My oldest grand-daughter and her Mom stopped by yesterday with a catalog of candles for a cheerleading fund-raiser. Naturally Mom-mom is a must on the list of people to see whenever any of the grandchildren are selling anything. My grand-daughter is eleven going on Britney Spears and like most of her peer group, lapses into Valley Girl at the drop of a hat. Looking every inch the contemporary fasion-plate in her poncho, draped carefully off one shoulder, my grand-daughter listened while my daughter and I discussed the latest sales at our favorite clothing stores as I perused the candle catalog. My daughter casually mentioned her purchase of two ponchos at the store where she had gotten her daughter's poncho. As if ignited by a remote switch, my grand-daughter jumped and staring wide-eyed at her mother exclaimed "Mommmm!!!! YOU got ponchos too!!!". Obviously my daughter didn't quite grasp the idea that Mom wasn't supposed to wear anything even vaguely resembling the current fashions of her pre-pubescent offspring. As my grand-daughter continued her moans of disbelief, my daughter and I attempted to explain that some fashions can traverse more than one age group.
Now I was never faced with such a dilema as a pre-teen since my mother's wardrobe was more for function than fashion. In fact, I swore an oath at a young age to never, ever be caught wearing anything polyesther for as long as I lived. Fashions were a lot less less daring and trendy back when I was eleven. Most girls hadn't even graduated to training bras by that age and the popular teen idols were more like Donna Reed and Jane Wyman (Mom types...for those not old enough to remember the TV characters played by these ladies) than the current sexy, midrift baring teen queens. Our idea of fashion was the shirt-waist dress (calf length mind you) sported by the teen daughter of Donna Reed's character with hair pulled back in a ponytail. Annette Funicello was daring enough in her two piece bathing suit romping on the beach with Frankie Avalon. Of course we all thought our parents the oldest, most clueless people we knew...much like the kids of today...but chose wisely to be less vocal about our parents short-comings than the kids today are. The most drama we showed whenever our parents didn't "understand" us was to run up to our room and throw ourselves on the bed wailing as if the end of the earth had come.
Watching my grand-daughter protesting her Mother's lack of "understanding" fashion etiquette as pre-teens understood it, I quietly reminded my daughter of similar events in our Mother-daughter history. Unlike my own Mother, I tend to dress in contemporary fashions which was a source of unending sighing and eye-rolling during my daughter's teen years. I reminded her of a particular cute outfit I wore one day when she emphatically pronounced that she refused to be seen with me if I insisted on wearing THAT!! Keep in mind that I was barely thirty with a decent figure and, despite my daughter's protestations, bought my clothes in the Junior department of the very same store where she'd purchased the ponchos. The outfit that prompted her outburst consisted of a pair of bright yellow capris with suspenders and a white tee shirt.....nothing outrageous, just properly trendy for young thinking women. As I brought this memory back to my daughter, she responded the same as she had at that time... "Mom's aren't supposed to be cool". My grand-daughter smiled smugly as she said "Yeah Mom...Mom's aren't supposed to be cool.".
As I jotted down my candle order I casually mentioned that I had been thinking of buying a couple of ponchos myself. Peering over at my grand-daughter for her reaction, she smiled and said that would be great. I guess grandmothers ARE allowed to be cool.

Remember when you were a kid and it seemed to take forever for anything to get here? Back then a year was so much longer especially when you were waiting for something special like your birthday or Christmas. The only thing that seemed to fly by was summer vacation. Heck, it had barely gotten started before it was time to go back to school. That just wasn't fair. It took at least a zillion years to finally be old enough to ride around the block with the other kids on your bike or walk to the shopping center with your friends to see a movie. Not to mention the time it took to reach driving age....had to be at least one lifetime if not longer!
Now I find myself wondering where all the time went. Just the other day I was shopping for a birthday present and was stopped dead in my tracks by a Christmas display! Staring open-mouthed at the Santas and wreaths, I couldn't help but exclaim out loud "No...it can't be that close!". Taking a deep breath I slowly realized that, yes Virignia, Santa Claus was coming in just a couple of months. Surely it had just been a short while ago that I had finally gotten all the decorations stowed away. And wasn't it just a few weeks ago that I got out the summer clothes? Double-checking the calendar when I got home only proved the quick passage of months since last Christmas. Where did all the time go?? I mean I'm not ready to give up warm air and sunshine for cold and snow. And the thought of shopping for Christmas presents hadn't even begun to creep into my head yet.
Thinking back to the slow passage of time when I was younger, I'm beginning to think that someone had to have pushed the fast forward button by mistake when I wasn't paying attention. There's still 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year, but don't blink or you'll miss at least half of them. Granted weekends seem so much shorter now and vacations zoom by at twice the speed of light but that's just because we don't look forward to going back to work any more than we looked forward to going back to school as kids.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could adjust the speed of time to suit ourselves? We could speed up the work week to a New York minute and slow down our free time to the pace of a political debate. It would be heaven to be able to race through the wait at the doctor's office and to stroll leisurely through a good novel. Just think how quickly all the little things that annoy us could be over.....an hour's commute would flash by so road rage would be non-existant, you'd never feel a thing in the dentist's chair in the mili-second you'd be sitting there and all those red lights that never seem to change would be twinkling like Christmas lights! Christmas...yikes....it'll be here before I know it. Oh well, back to reality.

Someone once asked "What's in a name?". Judging by the rash of hurricanes determined to batter Florida, I'd have to say there's one heck of a lot of wind and rain in some names. I've often wondered why we have this penchant for naming things and who started it. We name our pets, our cars, our boats and, in some cases, various parts of our anatomy and we always tend to give them strong or cute or classy names. The same premise applies to naming hurricanes. Look at Charley for instance. The name Charley conjures up images of a laid-back, good old boy but someone forgot to tell hurricane Charley as he tore through Florida. Frances on the other hand brings to mind teachers or librarians. Who hasn't had a teacher whose motto was " You'll do it over and over and over again until you get it right". Frances lived up to her name in a seemingly unending effort to blow down or drown as much territory as she could before the end came. Now, here comes Ivan.....yep, Ivan the Terrible....and watching the latest updates, he could easily embody the traits of his namesake.
What would happen if we gave these storms less personal names? Perhaps we could influence the physche of hurricanes if their names came from the seven dwarfs or a cartoon character or even one of the endless nicknames we've all grown up with. Maybe if we called Charley "Chubby" or "Clumsy" he would have slipped quietly out to sea, too embarassed to make much of an appearance. And surely if Frances had been "Floppy" or "Frumpy" she wouldn't have wanted so much attention. We could even adopt the George Forman approach and give them all the same name and discourage these storms from developing their individual personalities. Granted this is not a scientific approach but, who knows, it might work.
Whatever we call them, hurricanes are frightening, destructive things. Much as I'd like to rename Ivan to "Icky", I can only watch with my heart in my throat as he barrels towards Florida. My thoughts and my prayers are with my family in Palm Harbor and Clearwater and with all the other victims of Charley, Frances and Ivan. Mother Nature has a mind of her own and we can only hope she will take Ivan in hand and lead him away from land and people to blow himself out in open waters. Meanwhile, be safe my family and, to everyone in harm's way, we're thinking of you and hoping for the best.