A Lifetime Lie

For some reason, I'm thinking this morning about my birthmother. I was adopted at birth—left the hospital at age six days with my adoptive mother and a family friend. My birthmother was unmarried and 38 years old.

I found her when I was 33. A search agency in Dallas was helping me and called me with her phone number. Without hesitating, without a second thought, I picked up the phone and called her. She answered. I asked, "Is this Gertrude X Y?" She said, "Yes." I said, "My name is Janet Clark. I've been doing some research into my genealogy and the records indicate you are my birthmother." There was a long (pregnant, if you will) pause, after which she replied, "I can't talk to you right now." Not, "Boy, have you got a wrong number." Not, "You couldn't be more mistaken." Just, "I can't talk to you right now."

Further research on my part revealed she had married a year or two after my birth and had never told her husband that she had been pregnant or had a child. She had been living with this lie—or lack of truth—for 30+ years.

I pride myself on my openness and lack of guile. I simply cannot understand how someone could live like that, live with hiding something—such a big something—for so much time. For all one's married life.

Gertrude and I exchanged correspondence one time, about six months later. It turns out she was one of Daddy's patients (small world, huh?) and she told him she would accept a letter from me if I sent it to him and he brought it to her when she was in the hospital for surgery a couple of weeks later. I poured my heart out to her in a typewritten letter, a full page with ½" margins. She wrote back to me in the margins of my letter.

She said she had blocked me and my father out of her mind. Huh? How do you do that? How do you block such a life-defining event out of your mind? She asked that I never contact her again, which I didn't.

About five years ago I did some intensive Googling and determined she had died two months before John died. I project that she died with a full heart and a heavy head from all those blocks in her mind.

At least that's how I would have died with that lifetime lie.

Happy Birthday to the Traveler

Today I salute my travelin' buddy, Lee, on his birthday. I won't divulge the number, but he is a couple of years older than I. We'll leave it at that.

He's known in this forum as The Traveler, based on his Match.com username when we met, two-and-a-half years ago. You couldn't hope to meet a nicer guy.

Happy Birthday, Lee. I hope it's great!

More Customer Service Tips

I'm trying to get all the utilities at the new house switched over to my name. Today I called Dominion East to establish my gas account. I spoke with Jackie. She was adamant that their representative had to enter the house to read the meter. Of course, she could only give me a four-hour window. I explained that I did not have access to the house yet and didn't know when I would get access. I explained that the house was unoccupied and I could not ask the seller to go sit at the house for four hours waiting for their technician. I explained that I work in west Akron. She suggested they could come on Saturday, but I have an all-day technical writing class in Kent. I kept trying to get her to come up with alternatives, but she had none. And the whole time, she's calling me "Mrs. Crews."

Now as you know, I've been married many times. But none of these men was named "Crews." My daddy, on the other hand, was named "Crews," but I was never married to him.

After feeling rising frustration with her inability to be a problem-solver, I said, "I'm Ms., not Mrs."

And you know how she responded? She hung up on me.

Oops. Not good customer service.

(I called back five minutes later, got a lovely young lady named Brooke who knew how to solve problems. Yea for Brooke.)

Today's Customer Service Tip

Things not to say if you're a Customer Service Rep:

I had an automated payment returned last week for insufficient funds. Oops, I was playing on the beach, not monitoring my accounts appropriately.

The bank delayed two days before sending me the notice, hampering my ability to rectify the problem. On Friday morning I called customer service and asked why they had delayed notifying me—the initial transaction occurred on the 29th and I wasn't notified until 5:30 on the 31st, when I could do nothing about it.

The CSR said, "we have thousands of customers and only so many agents monitoring the accounts." Excuse me? It's a computer! The monitoring and the sending of e-mail notices is done by a freaking computer!!

Then she asked me if I had enabled my alerts. I told her they had always notified me when there was a problem. She then showed me where the alerts were and I replied, "No one ever told me about alerts before." She said, "Well, we learn something new every day."

Honey, in which of your training classes did they tell you this was a suitable reply to a Valued Customer?

(The thought of their agents monitoring all the accounts reminds me of one of my favorite picture puzzles showing all the little people running around inside the computer moving 1s and 0s to make things happen.)

The Fear of Now; The Fear of New

We're home from our wonderful week at the beach. I loved every moment of the visit. The trip home was twelve-and-a-half hours of uneventful. Ridley didn't throw up once. Yea, Dramamine. Yea, Sea Bands.

Now I'm faced with new. This week I close on the house. USAA called me Friday to say the loan was finalized. I've got to call the owner's nephew, Ed, and ask who all I need to call to set up accounts.

This is the second time I have bought a house without the benefit of realtor. The first time was my 1950s mid-town charmer in Tucson that I bought from my friends Eileen and Jacki. I could go walk through the house when I needed to. I could call or e-mail them to find out what I needed to know.

This time I'm buying from a stranger that I'm apprehensive about bothering. I've been in the house four times, I think. I've spent no more than an hour in the house. And now I think I'll live there the rest of my life‽

It's scary as hell! A good realtor flattens all the speedbumps for you. I've got to figure everything out all by myself. I repeat: it's scary as hell.

What was I thinking? Why didn't I just get a one-bedroom apartment? Oh, right. I hate renting. I hate apartments.

I'm filled with fear and apprehension and unknowingness and the future spread out before me like a whiteboard that someone inadvertently marked with a permanent marker and couldn't get completely clean.

So today, on my first back-in-Youngstown post of 2009 (eek! 2009‽ How did that happen‽), I've gotten rid of the dots that have decorated this blog since its inception in 2006. (eek! I've been blogging for two-and-a-half years‽ How did that happen‽)

This year is about starting fresh and clean and seeing where things go.

Welcome to my new life. Come along with me while I trust my gut instinct.

Good Food! Good Meat! Good God, Let's Eat!

We've been doing a lot of eating out this week, as neither Tyler nor I enjoy cooking. (I've recounted the Mom's Microwave Pizza anecdote here, right?)

We've had breakfast two mornings at Stacks. Love Pavel the waiter. (Actually, if I were a cougar, I'd be takin' that boy home with me.) Great pancakes, waffles, French toast, grits (yum!). Pigs-in-a-blanket for the kids.

Monday night dinner at Guiseppe's in Sea Pines Center. Dependable good food, good service, Pittsburgh Steelers memorabilia everywhere.

Dinner Tuesday night at Crazy Crab, which Ty remembered fondly from our last trip here nine years ago. Great hush puppies.

Lunch on NYE at Truffles. I've eaten at Truffles once on every trip to HHI. I have the Truffles t-shirt. Love that place. This year I had turkey and swiss on a croissant, and sweet potato fries. Wonderful memories of sweet potato fries at Bryant Park Café with PianoLady.

Dinner Thursday night at Wise Guys in Main Street Village. Oh. My Gosh. I haven't been able to find a Web site to show you the menu, which is—quite simply—incredible. Ty and I shared the Hot Crab and Cheese Fondue (lump crab, hearts of palm, creamy three cheese blend, seasoned pita chips) and the mini crab cakes with champagne lobster cream. The babes shared a white shrimp pizza (pesto drizzle, domestic shrimp, mozzarella, shaved garlic). Boston objected to the pesto drizzle, as I would have. We're going back tonight. The babes will again have the white shrimp pizza, sans pesto drizzle. Ty and I might have the tuna tartare lettuce wraps, or the tempura king crab and mango stuffed avocado, or the hot smoked salmon chips, or the greek lamb lollipops with goat cheese whipped potatoes, or the lobster, wild mushroom and asparagus risotto. Get the idea? Fabulous Food.

Wise Guy's motto? "Big Wines, Small Plates, Serious Cocktails"

If you're ever on Hilton Head, Wise Guys is a must-eat.

The Entrepreneur

The babes and I headed out just after high tide yesterday to hunt for shells. Boston became enamored of sharks' teeth after seeing shark's teeth fossils (and convincing Grandma to buy one) at the little general store in Harbour Town on Tuesday evening. Our Googling said sharks' teeth can be found after high tide, so we researched high tide and made our plan.

He and Ridley, as neophytes, didn't really know a "good" shell from a poor one, so their buckets were quickly filled. To them, a shell is a shell is a shell.

I saw a couple of Boston's finds with really cool patterns on the back, and I started again to think about pottery creation and using random "tools" to create texture in the clay. I told Boston that we could make a pot and use his shell to create a pattern. Well, that started his creative mind to churning.

He started telling me that we could open a little shop in front of his house to sell the shell-themed pots. He would name it "Shop of the Shells". He found a clam shell with a pointed end and said he would use that to write people's names. He then started looking for cup-shaped shells that he would use to hold the ink he would use on the shell-pen.

I told him I had met a woman in Youngstown who has a pottery studio and we could rent time in her studio and kiln to make and fire our pots.

His mind was simply racing. He was working out the sign for the store. He was telling me in a very detailed fashion about the piece of paper where people could write their names when they visited the store. ("It would say 'Name' and they would write their names to the right of 'Name', not on top of it.") He would create a sign that said "Line up here" so all his customers would be in a single line rather than spread out in front of the counter. When people had signed his visitor log "three or more than two times", he would [I never did understand this option, but there's definitely an incentive for coming to the store more than twice].

The store would be open all day Saturday and Sunday, but closed Monday through Friday because he has to go to school. He said people could call him and I suggested 'Open by appointment, M-F'.

I was astonished at how quickly he was putting this whole plan together, and at the detailed level at which he was thinking.

I guess, when we get back, I've got to find the pottery woman and sign him up for a class!