, I have a theory about art. If I could do it, it isn’t art.” Exactly! A lot of modern art pieces look like anyone could do it.

MOMA that day was the antithesis of everything I love about art museums. We arrived early in the afternoon to find a sea of humanity in the lobby waiting to buy tickets. To add insult to injury, the Tim Burton exhibit was completely sold out. That sea of people flowed through the various galleries, completely interfering with my ability to even see the art, much less enjoy it. Luckily, it was just modern art, so I wasn’t missing that much. Of course, we had fun, because that’s what we do.

After making our escape from MOMA, we found a nice seafood restaurant that wasn’t crowded, and which featured a good and reasonably-priced prix fixe menu that involved lobster. It was quiet and relaxed, and, in fact, the only excitement we experienced during the entire meal was when Spiderman walked past our window. This was long before he had his own show on Broadway. He was carrying a backpack, and, this being New York, no one even looked at him twice. Obviously, I looked, but I’m from Pittsburgh, where we still get excited about superheroes walking amongst us.

From there we went to see “Billy Elliott,” and it was simply spectacular. It had an interesting storyline, based on an actual historical event. The juxtaposition of the story of the coal miners’ strike and the children in ballet class, the great performances and dance numbers made it as enjoyable an evening as can be had in the theater.

Let’s fast forward to November 2010, shall we? My son is with us this year, and we already have our tickets to see “Memphis” the day after Thanksgiving. We decide to “make a day” of it and go the Museum of Natural History in the morning before our afternoon matinee. Does any of this sound familiar? Sensing a pattern, a certain “déjà vu” in this story? I do not remember either my husband or I saying, “Wait a minute- remember what happened with MOMA last year?” Off we went, like happy little lemmings into the sea of people waiting for us at the museum.

Now I have a bit more affinity for natural history than I do for modern art (“I’ll take African Mammals for $1000, Alex”) but the museum was packed from the moment we stepped off the subway and into its hallowed halls. There were all kinds of people – including lots of little children- between us and those stuffed mammals and dinosaur bones. I was reminded of that Christopher Durang monologue from “Laughing Wild” about just wanting to get to the tuna fish in the supermarket. My son was intrigued by the place and vowed to return sometime when it was less crowded, perhaps some Wednesday afternoon in February. We had fun, of course, because that’s what we do.

After we made our escape from the museum, we were off to “Memphis,” which was simply spectacular. It was, in many ways, a good old-fashioned musical with an interesting storyline based on historical fact. Its compelling characters, and excellent songs and dances, made it as enjoyable an afternoon as can be had in the theater.

After the show, we had dinner at a nice little restaurant we’ve discovered near our parking garage that is rarely crowded and has good food at reasonable prices. Spiderman must have been in rehearsals this year because we didn’t see him wandering the streets.

It’s funny how memory works, isn’t it? We remember all the good things about an experience but block out the parts that traumatize us. However, I am pretty sure that we will not be going to a museum when we visit NYC the weekend after Thanksgiving next year, because that really WOULD be insane.

That Holiday Season

I have been trying to write a blog for weeks now. I was all busy writing a diatribe about the hateful people in the most recent election, but then the darn holiday season came around. Now I’m so busy being thankful and happy and delighted with the people around me that when I sit down to write I find that my outrage is all gone. Yes, I have just completely lost my “edge.” I guess I am just going to have to wait to tell you about the people I can’t abide. Don’t worry, though, I am sure that once January rolls around I will be in a bad mood again, and I’ll be able to finish that blog.

For now, though, I just love everyone and everything. I can’t help myself. It’s the Holiday Season, which is a diverse and wonderful time in our household. For one thing, we spend lots of time with our families during this time of year, which is always a good thing. It’s no secret that I love my family. On my “Top Ten Words” I used in my Facebook statuses in 2010, “Family” was Number One. This is a lucky thing, because you don’t actually get to choose your relatives, yet I wouldn’t give any one of them up for anything in the world. This was proved when I kept my ex-husband’s family after the divorce.

So, we always kick off the Holiday Season with Thanksgiving in New Jersey, and, really, where else would you want to spend it? We look forward to this all year. We spend the weekend at my in-laws. We very much enjoy spending time with them, and they always act really happy to have us, too. This year we had my son with us – he spends Thanksgiving with us in “even” years - and that made it even more special. The extended family gathers on Thanksgiving Day, this year hosted by my very gracious brother- and sister-in-law, where we engage in those most important holiday activities – lively conversation and good food. As we usually do, we went into New York City for a show the day after Thanksgiving. This also serves as our anniversary present to ourselves as we were married 7 years ago on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

This year Hanukkah began just a few days after we returned home after Thanksgiving. I would tell you that Hanukkah falls on different dates on the calendar each year, but that wouldn’t be exactly correct, as many a good Jewish person will point out to their hapless Gentile friends who are trying frantically to explain it, just to have some fun with them. Okay, I’m going to let Judaism 101, a helpful website, explain it to you…

A few years ago, I was in a synagogue, and I overheard one man ask another, "When  is Chanukkah this year?" The other man smiled slyly and replied, "Same as always: the 25th of Kislev”…..the date of Jewish holidays does not change from year to year. Holiday are celebrated on the same day of the Jewish calendar every year, but the Jewish year is not the same length as a solar year on the [Gregorian] calendar used by most of the western world, so the date shifts on the [Gregorian] calendar. ( http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm )

All I know is that I check my Gregorian calendar each year to find out when Hanukkah falls, and my Jewish husband checks with me to find out when Hanukkah falls. Whenever it falls, it has become one of my favorite holidays – this “Festival of Lights” that celebrates the resources God gives us to get through the bad times. I love everything about it- its personal significance to me (as my husband proposed during our first Hanukkah together), the lighting of the candles, the presents, and, of course, the homemade latkes and apple sauce.

Our annual Christmas concert with the Pittsburgh Concert Chorale fell smack in the middle of Hanukkah this year. Always a highlight of the season for us, we would go sing our hearts out about the birth of Jesus and then come home and light the candles for Hanukkah. Somehow, it all seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me.

Now we are in the home stretch. Christmas is coming next week. Because I work in the Cranberry area, in the heart of its awe-inspiring business area, I am now able to slip out on my lunch hour to pick up pretty much whatever I need for the holidays. The Target in Cranberry even carries Hanukkah supplies. My Christmas shopping is all done, a week ahead of time. We plan to put up the tree on Monday when my son comes over for Family Night. Nothing like trimming the Christmas tree with family- and Sheldon Cooper and Barney Stinson- to put you in the mood for Christmas, that’s what I always say!

We went grocery shopping and bought three fishes and all the other “fixin’s” for my family’s annual Christmas Eve celebration. This is when we eat fish and pasta, exchange presents, and celebrate the birth of Jesus which is another story of God giving us what we need to get through this life. We are especially excited that we will be having dinner at our house this year, as it is our first holiday season in our new home.

As is our tradition, we will celebrate a Jewish Christmas on Christmas Day with Chinese food and a movie. With “Tangled” as our movie choice at a movie theater that happens to have an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet restaurant in the same parking lot, and the fact that my father will joining us this year, the day should be very Merry indeed.

Here’s hoping that you all are also enjoying the blessings of this holiday season.

"Huck Finn" and Me

From the time I was old enough to take a bus by myself, there was nothing I liked to do better during my summer vacation than to take the 61B bus from my hometown of Swissvale to the main branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh in Oakland, which was one of my favorite places.

As a child I was rarely alone. Wherever I went – home, school, church- there were lots of people there. I didn’t actually think to seek out solitude because it was a concept that was outside my experience. The quiet majesty of the library and the adjacent Carnegie Museum and Scaife Art Gallery filled me with a strange mixture of excitement and complete serenity. I would spend a couple of hours each time I visited, often wandering through the museum or the art gallery before returning to the library, which held more books than I could read in a lifetime.

Each visit I would choose nine books, which was the maximum number you could check out at a time. Finding the books was like a treasure hunt to me. I favored historical fiction and 800-page family sagas that started with two teenage sisters attending the party-of-the-season in turn-of-the-century Austria and ended about a century, two world wars and three generations later in Manhattan. I also liked stories written in the first person, as I liked to experience the story through the eyes of one particular individual, speaking in his or her own voice.

The summer I was 12 I picked up Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as one of my selections. The first thing that appealed to me about the book was not only that it was written in Huck’s voice, but that his voice was so strong and specific. Mark Twain wrote it so beautifully that as I was reading I almost forgot that Huck was a fictional character. It felt as though Huck was telling me his story.

I also immediately identified with Huckleberry Finn. On the surface, aside from the fact that we were roughly the same age, we had little in common. He was a motherless child with a drunken, abusive and mostly absently father living in a rural town in Missouri in the mid-1800’s. He was left on his own to fend for himself most of the time. I was living in a small blue collar town on the edge of Pittsburgh in the 1960’s, the third of four daughters of strict, loving, and oh-so-present parents. I was essentially never left unsupervised.

Huck was the ultimate outsider in his society, and I also always felt a little bit different – like I didn’t really fit in. In the beginning of the book, Huck had been taken in by Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson, who were trying to “civilize” him, but he wasn’t responding very well to living among people. I knew what he was going through. I too spent much of my time wondering why people acted the way that they did, and trying to make sense of the rules of my society, some of which I didn’t understand, and others that I just couldn’t believe. As with Huck, the authority figures in my life insisted that I conform or face some pretty dire consequences. The threat of Hell was thrown around with reckless abandon for both of us.

At one point, Huck’s father abducts him and holds him captive. Huck escapes and is presumed dead. He happens upon Jim, Miss Watson’s slave, who has run away because Miss Watson was planning to sell him – a move that would take him away from his wife and children. Jim has a plan to travel to Illinois where he can obtain his freedom. Huck agrees to join him even though he knows, as removed as he is from his society, that running away from your owner is a very serious offense for a slave.

I, on the other hand, was more than eager to accompany Huck and Jim as they set out on that raft down the Mississippi River, which seemed like a wild and fantastic undertaking to me. Remember, my idea of an adventure was taking the bus by myself to Oakland or downtown Pittsburgh. On their travels they encounter a number of colorful characters, some good, some bad, but most of whom in the end either act foolishly, or badly.

The one constant in Huck’s adventures is the presence of Jim, a decent and moral man who cares about and for him, and a rare stable adult influence in his life. Nonetheless, Huck is convinced, because it is what he has been taught, that he is doing something terribly wrong by aiding and abetting a runaway slave. Huck decides to pray to God that Jim is recaptured and returned to Miss Watson. He tries, but he can’t find the words, and finally concludes that “You can’t pray a lie.”

“You can’t pray a lie.” I was awestruck by the essential truth in that statement. Huck couldn’t say a sincere prayer for Jim’s capture because he didn’t believe that Jim should be captured. At his core he wanted Jim to be free because he thought that Jim deserved to be free. Slavery may have been sanctioned by the society in which they lived, but Huck knew Jim as a man, not a slave. He is willing to suffer the consequences, even Hell, rather than betray his friend, and I admired his bravery. I realized then that the mores of any society are not irrefutable, and they can be wrong and immoral. I knew then that we each have a responsibility to be ethical and thoughtful individuals in this life, finding our own truth and moral direction.

In the end of the book, Jim is set free and Huck discovers that the father he was running from is dead. Huck decides to “set out for the territory ahead of the rest” – to make his own way in the world, rather than return to the Widow Douglas and try to fit into society.

I finished the book but Huckleberry Finn and I weren’t done with each other. I bought a paperback edition of the book that I read and reread so many times that I lost track, and I developed a life-long love affair with the works of Mark Twain. I dressed up as Huckleberry Finn for Halloween in the 9th grade (if I wasn’t an outsider before, I sure was after that). Twenty years after I first picked up the book, I chose the character of Huckleberry Finn as the topic of an annotated bibliography that I completed for a Methods of Research class in graduate school. In 2006, I had the privilege of playing the Widow Douglas in a local production of Big River, a musical version of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Basically, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn had a profound effect on me. Since reading it, I have believed wholeheartedly in the equality of all people, and learned to think for myself instead of blindly listening to, well, anyone. And I never again doubted the ability of a book to change a life.

My Husband Makes Dinner

My husband has many, many fine qualities. He is smart, funny, kind, and a very talented performer and teacher. His support and love for me is unwavering, and he is very devoted to his family and friends. I have more fun with him than I do with anyone, and we can have fun whether we are going to Lowe’s to pick up picture-hanging hardware or spending a week in Disney World.

My husband is also trained as a professional chef. He has a degree from the Culinary Institute of America, and worked for many years in the food service field.

I did not know this about my husband for the first year or so that I knew him, when he was just a friendly theater acquaintance of mine. I did know many interesting and sometimes obscure factoids about him. I knew that he was Jewish. I knew that he had a dog, two cats, and three pianos. I knew that he wore a fedora well. I knew that he would insist that any wife of his carry a cell phone. I even knew that he had seen “Lettice and Lovage” on Broadway with Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack because he was thoughtful enough to give me his Playbill program from the show after seeing me perform in the Heritage Players’ production of the play in Bethel Park. I thought better than to ask him whether he preferred Margaret (who won a Tony for the role) or me in the role of “Lotte.” No one ever mentioned that he was a chef.

So, it was in complete ignorance and with the purest of intensions that I offered to make him lasagna if he would make practice tapes for me for potential audition songs. I didn’t think it fair to ask him to do this for me without recompense and since he was a single guy who lived alone the Italian mother in me thought it might be nice for him to have a good meal. Oh, did HIS mother laugh when she heard this story!! He graciously agreed to this barter, by the way, without mentioning his culinary background, and held me to my part of the bargain, even after I discovered the truth and was pretty embarrassed to have made the offer.

Just to clarify, my respectable lasagna aside, I am not much of a cook. Cooking stresses me out. I prefer making one-dish meals because I have difficulty timing different dishes to be ready at the same time. I follow recipes religiously, and still things turn out wrong. The first time I attempted to cook a turkey for a family dinner, I called my mother about four times with questions, and still managed to cook the bird with the giblets inside. I figured out long ago that I could purchase some pretty fine baked goods at the supermarket that were far superior to anything I could make. If I lived alone, I would probably exist on cereal and sandwiches.

My husband, on the other hand, is a natural cook. His parents love to tell the story about waking up one Saturday morning to hear my husband, who was three years old at the time, asking his fifteen-month-old brother, “So, how would you like your eggs?” Cooking relaxes him. He loves to make gourmet dinners from start to finish. He sometimes looks up recipes but rarely follows them, using them as a kind of general guideline. He often creates meals from scratch. He’s the kind of person who can walk into a kitchen where there is nothing to eat, and “whip something up.” In these instances, he will call you down 20 minutes later to a delicious chicken parmesan dinner, complete with pasta and a spinach side dish. He bakes his own bread on a regular basis.

Naturally he does the cooking in our family. Really now, why wouldn’t he? It gives him such happiness – why would I take that from the man I love? Once a co-worker asked him if he did most of the cooking at home, and he responded that no, he did ALL the cooking. That isn’t strictly true. I have a few specialties (that I can count on one hand). These include two kinds of lasagna, Waldorf Salad, Strawberry Pretzel Salad, and the appropriately-named Pork Chops, Sweet Potatoes and Apples. I can also usually make a presentable plate of spaghetti but eggs? Well, eggs are trickier.

Even simple stand-bys like mine can become complicated when you are married to a chef. Take my Waldorf Salad, for instance. My mother made this dish at Thanksgiving, and it couldn’t be simpler to assemble. Cut up apples and celery, throw in some seedless grapes and walnuts , toss it all up with some Hellman’s and voila! – a tasty side dish that is sure to please. The first time I planned to make this, my husband was surprised when I mentioned grapes. “You use grapes in your Waldorf Salad?” he said, full of professional curiosity. It seems that, at the Culinary Institute of America, they put raisins in their Waldorf salad, not grapes. Well, I don’t care what those high brow food people do I’m putting grapes in my Waldorf Salad.

I found that any delusions I may have had about my cooking abilities were quickly and summarily dismissed when I married a chef. The first meal my husband made my 18-year-old son and me after we moved in was a very simple chicken dish, made after a long day of moving. My son took one bite, and his face lit up. In clear admiration and astonishment, he declared, “This is the BEST chicken I’ve ever eaten!” Now, I know for a fact that it was boneless chicken breasts baked in barbecue sauce from a jar, and I had made this same dish many times over the years. Maybe it was my husband’s careful basting technique that he explained to me (I just poured the jar of barbeque sauce over the chicken) or perhaps he just used a better barbeque sauce than I did. Oh, who am I kidding? The truth is that the man just has a way with food.

Don’t get me wrong – I am delighted that my husband is a chef. It is a win-win situation, a blessing really. My husband loves to cook and I love to eat. We are the perfect pair.

Straight Man Dancing (the Great Swayze Debate)

I came across this never-published piece that I wrote circa 1994. Here it is, as I wrote it, when Patrick Swayze was very much alive. I dedicate this to his memory and to Jen, wherever she is.

Deep in the bowels of a Student Union, in an alternative universe known as a college campus, there once was a spot known as the Times Suite. Every Wednesday night about 25 students, largely between the ages of 18 and 25, worked late into the night to put the student newspaper to bed. We were dedicated to the truth, the article, the paper itself, and to satisfying the requirements for our Journalism classes.

Among the typing of articles, the laying out of copy, the developing of photographs, and the all-important making of coffee, was the sharing of minds. Debating the larger, and some of the smaller, issues of the day, we discussed the sexes (and the battles that persist between them), music, politics, school, campus issues, and the MTV Video Music Awards. But the topic that was to shatter our little group, to inspire the hottest controversy among us was…Patrick Swayze.

To this day, I am not sure how he came up. All I know is that the mention of his name provoked an extremely violent physical and emotional reaction in my young friend, Jen.

“EWW,” she shuttered as though she had just heard fingernails on a blackboard. “Patrick Swayze??” I HATE him,” she said with a vehement loathing I had not witnessed in her since we had discussed cheerleaders, homecoming queens, and other girls with big hair.

“Really?” I said, surprised. “”I like him.”

“NO!” Jen stared at me in abject horror as though I had just told her that I admired Adolph Hitler. “You can’t like Patrick Swayze. You really don’t, do you?”

“Well, yes, I really do,” I answered, not seeing why I should deny it. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t the only woman in America who felt this way. Nonetheless I felt compelled to rationalize my fondness for Mr. Swayze to Jen, who was obviously not a fan.

To risk sounding shallow, Patrick Swayze looks really good all the time. This was especially true in Dirty Dancing, a movie I have seen several times and have every intention of seeing again.

Furthermore Patrick really can act- believable enough for me in any role. He displays a certain passion in his roles and takes chances in his choices of roles. He considers himself to be an actor, not a star, and is dedicated to his craft. That sort of purity of purpose is always attractive in a guy.

Finally, Patrick seems like a genuinely nice guy and decent person in real life. He adores his wife openly, calling her his soul mate. He is sensitive and open, even crying in a Barbara Walters interview. But obviously I’m missing some horrible flaw; some big reason I should be repelled by Patrick Swayze.

No one’s mind was changed that night. Jen remained firm in her distaste for Patrick Swayze, and I found myself suddenly in the mood to see Dirty Dancing again. Maybe it was an age thing. I WAS older than the other kids.

The incident left its mark on me. One day at work someone mentioned a Patrick Swayze movie. Like an alcoholic caught in her addiction, I nervously confessed that I liked him and launched into all the reasons why.
My friend Christie listened for a few minutes before she touched my arm and shook her head gently to stop my long-winded explanation. “Sharon,” she said wisely, “he’s a straight man who can dance.”

Doesn’t that just sum it up?! As convincing as he might have been in To Wong Foo, we know he’s straight. And even Jen couldn’t deny that he could dance. Isn’t that what most women are really looking for in a guy? Some nice, sensitive, straight man who can dance, or who would at the very least be willing to fake it at our cousin’s wedding? That’s exactly why I like Patrick Swayze so much. And he can dirty dance for me anytime.