Madgew-musings

This bugs the crap out of me (not related to my colonoscopy tomorrow)

2012-01-25T14:38:00.000-08:00

It bothers me when a woman is getting separated and she knows nothing about anything having to do with finances. When I was too little to remember my dad talked finances to me. He explained how they worked and why one must be careful and watch out to make sure you are a secure woman. I had my own checking account at 16 and a credit card that I shared with my parents. I was expected from my small jobs and some allowance to maintain my checkbook, balance it and pay my bills. If I put something on that was approved by my parents they paid it. I became a record keeper and receipt person. I checked off my credit card bills and still do this today with receipts. I don't put anything on the cards that I can't pay off in full at the end of the month. While I was married I kept all our books, turned in everything to the accountant and actually read our income tax statements and knew what I was looking at and when something wasn't right I called my accountant. When I divorced at 39 after 20 years I knew everything I need to know for a lawyer. I knew what things were worth between us and what was the total assets and debts. I knew the fair market for our house and I knew what I was entitled to. I was not left standing there feeling like a dummy with no control. I can't tell you how many women I know that get divorced and know nothing and have trusted their husband with everything. I don't care whether your husband is a fucking accountant or a lawyer or anyone else who "knows things", I do my own research. We did a mediated divorce and I was happy with my decisions. I even went against my lawyer for some things that I thought needed to be fair (that he felt didn't). After 20 years I knew what I valued (peace of mind) and I let go of things that I knew would make me ex happy and help keep the divorce peaceful. I was educated, I was informed and I was smart. I think every woman who works or doesn't needs to be aware of their circumstances. I am not above snooping to find out what is going on if separate checking accounts are involved and the information is not forthcoming. But I believe in trust, honesty and fairness but I will protect my rights if I believe I am being taken for a ride. Women, do yourself a favor and protect yourself by knowledge and education. If you don't know the answers go to someone who does. I just heard of another story today where someone is separated and knows nothing. Also, divorce for the right reasons. Be able to take care of yourself and your kids if they are still at home. And don't be stupid-we are all smarter than that.

Amazing posts

2012-01-12T13:33:00.000-08:00

Recently I was sent a private message on FB that made my day. Someone noticed something about my postings and without giving all my thoughts away wrote to see if what she thought was true was really happening. I was so impressed with her observations that I started to wonder how closely I look at things. The fact that her eye questioned something without wanting to be nosy really made me smile. I am a believer in truths and if someone asks me a question about my life I don't hold back. I express my feelings and will let others in easily, if they ask. Mostly, I hold the secrets for many but few hold mine. Is that because I am so transparent-I think it is? My life has always been an open book sometimes in a great, daring way and other times I have hurt people (not meaning to of course) and it amazes me the power of our words. My words mean a lot to me and I try to think about placement all the time but life is not always about control and manners. Sometimes I let loose and bring up things I know could easily be taken out of context or actually disappoint someone. My lifelong friends seem to recognize that my goodness outweighs my snafu's. They accept what I have to say and either embrace it or as easily toss it aside, but remain my friends. I have friends that are deeper than others and then surface friends and some in between. But, yesterday was so wonderful as someone noticed my words or lack there of and inquired. I was thrilled to write to them to tell them the story and thank them for being so right on and actually looking into my words or lack thereof. I feel in that one encounter like I have developed a deeper friendship with this person all because she took the time to notice. A life lesson learned.

My day in Heaven

2012-01-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a special day for me as I had all my grandchildren together, under one roof and in one backyard playing together like loving kids and cousins. This doesn't happen often but when it does my heart swells. When families are developed and I having sons, watch them grow and marry and have kids, something changes in the dynamic. There are other people on board-daughter-in-laws. And I have been blessed with two very special ones. They love their kids, my sons and family. But having not birthed them they come into a mix that was long ago developed between me and my sons. The dynamics change and I have always felt it was my responsibility to make sure everyone got along and played nicely in the sandbox of family. Again, I have been blessed that 98%of the time it works just as I want it, but 2% we struggle like every family with strong personalities and trying to please. Also, as a mom who wants everything to go smoothly always, it doesn't always happen. I have tried over the years various techniques some far more successful than others. I have learned the best one but not always so easy to practice-keeping quiet and still and letting things evolve organically. But sometimes my anxiety shows and that is not always the way it works. The great thing with strong personalities is we all speak our peace sometimes observers would say "forcefully and loudly" but in the end we get it out, cry, laugh, apologize and sympathize and move on. I think the kids see we can discuss, argue, disagree but always come back to loving. My little piece of heaven comes when it comes and I soak it in to return to the memories day after day. Thankfully, I have photos to remind me of those little bits of heaven here on earth. Happy New Year 2012 and I am ready for you.

Thinking and looking back and forward

2011-12-14T20:56:00.000-08:00

2011 was a learning year. I really learned about Facebook and used it to widen my scope on politics, on prison reform, on suffering, joy and a million other points of new interest. I have learned that all people are not as they appear and some take a while to show their true colors. I have found some amazing new charities to support and some individuals who are struggling and could use a leg up. I have again confirmed that my life is blessed. I have my health, I have my family (and we all get along) and I have my grand kids and seeing my grown sons in some amazing light and watching them thrive and do their absolute best. I am amazed at how well they parent and how well they treat those around them and how many wonderful friends they have and of course being loving husbands to terrific wives and strong women. I appreciate my Mom and her struggles being totally dependent on her loving caregivers and my sister and me. I have terrific neighbors and a street where everyone knows your name and truly is a community within a large usually distant city. I have amazing friends that are a comfort to me just by being who they are with all their wonderfulness and their personalities and their loving compassion for life. Through my connection with The Next Family, as their marketing director, I have met so many amazing writers with different lifestyles and still they show me everyday that a family is a family no matter how it is built. I have welcomed new friend and new babies into my life from people that I have never met in person but feel I know through their words and deeds. My most proud moment is having both my mentees finish parole without so much as a glitch. The program that put us together has long since ended but I have two wonderful women in my life who fill me with the best feelings of joy as they have struggled and succeeded in getting their lives to be productive and fulfilling to everyone who meets them. They have lead me on a journey that has truly changed my life for the better and has helped inspire my interest in supporting those that are fighting every day to release women wrongfully convicted and for those in prison to be treated with dignity. I have seen my donations to all charities reward good people doing awfully hard work and never giving up. I have stood by friends in sorrow, grief and still managed to come out the other side with strength and determination. As I look back I can see where I can make a better difference in 2012 by choosing who to spend my time with and my money on. I have learned to share because I can afford it and because giving back for my blessed life is what means the most to me. As this year draws to a close I will continue to contribute to a life with compassion, global awareness, deep friendships and most of all charity and giving that sustain me and make me a better person. To those who have helped me in my journey a hardy thank you and continued blessings to you and your families.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-23T08:43:00.000-08:00

I am thankful for my family. I am thankful for good health. I am thankful for a roof over my head. I am thankful for all my new and old friends. I am thankful for nature. I am thankful for love. I am thankful for joy. I am thankful to live in a free country. I am thankful for the ability to think. I am thankful for honesty and trust. I am thankful for the air I breathe. I am thankful for the food I eat.

I am also thankful for facebook, social media, blogspot, humor and great stories. I am thrilled with all the new writers that have come into my life. I am thankful for Target (I know it is not the best example but I love it so). I am thankful for Costco. And lastly I am thankful to my parents who taught me how to love, live and value friendships, finances and how to be a great person.

I wish all my family and friends the joys of life and hope. I wish for all of you to give back for your life and the goodness you have been privileged to have attained from hard work, hard knocks and great generous people and family that have bestowed any of the gifts of life to you.

Conversations with my grandkids which paint a picture of my life

2011-10-31T07:04:00.000-07:00

After spending lots of continued time with my grandkids while their parents were away we, as usual, had many interesting conversations. The boys are 7 and Marley is 4 1/2. We always delight in the wonder of each other. We cuddle and laugh and laugh for so many different reasons. Tears of sadness and disagreements flow sometimes but it is all about love. This weekend brought up may learning lessons and I want to share some with you. I must preface this blog first my telling you, my loyal readers, that I have been reminded by my own son and dil on a few occasions to remember the kids ages when we discuss things. I have ended up putting my foot in my mouth on more than one occasion. There was the time we talked about nudist colonies and I went online to show them one not expecting nudity to be right there in front of us. It lead to discussions but finally dropped off their radar. As you know I tend to tell the truth all the time and my boundaries are not limited although I am trying to do better. This past weekend we had some wonderful conversations. Ryan is always the most interested in talking. Jack talks sports and anything with a ball is his forte. Ryan talks about anything from knights and robots to cops and "bad" people. This weekend was no exception. They were going to sleep at my niece's who lives in Venice literally at the ocean but Ryan was worried about tsunamis though we explained that there was never one in Los Angeles. They recently posted signs in and around where my niece lives and it happened to catch Jack's eyes and he read it and the conversation went on from there. So it was decided to sleep at their home with me checking in and spending the day with them and my niece would sleep over and take them horseback riding. It was on the last day that we had the following dialogue. They were curious about a friend who was coming to visit me with her 1 year old and her husband. Ryan wanted to know how old they were and I said around your parent's ages. He then asked how could I have a friend that much younger than myself. That lead to a conversation of friendship and age. I explained that I had friends all ages and from all different parts of my life. That got me thinking and wondering why that was and how it worked so well. I realized that my life is surrounded with tremendous friendships of all ages and I remember my parents having the same types of age variances that I do. I am 63 today and I have been blessed with the best friendships anyone could ask for and yes they range from 30's to 80's. I realized as I explained the reasons to Ryan that it was based on thoughts, energy levels, wisdom and interests. All my friends have come into my life for reasons sometimes not apparent at the time but soon found. I like diversity and I have so many interests that my friends reflect my life from childhood to the present. I explained this and Ryan listened and listened.

Another life lesson reared up when we returned home to realize the boys had left their shoes on the sidewalk when they got into the car wet from running in a fountain. I was busy finding things for them to sit on and they were busy taking off shoes and socks. When they realized it both became upset and their focus was on why it was my fault. Quickly I dispelled that myth. I pointed out that they were 7 and should have been responsible. I volunteered for all of us to go back as they were nearly new shoes and they were quite upset. I explained that they probably would be gone and if they were someone needed them more than they did, clearly. We talked about responsibility and they were very quiet contemplating in their own minds whether the shoes were going to be there or not. Fortunately, we had parked in an obscure place and when we got there, the shoes were still in the middle of the sidewalk right where they took them off. I then went into a discussion about how someone was looking out for them and how lucky they were. Ryan immediately asked who was looking out and I said it could be the wind, the moon, the stars, angels or God. Ryan needed more information and asked me to explain which I did in my shamanic ways. He asked me if believe in God and I said no but I believed in the consciousness of my own mind. The same voices inside my head that tell me when I want to do something, if it is right or wrong and whether I should do it anyway. He was enraptured listening to me and engaging in the conversation. He said he thinks like I do and he doesn't really believe in God but he is also not sure about the wind and air and sea (as he thinks everyone knows that already) and wanted a discussion about angels to continue. He was intrigued with the conscious thing and he says he knew what I was talking about and we even laughed as he told me how sometimes he knows he should not do something but sometimes he does it anyway. We talked and talked and it really had an impact. You could see his little mind working and when we arrived home he was still talking about it until a diversion of TV was presented.
My son came home and I went home totally exhausted but knowing our adventures are exciting and thought provoking and this one was a keeper. Can;t wait until they tell their parents about our day and what ends up coming out. I don;t think I will get into trouble with this one.

When social media takes a wrong turn

2011-10-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

After the week I have had I now see how social media can work to the detriment of a person-I being that person. When you find someone online for a reason (I hunt for writers for a website) you pick someone with great writing skills. That doesn't mean your personalities will ever be enough for a real friendship. Most of the writers I have found are truly gifted artists who have talent that abounds. Some are tortured, some are happy and some just write for joy. Some capture you and you think in your mind, I could be friends with this person in real life. Of course that is not always the case as I have learned this week. The budding friendships can come back to haunt you and turn out so wrong that it upsets your life balance. Then the analysis starts after the argument grows so big it takes on a life of itself. You end up blocking people and defriending and slinging the shit around. All because of the failure of both parties to try and make friendships where they don't exist. I am as guilty as the next person. Liking on facebook or other medias is not really liking the person necessarily but rather their quote or their news feed or their stories. Real friendship demands interplay in the real world and putting aside different personalities and talking honestly and recognizing when a budding acquaintance can become a friend. I tend to see only good and when I find myself in a situation where there is negativity and long held anger for every reason under the son I always try and remain in a good mood. Sometimes however, you must look at your own real truth and realize you judged wrongly and let someone in your life that is not suppose to be there. They teach you that they are there for some reason but it is not always a permanent one. This has been eye opening to me as I have so many friends that are so long term and I have never engaged in petty junior high bullying or fights in my entire 62 years. I am not a fighter but I now see a side of myself that I am actually proud of. I can defend myself and I can let go and let people dislike me. It hurts when it is happening but after the initial shock you start to feel better and know that your life is what you want it to be and realize that you have lived without fighting your whole life and it is better that way. Taking sides and getting involved in other people's business I can see rarely works out. I look at a person and if they pluses far outweigh their negatives I let the pluses win out and disregard the negative. I guess if it ever became such that the person was more negative than not I would talk to them to try and resolve rather than make an across the board decision to delete them from my life. But they have to have that ability and desire as well. People process differently and while they are processing I am moving ahead without them.
A life lesson really learned. Just goes to show one is never too old to understand life and friendships.

A discussion about the difference between men and women

2011-09-27T13:07:00.001-07:00

Why do women in particular takes things so personally? And men do not. If you visit a friend who has animals running around and are very much a true part of their family and you are not an animal lover is it okay to ask for the dogs to be put somewhere else when you are visiting? Should you just go and when you see the situation and animals are not your thing just leave because you are not used to animal free rein? This has not been an overriding problem until this past weekend when I went to visit a new friend with lots of other people (all animal lovers) and my reaction was taken as so hurtful to my new friend when I asked about the dogs eating food from the table and shaking off on me in the house when just emerging from the pool. I was flabbergasted I must say and I thought I did pretty well as being tolerant but apparently not to my new friend. She called me out in front of others and said even though she loved me I was too demanding with the animals and get over it. Basically, I heard an angry person. I have been called many things but demanding is not one of them so I asked a few animal lovers to make sure I was okay with my comments. They all said that they watched their dogs and put them away if others were bothered. In the case and defense of my new friend I do know that their dogs have been part of their survival so upon hindsight had I know the rules in their house about animals I would have just skipped the gathering. But now I have apologized twice for hurting her feelings (on voicemail) and tried to express my appreciation for their lifestyle and reasons for loving their dogs. I realize that her apparent pissed off ness was really her sensitivity to thinking I was judging her home and her lifestyle and her family and anything else having to do with her animals. Truly not the case. I am known for telling it like it is and in this case I should have truly just left and acknowledged it had nothing to do with her, her family, her love of animals and just say I was uncomfortable because that is the truth. I have told anyone who will listen that I am really not an animal lover. It is about me not her. I am uncomfortable around animals and if they roam freely it is really about me and not her. I hope she will one day understand this and we can still enjoy our new friendship. I will just meet her where we can both feel comfortable. What do all my animal lover friends (and I do have many) think? I am deeply upset that this had to happen. Back to the beginning about women taking things personally.

He who dies with the most toys win

2011-09-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

I recently saw a bumper sticker that said “HE WHO DIES WITH THE MOST TOYS WINS.” It made me think of my father… he was a man who LOVED his toys. One of his favorite toys was a bright red Ferrari he bought during a midlife crises that seemed to last most of his adult life. I can still see him sitting in that car with a huge smile on his face. He took such delight in his possessions and his playthings. Besides the numerous sports cars (there are too many to name) his toy collection consisted of race horses, art, fine wine… and other women. (More on that later.)

Perhaps his gift for lavish spending came from the fact that he was a self-made man from humble roots who worked hard to make his way in the world, starting out as a double for child actors in the 1930’s then working as a door to door salesman for Fuller Brush (the youngest ever)… all before the age of 18. He started his own business next and sold it when he was 39. He was given a shit load of money and a covenant not to compete. So he invested in real estate and that was really all you had to do in the late 50’s. He was young and very rich for those times.

From my earliest memories my father was a risk taker and a gambler. He spent many weekends in Las Vegas until he was eventually banned from the entire city…. by my mother. It’s not that he was throwing money away, he was actually a pretty skilled gambler. (If there is such a thing.) During one family vacation to Monte Carlo he won $10,000 in lire at the craps table. My sister and I rolled around on a hotel bed in a pile of his winnings. For days my father was on top of the world as we walked into banks to cash the money into American dollars. My Mom was so pissed that we spent any of our trip inside casinos and banks, but to my dad it was the best vacation ever. For some reason gambling was in my father’s DNA.

When we weren’t traveling my father spent a great deal of time on the phone with his bookie, placing bets on whatever sporting event was happening that week. Until one day when the FBI showed up at his office and he spilled his guts quicker than a jack rabbit… he had a family to protect. My father also owned race horses for a time (a rich man's folly he once told me.) One year the whole family went to the Kentucky Derby to watch one of our horses compete… it came in 4th. My father was so happy to share that experience with us all, to give us a taste of that rush and excitement he loved so much. It was an amazing trip that’s become one of many amazing memories.

When my dad was aging and not in good health my sister and I started taking over his businesses and watching out for him like any good daughters would do. We divided the tasks and I took accounting and bill paying and managing the staff and my sister took the emotional component. It was during this time that I started to piece together the parts of his life that he had kept hidden from us. Cashed IRS refunds that he said he never got and when I checked with the IRS the check had been cashed. He also once got a charge from a hotel and when I called to inquire they told me he was a regular guest and that they loved him and when casually asking my Mom if she ever stayed there it was a big fat NO. I told the hotel my Dad was losing his faculties (which was true) and not to make anymore reservations when he called. Also, I found out he had helped one of his "women friends" with money for a down payment on a house. He also took me and my sister out to lunch with some of these women at different ages of our lives so we could meet them. It was always on the guise of a deal in the making and he wanted us in on it. There were no deals as I became more familiar with his checking accounts. It purely was this weird interplay and to this day I still don't get it. He had one friend that helped me solve these mysteries and told us many more stories. It seemed his driver was his compatriot in all his rendezvous. I fired his ass and replaced him with someone who I trusted more. I also started asking questions of my dad about money transactions and since I now had control of all his accounts the money trail was no longer available to him. I always knew he was a risk taker, but I hadn’t realized that those risks went beyond fast cars, casinos and bookies… he was a womanizer who had no boundaries. I was in therapy at the time exploring some of my own issues and I would discuss some of them with my sister looking for childhood answers and soon realized that my dad’s boundaries were so out of whack. As I explored with friends and former neighbors they told me stories that confirmed that he had even hit on some of my more attractive friends using the guise that he was trying to set up a friend when it was really him wanting the set up.I would like to say this was a total shock to me, but looking back I had my suspicions even as a teenager that he had roving eyes for my friends' Mom's and wives of his friends. For some reason I chose not to question the times he would disappear for hours to help a young female neighbor with her "plumbing problem". Or when he would take a weekend long fishing trip with “the guys“, in a two seater sports car with no trunk space for fishing gear.

My father was not a really religious man but he definitely wanted to end up in heaven so he felt if he vomited up every wrong he had done it would cleanse him enough to get in the pearly gates. He started confessing his sins, but not to a therapist or friend or rabbi even, like any normal person would do, instead he spilled his guts to me and my sister. My mother was not privy to the sharing of the infidelity tales. My dad wanted to make sure I never said anything to our Mom as he was sure she would finally leave him. I felt my Mom had chosen her path and knew a lot of what went on so I never told her anything of our investigations or what we uncovered. She never did leave him and today is so weak and without memory she just misses him and their life together.

We’re all a product of our parents in some way and looking back it’s easy to see where my father’s actions affected the choices I made in my own life. I ended up married at the young age of 19 to someone who was totally different than my Dad or so I thought I was young and really had no real facts at that time. I thought my ex husband would never embarrass me as my Dad had over the years when he talked to women everywhere we went and was flirty with elevator operators and waitresses and saleswomen. I also thought in some way he could support me and be a real equal partner. It didn’t quite turn out that way as he was so young too and his career path didn’t ever materialize and he left me wanting a partner. I was a control freak as my dad was and I took over everything in the marriage and after 20 years I finally realized that I wanted someone who was capable of taking care of me for at least some of the time. I really wanted someone who enjoyed life, was adventurous and somewhat of a risk taker but in the good ways that helped my father prosper and become a great provider. That was never to be, so there was no other option but to become free.

.
As a little girl my dad was my hero and it was easy to buy into the myth that surrounded him, the stories of his life made him a legend amongst extended family and friends. All these years later, whether I wanted to or not I’ve seen beyond that myth and I’ve seen the man who was my father. I have no choice but to take the good with the bad. That lust for risk and adventure that made his eyes sparkle and took us around the world on amazing trips was the same engine that drove him to gamble and run around with other women. I don’t know if one would exist without the other, so I embrace them both.

I often wonder what that red Ferrari would have said if it could have talked. I realized my Mom went along because she was a 50's wife who believed in FOR BETTER OR WORSE and in many unique ways she loved the adventures that their life held
So maybe "the man who dies with the most toys, does win" But on the flip side, the man who spends his life in pursuit of those toys really loses his identity. The toys become bigger than life and eventually take over the life. My dad died 8 years ago and as I looked over some of the toys he left me, like old collections of antique Chinese Netsukes or the handmade wooden grandfather clock in my family room, I feel sad that he thought he needed them to prove to himself through his possessions that he was a good father, a great provider and a terrific person. His legacy to me was his charity, his joy of life, his family loyalty (which despite the other women) was never in question. He was willing to help anyone with his time, money or energy. He taught me to be generous and giving and to look out for the underprivileged/underdog and to volunteer and help out and that has continued to be my mantra to this day. I’m happy to have inherited those values from him and I do my best to keep my toys to a minimum.

Flash Mob for Trevor Project

2011-09-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

Today I participated in a Flash Mob for the Trevor Project at Universal City Walk. We spent 3 hours practicing in a field near the venue. All types of people, all ages, all ethnicity's, all enthusiastic. The process is amazing. You register on Flash Mob of America and they send you a confirmation with a video to teach you the dance. Then the day before they send you the location for the practice rehearsal. Still not knowing the venue I went to the field for practice. Amazing how well organized they are. We practiced as a group and then if you still were having trouble they helped you even more. We were dancing to "Ain't no mountain high enough" and then after we disperse there is a PSA on the Trevor Project, Talk to ME.
After three hours we are off to the outdoor venue. You walk around for an hour or so, eat something, check out your own entrance to the dance. All of a sudden the mall music changes to our song and we enter after the first 3 (from the organization) start. I entered via an escalator with two others. The song was 2.26 seconds and I probably was in for about 1:45 seconds because it took us a little time to go done the escalator. I put my special Trevor Tee Shirt on as I danced down the escalator.
I can only say this was probably one of the most energizing activities I have ever participated in. You are in the moment and people start filming you as they come to see what is happening. They clap and shout as we danced and shouted as well. I can't wait to see us on You Tube and the Trevor Project website. I was so out of my comfort box as I have no rhythm, no musical ability and my dance style is awful. But with a flash mob you whoop it up and can make mistakes and the idea is to have fun and fun I had. So glad I did it and probably will do another one when the opportunity presents itself. So fellow readers and writers-step out and step up to something that you normally don't do. It will set you free. Enjoy the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB_ST0-2bCE&feature=youtu.be

Curb side numbers guy

2011-09-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

I got a note on my door the other day asking if I wanted my house numbers painted on the curb. It was a well printed form and let you know the costs upfront for curb numbers on top and front, trash cans and anything else you wanted signed with your street numbers. I put mine up and decided on top and front for $20.00. I came home and everyone had theirs done but mine somehow was missed. I called my son who lives down the street and he suggested I drive around looking for the guy. He then texted me back maybe I didn't want this guy because he had painted my sons curb with the WRONG house number. Easy to do without his numbers being up on his house yet. He just finished remodeling and the numbers are waiting to be hammered on. I laughed but inside I wanted to know why my house was skipped. I told my DIL that when he came back to collect his money and redo their numbers to please tell him I was missed. This morning my doorbell rings at 8am. Thanks goodness I was up. I ask who it is before opening the door and he tells me curb painter. He was truly sorry he missed my paper on the front door so I open the door to a good looking man dressed beautifully. I figure he is the boss. I follow him out as he opens the trunk to this beautiful new high end car (lexus, toyota etc) and he pulls out a leather duffel bag with white paint floating in the bag. I immediately tell him that his car is too nice for the usual curb painters as the last ones were on bicycles. He starts to tell his tale. He really is a writer full time for marketing brochures and does curb painting as a second job. I asked him if the city tries to stop him but he says no because he is bonded. Who knew. I doubt the guys on the bicycle were bonded. Anyway he goes about the painting, first white paint rolled over the spot and then a stencil that he changes to reflect the different numbers and black spray paint that taggers use. Not a drop spills anywhere on his person or the street. He is dressed in pants and a polo like shirt. He is fast and neat and under 2 minutes. He talks about his passion for writing and his hoping to write the great novel. I told him about my writing and my storytelling. I ask if he is married and he nods yes, no kids yet. He puts away his leather bag with the white paint floating in it, takes my $20 and we say goodbye. He drives away in his fancy car to collect more payments for work done yesterday. I figure I saw about 20 curbs done and lots of trash cans. At $15 for basic curb and $5 a trash can he probably made $400 on my long street alone. Won't be long until he can quit is marketing job, paint curbs and write his great novel and become a published author. Now wouldn't that make a great book or movie.

My stories about Keisha appear ont he site below.

2011-08-31T08:49:00.001-07:00

http://9ways.gloriafeldt.com/2011/08/31/she%E2%80%99s-doing-it-madge-woods/

Diversity

2011-08-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

I went out running useless errands yesterday after staying in bed reading until after 4pm. I was meeting D for dinner at 5 Guys, one of my new favorite hamburger places in a mall in Culver City (part of LA county). It has been a changing mall for many years as different ethnicity's move into the city near the mall. It recently had a complete makeover and is beautiful. It has JC Penny's as an anchor, Target at the other end and a Macy's in the middle.Then it is filled with a food court and ringing the outside of the mall a Best Buy and more real restaurants such as BJ's ( A weird name every time I see it), Five Guys (new to our area), Lucille's BBQ and a sushi place to name a few. But what most captures me is the diversity that captures this mall. There is different languages, different dress and different colors. Yet, everyone seems to be happy. Maybe shopping for that perfect prom dress, or that tuxedo, or those summer shorts that are now on sale or just your usual treasure found at Old Navy and Target. People are walking slowly and quickly, carrying bags of varying weight and size. Kids abound yelling and crying and laughing and carrying on. There are low rider pants, way too short mini shorts with butt cheeks hanging out (does anyone think this is attractive). They are sports hats and logo shirts and lots of different shoes. I am a people watcher and this mall is one of my favorites. I live in a very diverse city and yesterday was one of those days that I just love. Lounging and then cruising through the mall. What a great way to see America. You don't have to shop or eat or even enjoy a treat (See's, Annie's Cookies, Wentzel's Pretzels to enjoy this wonderful adventure. Just breathe in the sights and sounds and you have heaven on earth to me.

From my friend Hollye

2011-08-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

I am hosting the first workshop here in West Los Angeles. Early signups=discount.

Announcing The Shame Prom Workshops
Get out the champagne- this is a LAUNCH!

I am so thrilled to be stepping into this new journey of my life, launching The Shame Prom, which is not only an anthology (Seal Press, 2012) but is sure to be a movement. Amy Ferris and I have helped each other to write honestly, we've joined hands exposing our secrets and fears to the world. We found that it's much easier to do when someone is holding your hand. The world has since rewarded us in more ways than we ever could have imagined. Now we are determined to help others free themselves of the baggage of carrying shame silently. We want to hold your hand now, and help you let go of what's holding you back from living FREE and uninhibited.

We have a new facebook page which we'd love you to "like". Every day on this page we will inspire, inform, and celebrate.
Shame Prom facebook page

Tracy Thomas, the brilliant co-founder of iPinion Syndicate ( and the builder of that savvy website) is now building us an interactive website where women and men from all over the world can meet, become friends, and share their stories. We'll also feature videos and essays from our Shame Prom authors, plus from some other writers who we think are pretty darn fantastic. Set to launch mid September.

And now, Amy and I will be traveling, leading Shame Prom workshops all over the world. First stop, Los Angeles on October 16th.

Here's the scoop-

OCTOBER 16, Los Angeles
You're invited to join us at a private artist's residence in Los Angeles for this intimate workshop. We will wear our Shame tiara's and share our stories. Led by Amy Ferris and Hollye Dexter, this will be a PROM like you've never experienced, filled with creativity, writing, sharing, good food, tears and laughter, and chocolate. Whose afraid of shame? We're going to let it RIP, and then, let it R.I.P. Are you ready to shed the old Prom Dress of Shame and celebrate with us?
$200 for the day includes lunch, 5 hour workshop, and a goodie bag.
$175 if you register before October 5th.
Contact Madge Woods for details:
Free yourself from the Shame that binds you!
Shame Prom Workshops Website

WHAT IS A SHAME PROM WORKSHOP?
It started as a dialogue between two great girl friends, and then it turned into a collaborative blog. Hollye Dexter & Amy Ferris shared their SHAME stories - the one's they've kept hidden in the dark - for the whole world (well, their world anyway) to read & see. Amy & Hollye coined it THE SHAME PROM and invited everyone to the dance. The response was unbelievable, huge. MASSIVE. Turns out, EVERYONE has a shame story; funny, sad, poignant, miraculous, life changing, jaw-dropping and holy moly universe moving stories. Hmm, they thought... let's see if we can get some of the best writers in the world (well, their literary world) to contribute to this PROM ... and lo and behold, 25 extraordinary WOMEN (writers, musicians, directors, activists, journalists, authors, artists) said YES to SHAME! An anthology was born, and SEAL PRESS bought it. And now we bring you: THE SHAME PROM WORKSHOP, where EVERYONE gets to share their story, write their life, release their limited beliefs and yes, dance the night away.

The Shame Prom is coming

2011-08-13T15:50:00.000-07:00

Amy Ferris and Hollye Dexter are doing their first workshop about freeing yourself of Shame. The goal is to rid the planet of shame. Please check them out on Facebook (The Shame Prom) and http://shamepromworkshops.webs.com
First workshop is October 16 (Sunday) in West Los Angeles. More details soon on the website. There will be Tiara's, gifts, food and sharing of stories. A place to laugh and throw out your shame literally. Please join them.

Losing hope for the US

2011-08-07T12:10:00.000-07:00

I have become so saddened by the way the USA is treating the very people it promises to protect. I fear for the people who need it most, those that have lost their jobs, their homes, their lives as they know it-the real middle class. I also feel that the very weakest of our society needs a safety net like medicaid, medical, social security and services. I have always been a social democrat. I felt it was my responsibility as a citizen of my country to help those that were unable to help themselves for whatever reason-I still believe it. What I don't believe is the selfishness of those that think that everyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and prosper like the old days. With our cost going up and our education on the brink of disaster for all but the richest Americans who can afford private education I am losing my hopefulness for the country that I know we could be. The divide between the very rich and the rest of us is becoming untenable for me to even think about without getting very discouraged. To tell the truth I am sick of politics, I am sick of PAC's except for Stephen Colbert's. I am sick of tea partiers (a minority) ruining our country) and the far right religious nuts who want to bring back church with state. There are no easy answers and this is what worries me the most. We spend more than we make and that can't be good. We need to raise taxes and that can't be good although so necessary in my mind. And lastly where do the poor and middle end up? If we take away all services for the mentally ill they will be on the streets along with tent cities in every major city where the homeless live. Our city and country will be blighted with people sick, uneducated and poor. What does that say about the supposed greatest country in the world? It says we are willing to leave all our values behind and become selfish and so non empathetic for those that really need our help. This makes me lean even farther left. We need something to happen. I want to march again. I want to fly flags and banners and get Another Mother for Peace going full steam. I want the ERA to pass (not a chance in this climate). I want "do unto others as you would want them to do unto you", I want love and peace and buttons back on. I want to take back the power of the people.
How do we rally the forces again? I want to march on Washington now and everyday until our elected officials hear the majority of us, not the ends of the spectrum but the middle which has the most voices if they only got together. We have ended war together with marching and protests, we need to make speeches and keep the dreams alive. As I age I am beginning to wonder if I will see this movement again in my lifetime. I hope my children can march with me again like they did back in the day and I would like to include my grandkids as their life stands to lose the most if the current climate continues. Please help me find my way.

My Amy Ferris

2011-07-27T17:32:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was a first for me. I have this friend Amy who writes a wonderful blog and I follow it religiously. She is clever and kind and oh so talented. She wrote a book Marrying George Clooney and is involved in a million projects but that is not what I am writing about today. She wrote a blog two days ago with sadness about her brother who she is estranged from since the death of their mother two years ago. She misses him and wrote how she wonders how it had gotten so bad that they stopped talking. All of a sudden her brother wrote on her blog (something she didn't even think he knew about). He came out swinging and punching and basically started calling all her stories fiction and that he, the big older brother, knew the truth. As you can imagine this didn't set well with Amy or her friends (I being one). I lashed back and so did about 48 others. We regaled stories of Amy's honesty towards us and how her truth might not be his but both should be allowed to have theirs. He differed and continued vomiting for most of the day. And I continued to comment. He started sending out missives to some of us on her blog. He chastised me and told me I was so completely wrong and that his truth was how it really went down. I tried in my best mediated way to explain that there are really three sides to a story-hers, his and the third side where the truth must actually occur. He was relentless and so was I. I battled him all day thinking and reacting and responding. Amy called and wondered if she should respond and I stopped her on numerous occasions and said let your friends defend you and protect you and show you love. Amy patiently waited for two days to write another blog and then compared her relationship with her brother with the current debt ceiling fight. It was brilliant. During the day I analyzed my reaction to all of this sibling rivalry and realized that I was so blessed to get along with my sister. We don't think alike or act alike or have any of the same friends or interests but we try not to judge and just deal with our mother in the best way we each can do. We divided the tasks of helping with a very impaired Mom who has dementia. We are lucky she can afford great care but it takes managing and my sister and I see eye to eye on all of it and when we don't we rarely get heated. We try and stay attentive to our needs first and that of our family and then my Mom since relatively speaking she is being taken care of comfortably. I also know how easy it was for me to defend my friend and go mono y mono with her brother. I tend to believe that everyone has a say but without judgment when it comes to family but usually judging is easier with family than outsiders. The pain is often replaced with laughter about how all this family shit works. We try to do better than our parents and I am sure my grown sons have been and will again be on the couch for reasons different than I was because I did try and not repeat my parents mistakes. But mistakes are always made within families. I felt good when the day ended yesterday and when I let the "brother" know I would respond each and every time, I think he gave up. He was done vomiting anyway. As for Amy she handled a very public outing as the true, wonderful, honest person she is and didn't engage. Her blog talked about sadness and missing and totally was expressing her feelings without judgment. Her brother could just not do the same. I loved myself yesterday for my defense of a friend in the only way I could with love and words.

Apology

2011-07-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

A lot has been mentioned about apology this last month on the web and social networks and on television. I think because of the events of recent days there are a lot of apologies going around. As a mediator I have dealt a lot with the words of apology and what makes it meaningful. I even took a fabulous course on the art of the apology. I was reading an article about making kids apology for tormenting their brothers or sisters or even friends and what that means to a child. This particular expert thought one should not make someone apologize because it is saying everything is okay when you just apologize. It allows the person to get off the hook and can still make the same comments over and over again and then just offer up an apology and I so agree with this philosophy. Making someone feel guilty or expecting one to apologize is not the answer, yet we do it all the time. A simple I am sorry is not always the magic bullet. When I did mediations where an apology was essential to getting the matter resolved, whether it be between partners in business or partners in lost love or partners that were now at odds, the tone and delivery and the actual words spoken meant the difference between an acceptance or a rejection. I encouraged my "apologizers" to write out their words first and really think about what they were actually apologizing for. Did they want to relieve themselves of guilt or did they want something for their apology or were they merely doing it to appease the other person? How sincere were they and what did they hope to accomplish. I had cases settle with a complex apology where the other person really heard the apology and went on to express their gratitude. Some people just want to feel respected. There might be a horrible divorce and both parties need to hear each other say, "it wasn't suppose to end like this or ever end for that matter.I never walked down that aisle thinking I would be here now with you fighting about custody or furniture or money. Truly, sincerely I am unhappy about this whole process and I really want it to go smoothly and I didn't mean to hurt you and I want you to know how awful I feel as well." Somewhere lies the right words and the apology is accepted and both parties can move on. It takes an honest person, corporation or any type of human being to issue the right kind of apology. I wish that in dealing with the Casey Anderson trial someone would have stood up and told the truth. If it was an accident so be it, that is why they are called accidents, if it was just hubris, admit you have an ego problem and move forward and take responsibility and if it was a betrayal really search deep in your soul for the kind of apology you would like to receive. Taking responsibility sets the tone.It can be done, it can work miracles and it definitely can have amazing results. But it must be well thought out, honest and sincere and most importantly with no expectations of success. I have seen it create real change in both the sender and the receiver.

Watching generations grow

2011-07-05T21:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the 4th of July and our block once again hosted it's block party. We have been doing this since 1976 (every three years, except for one earthquake year which had us skip that year so 5 years passed). We close the street, decorate, hang banners and have an old fashion party with a snow cone machine and popcorn machine. We have the usual egg toss and water balloon toss. DJ and square dance caller and a community dessert table. But this year offered even more for me. My older son and his family have moved on my block and after remodeling their home and moving back in a week ago they hosted their friends this year. He lives on the West side and I am on the East. There is always a tug of war where East vs. West. My son lived more on the East side but yesterday he was on the west. I was sad and tried to protest his move to the "wrong " side but to no avail. His kids even stressed that he was on the right side now. They taunted us for weeks and guess what? In a 2 out of 3 contest the East one and we let everyone know. We are older and clearly not in the greatest shape but our younger teenagers brought friends and we clobbered them. Once they said ringers were allowed I knew I was in the biggest competition of my life. I have lived in my house for almost 40 years and we have dominated over the years and the tradition is saved even though my son switched sides. It was amazing to see the second and in some cases third generation sharing this memorable day and continuing the tradition. My guests who were new to this party couldn't believe what goes on in the 1900 block. Our street sits in Los Angeles proper. It is 6 miles from the beach, 1 mile from Beverly Hills, and 13 miles from downtown. It represents different cultures and different ages. Our oldest member is 85 and lives in the house she grew up in and our youngest is 9 months and one soon to be born. It is a neighborhood where every neighbor knows who lives around them and shares in the celebrations of joys and sadness of death (we just lost a 95 year old resident).It represents the best of a neighborhood and when they say this can't be done in Los Angeles, we do it. We now are seeing our kids have kids and the third generation grows. I love my street and have enjoyed every day I have spent on it. But I am happy int he knowledge that this tradition will go on long after I have left this earth and my son will get to experience what I felt yesterday. A great day, indeed.

My neighborhood street

2011-06-29T19:32:00.000-07:00

I have lived in my home on Thayer Ave since 1972 leaving it once for a year when I separated from my then husband. I lived a few blocks away and when the year was over moved back to this house and my ex moved out for good. I bought my house twice so it goes but I didn't mind. We have a great street. Everyone knows everyone and as for as long as I can remember. Even though some neighbors have moved up the food change our little 1900 block has thrived. And now it is filled with kids once again as the "oldsters" have died or moved to residential senior housing. My older son just moved back to this old street with his wife and kids.
In 1976 for the Bicentennial and 200 hundredth birthday of our USA our block started a tradition and today it still continues every 3 years since that date in 1976. We have an old fashion block party (we are already known for Halloween but this is different). There are no strangers allowed but only residents and their family and friends. We get a city permit to close our street. We hang banners and we have the following schedule of events:

9:15 decorate bikes etc for parade
10 parade
10:15 arts and crafts
10:30 Nail polishing and tattoos
11 Fire trucks (if no emergencies
11:30 Musical Chairs
Noon potted plants and decoration
Lunch
1 Dress up relay
1:30 egg toss
2:00 Tug of war (only for residence)
2:30 Water Balloon toss
3 Scavenger hunt
3:30 cookie decorating
3:45 Quarter relay Races (new event)
4-6 Square dancing with a caller (the best fun ever)
6 Everyone makes their own
6:45 Dessert table (luckily this is in front of my house)
7:45 cleanup
Can see fireworks from our corner at 8:30-9:00
Pop Corn, Cotton Candy will be near DJ

As the time approaches the kids get excited, we decorate our houses from the charge to each family for the event. We have a committee who plans and plans and makes the day a highlight for all the adults and kids. I will have to be carted off this street by a hearse before I will leave it. It means stability, tradition, neighborliness, and love for our street. So many complain they don't know their neighbors but you can make it happen. We have for 35 years and we have all the pictures on a big bulletin board displaying the finest block in America and maybe just the world. A salute to all those in the 1900 block. You make my street a home.

Gay marriage in NY

2011-06-24T20:41:00.000-07:00

I am so excited. I wish I was gay so I could get on a plane and get married. No residency requirements for NY. So many of my new and great friends are gay and I feel so happy to know times are changing for them. They will get all the rights I have. I am so proud of the few Republicans that took their soul in their heart and voted for the right thing. I salute them. This is the first time in history that a dominant Republican legislature voted for Gay Marriage. Times they are a changing. Another reason is by the time my grandkids marry this will be something they don't think twice about and how wonderful will that be. They are free to choose and if they choose gay marriage they will have many options and if they don't choose it they will be so tolerant of others who do. I am finally impressed with our states. I would love for the Federal Government to vote but right now I will take state by state and when all 50 say Yes it will become the law of the land. I am a proud person tonight. Big day for New York and big day for so many people I love.

Sense of entitlement

2011-06-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went with Keisha to the unemployment office for her hearing to continue unemployment. Her employer of three weeks fired her after she moved up north and gave up a good job here and left all her family and friends to go to work for a friend (as the story was told to me). I, as her mentor, didn't see the warning signs until it was too late. I feel responsible in a way that I didn't have Keisha check out the job first by taking a vacation from her old job to see if this was as good as it seemed. She knew this woman from prison. K came from privilege and served time twice once for a crime and the other for a parole violation. K worked on Keisha for months to help her and she promised a shitload of stuff-moving expense, health insurance after 90 days and a real future. It sounded wonderful and Keisha was ready to move away from her childhood city to a new city of Santa Rosa. She was elated to be doing this all on her own with her friend Kim driving with her, who I also mentor. They rented a truck, hauled her car and away she went. Kim came home after getting Keisha settled. She moved into K's house temporarily as arranged and started her first day. All hell broke loose. Keisha was never good enough, she was berated and constantly put down. After three weeks of relentless criticism from her supposed friend she was fired, dumped and sent packing. She left the house and area immediately for San Francisco where she stayed with a friend. She went to storage took all her stuff out and hightailed it out of dodge. She cried the whole way home and most of the three weeks she was there. Keisha is a wonder person. She spent 18 years in prison from 16-34 for a crime she did commit but was promised one plea bargain that didn't go as expected and there she was 16 and tried as an adult. I have known her since the month she got out as her mentor and now a friend. It has been 5 years and she is remarkable. She is a natural writer, intelligent and has overcome so much. She is proud and well worth knowing. In fact her old job wants her back. She has absolutely no issues for the 2 years she worked there. Now on to the new job.
K was her roommate in prison and Keisha protected her for the years she was inside and she thought they were friends. K now claims they were never friends, is trying to block her unemployment with all lies about her three weeks of employment. Keisha won the first appeal and K appealed again. Yesterday was the day. As I sat in the office waiting for Keisha I watched people come and go and all the judges were friendly and talkative as they ushered their clients to hearing rooms. Ours was not. She didn't introduce herself, she bluntly asked me who I was (observer) and that was that. We walked into a hearing room with sweet pea flowers on the judge's desk. She can't be all bad I thought. She was gruff and very tough sounding. She started to dial K's number which was given. It was now 11:30 for an 11:00 hearing. The phone rang and rang and voicemail after voicemail she got frustrated and called another number where she was nice to the person who answered the phone explained why she was calling and gave information on the reason for the call which I thought should have been private. The person said they would try and locate K which she did and the judge proceeded to call again. This is where the story gets good. K answered her cellphone and was pissed. She told the judge she was on the freeway and if she got a ticket she was billing it to the court. The judge yelled stop, get to the side and we will wait until you are safe. What about handheld laws in California? She clearly was not complying. I might interject I started to ask a question and the judge basically told me to shut up-we were on the record (this was before the phone call) and I was an observer. All I wanted to ask was how many times they will call before they dismiss the case. Back to K who was finally reached. She yelled at the judge for calling so much later than originally planned and said "I am suppose to wait all day for this, I have work to do, I run a business and so on." I was shocked and my mouth dropped. K was so disrespectful I now knew what Keisha had been saying. The judge started the hearing and just a couple minutes in, K's phone went dead and Keisha knew K would not answer again as she clearly had met her match with the judge. Keisha was so hoping she would answer as this would have been the clincher that ended the case. But now the judge dismissed it again but K can ask for another hearing which I am sure she will do. The question of the day is why this woman turned on her protector after all this excitement of having Keisha work for her? She has declared Keisha was never a friend and that she met no expectations and that her work ethic was awful. Keisha has racked her brain to try and figure this out but after listening to this bitch on the phone with a judge all my words to Keisha rang true. It is all about power and K. She is lacking in self confidence and probably was put in prison twice because she deserved it. She is vicious in her pursuit of Keisha. She hasn't paid her what is due from her contract for moving. She says the house is owned by the business and she needs to clean the carpets (after three weeks) and change locks and all sorts of other crap. I convinced Keisha not to pursue this money as the woman is bad news. I had a run in with her on email and she is one sick puppy. Let it go I continue to say. I still think it is the right decision for Keisha but now I am not as convinced. I want to punish this woman but I am assuming her own Karma will get her in the end. The reason she is fighting the unemployment is she has fired so many people her employer rate is too high and she needs to put in more money and she doesn't have it. Why do such angry entitled people seemingly succeed and get away with it while others always do the right thing and finish at the bottom? I will never understand it. I did make peace with the judge when I asked if I could smell her sweet peas and this led to a discussion of the fragrance and memories. It was a long day but we went to lunch, relaxed and knew we were right beyond a shadow of a doubt. Now my mind is spinning on ways to get at K. After advising Keisha to drop it I think I must as well but then again I have this idea.......

A repost about my dad with new thoughts.

2011-06-19T08:27:00.000-07:00

Friday, May 28, 2010
Father's Day and my Dad
My father was my sugar daddy. He could and did give me anything I wanted and if he couldn’t get it, he knew someone who could. Concert tickets, sporting events, sell out tickets everywhere. He knew someone and they knew someone. He even got my kids a ride in the Goodyear Blimp when he bought Goodrich tires (their competitors. My dad was a giver, a sharer and a fixer. Any new toy, any new gadget was mine or my sister’s. He was so charitable as well and taught me how to give unconditionally.

He was a totally self made man. He was the youngest fuller brush salesmen and actor’s double for old time child stars. He made more money than anyone in his family. He tried college on the GI bill but it wasn’t for him. He married my Mom after meeting her on a train and telling his air force buddies he was going to marry that girl. When they met again by accident at a wedding he kept his word and married that girl. It was a long and seemingly happy marriage. My Dad was a typical 50’s husband and my Mom a typical 50’s housewife. She didn’t make a name for herself until my Dad had made it. She then started her own business and was extremely successful in her own right. The marriage lasted until his death in May, 2003. It seemed like a real love story.

But that was not the whole picture. As my father became more and more disabled and somewhat demented he started spilling his guts to my sister and me. He wanted clearly to pass through this life with no guilt or shame and end up in heaven (which he believed in). However as he spewed I threw up. Too much information passed thru his lips. He was not the husband I thought he was to my Mom.
It has been 7 years now since his death and I have begun to let the outpourings in his last year not spoil my vision of my Dad. He was my hero, my everything. He loved me the best way he knew how. He was an anxious, insecure person and passed some of those very traits to his biggest supporter, me.

After years of therapy I now see the picture clearer. He really was a risk taker and gambler on all things in his life which made his life exciting and mine as well. However, with every risk there is the chance of getting caught or losing. He didn’t wait for me to find out all his secrets nor did he divulge them during my growing up period or even as I was having and raising children. No, he waited until he was dying when there was no response capable from me at that point. He left this earth with no secrets and no boundaries. Thanks goodness my Mom was almost too disabled herself to remember any of this and to this day doesn’t. Good thing because our family was a product of denial thru a great part of it. She knew it and my Dad knew it. But they projected warmth and love to me.

Now 7 years later I try to focus on that love and warmth and frivolity and just say to myself-he was a self made man who loved me with all his heart and soul and did the best he could. He wasn’t perfect and neither am I. I know he would still be taking risks, living in denial but loving me for real.
_________________________

It has now been 8 years and my good memories far outweigh my bad. My Dad Jack would have loved his great grandchildren with all his heart. He would have cherished them like his grandkids and he would have taken them to the moon and back. I miss the joy he would have found in the next generation. But we know have a Jack (my grandson) and in so many great ways he reminds me of my Dad so it is all good.

I like the new guys

2011-06-17T14:27:00.000-07:00

As I age and have to go to more and more doctors for stupid accidents or sore feet, I tend to be more inclined to make an appointment with the "new guy". Not been offered choices with "new gals" but I would certainly pick them as well. My two new guys are both my kids ages 38-40 or younger (36). They are such eye candy for this old folk and they have actual personalities. I tend to engender conversations that both never thought they would have with a patient. I am like that. As you all know I like to ask questions so 1. I get to know about them and 2. they get to really know me. I want someone who is going to operate on me to understand me and like me and want to engage in conversation. I want them to know I care that they do a good job and that I am familiar with medical options and do my research. I don't trust blindly and I don't believe they are god (hard to do when I don't believe in god, anyway). Also, picking the new guy allows them to have time to take with me as they are not as busy yet and then when they do get busy they recognize that your trusted them and referred people to them and they respect that you weren't afraid to go to the new guy. I called them the new guy until they aren't anymore. They are more highly trained and up on all the latest and greatest and they show their compassion and they actually sit and talk to you and they hate when they run late. Most have had experience with the doctors who are always behind and they know how aggravating it is. They tend to have young kids and want to leave earlier but also come in earlier to work. They value their families. SO the next time you get to pick go with the new guy or gal, the one who just started in an older practice or on their own. I know you won't be disappointed. Referrals in Los Angeles if needed.

The story of the dog named Stitch

2011-06-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

The Story of Stitch from an outsider and not the biggest animal lover to boot.

A little over a year ago in my search for writers for my job as marketing director for The Next Family I found a blogger named Hollye. She fit the bill. Her stories were true and heartfelt with a sense of humor. I approached her thru email and she agreed to write something for us. It was a story about her Dad and brothers and how they came to be called a family. Our readers loved her so I asked for more and she never disappointed me or our readers.
I came to find out that Hollye was much more than just the writer I had found on the internet and we started a friendship. We exchanged emails and eventually I met her in person and she was just as thoughtful and loving as I thought when I first read her story. As the months went by we became closer and closer and started sharing some life stories through our writing and I feel she is 6 degrees from all the fabulous people that I have met from that first leap of faith. Hollye and her family speak their truth, they don't bullshit and they care deeply about family. Are they perfect absolutely not but are they driven to be as fair as one can be and expose themselves to their foibles and daily struggles, absolutely yes. I would trust Hollye's word and her deeds above many that I consider family or friends. She is a winner.

As the last year has unfolded the Dexter's have had many ups and downs but they have stood steadfast with their family and friends and took those waves like champion surfers. They continued to smile and continued to do everything right. And then I start to hear rumblings that Stitch, their beloved dog who they adopted fair and square (from as it turns out a nutcase) could be taken away in a very weird lawsuit. I immediately asked if there is anything I can do as a friend (remember I don't love animals) and they start talking about a fund raiser to Save Stitch. I donate and rally my forces and one day find myself in court watching a trial that I still to this day believe was almost a slam dunk. Of course having been a mediator not every case can you say will go your way as their are always surprises in the law and outside it but to me I was indeed on the winning side.

The troops were rallied, the lawyer was great and the court was ready to hear the case. While we wait outside on the first morning we see the plaintiff doing handstands in the cafeteria, throwing a ball around and just generally acting like assholes (spoiled rich kid assholes). Their lawyer is late, comes with no pen and borrows one from our attorney (using Our as it is now a case against me) and seemingly brash and a jerk in too many ways to mention. He is sure this is a slam dunk for him. We are relieved when it is our turn as his case is weak and twisted and full of lies which are brought out on our side. Our witnesses have no mohawks, no slip off the shoulder clothes to look sexy and no baby talk voices with barely a whisper. We stand firm, polite, well clothed and showing respect for the court and judge (okay so sometimes we (I) shrugged a little at the outlandishness of the plaintiffs). It was like a three ring circus on their side. One of their witnesses was wearing a wristband from the hospital that must have given him a day pass from his rehab (no joke). But back to our side. I listened carefully because having been in many mediations it is important to watch the judge as he has the final say and this one was a rising star for sure. He was engaging but not too engaging. He asked good questions and took good notes and made sure to point that out at every turn. He was the old white boy surfer type with the slick backed hair, the suave Republican with conservative leanings (all my observations) and full of himself and his authority. I didn't like him from the start but I was cautious to say anything because we were the winning side or so I thought. I am a realist and sometimes my reality doesn't jive with the rest of the world but it is mine and mine alone. But to tell the truth even though some parts of the case were sketchy I still thought about 95% for us and 5% for the other guys. Boy was I wrong. Even with a little doubt we proceeded to tell our side and it was wonderful. The Dexter's (I step out of myself for a moment) were brilliant. The judge in his final judgement basically said the same thing. They did everything right (he said that too). They were respectful and told their side with truth and honesty. They never lied or twisted the story, Dragnet would have been proud, just the answers mam and nothing else. They did it with grace and truthfulness. They were fair and were poised, respectful and truly presented the best defense for Stitch to stay with them. They really did and they can be so proud of their defense, their lawyers, and their family of supporters who hung on every word. But in the end with everything said and done, THEY LOST. We cried in shocked dismay as the judge handed down his written decision just last Friday. He was very careful to show he really had listened but in the end as difficult as he says this case was he basically said that possession is 9 10ths of the law and the plaintiff had the winning possession. Is it right or fair, I think not. Will Stitch have a better home than the Dexter's I think not, will he probably lose his life in an untimely death, definitely a possibility but in the end and even after the appeal (which I think is a hard one to win) the Dexter's did their absolute best, they fought with all their heart and soul for a family member, Stitch. I, who once couldn't understand the love of an animal in a family has learned a most valuable lesson. It exists and it is just as fragile as the love of a child for some people and it is their avenue to the world. I saw a different world as I sat in that courthouse where a family fought for something so precious that it was really a new truth for me.

Hollye and Troy and Stitch are a family and in less something drastically changes Stitch will be torn away from a family who loves him and turned over as a possession (like a bicycle) as the judge and law thinks to a spoiled brat. It is not fair or just. And there are no more words to say.

I never thought to call 911

2011-06-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

Today as I was finishing my last errand of the day and heading home, I turned on my usual short cut street and quickly passed a woman appearing to be weeding her garden but something seemed off so I drove around the block to make sure. There was Rose S. (a total stranger to me) sort of laying on her back crouching forward trying to sit straight up. I put down my window and asked if she was okay (I was across the street). Rose said she wasn't okay and that she couldn't get up. I immediately thought of that commercial "I've fallen and I can't get up" only this was real. I pulled my car around so it was in front of her, hopped out on my bad knee and as I approached saw that Rose was bleeding from a deep cut above her eyebrow and a ping pong size bruise there as well. Blood covered her face in various places and she was shaking (although later she told me her hands shake sometimes and that was not from the fall). I told her I would help her stand up. It took a couple of tries and finally with a little help from the proverbial white picket fence she rose and was clearly shaky. I asked her where she lived and was any one of her kids available for care. She said yes and I immediately called them as I drove her to her house. By then Rose had told me she was a member of Kaiser so since I had time on my hands I decided I would take her home to get her purse and ID and then take her on to Kaiser where her son Ken would meet us. Rose is 87, lives by herself, has buried three husbands and is smart and coherent as I would like to be at 87. She started telling me about her husbands-the first dying in WWII in the Air Force having done 36 missions and leaving her with an 8 month old son that he never got to see in person. She then married 8 years later for 31 years (had a daughter) and the last one (he was 3 months younger so she thought he would outlive her) 21 years. She told me all had been wonderful men. I told her now she needs to look even younger like 10-15 years younger. She was not opposed to the idea. When we got back to her house I forgot to mention that I asked Rose if she wanted to change out of her blood stained clothes and she promptly told me that Kaiser would take her faster if she looked bloody (what a personality). When we got to the hospital my doors wouldn't lock on my car but I just left. When I returned later I realized my Prius was still in park completely on. Must say this Kaiser is not in such a wonderful area but since I was parked right outside the ER I got lucky. The nurses who checked us in and first saw Rose decided it was worth a brain scan and probably at least three stitches in her forehead or at the very least cleanup and steri tape. Ken, her son arrived and thanked me for taking care of his mother. I told Rose goodbye and that I would stop by to see how she is feeling in a few days. Walked out of the hospital doors to the bright sunshine and knew I had done the right thing. Upon telling the story everyone I talked to wanted to know why I didn't just call 911. It absolutely never entered my mind until I was driving home. What would you have done?

My friend and mentee Keisha as we are on the radio

2011-05-31T20:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/4justicenow/2011/05/31/women-behind-the-wall

Keisha was behind bars from ages 15-33 (18 years). Here we are talking about our mentee/mentor experience and how we have become friends and how she coped with her life then and now.

Keisha and how we mesh our lives

2011-05-23T21:47:00.001-07:00

Keisha is my mentee, technically really not anymore as she finished parole April 29, 2011, 5 years from almost the day I met her. Keisha has become so much more than what she was the day I met her. She had trouble making choices about everything (no choices in prison), she was more like the teenager she was when imprisoned at age 15 1/2 than the 32 year old woman standing in front of me. Having been one of the first juveniles tried as an adult in California she was sentenced to life plus 9. Never did understand this sentencing. When I first met Keisha, after she was out a month, we went to lunch with the now de-funded program that we both signed up for-Volunteers in Parole. She was nervous and didn't know how this would all work. But by the end of the lunch we were matched and the bond started. For 5 years we hung out. We went to museums, plays, shopping, lunching, dinnering and just talking and talking in person and on the phone. We are very different-out lives couldn't have been farther from each other but somehow we waded through. I talked and asked questions and sometimes she answered me and sometimes she had no trust that she could tell me what she needed to say. But with time and work and energy we started to be friends rather than mentor/mentee. Her life started back where she started-living with her disabled Mom and immediately put back in the position of daughter, only now she was taking care of her mother. We talked about her roles in life, her roles in her family and her dreams for her future. She got a job right away and it took awhile to find the right fit. A few jobs later she settled in and at the same time started thinking about helping those lifers still in prison and those outside. She joined groups and started speaking out on her story. She spoke on stage and with friends and among total strangers. She started to become the adult she searched for. After mastering driving and cooking and making a place for herself within her Mom's home, Keisha flourished. She dreamed of the day she was off parole so she could move to her own place and start the life she so deserved and worked so hard to attain and now 5 years later she is reaching all her goals. If she had buried a list when going to prison I think she would feel she is moving farther away from that 15 year old and more to whom she believes she can be and checking off items on that list. From that first day I cared about Keisha. I tried to introduce concepts that she had never learned or seen in her family-saving, checking accounts, credit cards, and insurance. She thrived and started saving for emergencies and for her future. Did she always make the best choice NO but she made choices and accepted consequences and grew from each encounter. She had her tattoos removed from Homeboys and became active in prison reform. She started talking and couldn't stop. She turned her life around. She took advantage of every possible program in prison, she graduated college, she represented the women in prison less educated than she and helped with rules, regulations and programs in prison. She even went to Toastmasters and became a great speaker. We worked on some language and pronunciation and she continued to write and publish and perform. She became a tax payer, she now can vote and most importantly she broke the family cycle that had led her to crime to begin with. I have full faith Keisha will never offend again and will not ever put herself in a position where her character could be questioned. Keisha is a success at solving problems and resolving issues. I can honestly say I have learned more from Keisha than she could have possibly learned from me. She became part of my family. She shared my joys and struggles. I have a lifelong friend that I love like my own family. I am so proud of Keisha and I just wanted my world to know it.

A shout out to my friend Laurenne and her interview with God.

2011-05-19T15:09:00.001-07:00

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ad5cd5d715/god-reschesules-rapture

Check out my article

2011-05-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

http://thenextfamily.com/2011/05/an-american-tourist-goes-to-china/

Tooting my own horn

2011-05-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

http://themiddle-ages.blogspot.com/2011/05/deb-and-barb-have-three-way.html

My three way with Barbara and Deb

2011-05-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

http://themiddle-ages.blogspot.com/2011/05/deb-and-barb-have-three-way.html

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Deb and Barb Have A Three-Way With Madge

Deb and Barbara first met Madge in our comments section, and we’ve grown to love and admire her for her bold, straight-from-the-hip writing here and on her blog, Madgew-musings. She represents everything cool about owning your age: independence, free-spiritedness, compassion and intelligence. Madge also has three other blogs: one about her trip to China, one about her trip to Japan, and another about her trip to Eastern Europe.

Madge: I HAVE A NEW CAREER

I have screamed that headline for years as I was looking for my passion. I have been an office manager in a doctor's office (passionless), run a 5 hospital program that trained fellows in Gastroenterology (even more removed from passion), own and manage real estate (feeds my ability to travel), been a mediator, artist, and now a writer (have written for as long as I can remember). Whew, I am tired of all my careers. But my best one to date is writing and being the marketing director for The Next Family.

Let me back up. A year ago May I turned in a story for a storytelling night at the Spark Off Rose Theater in Santa Monica, California. The title of the night was Children, and I wrote a funny piece about my son moving back to LA with his family of 5. I must admit it was the most fun I had had in a long time. My family and friends were in the audience and it was very well received. At the same time a woman named Brandy was telling her story. We connected and within weeks my story was on her website and I was her marketing director. The last year and a half I have finally found my passion. I have connected with the most amazing women and some men who are all writers in various fields and all over the world. In fact through one of these connections I met this two crazy women Barb and Deb and started following their blog. And follow I did. I comment all the time as I love to show my appreciation for someone else's wit and wisdom, sorrow and excitement. It has been a love fest ever since. Putting my words out there has somehow freed my soul. My ex boyfriend, lover, friend with benefits has not been as keen sometimes as I wrote about us and how it is so up and down. My family has been very supportive and they too have gotten sometimes not the most favorable reviews, but it is all done with love and humor and a real passion to have my truth out. Too long I hid behind the "people pleaser" motif. As I aged that person disappeared and the real Madge emerged––funny, loving, always caring, terrific and sometimes loudmouth with no filters.

As the marketing director of The Next Family, I search out writers who I think would fit our demographic as well as our site. It is for alternative families and it proves all families are really similar in their wants and needs, whether it be two moms, two dads, single parents by choice, IVF, adoption, surrogacy in India, or straight urban dwellers. It has taken a passion I have had on and off since I was young (kept diaries and wrote amazing thank you notes) alive and well. And now it is working into a career of sorts. Most writing today is for free and I have no desire to write a book. I write about my life, my loves and my travels. I have a popular blog and also amazing facebook friends. Please take a look and enjoy what you find.

I am 62, divorced for over 20 years (that is all in my blogs) and enjoy being a mother to 2 grown sons and their families and a grammie to 4. They all give me great joy. I have an aging parent and thank goodness a sister to commiserate with. I can be funny, irreverent and I always speak my truth. I love my life and have fought very hard for it. Boundaries are my specialty and it took years to learn. I can teach you. I live in Los Angeles as a native. I have lived in the same house since 1972 on a quiet street in the middle of a metropolis. A little Spanish house with a zen garden and low maintenance. Life is good.

Deb: Madge, this blog made my day! How often do we hear people singing their joy? And although you had to kiss some frog careers, you have found your princely job. You were made for it and it for you.

And I can totally relate to the people pleaser thing. I too have been a people pleasing pepe all my life, and yet with middle age and menopause, not so much anymore. I would never be rude or unkind but at the same time, I will not disparage myself to make the other person feel better. Nor will I (most times) allow someone to be mean to me. Took a long time and I still work on that one. But hurrah to those of us who live our dreams in any way shape or form. You deserve to feel this way about your life, Madge.

We all do.

Barbara: Absolutely, Madge! And thanks for always inspiring us to do the same.

You’d think as an actor—someone fully engaged in an “alternate” non-office-based life––I would never question what I’m doing or why. Guess what? Not so lucky. I have gone through many heart-thumping, hair-pulling, unabashed wailing sessions as I tried to figure out which path to take at any given point. But it was thanks to this process (an utterly painful and embarrassing one) that I rediscovered my passion for writing. There’s nothing like gnashing your teeth and wailing despondently to make you realize you need to … get a life.

Thanks, Madge, for sharing your wonderful journey with us!

Mother's day for some ain't easy

2011-05-08T19:56:00.000-07:00

For me Mother's day is always a bit tough. My memories of my mother are very limited and a lot not the greatest. I once asked my dad if my Mom wanted kids and he said absolutely. I find that difficult to sometimes see in my mother. I wanted kids for sure and I know my kids feel that love and need and want within me. When I look at my Mom today at 84 it is hard to recognize her spirit. She is without a lot of memory left and is truly not happy in her almost paralyzed state.
In happier times when I was growing up it seemed like my Dad was the more fun one. He was the sugar daddy. He worked hard and played hard and gave my sister and me lots of things. He was a fixer and if we needed something done we went to him. My Mom was the enforcer, the non playful one, the no nonsense person in our family. She was so bright yet such a 50's mom. She played the dutiful wife for many years even though I feel she stagnated inside. She was a fashionista and dressed me to the nines. The outfits were glorious but unfortunately wasted on me who had no sense of fashion or desire. Homework was tedious as my mother ripped up pages and told me to do it again as it was not to my best ability. I grew up angry with her and upset that she was not fun and I think looking back not happy. My dad was a womanizer and as much as she loved him she hated him as well. There was no abuse, there was no violence there was just looking back a sadness about my Mom. When she was 40 she started a business and she was happy, finally. She was successful and busy with her own thing. As I had kids she was a loving grandparent but in a different sort of non hugging way non tender way. My dad maintained his fun and his influence as he was the grandfather that all adored. My Mom was in the shadows. Now it is too late to have those talks that settle up before one dies as my mother is lost within herself most days. She has lost any affect and drifts in our conversations. I, have heard more I love you's from her in this state than I ever remember as a child. I will say my sister's memories are very different. She was three years younger and had health issues as a child and she remembers a very caring Mom who always looked after her needs. I must say also my memory for childhood is missing a lot of pieces and have given up trying to find them. I know I felt loved and happy as a child but only after I married at 19 did I find things wanting from my mother and it has continued until this day. I can't get back what I think I have missed and every mother's day this comes up to me as I try to be to my kids all I felt my Mom wasn't to me. I think we both loved each other the best way we good then and now.

Touring with a group of 33

2011-04-22T22:55:00.000-07:00

Having just returned from China on a high end tour (I say this so you will know the people have money to travel) and to set the scene for my feelings. First off, I thought I did well in groups. I am outgoing, ask questions, can be the life of the party and really travel easily. However, this trip has changed my perception of myself. I can honestly say I didn't find but 4 people that I felt comfortable around for any length of time. I am assuming they liked me as well or it could have been that nobody really included any of us in their conversations. In the beginning I thought it was going well. I went to dinner the first night we were left on our own with two New York women traveling together who knew each other from some work they did together. Not really great friends but wanted to share the costs (single supplement is 1/3 more than traveling with two). I realized at dinner that they were too loud for even me and not really anything in common (they were never married, no children and no adventure). One just retired and the other retiring in 4 months and counting the days down. As the trip wore on I realized there were very few that I couldn't find fault with which is so not me, usually. Some were clearly racist and clearly too conservative and one family so Christian that they were trying to encourage people (me) to become a believer. Some had never had Chinese Food and were going to China for goodness sake and then complained and whined because they didn't know or like what they were served even though there were tons of options. Wanted plain old western food. There were no interesting questions asked except by myself and one other woman. I think people were taken aback by my openness and liberalism. After I determined this trip was too clicky for me I decided I didn't care to fit in or please. I have been a pleaser my whole life and in the last decade I have become much less tolerant and I think it shows in my wordiness with others. I love to engage in conversation and I can tell you so much about each and every person on the tour but few (4) really knew anything or asked about me. Why is that so unusual? We are with each other every day for 17 days on buses, planes and at meals (almost all) and yet no one conversed other than with those they were traveling with or engaged in just trivial talk (not even talking about China). The 3 men traveling by themselves were a married man who has a business so he and his wife travel separately, a divorced man who I believe was gay but not at all in touch with this (has a gay daughter that he never knew was gay even after she came out to his wife, who didn't tell him at his daughter's request). Odd bird. And a single guy, 30, who was very immature and why he chose a tour with the average age 62 I will never know. All the others were married couples and the two friends. This happened on one other tour where I was the only single and it was not pleasant as well.
I am rethinking my persona and would like to think the group was just boring and really not interested in making friends but maybe I am too outgoing, too talkative, too out there for people. This literally has happened to me only on two tours and not in my real life. I really feel I offer a lot to my friends and family and am really appreciative of all my friends and attentive to their feelings and try to solve problems rather than make them. The guide really did nothing to organize the group or work towards a cooperative effort. In the end I only went out by myself twice which was actually so much more fun for me. I wandered, I drank and I listened to music. I think from now on I will go with friends on trips and tours or only if there are more singles. It was disappointing but I found the country soul less as well and without spirit. It seemed like the people were beaten down by government intervention but some had hope that times were changing so radically that maybe in a decade or two the soul will return. I was hoping to gain even more spirituality but felt it was lost this trip. The fact that I was not allowed to interact with family, friends on facebook or blogs didn't help me feel better, my family and friends were missing and I was missing them. I am glad I went to see all the world heritage sights, which were so amazingly remarkable and beautiful but in the end I too began to feel soul less but now that I am getting reconnected my spirit is rising within me and I am glad I went but oh so happy to be home. Usually, I am not ready to go home (India, Japan, Eastern Europe and South America) but somehow China didn't resonate with me. Maybe in time as I review my photos my serenity, soul and spirit will return.

Upscale gypsy

2011-03-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

My Mom was a gypsy when it came to travel. She loved to explore places to look for jewelry for her wholesale antique business. Since her short term memory is kaput she talks about long ago adventures.

I have that gypsy in me as I depart for China this week. But my treasures are trinkets and souvenirs. Occasionally I will buy a real treasure. There is one big difference with later life travel-I go first class and upscale spending my kids inheritance. The travel company is Tauck and they are right up there with expensive and Queendom. They do everything but pack you up. Your bags are picked up from your room and placed wherever they need to be. Your meals are all great and you even have free nights to explore and some afternoons on your own. But for the most part all worry is taken on by the tour guide. I am a control freak but this tour company allows me weeks of a carefree lifestyle. No worries ever. The very first tour I took was to India by myself and I had a lot of what ifs-what if something happened to me in my room being a single, worries about sickness and poor health (which I have none of). I like to explore so when I got to India I rested and caught up on jet lag and met the group. The night was fabulous as we all got acquainted. As the trip went on I relaxed and found myself up early and walking the grounds of these 5 star hotels. One morning I had left a wake up call and was out before the call to explore. When I got back to the hotel the hotel staff spotted me and asked me if I was Madge. I replied yes and they just wanted me to know when I didn't respond to the wake up call (delivered by a real person) they called the guide to ask permission to go in my room to make sure I was okay. He said yes and then said she probably is out walking (they really know their customers) and sure enough in I walked. That relieved the fear of leaving me to rot in a hotel room. From that first morning until now I have never feared that again.
So as I leave for China in a week I am again letting all fears aside for 19 days as I explore another country on my bucket list. I am prepared and have my life in order at home which helps with anxiety for me and I am ready to get on the plane and be whisked away for another wonderful adventure. When I see people on these tours that are in their 70's and 80's it inspires me to love the gypsy in me and for my Mom who no longer can travel like she inspired me to.

Laptop addiction

2011-03-06T07:43:00.000-08:00

Inspired by my friend Donald.

I have it and it grips me minute by minute throughout my day. I have to go back in time and blame my son's move to Los Angeles with his family as the time it started. I was happily typing away on my home PC with a desk setup and could look outside to my wonderfully landscaped yard when my son decided to test out a move back to LA. He moved in for 4 months and started a new career while is wife and kids stayed in Chicago. He brought his laptop. He hooked it into my PC and all was okay until he decided to move permanently to LA with his family. They all came to live with me for a few months while they search for accommodations to rent or buy. Now the wife had a laptop as well so it made it hard for all of us to work in one small den. The proposal that changed my life-wireless in my house. My son said I had to get a laptop. It would make for an easier life for all of us. Wait a minute this is getting too serious and although their situation was temporary "he" thought my getting a laptop was the answer. I protested. I want a mouse and I would never get used to the laptop and how it operated mouseless. $2000 dollars later I had wireless and my first laptop. I could add a mouse so I did. Now 1 1/2 later I am addicted in all ways to my glorious laptop. I take it on my travels, I write all day on my bed in the laying down mode-laptop propped up on a pillow. I have a laptop tray but I would have to sit up then and that was just not me. I have placed it on a table sometimes forcing me to get out of bed. I am one of those people who do everything in my bedroom on my glorious bed. I eat, read, pay bills you get the idea. Now I am so clearly addicted that sometimes I truly never leave my room except to eat and use the bathroom facilities. Facebook and writing and marketing for a website make all this possible to the exclusion of fresh air and my art studio that awaits me in my backyard.
I am Madge and I am a laptop junkie. Send suggestions my way as you know I will get them instantly as I have my laptop with me in my room eating bonbons and drinking diet coke. And to my son, thanks for the best time of my life and a new addiction.

Please check out a friends blog.

2011-03-02T20:58:00.000-08:00

http://www.humansarefunny.com/2011/03/im-a-chupacabra-youre-a-unicorn/

My friend Laurenne wrote a blog when I told her that I had just replaced my dining room table and chairs after 20 years and this was probably my last table and chairs. She thought about how I accepted the probability of my death in 20 years or more. It inspired her to write this wonderful blog and clearly it affected her friends as well.

Technology-is it the end all be all

2011-02-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

Does your landline phone ever ring? Mine used to ring constantly and lately, well actually for months now my landline phone has had a break-a big break. I barely talk live to anyone anymore. My friends and I communicate by email, texting and social websites (facebook for one) and I am finding myself missing the direct day to day conversations. So in the last month I have taken a new stance. I now call people just to talk about their day. I want to see what movies they have seen and what they thought. Plays too, restaurants, concerts, sports-I want to hear it live. I want to be able to have a dialogue back and forth in real time with real conversations. I miss the intrigue of the facial expressions and the pauses in breathe. I want their eyes to speak to me and their mouths to move so I can see them. I want to see the clothes they wear and even their new shoes. I want them live and in person. Superbowl Sunday was great. I got to see people I have not seen in a while. The game meant nothing, the commercials even less. But it was the discussion over food and wine and chips and dips and desserts. I loved seeing people conversing and I loved to be in the company of real people, some new to me and some old friends. I like catching up with their lives and seeing new births and hearing new stories. I am a people person and I must now search out real conversations to go a little back in time before all these technologies took over my life. I want a balance between online and offline. Please call me anytime on my landline. If you don't have it email me :) and I will send it to you.

Every day is an adventure

2011-01-25T20:49:00.000-08:00

My life changed last year when I told my story at Spark theater. I met Brandy and was introduced to her website The Next Family. My writing career was reinvigorated. My life had another purpose and I was set on a mission to market her site and see where it would take me. My enthusiasm was there from the beginning meeting and it has not stopped yet. In May it will be a year and it has been the ride of my life. After writing my story I renewed my interest in writing which I had done most of my life but never put it out there. I had my art and my art studio in my garage. It had been finished a few years before and I was having such fun creating in a new and different way with my unique and original abstract paintings and political collages. I gave away my work to anyone who loved the pieces and they are in homes throughout the city. I was happy and fulfilled but now I am a different artist. I am a writer. I write my blogs and have had nothing but positive feedback. I write on others blogs and on other websites. As I discover writers for TNF I enrich my life everyday. I have met, without question, the most amazing women one could ever dream of meeting (and some men). They are in all walks of life, all religions, all colors, all types of families and all types of love, joy and journeys. They are happy, sad, joyous, depressed, struggling to make ends meet, to raise their children with honesty and dignity and are in all stages of life. I love my new family. They always delight me and give me pause to think about greatness. They stretch, they dream, they love, they hate, they are strong, they are weak but all are on journeys to make their lives and the lives of their families worthy to be considered equal to every other family in this world. What I have found out and of course it doesn't surprise me-ALL FAMILIES HAVE DREAMS, GOALS, STRUGGLES, CHALLENGES and yet remain RESILIENT, JOYFUL and WITH LOVE IN THEIR HEARTS to be understanding and joyful as they recognize that life is not a dress rehearsal and that we all try and do the best we can. WE make mistakes but we pick ourselves up and go on always forging forward with the hope and glee that just around the next corner is a wonderfully, fabulous adventure that just waits for us to step into it. I salute all of you-you encourage me to be the best person I can be and I really love all you with your unique stories and personalities. I love my life.

Cleaning out a family home

2011-01-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

My Mom is still alive but certainly not the person she once was. She stares blankly at me suggesting she needs stronger glasses but clearly that is not the issue. She has been disabled for a few years and now is going downhill. She barely speaks but every once in a while will answer a question or engage in conversation but not with any purpose. My Mom is more quickly losing her reality and this makes me sad. She is 83 this year. My sister and I have a big task ahead of us. My dad died 8 years ago and while he was alive he and vibrant they were collectors. Not just of "stuff" but real good stuff. They have treasures that are beautiful in their home but would be so out of place in my sister's home or mine. Their taste ran towards delicate vases, art glass, paintings and sculptures that overtake their yard and areas throughout their rather big house. They bought what they loved and also what they thought would appreciate over time (investments my Dad called them). He was always the consummate entrepreneur. But now as all things must come to an end, it is left to my sister and me to start cleaning. My Mom could live for years in a reduced state and as my sister and I age this job will become too massive to do years from now. So we have started. We are going through her home and taking what we want. We are dealing with auction houses to place some of the treasures in auction. Some are items I would never ever have the chance to own again yet, I hesitate in taking them. They are not my collections, they have no "value" to me. However, I have found some little things I like and one painting and a relief sculpture. They are by famous artists and demand insurance and worry. But as we traipse from room to room, drawer to drawer, curio cabinets worth more than I could ever afford, paintings that are museum quality I want to minimalize my life more and more. I know my Dad and my enjoyed every adventure tied to each and every item. They traveled the world in search of treasures. They worked very hard to afford all these wonderful pieces and yet they have no pull on me. As we go from piece to piece, marking and crossing off lists for auctions and who is buying what we are emptying a lifetime of adventure. We are reducing the collections to who will pay us the most money not who will love these items like my parent's once did. It really is sad to have to empty a once vibrant life and lifestyle. But it served them well and will serve their children and grandchildren well in the end as they will have money to buy treasures for themselves. As I stare at the few pieces that I love in my home I know they now belong to me and fit my vision for what I love and cherish and the memories aren't bad either.

The end of the year musing

2010-12-26T08:20:00.000-08:00

I so enjoy the holidays but am so glad when they end. The only thing I wish didn't end was the warmth and good tidings and general good mood of everyone. Somehow as the days fade after Christmas and New Year's people go back to their regular ways. No longer is charity foremost in the minds of many. It goes back to the "me" of our regular lives. This year has been an amazing one for me. It has been a year of growth and meeting new people and writing again for others to see. It has been a major year for new friendships and ones that I have renewed or those I decided to break away from. I have found my passion again in writing and working as a volunteer marketing person for my new favorite website-The Next Family. It has contributed greatly to my new found, overwhelming happiness. Having one son home with his family also made my year so much richer and fuller. Now if I could only get the other son home with his family. My neighborhood enriches me as well. It is the same type of neighborhood I grew up in and the same exact neighborhood my kids grew up in and now my grand kids. What a great feeling of love and support we have for each other. If you haven't had that feeling in your neighborhood I feel sorry for you. Having others looking out for you and you looking out for others is a goal worth achieving and in my neighborhood it is the norm. As the year quickly ends I wish for my friends the same goal I have for myself-to live in a world with peace, hope, joy, good health,charity and most importantly, laughter. Except nothing less for yourself.

Is this a phase?

2010-12-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

As I am getting older I want to hang out with people who are still evolving and think like I do (tired of fighting with those whose politics make me crazy). I am so tired of carrying the relationship/friendship. If I am doing 90% of the work I am stopping. I am leaving friends behind who are not interesting/or responsive to me anymore even if it is a long term friendship. The more I write the more I get centered and lately I am losing patience for working too hard on any relationship. Why is this? Is it because I am meeting so many new amazing women and one only has so much time in life to interact/care about people? Do we have a finite ability to only be friends with a finite number of people and for anyone we add we have to subtract one? I find myself bored with some of my friends who seem to be stuck in their lives. They recognize it but don't do anything about their situation but complain. No complainers need apply to be my friend. I notice I sometimes say things that are meant to provoke to get some to be alive with their feelings. As new women enter who are soooo not boring why do I need to have friends that bore me in my life? Oh am I getting selfish and that is something so new for me. I am getting so much more out of life lately as I see colors more vividly, sunsets more colorful. My life is richer day by day and I really think my writing has made the difference. Now to decide my relationships and friendships and familyships. What a road? It is definitely the one I want to be on.

The first night of Hanukkah

2010-12-02T15:08:00.001-08:00

Last night I had the family over for Hanukkah (10 of us). For the first time in about 30 years I cooked all the meal from scratch. I set a wonderful table in the living room and added Gelt as a gift to take home. Everyone was on time and we started with shrimp and dip and then went to the brisket (sweet), latkes and a green bean dish with bacon bits and bread crumbs. Okay, so it was not a kosher meal. My DIL said this was the first home cooked meal by me in 10 years, since she joined the family. I digress. As they lived out of the state and came for a visit they wanted to go to my son's favorite haunts for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so that is what we did. I do remember making brisket when she had the twins 6 years ago at her house but that doesn't count for my house. Now that they are living near me I decided it would be fun to have everyone over for the first night of Hanukkah. When I looked around the room and saw my grown nieces playing dreidel with my grandkids it brought back such memories of joy and happiness at a much different time in my life. I was in my 20's and had the energy of a teenager. Now I am in my 60's and have the energy of someone in their 50's. Oh and this time the menorah didn't light the decorations on fire and I didn't use my good tablecloth to put out the fire. Oh the memories of Hanukkahs past.Now that one son has returned with his family, I can only dream the other one will as well. I imagine Hanukkah every year here again starting a tradition with the next generation and this makes my soul leap inside. Aside from the fact that my brother-in-law said it has been at least 30 years since he had a cooked meal by me-now we start anew with a new beginning and the number goes back to 1. It was a lot of work but when my DIL called today with thanks and praise for everything it was so worth it. I think this is the first time since she joined our family that she brought nothing to the party (except a gift for me) My face reflected joy the whole night long. A new tradition following an old tradition is now starting again. How exciting is that?

Thanks and Giving

2010-11-25T11:25:00.000-08:00

It's so weird but this is the first year I have separated the words for Thanksgiving. I find myself giving thanks was more this year and giving, as always, throughout the year. Why the shift in thinking? I think it is because I have met so many amazing women writers in this year than any that have passed in my lifetime. I have done more expressive giving this year than ever before. I feel like I have come of age this year more than any. I give throughout the year in time and money but this year giving feels different. Not quite sure why. There is a shift in the air and I have caught it. It rises me up in the morning and settles me at nighttime. I hear many more words this year in thought and through my writing. Why now? I am just better able to accept myself as a writer after many years of writing for myself without putting my words out there for others to read and comment. Not sure when the shift came and how I leaped out of my box to perform in front of an audience-filled with family and friends and total strangers. It started me on a whole new path of creativity. It was always there but now it is really out there. The internet and writing sites have given me a chance to share my words with some amazing people and has led me on a new path for the second third of my life. I am amazed when the words flow and touch someone else and they let me know it. My world becomes a vision in High Definition, colors are brighter, the sky is bluer and the wind crisper and cleaner than ever. My soul is bathed in sunlight brighter and bigger than ever. I am living the life I was meant to live. I struggled for many years to find my place and I feel I am there now. Peaceful, soulful- a life of Thanks and Giving.

Meeting a friend who you've never met in person

2010-11-14T15:55:00.000-08:00

How can one call themselves friends if they have never met in person? The internet has allowed this phenomena to happen for so many people. I have an entire group of women who I converse with on a daily basis who know more about me than some of my "real" friends and yet we have never met. This past weekend I decided to drive 140 miles to meet one of my newest friends. I found Amy on a writers website and approached her about writing for a website that I work for as a volunteer. After scoping out 100's of sites Amy made an impression. She is in an interracial marriage for 18 years and had a story to tell. I loved her writing and her words spoke to me. How can that be, people asked me all the time. How can you feel so close to someone you hardly know? By know, they meant, never met. I try to explain but to people who are not open enough to venture in that area they find it too scary. What if she is not who she appears to be? What if all her pictures and travels are only in her head and the pictures she posts are not hers? What if she is a diabolical killer or stalker? How can you invite a stranger into your home and have them sleep over? Are you nuts in thinking this is safe? The answer is and has always been yes, I am secure in what I am doing. By chatting on websites and facebook and writing forums you come to know people in another dimension. They represent themselves through their creativity and art. They write their stories and invite you in. And I leap at the chance to meet them. To this day I have found only what I expected from these visits, loving women who share they joy and sorrow with the writing community and are "good folk" and tell truths upon truths of their lives and families. They are a window into the goodness of the people and the belief that people like to share and that their truths help to open your truths and help you to see just how alike we really are. It is a risk worth taking and I would encourage anyone to try it. You will be enchanted by the extraordinary people you meet.

Silly words

2010-11-10T08:46:00.001-08:00

I always am amazed with all the websites I have bookmarked to see those crazy words come up to verify my postings. Everyday without fail I see them and wonder how the computer generates the letters. I try to make sense of them and realize they are nonsensical but still intrigue me. Just one of life's little surprises. I wait for them like I do for a lover or friend. They are comforting and always appear. Sometimes I am hoping they are lost in space and let me sign on without them but no such luck. The ones that are hard to read drive me crazy and I have to hit the refresh button hoping to get one that is visible to my eyes. They make me laugh and think about letters and words and their impact on my daily life. Just a little nonsense to add to my day.

On death and dying and living

2010-11-02T06:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had the privilege of getting a call from a friend who is leaving the hospital to die at home. My friend, Nancy, called to assure me she was not ignoring me and to let me know how much she cared about me. The telephone call came as a surprise as her cell phone had been disconnected and the last time I talked to her live she was in the hospital waiting for results of tests to see how they were going to treat her mysterious masses riddling her body. 6 months ago she appeared fine. She was finally living a life she so richly deserved. She had sent her last child to college (5 young men, she had birthed) and her mother had recently died leaving her an inheritance that would finally set her free. She decided to separate from her husband of long standing to finally have, in the second part of her life, the dreams she had put on hold while raising 5 boys. Her husband was in the military so traveled a great deal and she basically was in charge when he was away. She managed as far as I could tell well for her sons. She was the most brilliant writer and shy as a person. She was missing a tooth so she seldom smiled. The first thing I ask her to do for herself was get a tooth. She had graduated from Harvard and was capable of this through her husband's insurance. I felt she thought she didn't deserve to smile. She emailed me one day and said I did it and sent a picture of herself smiling. She looked radiant.

Let me go back 13 years or so to when I met her. I joined the Oprah Book Club and within weeks a little group of us found each other and branched away from the main site to establish our own "Bookbuddies" and to discuss amongst ourselves the books. Soon the books went by the wayside and we found solidarity in each other. We all tried to meet as a group in Chicago and most of us made it. That is when I first laid eyes on Nancy. She was African American and had dread locks and didn't smile much. She was quiet and reserved but when she opened her mouth words of glory spilled out. She has lived quite the life raising 5 boys and keeping them safe and out of trouble. She was an only child and had all the best growing up-a mother who loved her and private schools to show that love. She decided to drop out of college and marry. She popped out those kids (one set of twins) with ease and a love to know they would have each other. Now those kids are grown men and hopefully, with her love and guidance they are helping each other while their mother dies in front of their eyes.

Going back to our conversation yesterday. It was easy and carefree. We weren't stilted at all as we expressed our love for each other. I asked her if she had made peace and she said she had. She had done the best she could under the circumstances. As the diagnosis unfolded I talked to her or emailed with her about stuff. Lawyers and divorce and inheritance and trusts and she was confident she would live to see the birth of her first grandchild (she hopes it's a girl) and to put her affairs in order as it became apparent to all that she might really die. I encouraged this normally shy Nancy to reach out to her friends. She mentioned only our group and two to other people. But she had her church and she told people and people came to help. Her sons rallied and started to take care of her. Even her soon to be softened. She is at peace.

There was no crying but rather a celebration of our friendship and what it had meant to each of us. My friend is dying and just a year ago she flew out to California and came to my annual birthday party. It was her venture solo and she had a special friend here she wanted to visit for the weekend. She was branching out towards her dreams.

Her impending death only solidified my own personal thoughts about living a full life. Don't wait for anything. Enjoy your family but find time for yourself. Live your best life as each day could be your last. Explore, travel, take mini adventures, walk around your neighborhood, extend your goodness outward and seek joy for yourself. You only go around once and there is no dress rehearsal.

Nancy, as I told you on the phone, you will become an angel.

My best decade so far

2010-11-01T08:36:00.000-07:00

Another birthday is over. Since my birthday is on Halloween, the world celebrates with me. A milestone I cannot forget as people come out of the woodwork to wish me a happy birthday. I love birthdays and ever since I started writing in my 20's I have loved each decade more as I have passed through it. I think this is my Fabulous 60's. I take care of myself more, I have many more adventures than I did as a younger person. Raising kids and working occupied all my time. I did find an hour or so a week to go to a book club but there were no massages, my hair did not need coloring and my nails never were done except for a very special occasion. All my energy went to my kids and what was left went into my job. And a job it was, never a career. I also liked being out with people and around lots of stimulus and always, always the pleaser.

Now I relax and take each day as a new beginning, a new adventure and a soulful journey. I have altars, I dream-dreams, I covet my alone time and I have become a gypsy in my travels going to third world countries by myself on a tour. Okay, so it is high end but that is the fortunate part-I can afford it. I am spending my kids inheritance and they are in full approval mode.

I love truly more than ever before. This is my decade. And I cherish everyday.

Traveling

2010-10-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

Traveling always excites me in a gypsy sort of way. I love the process of getting ready and the anticipation of the trip. Anxiety is a little bit around if I am traveling by myself to a third world country but I always get on the plane. I settle in my seat and always promise myself I will try and sleep but the thought of far away places keeps me awake. I used to carry travel books and read up on where I was going but ever since I found high end travel I let them do all the work. It is an older person's (with money) dream trip. Other than having to unpack my own luggage they do everything else. From the moment I step off the airplane my control issues vanish and I am in their hands.

Wow that is a relief and I step onto the soil and let my mind just take me away.

I hate to shop but on a trip I go wild with tzhotchkes. I buy so many little items (souvenirs to most) but treasures to me. Recently, I was in Japan and bought chopsticks, teas, fans, key chains, baseballs Japan style, tee shirts, misc candy and treats, magnets-you get the idea. I used to bring lists of people I wanted to buy for now I just go wild and when I lay it all out on my bed when I get home I look at it all and my heart sings. I love this stuff-occasionally I will buy something "good" or antique or a painting. I look at the walls and ledges in my house in a whole new way. I move things, I become a minimalist giving away stuff I have tired off or have decided doesn't match me anymore.

I have such fun looking over all my treasures and remember the adventures in finding them. I relish walking and shopping in foreign countries. I loathe it at home. Something comes over me when I travel. I relax and enjoy everything from morning to night. I am joyful and my spirit is raised.

I have a gypsy in me and it needs to roam at least once a year to some exotic or interesting place. My bucket list is full with places to go. Traveling so expands my mind and soul.

When I come home I always miss the place I left. Home is wonderful but travel sets me free.

An evening of new friendships

2010-09-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

I have always been a social person willing to chat it up with almost anyone but last night was extraordinary. My writings have taken me to an all new level. I volunteer for the The Next Family website as a marketing person. It started in June and I have been scouring the internet for writers for out site. With great success I have found so many brilliant writers and have been successful in getting them to write their stories about their alternative families. Those families that just a decade ago were on the fringe but have now become so mainstream-2 dads, 2 moms, fertility babies, adopted babies, single moms and dads, interracial couples and most of all loved babies. Last night was the one year anniversary of the website. It started with just 6 writers and now has 41. I have been finding so many people that I would be curious to know how many have come from me in the last 4 months. When I make contact with these amazing people, I feel as though they are my new family in the way they tell their stories with so much compassion and openness and honesty. Last night they celebrated and talked with me about their lives and they have so much joy. It makes me sad that our country has tried to put a stop to gay adoptions and gay marriage of a group of people who want to love a child. What can be so wrong about that?

Joy in my heart for Marlo

2010-09-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

I have been walking around with joy in my heart for my friend Marlo. I first met Marlo when I was on the board of VIP (Volunteers in Parole) and we both were mentoring parolees (that's another blog). She was trying to find true love on the dating circuit (eharmony). She was joyful and wonderfully enthusiastic. She wanted to be married and have kids. Marlo is a real giver and nurturer and had this great career so hadn't really thought about marriage and children until her late 30's. One day she comes in to the board meeting and announces she thinks she has found the one. I cheered. She deserved it. Time moved quickly and Marlo announced her impending marriage. They got married in Florida before family in a small ceremony and when they came back from their honeymoon they threw themselves a party for their friends. I went and had a blast. Brett had a home that he made comfortable for Marlo and they started their live together. She was 39. They tried right away for kids and it wasn't happening for them. For a year she couldn't produce viable eggs and was a wreck with all the fertility junk she tried. Brett stood by and gave the shots daily and was very encouraging. Marlo and I met for lunch and she told me they were going to adopt. They had found a law firm in LA that would help them and told them it takes from 3 months to 13 on average. They went through home visits from social workers, CPR classes and baby proofed their house. They made a book to show for prospective birth mothers that took a month to produce. On August 20th they were accepted into the pool of couples ready to adopt. On September 16th they got a call that they were the first choice for a birth mom in Illinois, they accepted on September 17 (just like eharmony)and the baby came early on the 18th. They flew to Illinois on the 19th and by the 23rd Macey Reece was theirs. What an amazing story and that is why I have been joyful all week. Congratulations to my friend Marlo and her new gorgeous baby daughter. I know you are on the ride of your life. Take every moment in as it goes faster than the wind before they grow up. A side note this all happened over the most holiest day in the Jewish religion and for Marlo, Brett and Macey this is all an added bonus. To life and to family.

Extraodinary and ordinary

2010-09-04T22:41:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wanted someone in your life to be extraordinary and after two attempts at a relationship you realize that they/ it are just ordinary? I have had just such a relationship and tonight I realized as we went out that we didn't have enough to hold us together anymore. I knew that years ago after a terrible breakup and a 4 year break that the book should be shut but something in my heart said it would be different this time. Bubble in here wishful thinking. I tried for the last 1 1/2 years to make my wishes come true but as the time went by I was more and more disappointed. But I am no quitter so I plodded along not telling my truths and now tonight pulled the plug. I realized when I didn't see him for a week or two and didn't miss him something was going on inside of me. My life is filled with joy on all levels and his has really very little, in fact almost none. He talks about finding joy but some people are powerless to do the work to find it. I am a doer and I tried with all my heart to give him joy and sometimes I was successful but most of the time he was mired in his own sadness. He has a job but not at the level he was before the downturn, he has a grown daughter who was raised be her Mom and only got to know him when she was 7-he is trying to find ways to reconnect and some days are better than others but a lot of work is needed. He has a son who lives with him half the time or more ( a teenager ) who sometimes I feel he thinks of as a burden. I know he loves his son and is a good dad but he struggles so much internally that he misses a lot of the joy his son does bring to the room. I feel sad to be around him more lately than ever before.

Our talks used to be dynamic and loving and now are more distancing and difficult. We usually end up feeling wanting and don't know how to solve it. He was never going to be a life partner, he reminded me, and I always had a part of me that knew that but believed extraordinary was right around the corner. It never even showed up on the block or the neighborhood or anywhere close to around the corner.

I have loved this man for over 10 years even when we didn't talk. He still was present in my mind. The first breakup was so awful and disrespectful there should have been no second chances but a chance meeting 4 years later proved there was still love to explore. We made compromises, we made promises, but never ever real plans for a future. I thought at that the time that was what I wanted and convinced myself that maybe having some of him was better than none of him. But when one puts out 100% and gets back nothing close to 100% the mind starts to develop new arteries and veins to find pathways that still can forge new avenues and hope for new routes. We have reached the end of those roads. Both not ready but both knowing it is the right thing to do. I want this person to know that in a way I will always love him and still have his back. Maybe by seeing his back walk away from me I can find new routes within myself to find other avenues to look for the extraordinary. Because in the end I am worth extraordinary, not all the time, but enough to know it is possible and to see it and have it coming down the street...

It's all about new friendships

2010-08-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

I would never have guessed that my life would be so different after telling my Children 2010 story at a theater here in Los Angeles. I met one amazing woman who I bonded with and from there I am now a volunteer marketing director on her website. That led to me joining all these blog sites and finding more and more amazing women writers. I have now found myself submitting my stories on websites, blogs and anywhere that will accept my stories. It has been a life changing event. Considering that I have written most of my life for me alone it is so rewarding to now have people reading my work and thinking of me as a writer. My writing network is so strong. I have met no one in person yet except my initial story telling friends yet, I am part of a community of women writers. Most are struggling to finish a book or writing to be paid. I am in the first phase and like my art, I just appreciate that people enjoy it and I am willing to give both away free. I have had an amazing life up until now and everyday lately has pointed out to me that at 61 my life just gets better as I evolve and let my universe open to new ideas, new friends and new projects. I feel truly blessed by the spirits of love, honesty and healing that have invaded my soul.

When pain becomes chronic..........

2010-08-19T18:40:00.000-07:00

one starts to lose their mind. About 3 years ago I started on a foot adventure not knowing that I would have 3 surgeries in as many years and two surgeries within 6 months. It all started with an Achilles heel injury. I went to an orthopedist and he suggested physical therapy and that is when the trouble started. I was taught some exercises and one day (without shoes on at home) I did one of them. I had no idea I needed strong shoes at the time to perform the toes lifts on stairs. About a day later the bottom of my foot was totally black and blue, no pain, no gain. Slowly, I noticed that my 2nd and 3rd toes were rising and rising. The bunion I had never worried about started to move right like a marching soldier. The toes welcomed him like a bridge opening to let him pass. I went to my second doctor for another opinion and he immediately wanted to do surgery. I didn't like him. I tried my own remedies for a year until I could no longer wear many of my shoes as the top of the toes were getting calloused. Back to orthopedist and he did some modified bunion surgery and put a pin in my toe, shortened the bone and somehow got it to lay flat by using my third toe as a buoy. It corrected that problem but pretty soon I was having shooting nerve pain in my 4th toe, same foot, different location. I tried for 6 months to control it with anti-inflammatory and massage et.al. It only got worse so I had surgery to remove a "Neuroma". I was up for it and saw the little sucker that had been causing me pain. It was supposed to be the size of dental floss but mine was 1/2 inch by 1 inch of burning redness. The doctor was happy, I was elated and went hope to recover. I never did. 95% cure rate for the last procedure I was in the 5% and now in addition I had what felt like rocks under my second toe. We tried shots and more shots until I could have no more, to no avail. You must understand I have a very high tolerance of pain but this was nuts. I couldn't walk flat. I had to walk on the side or heel of my foot. Soon my calf felt like it was imploding. I had searing pain out my toes and rocks in the pad of my foot. I decided to find a physical therapist who worked on feet. I found one and after one treatment I was worse. He and I, together, thought it best to get a second opinion. He recommended some doctors who he is affiliated with and where he gets all his business. Rarely did someone like me come on my own. I asked him who he would recommend. Here is what he said. Oldest doctor and busiest would give me about 5 minutes and had no bedside manner (out), doctor number 2, 10 minutes and some bedside manner (out), 3, "the new guy" would give me all the time I needed and someone next to me in physical therapy had just had surgery with him and loved him. This was before I knew his secret. I decided since I was directing my own treatment with doctor number 2 and he had no more ideas a change was needed.

Off to number 3, the new guy.

A lot to say about doctor number three, TNG. First off he is eye candy and I mean gorgeously handsome and I don't usually even notice these things. But he was stunning. Dark swarthy, bright blue eyes and a voice that was so soothing. My first visit was a consultation and he had ideas-lots of them. He fixed my pebble feeling by showing me how to tape my toes when I feel it. The x-ray showed arthritis in just that joint for some unknown reason. Maybe because I have walked funny for a few years now because of pain. He also believes I have a "stump neuroma" and that he could inject it with an alcohol mixture every two weeks for 6 weeks or do surgery.
He had me come back in three weeks. I made it to two. I went home and researched him and found good credentials and also that we was an opera singer.

When I went back to see him after two weeks I asked him some serious questions now that I decided to go with him. Why wasn't he married as he is Jewish/Persian and here in little Persia (Los Angeles) I was sure his Mother and her friends and the quantity of Persian women would make him a great catch? He was a doctor (said with Jewish lilt), he was gorgeous and he had hobbies. I also said it was absolutely fine with me if her were gay and some of my best friends are just that. I like to talk. He laughed and said he has told his mother and all her friends and all the patients who come to him and try to fix him up that he is not ready. Turns out he is 36 and could be my son. I was now his mother. He also confided he grew up in Chicago and had no relationships with Persian women as there weren't any where he lived and didn't plan to here in Los Angeles. I think we have the biggest Persian/Iranian population in the United States. He laughed and thought I was too funny. My real reason to ask was I wanted him to remember me and know who he was operating on if need be. I don't want to be just a patient.

I thought, okay, I will try injections. I must mention that the needle goes right into the nerve-think searing pain for about 30 seconds. Should feel better sometime within the 12 weeks-not to be the case for me. With each injection 1-3 the pain got so much worse and I could only walk on heel or side of my foot which has now become my normal gait.

Surgery scheduled for next Friday, the 27th. I told the doctor yesterday when I had my pre-op appointment that I want to see the specimen before he sends it to pathology and if he finds nothing cut something and put it in that specimen bottle. He is confident as only "blue eyes, eye candy" can be. At least looking at him makes me happy.

Chronic pain is no fun and I can only imagine how it must be for people who can't get it to stop. If I walk funny I feel much better and the pain dissipates long enough for me to forget until I walk regular and then it is searing once again.

More to follow after surgery.

Obituaries

2010-08-06T14:28:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wonder why people put very old (as in not recent pictures) of themselves in the newspapers when they die? I am always shocked when I see a young person who had died or one who looks at if they are under 50 only to find out they died in their 80's or 90's and the picture was from their heydays. Who picks out these pictures? I want a current one, not ugly and certainly not showing if I looked terrible but one within the last 5 years. When someone takes out a half page to promote what they did in their life or the paper prints one of someone who invented something we all use I want to see how they looked when they died or close. I don't want their military picture or their wedding picture or there graduation picture from any grade level. I don't want to be surprised that they lived this great life and even though they looked young they were 97 and died peacefully in their sleep. This has always bugged me and it happened again in the LA Times today where they showed a picture from 1987 (23 years ago. I know the family picks the pictures but let's rejoice in the longevity of their lives. Let's allow people when they die old to look old. Now if someone dies young that is when you see current pictures so we all feel bad as we should. Just something I think about. I know I am probably the only one.

Baby Boomers parenting their parents.

2010-07-28T20:50:00.000-07:00

I am one of the lucky ones because my grown sons moved away after college to other states and it was nice to have them visit but also nice for them to succeed in their chosen professions. They got married, had kids and now one is back in Los Angeles and lives on my street but no real parenting required anymore. They parent their kids and I try and stay out of it. I have made plans for my old age with long term care which will never be used as I plan to end it before a full-time caregiver is needed or I am ready for a nursing home. My sister and I have a pact and we will get drugs and do each other in. I definitely could do her in, she has periods of fear she won't be able to do it for me. But, I am not stupid, I have plenty of backup which brings me back to the title. My sister and I are parenting an aging, mean, abusive mother who only thinks the worst of us for almost every conversation. We have divided the tasks-I do all her accounting and paying of bills and my sister does her medicines (17) and is primarily responsible for selling off her more expensive items to keep her in the manner to which. She is clearly the better daughter most times with my Mom but she gets plenty of abuse as well but clearly not as much as I do. My mother and I never did well together. I don't remember a time when she wasn't criticizing me for something. You look good but....., your house is great but......... your kids are fabulous but if you only..... And you have to wonder why I got married at 19-NOT.

My mother has skin cancer and she must go through radiation starting tomorrow 5 days a week for about 20-25 treatments. I met her at the hospital today to get the scoop and meet with her doctor, nurse and tech. My niece was my witness and leveler so maybe my Mom would be nice. My Mom can't walk, wears depends and has no ability to remember anything in the short term. She kept asking why am I here-skin cancer Mom. Bullshit she said and so it went until the nurse came in to ask a few question. My Mom did okay with her name and date of birth but if you ask her how old she is (83) she doesn't know. Maybe because she always stated her age as 39 even when I passed 39. My Mom ran her own business for 40 years-the antique jewelry business and she was very successful. She and my Dad (now deceased) shared an office and loved and hated each other with the best of them. After those first two questions to establish who she was and how old she was it went downhill from there. Do you have energy-why yes she said. We all put thumbs down. Do you have issues with your memory-absolutely not, again thumbs up. Bowels, fine-you wear depends Mom. Any issues with heartburn-no she answers. Thumbs up again. She catches me and looks at me and says what do you know-just be quiet and on and on it went. After 20 minutes the nurse left and the doctor came in and on and on it went again as the doctor painfully explained her condition and my Mom nodded sweetly. After the doctor left my Mom asks why I am here-skin cancer Mom. When the doctor left I quickly said I had to go to the bathroom. I caught up to the doctor and filled her in.
Oh but your Mom looks great she says and I think sure plastic surgery can fix you on the outside but not much for the memory losses or the real inside heart. My Mom never took care of herself. Her dad, a physician, had a heart attack at 32 and was dead at 42. He was told to not work, go home and prepare to die. He exercised and had a glass of red wine and lived another 10 years but never was strong enough to work. My Mom and her Mom had a life very different than what was planned. So my Mom throughout her life was glad to have gotten past 42 and figured every year was a bonus so she drank and smoked and didn't exercise but when she had a heart attack in her 60's modern science kept her alive and fixed her so she could go like the ever ready battery.

After two hours and not finished my niece and I left. I wished the staff well and told them she can be mean, ornery and abusive. They assured me they could handle it. As I was leaving I asked what phone numbers they had for my mother-her home and my sister's cell. I said perfect and walked out to a beautiful day with my niece to our cars.

More musings from 1997

2010-07-19T20:27:00.000-07:00

The first line of stories I thought about.

1. Dark Ominous clouds raced across the setting sun sky.

2. Raging rapids surrounded the rocks forcing the raft to wrap on the middle folk river.

3. Nagging is something I hate to do; but sometimes it's the only way to get the job done.

4. The rainbow with all it's bright colors dripped gold on the shadows of the desert.

5. The luscious chocolate dripped down from the right side of his mouth; licking his mouth in a circular motion, he looked right at me.

6. Smooth and pure silk draped across the woman's body as she slept next to her latest lover.

7.The leather quality of his face tole me that he loved the outdoors.

8. Swaying trees out the window, shadows cast by the sun, it was a glorious day.

9. Balls bouncing, children yelling, arms flailing, the water polo game was about to begin.

10. The horses were in the gate, the air was solid, the ducks quacked , the race was about to begin.

July 19th, 2010

What the fuck was I thinking back in 1997????????????????????????/

Cleaning is cathartic

2010-07-13T15:42:00.000-07:00

I love to clean and every chance I have I do it. My house could have the white glove treatment an pass. But after the instant gratification comes the treasures I find. Today I was in a drawer normally reserved for the ends of cords to my computer and rarely have an issue except today when my printer wouldn't print. It already won't take my camera memory card so this might be it's last opportunity to work again or be replaced.

Anyway, I was in the drawer and I found writings from 1997. I will reprint them with the permission of the author,ME (in a very different time zone as well as place in my life).

The Ring

The ring that bound me.
The ring that was gold.
The ring that was inscribed.
The ring that was rounded.
The ring that was a soothsayer.
The ring that I married in.
The ring I changed.
The new ring.
The ring that represented years.
The ring that had diamonds.
The ring I designed.
The ring I really loved.
The ring that held the secrets.
The ring if only it could talk.
The ring that died.
The ring at the bottom of Lake Como.
The newest of rings.
The ring I bought.
The ring that represents my growth.
The ring I love the most.
The ring I remember the most.
The ring that I care about.
The ring my ex had nothing to do with.
The ring I will pass down.
The ring without memories.
The ring that keep son ringing.
The ring that measures time.
The ring that I will wear always.
The ring that is my rock.
The ring of my salvation.
The ring of honesty.
The ring of truth.
the ring of openness.
The ring of friendship.
The ring of life, my life.

July 13, 2010

The ring that I no longer own.

The Plaid Dress

The plaid dress that was my favorite
The plaid dress that lessened my anxiety
The plaid dress that I made my mom wash every day
The plaid dress that warded off evil
The plaid dress that had rainbow colors
The plaid dress I threw-up in
The plaid dress that I still remember today
The plaid dress I wish I still had today
Plaid dress, I loved you to shreds.

July 13, 2010

The plaid dress that I remember now as a skirt and vest.

The Room

The room was 12 by 12 painted grey and white, it had 2 windows representing 2 lives-that of him and this of me. It was carpeted and contained treasures of our lives together. It was really my room though-in fact the house felt to me more like my house than his--when had our lives become so separate-the house had been my true love. it was old and well developed and very well worn. I felt terrific when we bought it. He wanted something new and modern-a late model addition, new shiny and sleek. Maybe that's when we should have determined our differences were too great. Now the house that I loved is truly mine...I bought it from him and quickly the memories of our life together in that house disappeared and now it's my new single memories. Before I moved in I had the room repainted peach. It was my only priority-the bedroom needed a new coat of paint-something that bespoke me. The two windows suddenly represented my two lives and merged in my mind as one big picture window. The memories never seemed to need to fade-they really didn't exist in this room. Now I am seen in this room-now I exist, I breath, I live, I eat, I exercise I read, I listen to music, I sleep... The room has taken on a total representation of me and who I've become- I love my room now even more than ever. I love my house now even more than that first day over 20 years ago-when I thought my life had it all, but really-it was missing me.
Fast forward 9 years. My sons have a terrific relationship with me and are still trying to develop one with their Dad. The divorce was the best thing that happened to me. I always say my loneliest day now by myself doesn't come close to my loneliness in that former tree house. Everyone is now welcome in my treehouse.

July 13, 2010

The house still holds me and warms me and entertains me. My sons and I have the most wonderful relationship and they are no longer trying to work it out with their Dad-he has abandoned them for all intensive purposes.

My natural look

2010-07-11T10:45:00.000-07:00

I am 61 years old and last night in my bed with my BF he asked me what products do I use and how he liked the fact that I was not heavily made-up. Is he fucking kidding? No I am not heavily made-up but a lot of work goes into my "natural" look. First lets say I went through some transformations. I had broken off my two front teeth at separate time in my young life and finally had them properly fixed with veneers. I can't believe how many people tell me my teeth look so good-did they look that bad before? I look at pictures and hardly notice the difference.

I wear glasses and have lately taken to rimless and more modern for my spare pair (colors) and now people say you have such big eyes. My eyes I always thought were my best feature as they are green. Oh well. But back to products.

When I was traveling in Hungary last year our tour guide with a terrible complexion and very obese (I know for a travel guide, yet) but extremely lovely and knowledgeable. She mostly took us to a place and we walked on our own or with a guide from that country, but I digress. She was telling us about an amazing product that all the women in Hungary hunger for-that being Helia-D. She said women come from all over the world to buy some. That was all my travel mate and I needed to hear. We went to the local drugstore where it was sold cheaply and bought out the place. It comes in some many combination's for every type of skin. I decided great gift for all my friends that are all different ages. I bought sensitive for me, anti-aging for me and night cream. Our guide said just a little dab a do you. I started when I returned home as did some of my neighbors who I gave it to. After a few weeks my neighbor Jen comes over to tell me this is the best product she has ever used. She is only 34 but swears he skin is much softer and less wrinkled. She swears it is working. I, too have noticed a difference in the depth of some of my lines. So that is product number one. I apply it in the morning and at night clearly use anti-aging and the night cream.

Okay after applying the cream I then apply base (made to match my skin color) lightly. Next is blush and finally a fine powdered also to match my complexion. Now for the eyes I have my brows plucked professionally as I have butchered them for years and I thought in my older years I would take better care. They look much better even though now they are grayer and need filling in my a brow brush. Next comes the eye shadow. I mix 4 colors from beige to cream to a light green (accent for the eyes) and then mascara matched for my brown/black eyelashes and finally a lipstick lightly colored to again match my natural lips which I might add could use some blump (but have not done that).

Now the "natural" me is ready to conquer the world. I am so glad it looks natural to everyone. I feel naked without it but I am sure that internal pressure came from a beautiful Mom who always wore makeup that was perfect and clothes to match. I never mastered the clothes thing EVER. It was probably one of my Mom's biggest disappointments in me. I kid you not. When I look over pictures of my early years I was dressed so beautifully and so carefully appointed. Even the shoes matched. I was a poster child for children dressed for success.

So after all is said and done I will continue to look natural. The one good thing I have going for me is I pee very fast in stalls. I feel a real attribute. But that is another story.

Blogger extraordinaire

2010-07-02T20:47:00.000-07:00

Blogging has become my new passion. Everyday I check my various blogging sites to see if there are interesting people to follow or discussions to jump into. I have met some amazing people on this journey from every walk of life and every nook and cranny from around this country and others. I have entertained new ideas, new visions and new hopes and dreams. I have laughed, cried and hoped for the best in other people's stories.

I have always been a good listener and a people watcher. I am the person on a plane, who if encouraged, will learn your whole life history in a few hours. I am always shocked at how many people tell me their deepest, darkest secrets and when we step off that plane sometimes I have made a friend for life. People like to talk about themselves and especially when you ask a lot of questions. I also find it quite interesting that very few people will ask me questions.

I have different friends for different needs and causes. I know most of my older friends far better than they know me, I think. I am the nurturer. I am the fixer. I am the problem solver. And somehow I usually fix my own issues and delve into my own world to come up with my own solutions to what ails me. I am the one people turn to for advice on almost everything. Or on a rare occasion I will ask for something but most of my friends just think I can handle whatever comes my way. And usually I can.

But as I age (now 61) I wonder how it will go down. Will I be a fixer until I die? Will I ever let others do for me when I am in need or not? Will I continue to nurture? My older son and family now live on my block and my daughter-in-law said to me recently, at least we will be around if you need help. A thoughtful thing to say but I think I would end it by my own hand before it got to that.

As a child I lacked confidence and was afraid of my own shadow. As a teenager I never believed I was worthy. But I played a good game of looking and acting confident and I think eventually I just believed it. Now as I look back on my life from this perspective I can now say I am confident, I am women, Hear me Roar. It took years of therapy, medicine for depression and some power within me to lift myself up and become the person I am so proud of today. The woman's movement helped me a great deal to find myself in this world.

I am compassionate, well rounded, enjoy the company of many or few and have really solid friendships that fit all my needs. Not one person, but many, who each see a part of me and when my birthday rolls around each year my oldest friends always wonder how I found my latest friends. I get around I tell them.

More choice thoughts

2010-06-29T23:18:00.000-07:00

Choices are on my mind this week. I am trying to figure out how one makes choices and why some work and others fail miserably. As a woman who raised two wonderful sons and now has so much free time to do what I want, I am finding myself torn with so many choices. I remember it seemed to be easier when I had kids and worked full-time. This way seemed to dictate my choices where today I do what I want, when I want and have learned to say no and stick with it. How do you cope with your choices day to day? Working full-time and raising kids as a single parent or one who is struggling with fertility to become a parent or those who struggle with school choices, food choices and at the same time trying to be PC.

I would become crazy if I had all this going on now. I sometimes wonder how I did it all when I had my marriage and my kids and my job and my extra activities. But I did. I made choices that I thought were in my perceived best interest and for the most part lived with these choices and rarely changed back to what it was before the choices. I like change and therefore would move furniture constantly in my house. I would rotate paintings, buy new sheets and towels and still managed to meet most of my expectations that I set as "goals". Although as time went on I found myself becoming invisible. Do you feel invisible in your daily life and try and make choices that you think will work? Are you lonely within your busy day? Do you have any time to do something for yourself?

As I make choices everyday about my life and where it fits in this world I wonder what the other roads look like that I didn't choose. The internet has made a big difference in my choices lately. I find myself spending hours writing and reading blogs and working for The Next Family searching out guest writers whose lives amaze me. The choices we make everyday for ourselves totally reminds me of all the new choices available. Do we still have time to make human contact and add real conversation to our lives? Do you sit online in your free time instead of reading a book? Are you playing games like Farmville or video games? Do you use your Blackberry's and IPhones to keep you in contact but not really in conversation? Do you text instead of talking?

As I ponder all the changes in my life and all the available choices I realize it is that very fact that I have choices that some days blows out my brain. Sometimes I just have to close all my apps, phones, internet and go to a museum, beach or other zen place where I can enjoy the sights and sounds of the city or the quiet solitude of parks and quiet places.

Some days I just try and call people who I have lost real communication with to hear first hand about their choices. An amazing world we live in.

Choices

2010-06-28T18:37:00.000-07:00

Everyday we make choices. I just decided to cancel a surgery on my foot because I am not clear what the issue is and it would be my third one. I am beginning to think it is just scar tissue as it doesn't hurt but just feels like things are in my shoes. I can still exercise and will try my alternative therapies of acupuncture, ultrasound, laser light therapy and physical therapy. I am glad I changed my mind. Choices are so important in life.

My choice to live by myself after a 20 year marriage and then 20 years of doing just that has been my ideal. I make the choice everyday what I want to do for my day. I choose who to call or email or facebook. I stay in touch with only those I want to. I decided to have a friend with benefits and be happy in making it work.

I have made a choice to be close to my grand kids (three living on my street and one in Chicago). Just got back from visiting in Chicago. I made the choice to spend lots of money on my son and his family. I love watching them be joyful and excited over the simplest things.

Made choices to be joyful and philanthropic. I search out people or organizations that can use my donation, volunteering and just passing their sites along. I chose to join Kiva and help in third world countries.

I recently told a story at a theater in Santa Monica from my blog. It was one of the highlights of my life.I liked getting the adulation and out of that one story told out loud I have met some amazing people. One of the other storytellers has since published my blog entries which have ignited my spirit to work at getting my voice heard. Now I have made a choice to help my new friend in marketing to spread her website all over the world.

I choose to read, exercise, write and paint. I paint a few times a month in my art studio (converted garage). I choose to paint to slow down my mind and just let my creativity flow.

I choose to find new restaurants to try and get to know the owners. Makes those out of the way family run restaurants a real treat.

I choose life and the terrific feeling I get from my choices.

Flights of fancy

2010-06-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

I always get nervous before I get to the airport but once there, with all the hubbub, I relax and settle in the lounge. I pay a fortune for my American Express Platinum card so that I can have the privilege of the lounges when I travel. A few years ago I decided that spending my kids inheritance for my convenience was a good thing. So here I sit watching the world cup as the world travels by. I usually just sit and watch people. I am a true people watcher. I wonder about their families and what they do and where they live and why they are traveling. Every face holds a story and I being a voyeur and a talker, relish the contact.

After leaving the lounge, a minute before boarding, I get to the gate and am the 2nd to board. I upgrade whenever I can to sit in business or first class. Another advantage of spending my kids future money. Believe me they get lots of perks having me for their Mom. I am always generous because I believe, like my Dad before me, that it is better to see them enjoy the riches of my being alive rather than enjoying it after I am gone. I have been fortunate that I was born into a family of hard workers and it paid off for my sister and myself. I tried to continue the tradition myself by investing wisely and having a very business savvy brother-in-law who helped me manage and invest my money.

But back to the flight I am on now to visit my grand kids in Chicago. One son and his family live there and one is visiting for 7 weeks so if it works according to plan we will all meet up so the cousins can play with each other(a rarity). When families live away it is hard to get together as well as sometimes when they live in the same town.

When I get on the plane in the first row (bulkhead), I get the opportunity to watch as everyone gets on board. Some are smiling, some sad, some newly married (2 newlywed couples on this flight) and some just oblivious. I know the newlyweds because they are dragging their dresses along and their rings are very shiny and clearly clean and new. Lots of kids with parents also dragging blankies, juice cups and various bright colored, character oriented carry-ons. Some traveling with just Dads and some with just Moms and some all together, one unaccompanied minor who looks beyond the 14 year age requirement but probably is just really tall for his age.

Then there are the really happy guys traveling with buddies who laugh and talk down the aisle and say hello. One particularly fellow told me after 4 cups of coffee and a red bull he was ready for this flight. He was chatty while he was waiting for the aisle to move forward. He had what looked like his two best buddies, lovers or complete strangers that he met along the way. He was a happy chatterer. A couple of people with their elderly parents needing assistance with their luggage as the grown child pushes two carry-ons down the aisle.

I have an empty seat but I knew an up-grader would get it. Sure enough here comes a guy from the back. Straight laced with no expression and clearly not a real friendly person. Puts on those big earphones and proceeds to pull out his blackberry and IPOD. He reminds me that I too have my IPOD and can match him with my big ass headsets as well. Here we sit in our two separate worlds.

As the people pore through the aisle I look at each face and smile or stare but make some kind of contact and lo and behold who do I see but my old boyfriend from the 90's. I call his name he looks behind him (sort of sums up our past relationship for the 5 or so years I dated him). He was always a backward looking guy. Anyway we talk for a few seconds. He looks just the same. He was 15 years older than me and I realize he is now 76. Having just been dropped off at the airport, by my friend with benefits FWB) and who is almost 9 years younger, I am glad I made the decision to go younger. One boyfriend needed constant attention and taking care of and the other not much at all of either. I of course have not quite figured out what I want in a FWB.

The flight attendant is a cheery woman who greets everyone with zest for living and her job. She chats it way up making everyone feel like they are special. The captain comes on and tells us the travel time and what we will be seeing along the route. I actually listen and realize I hope he doesn't talk along the route. I like just listening to my Buddhist chants and soft music. It soothes my soul and prepares me for the onslaught of family, where I need to be always cheery, never tired and constantly interested. Since I have not been here for 9 months (the longest between visits for some very real and not so real disagreements with one son and his family), I am hoping that this visit shows compassion and my ability to not hold grudges or foreshadow anything but happiness, joy and lots of laughter while I am there. Finally, being allowed to stay in a hotel instead of with family gives me a much needed rest in the evenings and a little down time for myself.

All of this goes through my mind as I travel these great skies, adventuring forward to my grandchildren who love me more than slice white bread and right now forgive all my faults and can't wait to plant kisses and hugs and just hang with Grammie. A delight to behold. Makes the trip so worthwhile.

My trip to the cemetery to talk to my Dad and others.

2010-06-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

I took myself out to the cemetery after a wonderful breakfast. It is a gorgeous day in SoCal, clear skies and a slight breeze. A perfect day to visit the dead. Having lost both my Dad and best friend the cemetery is a comfort to me. I travel slowly through it with thoughts filling my brain. I miss my best friend and ask her questions a lot whether I am here or there. My Dad not so much. He was the best dad for so many years until literally the last year of his life when he decided to get to heaven he needed to spill his guts to myself, my mom and my sister. It didn't sit well with any of us. Why do it now? Why free your soul and torture mine? He was a risk taker but always protected his family. He was so riddled with anxiety and such insecurity that it manifested in his being a womanizer and constantly getting adulation. Not all healthy I might add. I had my suspicions when I would see his car where it didn't belong. He loved to kiss everyone on the lips and it made me uncomfortable as I grew into my teenage years. I can only imagine what he did inside my Mom who was always stoic and without much emotion. I never heard them fight until they were married over 50 years and then it was just old age talking and loving and hating as it sometimes is when you have been married that long.

These are the kind of thoughts I have when I visit his grave. A simple grave with no dates but just "He Loved and Was Loved". He designed it and paid for it long ago. My Mom's will say "She lived". There is a comfort in having all the arrangements for your death written out and paid for. So back to my visit. I walk around to see my best friend Kathleen and talk to her in loving, missing terms. Then off to visit my Dad where I try to concentrate on the good and happy time. We did have sooooooooo many of those. I try and negate those thoughts at the end of his life and forgive but clearly have not forgotten yet..

I then decide to visit my future site. My sister and I went to the cemetery shortly after my dad died and bought plots near each other (she and her husband share one) and I am right next door. Some of their friends are there too. It comforts me in a way that I called my sister from our spots today and told her I still loved them. They were the most peaceful in the cemetery with a large fountain spilling water loudly and beautifully. We bought in the "newest area" and there was only one filled grave when we purchased ours. Sadly it is filling up. It amazed me when I buried my best friend and hers (after 12 years) is basically filling with markers everywhere showing so many are already there now.

I remember the first gravestone in our section. It was a young Mom who died leaving two small children. Every time I am there I visit her too. There are fresh flowers and toys and pictures and jewels. Today someone was there and I asked her if she new the person. It was her aunt and she said the kids were indeed older as it has been 4 years. I told her to let the family know that I too have thought about her and always stop to say hello. Our section now has a few more markers.

I hope someday that my kids visit and regale all my stories of love and and joy and days filled with laughter. I hope they put out trinkets for me and keep my memory alive inside their hearts and souls as well..

Today was a good day.

The joys or not of Costco

2010-06-14T17:49:00.000-07:00

Why do I love Costco? Today is a good example of why. I decided to go to Costco mainly for a hot dog and to pick up a great folding chair that has a tray attached with a drink holder ($34.99 that I saw at a friend's yesterday). How did I walk out spending $242 plus change? When I go to Costco, I must admit I like to walk the aisles as a form of relaxation. Up and down I go looking at "treasures" that I can't live without. Today was no exception.

As I was walking to my car I was going over the "treasures" in my cart and wondering why I needed another 10 kitchen towels in a package ($11.89) or the great not needed purse for ($34.99). Also, thrown in were some vitamins (($14.99) and of course a bottle of Pinot Grigio ($9.99) to wash them down. Of course just having eaten an all beef hot dog with drink ($1.50+tax) so I wouldn't be hungry walking the aisles, I still managed to buy a cooked chicken ($4.99), a package of fillet mignon ($25.72) don't even eat much meat, a bottle of Grey Goose, 1.75 liters for my boyfriend's birthday present ($45.99), a box of a million tic tacs ($10.99), a package of fresh cut green beans ($5.49) and a big bag of organic mixed vegetables ($5.89). To round out my last items I bought two surge protectors with a swivel capability that you put right on your current outlet plate thereby making it really easy to attached all sorts of plugs and finally my 8 pairs ($10.99) of those short half socks for tennis shoes. Seem to never have enough. For a grand total of $242.69. Thank goodness I don't do this often.

In actuality none of these items were needs but all wants. Treasures to enjoy but nothing that will change my life for the better or the worse. Some more convenient items (surge protectors) that replace perfectly good products. I have a drawer filled with kitchen towels. Why I have what I now consider a collection is beyond my comprehension? What makes Costco so enticing? Is it the mass quantities of things you can buy in one fell swoop or is it the perceived value for items paid? Wonder what the theory is for their marketing success? Do we need tons of boxes of kleenex, toilet paper and paper towels to only come home and realize you already had tons but since you had to put them in different closets they now engulf your house everywhere. Oh, but I will use them eventually is a good rational. But what about vitamins where the vitamins might go bad before I could take all of them or the socks that only add to another collection or the 1000'a of tic tacs that are in my purse, in my car, in my art studio and strewn about my house so I know I will always have great breath. I save on mouthwash but I did consider that today as well.

In my defense I did think about other items but ruled them out today. 1000's envelopes, discount tickets on movies and restaurants or stuff for my grandkids like these great slides for the backyard which wouldn't even fit or the portable kayak which I know would be fun at the beach. I looked at clothes for myself and passed. I always peruse the books but since I am a library person I can pass those by.

And last but not least the chips, cookies, cakes and candy. Thank goodness I know my limits and just couldn't have that much junk as I am not good at self control. What gave you your first clue????? Now off to Bed Bath and Beyond but that is another story.

Abby Sunderland

2010-06-11T19:15:00.000-07:00

Abby Sunderland

I have been following Abby Sunderland as she travels alone around the world in a sailboat. In the beginning I was concerned that her parents were not stopping her in this journey but actually encouraging her. I soon changed my mind. Abby is 16 years old and has been on the water since infancy. Her brother at age 17 went around the world last year successfully. I hear people talking about the cerebral cortex not even fully formed in Abby's brain and thereby making it impossible for her to know risks or make thorough decisions. Not sure it applies to her. I started to wonder how much I would encourage my children, now grandchildren to explore uncharted waters and follow a passion at any age. What age is okay and what age is dangerous?

As I have followed Abby by her blog I realized that she is so well prepared and such a level headed teenager. She is different from the teenagers I have known. She has a gypsy in her that allows her to have the hubris to believe she can do something this difficult and survive. I know teenager think they are invincible but this is different. She has been challenged throughout the voyage, thus far ending with her a drift in the Indian Ocean with no sail and no communication satellite waiting to be rescued. As I look back over my life I realize that I never really tested myself to the limit. Sure I took risk but nothing of the magnitude of Abby. I encouraged my sons to be more adventurous and they traveled more than I had by the time they were 20. They married much later than I did. They explored life in a different way than I did. They quit jobs and started new careers in their 30's. They followed passions which were harder than most. One jumped off a bridge with a bungy on his back. One was on TV for 7 years as a sports broadcaster (his dream from age 5) and then quit when he married and had a family and started a job that was commission only. I often thought I could sell shit to someone who had diarrhea but I never tried it.

With Abby facing daily challenges she has shown her might and her ability to remain calm in a storm (literally ) and continued to make choices by herself and with her team. Some decisions were made spur of the moment and in the middle of the night with waves knocking her sailboat to the side with sails in the water. She had her lucky charms but her real charm is in her desire to show real courage. She is not afraid and makes wise choices (like giving up the record and going a shore in Africa) because there were real harmful issues with her boat. She was eloquent in efforts to explain how and why she made those choices.

I am more than impressed with her and wish I could be more adventurous. I know my friends think I am more daring as I travel to third world countries by myself (but on a tour) and I paint and write but somehow, those passions don't resonate with Abby's. I tried as a mother to give my sons latitude in their choices and supported them when I felt able and dissuaded when I was anxious. But anxiety can't rule your life. It ruled my 20's thru 40's but now in my early 60's I am more out there than ever before and you know I like myself better than anytime in my life.

As I was waiting to hear if they would locate Abby last night I realized that if she didn't survive she would have died doing what she loved and would rest in the ocean with the beauty and dignity that the journey commanded. How many of us can say that? She knew the risks, she prepared herself for them and as a rescue is now imminent she has done an amazing job.

I thought of her parents unconditional love, support and their faith that their daughter knew enough and was responsible and would survive yet another challenge.They were extremely worried, I know, but continued to believe in Abby. I think of her as wonderful example of courage and exploring this world in a unique and privileged way knowing all along it could end badly but having the love and passion from her family, team and the thousands who have traveled along with her on her blog. I think we will hear from Abby again whether she continues this journey or starts another one. She named her boat "Wild Eyes" and I truly believe it represents who she is and what stamina, courage, faith and the love of the ocean she has in her eyes and heart.

Eyewitness

2010-06-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

Eyewitnesses

I have been reading a lot lately in the newspapers and online and one thing I know for sure-I will take an eye witness only so far. With the recent killing of a teenager for apparently throwing rocks across a river at a Border Agent, I no longer trust what "people at the scene" report or with the killing of the woman in Peru. I only believe timed video tapes with log on dates stamped (as in Peru) or photographs that are time stamped or dated. I was once an "eyewitness" to a crime taking place.

I was at a Big Lots store and as I enter two men were running out and someone was shouting stop them they just robbed the store. Well of course I wasn't going to try and catch them but I certainly took a good look and saw where they had run off. The cops arrived almost immediately and questioned myself and my girlfriend who was with me and we gave totally different descriptions of the two men including their ethnicity, what they were wearing under their caps and clothes and which way they took off. Were we at the same scene? We were starring at each other and looking aghast at our totally different scenarios. I immediately starting testing my observances and trying to explain my position. She did the same. After talking to some people including other cops arriving they said it is that way all the time. Very hard to trust an "eye witness" as our eyes deceive us when stressed or under extreme adrenalin rushes.

I have thought about this often when I see things occur in front of me or interpret what someone has said to me. Did I see it right? Did I hear it correctly? Now every time I read a story in the paper or online I immediately discredit the "eye witness" and look for other clues to help me decide if a story is as it seems.

Just thinking about it this morning as I am online with some very heated up people over what really happened to the border agent and the kid that died. Interesting for a person who prides herself on finding and speaking truths. What is your experience?

Don't do well with male relationships

2010-06-03T22:52:00.001-07:00

I am a fixer. I hold secrets. I am loyal, trustworthy and a great friend to many people. I can't do male relationships. I am just no good at it. If my male partner were a woman I would be so much better I know. I always get along with my girlfriends when we discuss anything. There is a chemistry that only women to women understand. There is a female bonding over everything, I find. If you don't believe me see Vagina Monologues or Love Loss and What I Wore and hear all the women laughing with their own memories or simply identifying with the stories. But unfortunately, I have never been attracted to a woman as a lover. It just isn't in my DNA.

I was married for 20 years from 19 to 39 years of age. It was a very young relationship made by kids having kids as I look back now. I did really well in the raising kids department (two successful sons) but most of the time I felt invisible in the marriage. As I look back at the age of 61 I know now that I am not invisible. That is the problem. I am a strong women, hear me roar. I am liberated (once had a personal license plate that said libr8u2). I have opinions, I have rights and I have a mouth.

After getting divorce at 39 and realizing that there were many different men out there I went searching. I was determined never to get married again and I wasn't even sure I could live with anyone again. But I found myself wanting strange "dick". I started to do "my thing" and met lots of men and dated many and had lots of sexual encounters (you could say I went from 1-20 within a short few years). I was free but somehow they didn't work out. Most men I met wanted marriage and someone to take care of them, not me I voiced to anyone who would listen. I was in long term relationships and if I had said yes, I would have been married and divorced 4 more times.

After spending 23 years in the dating market I can safely say it is not for me. I have a "friends with benefit partner" who was a boyfriend over 5 years ago for three years. We had a terrible breakup but after 4 years basically apart and not really speaking, our friendship was rekindled and after a few months we were with benefits. It has been a year and I would say it works for what it is or should I say it works for what it isn't. It isn't a love that says I want to spend the rest of my life with you or even more than 3 days together (vacation). I could do longer but he never could. We are so different. We were raised in different generations (I being the cougar with an 8 3/4 year age difference, different ethnicities, different stages in life, financially and lifestyles that seem to be polar opposites. He still works and I play. He has a teenage son who lives with him more than part-time it seems and grown daughter (living away). I have grown sons with grandchildren. He likes to shop, I hate to shop. He likes sports and I like walking. He likes solitude and I like noise. He talks softly, I talk loudly. I try to offer constructive criticism (which I see as non judgmental) and he hears total nagging (not all the time I might add). He likes his cave and I like my garden. We both like the sounds of music when we want to go to sleep. He likes soft and easy listening. I can listen to anything.

By now you might be thinking why are these two people even friends and even more strange, friends with benefits. We ask ourselves this less than once a week and not more than 4 times a month. I cry, he listens. He talks, I try to reconcile what he says with his actions (almost always loving) and how I feel (always searching) and we decide to just go with the flow. More good things than bad, more fun than not, more positive energy than negative and some mysterious earth karma that keeps up attached. I don't get it when I really think about it. But when I allow myself to envision my life without him I feel sad and would miss the kinship in our uniqueness and how we can talk on any subject whether we agree or disagree and how we laugh. We really do laugh sometimes at ourselves and always with each other. I am laughing with you not at you I say. I still feel I do male relationships with unease and quirkiness.

He struggles and I try to fix. I try to stay out of his struggles but still try to fix in some way I think he won't see. He always sees. He doesn't appreciate my fixing. I want him to learn his lessons (really doing it the way I suggest) and he resists and we sit back and think what the heck are we doing and then we go right on doing, as if this too shall pass. One day I assume it won't but until then I like the energy between us. And when he sees this story I know he will laugh at me and with me.

I am loyal, a wonderful friend and I fix or at least I still try to. Must be something in my DNA.

When Grammie is in charge.

2010-05-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

My son and daughter-in-law went on a getaway to a wedding across the country. Since I live on their same block they asked if I could stay with my three adorable grandchildren, twin boys 5 1/2 and a three year old girl. Sure I said. It is a no rules 4 day extravaganza here in their home. There are only grammie rules-extra treats, staying up as late as they can (which is not past around 9pm) and staying in our jammies and watching TV and Video or just playing Wii.

As any busy active family (with two working parents) these kids have activities-one takes guitar, 2 play TBall, 2 take art lessons and then there are swimming lessons, play dates and of course birthday parties. When grammie is in charge we still do some activities that are already minimally scheduled which can't be canceled but mostly we "relax" as I like to call it. They love staying in their jammies and the luxury is that is a fairly uncommon practice in their busy household.

We live on a wonderful street where we are separated by 5 houses and the street. The neighborhood is filled with kids and there is a lot of just plain old fashion neighborhood gatherings. BBQ's in the front of houses and lots of basketball and hockey and baseball on various lawns-just like when my sons were young (on this same street) and also very similar to my play habits as a child on my old street. My activities were Brownies and Ice skating and it seemed play dates were non existent because we had the block. The big excitement was when we were old enough to walk to the park just two blocks over and play there all afternoon by ourselves. Times were less chaotic and seemingly safer than now. But were they really??? Or were you just left to your own devices to figure out what was safe or dangerous? I know there were still predators as I remember hearing stories about the man in his car by the school or park but it was spoken or published much except by word of mouth.

Times have changed but I am thankful that my grandkids have a mixture of both. But in the end the best days for grammie are those lazy days of summer when I can write and they can watch Star Trek, Baseball and a Princess DVD on tv's and portable DVD players. There is a moment of peace and tranquility until we need breakfast, showers, dressing, activities culminating in a birthday party at 12:45pm. Then there are carpools to the party and pickups and then before you know bedtime and then the glorious part again in the morning when we get to relax for half the day or longer.

Father's Day and my Dad

2010-05-28T13:16:00.000-07:00

My father was my sugar daddy. He could and did give me anything I wanted and if he couldn’t get it, he knew someone who could. Concert tickets, sporting events, sell out tickets everywhere. He knew someone and they knew someone. He even got my kids a ride in the Goodyear Blimp when he bought Goodrich tires (their competitors. My dad was a giver, a sharer and a fixer. Any new toy, any new gadget was mine or my sister’s. He was so charitable as well and taught me how to give unconditionally.

He was a totally self made man. He was the youngest fuller brush salesmen and actor’s double for old time child stars. He made more money than anyone in his family. He tried college on the GI bill but it wasn’t for him. He married my Mom after meeting her on a train and telling his air force buddies he was going to marry that girl. When they met again by accident at a wedding he kept his word and married that girl. It was a long and seemingly happy marriage. My Dad was a typical 50’s husband and my Mom a typical 50’s housewife. She didn’t make a name for herself until my Dad had made it. She then started her own business and was extremely successful in her own right. The marriage lasted until his death in May, 2003. It seemed like a real love story.

But that was not the whole picture. As my father became more and more disabled and somewhat demented he started spilling his guts to my sister and me. He wanted clearly to pass through this life with no guilt or shame and end up in heaven (which he believed in). However as he spewed I threw up. Too much information passed thru his lips. He was not the husband I thought he was to my Mom.
It has been 7 years now since his death and I have begun to let the outpourings in his last year not spoil my vision of my Dad. He was my hero, my everything. He loved me the best way he knew how. He was an anxious, insecure person and passed some of those very traits to his biggest supporter, me.

After years of therapy I now see the picture clearer. He really was a risk taker and gambler on all things in his life which made his life exciting and mine as well. However, with every risk there is the chance of getting caught or losing. He didn’t wait for me to find out all his secrets nor did he divulge them during my growing up period or even as I was having and raising children. No, he waited until he was dying when there was no response capable from me at that point. He left this earth with no secrets and no boundaries. Thanks goodness my Mom was almost too disabled herself to remember any of this and to this day doesn’t. Good thing because our family was a product of denial thru a great part of it. She knew it and my Dad knew it. But they projected warmth and love to me.

Now 7 years later I try to focus on that love and warmth and frivolity and just say to myself-he was a self made man who loved me with all his heart and soul and did the best he could. He wasn’t perfect and neither am I. I know he would still be taking risks, living in denial but loving me for real.

Mentoring a parolee

2010-05-27T16:54:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I started mentoring women parolees. It has been an amazing experience. For me a white, suburban woman raised upper middle class for most of my adult life, meeting my parolee changed my outlook for good. My mentee is a wonderfully smart 36 year old women who spent 17 1/2 years in prison from age 15 1/2 to 32. She was only the second child tried as an adult. She was a gang member who fired a gun into a crowd hitting no one and killing no one yet was tried for attempted murder instead of the plea promised assault with a deadly weapon. Fast forward 17 years and she is finally paroled after completing her time with great skills and a positive attitude. It took ten years in prison before she got it together as she was very angry that her teenage years were taken from her. She accepted her incarceration totally and took full responsibility for every part of it.

I met her a month out. We were introduced by an organization, that unfortunately lost their funding because of budget constraints, whose record was fabulous and their return rate to prison was less than 5% of the people mentored. Like Homeboys in Los Angeles, another organization that has successfully run a business operation for previous gang members and one that had an unbelievable record, that closed.

Mentoring works and it saddens me and angers me that these programs are lost when more prisons and incarceration take precedent and everyone wants to build places to house rather than programs that perform.

My mentee works full time, She has her own place now and is supporting herself. She is a model citizen and had she grown up in a home in a middle class suburb she would have gone to college. She would have been successful if just someone had taken an interest in her. She was smart and in school but acting out and no one paid attention. Her Mom was busy working to support her family. Her step dad had a business. Everyone was too busy surviving. One never understands all the ins and out of people's lives but environment of course plays a big part as well as genetics. But in this case I believe it was the environment.

When she got out she was like a teenager whose life had somewhat stopped at age 15 1/2. For example, she immediately thought she could walk into the DMV without ever driving a car and actually pass. I explained she could certainly try but after she failed twice she took my advice and had some lessons. We still laugh about that almost 4 years later. She called me to ask how you cook things and how to make choices in the market for food and how to talk to people on the outside. She learned recently how to make choices that we take for granted. When you are not given choices you don't know how to make good ones or sometimes any at all.

She did have amazing carpenter skills, speaking skills (Toastmaster in prison) and writing skills all learned in prison. She took advantage of every program in prison including getting first a GED (all that was offered originally) and then an actual high school diploma.

I have found that mentoring is a fabulous outlet for exiting prisoners. This is where our emphasis should be. Pair someone from prison with someone who has worked in the community, lives a good life and understands how to work within the system. A person who is responsible and a person who will be there and listen to their ideas and goals and dreams and then help them realize it is indeed possible for anyone who does the work to achieve greatness. I am so proud to have been a part of a young woman who I have grown to love as if she were my own daughter. We hang out. We visit museums, art galleries and go to plays. These outings were never in her life before. To have watched her at her first play was amazing. She has given me far more gifts than I have given her but she would say it was me finding her. Really it was both of us finding each other.

Reality TV-have I lost my way?

2010-05-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

Why are we so vested in television shows? As the endings come for 24 and Lost people are chatting it up. Did they really mean this or that? Is Jack on 24 going to just walk happily into the sunset? Did everyone die on Lost during the crash after the crash or before the crash (I didn't watch this show ever). Who's dancing, who's leaving, who's staying and who's getting divorced, who's singing, who's laughing all the way to the bank and who will be the new apprentice. I am hooked. I watch a lot of TLC (the learning channel) or for those of us (the loving channel).

I can see how houses are bought and sold, mansions big and small and decorating on a dime, a quarter or a million dollars. I can see a family with 8 kids, 14 kids, 19 kids and counting or little people or the Man with Half a Body. Why do we watch these shows? Is it just plain old curiosity, is it a desire to live like them or be them? More questions than answers for my brain to take in but I come back year after year. For me it is an escape into a world I know nothing about it. I find myself introduced to people I could never become because of genetics or wealth or circumstances that I have not experienced.

But most of all I like people's stories and what better way to see them than on reality TV. It shocks, it elicits compassion or outright horror. It makes my life look incredibly easy or extremely blessed. It makes me wonder how people make choices in their lives whether it be religious, selfish, amazingly empathetic to the plight of abandoned children with disabilities or taking in people of questionable character to give them a chance. It fills my days with wonderment and outright loathing but still I watch. Sometimes I have to turn away during a major operation or to not look at the horrible disfigurements that are on display. It opens the world to people to see things they never imagine or even wondered about. It invites you in and then lets you take it from there. It moves you or just plain annoys you.

Regular TV does the same but in the end you know it is fiction and never happened for the most part. It is what is supposed to be or at least wants you to think families are- all agreeable and never have any deep conversations. Then they hit you with a death, or murder and the whole perspective changes you and it gives food for thought and a way of connecting with people at work around the proverbial water cooler.

And if this isn't enough you can always watch the Daily Show, Rachel Maddow for the liberals or Fox for the rest.

But some days it is all too much and I shut the TV down and read or check my sites online which give me all the updates without the actual viewing. It gets to me in all forms these days. It makes me long for the days when I was a kid and I could go roam on my bicycle or my feet looking through windows at night and experience the wonders of the lives of my neighbors in my imagination.

Friendships and times a changing- is it just me?

2010-05-24T21:56:00.000-07:00

I am extremely loyal and have in the past extended that loyalty to those who didn't deserve it. Now as I age I find myself too old to spend time with people I no longer see as a value added. I have been blessed in my life to be surrounded by friends-some for as long as 55 years and most in the 30-40 year category. But recently, within the last 5 years, I have made many new friends who seem more in line with my lifestyle, my interests and they are all ages which I now find fascinating. I have found myself relating to much younger women who are starting families. I feel like we share something-I being the older one who has experienced almost every possible child rearing experience and at the same time relish in all the new ideas for raising children and how the younger people just think about life.

I am much more concerned about the environment and issues that face our country and it's impact on the future of which my grandkids will inherit. The internet has reminded me that there are friendships that have been dormant for many years and then all of a sudden a friend request pops up. I really look at this as an opportunity to explore very old friendships and at the same time meet many new people with my same interests or hit the ignore button. I find the internet sites like facebook amazingly entertaining but I also miss the direct contact with my friends. It takes energy to call and actually have a real live conversation and I find on some days this makes sense and at other times emailing or texting or faceboooking is easier but why I ask. I can't come up with a valid reason. Apparently, so do my friends as the actual amount of time my phones rings is less and less. I think this is the way the world is changing. We are becoming more and more detached from real conversation unless we are actually in the presence of live people as opposed to invisible people who we communicate totally by non live conversations. Dates and activities are all arranged now by anything other than direct live conversation. I am thankful I still plan real activities where I can talk face to face with friends and family.

Technology has changed my life mostly for good but I do miss those long phone conversations where we discussed all that was right with the world and also what was terribly wrong. I long for just hanging out and do try to do it as much as my friends are willing. Some are better visitors than others. I try to make plans to keep friendships going even if it is meeting for a half hour for a rushed lunch or meeting at a movie or museum or visiting art galleries. I find myself willing to go places by myself to just look and observe and just plain people watch. I try to engage people wherever I meet them to gauge their interests and their desires and most of all their stories. I miss all the stories that were told one on one for years between friends. I sometimes just long for the old days of dinner parties, lively conversation and a dip in the old hot tub. Is it my age (61) or is the world just really changing and becoming interactive in a new way? I want my old ways back and I work very hard to make that happen for myself and for my friends. I want to think it is temporary and eventually people will realize that the old way of communicating-live discussion is the best!

My life within 4 miles.

2010-05-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

I am 61 years old and I have never moved more than 4 miles in any direction from the place I grew up in. Why is that? I was an anxious child. I was so skinny I weighed 28 pounds at 4 years of age. My Mom had to call birthday parties ahead of time to tell the Mom's not to push food or sweets on me. I would throw-up with the thought of people making me eat because they thought I was too thin. I wish that were true today. Why couldn't that be the one thing that followed me-my thinness?

I grew up in West Los Angeles by National and Sawtelle. Paul J. Howards was a nursery on Barrington and National. I remember hanging out there with friends. I remember when 31 Flavors opened near us. It was really exciting. I had a Patty Play Pal Doll that I remember taking to a shoe store (Kinney's) to get real kids shoes. My friend and I made the local paper.

It was a quiet time in the neighborhood when kids played on the street and walked to Mar Vista Park. We were on our own playing carrems at the park. We walked and walked the neighborhood. It was our turf, our backyard. We rode flexi flyers with sheets attached as if we could really sail away.I loved my childhood and the exploration that we were allowed to do on our own. We couldn't go past Pico on the number 8 Blue Bus. We could only go down Ocean Park to the beach on the same bus line. I lived at home while in college so even then was close to my 4 mile limit. Later I would encourage my kids to go away to college and both did. Expand your horizon I said.

It was an easier life for me growing up than when I started to raise my kids. I wanted the same for my family. We lived briefly in an apartment when my first son was born. When he was 10 months old we moved to Thayer and it was ideal. There were kids in all the houses and we still let them play on the street (however a parent was always watching or peering out the windows). All the neighbors were mothers and told on the kids when they showed up at 7/11 when told not to go there. We had eyes in the back of our collective heads. Us neighbors once had a hot tub party and all 10 of us got in a car and drove to one of these hot tub clubs right in our neighborhood. Then when our hot tub was finished we had hot tub parties in our backyard. The neighbors were all friends and many still live on this street as I do today. And many of their kids still live nearby.

Then the woman's movement hit my house. We had no assigned seats at the dinner table as there was no head of our household. My sons had no guns, I was Another Mother For Peace. I tried to tell my sons girls could do anything that a boy could do. But conditioning at school started young and nothing I said helped changed their views when young. But thank goodness as they grew up to be young men they started to see what I had meant to impart to them. I must concede I went overboard. I also felt like I was in a tree house that said "No girls allowed" and I fought constantly to get into their fort. First women president of the WLA Little League, broke other all male barriers until one day I woke up and said I am staying in my tree house and they will one day shout to get in. But how would that be accomplished. I paid them if they went to a museum or stretched their minds away from sports. It worked. They began to explore beyond just boy things and sports. We never had the urge to move away as all our needs as a family were met on Thayer.

My sons were sport fanatics and their dad was as well and I was pretty athletic myself but never had played a team sport as a kid. When my kids started playing soccer a group of us mothers started to play as well. Pretty soon a select group of us joined a woman's league. We played for years and we even traveled for tournaments. It was so exhilarating to take part in a woman's soccer league. We had adventures which is another story worth telling someday. My boys got to see me as an athlete when they came to watch us play. We even practiced twice a week and went out for drinks afterwards as guy leagues did. We really became a team and today 8 of us still meet every few months to relive our memories and catch up on grand
kids and husbands and boyfriends and even girlfriends. We were athletes and proud of it and were even featured in the LA Times. Our games and tournaments came before our families, weddings, divorces and all things life presented. We arranged our lives around our soccer team. I began to see why guys loved their nights out to play ball.

My house, when I was growing up, was the "house " on the block where everyone hung out. My own house soon became the same. I loved motherhood but found I needed more as well. So I went to work full time when my kids were 5 and 7. My Mom had been a stay at home mom but I just couldn't be that kind of Mom. I had joined book groups and AAUW (American Association of University Women) to stimulate my brain but it was not enough. I needed and wanted a job. I went to work for my kids pediatrician as I was a very calm Mom which was shocking since I was a bag of worry and an anxious person. I worried about everything but it must have worked because nothing ever happened that couldn't be handled. I think I controlled my worries most of the time but not enough clearly as one of my sons became much like me. He worried and fretted when things were beyond his control. He was my son and I handled their upbringing I thought differently than mine but anxiety was an genetic marker in our DNA. Clearly nature over nurture took over.

When my older son decided to relocate from Chicago he wanted a street like Thayer and a house came up for sale and lo and behold he bought it. He now lives 5 houses down and across the street (see my children story). He has the same memories growing up that I did and now his kids can explore their own neighborhood that he relished as a child. With his children back on Thayer it makes the circle complete. At least he lived for a good deal of his time away at college and then in NYC and Chicago. My other son currently resides in Chicago as well. Hopefully, one day he will be back on Thayer. A mom can only dream.

Painting is for me

2010-05-19T20:36:00.001-07:00

I paint, not for a living, but as a means to slow my brain down. I create abstract paintings as the image comes to me. It changes each time I paint and through my paintings you can see my style, even though the actual work has changed over the years, you can see my STYLE. I find this amazing. I find it so weird that no matter how I paint or with what materials, I see me. Collages, large canvases, small works, political paintings, mixed media or pure abstract it is all ME.

I create for me. I give away my work if someone likes it. My paintings hang in a few homes already and one I actually sold to a store who sold it. But I don't need to sell my works, I just like to know that people like them. But more importantly I need to know I like my work. A few years ago I converted my garage into a real art studio. I have all my supplies ready at a moments notice but it is not necessarily my first choice of activities. I have my painter guru who teaches me twice a month for two hours each session. I call her my paint Sherpa. She mixes colors for me and helps me move my work forward. I never let her touch the actual canvas I am working on. I want it to be all me. I have also taken lessons at an art center for a few years but left after I was restricted as to how I could paint. I get wild. I throw paint, I spin paint, and generally make a mess. I paint more than one painting at a time sometimes up to 5 at any given time. My paint Sherpa keeps me on track. But she lets me create from deep inside my soul. My artist friends want to have the freedom I do when I paint but I can't teach that. No one can teach a style or how to do what they do. I create for me, I explore for me, and I feel powerful when I paint for me.

Scuba diving against all reason

2010-05-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

I once went scuba diving against my better judgment.

I once had a boyfriend who didn't listen to me. Why I took him to Lanai, Hawaii for his 59 birthday is beyond me. I am just a great girlfriend. We arrived by little plane to an almost deserted island that was owned by the Dole Family. There were two hotels the Manele Bay and the Lodge at Keyhole. Keyhole for golf and Manele Bay for water sport. We went on a 4 by 4 package deal where you got 4 nights at one of the hotels and one activity a day for the four days. The first day went well-we got dinner as our special day event. Valrona chocolate was all the rage and we had a dinner that was terrific and chocolate desserts to die for. Day two we rented a jeep and toured the island. Day three dinner with relaxation and swimming in the pool. I was enjoying day 3 and was reading a wonderful book poolside. My then boyfriend also was enjoying the pool and ocean. I was happy. It was a perfect girlfriend gift for an imperfect boyfriend. Again why was I doing this. As I was sitting there thinking a good looking stud comes up to me and asks if I am Madge. I haltingly said yes. He introduced himself as Dennis the scuba instructor. I said not an auspicious start as my ex-husband was named Dennis. He explains that my boyfriend signed me up for scuba diving so I could go on a dive the next morning.

Let me backtrack. I am an excellent swimmer but had absolutely no desire to scuba dive. I had a fear of the mask leaking, my air running out, choking and whipping my mask off to breathe and scrambling to the surface where I get the bends on the way up and die. I had expressly told my boyfriend no scuba diving for me here or anywhere. He could use that as his adventure while I spent some time in the spa or at the pool or just being by myself relaxing for my special day.

I explained to the instructor why I was not going to do this and the conversation went something like this. Let's just try it in the pool where you feel safe and get use to the equipment and then see how you feel. No I said nicely. Not for me. He continued going over each and every one of my fears. Choking and throwing up was a bonus because if you cleared your mask the fish would actually chum on your throw-up. Great I said another reason to just love this sport. Next thing I know he says you know there are no refunds so you might as well try it and have fun. Meanwhile the non hearing boyfriend is encouraging me and trying to explain how much fun it will be, something we can do together as he was a licensed scuba instructor. Finally after every fear was resoundingly shot down I went into the pool.

As I said I am a very strong swimmer and the instructor said that was the main failure for most people so check on strong swimming for me. We practiced taking off the mask to clear, practiced coughing to see how I could maintain my composure and clear the mask again. I learned about the air and the regulator (this will come in at the end of the story), we talked about buddy breathing and practiced. I was ready Dennis said after an hour. Ready are you fucking kidding me. I thanked him and said I was not going in the morning but thanks for the lesson.

All night long my boyfriend worked on me until just to shut him up I said okay I would go on the boat and not scuba dive. The next morning I woke up nervous and anxious. I was on vacation and this was turning into a nightmare. Got on the boat and was ready for my journey- I was told I could snorkel instead. But the leader for the dive was on my case from the beginning to give it a try. I was in a weakened state, trapped on the boat and people were ALL diving. Under extreme pressure and nerves frayed I agreed to try. My boyfriend would be my diving buddy. Now I heard a voice shout out of me ABSOLUTELY NOT. I would only buddy dive with the chief diver and leader of the group. He was not given any choice if he wanted me to dive and he did. So everyone was taken down on a rope and went to the area in the ocean we were starting from. He took down each diver, came up and got the others. He left me down there hanging on to the rope and listening for every fucking breath in that air tank. I was not deep so I was okay and felt I could ascend at a moments notice until he got down there. He finally arrived and we had of course universal signals for help, going to the surface and diving deeper. I regulated my air and off we went. Within a few seconds I was in panic mode and of course started choking and signaled to surface. I am sure he was not happy. As we went up I actually cleared my mask in a test, stopped coughing and relaxed I could do this. I signaled to go back down and continued until the end of the dive. Can I tell you anything I saw-not. But I could tell you how many breaths I had taken, how many times I cleared my mask and how many times I thought about surfacing. I missed the beauty for the most part. After what seemed like hours but was only 45 minutes we were surfacing. I got out and was so happy I had done it but determined to never do it again. I of course regulated totally wrong somehow thinking that the regulator was on a different tank then the main one. What was I thinking. Fortunately for me we came up when we did because I was very close to running out of air. Jesus-what would I have done then. Thank goodness I was safe sound and gladly watched as the divers went on their second dive as I went snorkeling with one other person who was not thrilled either about the whole event.

Needless to say he was not my boyfriend for very much longer. I am much stronger now and OLDER and would never do something that took that much convincing ever again. I have a voice and it is loud and clear.

My shamanic healings

2010-05-19T18:09:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a very traditional, liberal, Jewish home. I was taught to believe in Western Medicine and plain food. We were a Campbell's soup family. We went to doctors and valued their words like the gospel. We were a family of doctors. We ate like everyone else. Meat, potatoes, vegetables (frozen) and salad. Dessert was ice cream and Mother's oatmeal cookies. Fritos were a regular diet staple.

As I grew up I never thought of alternative religions or modalities. I knew I was not a believer in God but rather fate over your own control of your destiny. I had a friend whose father was killed in a plane crash (while I was in high school) after missing his first plane which crashed and then getting on another flight which crashed as well. His number was up and there was nothing he could have done in my mind. This incident confirmed my thoughts on fate and control and God. As I grew up God became farther and farther away from my lexicon. I thought the world somewhat hopeless and with every catastrophe I was more and more convinced that if there was a GOD he/she was sure missing in the world. Friends who were believers seemed to get a great deal of solace from their prayers and said God doesn't control people, people control people and they are the ones making poor choices. I found that fair but still could not explain if God was all powerful to help everyone be a better person why were their so many haters out there. As I became older and married, God was just not there at all but rather a spiritual feeling in nature and the ability to have a voice in some higher source. I couldn't explain all the miracles or the failures so I began to search for alternatives. I used acupuncture for ailments that seemed to ease my anxiety. Actually, I began to think acupuncture could help with lots of issues. I started seeing potions that worked that were consider weird by western standards and finally when I had my wound issues I used anything from Chinese Herbs to laser light treatment to hyperbaric chamber treatments. I loved oxygen-the purer the better.

I always liked the ocean and somehow was soothed watching the waves and swimming there. I did beach swims with wonderful visions afterwards. I tried meditation but couldn't keep myself awake. I feel asleep within minutes of starting to meditate. I was too relaxed. Yoga was also tried and it hurt way too much. I tried hot yoga and cold yoga and felt so NOT relaxed that I gave that up as well.

I took to massages, saunas and hot tubs. I have a hot tub from the 70's in my yard and feel it works for calming. But facials started me on my real path. My facialist was into so many different things beside just facials. She had meditated for over 25 years and was a healer in her other life. She did Shamanic teachings and was a follower of Jung and a voracious reader of everything spiritual. She offered a session in shamanic healing along with a facial and partial massage and a cleansing of the different areas of the body which needed cleaning up. After trying hot rock therapy,Turkish baths, all sorts of massage and facials I was ready for something new. When she started to offer these new delights I signed up.

The sessions are 2 1/2 hours. We read spiritual cards for visions and energy. We built an altar with recently acquired "treasures" and just things around my house. We lite candles and chanted and played instruments. The first time she danced I thought what have I got myself into. I could just see my friends and family peeking in our room (in my imagination) and saying Madge has really gone off the deep end now. At first I let her do all the work. She danced, she chanted and played instruments and welcomed the spirits to our shamanic healing. She welcomed the winds and the earth and sun and the moon. She helped massage my Shakra's and my neck and my face all the time listening to really soothing chants by Tibetan monks, Hindu healers, Indian healers. We burned sage to clear the room of bad energy. I just sat back that first time and took everything in. I trusted her wisdom and her energy and soon I was participating in all the rituals. I learned chants, I did homework, she "cooked" her own altars for me as I made mine at home after making one in the session. I started seeking peace and healing for what I was not quite sure. But within a few months of doing these healings something shifted in my mindset. I became more centered, I started to write again. I submitted a story for a storytelling theater and was accepted. I performed. I felt so powerful within myself. I was always outspoken but I was drawn more inward. I realized I didn't have to be busy everyday. I had time to relax for the first time in my life. I started sleeping better (with some help I must admit from Western medicine) but I was ready to tackle my sleep issues (related to aging) and changed my lifelong habits. I started going to bed later and sleeping in more. I didn't rush to get out the door and I started thinking about writing more, something I have done all my life for myself, but now I was putting it out there and sure enough it worked. I had a story published on a website and it was well received. I started another blog other than my travel one and am getting ready to "put it out there" and see what happens.

My peaceful demeanor was evident to my friends and family and my boyfriend. We have had a rough road in years past with a 4 year break and now back together for the last year and it is calm with no drama. I just live each day in the moment and for someone who didn't do this much for most of her life I have found new comfort and peacefulness. I still go to my shamanic healings every 6 weeks because I feel better and new ideas are now swirling in my mind waiting to spoken in print or out loud.

Working for Mom

2010-05-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

Life working in a family business. My mom owned a big wholesale antique jewelry business and wanted a family member to learn the bis and eventually take it over to continue the legacy.. I was the chosen one being the eldest of two daughters. I loved selling and could sell shit to someone who had diarrhea but could I learn jewelry. I was not a jewelry person, no interest, no eye for it but why not try.

My mother's business had started in her house. She wore beautiful jewelry and would go places and people wanted her stuff. So she started selling (not her best stuff) to other friends and friends of friends. She did well and expanded from her home into an office. The business was not open to the public but friends could visit and purchase along with dealers throughout the world. She became one of the biggest most respected dealers. She had the eye and the gypsy lust of travel to the ends of the earth to find treasure. I had the lust to travel but for adventure. My Mom was GIA certified to give appraisals. I went to GIA classes and thought they were beyond boring and way too tedious for my personality. But I tried to learn and do a good job. I had stick to it ness or so I thought.

However, my mother is and was a control freak and wanted everything run exactly as she did it. I wanted innovation and the ability to do my own thing. Maybe introrduce a new line. I did shows in stores of her goods and actually I was good at this but this was not her main business and she had no interest in expanding this type of operation. Her jewelry was in stores but she felt it sold itself as evidenced by her sales. She would take me along to buy jewelry from all her sources. I started out timid and eventually bought some pieces on my own to sell. I went to flea markets and all sorts of other dealers to buy and sell. I worked in her office invoicing and packing and shipping items all over the world. After trying it only her way for close to a year I was done and realized this wasn't for me. According to my mother I couldn't wrap a ups package right even though I insisted I had never been turned away from UPS with a loud "STOP" your package is unacceptable as wrapped and thereby rejected. I had done pretty well for myself and had confidence. I was a good worker and employee for other people and I tried, I really tired but always the criticism came. I was miserable. After a year to the day I quit. I told my Mom I loved her to much to continue and that I just wasn't cut out for the family business.

My sister couldn't believe I couldn't do it. Why would she think that, as my Mom and I had never had a great relationship.I had always felt invisible and now I was sure this was the problem between us. Our communication was my Mom yelling or raising her voice at me and I taking that as a cause to fight so I could be heard.

My sister said in this in this condescending voice, " I'll do it" as if it were the easiest job on the planet. She quit within 2 hours and called me and was so impressed I had lasted a year.

Cheap white cake

2010-05-19T08:03:00.000-07:00

I was feeling lousy, bleeding too much each month. I was 49 years old and told I needed an immediate hysterectomy. This is where the story starts. My then boyfriend was not very helpful either before the surgery, during the wait time in the hospital (apparently annoying others waiting for people in surgery) and after in having any real compassion for my aftercare. We didn't live together for good reason as I was committed to living alone. I love my own space and didn't want to share. After the surgery and when I was home just a few days later I was lamenting that I had to go home with a catheter (my own fault) as my dear friend was my nurse at the hospital and I made her yank the catheter way too early and consequently had to have it put back in. I was worried it would be with me for life and therefore crumpy. I was at home and got the urge to have a "cheap white cake" from Ralphs. You know the one-it is either a birthday cake theme or a flower theme with balloons or big rose flowers. It is totally white with white frosting and white filling and oh sooooooooo good. It was my comfort food back in the day. I asked my then boyfriend if he would go to the store and buy me one. I told him explicitly to get only this type of cake and if they did not have it to just come back. Having made many a run to Ralphs I knew they always had one available whether fresh or frozen in the case just to the left as you entered the store. This was a gimmie. He was gone too long and I was beginning to wonder what he was doing. Finally he returned and announced he had been to more than one market and none had the cake. So he thought he was being cute when he came in with a strawberry filled white cake. Can I say I never mix my fruits with sweets and actually HATE this kind of cake. He had the baker write on the cake something to the affect of my being a bitch about the type of cake I wanted. He thought he was being cute. He loved strawberries I might add. I took one look at the cake and at him and said, "you don't respect my words and you don't listen". Give me back my key and walk out the door-we are done. He look stunned but I was ready for this decision after way too long of feeling invisible and not heard. I demanded again-the key. He left in a huff and I was happy. A breakup over " a cheap white". He was never to be in my house again.

My Best Friend

2010-05-18T23:44:00.000-07:00

Kathleen was my best friend. We were friends for 42 years from 2nd grade. From diagnosis to death took just 5 months. The year was 1998 and I was training for the first Avon's 60 miles walk from Santa Barbara to LA. I was on a training walk with a friend in Hermosa Beach when I got a call that would change my life. My best friend Kathleen was sick and she was sure she had something dreadful and was dying. She was congested and her chest was tight. She had gone to the doctor and an xray had showed some pneumonia and she was now on antibiotics but she was beside herself and this was not her normal demeanor. She had two kids almost 6 and almost 9 and was 49 years old. Our lives dramatically differed as I had kids 27 and 25, was divorced and she was just getting started having married late in her life. She was a corporate attorney and her husband was also a lawyer having been an actor and teacher in his first two careers. She was never sick and was thrilled to have kids. She was managing it all. We lived within blocks of each other. I assured her that she was crazy and that it was pneumonia and she would start to feel better in a few days. it was memorial weekend so I told her I would see her on Sunday at her parents and we could talk then. Not to worry this too would pass. Well, in hindsight that was not the case. Tuesday she went back to the doctor and another xray showed it was lung cancer masquerading as pneumonia. She was indeed very sick. As the time passed and millions of opinions were given, tons of doctors seen and a visit to the City of Hope she learned it was stage 4 and she was in for the fight of her life.
We started a plan of action and I was the official driver, soothsayer and general person who was there all the time. She continued to work and started chemo and radiation together (they had assured us this had the best chance for survival) but it would be grueling. Every day she would have radiation and have chemo every few weeks. The great thing if there was one was that I had just quit work and was taking a breather so I was available every day. I continued to walk for miles in training and every day we went for fittings for the radiation mold that would direct the rays right into the cancer. The chemo would take care of the cells that were multiplying faster and faster and the mushroom mixture (our first alternative chemical) that was suppose to reduce tumors. It was god awful but she drank it as if it held the answers.
Every day we found humor and laughed. Soon she had to take a leave from work and now we had time to play. Kathleen was a fashionista and I was not. We went shopping, shopping, shopping where she tried to make me a fashion conscious person. It didn't work but it was fun for her to put outfits together for me. She made me buy new sheets to make my love nest better. We talked and talked but never about the cancer. She refused to burden her kids. She told them nothing as her hair fell out. Just that she wasn't feeling well. I bought her books to share with her kids about cancer. They sat unopened. She felt she would survive and therefore her kids needed to know nothing. There would be time to tell them. There never was time in her mine even right up to the end.
The tumors shrunk, her life spun from very high to very low. She wanted to be around no one but me. She even slept at my house when she and her husband would argue. He was not supportive enough, he was too supportive. She was a control freak and totally out of control. I would sent out nightly updates to friends and then they sent them to friends of friends and it spread to many, many people who I no longer even new. But it helped me and it showed how hard she was fighting. She took everything they threw at her. The tumors were shrinking, her throat and esophagus was burned beyond comprehension but she fought on. She stopped wearing her custom wig, still no conversations with her kids. We only talked twice about her kids. If she died would her husband keep pictures of her out (I said yes) and how I must learn to french braid her daughter's hair and for good measure marry her husband and raise the kids. I said yes to everything. I came home and thought Jesus I wasn't even attracted to him. After a few days I told her I couldn't marry him because neither of us liked him that much we decided and laughed. She continued chemo and radiation and now burn therapy. She would scream when the nurse took off the dressing and put on new ones. But she kept going. Finally the results after 4 months, the tumors were disappearing and shrinking and surgery was now possible to take out the primary shrunken tumor in the lung and this could by her 20 years according to all the research. Her father thought she should wait as she was totally compromised but she was determined the surgery was scheduled. It was success and she started to recover. No lung was removed so all our talks of me pushing her in a wheelchair with oxygen was forgotten. We continued to relish in our friendship and our ability to have fun whether it was at our runs to starbucks or our shopping or our sleepovers. We were best friends and that was something not all have. Some people live their whole lives without a best friend. We felt blessed. I slept every night in the hospital. She made me do the walk as I trained so hard. Her Mom stayed during the days. Kathleen was getting better and then something happened. She started getting weaker and we told her to not baby herself. She started to think something was wrong again. We assured her that she didn't need a ventilator so all was well. The doctors concurred. One night her mother and I switched. I don't even remember why but she went downhill fast and needed a ventilator. Kathleen kept repeating to her mom that this was bad because I had told her she hadn't needed one. When I came in the morning it was in and her mom was pissed at me. I explained that the doctor and I had said she wasn't on one to cheer her up as she got weaker. When and if the time came for a ventilator we would change our thinking. Her mom now understood. I moved into the Intensive care unit day and night. I was a well person sleeping int he bed next to Kathleen. I told the nurses not to let the doctor confuse me for a real patient. The sleeping bag should give me away. After three days I couldn't take it anymore as the prognosis was now fatal. The doctor told me that it was getting cruel to keep her breathing and what could he say to get her husband to turn off everything. I said he would have to prove she wouldn't ever wake up. He talked to her husband and the doctor explained he thought it better to take her off of everything except the ventilator and try and wake her. If after 6 hours she wouldn't wake up it would be time. He agreed. I waited outside. I had said my goodbyes and told her it was okay to let go. She had fo9ught valiantly and her kids would know. I would be her memory to them. I would stay in their lives. She didn't wake up. Her husband and I went to pick the casket and make arrangements. He let her go and actually it was so calm he didn't even know exactly when it ended. Her kids survived and the older child was pissed and screamed at us for not telling her. She knew it was cancer. I explained Kathleen's reasoning. There was never time. It has been 12 years and not a day goes by that I don't want to tell her something. At her funeral I went home and said Kathleen would have loved it. I thought for a minute I was talking about someone else's funeral. Her kids are in college and the last year of high school. Their dad has done a terrific job and I am still an active member in their lives.

Children 2010

2010-05-18T22:49:00.000-07:00

Children 2010

I got married at 19. My Mom said all I wanted was to get married and have kids but after years of therapy I think I just wanted to be a grownup and leave home but was too scared without the sanction of marriage. My parents had always said no man will buy a cow if milk is so cheap. I married so I could fuck. Yikes was I young and inexperienced. I had my two sons at age 22 and 24. My pregnancies were my happiest times and I couldn't wait to have two boys-no girls for me. Why would I expect to be a good mom to girls when my Mom and I were not a good team.

Fast forward- I was married twenty years and was separated/divorced by 39 and was I thrilled. I had just been married too young and was tired of taking care of an adult husband. I had gone from my parents house to my house and had two kids within a few years. My kids were 15 and 17 and now I was in an apartment by myself just a mile away for the first time in my life. I had my own space. I wanted them to see that their Dad was capable of taking care of them. I was the power in the relationship. I kept the boat afloat. When we got separated my ex couldn't find an apartment in all of LA so I went and the first day out found one for myself which I lived in for a year and then moved back into the family home and my ex moved out. The kids liked being in their own house and this way they could visit me when they wanted (although) I had only a one bedroom. During the separation, in my own place, I was like a kid in a candy store who only had hershey kisses their whole life and now was exposed to the riches of other candies. My rule was the men I dated had to be at least as old as my sons and some were just that. My kids went away to college so most of this past, unnoticed until he hears it tonight. We finalized our divorce and I bought my house back from my ex.for the second time and still live there today.

Fast forward another 20 years and both sons were happily married (at age 31, I might add)) and living in Chicago with their own families. I was again thrilled. Once I had grandchildren I flew out every 6 weeks and was a fabulous Grammie. I stayed in each son's house for 2-3 days as to not wear out my welcome and then flew home happy that I had my life and they had theirs. I was a Jewish mother but much easier to control with the 2750 flight miles between us. I had a fabulous relationship with my daughters-in-law and enjoyed my time with them but when I came back to my Zen home, my life was my own. I could do whatever I wanted and I did.

Now we return to current time-the year 2009 and my older son calls me and tells me he is thinking of leaving Chicago and moving to LA to work for his uncle (my ex BIL). He wants to move in with me to do a test run starting in April to see if it works for him and his family. This son had not lived at home since he left for college and now he was coming home and if it worked he would live here in LA permanently with his family. Might I remind you it is me who only stayed a few days in his home as to not overstay my welcome. My son had always been somewhat volatile and like a volcano could go off and get to 60 in 10 seconds. He had told me he was receiving help and I did see a change in him when I visited but living together?????????? We lived wonderfully together in my house for 5 months because we barely saw each other. He worked from early morning to late nights and then commuted home to Chicago every 10 days for a weekend. I did sneak out to an ex boyfriend's (he once was an ex for good reason) and as far as anyone knew he was history. I found myself making up stories and using friends to cover my sleepovers. I was 60 years old and literally sneaking out of my own home. This had to stop but how. If I fessed up it would be a discussion and I didn't feel I wanted to explain myself. I sent a message to both son's families and confessed and asked for no comments. One day after 5 months my son announces it works and that his wife and kids (2 twin boys age 5 and one 2 1/2 year old daughter) are moving and would it be okay to move everyone into my house until they find somewhere to live.

Let me go back to my ZEN house. I love it and my life. I was thrilled they lived in Chicago and attributed it to a great relationship and distance. My first response was sure (I rarely say no) and made a call to my therapist who I had not seen for years. She basically let me come in that week. I sat in her office with anxiety and worry about boundaries and having three alpha personalities in my small (can you say 1500 square feet) home..

But when the kids and his wife came to live with me how would it be. I retouch paint in my house for god's sake. How were three little ones who would be jammed into 2 rooms with their parents ever work? I told them that they could stay until Nov 1 before they even arrived on Sept 9th. All agreed. They moved in and boy did they move in. Every room but mine became a kid's zone. Toys, games, balls, dolls, books and clothes were everywhere. Washer and dryer running day and night. For the first few days I was constantly on guard. I needed to keep my Jewish mouth closed and succeeded quite well. The Nov 1 date extended until Dec 31 then again until Feb3. The kids already knew the kids on the street and the families were all young and the arrival of another young family was perfect. But what about me and all these people who had been my friends first. I was a little worried that I would lose my standing on the block but soon I realized that wouldn't happen. We could all be friends and this would not interfere with my separate relationships with my neighbors. Then the amazing part happened. They found a house. Not just any house but a house on my street.

And as Sarah Palin might have said I can see their house from my porch. 5 houses down and across the street. I asked did they think this would work and my dil said if she didn't think it would work she wouldn't do it. My son was thrilled to be back on the block he grew up on. The kids were going to go to the schools he attended.. To back track a few months. The living together worked. I was getting good at boundaries after only a few sessions with my therapist. I learned to keep my mouth shut except for once or twice. I learned to let chips in the paint go untouched. I had some rules about food and where they could eat which the kids followed. Shoes were left at the front door. My dil was terrific at cleaning up but mostly I didn't give her a chance to do it as I just had time and liked my clean better and she was very busy getting everyone in schools, classes and activities. I learned a lot about myself. I could share at this age. I could give up some of my compulsions and organization and I could also say no. I started having sleepovers with my friend with benefits and the kids would say have fun at your sleepover grammie. I found ways to have privacy in a very small space or someone else’s place. I traveled too.

I also learned that I could live with someone temporarily and survive and still have a voice in my life. I saw a side of my son that I only dreamed about and thought about but didn't witness on a fulltime basis. He was a terrific husband, father and son. He loves his wife and kids and would lay down for them in a heartbeat. It is nice to be able to REALLY see that. When a child grows up you hope that you instilled the right values but until they are tested you never really know for sure. And by the very nature of all being in a confined space boy we were tested.

But the best parts were and still are those grandkids. They loved me from birth but living in my house for 4 months established a new bond that can never be broken. We cuddled, we shared, we talked, we hugged and we told stories. We talked about the best part of our day when we had dinner together. I laughed at almost everything they said because they are funny. I got to really know their personalities and I know my son has been given a gift to see what he was like as a child as these children have all his strengths and weaknesses They also have strong opinions and can be stubborn just as he was at their age. Also, as intense.. They are adorable and loving and have a way about themselves that is truly unique. I won't say it was totally without compromise but we are all stronger for it. And I can still say with a wonderful smile that my DIL is a fabulous cook, a loving wife, great Mom and terrific DIL.

I thought I would lose my identity and become invisible as I have felt for a great part of my life but instead I saw my flexibility, my boundaries and my true spirit emerge.

I must admit within 36 hours of their move (down 5 houses and across the street) all the paint was retouched, the walls wiped clean of handprints, their stuff moved to their new house, the garage and every room as clean as before they came and my life back to that ZEN quality but if I want some of that loving I just walk down 5 houses and across the street and the best part awaits when they greet me and give me hugs and kisses.

And now the grandkids have sleepovers here.

2010-05-18T22:43:00.000-07:00

My passage through plastic surgery didn't work like I had planned. After I had my kids at age 22 and 24 I spent time working on all those stomach muscles to make the area flat. I remember going to Weight Watchers after my youngest son was 8 years old and told people that I was losing the baby fat from my son. They laughed when I said he was 8. But the truth was my stomach bothered me a lot. I tried exercising and sit ups and still had the fat layer and the stretched skin. Of course I didn't give up sweets of which chocolate is my downfall. I thought I looked good in clothes but naked it bothered me as the skin flapped over. I had wanted this fixed for 35 years and at the age of 59 I decided I was going to have a tummy tuck. Most of my friends and even my boyfriend had tried to dissuade me but I was determined. I knew a couple people who had it and looked fabulous. I had the money and the time to recover so I thought I would treat myself for once rather than doing for other I would take care of me. I was not nervous at all and predicted a successful outcome.

I had the surgery and after the 24 hours in the hospital I paid a small fortune to go to one of these aftercare places that movie stars go to. I felt really great and was ready to leave and did when things started to go downhill fast. I noticed that part of my skin started to die around where the old belly button had been. They make a new one for you because the spot were it was before the surgery was taken off and the skin pulled down and stitched across. The stitching held fine and started to heal. However the skin above the stitches in a round circle started to become discolored and was forming a hole the size of a golf ball. I didn't panic but was wondering what to do as the skin pulled farther and father apart. My plastic surgeon had not seen this happen in 35 years of practice. I was in her office thinking of alternatives when I mentioned the hyperbaric chamber. I was an alternative type of person. I believed in accupuncture and had used eastern and western medicine for other things. I had heard that hyperbarics had helped with wounds (which mine was now classified as). I went to the UCLA Gonda Hyperbaric Center to have an evaluation. After looking at me the doctors concurred that 10 treatments would do the trick. I found out they tell everyone that when in fact no ones knows how many treatments are needed. I needed to go back to my surgeon so she could take off all the dead skin and go back down to the muscle. It was weird to watch this as my stomach was totally numb so no anesthetic was needed. My golf ball sized hole quickly became a tennis ball size.

The hyperbaric chamber holds up to 16 people. It looks like a submarine inside and out. The principle theory was that you simulated diving and when you get to the level you need to be at you sit for 90 minutes with an oxygen helmet on your head which latches at your shoulders. You breathe pure oxygen for 30 minutes with a 5 minute rest where you can take off your helmet and scratch your face and head then back on for another 30 , 5 minutes off and then another 30 minutes. There are no bathrooms inside period but in an emergency you can use one of those bedpans they give you in the hospital. And if you have to shit you can go between the two chambers and still use a bedpan.I vowed that it would never happen to me. I would stop eating and drinking the night before the treatments at 5pm. You can't wear any makeup or jewelry or perfume. You wear scrubs and tennis shoes. There is one person who controls the inside of the chamber and two people on the outside. It takes about 10-15 minutes to get to the level of depth that you need to be at for the oxygen to work at it's maximum level for wounds. They pipe in music you can even bring your own cd's and you can even read thru the helmet or write. But the real interesting part for me was hearing the stories from the other people in the chamber for 90 minutes. You form your own community in there because 1. you are trapped, 2 You want to stay busy so you don't have to go to the bathroom (I never wanted to fall asleep for fear I would have to go upon waking and 3. The time goes faster while chatting. You can;t bring in any electronics. They only have two treatment times so you are with the same people each day Monday -Friday. There are divers, people recovering from amputations, people who had carbon monoxide poisoning and people so sick on gurneys (they wheel them right in) and various other wounds that were complications from diabetes or accidents
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As it turned out 10 times barely scratched the surface as my wound continued to expand. After the first 10 more were added to my schedule. They never told you ahead of time as I think people would be so depressed and just walk away. I was ready to be finished but the wound was not finished closing and so more treatments were added and a wound vac was add as well.. This is a small vacumn machine that sucks the wound closed. It whirls and makes swooshing noises so going to the movies or anywhere quiet was out and sex is an issues as well so that was curtailed for the two months of wound vac. I had to wear that for two months strapped to my body. 15, 20, 25 treatments were added. People were getting well and leaving me week after week. Finally after 27 weeks I was finished. I continued to go to the center for months afterwards until the wound closed for good. It was quite the ordeal but in the end I have a scar the size of a tennis ball and it looks like I was shot in my stomach. I wish I could tell people that it was something truly exciting and dangerous that sent me there but I just said plastic surgery gone wrong.

I must say the actual experience was amazing and I learned that plastic surgery should be done when one is young if at all and maybe the outcome would have been different. Today I have a flat stomach with two bulges on the ends where the wound has formed scar tissue and won't allow the whole stomach area to lie flat. Am I better for it, I know yes because the whole time I knew I was going to be okay. I would not die from this, I wouldn't get sick from this and I would recover. I was the wellest person in the chamber. I was the hit of the unit as I kept everyone laughing and told stories as did the others. I knew none of these people would be lifelong friends except for the staff which have all connected on Facebook but for my 9 weeks we were family. One side note. I was so anxious I went in the chamber with a sinus issue which made my ear canal clog and I had to have tubes put in my ears by the ENT which is another whole story. Suffice it to say my hearing became so acute for 9 weeks I was ready to have the tubes removed the day I was finished and assured I would not need them anymore.

It has been two years and I am doing well. Some of the people in ym chamber treatment didn't make it, Their wounds were too severe and their diabetes and various other ailments were too overwhelming for their bodies to survive. I can now laugh about all the adventures but at the time I just tried to stay positive and live my life as normally as I could during this experience. My friends were pissed at me for doing it at all so not much sympathy came my way. I learned to respect my body in a totally different way and now when the surgeon wants to do a scar revision I look at her and say happily NO.