The Colorblind Test

Okay. I have to start this article by stating upfront that a man who can cook like the man who cooked what I'm eating today can basically do no wrong.

But, he is slightly colorblind. The first time I noticed was shortly after our wedding. We were on a trip to see another wedding, and one of us mentioned something about a backpack worn by a person ahead of us in line. I called it dark green. He said it was black. I clarified that I meant that dark green one. "It's black," he told me.

"I mean that really, really dark green one." Then, I blurted out, "You really can't see that that's green!?"

The look on his face told me I'd pushed a sensitive subject too far. I soon learned that he wasn't colorblind.

But his mother was. He told me a story about how she had worn a certain outfit for years. She said it was blue, but it was actually periwinkle. So, he really wondered about her ability to see color.

Then came the day when I discovered that Paul couldn't tell the difference between my lavender scrubbie and his light blue scrubbie hanging in the shower. "Yours is on the left," I made sure he knew.

Other blue/lavender situations arose. Sometimes, he would take the objects in question over to look at them closely in better light. Sometimes, he would say, "Okay, I can see now that that's a little bit blue." Often, though, we just had to agree to disagree. He was so confident in his ability to see color well that he sometimes made me wonder about mine.

But, as a firstborn and an only son, he came by some measure of arrogance naturally.

After all, I couldn't see that band of green above the horizon that he often talked about. Nor could I see green in the gray and pink tiles in our bathroom. He once bought a gray shirt on sale, thinking it was green, and was disappointed when I told him it was gray. Later on, he would mystify the children by sending them around and around the house, looking for the "green recycling bin."

"What are you doing?" I would finally ask.

"Dad said to put this in the green bin."

I pointed to the gray one, and they would look at me, puzzled. "Don't worry about it," I'd say.

The clincher was when he took the main bathroom toilet outside in the sunlight to prove to the children that it was pink.

It wasn't, but we're still fighting about that one. We did used to have a pink toilet in that bathroom that matched the pink tub and pink sink. Hey, this house was built in the sixties--what can I say? But we replaced the toilet years ago. He doesn't remember that. Or, sometimes, he remembers that we replaced it with another pink toilet.

There was one time, when colorblindness charts were present at a doctor's office, when his confidence cracked a bit and he admitted he couldn't see all of the numbers in the bubbles.

But, overall, he's continued to insist that he can see colors correctly, and it was years before I could convince him to stop wearing a red and green floral tie with a blue and yellow striped shirt. "The tans match," he'd say.

Sometimes, he will ask me for help in choosing a tie. We usually get through this by my suggesting good, better, best.  Or telling him, "There's nothing in that tie that matches the blue of your shirt." Sometimes he takes my advice, and sometimes he doesn't. The subject has been pretty much closed--from both sides--for some time.

So, last weekend, I was slightly amazed when he wanted to take a colorblindness test he'd seen on Facebook.  Honestly, I just stayed out of it.  The task was to line up four rows of colors as they went through very slight variations from red to green, from green to blue, from blue to lavender, and from lavender to green.  I looked at those rows and thought, "Good luck."

He reported his score, in the low 100's, a few minutes later.  Zero was perfect, he explained, and the worst score was something in the mid-1500's.  "So, a slight problem," I assessed.

"I can't wait for you take this test!" he exclaimed, to my surprise.  "And the kids!"

"You think the kids have a problem with colorblindness?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I'm just curious to see how they do." 

He asked me again the next morning, so I took the test.  I knew in the back of my mind that if I didn't get a zero, my credibility would be on the line in all future tie conversations.  Even if I got a two, I thought, when I told him a tie didn't have purple, he would be thinking, "But maybe it's that two percent she can't see!"

So, after I got my rows lined up, I went over the test again. Was this red rosier than the one next to it? Was this greener than that one? All the way through. After I pushed the SUBMIT button, I called out to Paul. "Do you want to come and see my score?" I thought it would be very prudent of me to be sure he saw it himself, with his own perfect eyes.

"What'd you get--a two?" he scoffed.

He stood over me, looking at the screen where my score, zero, stood.  I didn't say a word.

But, he did, throughout the day. "It's a mourning process," he said. I looked at him incredulously. I wonder what it would be like to go through life honestly, truly believing you had no natural flaws. Mere mortals like myself will never know.

"Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses," I said. I really couldn't see why that particular test was such a revelation to him. But, apparently, it was. "It's not like it's a character flaw," I pointed out. "It's not something you can help. You just don't have as many cones in your eyes as you should. What's to be ashamed of? It's not a sin."

So, he posted his score with the words, "Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born colorblind?" That was cute, and I took heart.

At bedtime, he was saying, "I know I can see colors. See? That's a blue, and. . ."

"Paul," I said, gently. "Your diminishment is less than ten percent on that scale."

Then, he took heart. "Thanks for putting it that way," he said, and we smiled at each other.

He knows very well I can't sing.

For Thomas

The other day, I remembered that it was the birthday of an old friend. Not that he was old--not even close! But, that he was my friend over twenty years ago.  It must be that long since I last heard from him, but I've been catching up with old friends lately, so I decided to try to find him again.  I've looked for him, briefly, before, from time to time, with no results.  He wasn't a high-tech type of guy. I've never found him on Facebook.

But this time, when I Googled his full name, I found him right away.  Full name, right age, along with the city we'd both lived in at the time.  I recognized the names of his mother and brother, which were listed there, too.  It was definitely my Thomas.  He went by Thomas, not Tom.  He nicknamed me Jelly Bean, and I called him Teddy Bear a few times.

And, I saw something else there, with his full name and right age and city and his mom and brother.  I saw the year of his death.

I wasn't entirely surprised by this.  I've wondered sometimes if he were still around.  When I knew him, he had already overcome cancer. Twice.  

I wondered if that had been what had happened to him, or something else.  Had he ever married? Was he alone when he died? I wanted to know more.

And, I realized when I looked back on it that, for several years, he was the best friend I'd had. He was always there for me.  He would come over and hang out, listen to me complain about my ex-husband or help me take my young children to the state fair, tell me which boyfriends were psycho, help me clean out my storage room.  He fit himself neatly into my plans or my time.  He listened to and became whatever I needed him to hear or be.  Being a single mom can be lonely, and he got that.  Maybe I was his best friend at that time, too. I think so.

He had wanted our relationship to be more than it was.  And he was so good to me, so generous and patient, so kind and constant, he really deserved that.  But I didn't see him as a potential partner. From the start, he had not seemed to me like my type.  I'm short--and he was not shorter, but I'm pretty sure he weighed less.  He was younger.  I was married and divorced, with children. He'd had a hard-knock life, while I'd been very sheltered.   I had a college degree and a career.  He had not finished high school, and went from job to job, and apartment to apartment. He wasn't as stable in his personal life as he was as my friend.  I had to consider what bringing him fully into my life would be like for my kids.

I had understood and accepted his need to move on and out of my life. From time to time, I've missed him, in a wistful, he-would-understand way.  But I've understood that our parting was for both of our own good.

Even though decades have passed and I never really expected to see him again, and even though I had rejected him for what I'd thought were good reasons, after seeing a "year of death," I cried.

I cried from knowing that he is really gone, but I think more from seeing how scant is anything that is left of him.  He lived, he breathed, he walked and worked and socialized and laughed.  He had a crazy, cackly laugh that makes me smile as I recall it.  He loved greatly.  He was kind and constant and wise.  Gentle and unassuming.  He lived a simple life and didn't impose his needs, thoughts, or ways on anyone.

One site said he was dead; another gave a phone number.  After hesitating for a while, I called the phone number.  When we had been friends, his phone number had changed almost as often as his address had, and, when I would find it again, I would call him up and ask him, "What's your phone number?" and smile at his great, cackly laugh.  

So, I dialed the phone number and waited to hear his voice again.  I planned to ask, "What's your phone number?" and see if I could hear that same great laugh.

But the number had been disconnected.

The next day, I tried again to find out more.  From what I knew of him and his family, I supposed there might have been no one who had paid for an obituary to be printed.  But I found an obituary that was exactly 1.5 lines long in a newspaper in a state I'd never known he lived in.  I found out where his body had been disposed of.  I supposed he had probably been, for lack of funds, cremated and released to family.   Even though I anticipated these details, as each was confirmed to me I cried again. 

He was here on earth for a few decades, but there seems to be hardly anything left of him.

And so, I cried.  And I prayed for him--that he can know that I remember him, that he mattered to me, that he did make an impact.  That I appreciate all he did, and was, and gave, and taught.

I can do nothing to ease whatever he went through in his short life, or to help him now.  All I can do is remember him and write something down about him that is longer than 1.5 lines.  

Because every person is worth more than that.

And, even if it cannot be fully returned, a gift of love is something to appreciate.

Rosh Hashanah Dinner

I have to tell you about our Rosh Hashanah dinner.  No, we're not Jewish, but our cook celebrates all the holidays around the world that he wants to celebrate.  At any given moment, I can come home from work to find out that it is Bastille Day or Bolivian Independence Day. Makes for an exciting life.

The dinner?  Well, the dinner was marvelous.  Juicy chicken breasts with orange-honey glaze; challa bread; roasted potatoes, fresh kale, pear, and feta cheese salad.  Bienenstich cake.

It was the timing that was tricky.  

I had spent my third day in a row in abject misery.  Our new air conditioning unit at work was fried, and inside temperatures had climbed to above ninety degrees.  (Yes, I did actually bring a thermometer from home, and I did actually check.)  After sauteeing in that for nine hours a day, three days in a row, I was not at my most patient self.  It took about six hours at home before the sound of the electric fan that had been set up next to my cubicle stopped rattling my brain.

I felt ready for bed the minute I got home.  I peeled off my sticky top and skirt and got right into my nightgown.  Then, I ran into a little naked person in the hall.  "You're naked," I pointed out, rather brilliantly.  

This set him off in peals of laughter.  "I just had a bath," he said.  My husband had my kids bathing before dinner, which is not the usual schedule but turned out to be ingenious, as we had dessert after bedtime.

My husband apologized that he was behind schedule.  He'd had to stop everything, he said, to help a daughter with her homework.  "Her geography teacher told her false information," he said, "and I had to get her to unbelieve it."

Her assignment was to make a map of our capital city.  "Her teacher told her to make the city center the east doors of the temple," he explained. "So, everything she was doing was like a half-block off on her grid and she couldn't make it work right."  City center is actually in the middle of an intersection.  Everyone knows that, we thought.

"And he told her," he said with some disgust, as he whipped up an egg-white coating for the challa bread, "that the Mormons made that the city center because they believe when Jesus comes back, that will be the spot on which he will stand." 

"I've never heard that before in my life," I said.

"I know!" he agreed.  "It seems like if people hear something once, they perpetuate it whether it's true or not." 

"It's easy for people to believe whatever they hear about a minority group," I agreed.

Dinner seemed hours away, and I went to settle down with the newspaper and de-stress.

My little boy reminded me that it was Back-to-School Night.

Yippee.  My favorite.

"Will you go and see our art project?" he asked, hopefully.  "It's really neat."

So, before dinner was ready, I was pulling my clothes back on and heading back to the school. We ate hurriedly during the half-hour between sessions--when they're trying to force you to go to a PTA meeting. Then we hurried back again for the presentations in the other kids' classes.

I had told my husband that I wanted to lose a few pounds before my upcoming surgery, as I anticipate that it might make me gain weight, and I would hate to go up from here.  But it seemed every single menu item had sugar in it.  Even the meat and vegetables.  

"You have to eat sweet things at the beginning of the year so that you will have a sweet year," he explained.

We're not Jewish!  It's not our new year!

By the time I was cramming the almond-studded cake into my mouth an hour after my preferred bedtime, I felt soggy with fatigue.  Paul was also tired, but triumphant in his accomplishment. "You know you do this for yourself, don't you?" I ventured to ask.

"Yes," he admitted.  "And I had a lot of fun doing it.  I just got behind because she needed help with her homework."

As worthwhile a facet of parenting as making a fancy dinner, I would say.

Romance Meets Reality

When a friend of mine got flowers at work, everyone, of course, admired them.

This put her in an awkward position.

It is nice to receive flowers at work when it's your birthday, anniversary, or Valentine's Day.  I have been such a recipient, and it can be fun to be all, "Yes, there is someone who cares about me enough to do this."

But, what if the flowers are an apology for bad behavior?  A make-up request after a fight?  A ploy to manipulate?  What is a girl to do?  Say, "No, it's not my birthday--my boyfriend cheated on me and thinks this will fix everything"?

I think not.

My friend and I agreed that there should be some rules established about when it's okay to send flowers to work.  Mostly, we decided, it should be when the occasion is positive, or at least neutral.

I once rejected flowers delivered to my home because they had been sent by a psycho who was trying to get me back.  He had tried to control what I wore and read.  He had tried to isolate me from my friends.  In casting aspersions upon my faultless father, he had tried to isolate me from my family. In casting aspersions upon my spiritual leader, he had tried to isolate me from my support system.  He was moving in psychologically on taking over my home and my children.

It was over, in no uncertain terms, and he had been clearly told that.  Gifts had been returned. Conversation had ended. 

I am glad that big box of flowers had not been delivered to my place of employment, because I did not feel just throwing them away would suffice, although that, in and of itself, would surely have made a scene memorable to co-workers.

No.  I called the company and asked them to pick up the flowers and notify the sender that they had been rejected.  He had started following me, and I wanted him, not just my wastebasket, to know that his advances were not at all welcome.  That I was not going to be bought. That my head was never going to turn in his direction again.

Another time, I received apology flowers from someone who had called me a bad name.  Although the roses were firm and fragrant--lovely in every way, every one of them repeated that word to me whenever I looked at them.  So, they probably did not have their intended effect.

It can be tricky, knowing when to send and when to receive.  A friend once talked me into giving a man another chance based on the expense of the two dozen long-stemmed red roses he'd sent from a high-end florist one Valentine's Day.  The second chance, it turned out, was a bad idea.

My favorite time receiving flowers was when we had just moved to a new house we could barely afford and, on top of that, I had just had a baby.  My husband brought me an armful of lovely white flowers while saying these words: "Don't worry--they were really cheap."  That sums up both halves of marriage, doesn't it? Romance meets Reality.