I was in the doctor’s waiting room recently and, as always, there’s a variety of people anxiously awaiting their turn to see a physician.

On the couch to my left was a young couple. Both husband and wife were glued to their cell phones, seldom talking, but I’ve come to accept that as the new norm because they were probably texting each other.

On the next row over, a 60-something-year old man in designer clothing was filling out paperwork while his stylishly dressed wife waited next to him.

She kept tossing her hair back – that’s what caught my attention – and I watched them for a while as they went back and forth to the nurse’s desk.

She was holding something in her hand the whole time they walked around, and I realized it was a giant container of gum.

Sure enough, she was chomping away, and she did so the whole time we were all there – over three hours. Everybody, I realized, has their own way to cope with stress.

A middle-aged couple came in, and it was obvious they’d been in a motorcycle accident. The man was limping, carrying two scuffed-up helmets, and both he and his wife had huge bandages on their forearms and elbows.

Two EMTs accompanied them, and it wasn’t hard to figure out an ambulance had transported them to the office, not their Harley.

While I was busy observing other people, I kept hearing someone burping, and burping loudly.

My mom reared me to be polite, so I didn’t turn around at first. But after a half hour of non-stop burps, I looked to see who was belching with abandon.

It was an elderly woman, probably in her 80s, and she hadn’t a care in the world about venting the gas in her tummy.

She’d open her mouth, let out a loud burp and go right back to visiting with her son while eating a take-out dinner.

At first, I was embarrassed for her. It’s considered bad manners to burp that loudly in public without saying “excuse me.”

Maybe she didn’t realize what she was doing, but when she started issuing orders to the grown man and woman accompanying her, there wasn’t a doubt she had all her faculties.

And, in between the orders, she continued to belch without once saying “excuse me.”

Maybe she had the right idea.

At her age, who cares what anybody else thinks about a normal bodily function? She obviously didn’t, and she didn’t hesitate a minute when the nurse asked if she needed anything.

“An Alka-Seltzer,” I thought to myself.

“A blanket,” she said. “It’s cold in here.”

The woman was right – it was freezing in that waiting room, but she was the only one with enough nerve to ask for what she wanted.

A few minutes later, the nurse gently covered her with a warmed blanket that she settled into with, of course, a few more belches and burps.

Maybe we need to stop apologizing for things we have no control over. I find myself apologizing to people all the time when they walk in front of me, when I have to squeeze past them in the movie theater or when I do something I’m not sorry for but I feel I have to offer an apology.

The next time I feel a belch coming on, I’ll see if I can let loose and not say “I’m sorry” a dozen times.

Perhaps I can follow this woman’s lead, burp and keep right on doing what I was doing.

What’ll really happen is I’ll think about her when I burp, all alone in the living room, and then apologize to the couch.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

High school musicals and concerts are underrated.

Here in our community, music and theater lovers can find shows, performers and concerts that are right up there with anything you’d find in Houston.

Sure there’s a few off-key notes and missteps, but that’s to be expected from teens who are still learning the process.

I went to two free performances this spring – choir and band – and got more than I expected. The teens knew their cues, how to perform on stage and demonstrated proper theater etiquette.

Thanks to social media, I’m not quite sure audiences understand what they should do and shouldn’t do.

Almost everybody is recording the show on their cell phone. They seem to be totally oblivious to the fact that their cell phone lights up and is distracting in a dark auditorium.

They’re so busy recording, making sure the phone’s in focus and they’re getting the sound right, they’re missing the magic of the music.

Music has the ability to transport us to another place – sometimes it’s a calming place, if we’re listening to an orchestra, and other times it’s a place of excitement if we’re watching “Hairspray.”

Cell phones have created a barrier between us and the performers, and not just in the theater. We have a cell phone out all the time to capture every moment, and, as a result, we are losing the human touch.

At Little League baseball games, parents no longer visit in the stands. They’re too busy filming the game on their cell phones, uploading the pictures and videos to social media or checking their email for the latest buzz on an always updating news feed.

Few want to be bothered with talking to a stranger.

People walking or running around the park usually have ear buds on, listening to podcasts or music instead of the leaves rustling in the wind.

Maybe there’s no contest between bees buzzing and Lady Gaga, but we are sacrificing the interaction with the world around us for social media gossip that’ll be forgotten in hours.

Which brings me back to the band concert. After the first song started, I caught something out of the corner of my eye.

A woman on the third row, right in the middle of the theater, was leaning forward in her seat, her cell phone held above her head, filming the performance.

She didn’t just film one song, she filmed the entire concert. Four people behind her tried seeing around her arm up in the air, but they couldn’t, so they moved.

This woman never noticed there were other people around her.

That’s when I realized having cell phones out to record life was more the norm than sitting quietly and absorbing the music as an engaged group.

I struggle with finding the balance between capturing the milestone events on video and putting the phone or camera away to see everything with my eyes instead of through a lens.

I understand parents want to capture a special event so they can to watch their child over and over again. Those videos and films become more precious as the years go by. There are VHS tapes I have of family Christmases from years ago I guard with my life.

The video, however, was secondary to being there with my family, interacting, talking, gossiping and eavesdropping on all the other conversations around the room.

It’s easy to capture every moment of our lives on video and share it on social media. We have to be careful that in sharing every morsel of our lives we no longer have a private, personal life.

But I still want memories on film, so I have some advice.

Film the show, but do so as quietly as you can. Greet those sitting around you and ask if your filming will be disruptive.

Position the phone between your chin and your chest so as to not block others behind you. Dim your screen if you can.

And, look up from time to time.

It’s a beautiful world out there.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

They’re little.

Tiny almost.

No bigger than the head of a pin.

But when they bite, that attack can swell up to the size of a lemon.

I’m not talking about mosquitoes.

I’m talking about those little black gnats that crawl all over your face, up your nose, and in your eyes the second you step outside.

Annoying doesn’t even come close to describing their effect. As if we didn’t have enough aggravating situations in life.

Traffic for one. If I had a dollar for every orange cone in the state of Texas, I could retire a billionaire tomorrow.

Just about the time crews finish a section of road, the cones go up on the next section, and there’s gridlock traffic all over again.

Near our house, they rerouted traffic to the shoulder for a quarter mile. We drive over rumble strips cut into the asphalt while they’re working on the west-bound traffic.

The noise from the tires bumping over the rumble strips would wake the dead.

Anybody driving on Highway 59 can attest to the headache around narrow lanes with concrete barriers on both sides of the road.

I feel like I’m being squished through a sausage maker, especially when there’s an 18-wheeler barreling past me.

Once we get to where we’re going, we get to stand in long lines and deal with people who do not understand the concept of the next person in line should go to the next open cashier.

Not the person on their cell phone who runs up to the check-out lines and believes because they were already in motion they should go next.

Wrong.

Wait your turn because your behavior is annoying.

People talking loudly on a cell phone in a waiting room or in line is annoying. You might think you’re talking quietly, but you’re not.

Everyone five feet around you can hear everything you’re saying and, sometimes, we can hear the person on the other end of the conversation.

In no particular order, here are some other things that are annoying:  having it rain right after you washed your car. Pulling up to the ATM machine on a Friday afternoon and finding out it’s out of cash. Finally mopping the floor and then having the kids run in with muddy shoes.

Repeating yourself to someone who’s distracted but assures you they’re paying attention. Getting stuck at a red light next to a teenager blaring music so loud, your car vibrates.

Waiting for a delivery that’s supposed to come between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., and you get a text message at 5:55 p.m. that the delivery is postponed until the next day.

Reading comments online about who lives and dies in “The Endgame.” At this point, if you haven’t seen “The Endgame,” time’s up for asking people not to reveal the ending. You’ve had plenty of time to see it.

A mosquito in the bedroom at night is annoying as are mosquitoes almost all the time. Sure, those insects are great for the birds, but explain that to the itchy red bump on my cheek that’s right next to the gnat bite on my forehead.

There are some ways around the annoyances. Stay off of Highway 59 and take Highway 90 instead. Enjoy the few minutes the car and floor are clean instead of concentrating on the dirt. Stop reading online comments about movies or shows until you’ve seen them.

And buy “Bugg” or use vanilla – both will repel those annoying little gnats.

When someone pulls up next to you at the red light blaring their music, crank up your radio and blare NPR back at them.

Hopefully it’s during pledge week – that’ll annoy anybody.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

My mother claims Mother’s Day was invented by greedy greeting card companies. She could be right, but having a day when we honor our mothers is a grand gesture.

Our ideals about motherhood are all over the place, especially in these days of social media where parents create the perfect cake, decorate a color-coordinated room on 50 cents and have time to build custom shoe closets.

Moms shouldn’t worry about what other people think, but it’s not easy to ignore our mothering skills when we feel we’re being compared to the mom down the street who grocery shops in Spandex, cooks organic food, has a job outside the home and still volunteers at the school.

When my boys were young, just getting them to school with matching shoes felt like a major accomplishment.

Instead of living up to some pie-in-the-sky model, it’s reality-check time.

Here’s some friendly advice for moms, and dads too, that will hopefully relieve some of the guilt associated with parenting, the most rewarding non-paying life-long job in the world.

Stretch marks are okay. They never fade, so don’t believe the hype in the back of magazines. Cellulite is also okay, so wear shorts with a swagger in your step.

Being tired is okay. When a mom’s day starts before dawn and includes getting sleepy kids out of bed in the dark, making sure grouchy children are dressed and backpacks and lunches are gathered for school, all before 8 a.m., that’s more work than some people do in a week.

Being cranky is okay. When you’ve been up all night with a teething infant, a child with projectile vomiting or a smart-mouthed teenager who loves sneaking out of the house, it’s okay to be a bit crabby at two in the afternoon.

Having a messy purse is okay. A woman’s banged-up handbag often resembles a five-and-dime store as it serves as a depository for toys, extra diapers, pacifiers and Zip-lock bags of Cheerios, some of which opened in her purse.

Over the years, my purse has been used as a pillow, second base, a booster seat in a restaurant and a door stop. No way I’m paying big bucks for an accessory that does all that.

It’s okay if you’ve forgotten to brush your teeth or your hair in the morning. It’s also okay to tell your child “no,” “your face will freeze like that,” “I said so” and “do I look like I’m kidding.”

On really stressful days, it’s okay to ride home from work with the windows rolled up while you scream at the top of your lungs.

It might not be healthy to eat ice cream straight out of the carton after sounding out every word in “Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” but a parent has to do what a parent has to do.

This year, let’s concentrate on what we should do:  sing and play with our children.

Honor traditions or create new ones for holidays and special occasions.

Make sure our children know they are loved, praised when they do right and enlightened when they do wrong.

They should know how to hold a fork and knife correctly, to chew with their mouths closed and to say “excuse me” when they burp.

They should know how powerful the words “I’m sorry” can be and that one should carry an elderly person’s groceries but not another person’s guilt.

They should know hugs make some of the worst hurts feel better. They learn that lesson when you hug them after a terrible day and when they hug you when you’ve had a rotten day.

They should also know their mother loves them and that they are the last thought she has every night before she goes to sleep.

So here’s to all the sleep-deprived moms and dads with worry lines who not only have stretch marks but knows how to stretch the family’s budget.

Happy Mother’s Day.

You are appreciated and loved.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

My grandmother often stayed with us during the summers. Those were memorable times as she was fun, strict, a bit irreverent, and always smelled like Chanel No. 5.

She didn’t like to get up early, but she was always bathed and ready for 12:30 p.m. because that’s when “The Edge of Night” came on television.

We knew better than to disturb her when Mike and Nancy were on the screen.

People often laugh at those who get addicted to the “soaps,” but those half-hour dramas are a part of numerous cultures, no matter what they’re called.

In high school, I became a devout watcher of “The Young and The Restless.” The show featured fresh and strong women with great hair who didn’t bother with bras.

Plus hunk Tom Selleck was a regular on the show.

My siblings were forbidden from making any excess noise from 11-11:30 a.m. because Lori, Leslie, Phillip and Jill would be battling out life.

I loved that soap so much, I scheduled my college classes around “TY&R.”  After my parents started watching TY&TR, I switched over to “General Hospital.” I couldn’t see myself discussing forbidden love with my parents.

The show was a favorite of mine for years. I remember a conversation I had in the grocery store with three women waiting in three different lines about “General Hospital’s” Luke and Laura.

The entire country was mesmerized by the story line of “who shot J.R.” from the night-time soap “Dallas.” My friends and family were glued to the T.V. when the season premiere aired with the answer of who’d shot the evil megalomaniac from the “Big D.”

That was followed by “Knot’s Landing,” “Everwood,” and “Falcon Crest.” Women over the age of 50 better belly up to the bar and admit they had at least one dress with big shoulder pads, courtesy of Linda Evans from “Dynasty.”

Although I’ve never seen one episode of “Downton Abbey,” the PBS series has thousands of viewers who read the online message boards, dress like their favorite characters and – like me in college – wouldn’t miss an episode of their soap, I mean drama.

The daytime soaps these days still revolve around sex, greed and smoldering looks between good looking people. Come to think of it, so do the night-time and premium channel soaps.

The only real difference between “The Kardashians” and “The Guiding Light” is the amount of wardrobe money and hair spray allotted to the stars.

Which brings me to the current popular soap, HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” People might not think GOT is a soap, but the show has a lot in common with the daytime dramas.

Both have dragons. The dragons from old soaps were the ancient matriarchs who caused trouble. GOT has fierce in-family fighting, but Victor Newman has argued and fought with every person in his family.

“The Edge of Night” had my grandmother.

“Game of Thrones” has me.

My son asked me to read the books and watch the show a few years ago so we could talk about them. I was hooked from the first episode despite its deserved “R” “rating.

People say the show is violent.

I agree.

They say there’s excess profanity.

I hear that every day in rush hour traffic, and it’s coming from my mouth.

Just like I know nobody on the daytime soaps ever cleans a toilet, I know there’s no such thing as white walkers or dire wolves.

But that’s what the world of entertainment’s all about.

Take me away, Calgon, from the constant, senseless and cruel violence in this world to the make-believe world of diamonds and pearls, flawless make up and fire-breathing dragons.

That’s what makes fiction so deliciously fun.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.