Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country’ Category

Do you get Mother’s day gifts? We’re a more experiential type of family – gardening, cooking togther, going to a play are all acceptable activities for this holiday in particular. I started the day on Zoom with my siblings and reminded them that i had two mothers; a warm, nurturing, demonstrative mother, and the Flapper. The yin and yang of unconditional love.

The Bride feted me with freshly baked sourdough bagels for breakfast. The Groom delivered scrumptious sandwiches for lunch even though he was on call in the MICU. And for dinner, we all piled into his car and traveled across town for a Mother’s Day celebration with our cousin Peg’s family that couldn’t be beat! It was also her son’s birthday. He was finishing up medical school and about to apply for a residency so we wanted to hear all the gory details! The weather cooperated with sunny blue skies and puffy clouds; “A good day to fly,” Bob said. Like a good pilot, I can expect to hear this several times a month.

It seems Mr T was given a 400 million dollar personal gift this weekend. It did not surprise me to hear that our President of Grift wants to accept a 747 plane from Qatar, even though this is obviously unconstitutional. “All of this would be worrisome to the White House except that, as I’ve written, Trump does not care about national security. “Trump is the only thing he’s interested in,” former National Security Adviser John Bolton told me earlier this year.https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2025/05/trump-qatar-plane-gift/682785/

What bothers me most about our current president, besides his lack of empathy, is this transparency – his belief that he can get away with anything so why try to hide it. He pivots with impunity. He dares us to try and stop him in the courts, and if a judge opposes him, his sycophants send pizzas to their homes. Hundreds of unsolicited pizzas have been delivered to federal judges in seven states – a sick and dangerous threat that echoes the shooting of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas’s son, Daniel Anderl five years ago.

If that isn’t alarming, if it doesn’t look like we’re sliding into a kleptocracy, well you’re not paying attention. Remember Melania’s coat that read “I really don’t care, do you?” She wore that on her way to visit to an immigrant child detention center no less. I wonder how she celebrates Mother’s Day. This was part of her official post a few days ago on celebrating moms – “I urge you to prioritize your well-being. Nurture yourself, for your strength is the bedrock of a brighter future for our children…”

Happy to hear FLOTUS wants us to care for ourselves since this administration is dismantling many of our social safety nets and aggravating allies. But I had a Pinterest plan to bake a French strawberry cake for our cousin, which ended up being more like a cobbler unfortunately. On Saturday, we got up early and stood in line at the Farmer’s Market waiting for the cow bell to signal its opening – I didn’t want to miss out on the first strawberries of the season!

I should just accept defeat graciously and stick to baking muffins. This is the unwritten rule in our neighborhood; Les is the Queen of cakes and Kris is the Empress of rosemary bread. And our beautiful Bride, besides baking bagels, raised money for our TN neighbors’ legal representation after a soul deadening week of ICE agents marauding Nashville’s streets in masks. If you would like to help, please contact TN Justice for our Neighbors: https://www.tnjfon.org/

Remember that your grandchildren will ask you what you did during this time. This was us on Peg’s porch with her sons and her 92 year old MIL who had just flown in from California.

Read Full Post »

When you’ve been away from home for awhile, things pile up; for instance, our car’s neural network failed. Granted it also didn’t want to start, and once jumped, our Subaru kept beeping and beeping its displeasure. Turns out, the back hatch has some locking system that needed adjusting. It was my first foray into the Nashville world and all I wanted was to go to the grocery store…alone. No “Do we need that?” in my ear.

But then, my NPR radio station changed on the dashboard monitor, as if possessed. I changed it back. It changed again. So I switched to the map. The image of my street zoomed out to include the Gulf of Mexico! After saying a small thank god in my head that it was still the gulf of Mexico, I realized there was a strange feedback loop happening in the upper right corner. My car was losing its mind, and so was I. It was the most frustrating trip, so of course I called Bob to complain.

“Call Bob mobile!” I said, as I pressed the little ear/speech ativated button on the steering wheel that is connected via Bluetooth to my phone.

“Cancelling,” my car spoke back.

I won’t repeat what I said after that. Today while I’m writing, Bob is at the dealership getting this fixed. Turns out it was a manufacturing glitch for two years that included our 2018 model, and since we have tariffs to look forward to, we’re putting off purchasing another car. What we couldn’t put off was a new heating system for our house.

Right before we left for California, we were informed that we should not use our heat since we would have a carbon monoxide leak! Now this would not be an easy, or an inexpensive fix. This past week, we had a whole new HVAC system installed which included replacing possum damaged ductwork in a crawlspace sized for a Lilliputian. Needless to say, the Rheem unit outside my snug is quiet and much more efficient.

Remember back in February since the twins came early, on my first morning alone in LA, I heard a loudspeaker in the street telling people they didn’t have to open their doors to ICE agents? I can recall that surreal feeling so vividly since this weekend TN state troopers and ICE agents raided South Nashville and sent buses containing people who have no due process to a prison facility in Louisiana. I thought Nashville was a sanctuary city! I wanted to scream; he was doing it again, separating families. THIS IS HAPPENING HERE.

Mr T’s agenda is pure malicious evil. Our Mayor Freddie O”Connell clarified:

“While O’Connell cannot institute official sanctuary policies, the mayor announced a partnership with the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee to assist the families of those detained. The newly minted Belonging Fund will go towards emergency assistance for childcare, housing instability, transportation and other needs. “’Belonging is more than a feeling — it’s a sign of safety, stability, and community,” said Hal Cato, CEO of CFMT. “When immigrant families face a crisis, we want to ensure they’re not alone. This fund helps organizations on the ground respond quickly, compassionately, and effectively.’” https://www.nashville.gov/departments/mayor/news/belonging-fund-launches-provide-emergency-support-immigrants-nashville

BUT it does NOT pay for legal fees!! Why? In retrospect, my car, our home heating problems are minor compared to this administration. If you know, or would like to start a GoFundMe for legal representation for a family in crisis please comment below.

I’m so glad to see my son has continued playing guitar for his girls. Hearing from my sweet California family melts my heart and brings me peace.

Read Full Post »

I’m slowly starting to drive again, to pick up my life from last November. I want to do it all _ Pilates, swimming, dancing, but i’m restraining myself. My ONE mission in life right now is Not To Fall...it’s not my golden years, it’s more like diamond years, building back bones as strong as diamonds. Living with osteoporosis is a Delicate Balance.

The Bride has been visiting her brother’s new family, bringing her big sister energy to Southern California. Since the twins received their first round of immunizations, they all ventured out to South Pasadena’s farmer’s market last week. I miss the huge avocados and baby bok choy, the non-stop music and synergy of craft/farm/artistisan vibes. But it’s almost strawberry season in TN, so there’s that!

One of the first things I had to tackle when we returned home was cleaning the bird bath. And I’m so glad I did; a cardinal has decided he needs to bathe every midday when the sun is out. First he perches on the edge, carefully watching the tiny solar fountain erupting intermittently, then he dives in and shakes himself silly. I love to witness this tiny red dancer and can’t wait to meet his mate.

And speaking of cardinals, on the day of the Pope’s funeral I watched the movie Conclave. If you’ve missed it, it’s streaming now on Prime. Growing up Catholic, it left me with mixed feelings. The pomp was still there, and I do love the pomp, but the cutthroat politics was new to me. Apparently if you want to become Pope, you have to pretend that you don’t. We had just celebrated Passover, traveling home on Easter Sunday when we heard the sad news.

I couldn’t help comparing Passover to Easter: one celebrates freedom from slavery, and one celebrates eternal life? Reality vs Myth.

Do you sometimes feel like you’re walking on a tightrope? I’ve been balancing my energy between my California family and my Tennessee family. The roses and lilacs are in bloom, but I was just strolling past lavender hedges as high as my eyes! The twins are starting to smile, and my Pumpkin is perfecting his magic tricks. We are all looking forward to the Love Bug’s Bat Mitzvah in the Fall!

My first granddaughter’s rite of passage is an ancient one, but it’s fairly new for women to step up to the bimah. In 1922, Rabbi Kaplan insisted his daughter should study the Torah and she was the first to be consecrated in this country. Today there are many women rabbis but in the Catholic Church women are still subservient to priests. But who knows, maybe the next Pope will be more progressive.

Meanwhile…

Read Full Post »

Just in case you’re not caught up on my exploits, here’s a tiny synopsis:

Since the last election, when I broke my neck, I’ve been out of sync with my life. My hands were useless, and my head had to be constrained 24/7 in an Aspen Collar. When my neck was set free, three months later, my twin granddaughters were born prematurely. Bob and I have been living in California ever since. Now it’s time to return to Nashville, to return to normal, whatever that means.

A friend once told me I seem to have a lot of adventures! Well, I’m determined to lead a very boring life from now on; I will retreat to my snug and write, I will start swimming again, maybe I’ll venture into the kitchen and whip up a batch of muffins with the Love Bug. And my only big adventure will be to finish reading my very first fantasy novel – “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell,” by Susanna Clarke.

I’m not a Lord of the Rings type. Even Harry Potter eluded my sensibilities. I’m an occasional fan of dystopian science fiction, but more enamored of historical fiction. Still I figured, why not give this twenty year old fantasy a go?

It all started when I came upon an Insta story from Parnassus Books. Ann Patchett was raving about this book as an escape for our times, but she warned it’s rather long and it will take 200 pages of boring description before taking off. I figured I needed the distraction, so instantly I downloaded the novel to my Kindle and I was hooked immediately.

It’s about the return of English magic – practical magic as opposed to theoretical magic! It takes place during the Napoleonic wars, with ancient fairy kingdoms and talking gargoyles. It’s about love and jealousy. And then I found out that Aunt Kiki loves fantasy novels. My beautiful, kind daughter-in-love, my Irish dancer, knows all about elves and magic!

If you’d like to venture into some modern fantasy, the Atlantic reviewed a new book this month titled “The Last Unicorn.”

“And perhaps all of this is why The Last Unicorn is a fantasy for these times. The novel doesn’t take place in a believable alternate world with clear rules and boundaries, but in a messy one more akin to ours. It’s not epic fantasy, but applied fantasy—which is to say, readers aren’t supposed to get lost in its invented world. We are supposed to import its lessons to our own world. In this uncertain age, when truth and falsehood are just rapidly converging talking points on the same blurry continuum, and wishful thinking is hopelessly mixed up with reality, The Last Unicorn urges audiences to do the things that need doing anyway, muddling through as best we can.” From the Atlantic – “One of the Best Fantasy Novels Ever…” https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/11/last-unicorn-peter-beagle-50th-anniversary-reality-magic/575641/

When Lord Wellington asked Mr Norrell to conjure up some unicorns to ride into battle against the French, he replied there were none left. They’d become extinct. It’s good to know there’s one left!

Oh how I wish I didn’t have to return to reality. My cuddling babies and dog walking duties are done, my tiny twin granddaughters are well on the road to post-preemiehood and getting stronger every day. They’ve just about doubled their birth weight, and they immediately focus and listen when their Daddy plays the guitar. Do you remember those days of young motherhood?

I do. I remember them like they were yesterday.

Hello Spring. The roses and lilacs have bloomed outside my snug’s window.

Read Full Post »

Have you heard of the band Weezer? Not a particularly great band name, makes me think of somebody struggling to breathe. They were big in the 90s and early 2000s. I was wondering because the bass player, Scott Shriner’s wife Jillian Lauren was involved in a police shooting last week here in LA.

Then Shriner performed at Coachella over the weekend.

It’s been a busy weekend. For one thing, Bernie and AOC held a rally on Erev Passover to fight the oligarchy. It was one of their largest turnouts yet, over 35,000 people attended! The Rocker thought we would go, but I had better things to do – like make chicken soup with matzoh balls and finagle a brisket into a slow cooker. Our small Seder was simple but lovely, the twins’ first holiday.

Bob told the girls about the Exodus and Moses. We didn’t get into all the plagues, or make them answer any questions, like “Why is this night different from all other nights?” I mean, they were already reclining in their twinsie pillow. Leo the Protector dog watched over them on the deck as the sun set over the canyon.

This morning I made matzoh brie (scrambled eggs with milk-soaked broken matzoh) with maple syrup.

And then I saw that the NYTimes had picked up our local Weezer story. It happened like this in the neighborhood of Eagle Rock: Jillian Lauren heard something suspicious in the middle of the night and so she picked up her legal gun and went outside to investigate. I’m assuming she was alone in the house with her four dogs since Shriner was out in the desert with the band.

Whereupon she was shot by the LAPD and then arrested.

Just a few weeks ago I’d met my sister-in-law Jorja and two of my LA nieces with children in Eagle Rock for dinner. Granted you hear lots of sirens and helicopters in the City of Angels, but this shooting just seemed so bizarre and close to home. My initial thought was the city will see quite a law suit in the future; Lauren survived her injuries and posted bond for 1 Million.

This has all the makings of an LA Law and Order style episode. Did she point her gun at the police? Did she fire? Did they identify themselves? And just to make it all more interesting, Lauren is an author! She wrote a book about her time spent in a harem – “Some Girls; My Life in a Harem.”

I didn’t feel the magnitude 5.2 earthquake this morning, which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. There were several aftershocks but the only thing that happened was Bob’s phone alert started shrieking, my phone was on silent. “Drop, cover and protect yourself.” Similar to finding your safe place during a tornado watch?

But is any place really safe anymore when you can get shot by the police in your own backyard?

Read Full Post »

The news is seeping into my dreamy grandmotherly days.

Yes, I’m washing baby bottles, cuddling babies, and pitching in with household chores because twins… and every now and then I catch a glimpse of the rest of the world. I know there was a Hands Off protest in almost every major city around the world this past weekend. And I’m glad to see so many groups coalesce around the fight against totalitarianism.

But what really got to me was seeing Jewish and Palestinian students at Columbia University chain themselves to a fence in opposition to the school’s funding of Israel.

Don’t let the T administration fool you – they are twisting a biblical feud into a supposed fight against antisemitism. But by arresting, deporting and basically disappearing hundreds of valid college students studying here, in this country, legally btw, Mr T has shown his true colors. What has been happening on college campuses lately is truly Orwellian.

What were their crimes? Speaking freely about their opposition to bombing women and children in Gaza? Signing a petition equating the Israeli government with an apartheid system?

It may be hard to believe, for some MAGA Americans to believe, but Jewish Americans can love the state of Israel and still disagree with Netanyahu and his government’s policies. Just like we can love our country and wish with all our hearts that Harris was elected. Mr T is not doing us Jews any favors!

And this morning I read about a covert group, Canary Mission, that has been tracking activists in university settings all around the country for years:

“The group, which says its mission is to single out those who promote “hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses,” listed the names of seven students and academics, including three current and former professors at Columbia University.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/us/israel-gaza-student-protests-canary-mission.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

And a play about the McCarthy commission and Walter Winchell just opened on Broadway starring George Clooney, along with my neighbor Ann’s son, Mac Brandt. Ann escaped the Altadena fire and attended the opening night in NYC. I wonder, can we learn from our history?

Seventy years go, in Hollywood many Jewish artists made McCarthy’s black list. Today, our government is making another list in the guise of antisemitism. The canary is not only singing, it’s screaming.

Dinner on the deck with the twins in their Moses baskets.

Read Full Post »

The more things change, the less I like it.

But I am not like my Nana, who refused to give up her “ice box” for a newfangled refrigerator. When the ice man stopped delivering, she reluctantly accepted the new contraption with a round condenser sitting like a pill box hat on top. It’s ironic that it was my sister Kay who had the Frigidaire delivered to our Nana, but later refused a microwave from me!

Today it’s more complicated. It’s not as if I’d like to return to the days when a milkman came to our little house in Victory Gardens… or my Daddy Jim had to climb up on the roof to adjust the TV antenna. But milk IS the driving force of our lives now that the twins are home! The Rocker had to install a small freezer in the garage for the overflow of breast milk Aunt Kiki is delivering. It’s actually Amazonian.

The Flapper told me very little about our lives before that Year of Living Dangerously. But I did know that her doctor took her aside one day and told her she didn’t have to sanitize my baby bottles – which meant in 1948 she didn’t need to boil them. The doctor knew my Father was dying of a brain tumor in the dining room of our home, and he figured she had enough to worry about, what with three other children in the house.

And so when the Bride was born, the Flapper helped me in many ways but she knew next to nothing about breastfeeding. Ditto for Grandma Ada. Their generation was expected to bottle feed, only poor women who couldn’t afford formula would nurse. And yet, the culture changed so dramatically by the 70s – we women read “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” we had consciousness raising groups, we had Gloria Steinem!

And the La Leche League of course. It was considered a badge of honor to nurse your baby anywhere and everywhere. And like most things, we went too far. I suffered through the flu and a mastitis and kept on going, determined to make a success of it. When in fact, training your baby to take a bottle along with nursing makes sense for your family’s sanity.

Especially with TWINS!

My son and his wife had a crash course on caring for preemies in the NICU. They had a lactation specialist and an occupational therapist! Best of all were the nurses, who each shared the tricks of their trade; including the last night nurse who hugged me and said I looked like a mystery writer!

So now I am my Mother, knowing very little about bottles. The baby girls are excellent nursers, but the bottles at first were not getting the job done in the NICU. And Kiki came up with the idea to change the bottles from one brand to another, and voila! They started meeting their “shift minimums.” So yesterday, we brought the girls home to meet Leo the Protector and his two resident cats.

Bob and I will stick around to help in any way we can. Ive learned how to defrost breastmilk and use the new bottles and their special cleaning appliance. The rest is like riding a bike, right? I hope they got some sleep last night.

Read Full Post »

Last weekend my stepbrother Eric and his wife Bev, from St Louis, were visiting their daughter’s family here in California. We have a history of missed opportunities to see each other whenever we overlap on the West Coast but this time I was determined to make it happen. We made a reservation at a French restaurant near the hospital, we would sit out on the terrace to avoid germs.

Then this happened:

Aunt Kiki and I left Bob and our son in the hospital’s cafeteria – they were headed into the Starbucks cafe near the gift shop while we wanted to get back to the NICU. Only when we got to the locked door leading into the maternity ward, a spot where I would pick up the wall mounted phone and announce myself and the name of the babies I was visiting, we met an armed policewoman.

She said the hospital was on LOCKDOWN and we couldn’t get back into the NICU and we couldn’t go outside! We made her say it again.

All of a sudden a fairy godmother holding her dinner plate looked at us and said, “She’s one of our mothers, follow me!” It was the NICU charge nurse sweeping us through maternity’s locked doors and into the nursery where we learned there’d been an incident in the ER. I asked our fairy/nurse if this was a drill, she said no. Kiki quickly texted the Rocker to tell him he should abandon his coffee run and meet us in the NICU pronto.

Without knowing anything – was there an armed shooter in the building, had a car crashed into the ER, or was the next plague contained behind locked doors – we settled into our little room with the twins. I told Kiki we were in the safest place imaginable, behind multiple layers of security. The Rocker texted back he heard helicopters outside while Bob was using his doctor bona fides to reach us.

We were the only visitors in our “twin room.” At one time we had three sets of twins with three nurses each but on that day we were down to two sets and the remaining two nurses were trying to put us at ease. “There’s plenty of breast milk to keep us hydrated,” one said. The baby girls slept peacefully all swaddled up in their bassinets and I hugged Kiki. The boys arrived.

For over three hours it was business as usual, kind of – Kiki was nursing the twins and I was tentatively texting with Bev. They were at the restaurant holding our table and enjoying some French onion soup. We learned that someone had left the ER unhappy with their treatment, threatening to return and, “Shoot up the place.” The LAPD were looking for him (I’m assuming their gender) and until he was arrested we were held captive, obliged to miss yet another attempt to see Eric and Bev!

Once the threat was over and we were driving back to our AirBnB, I was slowly aware of my suppressed rage. When Bob worked in a hospital, there were no metal detectors. Today we must present our drivers license, stand in front of a camera and have a badge made every day we visit the twins. Every baby has some sort of security band on their foot. And yet

These babies, my brand new grandbabies, have already experienced their first distinctly American terrorist threat… their first active shooter drill. They were not even a month old. Even if this disgruntled patient was at home having his dinner, we were watching the NICU door, listening for gunfire. I was terrified. He was arrested, we got the all clear and picked up dinner – cookies – from the hospital’s vending machine.

But do I want my grandchildren to grow up in a country with 125 guns for every 100 people? Here is a screen shot of that night.

Read Full Post »

Another week, another day of physical therapy. I’m working hard to not only turn my head, but bend it at an angle so I can look into the eyes of my brand new grandbabies. That is the goal. That and not falling, so I’m working on balance exercises too. Isometrics is also part of the plan.

And once a week, I’m tuning into Apple TV to watch “Severance.”

If you’re not a fan, Severance is a series about people who are suffering so much in their personal lives, they undergo a surgical procedure on their brains so that they are entirely different people in their work life. At home they are “outies,” and at work they are “innies.” Their memories are kaput!

The series was shot at Bell Labs in Holmdel, NJ. Long white corridors leading to strange rooms punctuate the dystopian landscape. Its four main characters have no work life balance; instead they have two different identities.

Whenever I heard anyone talk about work life balance, I felt it was code for a more traditional, sexist point of view. After all, men never uttered those words when I was joining the work force in the 70s. Their work was their life. But for women, well we were expected to look like a Virginia Slims ad – a baby on one hip and a briefcase in the other hand.

We could bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan!

Things haven’t changed much since then. American women still shoulder much more of the housekeeping and child rearing. As the Bride likes to point out, our country is the ONLY G7 country that doesn’t offer PARENTAL leave after the birth of a baby for six months to a year! We also abandon our new parents to a for-profit childcare system that can eat up half their income.

My son has his studio at home, and Aunt Kiki has a pretty flexible designer’s schedule where she can work from home as needed. But still, having twins will require an open-door policy at their house! Getting those babies home and on the same schedule is the order of the day. They are fast approaching six pounds!

While the only severed woman, or should I say women, on Severance is Helly R aka Helena Eagan, and the only baby is outie Mark’s niece, the science fiction series is a welcome relief from the actual cesspool of MAGA policies that have been littering our news outlets. Like DOGE people bringing armed ‘Marshalls’ into government agencies – I wonder if they were wearing brown shirts.

Breaking news. I’ve graduated to two pound hand weights and my goal is six plus. My work is all about balance.

Read Full Post »

Last night my son decided to take his dog to the dog park.

The Rocker and Aunt Kiki have two cats and a very good dog named Leo. They know that their fur babies will be in for a rude awakening when the twins come home, so they’ve been trying to give them a little extra attention. They bring home baby blankets from the NICU to smell, and we give them special treats. Since I was tired, I parked myself in front of a Bravo reality show while Kiki pumped.

The only reality show I’ve ever watched was the first incarnation of Real Housewives. Wait, I may have watched an Apprentice or two. Isn’t it strange that two previous reality show stars are battling on the world stage?

When the Bride started nursing the Love Bug in Nashville we watched Downton Abbey on PBS. That was almost 13 years ago, there was no streaming.

I’m not sure why “Love is Blind” was the main attraction last night, but I fell right into its spell. I get why we might crave mind-numbing TV right now, who wants to hear about the latest orange julius meltdown? The market is sliding downhill and Kennedy thinks the measles is due to a poor diet. What else is new?

Anyway, a guy and a gal meet and talk behind a wall. It’s like Cyrano, only without the intermediary and the beautiful language. You only get to meet your actual person once you’ve decided to marry them! And I just happened to watch the episode where a nice white woman asks a white guy what he thinks about Black Lives Matter.

She should have run the other way. Instead she thought he might evolve. He told her he never gave BLM much thought. Ladies, listen to your intuition- it seems these two made it all the way to the altar before she backed out. Oh the drama.

So the question is, can a Republican marry a Democrat? What would be the deal breaker? A long time ago I sang “Marry the Man Today and Change His Ways Tomorrow.” It’s still a pretty funny premise.

I’m holding Baby A, and telling her boys can be tricky.


Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »