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Posts Tagged ‘Life’

Home Stretch

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 5, 2025| 2 Comments »

The season of family birthdays has begun. And right on cue the weather turned cooler, for the first time I hesitated while entering the pool. It was actually chilly! The Grands will be returning to school next week. How did this happen? First the unbearable heat of midsummer, and now overcast skies from fires in Canada.

We called our son for his birthday and he was busy making bottles and feeding babies. What? Yes, the twins have baby teeth coming and are all ready to chew! They sit in their high chairs like baby birds waiting for something yummy. I asked if they had a Mouli grater – the small hand-held gizmo that looks like a cheese grater upside down. No? I raved about the tiny tool, you could put anything you cook for yourselves into it, ad a dollop of yogurt, and with a few turns produce finely pureed baby food!

But they did have some smart baby food electric device that weighs and measures and grinds….it was a gift…and again, I felt ancient. I’ve been feeling older lately. Maybe it was the oppressive heat and not getting outside to walk. Or maybe it’s just the lethargy of unending bad news from T world and the scandal that will not be stopped involving young girls. Take the first page story of today’s NYTimes:

“A Look Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan Lair: In his seven-story townhouse, the sex offender hosted the elite, displayed photos with presidents and showcased a first edition of “Lolita,” according to previously unreported photos and letters.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/us/jeffrey-epstein-mansion-photos.html?unlocked_article_code=1.b08.884G.AM6Pxo2enw4z&smid=url-share

The picture on his dresser, with Mr T and Melania, where he has cut out his accomplice Maxwell is telling. And the letter from Woody Allen, comparing him to Dracula, is absurdist theatre. I wonder why it has taken this story, of all the transgressions, the tale of an accused rapist realtor running a modeling agency and the high brow sex offender, to shake the foundation of the MAGA faithful? This is the first time I’ve actually read anything about Epstein, and it will be the last.

It’s time to think about baking a carrot cake for the Bug’s birthday. Time to find a dress for the Bat Mitzvah. And my lipstick feminist sister Kay has found her graduation picture from stewardess school in 1958. She tells me she was never weighed or measured, and I understand why. Kay always carried herself with confidence, after all she was a single mother when the job description was anything but welcoming. Women were not just weighed, they were expected to be single with no dependents. The fledgling pilot/flight attendant union of the airline industry was the first to test the commodifying of a woman’s body.

It’s supposed to heat back up this week. The Bug has started her volleyball practice and back to school shopping for the Pumpkin too has begun; he’s going to have his first locker! I’ve told my sister she was a trail blazer, after our Year of Living Dangerously she really had no other choice. Can you spot her?

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Are We There Yet?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on July 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »

It’s a glorious, hot morning in Nashville. I’ve just emerged from my neighbor’s pool after a blissful hour of meditative aquatherapy – I breathe in, I’m a mountain. I breathe out I’m strong. Every morning Les sends me a text, “The gate’s open,” which means come over anytime and swim. I am a lucky duck. First for surviving a near fatal fall in November, and also for raising adult children who don’t mind our company! But especially for my friend and neighbor Les and her sparkling pool. Sunflowers peek over the fence and rabbits and hummingbirds watch my progress.

But Les and her husband have informed me they are downsizing and planning to move to a townhome. It’s not easy making friends in your 70s. For days I’ve been walking around in a funk; I know that she and her husband will still be in Nashville just a short car ride away, but still it’s a loss. There will be no more “porch surprises” of her latest baking spree, no more morning texts, no more walks in the neighborhood. Bob joked that they will have to put a rider in the contract of their buyer – home comes with well established pool boy and girl!

I dream about building a small bungalow colony surrounding a pool for our family, and extended family.

After this last trip, confirming that our newest California grandbabies are mini-mermaids, I’m determined to make more memories. And it seems that multigenerational travel is trending these days, although we’ve been traveling together for ages. We celebrated Great Grandma Ada’s 90th birthday in Mexico. We’ve spent a few weeks almost every winter for forty years on an island in the French West Indies; not counting the earlier spring visits to Martha’s Vineyard. We even went to Hawaii together after one country closed its borders during the pandemic.

But what if we had one place, a summer retreat to call our own, maybe near a lake?

“The benefits of multigenerational trips are numerous. In larger groups, for example, child-care responsibilities can be shared across family members, allowing parents to take a breather. But the real value of these trips might be how they give relatives an opportunity to freshen their perception of the people they’ve known for perhaps their entire life. Travel can take us out of our familiar contexts, with their routines and set roles, and offer people a chance to see one another differently. A multigenerational vacation can be a welcome reminder that the identities that our parents, children, and other relatives know us by aren’t set in stone.” https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2023/12/large-multigenerational-family-vacation-parents-relatives/676382/?gift=MZkyOCULmn5OA_9_ikIP-xkc3hV2FOFyZx-5RQD57Rw&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

I remember when I went waterskiing on a trip once, and my teenage children looked at me like I had two heads! Or that time we put a pre-teen Rocker on a scooter and he took off like he was born to drive it.

Our Grands are off visiting their Paternal Northern Grandparents in the great state of Virginia. The place where we built our dream home overlooking the Blue Ridge. But they live in Northern VA, close to national monuments and museums. It’s become a tradition for them to spend that last week before school starts with the Groom’s family. And just last week, the Groom’s brother Uncle Dan and his wife Natalie welcomed the newest cousin to their family, another red-headed baby boy! Big Congratulations!! They already have a three year old, so counting the L’il Pumpkin that makes three boys!

If you are traveling this summer, I hope everything goes smoothly. May your planes be on time, and may your seat mate be healthy. May you adapt gracefully to the limitations of aging. And if you are struggling with loss, may you find a way to reframe your grief. Because we are all on a journey, and nothing is set in stone.

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Summer Soup

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 15, 2025| 2 Comments »

We’re back to the hazy, hot, and humid South. Southern summer soup!

I woke to heavy condensation on our old house windows and the possibility of storms in the afternoon. What surprised me most was the constant chatter of insects! You may have guessed, the whole Nashville family went to visit our California branch last week; to play with the Twins and give them their first swim lesson. Almost five months old, our baby girls had an abundance of arms to hold them and proved to be excellent travelers and doggy paddlers.

Recently, the Bride asked me about our Spring/Summer sojourns to Martha’s Vineyard with our friends Lee and Albert when she was a baby. She was talking with a girlfriend who had a family home on the island and told me she didn’t remember where we stayed… But I remember dancing in a cowboy hat, meeting Carly Simon in a dress shop, buying fish straight off the pier, digging up clams on Menemsha Pond. I remember the wooden carousel in Oak Bluffs. I remember riding my bike all over the island, past the pink rosa rugosa hedges with her blond curls tickling the back of my arms from her baby seat perch. We didn’t wear helmets then.

“Gay Head,” I said. We’d stay near the colorful clay cliffs on the wild side of the Vineyard.

But Gay Head hasn’t existed for over twenty years, which is why my daughter’s friend never heard of it. The name of the town was changed back to its Native American “Aquinnah” – home of the Wampanoag people. Which led me down the path of investigating the island’s history. At about the same time in the early aughts, the tribe had voted on whether or not to allow gambling, in the form of bingo, on the island. The vote was NO.

When we packed up the crew to drive from LA to Malibu, I was reminded of packing up a caravan for our trip from the Berkshires to the Woods Hole Ferry. Only this time it was the Bride making sure we had snacks for the Bug and the Pumpkin. The Rocker and Aunt Kiki timed the trip to coincide with the babies’ nap schedule – they had tiny swimsuits and sun hats and even sunglasses. Our Grand’s newest cousins were hitting the pool with all the right fashion notes.

I hope Bob finds the photo of me holding our dog Bones’ leash with one hand and the toddler Bride’s hand with the other waiting for the ferry. She is wearing one of her favorite twirly skirts and has kicked out one leg mid-pirouette.

I am determined to visit the island again that populated my dreams for most of my life. My BFF Lee and her husband Al live on Vineyard Haven full time now. I imagine we attended the Summer Institute last week together to listen to NY Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey talk about their investigation into Harvey Weinstein and jump-starting the #MeToo movement. https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2025/07/13/summer-institute-opens-journalists-who-inspired-metoo-movement

After all, it was Lee who encouraged me to write and submit an essay to the Berkshire Eagle. Back when the Bride was a baby and I was hanging diapers outside in the sun, she believed in me, always, and I adored her, my Convent of the Sacred Heart kickass/fellowJerseygirl/lawyer/friend. We picked ticks off our dogs together and didn’t mind the heat and humidity at all.

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The Gambler

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2025| Leave a Comment »

“Only in Nashville,” the Bride said.

I was sitting in my physical therapist’s waiting room – I do a lot of waiting lately, and a lot of PT actually – but this place is different. It’s a small, independent, out-of-the-way shop where the Nashville Ballet heals its wounds. Naturally it has a ballet barre. There are no big machines or loud music like my recent California PT located in a gym the size of an airplane hangar. And there are no assistants either, you get one therapist and she spends all her time with you and only you!

Anyway, as usual, the receptionist Mitzie was engaged in a rollicking conversation with another client across from me. The woman was talking about her husband, who is still in the hospital, and the various and sundry visitors he’s had, when Mitzie asked if she’d told him… Told him what? At this point I was simply a bystander, leafing through a magazine and occasionally looking up. I was imagining her husband had a terminal illness, and she was waiting for the right time to break the news.

“Oh no,” the middle aged woman in a knee brace said, “you’ve gotta know when to hold em.”

There was an older man sitting next to me, another point of interest in this PT people’s triangle. He was someone I’d seen before, and actually had talked to about Duke University since he wore a big blue “D” baseball cap. “You mean the school with a basketball team,” he said. I don’t do a lot of flirting anymore, but I would certainly flirt with him. I liked his personality and his smile. And since the woman across from us with her husband in the hospital had mentioned her son was at Duke currently, we all joined in the conversation. That’s the way it is in the South, btw.

As a therapist escorted the man out of the waiting room, Mitzie left her desk and went straight over to the talkative woman, took hold of both her hands, looked right in her eyes and told her that the man in the Duke hat had written those lyrics:

You got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run

She said she got goose bumps, but she used some other Southern idiom. Exactly the same thing I get before a frog jumps in my throat! I had to tell the family text chain about this – and the Bride was the first to reply. “Only in Nashville,” a city where music and medicine are always interconnected. And that’s when Camille, my therapist/ballet dancer, came out to get me and teach me a few things about bands and balance.

This was before Mr T decided to join Bebe in a fight to save the world from nuclear annihilation. Or so he says. I wonder what kind of gambler our president is? We already know not to believe his policy by tweet mentality. We know he likes strong men. But just because he says the war is over, doesn’t make it so. He is not Captain Jean-Luc Picard after all. We are now on that train to solve humanity’s oldest war.

“Son I’ve made a life
Out of reading people’s faces
And knowing what their cards were
By the way they held their eyes
So, if you don’t mind my saying
I can see you’re out of aces
For a taste of your whiskey
I’ll give you some advice.” https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kennyrogers/thegambler.html

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The Minneapple

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

Minnesota, the land of 11,842 lakes. Where the children are all gifted but the lakes don’t freeze over quite so much anymore. When the Flapper was living out her golden years on Lake Minnetonka, I loved visiting her in the summer and seeing my brothers and their families. Mike called it “the Good Life,” hosting epic Fourth of July parties at his waterfront home with his wife Jorja. I once tried talking Bob into moving there. But the Twin Cities couldn’t compete with the twin states of NY and NJ – even though their marketing slogan, Minneapple, begged to differ.

On Saturday, I was holding down the fort while my Nashville family attended the “No Kings” march. I was armed with a lawyer’s number, just in case, but I was particularly worried because of the news from Minnesota. I texted my brother Dr Jim, who said he was sheltering in place. We were just hearing about this psycho killer, disguised as a cop, on the loose targeting Democratic officials. And like any good terrorist plot twist, nobody knew if some extreme, right-wing, white-nationalist, militia group was planning to disrupt the marches around the country on our would-be king’s birthday.

It was a feeling I’d forgotten, like post 9/11 when I couldn’t find the teenage Rocker and unbeknownst to me the Bride had left her federal building in DC and I couldn’t reach her, and Bob ran to the Highlands dock where the injured and dead never came.

Only this time the terror has come from within. A list with over 70 names of Democratic legislators and Pro-Choice advocates across many states was found in the perpetrator’s fake cop car, along with more assault rifles. I refuse to name the murderer, but the woman he gunned down, Representative Melissa Hortman, was in many ways what we would all like our elected officials to be – someone who could work across the aisle. She died alongside her husband Mark.

“Over the years, she gained a reputation as a workhorse, skilled at getting difficult objectives accomplished and at collaborating effectively across the aisle. “She always did her homework,” said Steve Simon, Minnesota’s Democratic secretary of state, who met Ms. Hortman in law school at the University of Minnesota in the 1990s. “She was steely and strategic and savvy and yet so likable as a person because she always remembered people’s humanity, even and especially if they were on the other side of the aisle.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/us/minnesota-slaying-melissa-hortman.html

Thankfully, this madman has been caught. I read that we Americans may just have to accept politically motivated violence, in the same way we’ve come to accept school shootings. This gave me pause. Because if that’s true, well, what does that say about our society? A culture that glorifies guns at all costs?

Senator Mike Lee (R – Utah) chose to make fun of the senseless killing spree over No Kings and Father’s Day weekend, writing on X, “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way,” with a photo of the killer at Ms Hortman’s door. Then doubling down following that post with a joke aimed at Gov Tim Walz. Lee is a disgrace to his office.

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Tis the Season

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2025| Leave a Comment »

We’ve had a noteworthy Spring so far in our family and friends network. Aside from the early arrival of our beautiful baby grand girls, there’s been a record number of graduations – the Pumpkin from lower school, one high school, two college alums and a law school! Congratulations to ALL the graduates out there. May our Grandson have smooth sailing in middle school and best of luck to everyone on their next chapter.

And remember, no matter where you start out, it’s the journey that counts.

My Father, a pharmacist from Scranton, PA, turned away from the family business of butchering to pursue an education in science. The Flapper told me his family never forgave him, and well, they also didn’t approve of her – a widowed, ex-dime-a-dance girl. His family was well established Irish; they came over early and made their money in cattle. The Flapper’s Mother, my Nana, was a domestic worker. I have a picture of my paternal grandmother looking quite formidable. All I know about her is she went to Mass every single day.

Excuse my nostalgia, but Bob has finally filled two legacy boxes with all our old paper pictures. We are on the cusp of entering the digital visual world! So I’ve spent the weekend going through lots of black and white photos. My foster parents kept an album of my baby pictures glued to thick, black paper and I can’t thank Bob enough for managing to free my childhood photos. It seems after reading the back of one photo, they actually entered me in a cute baby contest! I love the one of me pretending to read a newspaper, like Daddy Jim. He left school after 8th Grade to help support his family.

He was the most loving and nurturing father a child could ask for, I was lucky.

School pictures, my college graduation picture, my wedding pictures. The Flapper with Cab Calloway in MN. A picture of my sister Kay in a white coat next to one of the first ultrasound machines in NYC. Kay tells me that buried in her apartment is a 1958 graduation picture of her National Airlines stewardess class. My brother Dr Jim’s graduation from OCS in NC, before he went to Vietnam. The Flapper pinning his bars on his shoulder, my sister wearing her wings.

Journey joyfully and with alacrity, and always be ready to pivot. My Kindergarten picture.

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The Believable Lie

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Remember that movie with Jim Carey playing a lawyer where all of a sudden he couldn’t lie to save his life? It was hysterical. His facial expressions alone were comedy genius.

The Flapper could lie with impunity. One time she announced at the supper table that she’d made the dessert herself! I remember being dumbfounded because I knew she had bought the cake at a bakery that very morning. Mind you, my foster parents never lied and I was taught at Sacred Heart School that lying was a sin, which is why this moment of time is embedded in my brain.

I just sat there in the dining room on Orchard Street, my ten year old self trying to make sense of my first major moral contradiction. Of course I didn’t contradict her, children were taught to respect their elders. If I could talk to my ten year old self, I’d tell her to wait patiently because soon I would be moving in with the Flapper. I’d exchange my black and white, absolutist home for a home of many colors, religions and shades of grey.

I wonder how much longer the GOP can continue to buy into the fire-hose of lies from this President.

“Some of Trump’s 2025 false claims were about consequential policy matters, others about trivial personal fixations. Some were sophisticated distortions about obscure subjects, others obvious fictions about issues average Americans experience in their daily lives. Many were ad-libbed or posted on social media, but many were scripted into prepared remarks. Aside from the staggering frequency and the trademark brazenness, what stood out was how repetitive Trump’s lying was. Though he regularly sprinkled in some fresh deception, he deployed a core batch of favored falsehoods again and again – undeterred by the fact that many of these claims had been publicly debunked for months or even years.” https://www.cnn.com/politics/fact-check-trump-false-claims-debunked

“…trademark brazenness.” In fact the Washington Post fact checker chronicled 30,573 lies in his first term! Many were repeated over and over again on Fox news. Mr T has continued lying to the American people – more than a hundred times in his first hundred days this year. How we managed to elect this man is still a mystery to me.

One of my favorite authors, Anne Tyler, was interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning this past weekend. She said that in order to write fiction, one must be able to craft …“an extremely believable lie.” Which got me thinking, maybe that’s why I wanted to write non-fiction, because I knew I’d be no good at lying. But I can embellish a story like any good Irishwoman. And the Grands tell me I’m great at playing “One Night Ultimate Werewolf,” a card game of deceit where the object is to lie if you want to survive.

But if the Republicans want to survive as a party, they will have to stop lying to themselves. Because I’m pretty sure that most Republicans don’t actually believe Mr T’s lies. They just want to survive the next election cycle.

Hope your summer is off to a good start. It’s still wild weather here in Nashville, to be honest…

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Wild Weekend

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »

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.

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Sprucing and Locking Up

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 6, 2025| 2 Comments »

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.

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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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