I’m back in Southern California where I woke not to birdsong but to a loudspeaker roaming the early morning streets telling people they do not have to open the door if ICE comes to their house. There’s a Town Hall in Malibu to help people dealing with fire debris removal. There are runs and benefits for the displaced victims of the wildfires. Another Fire Aid Benefit concert is being planned with Billie Eilish, No Doubt and Jellyroll performing. There is even a movie prop company donating all of its furniture to people! Imagine receiving the couch from “Friends!”
It is a very different vibe among the lollipop palm trees and the incessant sunshine… but then again a lot has changed. We have a new president, unfortunately, and I’m no longer encircled by a cervical collar. But most importantly we have two new baby girls that decided to arrive early.
Big congratulations to the Rocker and Aunt Kiki! Weighing in at nearly 5 pounds our brand new baby girls are holding court in the NICU for a few more days They are simply perfect in every way. We are so excited to bring them home, so stay tuned for more updates .
Bob and I have been known to throw a good party over the years. We’ve done a clambake in our Jersey Shore backyard, we did Bob’s infamous 40th “Come as You Were in the 60s” birthday bash, and of course the post-flood homecoming in Rumson, not to mention the Big Chill Thanksgivings and numerous Grandma Ada birthday parties – and the 2000 Millennial New Year’s Eve. There’s nothing I love better than cooking for a crowd, well maybe catering…
I had to laugh when I overheard one political commentator say, “The Democrats have to throw the kind of party you want to go to.” A light went off in my head!
Of course, we don’t want to be all doom and gloom. But I also don’t do raves either, luckily that trend has skipped my generation. Still, turn on Fox News and their anchors are actually having questionable fun. I don’t stay on Fox for long, but everyone is sitting around telling jokes, instead of stating facts or analyzing policy. They are not worried about the end of democracy while their president and his oligarch, tech-bro, side-kick go about trampling everything in their path like two giant Gullivers run amok.
So what kind of party would you want to attend? I hear that Rubrik’s Cube parties are all the rage in Paris. I’m not quite sure how you play, but wearing articles of clothing in the cube’s colors is de rigeur. Or what about a Knives Out mystery party? Maybe we should leave weapons out of the equation. An escape room? I’d love to escape reality, forget this past year, a year of nearly dying from a simple fall that happened the day before our election.
Well, both splints are off my hands and the Aspen collar has been packed away. I look perfectly normal, if not shorter, but that is an illusion. I’m tempered. I’ve had to face mortality and my head still feels like a bowling ball. My right hand doesn’t work the way it used to, but then again, pretty much nothing else does either. Ah, to be seventy again!
Let’s plan on throwing a party for the Dems. Let’s brainstorm all the things we want to happen, like getting egg prices down, controlling bird flu, and not whether or not to buy Greenland. Let’s talk about the positive things we can do to help the climate, and help families with childcare. We need to make our party fun again and build community.
We need to party like it’s 1999! And Happy Anniversary to these two!
I was cheering last night as the Eagles demolished the Chiefs. My feelings have nothing to do with football, it’s simply that my great great grandfather got on a boat from Ireland and settled in Pennsylvania. I may have grown up across the Delaware Water Gap in NJ, but my PA roots run deep. Like Jill Biden, my blood also runs green.
My concentration wavered after the halftime show. The outcome was obvious, so I may have tuned into Celebrity Jeopardy, but I swear I didn’t see the camera cut to Mr T once; I saw Taylor, and Ann Hathaway, and even Sir Paul. He was always my favorite Beatle. And since the one and only time I met our current president was at an NFL game in NY in the 80s, I had to wonder if he had enough attention last night to satisfy his outsized ego?
That morning my brother, Dr Jim, was recounting his experience of attending the Super Bowl with the Minnesota Vikings in 1975. He and his wife Anita flew to New Orleans on a private jet, attended the parties, rode on the team bus and entered the stadium with our brother Mike, the Vikings president and GM. We all knew that Mr T was trying to acquire an NFL franchise, at the same time he was acquiring a new wife, but none of the owners were willing to sell. Or maybe he didn’t have the money?
So the conman realtor bought his way into the rival, fledgling US Football Leasue (USFL) and proceeded to mount a hostile takeover of the NFL. Does this sound like a familiar business plan? His incompetent management was likely one of the reasons the USFL failed. He sued the NFL and was awarded a grand total of three DOLLARS.
In the trial, NFL attorneys framed their case around Trump, arguing that the lawsuit was a charade orchestrated by Trump as a way to get into the NFL on the cheap. The argument worked.
I think we are witnessing a hostile takeover of our government, a kind of coup from within, and Elon Musk is the General. We should have learned from Mr T’s business tactics, or from his biography. He’s shown his true colors time and time again – in his real estate dealings, in his marital infidelities, in his obsession with the NFL. He once said that if he’d been allowed to purchase the Buffalo Bills, he probably wouldn’t have run for president! When I read that, I nearly choked on my coffee. All he needed back then was 80 Million Dollars.
Maybe Fox gave Mr T pre-game exposure, but I didn’t watch it… besides, I was excited to see a certain ad that the Rocker’s company produced. Ticket sales to this year’s Super Bowl went down for the first time ever, and womens’ sports teams are rising which is a tiny silver lining to the past few weeks. Here is the Bug, on a winning streak.
Today’s the day. It’s been three months since my family room fall. Today I see the spine doctor for X-rays of my neck – extension and flexion or tilting my head up and down. My fracture at C2, sometimes called a hangman’s fracture, has not exactly healed. It’s difficult if not impossible for older people to grow new bone, but the doctor tells me that fibrous tissue has bridged the gap, like a spider’s web of scar tissue. “No more roller coasters for you,” he tells me.
“And no bumper cars!”
I should feel lucky, if not downright jubilant that I’ll be free of the cervical Aspen collar. Goodbye, Ciao, Cheerio! So why do I feel conflicted?
Yesterday I shared a table for lunch with a widow. Her opening question, “What happened to you?” wasn’t new. Most people assume it was surgery that resulted in this head immobilization. But Bob had to leave to take a call, and before long the young widow and I were immersed in a deep conversation about life, our daughters, the choices we make, and her fall (totally alone and without her phone) off a ladder in the small storage unit of her high-rise condo in the Gulch.
INTERMISSION FOR 9 AM DOCTOR APPOINTMENT
I’ve just returned from the doctor collar-free. I had a rendezvous with death, but I tricked the grim reaper. My head is sitting on its axis just fine. Here’s a little anatomy lesson:
“The axis, also known as the epistropheus, is the second cervical vertebra (C2) that has some similarities to a typical cervical vertebra but is categorized as an atypical vertebra because of its unique features. Its most characteristic feature is the prominent superior projection known as the dens axis, or odontoid process. The dens axis plays an important function for the movement of the head, acting as a stable pivot around which the atlas and head rotate.“
It figures that I broke an atypical vertebra. Last week was my last hand therapy appointment, so now what do I do? I’m not allowed to drive for a few months, or play football…. “tackle” football. I started a book in California, “The Last Lecture,” by Randy Pausch, that I’d like to finish. He received a terminal cancer diagnosis and his book is a look back at his exceptional life. If you’ve never heard of him, check this out:
I guess my joy at being cut-loose from doctors and therapy is being blunted by the daily assaults on our democratic process by a president who would be king. The Groom’s critical care funding from NIH may be in jeopardy. One of their friends who works for the government has been asked to sign a “loyalty” pledge. This is real, Mr T’s crazy missives, his crazier “special government employee” Elon’s directives are all engineered to foment fear. Do not lose faith. It’s time to pull out those old pink pussy hats and resist dear readers.
MountainMornings 