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Work Life Balance

March 18, 2025 by mountainmornings

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.

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Love is Blind, and also dumb

March 11, 2025 by mountainmornings

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.


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Moving Day

March 4, 2025 by mountainmornings

We moved over the weekend to a new AirBnB.

The first place was a last minute booking because our new grandbabies couldn’t wait to arrive earthside. This spot with a garden was the original plan; two bedrooms in a quaint carriage house within walking distance of shops and cafes. I settled right in and made sweet potato lentil soup for the new parents. We’re only a little over a mile away from the hospital where the twins are thriving and growing stronger each day. They will be moving home soon enough, best friends for life.

But did you know that once upon a time people packed up all their belongings and moved every year? I happened to bring Atlantic magazine’s March issue with me for the plane, and I was intrigued by Yoni Appelbaum’s essay, “Stuck in Place.”

”The great holiday of American society at its most nomadic was Moving Day, observed by renters and landlords throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th with a giant game of musical houses. Moving Day was a festival of new hopes and new beginnings of shattered dreams and shattered crockery – quite as recognized a day as Christmas or the Fouth of July!”

Of course I played musical houses growing up between Nell in Victory Gardens, and the Flapper in Scranton. All my memories are glued to a dilapidated leather album – dressed up for Easter, hiding between appliances in the kitchen, sitting on the hood of an old car in a frilly bathing suit. And there’s my favorite, I’m about five years old and posed like Shirley Temple in front of a poster at the circus. I was wearing a pair of oxfords, my “circus shoes.”

I’ve been blissfully unaware of the political circus happening all around us at breakneck speed. My priority is moving between this carriage house and the hospital, supporting the new parents as best I can, and beginning a course of physical therapy. Balance and equilibrium are the order of the day.

And so we’re off on a hunt for a small freezer to store breast milk for two babies. I cannot wait to move them into their new nursery.

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Hollywood is Buzzing

February 25, 2025 by mountainmornings

…and not because of the Academy Awards.

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 .

Two Jersey Nanas whispering in their ears.

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Party Planning

February 19, 2025 by mountainmornings

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!

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On the Cheap

February 10, 2025 by mountainmornings

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 thought he was extremely arrogant, and I thought that he was obviously trying to play the game,” juror Patricia Sibilia recalled in a telephone interview last year. “He wanted an NFL franchise. . . . The USFL was a cheap way in.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/donald-trumps-long-stormy-and-unrequited-romance-with-the-nfl/2017/09/23/979264a4-a093-11e7-8ea1-ed975285475e_story.html

I guess the Commish has a short memory!

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.

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Cheerio!

February 4, 2025 by mountainmornings

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.

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Well, Well

January 28, 2025 by mountainmornings

When I was in high school in the 60s, we walked out to protest the dress code. The girls wanted their skirts shorter and the boys wanted to wear jeans. This morning the students at Antioch High School in TN returned to school after last week’s shooting only to promptly walk out to protest gun violence. They carried home made signs saying “Ban Guns, Not Books,” “Safety and peace should not be privileges,” and “I want to attend graduation not funerals” …

and they chanted “Not one more” on the street.

I was thinking in the shower – I do some of my best thinking in the shower – what will it take for us as a country to ban assault rifles? We did it once before. What if we could repeal Citizens United? Delete insider trading in Congress? Just get gun money and all the money out of legislators’ hands, abolish the electoral college! Is this a pipe dream? This should be a bipartisan issue; no parent wants their child’s school to turn into a war zone.

They closed the cafeteria at Antioch High School; students that remained in class should be eating lunch in their homerooms today, because the cafeteria is where 16 year old Josselin Corea Escalante was murdered. Would it surprise you to learn that the 17 year old male shooter had extreme-right and antisemitic writings in his social media?

Escalante’s family set up a GoFundMe to help with costs associated with the funeral and with sending her body back to Guatemala. Meanwhile, the owner of Middle Tennessee Caskets donated a casket for Escalante, which was filled with medals of her accomplishments and a pair of soccer cleats.” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/antioch-high-school-shooting-tennessee/

A pair of soccer cleats.

What will it take? Maybe if we asked every parent who lost a child to gun violence – inside and outside of school – to donate a pair of their son or daughters’ sneakers and we built an exhibit outside Congress, a see-through monument of footwear, and we installed a rotating camera that streamed live views around the world. It would be like an eagle cam, only this nest would represent death instead of new life.

Pictures of Josselin’s quinceanera are all over her bedroom. Her family fled the violence in Guatemala, only to lose her here, in the middle of the country, in her high school outside of Nashville. Here, where the Bride is planning a Bat Mitzvah this year. Here, where we scrubbed swastikas off a neighbor’s home. Here, where I picked up an hate package on the street in a zip-lock bag telling me which representatives were Jewish.

Yesterday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. An emotional King Charles paid a visit to Auschwitz, 80 years after its liberation – 6 Million Jews perished. When I see video on the news of ICE agents rounding up undocumented people, putting them in handcuffs outside their churches and schools, I think of Jews wearing yellow Stars of David and cattle cars. I think of internment camps full of Japanese people who were herded onto buses on the West Coast.

I am not surprised that Elon Musk told a group of right-wing Germans to leave their guilt behind them and ended with a straight-arm salute! Our country has a long history of racist, restrictive immigration policy. The only question I have, is what are we going to do about it?

Here are some high school prom pictures Bob unearthed. We thought we knew everything.

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MLK Day

January 20, 2025 by mountainmornings

Here is a list of the things I did today:

I took a shower – not an easy task with a broken neck.

The Bride and Bug came to visit with Maple dog.

The Bride left to bring the Pumpkin to band practice – yes he plays guitar.

We talked about Dr King and non-violence and social justice.

We made dumplings for lunch.

I read more of Stanley Tucci’s new book, “What I Ate in One Year,” which starts out in Italy and is the best book and is totally in his voice. I’m afraid I’m in love with another man! And the Bug read a book for her English class.

The Love Bug and I made gingerbread cupcakes with buttercream icing; thanks Pinterest.

I plan on doing my nails when time allows…

The deep freeze has hit Nashville and we are NOT watching the inauguration today. We took down our American flag and hoisted a big “Welcome” flag with my favorite bird, the cardinal. Maybe we’ll go see the movie that Tucci was filming in his book, Conclave, full of cardinals!

Thank you so much for contributing to the families who lost their homes in the California wildfires. I hope you are well and being kind to yourselves today.

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The Aftermath part 2

January 17, 2025 by mountainmornings

I remember when Grandma Ada sat me down at the kitchen table and told me how each and every one of our problems weighs the same exact amount – they are all just as meaningful in the grand scheme of things. Just because I was having trouble with fertility at the time, didn’t make the 4 year old Bride’s need for a She-Ra castle any less urgent. It took awhile for this to sink in, but it’s stayed with me. The Flapper would have said, “We all have a cross to bear.”

The people displaced by the Los Angeles wildfire have been in my thoughts, prayers and meditations. After my semi-nomadic childhood, living between Scranton, PA and Dover, NJ, losing my home to a natural disaster would send me reeling. I cannot imagine their pain. And so when the spine doctor told me I’d have to wear this Aspen collar another few weeks, I thought about the women who have to find/borrow/buy a pair of pants because they left their home with the clothes on their backs.

If you can find it in your heart to help, Becky and Kim are very good friends of the Rocker and Kiki, and they are in dire need:

We’re asking for your support for two incredible people, Becky Schlikerman and Kim Janssen, who lost their home in Altadena, CA in the recent Eaton fire. Becky and Kim are more than just friends and neighbors—they’re the kind of amazing people who show up when others need help.

Their home, which they cherished, was where Becky’s mom Fanny relocated from Israel due to the war. It is also where their beloved pets—Ruby, their dog, and Jefe and Max, their cats—shared daily life together.

The funds will be used to help Becky and Kim regain some sense of normalcy during the long road ahead. This is a moment when our community can come together to show Becky and Kim the same kindness and generosity they’ve shown us all. Whether it’s a donation, a share, or simply sending them love and encouragement, every bit of support makes a difference.

https://gofund.me/e66bc552

A not-so-quiet moment in the Rocker’s studio.

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