Aunt Erma's Cope Book (4 page)

get off your cusp and live!

eVER SINCE I read that Eva Braun (Hitler's mistress), Judas Iscariot, and Anne Boleyn shared my zodiac sign, I could never get too choked up about Astrology.

Mr. Steve meant well, but he didn't know what a loser I was. My sun never rose on my sign. My planets were always conspiring behind my back. And my destiny always read like it had been out in the natal sun too long.

Maybe I was just bitter, but it always seemed like other people got the good signs. Their horoscopes always read “Popularity and untold wealth will haunt you. There is no getting away from it. You are irresistible to every sign in the zodiac. Give in and enjoy.”

Not mine. It was always an ominous warning like “Watch your purse.” “Your high school acne was only in remission, and will return the fifteenth of the month.” “Don't become discouraged by your friends who will take advantage of you.”

Somehow, I always felt if Mother had held on a little longer—a good month and a half—things would have been different for me.

Oh, I had faith in the predictions. It was just that my interpretation of my sign was not always the way it turned out. For example:

Prediction: “You get a chance today to provide guidance and inspiration.”

Fact: I chaperoned thirty fourth-graders on a tour of a meat-packing plant.

Prediction: “One you thought had abandoned you is back in the picture.”

Fact: We found a roach under the sink.

Prediction: “Married or single, this is a 'power' time for you!”

Fact: The heat went off for four hours.

Prediction: “You have a unique way of expressing yourself, and you could gain much satisfaction by writing.”

Fact: I wrote a check to have the septic tank cleaned.

Mr. Steve didn't tell me that keeping up with my stars was a full-time job. The daily forecast in the paper was brief and scanty. I had to buy a magazine to find out my food forecast, one for my sex forecast, one for my fashion predictions, another for my travel, and still another for my decoration sense, color selection, and perfume.

I wanted to clean out my refrigerator one day but didn't dare because my sign said avoid the color green.

I canceled trips, put off foot surgery, didn't invite Virgos to my party, and on the advice of my horoscope did not handle money for an entire month. (If it hadn't been for my charge card, I'd have died.) There was so much to learn about myself. I was absolutely fascinating. I discovered women born under my sign were dynamic, confident, and into asparagus. I was an orange person, trusting, French provincial with boundless energy, and long-waisted.

One evening at a jewelry party, one of the brownies I was serving dropped on the carpet. I reached over, picked it off the floor, popped it in my mouth, and said, “A fuzzy brownie never hurt anyone.”

A woman I knew only as Nicky looked deep into my eyes and nodded knowingly. “Only a Pisces on the cusp would say that.”

I asked her how she knew. She said certain traits belonged to certain signs. According to my birth date, I was born on a rising sign which made my destiny special. I was a wonderful homemaker, excellent cook, and fine seamstress. That wasn’t a destiny. It was a sentence!

There had to be something wrong. What happened to dynamic, confident, and asparagus?

“You're on the rise,” she said, “and the sun and the moon are in the direct line with the tides.”

I felt like my tide had just gone out.

A cook? Everyone knew I always threatened my children with “If you don't shape up, you go to bed with dinner.”

A homemaker?

I wanted for Christmas what Phyllis Diller always wanted ... an oven that flushed.

A seamstress?

I always considered a fallen button as God's way of telling us the shirt was wrong.

“You're born under a wonderful sign,” Nicky gushed. “You are gentle and expect to have the least and the last. You end up with the bent fork, but you never complain. You buy a three-piece weekender outfit with a skirt and a pair of slacks and burn a hole in the jacket, but you don't care. You always come out of the rest room dragging a piece of toilet tissue on your shoe, but you don't mind.”

“Why don't I mind?” I asked.

“Because it's your nature. Why I know of one woman born under your natal sign who had a son at camp. On parents' visitation day, she had flu and was seven months pregnant, but she drove the two hundred miles along a dusty road. She had a flat tire and lost her way twice. But she kept going. She made it to the camp and when all the boys were introducing their parents, her son—who was going through a difficult time of his life relating to parents—said, 'My Mom couldn't come.' Do you know what she did?”

“She killed him,” I said hopefully.

“She just shrugged and said, 'I could have predicted it because my sun is on the rise and I am on the cusp.' My dear, people under your sign inherit the earth.”

I didn't want the earth. I wanted dynamic. Instead, I had fallen heir to the Klutzism Sign. Stumbling around life fifty-two weeks out of every year rubbing stains off my sweater, putting the wrong dates on checks, and never being able to trust myself to run the course in Better China with a shoulder bag.

What kind of a future did I have to look forward to? I locked all the doors in the car and left the top down. Broke my tooth on a marshmallow and got sucked up in my son's hair dryer and sprained my shoulder.

I liked me better when I didn't know who I was, what I was, or where I was going. Besides, my daughter had gone off to school taking with her all the small appliances, furniture, linens, bedding, TV set, typewriter, and staples.

My husband noticed it right away. “You let her pack off everything we've worked thirty years to accumulate?”

I shrugged. “What can I tell you? My sun is on the rise.”

I found myself spending more time in the kitchen. Maybe I was creative and there was something in my personality I had overlooked. I bought a food processor and shredded myself to death. I bought a microwave oven and stood by helplessly while my son's space maintainer turned to liquid when he left it in a sandwich I was reheating. I got out of the kitchen before I hurt myself.

I bought a sewing machine that did everything but answer the door, and decided to make a jacket. The darts faced the wrong way, the buttonholes were ahead of their time (no button had been manufactured for it yet). The lining grew each evening as I slept. It had been laundered three times and never been worn.

In stitching up new curtains one afternoon for my daughter's vacated bedroom, a book fell to the floor. It was called Far Out and Far East by Edith Marishna. On the cover was a picture of a woman sitting cross-legged, her turban-covered head tilted backward, staring toward the sky.

I knew my daughter was fascinated with Transcendental Meditation. In fact, she had even taken me to the Golden Temple of Zucchini one day for lunch. It was one of those pure-food restaurants near the local college campus where everything was either freshly squeezed or grown before your eyes. We ordered the organic bean sprouts jammed between two hydroponic tomatoes. “I think I'm going to go crazy and order a cranberry malt,” I said.

A man with a turban appeared at our table and elevated the malt over his head as if it were a chalice. I felt positively sanctified until I discovered my lunch contained 1200 calories.

I had never meditated. Oh, once when I paid thirty dollars for a Halston scarf I slipped into a slight hypnotic stare. But I had never meditated like the girl on the cover. The book jacket said everyone needed to create an organically oriented womb of tranquility in which to grow spiritually and pull your life together. It said I could have inner peace by controlling my own destiny. It was in my hands. I could be in control of myself by taking a few minutes out of each day and reciting a special word over and over again. The word was called a mantra.

At dinner that night my husband's fork poised over a bowl of green slime. “What's this?” he asked.

“It's pureed lettuce. I put the wrong setting on the food processor. It's easier if you eat it with a spoon.”

“Do you have any idea how long it has been since we have eaten anything whole? I never see whole food any more. If I am not going to see whole food, the least you can do is to label it. Isn't there a federal law that you have to label what you are eating?”

“You don't have to shout.”

“Someone should shout around here. Patterns all over the table every night, needles everywhere. Appliances whirring day and night. Weird things growing restless in the refrigerator. It's driving me crazy.”

As I sat there listening to him rant, a thought occurred to me. He wasn't meek. He wasn't gentle. He wasn't resigned to pain. He certainly wasn't domestic and didn't have a long waist. AND OUR BIRTHDAY WAS ONLY TWO DAYS APART. WE WERE BORN UNDER THE SAME SIGN!

On my way to bed I picked up Far Out and Far East and turned on the bedside light.

It was time to get off my cusp and start controlling my own life. I was going to have inner peace if I had to break a few heads to do it.

raising

consciousness in

your own home

for fun and profit

fOR YEARS, I have studied the phenomenon of the mother who sits down for a moment to get off her feet. From all I've been able to gather, a message goes out over an invisible network that flashes to the world “Mother is in a sitting position. Proceed and de-sit.”

At that moment the doorbell will ring, children will appear holding vital parts of their anatomy, the dog will dig his paws insistently into a leg, a husband will call impatiently for help, a phone will register its fifteenth ring, a pot will boil over, a buzzer will sound, or faucets will go on all over the house, and a loud voice will shriek, “I'm telling.”

The “Mother is sitting” phenomenon is probably one

of the reasons meditation never really got a foothold on mothers when they were the ones who needed it the most.

All I know is I was possibly the only woman in the world dedicated to inner peace and tranquility who would end up with varicose veins of the neck from shouting.

“Tranquility” also presented another problem. It said I would need a mantra ... a word that when repeated over and over again would transport me to a level of calmness and give me untold energy.

I called my daughter at school. “Did you get a mantra with Par Out and Far East?”

“Of course I didn't get a mantra. Even if I did, I couldn't let you use it. Each one is personal and given only to that person. They're secret. You have to buy them.”

“How much do they cost?” I asked.

“It depends. Sometimes a couple hundred dollars.”

I had no intention of paying more for a word than I paid for our first car. In discussing this one day at the supermarket with Natalie, a friend, she said she had a mantra that had barely been used. She told me she had only chanted it for three months prior to her divorce and would let it go for $12.50.

“What's wrong with it?” I asked suspiciously.

“Nothing. It's just that I couldn't do housework with my legs permanently folded. Trust me, it works. Whenever you come face to face with a situation that makes you tense, just sit down wherever you are, cross your legs, turn your palms to the ceiling, and recite your mantra over and over again.”

The next day I went into my son's bedroom and was knocked against the wall by an odor. It took twenty minutes to track it down, but I finally found it. Under a stack of clothes on the chair was a doggy bag holding a chicken leg and a breast he brought home from his birthday dinner. His birthday was celebrated two weeks ago.

I felt like a fool, but I sat cross-legged in his bed, turned my palms toward the ceiling, and began to mumble my word. When the washer buzzer went off, instead of running out to get the softener in before the final rinse, I kept repeating my word.

Afterward, I felt rather refreshed and for the first time in a long time sat down to a full breakfast of orange juice, French toast, and coffee.

Later in the morning, I discovered one of the kids had left the phone off the hook. Instead of biting the phone cord in half, I just sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, meditated, and had a cookie and a glass of milk.

That afternoon when I went to get into the car and discovered someone had left my car door open and the light had run my battery down, I squatted, recited my mantra, and was revitalized again. My newfound calm was rewarded with a piece of banana cake. When my husband came home I was eating a bowl of potato chips and drinking a diet cola.

“Aren't you pigging out a little more than usual?”

“Oh, c'mon,” I said. “Maybe I have been a little more relaxed than usual but ...”

“If you get any more relaxed, you won't be able to fit through a door.”

“I don't care what you say. I've got my peace of mind.”

“It's probably the only thing you can get into.”

“That is all you know. How many women do you know who can still slip into the clothes they wore when they were newly married?” (It was true. Just that morning, I got into my maternity underwear and they slipped right over my hips.)

Even the boys began to notice that I was growing again. The combination of staying in the house, being alone so much, and being relaxed had turned me into an inflatable.

One afternoon when my son came bounding into the house he said, “Sorry, Mom, I didn't know you were meditating.”

“I'm not.”

“Then why are you sitting cross-legged on the couch?”

“I'm not sitting cross-legged. Those are my hips.”

That night when I stepped out of the shower, I looked into the mirror. The souffle of my youth had fallen. Edith Marishna and her energy. As I sat in my lotus position, I was struck by a brutal truth. It would take an Act of God to get me to my feet.

It was discouraging. Just as soon as I got my head together, my body went. It wasn't fair. All my life I had dieted. I was bored talking about it ... bored thinking about it—and tired of planning my next meal.

As I sat there sucking in my stomach and seeing nothing move, the twelfth major religion of the world began to form in my mind.

A religion founded in the twentieth century based on the four ignoble truths:

BLOUSES WORN OUTSIDE THE SLACKS FOOL NO ONE.

ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL IS AN INCOMPLETE SENTENCE.

IF THERE'S LIFE AFTER WHIPPED CREAM, IT'S IN THIGH CITY.

STARCHING A CAFTAN NEVER SOLVES ANYTHING.

I would call my new religion PATSU. The disciples would be every woman who has ever gone to bed hungry and who sought a destiny of pantyhose that bagged at the knee.

The day of worship would be Monday, what else? And the daily chant would be MaryTylerMoore . . . MaryTylerMoore . . . MaryTylerMoore . . .

I could almost see Jean Nieditch standing in the middle of thunder and lightning while the seven FATSU commandments were being flashed on a head of lettuce:

THOU SHALT NOT PUNISH THYSELF BY TRYING ON A BATHING SUIT WEARING KNEE HI'S.

THOU SHALT NOT CONSIDER GRAVY AND HOLLANDAISE SAUCE A BEVERAGE.

THOU SHALT NOT KILL FOR CHOCOLATE.

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL HALLOWEEN CANDY FROM THY CHILDREN.

THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER MIRRORS BEFORE THEE BUT MY SPECIAL ONES.

THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF COTTAGE CHEESE IN VAIN.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S DESSERT.

Banded together, we would surpass the Shinto, Confucian, Hindu, and even the Moslem religions in numbers. Our disciples would roam the earth spreading the word: starvation. Maybe once a year we'd have a sacrifice by throwing a butterscotch sundae off a cliff. On that day we'd all fast, of course.

We'd separate our beliefs from the state, interfering only when they tried to take away artificial sweeteners.

My followers were immortalizing me in two panels of stained glass (with a wide load on them) when my husband interrupted my meditation and brought me back to reality.

“How much do you weigh now?”

I stiffened. “There are three things you never ask a woman: her age, her weight, and the date on the newspapers lining her kitchen cupboards.”

“You really have spread out in the past few months. If you ask me you're spending entirely too much time sitting around the house chanting and eating. You should get out more . . . and get some exercise.”

I knew it. I wondered when he'd get around to his pitch on jogging. If there is anything more sanctimonious than a man who has been jogging for eight years I don't know what it is. He wouldn't be happy until he got the entire family running around in the darkness being chased by vicious dogs and unmarked cars. Joggers were all alike, running by the house every morning like a Fruit of the Loom pageant. In all the months they huffed and puffed by the house, four abreast, drenched in their own sweat, their chests heaving in and out, I had never once seen one of them smile.

No, if I were going to lose weight, I'd do it my own way. Evelyn had a new diet she was talking about at card club. It was supposed to be a real breakthrough for dieters. I think she called it “Is Something Eating You? Or Vice Versa.” After all, Evelyn was a professional dieter. There wasn't one she hadn't tried. During her lifetime she had lost 3,476 pounds. Most if it in her neck and her bust.

In her kitchen was an entire bookshelf of captivating titles . . . all current best sellers. There were:

The Neurosis Cookbook. You never outgrow your need for paranoia. Two hundred pages of new, low-calorie meals for encounter-group picnics and postnatal-depression snacks.

Did You Ever See a Fat Gerbil? This was a provocative title on how sex could make you thin by burning up 31,955 calories a year. By kissing three times a day (at nine calories each) and engaging in two amorous inter- ^ ludes a week (at 212 calories) you could (if you excuse the expression) conceivably lose 9.13 pounds a year.

The Mexican Quick Loss Program was relatively simple to follow. You traveled to Mexico, drank a glass of water, and ate a head of lettuce. Wear gym shoes.

There were scores more, from Dr. Witherall's flavored ice diet to How to Face a Visit from Your Mother on 1200 Calories a Day,

I picked up Is Something Eating You? Or Vice Versa. “Does this diet really work?” I asked Evelyn.

She wrinkled her brow. “Is that the one by Dr. Barnhiser where when you get so hungry you can't stand it, you get in the car and drive around until you hit something?”

“I don't think so,” I said. “It's the one where your emotions dictate what you eat.”

“I remember,” she said. “I lost five pounds and three friends on that one. Listen, if you're really serious about losing weight, why don't you go to the LUMP meetings?”

“LUMP?” I said slowly.

“It stands for Lose by Unappetizing Meals and Pressure.”

“Is it a group therapy thing?”

“You got it,” said Evelyn. “Once a week you go to a public meeting where you fall on your knees in front of the group and confess your caloric sins. The leader is either filled with disgust at the sight of you or rewards you with a liver malt. If you have gained, you must carry a bowling ball around for a week.”

“That sounds reasonable,” I said. “Maybe I'll go.”

The El Gordo chapter of LUMP met once a week within a few blocks of me. I introduced myself to a group of members who were in the hallway popping water pills and removing their jewelry before they weighed in.

Following an X-rated movie—The Birth of an Eclair—our leader, Frances, launched into a discussion of the much-maligned staple of the LUMP diet . . . liver.

“In order for the diet to work,” she said, “everyone has to consume at least sixteen ounces of liver a week.” She didn't care how we disguised it.

Early in my life I had made a pact with myself. I would never eat anything that moved when I cooked it, excited the dog, or inflated upon impact with my teeth.

I didn't mind starving with lump's diet, but couldn't bring myself to eat anything that, when dropped on the floor, you found yourself apologizing to.

I was in lump's program three weeks, during which time I did everything with liver but put a dress on it. It didn't work.

Besides, I had only lost a pound and a half—which I attributed to my less frequent trips to the refrigerator (which were slowed down when I dropped the bowling ball on my foot).

The solution to losing weight was obvious to me. I'd have to stop meditating. It was too bad, because I really enjoyed sitting cross-legged in the middle of a tense situation in open defiance of bells, buzzers, screams, threats, and the secret society to get mothers on their feet.

It was with deep regret that I called my friend, Donna, to see if she wanted to buy my mantra for $8.50.

As I left Donna, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her palms toward the ceiling, her head tilted to the sky, chanting “PAULNEWMANPAULNEWMANPAUL NEWMANPAULNEW ...”

I left quickly before I changed my mind.