Throwing That Garage Door Wide Open

"Don't worry," said Jackie. "If we happen to lose power during the procedure, the machine will release itself."

Of all the things, I may have been concerned about prior to my first mammogram--dull pain, crushing pain, stabbing pain-- being stuck in the imaging machine, in total darkness wasn't even on the radar.

"Yeah, that's happened to me before," she continued. "I asked the patient--are you okay?! And she said yes. That it had released."

Good to know.

I'm forty now. I've officially crossed into the 40-64 age bracket, with all the medical tests that go with it--including the much maligned baseline mammogram. Why does such a life saving procedure get such a bad rap? I was actually kind of curious to find out. So, here I stood, undressed from the waist up, opening in the front, ready for the festivities to begin.

When I booked the appointment, the woman on the other end immediately went into counseling mode. "I'm not scared," I interrupted. "I sort of like living."

Apparently not everyone feels this way. She told me about her neighbor, who refuses to have a mammogram. Sad stuff really. And you can probably place some blame on the analogies that are supposed to lighten the situation, like that slamming garage door bit.

At my appointment, Jackie and I became friends pretty quickly, as she confidently manipulated my breasts into position. And then, because it was the only reference I knew, I waited for the garage door to slam.

And waited.

And waited.

Luckily it never happened.

Indeed there was pressure. How else can you expect to squash breasts into abnormally flat pancakes. (They were. I looked. I don't advise that part.) And naturally, having a body part caught in a vise-like grip for any length of time is little out of the ordinary.

But outright pain? Nope.

Jackie, after piquing my interest by complimenting my pecs and youthful glandular tissue, gave me a look-see at one of the images. And then the party was over as soon as it began. A quick high-five of her latex gloved hand and I was back to my day already in progress.

To me, the test was actually quite satisfying. It provided a small peek inside my body, to prove that what I've been doing to keep myself strong all of these years, might just actually be working.

And for you? Maybe it's time to stop believing everything you hear.

What's YOUR motivation?

Andre never asks me to go anywhere.

And this is the reason, I wound up in the rafters at the Dunkin' Donuts Center on Monday, waiting to Get Motivated! After almost twenty years of forced chick flicks, I owed him.

Andre got sucked in by the appearance by retired Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz.

Fittingly, we missed him.

But we did manage to catch Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Bill Cosby, Mary Buffett and Terry Bradshaw, with varying degrees of interest and entertainment, as well as quite an education.

We arrived around 11am, with my cynical guard already high, for good reason. Red flag number one: The on-line ticketing system, makes it appear like you can't check out without purchasing a $4.95 workbook, to go with your $1.95 ticket. Newsflash--you can. Just put in a zero for quantity.

Red flag number two: Attached to the ticket is a 'lottery form' for a chance to win prizes like an ipad and $10,000. I made the mistake of keeping blank form attached to our tickets, and was told by a Dunkin' Donuts employee that I had to fill it out at the lottery table before I could go in.

"I have to fill it out?"

"Yeah."

While I'm stepping aside to tear the lottery form off our tickets, put them in my purse, and enter through another line, one of the Get Motivated! staff approaches and in a Stepford wife kind of way and says, "Don't you want a chance to win $10,000?"

"No."

And to her little coy shrug, I continued the conversation in my head. Listen, you already have my name, e-mail, and mailing address. I think we're even. Plus, I'm not even convinced that you're going to give away any prizes today.  

Inside, the stage is set up like it's fight night. And on it is someone, not part of the advertised bill, in the midst of an infomercial for his product to crack the stock market. He's literally crawling on his belly on the stage. Red arrows. Green arrows. Four single moms with high school age kids 'randomly' chosen from the audience to illustrate how simple the tools are.

At the conclusion, he's selling $99 spots to his two day financial seminars, down from a high of $1200, along with the 'limited' red nylon bag that'll get you a free lunch. And now it's a mob scene. People are swarming to sign up. And if you missed that op, there were two different money making workshops with sign-ups in the afternoon session, for $49 and $29 respectively.

I left motivated alright--motivated to uncover the driving force of Get Motivated!

I'm going with desperation.

According to the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for Providence, as of August 2011, was 10.4%. Next up on the tour? Nashville, with an unemployment rate of 8.5%. Then onto LA: 12.7% unemployment. Followed by Ontario, CA: 14.1% unemployment.

Sensing a pattern?

Oh, sure, I'm sure that one of the kind, gentle, evangelical, bible loving spirits on the Get Motivated! team would say they're sent to cities with high rates of unemployment in order to rally the downtrodden, help them succeed and spread God's love. I mean, didn't the Gospel singer in between acts communicate their innate goodness?

But the truth is, without their ability to spin or choose places where a sense of hopelessness, far outweighs common sense, Get Motivated! would not be in business. Besides, I'm not overly impressed with their sensitivity factor.

Take the pyrotechnics, for instance, used to add excitement while introducing acts on stage. Um, did 'ya get the memo that you're in a city/state that experienced an incredible nightclub tragedy less than ten years ago--started by indoor pyrotechnics?  Classy touch.

Or the slight overestimation of the number of attendees by the organizers by, oh, 4,000. The city used this info to delay school by two hours. But hey, you don't need a quality education to Get Motivated! In fact, things probably work a whole lot more smoothly if you don't have one.

As for the $10,000 winner? I really hope that she got her money. They were still looking for her when the event wrapped for the day, but I couldn't wait around.

I was overdue for a shower.

Who Dat?

Last week I got an invite for Dawn Brown.

Who?

Exactly.

I'm tempted to return it to sender, adopting the same method that I use to deal with telemarketers who call and ask for Mrs. Brown.

"Nope, sorry, no Mrs. Brown here." Click.

But somehow I don't think the karma that comes with making a point to family is worth it.

Maybe they just forgot. It has been over twelve years since I made a formal announcement, complicated with the fact that I'm the only rebel in my family who has gone this route. Or maybe they're just tied deep in tradition and can't comprehend any other way.

Regardless, it's all my fault. I should have just bowed to convention and taken my husband Andre's name, back in 1999, when I got married. But call me crazy, after twenty-seven years, I was quite attached to my name--in its entirety.

Andre's thoughts on the matter? "We don't have to have the same last name for me to know you're my wife." Amen to that. Now if we could just work on the rest of the world.

Like Andre's grandfather who said, "Now, why did you have to go and do that for?"

But he gets a pass. He's 80.

Or the former friend who accused me of disrespecting Andre's honor.

She gets a pass too. Far from 80, but she is divorced, on marriage number two, and has decided to honor husbands, past and present, by keeping both of their surnames. 

No such scandal here.

My name? Easy. Same as it ever was. It's Andre's name that I'm really worried about; he's increasingly being addressed as---Mr. Keable.

And responding.

Forty is NOT the new twenty--Part II

"Happy Birthday, Baby."

I'll admit it. This 40th year o' mine has been more than memorable so far. First, rocker and outstandingly beautiful spirit, Lenny Kravitz, peered over his sunglasses, and uttered his coolest of birthday wishes, while signing my VIP Today show pass.

Then we (André and I, not Lenny), checked into the Jersey Shore.

Literally.

As any true Rhode Islander knows, the MTV casting of Johnston's own Pauly D for their reality show was no accident. Indeed, the Shore vibe is alive and well within our borders. But, trust, the sheer number of string bikini, headband wearing, twentysomethings waiting to check into what was clearly THE party hotel of Atlantic City, has never been seen in these parts--not even on the Hill, on a warm Saturday night in the summer.

It was almost enough to give a girl some serious culture shock--if it hadn't been so darn amusing.

Sure, I graduated from URI, where the joke was that New Jersey residents were so numerous, that they should be the ones paying in-state tuition. But I don't remember ever experiencing an over-the-top scene quite like this, where everyone in view, outside of me and the desk clerks, seemed to be working the same hyped up stereotype, that, until that point, I assumed was only for the benefit of the cameras on tv.

I was so wrong.  

Thankfully, I was wearing my straw fedora. It was really the only thing I had going to nudge my appearance a bit closer to respectably hip, and a bit further away from the 'house-mother-reporting-to-govern-the-frat-house' reality of the scene. And André, naturally, didn't make things much better once he arrived in the lobby with our bags.

"I feel like someone's dad coming in to chaperone the party," he said. Thanks. Alot.

But, lucky for us, things were not as they appeared.

At 11pm, we came back to the room, not to retire, but to change shoes on our way back out for a bit of salsa dancing. That once happenin' party on our hall? (The same one that earlier had me testing out the air conditioner to make sure that the white noise of the fan, combined with my ear plugs, would muffle the festivities enough to ensure a good night's sleep.) It was in total meltdown mode, with some dude crying about the demise of friendships and threatening to catch the bus home.

Wow. I do believe that we just punked off youth.

Again.

Surprise!

I like surprises.

In concept. But in actuality, my practical Virgo tendencies tend to need to know what's coming next, you know, so I can plan for it. And that sort of defeats the purpose. But this weekend, the surprises just kept coming--good, bad and ugly--and there was no where to hide.

Surprise! There's a hurricane coming, but your husband is insistent on taking you to Mosiac on Saturday night, and because folks are hunkering down, for most of the meal, you're literally the only patrons.

Surprise! Because it's almost your birthday, you get a free refill on sangria--take a lesson from that Chili's--a beautiful dessert platter, and a card signed by the entire kitchen staff.

Surprise! Your husband keeps checking the time, then after a phone call made in the men's rest room, you go on an extended tour of the city of Providence, from the West End to the East Side and back again.

Surprise! Clearly you're on some sort of stall mission, stopping for a drink at Temple, which has sadly lost its downtown cool, and is way too brightly lit for a bar.

Surprise! There's a bunch of really cool people inside your house, who have decorated, shopped, cooked and come out to help you celebrate your birthday a week early--in the hours before a hurricane--and have the advance language skills to sing to you in English and Spanish.

Surprise! The best man from your wedding, has come from NYC, and his planned overnight visit has quickly blown into an unexpected weekend getaway, for him.

Surprise! Your guests are raving about the convenience of the now empty bags filled with ice cubes inside your freezer, that are supposed to save your chicken in the event of a power outage.

Surprise! Your husband has used cash you've been saving for vacation to cover all party expenses.

Surprise! That sneaky Puerto Rican sangria snuck right up on you, again.

Surprise! It's 5:30am, and you realize that you forgot to fill the bathtub with water, and now there's two men in your house that potentially need to flush the toilet, and you only have enough stocked water and canned goods for one of them.

Surprise! It's 5:35am, and your husband is outside in his underwear during a tropical storm, filling buckets with a hose.

Surprise! Your brand new central air compressor got pushed off its platform by the wind, but luckily there's another strong man on the ready to help.

Surprise! While three out of five households in the state lose electricity, yours is not one of them.

Surprise! You mostly survived.