Bed Bugs, Boston, and Beyond

This is how you apply Clobetasol to the area of your lower back that you cannot reach because your arms aren't long enough, or you don't have a partner willing to pave the ointment across the bed bug bites:

You tug a portion of Saran Wrap from its carton -- a square about the size of the infected area -- and scotch tape it to a wall. Then, you apply the topical to the wrap -- gently, as if you are buttering a slice of freshly baked bread -- until it is covered corner to corner.

Next, you remove clothing from your upper body and smoosh your back against the creamy wrap.  You may add music to accompany the swaying you will do to transfer medicine to the dots that have spread across your back like stars in a night sky.

Over all, I handled the recent plague of my person quite calmly because I was certain it hadn't originated in my apartment. The outbreak occurred just after I returned from a weekend at a Kansas City hotel. I know that hotels -- no matter the number of awarded stars -- are vulnerable to bed bugs.

But, my composure threatened to crack when I considered the trip I would be taking in two days to Boston. What if the critters had decided to travel home with me from K.C.? Could they have hitched a ride in my carry-on? Had they weaved themselves into the threads of the clothing I wore on the trip? Did I bring the terror troop into my sweet apartment where they would soon finish the job on other parts of my body?

"Is it possible you brought them back?" asked my Boston daughter Faith, who was echoing my unease. "Is there a way you can check it out so you, um, don't bring them to my place?"

"Do you want me to stay home?" I said in my perfected passive aggressive voice.

"No, Mom, I didn't say that. Just, is there a way you can be sure they haven't adopted you and won't accompany you to Boston?"

Because I admitted the same concern, I sought advice from Karen, my interior designer friend. "Call your building's management office," she said. "They likely have a protocol for dealing with bed bugs."

Protocol, I loved the sound of that because it meant I was not a pariah. If there was a protocol, that denoted something they teach in building maintenance school.

I called Kendra at the concierge desk. "Uh, I have a problem," I said, as if I were confessing a dead body that needed disposing. "I have a bed bug rash, which I'm certain I got at a hotel. But, I want to be sure I didn't transport any back to my apartment."

The knock on my door came as soon as I hit "End" on my mobile. Roberto and Edward, each bearing a powerful specialty flashlight, trailed Dzenan, our chief engineer. I stood to the side, as the trio flipped my mattress, removed cushions from the couch, poked into bookshelves and floorboards, scanned my carry-on, and combed through closets.

"No, nothing, no," were their findings, words as dulcet as a favored song. "Just to be sure, though, we'll get an exterminator to double check."

"I'm traveling again," I said. "If bugs are here, what can I do to be sure I don't carry them with?" (My daughter's worried voice had infested my brain.)

"Do you have another suitcase you can take?" Dzenan asked. I pointed to a new one I purchased after my dermatologist made the bed bug diagnosis and replacement suggestion. "Let's put the old one in a plastic bag just to be sure," he said, as serious as if he were plotting a military maneuver. "Buy encasements for your mattress and box spring; that'll kill any surviving bugs. We'll put them on for you. Toss the clothes you're taking with in a hot dryer, then, pack them in plastic. Bugs can't survive in heat."

Resisting an impulse to salute, I thanked the staff for their aid and absence of judgment. "No, we thank you," Dzenan said. "If the bugs are in an apartment, and the tenant doesn't let us know, it can turn into a much bigger problem. You were smart."

This was smarter: "Dear Sir," I wrote to the hotel's management. "I spent $487.32, including the two nights, to heal the bed bug rash from my stay in Room 211, Nov. 14-16, 2013." I included the phone numbers of my dermatologist and engineer, along with receipts from Target and Bed, Bath, & Beyond.

Will the check be in the mail? Stay tuned.

Double Dating With My Mother

I could chalk it up to the difficulty older Jewish men have when they try to navigate technology. Or, I can just admit I'm a loser on JDate. My evidence: although I've "Favorited" 16 matches, zero have returned the compliment.

"I thought you weren't interested in meeting men." It was my deceased mother elbowing herself past Tommy into my subconscious.

Her arrival was hardly a surprise. After all, rather than my late husband being invested in finding me a date, it was more likely to be my mother, Min, a beauty who died at the age of 67.

"Mom," I said to the apparition pulling up a chair next to me, " I don't want anyone moving in, but I think I'd enjoy dinner or a play with a nice guy my age."

"Well, I can tell you what your problem is," she said, "Your profile isn't sexy enough."

"Sexy isn't me. I'm trying to be honest."

"Honest, hah!" she said. "I see you've put your age at 70. Remember I was present at your birth and you're off by 5 years."

"No one admits their real age in online dating," I said. "I recall you telling me more than once you never wanted to get old."

In my mind's eye I could see my mother hesitate before responding. She would be using her right hand to sweep her hairdo upwards and a mirror to be certain her eye shadow, mascara, and red lipstick were in place.

"Well, if I would've known what good shape a woman could be in her '70s I might have stuck around. I have to admit you've kept your weight down."

A compliment from my mother! I preened in my office chair and brushed aside childhood memories of her fixated on my chubbiness rather than my brain.

"I see two matches answered your emails," she went on. "It's a shame you had to make the first move."

Ah, here's the familiar motherly dig. "That's not a problem for me, Mom, being aggressive. That's how I landed Tommy. I asked him out for our first date."

There was silence on the other end of our celestial chat. Although she died before Tommy and I met and married, I knew Mom would have had mixed feelings about my second husband. It wasn't the fact that he wasn't Jewish, but that he wasn't rich.

"Don't blame your mother for wanting an easier life for her daughter," she said, evidently overhearing my thoughts. "But I did appreciate how much he loved you."

I didn't want to keep Tommy in this scenario, so I quickly returned to my failure on JDate. "Did you notice, Mom, that no matter their age, all of my matches wanted someone between 50 and 65? "

"So," she said, stretching out the vowel, "you couldn't have dropped 10 years?"

I sighed. "Mom, that's just not me. I've come a long way and I'm proud of the woman I've become. I'm not that desperate to make myself over for some dude."

Now, a sigh from Min. "So, try it your way. Be honest. Don't say you're passionate, fun, adventurous in the bedroom."

I laughed. "So you've been reading my competition."

"Of course, it can get boring up here. It's a change of pace to read fantasies about ideal matches. My girlfriends and I had a good laugh."

"Were you laughing when one of the guys answered my email with the news he had already fallen in love with the second woman he met on JDate?" I said.

"See, you didn't move fast enough. You have to jump in as soon as you find someone interesting."

"I don't know, Mom. Did you also read that he was now spending all of his time with his new romance?"

"So, what's the problem?"

"I gagged when I saw that. I don't want anyone spending all of his time with me; it's suffocating. Like I said, dinner out, a movie, a play, that's all I'm thinking about, not him taking over my life."

"So, have it your way," she said. "I assume, with your record of zero and sixteen you're bowing out. No more online dating?"

"Not completely," I said. "It is kind of a fun game and my ego is strong enough to take the rejections. So next month, I'm going to the other side."

"Women!" she said. "Don't tell me you're going to become a lesbian."

"No, Mom, match dot com. I'm going to check out the Gentiles. Maybe they'll be more open to an adorable grey-haired woman in her mid-seventies."

"Try sixty-five and you may have a shot," she said.

A Resting Place In The Garden of Eden

“Be sure you blow out the candle before you go to bed.” It was my husband’s voice reaching out to me. This was a familiar warning, because when Tommy was alive, he repeated that order every Friday night after I lit the Shabbat candles.

“It has to stay on for 24-hours,” I said, not aloud, just in my head as I have done for many of our afterlife conversations. “It’s a memorial candle, it marks your November 2 anniversary.”

“Your people are weird,” Tommy said. “Why celebrate my death? Why not my birthday? Our marriage?”

“It’s not a celebration,” I said. “More an occasion to remember our loved ones. Did you hear me recite the memorial prayer; His resting place shall be in the Garden of Eden? I like that. It helps me cope.”

I went on, “I imagine you in my version of the Garden of Eden, playing golf with Bill and some other departed duffers. Your voice is fully repaired, so you’re teasing each other with each shot. Am I close?”

“Pretty good,” Tommy said. “Add in that we never have to reserve a tee time. We can walk on any course, any time of day or night.”

I loved that image, so I took our conversation a step further. “Can you believe, sweetheart, it’s been an entire year? Blink of an eye,” I said.

“Well, you’ve been a busy girl during that year.”

In my mind, his voice was proud not angry. I recognized that cherished tone because it was one that bound me so closely to this second mate. I could see him at the 2006 book launch for my memoir; first row, first seat, beaming at me as I stood on the stage of Women and Children First.

Tommy was my first reader for the book. I’d hand him 10 pages, which he grabbed as eagerly as if I was writing one of the Elmore Leonard or Ruth Rendell novels he loved.

“Great,” he’d say. Or sometimes, “I don’t like the chapter title,” or “I don’t understand this Yiddish word.” Those reviews were my cue to alter or translate.

“Yes, it has been quite a year,” I said, winding back to his assessment. “You supported all of my activities, right, honey?”

There was a hush from my illusive conversation partner. He’s likely reminiscing about our house, I thought, the one we lived happily in with our Golden Retriever, Buddy. The house I sold.

A few beats later, his response: “It was hard to watch you leave Dakin Street,” he said, confirming my suspicion. “But I understood you had no choice. Without me to do the maintenance stuff and without Buddy to protect you, it was too large and too risky to stay alone. Still, I felt a pang.”

I quickly changed the subject that was raw for both of us. “So, Tommy,” I said. “How are you keep tabs on me? Watching on high from a cloud?”

“I read your blogs,” he said.

I hit pause on our chat as I quickly reviewed a year’s worth of posts. Were they all favorable? Had I exposed anything he would prefer hidden? When I started the first blog, “The Rookie Caregiver,” I called him to my computer and asked if he’d like to read what I had written.

“Pull up a chair,” I said, nervous about his reaction. My husband was more private than I, even elusive about his past, so I worried how he would feel about this Internet publicity.

But he avoided a seat and instead stood behind me as I scrolled through the pages. He patted my shoulder, and raised two thumbs, his universal sign back then of “Okay by me.”

“You’re fine with all of this past year’s posts?” I said to my dearly departed. I wanted to be sure I understood him correctly. I knew there could be several filters between heaven and earth that might mess with communication.

“Sure,” he said, “I’m quite the superstar up here,”. “Everyone is jealous they’re not kept alive – well, sort of – like me.”

“Your privacy,” I said, “you don’t have a problem with me sharing our stories with the world?”

“Sweetheart, don’t get a big head. It’s your world, your friends, and your fans. You’ve never kept secrets from them.”

I was relieved to hear this, to get Tommy’s blessing. “Okay, honey,” I said. “You can rest easy. I promise to blow out the candle before I go to bed.”

“Good girl,” he said, then, “love you, Wifey.”

“Love you, too, Hubber, I said; misting at the memory of our pet names for each other.

From Third Wheel to Driver’s Seat

As I skipped from table to table at the bar mitzvah luncheon last weekend, I felt a novel emotion. Although I wasn’t paired up like my friends who were attending the same celebration, I lacked any sense of third wheel.

I felt no envy, no mad desire to be coupled, simply a feeling of being comfortable enough to chat with strangers who were seat companions, in the buffet line, and anyone who caught my interest.

This was a very different experience than my previous episode of singleness. After my divorce from my first husband, and before my marriage to Tommy, I relished my freedom for a bit, but then wanted desperately to be paired up. I hated being the gal left at the ballroom table to keep an eye on purses while couples danced. I yearned for a man on my arm, so I would better fit in with my married friends.

The Chicago Reader was the match.com of its day and I found several men to date. In the auditions, I was impartial. Fellows who I would’ve ignored if I weren’t so nauseatingly needy, would get at least one date.

Of course, that was 23 years ago and I have grown up since then. And although I have, on these pages, admitted eyeing men at the gym, I just don’t have the same pathetic ache, which I attribute to several factors:

*I really enjoy the studio apartment I have chosen to replace our home. Although only 615-square feet, at my petite size, it feels like a perfect fit. There is no space for a roommate and his stuff.

·      *At bedtime, I use a pillow as a stand-in for my late husband. In spoon position, I tell him my day’s activities. While this lacks an audible response from my proxy, I can easily imagine his voice and sweet goodnight. Schmaltzy as this sounds, it totally lulls me to sleep.

           *During the luncheon I described in my opening paragraph, I witnessed several friends who were either full-blown caretakers of their spouses, or were struggling with the impending role. Their plights reminded me of the last years of Tommy’s life when I was an around-the-clock caregiver. I have to selfishly admit, I am not eager to reenlist for the job, which, at my age, is a real possibility.

·      *Except for a few long-time friends, most of my crowd is single. If I want companionship, a phone call, e-mail, or text message can usually find me a delightful sidekick. And this pal is likely to be agreeable to my choice of event or menu.

·      *Although I no longer own a car, I have learned how to travel throughout the city and suburbs via public transportation. For example, here’s how I got to the aforementioned Skokie bar mitzvah: I caught the Brown Line at the Merchandise Mart, exited at Kedzie, took the #93 Foster bus to Dempster, and then the #250 Pace bus to Central Park. Okay, it was 90 minutes door-to-door, but I had a window seat and a scenic adventure.

·      *My waking and sleeping schedule would likely deter any potential swain. And I’m reluctant to adjust my body clock just to be part of a couple. I suspect that a single man seeking a girlfriend would want his female companion to remain awake throughout a movie or play, erect on a dance floor, and conscious for a goodnight kiss.

·     * I love television. No, I mean I REALLY LOVE television. My favorite evening activity – prior to falling asleep on the couch – is to watch favored episodes on HBO, Showtime, or Netflix. This viewing is typically accompanied by feet propped on my coffee table, an ice cream dish in my paws, and a sigh of solo satisfaction. Would a guy find this alluring? Would I be forced to share my Edy’s Slow Churned Butter Pecan?

·      *I won’t change my appearance or wardrobe to hook a guy. In my earlier single stage, I wore 3-inch heels, clothing I deemed alluring, and shopped at Victoria’s Secret for the “just in case” dates. Now, I refuse to dye my grey hair, get Botox or plastic surgery, or don anything that doesn’t stretch.

Having said all of the above, if you, dear reader, were to identify a divorced or widowed male, in my age group, who still drives – better yet, at night – I might be persuaded to shift some of my reasoning. For there are times when a ride in the passenger seat, with a sweet, bright, funny guy at the wheel does sound tempting.

Jealousy At The Gym

“I thought you said you’d never get married again.” It is my deceased husband Tommy who startles me awake.

“Where did you get the idea I’m getting married,” I say. His voice, which started in a dream, shifted me from prone to upright in bed.

“I saw you at the health club. Heard your conversation with your trainer, Kim. You were asking her to introduce you to some guy.”

“I thought you hated the East Bank Club,” I said, referring to the posh fitness place I tried to get Tommy to join. “What were you doing there?”

“Keeping an eye on you,” he said.

“Look,” I said. “I’m still wearing my wedding ring and I have no intention of ever taking it off.” I raised my left hand to the ceiling, assuming the image could break through the stucco and reach my complaining husband.

As I waited for his response, I thought back to the day more than 14 years ago when he and I walked across Ashland Avenue to Service Merchandise where we purchased our $25 gold bands.  After our wedding in Las Vegas, where we placed them on each other’s finger under the guidance of an ecumenical minister and 16 guests, I never took the ring off.

“Listen, Tommy,” I said. “I don’t ever want to marry again. You are my last husband. But, would you mind if I started to date? It’s been nearly a year, and I’m beginning to feel the need for a male companion. I miss the ‘what did you do today’ conversations and a guy on my arm.”

There was silence from my celestial spouse. Although in the last years of his life I had become accustomed to his aphasia, in our imaginary conversations, I had returned him to full voice. That’s why this pause bothered me. Was he angry and retreating from our beloved dialogues, or was he contemplating my question?

“You change your mind so much,” he said, ignoring my excuse.

“I won’t debate that,” I said. I counted on my easy agreement to let me off the hook.

“I heard you tell your daughters and your friends you were glad you rented a small apartment because there’d be no room for anyone else in it. Did you mean that?”

“True,” I said. “But, I’m talking about dating someone, not having them move in with me.”

“Well, it was hard for me to hear you asking your trainer to play cupid,” Tommy said. “You can understand that.”

“Of course I do, honey,” I said. “But, I’m spending too many nights at home; me and TV. When you were alive, and we watched shows together, that was one thing. But, I’ve continued our tradition in spades. Now, with Apple TV and Netflix, I’m more tied to the set than ever.”

“What’s wrong with that?” he asked.

I smiled as I recalled our evenings on our two couches. Each of us stretched out, watching our favorite shows night after night.

“No, honey, you’re right,” I said. “I loved every minute of our marriage. And I know I’ll never find another guy who wants to sit home and watch TV with me.”

“Well, it seems like you’re trying hard to replace me,” he said. “I also heard you asking your two lawyer friends to keep an eye out for a single man your age.”

Now I was rankled. Tommy disdained my health club in favor of his plain YMCA. Oh, he liked the golf center all right, and he enjoyed running its track on winter days. But when I posited joint membership, he turned up his nose. Now, it appears I can’t get him away from the place.

“Okay, you’re right,” I said. “I did ask Jimmy and John to keep me in mind. I’ve known both of them for years and they’re my same age. I thought they’d be good matchmakers.”

“They’re both Jewish, aren’t they? Is that what you’re looking for? Finished with Gentiles are you?”

“No, no, honey,” I said. “I didn’t specify a religion. In fact, I wouldn’t mind someone who’s not Jewish. You and I were in-tune, despite our different faiths.”

Another pause from above, had I convinced Tommy of my innocent need for a companion, and not a husband? Had he retreated to his heavenly home, contented he would never be replaced?

Then came that voice that I can still hear clearly. “Listen, sweetheart, I’m really just teasing you. It makes me happy to hear you’re thinking about dating. That means you haven’t soured on men; that my part in your life has you seeking another me.”

“Never another you,” I said.