Two Pine Trees

Ah, ethics, how we once loved thee. Ok, not all of us loved you. One only has to look at the lynch mobs of the past or sadly of today, and see that ethics did not exist for everyone. But truly, it does seem that for everyday interactions with service providers, it wasn't quite the uphill battle it is today. As the years have gone by, I am more and more disgusted with how companies, corporations, money making entities treat us - the little people, and I'm not referring to height. If you pay someone for their service, as Shakespeare would say, "Something wicked this way comes." My most recent examples: My husband went in for his yearly skin check. I told him before he went how much he should pay (high deductible plan), but of course that was not near the amount the office charged him. Sure enough, here comes the Explanation of Benefits. I pull out his receipt. We now have a credit balance of $84.41. Now will they move that over to another member of the family when we...

Ah, the vast array of cheeses, affordable wines, organic veggies, whole grain breads and fresh-cut-from-the-greenhouse flowers abound at Trader Joe’s. What a foodie’s paradise! A coffee cornucopia. Samples to treat oneself with around every corner. It can be bliss, but for me, well, it’s not. Every single time I’ve ventured into Trader Joe’s the family has been in tow. There is just too much of “Mommy, look at this!” and “Where did your Daddy go?” (Usually we find him standing mesmerized in front of the cheese display, torn between the Stilton or the Brie.) I can't seem to completely enjoy the experience, and then, there’s the crowds. Our little corner of the world used to be considered a large town, or a very small city. Raleigh, North Carolina has boomed since I was a child into a population of over one million. Given that, in the entire county, there are only two Trader Joe’s with a square footage up to 15,000 square feet. That might sound large, but most grocery store cha...

I spent the other day looking at a washer and dryer with all the knobs labeled in Chinese. Why, yes, you would be correct if you just thought, hmm, I didn't know Evelyn can read Chinese, because I can't read a single character. If I ever got a tattoo and wanted some word in Chinese I would be just as likely to be walking around with the word Witch (or something worse) as the word Love, and be blissfully unaware. It would all be dependent on someone else providing the characters, and whether they liked me at the time. Our older son is in China for a study abroad, and he was attempting to do a load of clothes. He thoughtfully provided me with pictures of the machines. Now in his defense, the machines did look a good deal different from ours. In my own defense, yes, I did teach him to do laundry years ago. But front loaders look different from top loaders, and the selections were different, and hey, he knew I would help. I tried my best. He tried his best. I feel confident that he...

May has become a month of farewells for me. My mother-in-law was buried in May. My daddy passed away in May. Our sons finished high school in May signifying that they were men and would be leaving the nest. Now in May, our older son leaves for two months in China. So there is an irony that May is also Melanoma Awareness Month. Because we came close to a different kind of farewell to our oldest son. In November of his freshman year of college, I decided that he should get a skin check by the dermatologist. We had met our high deductible that year thanks to my sinus surgery, and he has a number of moles. So why not? It was almost a throw away thought, but I followed up, and made the appointment. After all, we could always go out for lunch afterwards or better yet (in his mind, anyway) hit up Best Buy. And it would be free. High deductible plan...met. So when he was home for Christmas break, off we went to the dermatologist office. Much to my delight, the physician assistant was origi...

By Evelyn Cooper and Mary Alford-Carman The following presents two prom perspectives - the mother of a daughter, and the mother of a son, on that scary day known as PROM DAY . "For the love of Mike! You need to get up! It's eight in the morning and we have half an hour to get you to the salon for a main/pedi! You've been hitting snooze for an hour. Where are my keys, get your purse! Let's go!" "Yeah, he's sleeping. Let's go get some breakfast. Cracker Barrel?" Ten in the morning and yes, we're still getting the nails done. Mid-way the daughter unit decides the color scheme is just too much and must be changed to a French manicure. Mama is shooting freeze, dried Folgers. Because, ya know, caffeine. "Wow, you're up? Gonna eat anything decent or just sticking with that leftover bag of Halloween candy? Who is that? Manchester United? Thought you were an Everton fan? Oh, ok. We're headed to CVS for some vitamins for your D...

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of fingers tap, tap, tapping to a stressful beat, while accountants account everywhere during tax season. Line after line of what can be deducted, who is a dependent and what is depended upon blurs together with the flying of fingers on a keyboard. Nothing is sure, but death and taxes, uh-huh. I believe that fully because I was taught by the best, my Dad. Every year of my growing up, the tax race started as soon as January First came out of the gate. My father was never late with his taxes, and he expected that the IRS should be grateful enough at his prowess and speed, that he always sent his taxes with “Return Receipt Requested.” The three R’s were quite important to my Daddy. If they wanted his money, they could at least sign for it, not to mention it proved that no one could ever say that his taxes were lost in the mail if he had his “Return Receipt.”  It was my Daddy’s way of saying that if he had to work hard to send ...

I am completely supportive of my friends working out how to make some money and bring their best self to this transitive thing we call life. But if I bought/contributed to everything I'm asked to...well, we would be broke in a New York minute. Recently, in one day I was included in three events - none of which I was interested in "attending".  I'm not an attender anyway - virtual or transported. I am much more comfortable with a great book,  or even a mediocre one, or a non reality tv show, a little bit of knitting, maybe even a whiskey. Ah, but I used to go to these things. They seemed like the socially acceptable way to place yourself into a group. You could meet people, and bond over such first world necessities as who needed a new gold-plated vegetable chopper or a monogrammed carryall bag or a crème promising to lift and move everything except your teenagers. But now all of these 'bring your checkbook' events are VIRTUAL. OK, I don't have to lea...

The doctor’s appointment took far less time than we had anticipated and the day was something out of a photograph. The sky was vibrant with wispy clouds and we had free, unplanned time. What do you do with unexpected free time? When we were little, riding in the back seat of our Daddy’s car, my Mama would chime, “We have some time! Let’s go for a drive.”   There was no direction, no planning, no agendas, just driving with the windows slightly down, roving, checking the countryside, stopping at an old corner store, it was rare, it was marvelous, it was a type of together-freedom. So we drove that day, my sister and I, up the road, away from home, away from everyone, just like the times when we were young, heading without direction into the day, into adventure, into come what may. We drove out of Raleigh, heading into Knightdale. These days, it’s hard to tell where one stops and the other begins. We drove along old Hiway 64 East. We headed over the muddy Neuse River and talked a...