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Posts Tagged ‘Film’

It’s All About Ethics

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on May 30, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Last week I was helping the Bug study for a science test on human reproduction.

She was learning about puberty, menstruation, and sex. There was not an ounce of self-consciousness or body shaming in my beautiful granddaughter, who is only one inch shorter than I am. I can vaguely remember my big sister Kay filling me in on such things. It was certainly not in my Catholic school’s 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th grade curriculum. However, the Bride was taught about reproduction in her public school, albeit mostly about anatomy and to fear AIDs as the latest STD. I’m happy to say my Grands are the children of doctors, who never shied away from difficult questions.

Then the Pumpkin who hears everything, asked how old you have to be to have a baby?

And I immediately thought about an Ob-Gyn who did her best with a patient, and her state medical board reprimanded her. They fined her $3,000 – for saving a patient’s life. They came very close to taking her license away. Would you think this doctor must live in a developing country? Wrong; this courageous woman physician lives in Indiana where there is a Republican AG, and she had the audacity to perform an abortion on her 10 year old patient.

“The board cleared Bernard on two other counts, determining that she did not improperly report child abuse and that she is fit to practice medicine.“

https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/10/27/abortion-doctor-indiana-caitlin-bernard/

We tried to answer the Pumpkin’s question, but honestly we were stumped. Sure once menstruation starts, the uterus is signaling its ability to carry a fetus, but when is it advisable? Certainly not in the teenage years, right?

Dr Caitlyn Bernard followed protocol. She reported the procedure involving a minor in the time frame required – three days. This speedy reporting process has been determined to help police find and prosecute a rapist, a child rapist – which they eventually did. What exactly did this doctor do wrong? She spoke to the press about it. She spoke in generalized terms to a reporter about her patient’s age and the consequential influx of young girls to Indiana from Ohio after the Dobbs decision. Even the Chair of the Board called Bernard a “good doctor.”

There was no HIPAA violation, all docs talk in general terms about their interesting patients. So long as a patient isn’t named, or identified, doctors have freedom to speak. But telling a reporter that a child had to cross state lines in order to receive life-saving care is a bridge too far?

Dr Bernard’s patient is the same age as our Bug. She aced her science test on the last day of school, and will be turning 11 this summer. Of course I didn’t bring up the Indiana court case while studying human reproduction. I didn’t talk about an extreme Christian anti-woman agenda in our home state. Instead I suggested we all go to the movies!

It was my first time back to a movie theatre since the pandemic. Three generations of girls / women sat through all the ads and trailers, I told the Bug how it used to be full-length cartoons before a movie in my day… and I immediately feel ten times older every time I say something like that. Note to Self – “When I was a girl…” must be eliminated from my vocabulary! Then the movie started, and the thrill of being surrounded by strangers in a dark cavern returned.

“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” unfolded in classic pre-teen angst. A rising 6th grader (just like the Bug) must leave her grandmother, Kathy Bates who was channeling Grandma Ada to a T, her friends and her NYC apartment and move to the suburbs. The actress playing Margaret, Abby Ryder Fortson, even resembles the Love Bug with her piercing dark eyes. Her first prayer is pretty concise – “Please don’t let New Jersey be too horrible” and we laughed though southerners didn’t get the joke. Bras and menstrual periods were discussed willy nilly. Margaret has decided she must choose a religion, Judaism or Christianity? And she learns how to navigate new friendships.

If only our country could learn how to keep religion out of politics.

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Atmospheric Rivers of Music

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on January 11, 2023| 3 Comments »

Before my first cup of coffee, Bob said, “Have you seen your texts?”

California is at risk of floating away from a series of heavy storms, so my first thought was, “Are the kids evacuating?” Most of the rain is in Northern California but you never know.

Bob assured me everything was alright, while I looked at him incredulously. After an early morning series of text messages with the Bride, he couldn’t wait for me to read the news. While scrolling through the New York Times it seems the Bride came upon a familiar face – her brother! Yes, the very one who lives above a canyon in LA! We had failed to tell her he’d been interviewed during the summer about his work, but in fairness he wasn’t sure when the article, or even IF the article would be published.

I always thought the Rocker’s face would be on the cover of Rolling Stone someday, but for an old-fashioned news reporter, landing in the Grey Lady is the epitome of greatness! I sipped my coffee as I read the essay about the latest trend in trailer music and my son’s specific contributions.

While we were in Malibu I knew something had changed. One day I heard the Rocker laughing with his sister while the Groom was looking at his phone. My adult children know that TikTok is a bridge too far for me to cross, so they did their best to explain what had happened with my son’s latest trailer for the new Black Panther: Wakanda Forever movie. Someone on TikTok connected the dots back to his company, Totem, and was giddy over the musical re-mix.

“The way it goes from No Woman No Cry into Alright and then how the music just goes into another gear at that 1:45 mark…,” another fan on Twitter said. And right before our eyes, Totem was blowing up on YouTube. I think that’s the right terminology.

When the Rocker was in high school, along with playing guitar in his band, he would always write his own music and play around with the oldies that our generation loved. His Fender Strat never left his hands. Since we had wonderful neighbors in the land between two rivers, the drum set stayed in our garage. Playing at the iconic Stone Pony in Asbury Park was just one highpoint of years and years of practice.

But to be honest, it wasn’t an easy trajectory. He left college to tour the world with The Parlor Mob; sleeping in vans and getting signed by one major record label only to be dropped and picked up by another. Some booking agents were better than others and of course they had to sell merchandise. He never complained. The accommodations improved, and the bar food was getting tastier as they worked their way up the ranks, but the entire music industry was changing around the boys in the band. Making a cohesive album of songs turned into 99 cent singles on your cell, or hearing your anthem play at an NHL arena.

He started off as a young boy listening to vinyl LPs in our living room, went straight into the teenage mixed cassette tape era crammed into his car’s windshield visor, and wound up with streaming music everywhere. Now he’s in the NYTimes! This is Eric Ducker’s intro:

“He’s played a crucial role in some of pop culture’s biggest recent moments. But few people outside of the space where the entertainment and marketing industries overlap know his name. As a composer, Rosen is at the forefront of the trailerization movement: He’s in demand for his ability to rework existing songs to maximize their impact in trailers for films and TV shows.He married vocals and motifs from Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” to a thunderous version of the “Stranger Things” theme in the lead-up to the second volume of the show’s fourth season. He intertwined the Nigerian singer Tems’s cover of “No Woman No Cry” with Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” in the teaser for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” symbolizing the meeting of the franchise’s future and its legacy.” 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/arts/music/trailer-music-trailerization.html

Granted Ducker’s essay included other trailer houses, but it led with Totem and a close-up of my son’s face. What I love, besides that punim, is how the Rocker took a song from the 80s, and introduced it to a new generation. Kate Bush, who recorded Running Up That Hill when the Rocker was a newborn, has now made over 2 Million dollars in royalties since its debut in Stranger Things. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2022/07/08/kate-bush-stranger-things-how-much-did-she-earn/

That’s a nice retirement package!

What I really really love about the Rocker is his humble heart. His wife Kiki, or his sister have to tell me when he’s received an award or is working with a famous director. He would never brag about his accomplishments and would always be the first to offer a friend a couch to sleep on. He’s even helped other East Coast artists adapt to the West Coast vibe. When he needed children to sing a lullaby, he turned to our little California cousins. And most importantly, the Rocker never stopped hugging me in public, even in Middle School.

While 90% of California is currently on flood watch due to atmospheric rivers of rain, we’ve been interviewing contractors about our HVAC system. It can barely keep up with the swing in Nashville temperatures. And I can barely keep up with technology. But the wind has always been at my son’s back.

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Lost Day

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 16, 2022| Leave a Comment »

On the day my sister Kay woke from her coma and left the hospital – the same hospital still holding her mother and grandmother captive – the movie “Lost Weekend” was playing at the local Scranton movie theatre. I can see her now, in the back seat of a car, looking at the marquee and thinking to herself, “I lost a whole month.”

The Flapper’s automobile accident had been on the Fourth of July, and Kay was unconscious for a whole month. She’d “lost” the first month of summer picnics and ballgames. It’s a humbling feeling I’m sure to wake up and discover the world went on without you; dogs were fed, gardens watered and someone took care of the baby. No child at fourteen should have to care for her younger brothers, her crippled mother, and a ten month old baby sister. But that was her misfortune, her karma, our Year of Living Dangerously.

This week, the first hazy, hot and humid day of the summer, our air conditioner died and I felt like I lost a whole day.

Bob and I went out to run some errands and returned to a very hot house. The HVAC people who had installed a tankless water heater just a few months earlier, were booked solid. Temps would hover near 90, but they said they could come “tomorrow.” The Bride kindly offered us dinner in her freezing cold house, and of course we accepted. She wanted us to stay in her garage apartment overnight, but we said no thanks.

That night, we opened windows, found a fan, and attempted to sleep. After all, we are both stoic. We grew up without air conditioning, and we never needed it while we lived in the Berkshires.

The next day a young technician arrived and spent four hours troubleshooting our combo gas furnace and electric air conditioner. It was installed in 2015. Would I sound like an old codger if I complained about planned obsolescence? It does seem like major appliances used to get “fixed” when we were first married, and now more often than not, something needs to be “replaced.” Lucky for us, we only needed a new capacitor.

Still, our crooked crystal cottage could hold the heat in her walls. It took many hours for our unit to cool the whole house to a comfortable temperature. I don’t remember much of that day – trying to plant outside in the shade, refilling Ms Bean’s water bowl and checking her breathing to see if she was still alive. Animals are smart about the weather, she switched into hibernation mode immediately.

The 1945 movie Lost Weekend was about an alcoholic. Ray Milland plays a writer who goes on a “four day bender.” I’ve never experienced a blackout while drinking, I was always told I’m a lightweight. But these last few weeks of men debating a woman’s sovereignty over her own body have made me want to pop open a wine bottle again. And over this past weekend, our country experienced FOUR mass shootings…

I’m exhausted and tired of this fight, in a country where barely 1/3 of the population gets to impose their rules and religious beliefs on the rest of us . They want the freedom to carry guns, without a permit, like it’s the wild west. They want to legislate our wombs.

The problem with overdoing alcohol is the next day you pay. I heard Jane Fonda say she doesn’t have many days left in this life, and if she drank a martini tonight she would lose the next day. So I’ll pop open a Pellegrino and keep writing. I’ll try to stay grateful for all the little things in this life, like the Love Bug graduating from elementary school.

I don’t want to lose another day.

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Dunkirk Spirit

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on April 11, 2022| Leave a Comment »

You remember the Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk. Most Americans had never heard about the WWII evacuation of British, French and Belgian troops off the coast of northern France in 1940, on the heels of German advancement. Technically a military defeat, the Brits have enshrined this event as a testament to courage and perseverance through dangerous waters. Fishermen and yacht men alike sailed to the rescue.

“…the tugs, drifters, trawlers, barges and motor launches, and rowing boats. Yes, and there was even a canoe.
This strange assortment was got together in record time by the Small Vessel Pool, an organisation which scoured the seaside places and rivers of Britain for every conceivable type of craft.
The response of owners of vessels everywhere was magnificent. There was no grousing at having to give up boats, indeed their only desire was to give their boats and a little more. In effect it represented the spirit of Dunkirk.“

https://wordhistories.net/2019/04/16/dunkirk-spirit-origin/

Her Majesty the Queen of England just referenced the Dunkirk Spirit on a Zoom call with the builders and hospital staff of the new 155 bed Covid unit at the Royal London Hospital. The construction should have taken five months but was completed in five weeks. She recalled how Covid left her exhausted and then said:

“It is very interesting, isn’t it, when there is some very vital thing, how everybody works together and pulls together – marvelous isn’t it? …the “Dunkirk spirit. “Thank goodness it still exists.”

But does it exist here? Our response to 9/11 may be as close as we’ve come – people gave blood, knit booties for cadaver dogs, pulled together. Congress – Republicans and Democrats – sang the national anthem on the steps of the Capitol. The high school Rocker’s band played a concert in support of the rescue effort in Red Bank, NJ, not knowing that later he’d be scoring the Dunkirk trailer in Hollywood.

Maybe at the start of this pandemic, when people were singing on balconies and banging pots and pans, we approximated the Dunkirk Spirit. We were making masks for strangers, delivering pizzas to ERs, and felt compelled to care for our elderly and the immunocompromised. But how long can such altruism sustain itself?

Covid hasn’t gone away. We haven’t really defeated the microbe, in fact Nancy Pelosi just tested positive for the bug. You can be immunized and boosted as much as you like, but if you happen to be of a certain age, or have a chronic condition, it would be best to keep masking and avoiding indoor crowds whenever possible. It’s just that now, people would rather forget the pandemic. They are ready to get on with their lives.

Bob and I had a taste of the Dunkirk Spirit this past weekend. Our new Nashville neighborhood has a well established “Buy Nothing” Facebook group. The Bride has lured me back to Facebook because she noticed an elliptical machine that was up for grabs, and she knew we were in the market for one. I wrote to the owner that we’d stopped going to the gym in 2020, and that our “bodies and souls” could use her Nordic Track. Then the Bride wrote that we need to keep in shape for the wee grandchildren.

And Voila! Bob, the Groom and a friend hopped into a pick-up and delivered the elliptical to our family room. It appeared like magic, no shopping, no buying. Bob and I had posted the original kitchen appliances from our new/old house to Buy Nothing if you recall. We helped neighbors hoist and haul a perfectly good oven and a washer/dryer. I love this circle of giving. I just hope it’s not too late for my knees.

Ms Bean is delighted

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Look Up!

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on January 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »

When I bought a chunk of land in Virginia, before Bob even got a chance to see it, friends thought I was crazy. But we’d been looking for a house for over a year and had finally decided to build our own Big/Little Home; so I trudged through a small forest at the edge of Albemarle County to see the Blue Ridge Mountains appear magically through the trees. I knew this was it. This was the place my dreams would come true.

When I brought Great Grandma Ada to see the 14 acres of wilderness her daughter-in-law had talked her son into buying, she kept looking down. She was picking up rocks and pointing out the flora. I had to coax her to look up and out at the mountains. She never really understood why we left NJ, and frankly I’m not sure either.

But with the grace of time, I realize now she was focused on the ground because she just didn’t want to fall. I look down a lot these days too.

Bob and I spent New Year’s Eve on the couch watching “Don’t Look Up!” on Netflix. I had no idea what it was about, and at first was pissed that Meryl Streep was smoking cigarettes as POTUS. I know she’s one of kind, but really? Slowly its true meaning became clear… the world is about to end, from (name your catastrophic event, a virus maybe, or climate change, or a meteor) and nobody cares. Politicians care about their polls, and the rest of us? We just ignore the inevitable and watch stupid animal videos. It’s an accurate allegory for our distracted, divided times.

“Two astronomers go on a media tour to warn humankind of a planet-killing comet hurtling toward Earth. The response from a distracted world: Meh.”

https://www.netflix.com/title/81252357

Now for the backstory. We’d just finished watching the Grands while the Bride and Groom went into battle every day at their hospitals in full PPE gear. Covid was back with a vengeance thanks to a surge of Omicron variant. Every night I watched as my daughter returned home, not to hugs and kisses, not before she showered and washed her hair. I could feel her pain, her exhaustion. I never saw the Groom, he was gone from 6 am to 9 at night, and then taking calls through the wee hours.

And I’d just finished reading Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny’s new book, “State of Terror.” It was their first collaboration and I hope it won’t be their last. Let’s just say the ex-president in State of Terror bears a striking resemblance to a certain twice-impeached Palm Beach resident. And yes, this book is fictional, but the geo-political thriller is a little too close for comfort. When I closed the final chapter, I couldn’t close my eyes.

We threw open our garden door on New Year’s Eve to hear country music float up from the Bicentennial Mall where the Nashville note would drop. People were standing shoulder to shoulder, unmasked, as if they were living in an alternate universe. Bars were open. A friend texted me – her hairdresser is moving to TN from NY, why? Because she wants to get away from Covid restrictions.

Needless to say, this was NOT an auspicious start to 2022. Comedians do riffs on toilet paper cozies and nobody seems to mind. Children have gone back to remote learning, leaving me to wonder how our mental health system will cope with these future teenagers. I’m thinking about strapping a sign board on myself with these words, “THE END IS NEAR” and walking down Broadway. Really.

Whatever you do, DO look up!

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the Hotel California

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged on December 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

It’s well known that the Eagles wrote the song Hotel California as a metaphor for what was going wrong in Southern California at the time. It was the Record of the Year in 1978, and while some thought it was all about the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, “…the Eagles’ band members have revealed in multiple interviews that the true meaning behind “Hotel California” is a commentary on the hedonism and self-indulgence of America.” And while some things may change, we are still a country divided by those people we cannot convince to care about others.

Our Thanksgiving holiday/shiva is over. Yesterday, the Rocker and Aunt Kiki returned to California in their N95 masks only to face a Hanukkah/Christmas season lockdown. Nashville’s airport was bustling as I hugged and kissed them goodbye. Now they will do what they did in reverse, isolate for a week and then get Covid-19 tested. But I realize we are privileged, because they can afford to do this – they are both working from home, except when our designer Daughter-in-Love needs to show up on-site to help with an installation.

Most people can’t afford to isolate for a week or two, and then spend 3-8 days waiting for a test result. It’s getting colder here in the South, Covid fatigue has set in. But on the Left Coast, Kiki’s firm has been busier than ever, and Hollywood moguls are figuring out how to work with streaming services so that the film music industry will survive. New normals seem to be happening.

Yet with the coronavirus pandemic expediting the transition from legacy and linear entertainment to direct to consumer, it’s fair to wonder if the age of the frequent $1 billion blockbuster might be nearing its end. Universal Pictures signed historic window-shattering deals with major exhibitors to bring films to PVOD sooner than ever, Disney has sent blockbusters such as Mulan and Soul to Disney+ and is expected to reroute more film to their streaming services, and Warner Bros.’ made the unprecedented decision to open its entire 2021 theatrical slate day-and-date on HBO Max. While there’s no guarantee these shifts will extend beyond 2021, it’s mighty difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.

Is the Age of the $1 Billion Blockbuster Over?

Today the Grands went back to school and the Bride and Groom are back at work. We will go back to visiting on their front porch or in our garden, shivering. This week may be record shattering in the Groom’s Covid MICU, but I am hopeful about the pace of vaccine production and distribution. Don’t ask me why, maybe it’s because the UK is already there, and I figure we can’t be far behind. This morning someone posted a picture of Dolly Parton on the cover of Marie Claire magazine – she was dressed in a tight, cold shoulder red dress and titled “DOLLY! the Patron Saint of 2020.” Photo credit to Stacie Huckeba http://staciehuckeba.com/

After giving a book a month to every newborn baby in TN, and then a One Million dollar grant to Vandy for the Moderna vaccine trial, I’d say she deserves to be canonized!

We need songwriters, along with poets, now more than ever. But musicians are struggling to get by during the pandemic, they need an audience. Not everyone owns an amusement park and gets a network TV Christmas special. Our Nashville Symphony orchestra will not return to the Schermerhorn until July 2021. Artists must adjust to this new “normal,” and many are selling their rights just to survive. In fact, Bob Dylan just sold the rights to his entire back catalogue of songs to Universal Music Group (UMG) for hundreds of millions of dollars! That should make the golden years of his life a “shelter from the storm.”

The sale of song catalogues has become a booming business during the Covid-19 pandemic, with investors seeing music as a relatively stable asset in an otherwise turbulent market. The likes of Blondie, Barry Manilow and the estates of John Lennon and Kurt Cobain have all sold the rights to their music in recent years.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55213529

With nearly 200,000 new cases of Covid every single day, our country cannot begin to fix its economy without a coronavirus fix, they are inextricably bound together. Another $1,200 check will not help. With millions of Americans out of work and behind in rent, our president is packing his bags for a FL Christmas. The Republican party made a Faustian deal with Mr T, who is trying to create as much chaos as he can before he leaves office; maybe he’ll just stay there down there in his gilded palace until January 20th?

While we are all waiting with bated breath for the Christmas Day release of “Wonder Woman 1984” on HBO Max, baking cookies and preparing for a Zoom latke dinner with relatives, 2021 is shaping up nicely. I know this pandemic is going to get worse in January, before it gets better, but it will get better. I see a light at the end of the tunnel, and we can check out of this nightmare anytime we like, so long as we keep wearing masks.

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Gravestone Elegy

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 13, 2019| Leave a Comment »

What would you want your gravestone to say about you?

Hillary Clinton has been making her mark lately; traveling on a book tour with her daughter Chelsea, and speaking candidly with Howard Stern. Her latest Hulu docu/series teaser has her answer to the question about her legacy, from the cemetery’s point of view; https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/hillary-clinton-hulu-docuseries-documentary-925106/

“She’s neither as good or as bad as some people say about her.”

So what IS she anyway? Does she walk the middle road? Is she milquetoast? I think what our final sentiments are can be quite telling. Consider that Thomas Jefferson insisted his stint as our third President NOT be etched into his gravestone:

“Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.”

I mean you do have to be crazy to want to be president. I like a sense of humor; there’s that grave in Key West:

“I told you I was sick.”

So what does one put on one’s grave – our greatest hits? The accomplishments of our life’s work? For me, Ive been teasing my kids forever, saying I wanted to be remembered in this way:

“She had a heavy metal band in her garage.” Or

“It could have been worse.”

Bob’s Grandfather Pinky wrote a book in Yiddish titled, “Better it Couldn’t Be.” But whenever life throws me a punch, I usually take the long view. The dog has fleas? She could have had tapeworms. I fell down the stairs? I could have broken my back. I think it’s an optimistic approach to things…hmm, what’s worse than a hard core heavy metal band? Disco?

I once heard a rabbi say that we don’t fully reach adulthood until we buy our burial plot. This isn’t true because Great Grandma Ada already bought my plot when I married her son, and I wasn’t quite ready to devote my afterlife in The Good Place to a Jewish cemetery in my hometown. After all, maybe I don’t want a plot of land with moss and stones all over it reminding people who never knew me that I existed.

We grow up to adulting when we decide it’s time to take responsibility for our lives. We stop blaming others for all our problems. Our generation is more realistic when confronting such momentous, end-of-life decisions, we consider the cycle of life, the overpopulation of the planet, and the generalized toxic waste of the funeral industry.

Have you heard you can get wrapped up in muslin and feed a tree? Or cremated and made into a diamond? Bob wants his body to go to a medical school, I’m not so sure I like that idea even if the Bride and Groom got to know each other in an anatomy lab at Mr Jefferson’s school. On a positive note, I leave you with this little ditty:

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“Who Put You in Charge”

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on November 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »

This is the week we give thanks.

This is also the week we prep, cook, and bake like banshees for a few minutes around the Thanksgiving table. Like Columbus Day, this is another holiday deserving a second look – certainly Native Americans have a different point of view. And more and more families are trying out a plant-based diet, giving more and more turkeys the day off, or a pardon by the president.

Our family is staying put this year; the Big Chill has diminished from death and divorce, and all the grandchildren require our presence. In the words of a great American jazz singer Benard Ighner, “Everything must change” is one of those eternal truths… “the young become the old, mysteries do unfold.”  https://secondhandsongs.com/work/4541

A couple of friends have gone to Disneyland, FL, which is a fantastic idea. Maybe next year we’ll do Disneyland, CA?

Disney never disappoints. This past weekend, all 3 generations saw Frozen 2, like most of the families on this planet. Its opening weekend saw a total, world-wide box office toll of 350 Million – breaking the previous record for an animation release! I made some sandwiches to trade for the concession stand, and leaned over to remind the Bride that her brother composed one of the trailers while we settled into our reclining seats.

My daughter reached for my hand when Olaf and Anna were in the cave (spoiler alert), we both had tears in our eyes as the little sister held her snowman. All of a sudden, our L’il Pumpkin turned to us and said,

“It’s not the end, The end is happy.” 

Elsa, the big sister, knew that change was necessary; she had a suspicion that the origin story they were fed as children didn’t add up. It was time to do something drastic, so she sent Anna and Olaf out of harm’s way in a canoe. Elsa took charge, she went looking for that happy ending.

“You say you’re a king, who put you in charge?” Lyrics by the not-so-well-known Christian rapper NF popped into my mind as I listened to Fiona Hill testify. She had asked Ambassador Sondland,

“Who put you in charge of the Ukraine?”

My heart stopped a little. I mean come on, was anyone going to take the heat for this fiasco, this tempest of a “perfect call” vs “Quid pro Quo” aka bribery, abuse of power?

“The President,” Mr Sondland said.

“Hill is due process and righteous anger, brains and brilliance and fire and loyalty ready to be deployed for her country, now and forever.

It is not just that we are hungry for norms and qualifications. We are desperate for someone competent and principled to be in charge. We want someone smart to tell us it will be okay and that they care.

 

He who would be king seems to have been in charge of it all, like a bull in a china shop, Mr T continues to wreck havoc with our constitution.

If President Obama sent his personal lawyer to another country to shakedown political dirt on Mitt Romney, I wonder what Lindsay Graham would say? When will the GOP wake from this Trump the Grifter nightmare and realize this president in NOT the chosen one.

Tomorrow, at the Thanksgiving table, I will give thanks for Adam Schiff and his diligence in unfolding this mystery. I will think about our founders and their definition of high crimes, of their wish to keep royalty on the other side of the pond. I am grateful for all the selfless civil servants who toil without fanfare in their offices around the world, and I will pray for a “competent and principled” person to rise from the ranks of the Democratic candidates’ field.

Forget Mike Bloomberg – Bob Iger, any interest in running? Remember, it’s not over till we get the happy ending, or the blue cookie.

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A “Force” of Nature

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on October 22, 2019| Leave a Comment »

My Nashville family has returned home from New Zealand and Australia. They Ubered straight from the airport to their home, just a few hours after we’d tucked the Grands into bed. Bob and I were happy no bones had been broken during our tenure. Well, just my left thumb, when a basketball landed straight on it in the Sound Waves pool. This was ostensibly the highlight of their week with us, the biggest water park in the world!! (maybe) at the Grand Ole Opry; but for me it was always those tender bedtime talks.

I found out that the L’il Pumpkin loves school. He really loves learning, and can now count by tens! He also plays alphabet Go Fish with aplomb, proving he’s ready to read. And the Love Bug is so sweet she offered to finish singing my Yiddish lullabies because my Fall cold was having its most severe effect on my throat. In fact, my croaking voice wasn’t relaxing at all, it only made them giggle.

Pop Bob had fun fixing little things around their house. Like any good pilot, he had his checklist of things to do – new batteries for the dogs’ invisible fence collars, fix master bathroom door, replace the silverware holder in the dishwasher. I texted my daughter in the middle of their trip, asking her if they might mind all this fixing-up? Great Grandma Ada had once warned me about stepping on the toes of in-laws.

The Bride replied, “You are welcome to fix as much as you’d like!”

After all, they are a busy professional couple. The Groom was accepting an award for his Vanderbilt research in Melbourne, at the World Congress of Intensive Care in collaboration with Australia New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS). As much as we’d like to think the world is flat and connected by technology, there is still something to be said for actually meeting up, face to face, with others around the globe doing research in your field.

Still, we could Facetime with them after meeting a koala! And I could pull out my smart phone at Sound Waves and slo-mo video the Love Bug under a waterfall!

I was reminiscing with Bob about his primitive use of early video cameras, the kind you hoisted on your shoulder in the 80s. Just then the Rocker texted us – did we happen to have that stop-action film he made in our NJ garage with his Star Wars action figures? He was just about the Bug’s age when he and a friend would spend hours recording Luke Skywalker’s adventures in minute detail. If the weather wasn’t conducive for a trip to the beach, creativity ensued on that cement floor.

The L’il Pumpkin and Pop Bob assembled an incredible Star Wars battle station in Legos while I drove the Love Bug to basketball practice one night last week. And just like that, this morning, my son and his new company Totem has released another amazing Star Wars trailer, “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”

All those years ago, in our garage with his imagination, and later with his bandmates. Music was always playing in his mind and through his fingers. I am trying to convince the Bride that we should all be Star Wars characters for Halloween because,  “The Story Lives Forever.” Here are our little Jedi Knights at the museum.

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Happy St Andrew’s Day

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 30, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Who is (or was) St Andrew? According to Wikipedia, “He is the patron saint of Cyprus, Scotland, Greece, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople,San Andres Island (Colombia), Saint Andrew (Barbados) and Tenerife.” He was a disciple of Jesus Christ, a fisherman who preached Christianity in Greece, where he was crucified. Of course I think of golf when I hear his name and not my old Catechism.

Today, St Andrew’s Day, November 30, is a bank holiday in Scotland; with Brexit looming larger and Ukraine closing its border to Russian men, not women mind you, we may all want to light a candle to this saint!

Our family will start lighting Hannukah candles on Sunday night. Since we follow a lunar calendar, you never know when this holiday will pop up. The Amazon smile boxes have been piling up all week, and lucky for us there were no “porch pirates” in sight. I’ve always had mixed feelings about online shopping, wanting to patronize local businesses during this critical sales period. But when it comes to toys, Amazon always wins.

The Love Bug just asked the Bride if she believes in Santa Claus. I told her I hope she said “YES!” Because this was the one thing I could never give up for my children, the magical mystery of elves and reindeer. Santa always left a little present for Jewish children, a shining red and green package amidst the blue and white decorations. And since the Bug is about to lose her first tooth, I hope my daughter keeps the Tooth Fairy alive as well.

In fact, I believe the going rate for a tooth is astronomical!

Whether you believe in saints or santas, I believe the L’il Pumpkin will be delighted with his first Hannukah present. You see, he and the Rocker watched two Star Wars movies back to back over Thanksgiving, and as you probably already know, our Star Wars history runs deep. From creating stop-action films in our NJ garage with his toy action figures, to composing music for the new films, our son never ceases to delight and amaze me – just like his red headed nephew! And his new furry friend.

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