And that was before this one…

Posted on March 1, 2022 by annban

Dear 2021,

You promised you’d do better. Shame on me for buying it again as you stood on the porch at midnight, ostentatious bouquet in your hands. I opened the door just enough to see the sheepish smile on your face, to hear you say, “Please. Forgive me for 2020. It’s going to be a better year. You’ll see.” 

And it was, for six days.

In giddy anticipation of the first vaccine, I retrieved from the closet that dress bought in 2019, its tags still on. We danced in the kitchen, singing to Aretha, shimmying barefoot in the blue-green shift. The TV was mute in the background but everything stopped when we turned to see what was on the screen: A terrifying mob of Trump’s thugs, storming the U.S. Capitol. No. No. 

 You couldn’t even make it a whole week.

Smoke and sickening sorrow lingered from that day. But even so, two weeks later there we were, posed proudly next to a cardboard Dr, Fauci, wearing vaccine stickers and smiles. We dared to wonder who we should invite to dinner first, once the second shot kicked in. Where should we fly for the first time in a year and oh, boy, when is Pink Martini next in concert here? We bought tickets for November because, even if the world still hurt, just for one night we’d be high in that crowd, —singing, clapping, conga dancing the finale. Oh what a time we’d have. Just like you promised. Just around the corner. Surely, and soon!

You gaslighting bastard. 

It’ll get better, you said. Biden will be president, the Capitol will calm down, the thugs get their due. Vaccines will kick in so go ahead and plan!

I should’ve read the mysterious sneer as you reminded me to get my mammogram, now that things were opening up.

 As if our country’s disintegration weren’t bad enough, you schemed… how about a heaping plate of cancer? 

The surgeries won’t be so bad, you lied. You’ll look good as new, you lied. You won’t need chemo, you lied. Thanks to you, all of us lie, too, awake at night, picking through the anxiety piles. Covid, cancer, democratic doom, planetary collapse.  

I did have some fun, though, 21, and not just for spite. The chemo lounge gals were a hoot. My husband was steady and loving, a mensch through it all. Family and old friends held me and each other up. Spring came, hummingbirds to the feeder, warm nights and barbeque under wisteria vines. And my writing group!  Those precious women have been there since the day Trump showed up to horrify us, five long years ago. Every week they gave me three hours or more of sanity, forgetting about you. Don’t you dare take credit for my writing group.

We wrote and we laughed, locking you out. I hiked in Colorado and the Redwoods and gathered outdoors with dear friends. By June it felt as if things were getting better, though that was the month I went bald. We could do this!  And then my beautiful niece got leukemia and later that summer, along with the horrific wildfires and heatwaves, you brought the Delta variant, sneering once again. Oh, and voter suppression, antivaxxers, floods, hurricanes, deadly tornadoes. You cackled. Untold numbers of good people died. Desmond Tutu, for God’s sake. Joan Didion. C’mon.

We made it through by grabbing hold of singular moments. Laughter, scent, ocean, trees. Life is worth it no matter what shit you sling.

Just for the sake of tradition, I’ll pull the dusty champagne flutes out of the cabinet, and pour a sip in. A toast to the end of your ass. 

“But look! “ you protest. “I brought you rain!. Pour my champagne to the top and we’ll celebrate.”

Typical. You turned that one little sip, one little rainstorm, into a nasty, five-day binge —  bringing so much snow both highways through the Sierra closed. They’re draining half-full reservoirs, just to make room for snowmelt to come. Now we can worry about floods, while you? You’re passed out on the living room floor. 

I can’t take another day of you, 21. We are Done, you hear? When I get back from Home Depot with the sandbags, you’d darn well better be gone. 

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Goodbye, Dr. Ong

Posted on March 1, 2023 by annban

A Farewell to My Oncologist

Just as people become attached to their therapists, it must be common for cancer patients to grow to love the oncologists we hate that we ever had to see. 

Like many patients, I was unhappy with my first oncologist, for reasons having nothing to do with his competence. I just…didn’t like him. I’ve known several patients who’ve “fired” their first oncologist, saying the doctor’s bedside manner wasn’t up to snuff, the staff wasn’t friendly enough, or it just didn’t feel right.

The real reason, I believe, is that we don’t want to be in an oncologist’s office at all. We most definitely do not want to hear what they need to tell us about really and truly having cancer. Choosing a different doctor gives us a sense of being in charge of a situation we did not choose.

Regardless of my reasoning for leaving that first oncologist, I’m so grateful I wound up in the office of the second, Dr. Delphine Ong. 

On my initial visit, I found her thorough, patient, and willing to take enough time to explain everything to both me and my worried husband. She was straightforward, no-nonsense, not in the least condescending or falsely upbeat. She offered the barest minimum of small talk, but I was comforted by her air of competence and the way she explained my specific situation in depth.

I was raised the daughter of an Army doctor, trained to “suck it up” and minimize ailments, to suspect that any symptom not involving actual bone sticking through skin is probably “in your head.” 

Cancer, though. As I healed from two surgeries, months of chemo and radiation, fear of recurrence settled in. I developed symptoms. There was the persistent cough (lung metastases?), rib pain (spread to the bone?), that one weird headache (the brain?). Each time, I waited, then became worried enough to make an appointment with Dr. Ong. 

“This is probably nothing,” I’d begin. 

She’d level her gaze at me, and say, “My job is to determine if it’s something or not. Your job,” she’d add, matter-of-fact, “is simply to report. Okay? You don’t have to worry about determining what it means.” 

 What a relief. My ailments may in fact have been psychologically generated, but that was okay. She understood. She ordered the tests that revealed nothing seriously amiss and, eventually, all symptoms disappeared.

After a few years, my conversations with Dr. Ong took on a new, lighthearted ease. The hormonal medication side effects were annoying but manageable. I was fit, enjoying retirement, and genuinely happy to see her every four-to-six months.  Still thorough and concerned, she’d palpate my breasts and under my arms, but we’d also chat about family, books, and the news. Instead of fearing our regular appointments, I grew to look forward to them as I would having coffee with an old friend.

Ten years as her patient seemed to fly by, and one day I “graduated” from oncology. It was time to leave Dr. Ong and let my family practitioner handle routine medical care. My awkward hug and thank-you didn’t feel like enough. As happy as I was to quit taking pills and put cancer completely out of my mind, I felt bereft at losing this relationship. Who would I ever trust this much? With whom would I share this odd sort of intimacy, rekindled just once or twice a year?

My care became like any other woman’s, with routine annual mammograms. That awful cancer experience receded in my mind until, thirteen years after my first diagnosis, a new tumor was discovered near my lumpectomy scar. I’d require chemo, again, and this time, a mastectomy. What a shock. The only good news was my reunion with Dr. Ong. Whatever Iay ahead, at least I’d have the confidence and comfort of being under her care. 

“I am very sorry to see you here,” she said, looking almost angry that my cancer had returned. I noticed more gray in her short black bob. 

 “I’m sorry to be here, too,” I said. “But it’s really great seeing you!” And I meant it.

We met during the height of Covid, and above her mask I could see the stress in her eyes. The hospital was jammed. Her patients were particularly vulnerable, and even more of them than usual would not survive.  As comforting as she’d been to me, I wished I could give her relief. 

About that time, a dear friend was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I referred her to Dr. Ong. After their first appointment my friend sheepishly told me that she didn’t think she’d go with my recommendation.“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I need someone a little more touchy-feely.” 

I urged her to go back at least once. “Nobody likes the oncologist they see first,” I said.

Over the next three years my friend has thanked me over and over for that persistence. “I love Dr. Ong,” she says.  We both do. 

And now it’s come time for Dr. Ong to take her well-deserved retirement. When I told her how grateful I was for her getting me through, she held both my hands and said, her eyes serious, “It’s my job.” No hero worship, please. 

Then I realized the burden it must be when patients credit her for their survival — what if they hadn’t survived?  Nonetheless, we offer our thanks, and wish her serenity in the knowledge that she’s held so many of us up, and so very well.

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New Venture with Amherst Writers and Artists — Words From the Heart

Posted on October 25, 2015 by annban

It’s been four years since I visited this, my first writing home after leaving my last real job. In that time I’ve written one novel and started a second, and had the fantastic good fortune of finding an agent (though not a publisher).  I’ve worked with the marvelous teacher of Dangerous Writing, Tom Spanbauer, in Portland, OR.  And continue to work on discovering my own writing voice, the one that is not hidden behind the style required of wire services or politicians or bureaucracies. It’s been challenging, and a lot of fun.

Writing a novel is isolating and frustrating and and often feels like a hopeless endeavor. I was thrilled and mostly amazed to get to the end of mine, before learning how long and tortuous is the road between “finished” and “really finished.”   To get there, I needed not only the self-discipline of writing hundreds of bad pages on my own, but the support of other writers, sometimes just other people writing in the same room, to keep on keeping on.

My friend and former partner at UPI, Jan Haag, told me about Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) and invited me to join a workshop she was leading, using the method developed by the poet and teacher Pat Schneider, author of  Writing Alone and With Others (Oxford Press).  Given my background as a journalist the method sounded, at first, both too intimidating and not rigorous enough.  Sometimes it’s within such contradictions that wisdom and joy are found.

The belief behind AWA is that everyone is a writer. We all have stories and tell them all the time, in conversations, in our heads, and sometimes on paper. A writer is someone who writes, no matter her experience, education, age or identity outside of writing.   In the method, a small group of writers gather and the workshop leader gives a writing prompt. This can be a line of poetry, an object, a photograph, really anything that might stir memory or imagination.  The group then quietly writes, from memory or imagination, whatever comes to mind. Doesn’t need to be about the prompt, but the prompt may inspire something.  The writing continues for a specific, usually short amount of time. Fifteen minutes, ten, twenty, depending on the length of the session and how many “writes” are desired during that time.  When the writing time ends, pens are put down or keyboards silent, and, one by one, the writers read what they have written.

Now, the idea of reading aloud something you’ve just written is the intimidating part, but only at first. Quickly the writers learn that they are all in this together, that everyone has faced the blank page not knowing what on earth their minds and hearts may find to put there. They are further encouraged by the AWA rules regarding feedback:  only three responses are allowed: What I liked, what was strong, what stays with me. In every piece of writing there will be some nugget that is strong, that stays with the listener. In hearing what that is, in their writing and others’, the writers learn a lot about the craft of writing. More important, they begin to discover and to strengthen their own voices as writers.

I found the process to be magical. What comes from people’s minds and hearts from a simple prompt is truly amazing. What comes from my own heart and mind has also been surprising and instructive.  The process is not therapy, but it can indeed be therapeutic. It also gives writers a starting point — new writing from which longer pieces, deeper characters, different voices, might emerge with later work.

AWA keeps writers feeling safe in their writing by demanding confidentiality of the writers. Nothing about the writing leaves the room, even in discussion with other writers. All writing is presumed fiction. There is no discussion about the subject of the writing, only the writing itself and only in context of those three responses: what I liked, what was strong, what stays with me.

I found the AWA method to be so exciting I decided to be trained to lead workshops and became certified to do so at a training in Chicago in September. I look forward to writing with others in this way as I continue growing in my own practice of writing, a practice that for me grows more satisfying every year.

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Breathe. Be Grateful. Buy Shirt.

Posted on June 23, 2011 by annban

We’ve all been told the healthy things to do when life is freaking us out, when we find ourselves unable to serenely detach from things like the computer crash, our brother’s indictment, our spouse admitting an affair.

There’s going to a quiet place, even for a few moments, to deeply, consciously breathe. There are calming mantras and gratitude lists and hugs from someone you love. Why, then, don’t we automatically turn to one of these simple refuges of peace?

Most of us have a favored alternative. We drink. We overeat, or we run and run beyond the capacity of our knees. We scour the floors, plant 300 tulip bulbs, or cook for 15 instead of our family of three. We have sex with someone we just met, or drive aimlessly down the freeway smoking the cigarettes we supposedly quit at 22.

I’ve done most of these things at one time or another but, growth being the apparent goal of our souls, stopped doing them when it occurred to me that what I wanted was not more food, wine, tulips or nicotine, not more living on the edge or running away. Clean floors and Clorox-wiped cabinets didn’t seem to be tidying the real messes in my life. What I needed was calm, a sense that all is right in my little world, or at least the belief that I am strong enough to accept the way things are.

So I dropped those irrational responses. Most of them. Most of the time. When the shit hits the fan I do try to gently turn away and breathe.

But then an urge strikes that is more primal than food or sex or compulsive cleaning, more basic than planting flowers or driving down I-5 really fast.

I buy clothes. Not for myself, but for my son.

Irrational, but there it is.

Years ago, as my father wasted away from cancer, I’d stop at a shopping center between his house and ours, loading up on bright new duds for my little boy to wear in first grade. The kid had more striped t-shirts and jeans, more sweaters and jackets than a Macy’s catalog. Not expensive, high fashion clothes, just clothes.

When it was work that threatened my sanity, I ran this drill too. As my marriage fell apart, I went into serious boy’s department overdrive.

My son couldn’t have cared less, but it made me feel settled, somehow, to know he would be warm, that he’d never want for clean socks or a sharp looking jacket that fit his lanky frame. Something was in order. Somebody looked well put together. Bright and promising and cute, too. I’d taken care of him, as best I could, even while falling apart myself.

As my boy grew older and my jobs more intense, I’d pop into Mervyn’s to visit the young men’s racks, coming home with unnecessary, unwanted jeans, shirts, and socks. Often, I’d return them. Costco was an excellent excuse for even more socks, and who could resist those polo shirts, $9.99?

He would have happily worn the same pair of jeans, the same Guns ‘n Roses T-shirt, every single day of the year. Now, as a young man in Manhattan, he’d wear the same torn shirt with the same baggy jeans if it weren’t for his fashionista friends and their eye-rolling intolerance of non-metrosexual dishevelment.

In winter, a free floating anxiety about cold places urges me to purchase a nice wool watch cap, some gloves and yes, socks, because surely he needs those thick woolen ones for that dreadful East Coast chill. And when things are seriously askew, my fight/flight instinct sends me straight to a men’s sale, to clothes I think he might think are hip but that are, of course, not.

After my own cancer diagnosis a few years ago, the online catalog boxes started arriving at my son’s apartment, from Zappos, Macy’s and J.Crew. Things got a little out of hand.

“Great sale!” I would claim. He was always grateful, or feigned gratitude, at least. I knew he knew it was I who was grateful for him.

This maternal stress response has nothing to do with a desire to shop. Mostly, I loathe shopping. I’m not an indiscriminate consumer of stuff. In the past four years, I’ve stepped foot in a big box store just once. If I must go to the Target near my house to buy, say, a baby gift, you can bet I’ll be in and out of there in 15 minutes flat.

No, the irresistible urge to purchase not just one short-sleeved cotton shirt but two, when the Manhattan heat wave hits the news – it’s strictly a mom thing. Let the shrinks have a field day but meanwhile, consider the marketing opportunities here! If there are other women out there like me – women who would not venture to Macy’s but for a primal need to clothe their offspring even well into adulthood – can you see the untapped market?

Department stores might consider discreetly putting flyers in places where people are likely under stress. In the oncologist’s office, for example, am I more likely to pick up yet another magazine featuring the benefits of a sea kelp diet and substituting free weights for sex, or a 30% off coupon for Levi’s?

Now that I’m well, I’ve almost eliminated this stress response. At least, when life gets a bit hairy, instead of sending clothes my son does not need or might not want, I now send a little cash so he can eat out or just not stress out. So one of us, at least, can be unstressed.

After last week’s MRI, for example, I expected the technician to say, “Your doctor will have results on Tuesday. Give a call Wednesday if you haven’t heard.” That’s what they usually say, something like that. Instead, after looking at my scans she said, “When’s your appointment with the oncologist?”

“I don’t have one,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “Well. Results should be to your doctor on Tuesday. But why don’t you call Monday to set up an appointment – so they can go ahead and get you in?”

I told myself it was probably just that one technician, being nice, just doing it her way, unlike the way all the others have done it in the past. Sure, that’s what it was. But just to set things right, to settle myself, I drove straight to Wells Fargo and made a little withdrawal from our savings account.

“Deposited $100 in yr account,” the text to my son read. “Buy new shirt, whatever. I love you.”

(The scans turned out fine. I think my son went out to dinner, or paid the cable bill. Inhale, Exhale…Thank you. Life is good.)

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Thanks, Arnold. Really, We’re Over It

Posted on May 21, 2011 by annban

I am considering exactly how best to word a thank-you note to Arnold Schwarzenegger for keeping his mouth shut even when he couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Not that I approve – I surely don’t, but whether or not I approve is immaterial. It’s just that, had Arnold not so egregiously lied, I wouldn’t have met some of the dearest people in my life. I wouldn’t have had lunch with those dear people today. A whole series of “what ifs” different from the ones I have lived might have followed that one “what if” – had Arnold Schwarzenegger told the truth.

Talk show callers sputter in outrage and pundits continue thumb-sucking analysis of where the bounds of privacy should be drawn in a politician’s life (can we all agree that raping a chambermaid is not okay?) Whatever. I’m with the political analysts who conclude that even in blue-state California, voters would not have chosen Arnold Schwarzenegger to be Governor had they known about his love-child. They probably would have let my former boss, Governor Gray Davis, stay in office instead.

My coworkers and I wouldn’t have stood outside the State Capitol, futilely waving “don’t do to California what you did to those women,“ signs, after the LA Times’ exhaustive reporting about the dozen or so women who’d accused Arnold of groping and harassment on the job. We wouldn’t have been out of our own jobs, “swept clean” by the man who vowed to “blow up the boxes” of government in Sacramento. (For the record, in two terms no boxes were blown up. Nothing shrank, certainly not Arnold’s ego, as the state’s deficit ballooned to $26 billion.)

In August 2003, before all the Arnold Schwarzenegger jokes started in earnest, I was at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, camping on the last night of a spectacular rafting trip. Because I only had a week off from work, I planned to hike out of the canyon by myself the next morning and another woman named Ann would hike down, taking my place with the group for the remainder of the 18-day trip. Unfortunately, the other Ann brought with her a San Francisco Chronicle, the first news we’d seen in seven days. “Recall Set for October 7,” read the banner headline. I considered staying in the canyon. Why wake up at 4 a.m. for the most grueling hike of my life, when I could imagine the nightmare back home? But I did hike, and then for six weeks I walked precincts: “No on the Recall!”

People thought Gray Davis was dull– no SAG card for him — but he was a straight arrow kind of guy. No boozing, no immoderation in anything, except seeking reelection. No one ever even hinted at him being a womanizer. When the Enron-engineered energy crisis hit, at the same time as the dot-com bust, Rep. Darrell Issa thought Davis weak enough to pump some of his car alarm fortune into the cockamamie recall election idea (“Step AWAY from the car! And Vote for Darrell Issa!”). No one took it very seriously. Then Arnold Schwarzenegger entered the race. Celebrity, money, Hollywood, Cinderella all in one. We could feel our doom, and I planned a “comfort and consolation party” for the night of the election. About two minutes after the polls closed, the announcement came.

The man who’d just a year earlier been reelected by a comfortable margin– giving his staffers the confidence to buy their first homes, start families, feel settled – now was out, and so were we. We’d worked our assess off for five years, full of hope for better schools and cleaner air and all the other things we believed were possible to achieve. That night we were dumbstruck, and scared. The old Prince song, “Money Don’t Matter” blasted from my stereo and we drank wine and vodka and ate mac and cheese. Soon, we’d scatter. Some would be unemployed for many stressful months, while others would find soft landings soon.

Things worked out eventually, as things do. California was certainly no better off, though some of the tearful souls at my mac ‘n cheese party wound up being so.

I was “rescued” by the state superintendent of schools, the nicest boss there ever was, and my co-workers from his office became and remain close friends. Many on Davis’ old team also stay in touch, bonded by the surreal experience of getting the shaft from a bodybuilding action hero-turned governor.

Today, a few of us had lunch to catch up. It was wonderful to see everyone, happy in new phases of their lives. We spent only a couple of minutes talking about Arnold and the News. We felt sorry for Maria. Sorrier for our state. We did acknowledge, though, that if it weren’t for Arnold and his lies, we might not be enjoying friendship over lunch. So maybe a thank-you is in order, from a few survivors of an election we’d rather not recall.

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It’s Judgment Day — What to Wear?

Posted on April 29, 2011 by annban

It says so right there on the billboards.  These are Southern California freeway-priced billboards, so somebody’s paid some serious dough to get the message out:

When_Will_This_End_t245

JUDGMENT DAY
May 21, 2011…  The Bible Guarantees It!

Now, there’s a slight chance these billboards were bought by a bunch of Christian high school boys, all pitching in their allowances for a common purpose. My guess is that on Friday night, May 20, these boys will take a walk with their innocent girlfriends, someplace quiet and dark. Each boy will whisper urgently, “C’mon, baby, the world’s ending tomorrow! Didn’t you see the billboards?”

It had to have been the boys, don’t you think? But what if  it wasn’t the boys at all, but someone with the inside scoop — the kind of scoop nobody in the history of the world has ever had?  If that’s the case, you can’t be too prepared.

Of course there’s no need to worry about life insurance, or getting the house cleaned or finishing that project at work. No worries about grocery shopping or paying your late taxes or buying anything for Father’s Day (sorry, dads).

Kinda liberating, isn’t it?  Except for one thing. What to wear.  Are you kidding me? Of course that’s something to be considered.  If you fear the ambulance may come when you put on torn underwear, don’t you think you ought to put a little consideration into what you put on for the End of the World? This is the greatest wardrobe dilemma of all time! I, for one, have been shopping my closet for weeks.

Those black spiky heels are normally just too damned uncomfortable, but if I’m going to be damned anyway…?  No. Once you’ve committed to the shoes, the outfit has to complement and, please, there’s no way I’m wearing a business suit or a cocktail dress to this event. Work will be so over, and provocative probably isn’t appropriate. (Also, at my age “provocative” is something more along the lines of a hijab, and I’m guessing that would raise a whole host, so to speak, of other issues.)

You might say, “I came in naked, so that’s the way I’m going out.”  But have you considered we might have to wait in some kind of line?

Pajamas? Nice ones — silk? Given the big sleep and all?  But, as I said, there could be a line.  Comfortable is probably good, but not sloppy, for heaven’s sake. Or too warm in case it’s, you know…not heaven.

Now I’m starting to think it’s not the outfit at all, but the color scheme that should drive this decision:

White – Signifying that I am pure, way down deep. Also, that I forgive everyone (that includes you, mean mom of my 8th grade boyfriend who said I was a slut when I wasn’t, even.)

Red – I’m guilty of other stuff, so everyone who agrees, forgive me.      Please?

Blue – This is all a little depressing, don’t you think?

Green – I loved those trees!

Yellow – Of course I’m afraid. It’s Judgment Day!

Black – Well, duh.

If we’re all going out together, though, maybe we should agree on a dress code. Something special, Auld Lang Syne-ish.  Shoot, now I’m back to the black spike heels.

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It’s Passover Tonight (or Why I’m Not a Poet)

Posted on April 29, 2011 by annban

It’s Passover tonight
And now we have rats
Could they eat the gefilte fish, please?

It’s Passover tonight
I’ve just sliced my finger
Instead of the last piece of bread

It’s Passover tonight
I’m packing a suitcase
Tomorrow I visit my son!

It’s Passover tonight
A poem’s due for workshop
Let Critter Control be my muse

It’s Passover tonight
My husband is fuming
A ritual – “You’ve packed way too much!”

It’s Passover tonight
His mom’s had a meltdown
Tradition for 95 years.

It’s Passover tonight
Thank God not at our house
We load up our car with the food

It’s Passover tonight
Four cups of wine
Blotto on this night required

It’s Passover tonight
We pretend we’re the ancients
Davening for hours and hours

It’s Passover tonight
A child’s at the table
For finding the matzah, five bucks

It’s Passover tonight
The brisket is tender and
Debbie! The soup is to die

It’s Passover tonight
Seder is over, but still
Cakes of chocolate and cream

It’s Passover tonight
Still laughing, singing
Dayenu. Thank you. We’re free.

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Let’s Rent Liechtenstein! Or Not

Posted on April 25, 2011 by annban

Pack a little sweater, and something nice for evening. We’ll invite 900 equally cool and adventurous people and, for just $233.33 apiece* head for the gorgeous Alpine country of Liechtenstein, nestled between Switzerland and Austria. It’s that teensy, tricky little country you always forgot on the geography test.

Anyway – this is so cool! – we can RULE the place. That’s right. The country’s renting itself out. I saw it on Fareed Zakaria GPS, then double-checked on the Internet, so it’s true.

For just $70,000 a night** we can have our very own Liechtenstein street signs, postage stamps, currency, probably even one of those arched “Gateway” signs heading into town. You know, like “Modesto –Water, Wealth, Contentment, Health,” only it would say, “Liechtenstein, Our Country Rocks!” Bordered with our names in tiny graffiti, glitter, whatever the group decides.

One country’s ingenious economy-boosting strategy could become our very own ticket to the elite of elites. We could decree stuff. We could gather all 33,000 inhabitants of the country (plus us 900 rulers) and give speeches, day and night, boring everyone to tears. We could grace every one of Liechtenstein’s 11 villages with our presence, and surely each would at least offer us a beer. There’d be capes for the guys, tiaras for the gals. For the rest of our lives we could drop at cocktail parties, “Back in the days when I was ruler of Liechtenstein.”

Are you in?

We could rent this country for noble purposes. A summit on global warming, perhaps, held fittingly on an actual summit. We could have one giant TED-like conference, with our very own brilliant speakers blowing everyone’s minds. (Plus, it’d be way cheaper to rent Liechtenstein than for all of us to attend the actual TED).

Between parties, we could figure out ways to end hunger, solve the Middle East Crisis and whatnot.

Just think, all of this for only 210 grand!*** I can’t wait to see who will come up with the dough and make the first reservation. My bet’s on rich people even though, as I said, friends, if we all pool together, it could be us. We could rent a country, people! A country surrounded by majestic purpled mountains!

No amber waves of grain, though. No Grand Canyon or Lake Tahoe, or even Modesto. No Manhattan, no Montana or Savannah.
Come to think of it, don’t we already own a country?

Imagine what we could do if everyone pitched in a little extra for our owned-not-rented United States of America, especially the ultra-rich people who are probably renting Liechtenstein as we speak. Kick in a couple percent of their billions, and they could maybe solve hunger, certainly slash the deficit, educate our young people, maybe even give us all some jobs.

I bet if they paid the tax rate they paid in the 1950s, their lifestyle wouldn’t change much. Not as much as ours would if, say, we rented Liechtenstein.

*Transportation not included. Lodging for the first 150 only.
** Three-night minimum
*** Meals not included

(c) 2011 All Rights Reserved

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Congratulations for Living!

Posted on April 21, 2011 by annban

Most all of us have experienced it at one time or another. You’re out enjoying a nice birthday dinner and suddenly six waiters in sombreros, carrying a slice of cake ablaze with candles, gather round your table, clapping and singing “Happy Birthday!” It’s embarrasing. It’s sweet. Mortifying. Aw, gosh, it’s nice to be celebrated. But get me the hell out of here.

Being a cancer survivor on a Walk for the Cure is a bit like that, only way more surreal.

There are dozens of these walks, mostly for breast cancer, and now that it’s spring, calls to participate are rolling in. Komen Walks, Avon Walks, American Cancer Society Walks and Other Walks Galore.

I’ve walked in a couple of them. You pay to register and get a T-shirt, a bag full of pink ribbon loot and, if you’ve had breast cancer, extra special recognition for still being alive. We survivors are herded together and applauded by people who dye their hair and their dog’s fur pink, people in teams with names like Kitty’s Titties and Barbie’s Brave Boobies, all out for a good cause on a happy, sunny day.
I’ve walked in a couple of these. You pay to register and get a T-shirt, a bag full of pink ribbon loot and, if you’ve had breast cancer, extra special recognition for still being alive. We survivors are herded together and applauded by people who dye their hair and their dog’s fur pink, people in teams with names like Kitty’s Titties and Barbie’s Brave Boobies, all out for a good cause on a happy, sunny day.

In one walk we were given a pink and white sash, ala Miss America, and safety pins to attach the sash to our Breast Cancer Walk T-shirts. In another, the T-shirt itself was distinctive, with “Survivor” written across the chest. We also got a pink survivor hat and at the end of the walk, special Olympic-style medallions hanging on thick grosgrain ribbons.

I don’t know how to think about all this. On the one hand, yes, I am grateful to be alive, and to celebrate life every day in big and little ways. On the other hand, wearing on the back of the “survivor” T-shirt a paper sign that says “In Memory Of,” with a list of loved ones no longer living because of this disease, felt a bit like a creepy metaphor for leaving their memories behind.

Those of us lucky enough to still be living after one, two or more bouts of cancer and its attendant bodily slicing, poisoning, skewering and frying are just that – lucky. It doesn’t mean we’ve “won,” or that we’ve been through more than anyone else who’s suffered any of a vast array of painful experiences life may offer at any time.

There’s so much festive hoopla at these walks, I felt guilty for having these “negative” thoughts, and guiltier still when I got caught up in the rah-rah mood. Some breast cancer walks are like county fairs — music, balloons, booths with pink ribbon everything you can imagine: dog kibble, yogurt, granola bars, insurance plans, key chains, sweat suits, jewelry, golf clubs, athletic shoes, breakfast cereal.
If the cost of embossing and emblazoning pink ribbons on all this merchandise went directly to researchers dedicated to finding a cure, would one be found faster? Can’t help but wonder.

I tip my pink baseball cap to all the volunteers and organizers of walks, races and other fundraisers aimed at ending a disease that afflicts the lives of some 207,000 women and 1,900 men in this country a year. It’s heartening to see people gathering outdoors by the thousands in order to “do something” to benefit a cause. And nobody’s better at promoting their cancer cause than breast cancer survivors. There’s no walk that I know of to support either of the cancers that killed my parents or the cancer that took three of my very close friends. If there were, would it make a difference?

To support my sister survivors and those who will follow us, I write checks directly to organizations with a single focus on ending the disease of breast cancer. I work on a hotline for women who are newly diagnosed, scared, or confused and ill treated by our health care system. When it comes to walking, though, I’ll be on the beach, looking forward to another birthday.

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Now Not Appearing on Aisle Three

Posted on April 9, 2011 by annban

They’re messing with us at the grocery store again. According to the New York Times, marketers have discovered that messy stores make people buy more stuff.

Store managers had already mastered the trick of moving stuff around so that just when you’ve got your grocery list routine down, the cereal is where the soup used to be, and you wind up buying soup and cereal, along with the chips that just caught your eye.

At big box stores like Costco, they make items disappear altogether just when you’ve become addicted to them. That delicious raspberry-chipotle barbeque sauce? Gone, but there’s a three-pack of Orange-mustard, Spicy Kiwi and Caramel Poppyseed, in quart jars. Yuck, but maybe….? You buy those instead.
Now stores large and small are cluttering up their aisles and jamming their floor space with more stuff.

Face it, in all areas of life we are becoming like 5-year-old T-ball players, distracted by the dandelion or bumblebee as the softball whizzes past. The pull of the Iphone, the ping of the text, the crawl on the TV screen – we succumb to these things even when supposedly listening to a loved one, completing a project at work, driving a car. Most of us are hopelessly distracted. As shoppers, we’re doomed. Can you see the marketing opportunities?

Piling more stuff in the middle of the grocery aisles – enough so we feel obligated to buy some of it, having just knocked 27 boxes of rice pilaf mix off the pile with our carts while texting – this is genius, yes, but only one of many possibilities.

1) If shoppers believe goods are less expensive when they’re crammed into extra aisles and jumbled into big messy bins, imagine what they’ll think if some—but not all – of these goods are damaged! Store managers, go ahead and dent a few cans, tape some boxes shut, tear a couple of labels . Customers will grab up all the undamaged items, knowing they’re getting such a deal!

Completely unrelated items should be mixed in the same bins. If a baby toy is in a pile of handbags and men’s underwear, it must really be a good buy!

Grocers could also vastly increase the amount of impulse buying at their stores by using basic principles of set design:

1) Into each aisle, create a false floor that can be lowered and covered over with a panel identical to the floor.

2) Stack groceries high on the false floor, and when no one is in the aisle, make the stack disappear!

3) Raise the floor again with different items in the stack. Eventually customers will think they’ve lost their minds. They may go through the aisle multiple times, both to check their sanity and to grab items from the stack. Never knowing if the items will be there the next time, they’ll grab them while they can!
We customers could revolt, and do all of our shopping online. We’d click only the items on our list. Then we’d see that customers who bought those items also bought…

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