MUSCLE BOUND

It's the time of year when an old broad's fancy turns to bathing suit season. The warmer the weather the more clothing we shed. God knows there is little time left to repair the damage winter sloth has created. Better get started!

MUSCLE BOUND

A few years ago Jules gave me a membership to Trapezoid Fitness for Christmas. Now before you go eeww, please keep in mind this was my request. It solved the problem of his annual whine, “What would you like for Christmas?” Actually, just like a kid, every year I ask for a puppy, but that isn’t going to happen so I suggested a treadmill but he said we don’t have room for one. If you are married or have a male significant other I am sure you are aware that men like to give practical gifts. Oh, they’ll give you jewelry or flowers but they really prefer to give vacuum cleaners, tools or new tires--things that give them a bang for their buck.

Back to Trapezoid Fitness. I had two months after Christmas to think about how much I loved this gift. We go to Mexico in February, so I couldn’t activate the membership until March. We got home March first and Jules said, “When are you going to sign up? Didn’t you like your gift?” So the next day I took my voucher and went down to “the club”. I prefer to call it “the club” rather than the gym or fitness center. It gives the illusion of going out to a refined, quiet little place for lunch with The Girls. Calling it the gym or fitness center conjures up visions of sweat and bottles of ibuprofen.

In order to get Jules’s money’s worth I hired, at my own expense, one of those queens of torture, a personal trainer. We agreed on three sessions (the usual, apparently) so that the routine would be tailored just for me. The first one-hour session was invigorating. I thought I did pretty well for someone who hadn’t moved since high school. The next day I had trouble getting out of bed even after a double dose of Aleve. I called the trainer and told her that I couldn’t even squat to use the toilet without screaming. She said, “It happens to a lot of people. Take something and I’ll see you on Friday.” By Friday I had been to the cardiologist with second-degree heart block which dropped my pulse rate to forty. I know that exercise is supposed to strengthen your cardiovascular system and slow your heart rate, but this was ridiculous. I canceled Friday, sent her a check and said I would resume when the doctor okayed exercise. After many expensive tests he said that as long as I didn’t pass out I could do whatever I wanted, but I shouldn’t do anything that took me more than a couple of feet off the floor, just in case. I left a message on Mistress Roberta’s answering machine but she never got back to me. I don’t blame her. It’s not good for business if your client drops dead during a workout. Not to mention the detrimental effects of people seeing an ambulance, or worse, a hearse parked at the Fitness Center’s front door. So I do my own routine of the exercises she showed me. Actually just the ones I like, and then a mile on the treadmill, which is all I wanted to do in the first place. The object being, when I have my stroke, which is inevitable with my family history, the rehab won’t kill me.

There’s not much to do during that twenty minutes on the treadmill except observe what is going on in “the club”. This is a place for people who are serious about fitness. No fancy-schmancy saunas or hot tubs. Just lots of exercise equipment. My trainer, Mistress Roberta, eschewed the machines. “Make your body do the work,” said she. I watch others with envy as they choose five pound weights and run through the machines like they are taking a stroll in the park. I figure it must work though because the vast majority of them look great. Or maybe these people are lucky and don’t need to workout at all. Maybe they just like to hang around fat people so they look even better.

Along with the people who don’t look as if they should be here are a few people who make me ashamed of my bitching and are a real inspiration. The old guy who is recovering from a stroke and works so hard he grunts like André Agassi swatting a backhand from the foul line. And the young guy who is in a wheel chair and spends his whole morning doing a circuit. He moves in slow motion–out of the chair, onto the machine, back into the chair. Then he takes the bus home. When you abuse your body like I have you deserve what you get. Some people just have bad luck.

The time you go to “the club” is very important. The working class go early in the morning for classes and their workout. Step classes, spinning classes and Pilates are offered, at an extra fee of course. I haven’t been there in the evening because I usually collapse in a heap after dinner and an earthquake couldn’t get me to move. My friend Shirley told me that lunch time is the time to go. I would have thought the anorexic types would use the machines rather than eat, but apparently not. There are very few members in attendance after eleven and the soaps don’t start until one. Daytime TV suddenly becomes very important when you have twenty minutes to kill. I always thought Ellen DeGeneres was funny until I watched her in closed caption. In humor, timing is everything. The predominant genre on the televisions is sports. Right now it’s women’s billiards and the final four. Easy to watch and you know what’s going on because they have the score in the corner of the screen, and the sportscaster’s banter, as with most jocks, is not Harold Pinter.

The clientele seems to change with the seasons. In the winter and spring I see the diehard jocks and mothers whose children are in school. Around about two thirty or three the high school kids arrive. During the ‘season’ there are a lot of trophy wives who wouldn’t even consider sweating without their own personal trainer, and middle-aged men who refuse to let themselves go. There are also plenty of t-shirts that shout ‘staff’. These are the working kids that need exercise after sitting on a life guard stand or dishing ice cream all day.

Jules said if I go three times a week he will continue to pay for the membership. This must be some kind of reverse psychology, like telling a child never to eat green vegetables. If I don’t go, he won’t pay and I won’t have to go any more. But I go, three times a week, every week. I’ll show him!

A (STUNTED) TREE GROWS IN KATAMA

Spring (such as it is) has arrived on Martha's Vineyard. The landscapers are invading the neighborhoods and flowers are popping up everywhere. This essay was previously printed in Martha's Vineyard Magazine.

A (Stunted) Tree Grows in Katama

My friend Jules doesn’t have a green thumb. He learned this trying to landscape his property in Katama. If you needed to attribute a color to the aforementioned digit, brown would do. Maybe even black. After several years of trying to coax living things to thrive in a hostile environment, he has given up. “I will never let a plant break my heart again,” states he.

Jules bought his house on the ‘Great Katama Plain’ back in the early 90s, before the Clintons caused the real estate market to bloom like crab grass. It was affordable as long as he rented it summers for the few years he had left till retirement. This did not leave extra money for landscaping. When he moved to the Island full time that would be his hobby.

When Jules saw his house for the first time he worried that the pine and oak between it and the ocean would grow to obstruct his view. The real estate agent assured him they were as tall as they would get. “That’s why they call them scrub,” she said. Jules didn’t believe her but since most of the trees were on his lot he figured he could top them if necessary. He’s owned the property for eighteen years and they haven’t grown an inch. That has given him some comfort as a failed gardener.

When Jules retired and moved to the Vineyard, the first couple of years were devoted to the lawn. It looked like a mine field after he dug out all the crab grass but eventually, after much weeding, feeding, seeding and watering, Jules’s lawn could compete favorably with even the sodded specimens in the neighborhood.

With the lawn under control Jules thoughts turned to flowering shrubs. His neighbors have a beautiful hydrangea bush. It stands six foot tall and is covered by cantaloupe sized purple blooms all summer. Strolling through the Farmer’s Market one day Jules stopped at a booth and bought a small hydrangea in an eight inch pot. He took careful notes about how to plant and care for it. He coddled and babied that plant as though it were a triple crown winner on the stud farm, but it never put out more than a half dozen leaves. “At least if it died,” said Jules, “I could replace it.” But year after year it sent up eight inches worth of beautiful green leaves. It never got any taller and it never flowered. Finally in a fit of pique due to unrequited attention, he ran over it with the lawn mower and threw grass seed on the bare spot.

Jules next project was a lilac bush. His wife remembered having a huge lilac in her backyard as a child and longed to fill her home with fragrant bouquets. Another trip to the Farmer’s Market, another careful planting. The lilac did not thrive but it does grow about an inch a year and puts out two or three thumb sized blooms. Jules has allowed the runt to remain in the yard but he no longer speaks to it.

The climbing roses for the trellis grew like wild fire the first year. They bloomed precociously through November. Only one plant survived the winter and flowered sparsely during the summer. By the third year it, too, was dead. The forsythia, which in his garden off Island had to be tamed with a machete, grew in spindly, anemic spikes. The rhododendron, which he was assured was hearty enough for Katama, looked dead all winter but perked up briefly in the spring before withering completely, kind of like when grandma opened her eyes and looked around the room just before she gasped her last.

Jules finally decided that a beautiful lawn would have to fulfill him. Early one spring, anticipating his summer lawn, he strolled the yard inspecting it for winter damage. Lo and behold he came across what looked like a mole tunnel. He ran to the computer and before you could say weed and feed, a mole trap was on the way via FedEx. By the time it arrived the weather had warmed, the spring rains had come and the lawn stigmata disappeared. The mole trap went into the shed. This happens every spring (the tunnel effect, not the purchase of a mole trap). As long as it goes away Jules neither knows nor cares what it is.

Jules has gotten used to the harsh, salt laden fog and howling Katama winds that make it difficult to grow things in only one life time. He hasn’t given up though. Now his gardening consists of colorful annuals in pots on the deck. At least when they die he doesn’t take it personally.

IN THE NEWS

Spring will arrive on Martha's Vineyard March 17 at 11 am. This is when the Dairy Queen opens for business. We Vineyarders know what time of the year it is, not by the weather, but by the event. I'm waiting for the 4th of July parade because I know it will be summer.

IN THE NEWS

Vineyard newspapers are a different breed from big city papers like the Boston Globe or New York Times. Our news is intimate. It’s about neighbors, local institutions. Events that are both life changing and mundane. Things that are happening in our back yards. Things that would be in your local paper whether or not the rest of the world existed.

Basically we read the paper to confirm the rumors we’ve been hearing all week. Sometimes the Island is like a great big kindergarden playing a game of telephone. The accuracy of the rumor one hears depends on how close to the source you are.

Even if they didn’t put the date on the masthead you can tell what month it is by reading the Gazette or Times. Sometimes even the week. For instance, as I write this it is March. The paper is filled with Pinkletinks and Osprey sightings. These are things that wouldn’t get a mention in the Globe or even the Cape Cod Times but after a gloomy winter they set the Islander’s heart singing. Why Islanders look forward to summer and all its problems is beyond me, but they do. In fact it is the third week of March. I know this because the Dairy Queen just opened. Most places that wouldn’t be a big deal but here it is almost occasion for a school holiday.

Most Islanders can tell the exact date (give or take seven days) by looking at the front page. Town meetings? Second week in April. Ag Fair and Illumination night? Third week in August.

We don’t cheat by looking at the calendar. The restaurant ads help. The week before any holiday you can see the menu for buffet dinners. The food itself will tell you what holiday. Spring lamb? Easter. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding? Christmas, of course.

The stories in the newspaper have become predictable. A lot of people would find this boring. Not I. I take a lot of comfort in knowing what next week’s big story will be. I’m at an age where shocks are unwelcome. Even good surprises can create stress. But that’s not necessarily so for the young, which is why many kids raised on Martha’s Vineyard can’t wait to grow up and move off Island. The predictability, while comforting for young and old, is stifling to those looking for adventure.

I’ve always gotten a kick out of the letters to the editor. They can be amusing or mean. It’s too bad that people don’t pick up the phone and call their neighbor with a complaint instead of the police, which always leads to a verbal battle on the op ed page. Though it does serve to keep the blood flowing during the depths of a grim winter.

We have two Island newspapers. One is free. Guess which one most people read? I used to read both but the redundancy became too much. I would even suspect the journalists are the same people except frequently, if not always, the political stories take opposing views. The letters are even the same. God forbid you take the time to bare your soul in print and someone misses it because they read that ‘other’ paper.

My favorite part of the paper is the gossip column. I don’t just read the one from my town. I read them all. I find myself reading with glee about people I don’t know. “Oh isn’t that nice,” I say to my husband. “The Oliver’s daughter was home for a visit.” “Who’s that?” he asks. “Someone Janice knows,” I reply. My friend Janice knows everyone. I’ve always hoped if I read enough gossip eventually I’ll know everyone too. I think it’s working because I know more people on the Island that I did where I lived before. And I lived there for fifty years!

Things don’t change much in our papers. The advertisements look the same year after year. The issues change (from secession to golf courses to wind farms) but the method of dealing with them stays pretty much the same. We talk, argue, write letters and some even protest at Five Corners, but once it’s a done deal we shrug and learn to live with it.

Some problems are never solved. Like the blinker light intersection. That could have been solved so easily with a red light, but Vineyarders are stubborn New Englanders and don’t take kindly to having their traditions challenged. Have you ever been anywhere else in the world that brags about not having traffic lights? The trouble with solving problems is that a new one always crops up. But I guess that’s good. Otherwise we wouldn’t need newspapers.

PLUS SIZE MY A....

Been back from Mexico for a week. Takes that long to go through the mail, including the fifty pounds of catalogs. It isn't prime catalog season--only a few minor holidays--Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day and Easter. Not big gift giving events. I do go through each and every one though since I never know what might be out there that I need. I usually am not even aware I need it until I see it and then it becomes a compulsion. I've complained about catalogs before but when you live on an Island with no chain stores except Stop & Shop and True Value Hardware mail order is a necessity.

PLUS SIZE MY A...

The first time I got a plus size woman’s catalog in the mail I was heartbroken. Not that I wasn’t plus-sized--a euphemism for fat--I was. But because now the mail order universe knew it. I must have ordered something that was extra large and they sold my address to Lane Bryant and all the other emporiums that cater to women of a certain girth and heft. I’ve never ordered from most of them and in spite of their numerous threats that this would be my last catalog, they keep coming. Now that I’m not plus-sized any more I enjoy looking through them. It amuses me the way they try to make oversized clothing look both fashionable and comfortable. We all know that fashionable is the antithesis of comfortable. Just try walking around town on a 5 inch high heel.

The words they use are designed to make it appear that their fabrics will perform miracles. One catalog uses the catch phrase “Stretch! Make it your #1 solution for comfort.” Spandex is to chubbies what silk and lace are to brides. If it doesn’t have spandex but is called “comfort knit” watch out, because when it stretches it won’t shrink back and you’ll wind up looking like a bag of cats. One bathing suit brand is called “Inches Off” and has four way stretch. To accomplish the wonders promised it would have to stretch in a lot more ways than four. And I’m sorry--if it stretches it just isn’t denim.

The garment industry has figured out if they give their wares a name people will clamor for their product. Hence all the fancy brand labels these days. They make the buyers feel they’re wearing designer duds. For example, J.C. Penney has Cabin Creek and K Mart has Jaclyn Smith. Apparently being a Charlie’s Angel was good for something. One plus sized catalog is called Woman Inside. Inside what I’m not quite sure. Their “brand” is 220. I can’t help but wonder if this is the average weight of their customers. They brag that their sizes go from 16W to 28W. They claim the W stands for woman but I know it means wide.

These items have lots of stretch to them. They use adjectives such as slenderizing, elasticized, and flattering. They are soft for all day comfort. They have things like powernet tummy panels. They use micro stretch fabric. Trust me, even macro stretch is not going to do the job.

The items in the lingerie section look pretty but the descriptions sound as though they were written by a dominatrix. The undies have a magic mesh insert that trims midriff and waist. What they don’t tell you is that if they’re small enough to make you look trimmer you'll wind up getting gangrene. The bras look as though they shouldn’t be worn without a horned helmet. They have the Magic Lift, Magic Lift Plus, Easy Enhancer (do these women really need enhancement?), and Comfort Choice bras. They must be designed by architects who studied flying buttresses.

My personal favorite is the Instant Shaping Comfort Bra. If your breasts need shaping, I think it’s time to give up. And how comfortable can it be to cram your breasts into a shape they don’t want to be in? They also have sports bras but I doubt they sell any. If we participated in sports we could order our clothes from regular catalogs.

I can understand the desire for comfortable shoes. Their brands include Comfort View and Soft Spots. They are mostly flats except for one which boasts a 1 & 3/4 inch, broad heel. They also advertise traction soles. Sounds like a 4X4 to me.

The plus size fashion industry tries too hard. They’ve come up with fashions that don’t quite make it. Their “mega tunic” looks as if it should only be worn to the Crusades, and calling it a “big shirt” doesn’t make it a fashion item. It’s just a big shirt. I don’t think shoulder pads are a good way to go, either, for women who already look like refrigerators. And the dresses. Be honest and call them what they are, muumuus. Who decided that stitching the crease down the front of your slacks is slimming? I think it’s great for women who don’t like to iron, but slimming? Another selling point for their pants is that they are fuller through the hips. Wheee. Just like me!

In these exercise and health conscious days the people who write the catalogs have found a way to keep their plus sized customers coming back for more. They inspire snacking. All the colors are named after foods. For instance: butter cream, spearmint, rhubarb, peach, popcorn, chocolate, sherbet, shrimp--you get the idea. To wash it down? Claret, burgundy and lemonade. This is subliminal manipulation. First the food court at the mall and now this. Where, oh where, will it end?

HANDICAP ACCESSIBLE

A boy sat behind me in high school homeroom for four years. I thought he was one of the 'cool' kids and he was being nice to me because we were alphabetically compatible. Turns out he is a kind, sweet soul. He works with people with disabilities and he never ceases to be amazed and humbled by their courage and determination. I think he chose this field (or maybe it chose him) because he was legally blind, something I did not know about him because a. he never told me and b. he didn't bring a dog or white cane to school and I never saw him bumping into things. Anyway, he works with people who god or mother nature or whomever, gave a visible disability, which I prefer to call a variation because all of us no matter how beautiful or physically fit have some sort of disability. Most of them are invisible but are there none the less. Personally I'd rather lose my leg than my sense of humor, something I share with my friend. This one's for you Ronnie.

HANDICAP ACCESSIBLE

When I was a kid I frequently whined “That’s not fair.” My mom would respond “Life isn’t fair and the sooner you get used to it the better.” I never did get used to this concept and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about it.

The trouble with the world is that it only handicaps horses, sailors and golfers. I think handicapping is a great idea and it should be expanded to cover everyone and everything. It would, to use a cliché which will draw a collective sneer from my writers’ group, level the playing field. The world is set up to reward people who work hard or have talent. Americans have a win at all cost ethos. But what about all the talentless slackers out there? For instance what about a clumsy girl with a bad memory who is just dying to be a waitress? A handicap would give her a shot. Or a college student who had been playing ‘school’ since she was in kindergarden and wants to teach but has pathological stage fright? A system of handicapping would give these underdogs a chance.

I went to a football game the other day. The home team was ahead 35 to 0 at the half. If the teams were handicapped the losing team would get to play the opposing team’s cheerleaders during the second half of the game. They might not do any better but they’d have a heck of a lot more fun.

I know a woman who is an awful cook. Her turkey is stringy, mashed potatoes like glue and, heaven forbid, she even serves that jellied cranberry sauce from a can, but everyone wants to go to her place on Thanksgiving. Her handicap? A huge, high definition flat screen T.V., desserts from the best bakery in town and the bar of an Irish pub.

Now, I can hear many of you saying that handicapping will destroy ambition. I disagree. When it comes to ambition you’ve either got it or you don’t. We all know at least one kid who was, unfortunately, born without that ambition gene. Wouldn’t a handicap make you feel much better about her? (I say her here because my ambitionless kid happens to be a her.) Yes, kids that aspire to be professional caddies deserve a sense of pride as much as your nephew attending Harvard Medical School.

One way that handicapping could make a better world is in the area of relationships. Knowing that in order to find your soul mate you must be in the right place at the right time can be downright daunting. If the wealthy/brilliant/beautiful sometimes resort to ads in the personals what chance do the rest of us poor slobs have? I propose a new section of classifieds that would be called Bargain Box Personals. This would be for the people who just wouldn’t get any play in the regular personals. For instance: “Unemployed SWM, short, fat, and bald seeks uneducated SWF, 18-40, who doesn’t cook and hates long walks on the beach for possible marriage and production of substandard children.”

I have developed a plan. In order for handicapping to work, each newborn will be assigned a personal handicapper. Much like a personal trainer, this person will be a professional who determines a life plan for each individual. Since this is an expensive proposition I figure the whole program needs to be funded by the federal government. Somewhat like Social Security. Congress can raise the start up money by throwing cake sales and silent auctions. It will soon fund itself with taxes generated from all the previously predestined unemployed who will find their niche in the work force.

In future generations when children whine to their mothers that life isn’t fair, they will get the reply, “Of course it is sweetie. If life wasn’t fair you wouldn’t have a handicap!”