Treading Water - The Pandemic Edition

By Noreen Braman

The third, "Pandemic" edition of "Treading Water" is a greatly expanded, slightly damp, collection of Noreen Braman's previously published essays and columns. It includes the "Evil Pants" series as well as "Adventures of Rats" (and others) collection. You'll be grateful that your life isn't full of watery adventures, misbehaving dogs, careful plans gone awry and varmints of all kinds that don't give up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781387743209

Book preview

2022:

The Pandemic Edition

By Noreen Braman

Dedication

To my children, who stuck with me

even when life was not so funny,

&

the Love of My Life who knows

the power of shared laughter.

Kindle Edition

Copyright ©2022 Noreen Braman

Cover Design ©2022 Noreen Braman

Background image from www.istockphoto.com

Portrait of Zelda Treading Water ©2012 Roy Manfredi 

Portrait of Zelda with Mask ©2022 Roy Manfredi

ISBN  9-781387-743209

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems — except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews — without written permission in writing from the author/publisher.

Noreen’s Digital Dreams

www.noreensdigitaldreams.com

Introduction      1

Drip, Drip, Drip      2

Notes on the 2022 Pandemic Edition      3

Treading Water      6

Blasts From the Past      11

Singing and Swinging, Seventies Style      12

The Drive-In and Me      16

Zen and the Art of High Maintenance Hair      20

The Manicure      25

We Girls Can Do Anything (With Barbie)      30

Johnny Mathis, My Parents, and Me      32

A Happy New Year Song (to the tune of Jingle Bells)      35

Independence Day, 1776 and Erma Bombeck      36

Happy Halloween – Tales from my Halloween Podcast      38

Domestic Days      43

Don’t Shoot! It’s Only the Laundry!      44

And Justice for All (sort of)      48

Water Again? With Apologies to Forrest Gump and Instant Oatmeal      53

Don't Worry! It’s Just A Stage!      56

Here we Come A’ Caroling      60

On the Road Again      64

Night of the Living Dead Dog      70

Oh Martha!      73

The Finer Points of Furnace Repair      76

Two Tales of Dunkin' Donuts      80

The House of Rhyming Pests      84

The Walls Are Alive      85

Yowls in the Night      88

The Night I Almost Slept in My Car      91

Life in the New Millennium      95

New Year’s Resolution Number 10,000      96

The World Of Money      99

Mall Madness      105

Dog Tails      108

I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Kid      113

Always Look on the Bright Side      115

Lawn Mania      119

Reality Check      122

Here’s To Your Health (Insurance) Or Stuck in the Middle with You      124

Decreasing the Surplus Population via Unattainable Healthcare      128

If It Weren’t for Bad Luck …      132

Can Big Car Maker Motor Finance Solve America’s Cyber Security Issues?      139

Yet Another Ridiculous Problem Involving Big Car Maker – Thanks for Nothing, Big Car Dealer      143

A Note to My Co-Workers on the Night of Murphy's Snowstorm      146

Fashion and Decorating Advice      149

Maternal Ties      150

Evil Pants      155

Evil Pants – The Sequel      161

Prestigious Living in My Neighborhood      164

Evil Pants Strike Again      167

Paint, Panic, and Physics      170

The Funny Thing About Glasses      172

Today's If You Are Going to be Dumb, You Better Be Tough House Maintenance Tip      175

The Starving Artist      176

Hometown Writer Makes It Big (almost)      177

Something Else to Worry About      180

The Mother of All Computer Errors      182

Typo City      185

Computer Makers Think Pink      189

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties      193

What do Facebook, Bob Newhart, the Unabomber and me have in common?      195

Man’s Faults Revealed, Alex Schachter and Me      198

On Being a Storyteller (and why I always stay for the credits)      202

Charles M. Schulz, The AstroBeagle, and Me      205

Finding the Funny      207

Finding the Funny … Or Not      208

The Laughter of Friends      210

An Adventure at the Ho-Ho-Hospital      212

It Only Hurts When I Laugh      215

The Family That Laughs Together      219

Taking Life One Laugh At A Time      221

Rats and Other Varmints      224

Rats Are People, Too      225

A Rat Too Far      229

The Rutgers Mice      232

World Record-Breaking Rat Makes Monkeys Out of Scientists      234

Scientists Again Outwitted by Small Furry Animals      236

Dealing With Leftovers      238

Showdown on Campus      243

Joy and Happiness: Emotions for Humans Only?      246

Titan's Big Adventure at My House of Mayhem      248

Ch-Ch-Ch Changes!      252

Weight Loss, Baby Fat, & Magic Socks      253

Sneezing Your Head Off?      257

The Crazy Old Lady and the Fork in the Road      258

You Can’t Spend Winter Waiting for Spring      261

My Word for the Year      263

The Universe Reacts to My Word for the New Year      266

The Ocean Grove Adventure      271

Week 4 – Can I Keep My Wits About Me?      275

Week 8 – Can A Broken Foot Affect the Brain      279

Reflections      283

At the Car Wash      284

The Bookstore Death Bench      286

Finding Oz      290

The Power of Sharing      297

We Will Laugh Again      299

Pandemic Edition Thoughts      301

Standing Up to 60 By Checking in With My Brain      306

True Love Saved Me From Being the Neighborhood Crazy Old Lady – A Valentine’s Day Story      309

Only In The Movies Can You Break The Time Travel Rule      313

A Song From the Jazz Man      315

It’s the Laughter We Will Remember …      317

Introduction

You can't save someone from drowning if you're barely treading water yourself.

— Eddie Vetter

Drip, Drip, Drip

Back in the East Brunswick, New Jersey neighborhood where I spent many of my adolescent years, almost everyone had a swimming pool in the backyard. Being able to swim was an expected skill and there was little tolerance for those who could not keep their heads above water. Two things I learned quickly, how to tread water, and how to do the dead man’s float. These were the keep yourself from drowning basics. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that there are many ways to drown and not all involve water. And while the dead man’s float remains back in the swimming pool, I’ve taken my treading water skills with me out of the pool and into life. Those of you who are treading water in your own corner of the world understand why we refer to houses under water and drowning in debt. We are forced to keep ourselves above the waves but below the bullets!

Which isn’t to say that actual liquefied hydrogen and oxygen don’t do their part to complicate things. Living in New Jersey means rain is almost always on the radar, and rain that comes in the form of hurricanes, rising rivers, backed up sewers and frozen pipes. Many of the essays and blog entries in my book were written while it was raining, all of them were written while I was treading water. And I am still treading water today.

Notes on the 2022 Pandemic Edition

As 2021 draws to a close, and we find ourselves still facing a pandemic, it may feel inappropriate to laugh at anything. The weight of real or possible illness, the restrictions we need to reduce infection, the disagreements about how to deal with the pandemic, the political atmosphere … I’m almost too depressed to continue.

However, we can find laughter and joy if we seek it out. A baby’s laugh, watching old sitcoms or comedic performances, and evolving those day-to-day disasters into tomorrow’s funny stories.

For example:

The demand for corporate Laughter Breaks through the internet has increased. The idea of laughing for the health of it — not relying on jokes or comedy — is becoming a go-to way to build up our resilience for when life is not so funny.

If not for the pandemic, would any of us ever see a serious legal professional in a video meeting declaring himself as not really being a cat? What about all the can’t unsee it moments of colleagues or famous personalities revealing just a little too much because they thought their video was turned off?

And when before did you ever seriously consider giving toilet paper as a gift? OK, you may have those relatives who, during the holidays, always thought that wrapping up laundry detergent, paper towels and bags of sugar was a great idea. (If I give you money, you’ll just waste it going out to dinner.

Finally, wasn’t it refreshing to learn that all those things you were going to get to when there’s time were things you hoped you would never have to do? If there was a project that I couldn’t get motivated enough to do during lockdown, I either gave away the dusty craft materials, or changed the name of my list from TO-DO to TO-HIRE-SOMEONE-ELSE-TO-DO.

I dyed my hair pink during the pandemic, became aware of how much clothing dedicated to in the office was taking up space, and discovered that a 1,000-piece puzzle started last Thanksgiving (to give us something TO DO) will probably remain unfinished, under numerous holiday tablecloths on my kitchen table. Archeologists may dig up my house one day and theorize why this unfinished work of art was part of some religious ceremony requiring offerings of multicolored fabric.

From the future founder of the Unfinished Puzzle Cult, I send to you a reminder that there won’t be humor all the time, and when laughter is in short supply, remember to keep treading water.

Noreen Braman

December 2021

Treading Water

 In The Tao of Womanhood it is written, nothing in the world is more gentle than water, yet nothing is stronger. And nothing has been running through my life, in waves and buckets and flash floods more than water.

Perhaps it is because my ancestors hailed from Ireland and Scotland — island countries — that water seems to follow me. Perhaps an ancestor, generations ago, angered a Celtic water sprite and the revenge has carried through to my generation. I can’t be sure about how it started, but one thing I AM sure about — I am tired of mopping up!

The daily news is full of reports of horrific floods; mudslides and global warming that threaten to melt the polar ice caps. Thankfully, my problems with liquefied hydrogen and oxygen do not reach those proportions. No, instead, I deal with the steady water torture drip of one soggy incident after another.

The analogy is, of course, that we all come from a womb that is full of water, and looking back over the evolutionary trail, we find muddy tracks leading right back into a primeval swamp. Maybe, I was just reverting to primitive instincts when, at six years old, I decided to fill up the bathtub, spritz in bubble bath, and let the water level rise to the top of the shower doors. Well, maybe I did forget the water was running — but I sure remembered when my mother encountered a waterfall of bubbles cascading down the steps of our Brooklyn home.

Flooding the house is a required skill for any kid. My son overflowed the toilet in our townhouse and soon the water was pouring through the ceiling, blowing out the recessed lights like fireworks. The mysterious part, however, is why at that precise moment of toilet clogging, did the water to the toilet decide it was not going to shut off, sending rivers of water down the hall, through the ceiling, even reaching the basement two floors below?

During a recent meeting of the Garden State Horror Writers, I may have discovered the answer. Lecturing that day was a professional ghost hunter, and she mentioned how many ghosts are seen around water sources, especially bathrooms. Now, to me, that sounds like there is an epidemic of dysentery in the afterlife, but the ghost hunter assured me that water is a source of power and life, and it attracts supernatural forces. Quite possibly, at the exact moment my son was clogging the toilet, a jovial spirit may have decided to play a little prank on us.

It could have been a spirit that has been following me all my life. After all, it would be a good explanation for the singing toilet of my childhood. I know that pipes can bang and whistle and imitate the entire percussion section of the New York Philharmonic. But the toilet in our house, every time it was flushed, would let out a tone so tuneful and long, it would have made Pavarotti jealous.

Logic dictates that such a mischievous water spirit has alternately inhabited the dishwasher, washing machine and bathtub, all normal sources of flooding incidents. What frightens me is the possibility that these supernatural comedians may get together in force to play their little practical jokes. I’m sure if you think about it, you will realize it is true. I am talking about the beach.

I now live in New Jersey, and going to the beach — the shore, as we call it — is a required rite of passage. All of us can relate stories of the wave that knocked us down, carried us out and almost deposited us on the shores of France. That’s normal. But consider this — once my children and one of their friends were standing by the waves, just watching. When the water would come too close, they would run back up the sand, giggling. This must have angered something or someone, because the next thing I know is, a wave sends up a large spray that smacks the friend right in the nose, giving him an instant nosebleed.

Another time, my two daughters were sitting on the edge of the water, playing in the shallows. They were splashing and laughing. Suddenly, a wave comes rushing in, knocking them over. As the wave receded, I was shocked to see that both girls had been turned upside down and were stuck, by their heads, in the sand. Their little arms and legs were flapping around uselessly as they tried to right themselves like overturned turtles. I don’t need to be hit over the head with the moral of these stories — do not laugh at the ocean. It will get you.

My list of watery encounters is lengthy. Every house my parents ever owned had a leaky basement. On one occasion, the leak was lapping halfway up the basement stairs. In one of the apartments I lived in, the radiators began spewing reddish-black liquid. Since the radiators were inside covers, I had no idea what was going on until my downstairs neighbors knocked on the door to calmly ask why blood was running down their walls. Their calm was surprising, but perhaps they had been softened by the previous week’s flood in their kitchen caused by my overflowing portable washing machine. Looking back, I wonder if all this water trouble was related to the man in the bathtub that my toddler daughter insisted she could both see and talk to.

The battle goes on to the present day. After sinking all my money into my current house, the crawl space underneath it suddenly filled up with four inches of water. Electric wires sizzled, shorting out the refrigerator and the water heater. My oldest daughter, who was both dirty and hungry at the time, blamed me entirely. I don’t even want to get into what happened when the sewer backed up or when the pipes froze, and the water meter exploded on Christmas Eve. Most recently, on the night before I was to enter the hospital for surgery on my personal plumbing, my sump pump died in the middle of a monsoon.

I’ve thought about traveling to Scotland to find out exactly what happened between my relatives and the water nymphs. From there, I may have to go to Ireland to find out which leprechaun is dousing my family. Until I get to the bottom of it, there’s only one thing to do — keep treading water.

Blasts From the Past

I find that the further I go back, the better things were, whether they happened or not.

— Mark Twain

Singing and Swinging, Seventies Style

The old saying goes that if you save things long enough, sooner or later, they come back in style. I was reminded of this when my daughter showed me the hot new styles featured in her trendy magazine. There were the polyester shirts, hip hugger pants and platform shoes of the seventies. For a minute I was taken back to my teenage years. Back to the ‘70s when bell-bottoms couldn't be wide enough, hair couldn't be long enough, and everyone was rocking to the sounds of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Benny Goodman.

The dance band was called The Indigos and it had been filling the high school band room for years with the sound of swing. It may have been too much sound for a bunch of high school kids, but we played anyway. And just when we were feeling like we had given Mood Indigo the definitive treatment, our director, Mario DeCarolis, would take out his old, shiny saxophone and wail. It was hard to not just stop playing and listen to him. He really knew those songs and played them with the feeling of a person who had lived through it.

Sooner or later, it was my turn to climb out from under the baritone saxophone and step up to the microphone. The guys didn't like this part, they wanted to cut loose with In the Mood, or String of Pearls, and there I was ready to pour my 16-year-old heart into Sentimental Journey, or You Made Me Love You.

I tried not to antagonize the guys; after all, it didn't take much to drown me out. Worse than hitting a wrong note or forgetting the lyrics was knowing that all the audience got out of my performance was a look at a girl moving her lips to an old swing song. Occasionally, they weren't shy about letting me know.

Can't hear you! an audience member would shout. Turning up my amplifier usually produced lovely feedback, and due to school budget cuts, I was sharing the amp with the electric guitar player who didn't mind being turned up at all. The result was a combination of Rosemary Clooney and Jimi Hendrix.

In addition to our unique sound, we were an interesting sight. Our white, wrap-around music stands were emblazoned with the band's logo, our instruments ranging from the brand new to battered school-owned relics. We