To Give is to Receive

This holiday season, David and I are participating in a couple of Hanukkah Pollyannas.

I think they are eons of fun, especially these days when the brainstorming can be quick and easy online, and the shopping can be completed in a fraction of the time and with much less energy than it would take to check out things in person. Sending the gift directly to the recipient without having to wrap it up and take to the post office is icing on the cake.

Given that I have a good amount of free time on my hands, I don’t mind turning the search for the perfect gift into a project; however, I can see a busier person or the non-shopper wanting to streamline the task.

Regardless of the scenario, I think there is an effortless and very valuable gift out there that people seem to either overlook or have very strong yay or nay opinions about: gift cards.

To me, they are a fabulous option. They are sold everywhere, and they can always be put to good use.  It would be highly unlikely that someone would react to one by thinking “What a dumb gift,” or “Gee, that was a waste; who am I going to give this to?”

David, on the other hand, thinks gift cards are dressed up cash and that this type of gift should not be permitted with a Pollyanna or it will seem like everyone is just shuffling money from one person to the next.

To that, I say...So what? Is that a bad thing?

He is a believer that people should choose something personal and creative, and while that’s a nice idea, it may not be practical. Even though we live together, I still don’t always know what to buy for him. But, if I think I know what someone would like, or I intentionally want to give him or her something specific, that’s a different story.

I reminded David that he seems to appreciate when my kids get him Lowe’s gift cards to put toward whatever he’d want there, and he agreed they’ve come in very handy since he is always there.  

Exactly my point.

It’s true that a gift card may not be much fun to pick out, or be one of the more innovative gifts to give, but it leads me to wonder...

Who exactly is a gift designed to please: the person choosing it, the person receiving it, or both?

P.S. My favorite stores are...

You’ve Got (A Lot Of) Mail

I have a love-hate relationship with my email.

I absolutely love that no matter what day of the week it is, regardless of the time, or what my mood might be, I’m going to be showered with a lot of attention...

...Via my inbox.

Even though most of what I get, perhaps as high as 95%, is a combination of information out the wazoo, promotional offers, and requests for donations – and has nothing to do with me personally – I am OK with that.

I am thrilled that without having to search for material, it is easy to keep updated with news and opinion pieces that touch on my identity as a woman, a Jew, a liberal, a Garden State resident and so much more. These emails force me to open my eyes and think about the universe beyond my own cocoon. On the flip side, I am often tempted by and succumb to the deals advertised on promotional emails which I don’t need and never would have known about had I not been on everyone’s distribution list.

For years, I’ve tried to keep up with the volume of email by periodically deleting and unsubscribing so that I wouldn’t be inundated with more than I could handle, but lately the number of incoming emails has multiplied: what started as 10-25 a day way back is now a minimum of 250 or 300, accumulating to a couple thousand in no time at all. Last week, I had an ENORMOUS number of emails sitting in my inbox, the majority of which I hadn’t opened.

While I have tried with limited success to prevent a burgeoning email situation, I’ve also done poorly when it comes to maintaining order in my portion of cyberspace. It’s a field I know little about and am fine keeping it that way, given that David provides all the tech advice and help I could possibly need; however, with that personalized service does come periodic lectures about inbox organization. These discussions always make me cringe because they require me to take on a more aggressive housekeeping mentality.

One day last week, I got a Google notification – an email, no less – which stated that I am running out of storage. I wanted to quickly delete and pretend I had never received it...so I did! But then I thought better of it and fessed up to David, because I knew if I didn’t tell him in a timely manner about this potential problem, I’d end up paying for it at a later date which would include his saying with some attitude that I didn’t see it because I had way too many emails to comb through.   

So, I held my breath and showed him the crazy message I had just received, assuming he’d figure out what needed to be done. It was no surprise that he came up with a solution, but it wasn’t a simple one. He ended up spending a big part of the morning deleting 108K...yes...108,000 emails, with me on edge the whole time that he’d trash something I'd want to have later. Of course, I’d probably never know, in all that inbox chaos.

I am relieved that this Google warning is no longer looming over me, and David is revved up that I might join his team of savvy email users, but I told him...not so fast. Keeping up with my email as I understand it should be handled feels like it will be an endless and tedious process, and I’m not sure I’m up to the task. 

In the end, I know it is to my advantage to keep things in order since, as time goes on, I’m more and more dependent on my online world.

In fact, my messy closet is probably less impactful than my out-of-control mailbox.

Then and Now

Grandbabies are one of the most incredible delights that life offers older folks like us if we are lucky…and, admittedly, David and I are, in this area. We get to babysit 2 of our 4 grandkids – Eliana and Ethan – every week and have extended visits with our 2 daughters: Allison (baby Zoey) and Lauren (baby May), both of whom live a distance away.  

These are built-in opportunities for me to relive some of my happiest years when I was in my 20s and 30s and home full-time with my little ones.  

Some of my favorite memories involve all the times we walked to a local playground, with me pushing the kiddies in the stroller. When we’d leave home, I’d always wonder if I’d make it the 15 or 20 minutes to our destination without them getting antsy and requiring snacks or any other action, such as carrying one in my arm or bending down to hold his/her hand (while also navigating the stroller). All of these maneuvers were typical especially for Allison, who preferred climbing out instead of kicking back and enjoying the sights.

At the playground I’d run around with the little munchkins, come home for lunch, play outside in the afternoon (and conk out soon after the last one went to bed). For a woman in her 30s, all of these repetitive movements like bending, kneeling, crawling, lifting, and running after the little ones weren’t a big deal, although in thinking about it now, I wonder how I did it then day after day, year after year. 

It is an altogether different story for this 60+-year-old. Standout moves above and beyond the usual stuff include, for 4-year-old Eliana, lifting her above my head for a couple of minutes (or was it just one, or 30 seconds?) to reach the monkey bars and walk with her in this position while she grabbed for each rung.  

For 1-year-old Zoey, a couple of our walks in the stroller this past week required me to hold her upright while she dangled midway on my body as she pushed the handle, instead of sitting in the darn thing. While this may sound like no big deal, and you may wonder why I am talking about this, I say Try this move! It ain’t easy! I had to take a Motrin before bed. And the next morning.

The biggest difference between then and now is that, in the past, I never gave thought to the physical requirements of the job but today, my mind lets me know that my body may struggle to deliver.