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Posts Tagged ‘Family’

Work Life Balance

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on March 18, 2025| 6 Comments »

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

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on March 11, 2025| 1 Comment »

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

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on March 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »

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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Party Planning

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

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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The Aftermath part 2

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »

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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The Aftermath part 1

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on January 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »

As promised, this couple lost everything in the California wildfire. Kelsie and Jake are friends of my son and daughter-in-love and would so appreciate any help we can send their way. Thanking you in advance for your generosity. My Irish Nana used to say, “When you throw your bread out on the water, it comes back with jelly!”

We’re so sad to report we are writing today needing to raise money for our friends and fellow Angelenos, Kelsey and Jake, who are self-employed artist/designers experiencing first hand the current devastation in Altadena.

Their world has suddenly been completely changed so they will be using any raised funds for getting back on their feet to help better serve their new community so tragically effected by the Eaton fires.

Anything you’re able to offer to them would go a long way. Thank you.https://gofund.me/8dc86a06

This was us at a quiet time in LA

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Fire and Ice

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on January 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Last Tuesday morning, the Rocker and Aunt Kiki called on their way home from the MFM (Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist) – they’re having twins remember! I was looking at the ultrasound on my cell, tracing the tiny femur of one and beautiful lips of the other while Bob was getting the details. They were in a yin yang position, feeling free to flip around at will. Weight and head circumference all perfectly normal as we enter the third trimester. Now I told Kiki she must rest, the baby girls will be growing exponentially.

What I didn’t expect next was an apocalypse – the most devastating fire to break out in Southern California’s history – that very afternoon.

“Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire….” Robert Frost

That evening I called my son. I was hesitant because usually we see the worst on TV and what I think is very close to them (an earthquake, a landslide, a flood or a fire) turns out to be pretty far away. But this time I could hear it in his voice; he had corralled the cats into their carriers and one wasn’t very happy about it, he was talking to Kiki who was driving home through smoke, and he’d call me back later. Later, the first thing he would grab when they left their home was Grandma Ada’s painting.

What would be the first thing you would grab?

This morning they are among the lucky ones, their home is still standing. The nursery they had been painting is just as they left it. The Altadena fire consumed my niece Lucia’s school, the elementary school her daughters attend and where she teaches music. We had just visited with them over Christmas break; the Love Bug huddling with her cousins. Wildfires are so fickle. They dance around until the wind takes an ember flying to the next place, and the next… and the Santa Anna winds are merciless. Joan Didion writes:

“There are a number of persistent malevolent winds, perhaps the best known of which are the mistral of France and the Mediterranean sirocco, but a foehn wind has distinct characteristics:  it occurs on the leeward slope of a mountain range and, although the air begins as a cold mass, it is warmed as it comes down the mountain and appears finally as a hot dry wind.  Whenever and wherever foehn blows, doctors hear about headaches and nausea and allergies, about “nervousness,” about “depression.”

In the next few days I’ll be sharing their friends’ stories of loss, like Kiki’s friend in Altadena who just moved into her first house in December only to see it burn to the ground last week. Let’s not forget these people when the wind dies down, people left with nothing but whatever they could grab. I would grab the pictures of my past, the ones that were never in the cloud – Daddy Jim as a young Navy recruit, Nell and the Flapper on a NYC balcony, the portrait of the Rocker on his first birthday with his big sister.

This was us last month in LA.

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Pro Forma

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on January 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »

As I watched VP Kamala Harris certify all the votes yesterday, I felt sick to my stomach. She was standing while the Speaker of the House was sitting, was this normal? People were applauding. And all I could see were the interns and clerks, the young people who have to haul and count and manage the certification of Trump’s election. No one objected to the results; it was done the way it has always been done, a pro forma procedure, with a few exceptions.

I wondered how many of the legislators and their staff were there on the House floor, four years ago, when they had to run for their lives from an angry insurrectionist mob.

I’ve felt betrayed and defeated before. I think about my very first vote for president in 1968 for Eugene McCarthy. I was a college student living in Boston, and it was a tumultuous time. Our leaders had been assassinated that same year, first Martin and then Bobby. We wanted the War in Vietnam to end, and Richard Nixon had promised to do just that. But he was a duplicitous, disingenuous politician. Only the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts cast all their votes for McCarthy! The only state in the Union to see through Nixon’s lies.

Serendipitously, I happened to be reading Eric Larson’s, “The Demon of Unrest” in California last week. I’d rather not carry paper books in my luggage, and so I’m left to catch up with certain books on my iPad’s Kindle App. I found myself settling back into Civil War history with Larson’s incredible narrative of the time just before Lincoln’s election to the attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A period of just five months! All the intrigue, all the rebel-rousing, all the back room negotiating and the fear. The unbridled fear that a Southern way of life, based on slavery, was about to be extinguished.

” —a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were ‘so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”

It was pro forma for congressmen to carry pistols to the floor, and Larson tells us that if they didn’t carry one, they carried two! President Buchanan, Lincoln’s predecessor, was not just a lame duck, he was the Neville Chamberlain of his time trying to avoid the tornado heading straight for his administration. State after state would secede from the Union, and there reading on a deck in sunny California, I understood the fear, the demonic fear of losing something so fundamental. Like losing the civil rights my ancestors fought for; it’s an existential threat.

In the past few months I’ve been focused on my recovery and not on the fact that Mr T was re-elected. And just as my bones are healing, my psyche is coming to terms with the inevitable inauguration. We are heading into a bleak political horror show, just as a bitter, cold week descends on us here in Nashville.

I’ve started making soup again, all the washing and chopping are good therapy for my hands. These hands must get strong to hold twins! My friend Les brought me cranberry muffins yesterday and while Bob headed over to the Bride’s house to help hang some floating shelves, we got to catch up. Her son went back to college and her husband, a pediatrician, went back to his office. I thanked her for watering my plants while we were away, and leaving us a warm pot of black-eyed peas for New Year’s Eve.

We certainly need all the luck we can muster for the next four years. And ALL the Legos!

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Talking Turkey

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I’ve been accused of falling to avoid cooking for Thanksgiving; it is always said jokingly, and I usually laugh along. But I’m missing the whole chopping and shopping and planning phase because for me it’s all about the sides and the table decor! The Bride’s Virginia in-Laws have already arrived and will be picking up the slack, but she has tasked us with cooking the turkey. There is a cute little Butterball defrosting in our refrigerator, and today we will bake a loaf of corn bread for the stuffing. This is our traditional recipe, classic corn bread stuffing cooked in the bird and not in a casserole dish.

My left hand is pretty free these days, the splint goes on only when I’m outside or around children and dogs. You can barely see the surgery scar. My right hand has to wear the splint all the time for the next three weeks. I’m not supposed to lift anything or exert any force on any one hand – so trying to pull the microwave door open was a mistake. I can push down the seatbelt to unhitch, but I can’t push it in. I feel like Goldilocks, forever looking for that sweet spot between comfort and pain.

My plan is to have Bob chop up all the vegetables for the stuffing the night before and Thanksgiving morning we’ll begin – I will pick parsley and sage in the garden, and I will be able to crumble the bread into the sauteed mirepoix. In fact, this will be hand therapy for me! But Bob will have the heavy lifting; he’ll be brining the bird and assembling the stuffing and getting ole Tom into the oven. Which is fine with me. The Bride is in her happy place baking up a storm of pies and biscuits.

I was invited to see Wicked last weekend with the Bug and I couldn’t resist. Three generations at the movies with candy and it was a marvelous escape, the seats even reclined! Still, it was hard to feel engaged, my head was stuck in its Aspen collar looking straight ahead so I couldn’t gauge the Bug’s reactions. Every now and then I’d throw my splint across her body and I never knew whose hand I was holding. But we all loved it, the costumes, the singing, the fantasy of it all.

I held my box of Goobers with my right hand and carefully picked out one nut at a time with my left – hand therapy with rewards!

On the way home I asked the Bug if she ever felt different. Like Elphaba, did she ever feel the need to defend herself? I said that I always felt different as a child: my last name was different than my foster parents; I had blazing red hair and I wanted black hair; plus I had the whole two mother, two separate families thing. She thought about it for awhile.

“Well Nana, I really don’t feel that different,” the Bug said.

And I felt a calmness seep into the car because we talked about her girl friends and her height and all the tween drama that’s happening. And I understood that this one has a bit of her Grandma Ada’s energy – a willingness to help, a compassionate perspective. It’s almost like the Bride’s yoga study and Ada’s counseling skills found their match in this next generation. I know these are the Wonder Years, and we have high school on the horizon next year, but dear God please keep this child safe.

And thank you for not killing me when I slid into the end table! Here is my left hand at occupational therapy… and Happy Thanksgiving All Y’All!

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Fingers OUT

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 19, 2024| 3 Comments »

The past two weeks have been surreal. One moment I’m toiling away happily at the NYTimes Strands puzzle, and the next I’m laying flat out on the floor. Time and bones fractured. I like to blame things for my maladies – the mosquito for West Nile, the coughing stranger on a plane to Nice for Covid. But this time, I can only blame myself. It was early morning, I was holding my phone and rushing to the door to corral an escaped Little Emperor when my Ugg slipper caught on the rug.

The day before the election I spent in my daughter’s ER. That whole day went by in a blur of x-rays and a neck MRI. The spine NP wanted to admit me, but the neurosurgeon showed up and discharged me into the care of two ER docs! The next morning I woke to the election results – “President Elect Donald Trump.” My cervical collar, my splinted hands, was this all a nightmare? Was I still dreaming? I didn’t want to believe the news and so I told myself that I’d wait until all the votes were counted. Besides, I was due in surgery for my left hand, no coffee no food just Gatorade. I turned off the TV. I couldn’t handle (get it, handle) anything other than the next step in my recovery.

We had to wait a week for repeat scans, thankfully I wouldn’t need neck surgery.

Denial is a powerful tool. Bob would not listen to any election post-mortems, and our daughter is following suit. I’m not willing to go into the weeds of WHY Kamala lost – numbers, ethnicity, socio-economic standing. But this is who we are… this is who we Americans are and where we are right now. The Bride helped me to understand this on a cellular level one night early on when I was going out of my mind with panic, feeling choked by the C-collar and imprisoned by pain. She talked me through in her physician/yoga voice, telling me to embrace my suffering because this is where I am right now... right now… but not forever.

We are still on a news sabbatical, watching Netflix and The First Ladies on PBS, walking outside for exercise whenever possible. I have the best neighbors, delivering the most delicious soups, breads and treats and of course the Bride shows up every day mainly to support her father who has been the real hero in this drama. Along with my left hand, my right wrist is also fractured so Bob right now is both of my hands.

If you recall, he had to wear a C collar for months after his neck surgery that resulted in a cerebellar stroke and I now have a new respect for his strength and resilience. If all goes well, I should be out of my ‘cone of shame’ by mid-December. Meanwhile, my emotions have run the gamut from self-loathing for wearing fancy lug-soled Ugg slippers, to such incredible gratitude for my network of friends and family.

I heard one interview on CNN of a middle-aged couple who came here illegally from Mexico and were granted asylum under Reagan. Their adult children were living the American dream – college educated, good jobs etc. when the reporter asked them why they voted for T they said, “Because these immigrants are criminals!” Can you guess where they get their news?

We Democrats are all suffering through the stages of a collective grief; but my reality right now is singular. I am grieving the loss of my youth when I could slide into second base at Camp St Joseph with ease. I remember vividly twirling around on my knees and sweeping the floor with my hands at the Martha Graham Dance Studio. My body has betrayed me and now my country seems to be hell bent on doing the same.

The only other time my body wouldn’t cooperate with my brain was when we were trying to have baby number two. I had to learn to let go, I had to become the trapeze artist and trust in the safety net beneath me. The Rocker’s birth was a miracle and I have future grandbabies to consider, I need to practice dancing to Adelaide’s lament. “I love you a bushel and a peck you bet your pretty neck I do.”

We took the Harris-Walz signs off our yard but kept the American flag flying on the porch. You can still love your country even when it seems to be slipping away from its foundation right now. I can remove the left splint and move all my fingers so I decided to get a manicure – a rare luxury for me. But we must practice gratitude this Thanksgiving and every single day. Now more than ever.

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