Christmas for Me

     Christmas is almost upon us. We all tend to view the Season a bit differently depending on where we are in life.
     As a child  I looked at this time of year as being full of the bright shiny things I dreamed about having for my very own. That new two wheeler or a pair of skates. Going to see Santa was a huge deal in my family. Our tree sat on a platform and there was a train that went around that tree. The platform had chimney paper tacked on the sides and the space under it and behind that chimney paper was where presents got stored so there was enough space to walk through the living room.
     As teenager I looked at Christmas as a time away from school. A time to be shared more with friends than family. For a short time I got to play assistant Santa for my youngest sister. Helping to buy and hang decorations and setting up the tree was a step toward being an adult. And family traditions changed too. Gone was the platform and trains and now the tree was much taller (for a while it was even aluminum) and actually went up before Christmas eve. I met my friends for Midnight Mass and we all trooped back to one house where the parents welcomed us freezing girls into their kitchen and plied us with hot chocolate and cookies. There was a lot of laughter. The joy now came because we were focused more on others than ourselves.
     I got older. My friends became parents and we all got to that point in life where staying up late to kick up our heels became the exception rather than the rule in our lives. We also began to lose those closest to us. People moved and contact was lost. A classmate passes away and a parent dies far too soon. Keeping Christmas became something done for the children that came into my life. I decorated and shopped and wrapped presents and tried to make sure that those I loved had a good Christmas.
     Now my nieces have children of their own ranging from seventeen years to two months old. There is less decorating than there used to be and we are back to a short tree that sits atop a cabinet. Less lights are strung than in the past and there are fewer decorations gracing the rooms of my home. When you're in your sixties getting out that second or third huge container full of decorations just doesn't seem quite as necessary as it used to.
      I do my shopping online and my siblings and I stopped exchanging gifts because we've gotten to that point in our lives where if we want something we buy it for ourselves. We don't have the patience or the budgets that we used to. We still buy for the children in the family but the newest member is too young to know what is happening and the others no longer believe in Santa. A bit of the luster has gone off the day.
     Midnight Mass is a thing of the past too. My sister and brother-in-law and I have friends in on Christmas Eve and we eat delicious food and chat and catch up on each others lives. Come Christmas day we'll travel to my youngest sister's home and we'll all be together in one place. That is the best part of Christmas now. One niece with her husband and daughter will be there from Massachusetts and her brother will drive up from Virginia. My oldest niece and her three will be there too and most of the people I love most in the world will be together under the same roof. That is the greatest present.
     I will share time with my friends. The women who have been part of my life for decades that I'll sit down and share a long chat with, be it face to face, by phone or by video chat and the new friends that I spend a part of every day with in the virtual world online. All the lovely, strong, vibrant females that bring joy to my life simply by being a part of it.
      So Christmas has changed for me. It changes for each and every one of us as we grow older. If Christmas is not your holiday I'm sure there is another day or occasion during the year that means as much to you. Whatever that day or occasion is I hope you enjoy it and treasure it as much as I do Christmas.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

A Few Thoughts on Guns and Loss

     A score of children were lost on Friday to a young man, not much more than a child himself, who obviously had problems. He took his own life after ending the lives of twenty seven others. There is so much to blame that you don't know where to start. Access to firearms, check, access to the technology that can turn a gun into a means of massacre, check, lack of access to a mental health system that could have helped the gunman, check.
     There is no solution that will easily solve these problems. Funding is needed to make access to weapons more difficult. Funding is needed to provide care to those people who could commit such crimes. And where do we get that funding?
     We know that the NRA spends a huge amount of money every year lobbying to protect the rights of gun owners. Maybe a percentage of their budget should be appropriated to safeguard the public. I've seen figures from $200 million to more than $300 million as their budget for 2010. That is just the budget for one year. Imagine how much better our mental health system might be with that influx of funds. It wouldn't cure the problem bit it sure could help.
     Now this part is all me...based on what I know of the way things work. Make gun owners carry insurance. You carry insurance for your cars and your homes and your boats. What if every registered gun owner had to buy a policy that would cover them for use of their firearms. The law in most states makes sure you have a policy in order to drive a car in case something goes wrong. Well what if something goes wrong with a gun? Make sure there is a pool paid into for the damages that are inflicted to the families and community when these horrors happen. Because we all know it will happen again. It has happened time after time and public grief and the call for action will not keep it from happening again.  
     If responsible gun owners were going to have to pay for the losses caused by the few they may force better rules to be in place. Rules like mandatory trigger locks and the banning of military style weapons  sales to individuals. They would turn to the NRA and demand action be taken. There are safety labels galore on a ladder or an extension cord but I've never seen a warning label on a gun.
     It is true that people kill people. but people with guns can kill a lot of people in a very short period of time. People that might be six or sixty. Lets make it harder for this to happen. Please.

 



      

Thanksgiving Remembered

     It's Thanksgiving week 2012 and I've been wondering what I should write about. I finally settled on  Thanksgiving Days Past.
     When I was a kid we always had Thanksgiving dinner at my Grandmom's house. She lived in South Philadelphia in a small garden front twin home. It wasn't really a big house and when we arrived it was  as full as it could be. When I was very small it was my Grandmom, Grandpop, along with my Uncle Joey and Uncle Pete who also lived there; add in my Mom, Dad and the three of us kids and it got crowded.
     One thing you need to know is that my father made his living as a bartender in a neighborhood taproom. That taproom was right around the corner from my Grandmom's house. In Philadelphia the only days taprooms closed were Sundays and Election Days; that meant my father always had to work on Thanksgiving and because of that we had dinner early. I can't say I remember the exact time but it had to start before two in the afternoon.
     The table was always full. Too crowded to hold all the food. There was the requisite relish dish with celery stalks and black olives. The tiny bowls for the cole slaw that was always served. Dinner plates, the fancy little glasses for the tomato juice that was always part of a fancy meal and then the space in the middle for the serving bowls and platters. My grandmother always sat in the chair closest to the kitchen so she could jump up to refill anything that got emptied and to be sure her brothers were served first so they could leave the table and get away from the noisy kids. I remember those dinners as the best. There was always laughter.
     Invariably after dinner we would go and get out of the grownups way by going out on the enclosed front porch and counting the pennies in the jar my grandmother had on the kitchen sideboard. That would keep us busy for a long time. My father would have a quick nap and then would get up and walk around the corner to be at work by five. We were never in a rush to go home. Around seven or so my grandmother would put on the coffee pot and then it was time for turkey sandwiches followed by pie. Around nine my mother would get us all ready and we would either stand on the porch and watch for the bus to turn onto the avenue so we could make it to the corner and catch it before it passed or we would call a cab to get us all back to our part of the city.
     The last great Thanksgiving was in 1956. My youngest sister was an infant and it was the last year that my grandfather was with us. He died the following October and we had Thanksgiving 1957 in a restaurant. It would be more than 30 years before we did Thanksgiving in a restaurant again.
      Dinner moved to our house around 1970. It moved a few times after that as well but this is not the time for those memories.
     The funniest thing I remember about that Thanksgiving after my Grandpop died....We were having dinner at a nice restaurant on Chestnut Street and we were finishing up our meal. The waitress came over to see if we were all right and asked if we needed anything and my brother, who was six at the time piped right up, "Can we have seconds?"
     Have a great Thanksgiving everyone. Remember as you sit down to your table on Thursday that it might not seem to be an extraordinary day to you but it may be the building block of someone's treasured memory.        

     

Memories of Fear

I know, I know....Nobody does a blog two days in a row but here I am anyway.

     This morning I watched the CBS Sunday Morning Show and they did a piece on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It took me back to those days when I was a freshman at St. Hubert's and the real dread I lived in that October. But then I wasn't the only one living in fear. The entire nation was in the same boat.
     We were watching shows like 'The Jetsons', 'The Lucy Show' and 'The Beverly Hillbillies' on TV. They were all brand new that fall. Shelly Fabres was singing 'Johnny Angel' and Acker Bilk was playing 'Stranger on the Shore'. People were going to the movies to see 'The Longest Day'.
     I had to use Google to remind me of the TV and music and the movies of that year but I remember the fear on my own. I had nightmares for years about a sky full of planes heading south to defend us all. There was a real and palpable fear that the world could come to an end. Mine was the first generation who grew up under the cloud of nuclear war. We saw the power of what a single bomb could do in the photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We went through bomb drills in school.
     So many years later a touch of fear is still there. Not as bad as it once was but it hasn't completely gone away. The dream of all those planes does not come with the frequency it once did but it does show up every once in a while. When I see movies and TV shows that talk about the Cuban Missile Crisis I am reminded of that kernel of fear that resides in me and is mostly dormant now.
     I think of the history I have seen since that long ago October. A president and his brother were assassinated and so was MLK. We lived through the hell of Viet Nam and the horror of 9/11. We have had embassies and consulates attacked and Americans killed all over the globe but we have not been as close to the precipice of total destruction as we were that October so long ago.
     Thank God that cooler heads and diplomacy prevailed that October. Thank God that FEAR did not win.

  




     

Mid-October Rant, et cetera

     It is hard to fathom that it has been nearly a month since I last made an entry here but the calendar does not lie and it has been that long.
                                                             
     We are approaching the middle of October. Sometime in the next week we will welcome a new member to the family. My beautiful niece Elizabeth and her husband Will are due to become parents any day now. I'm thrilled that my brother is going to be a Grandpop. He'll be good at it.

     The other major event on my radar is the upcoming election and the divisiveness that is being engendered by it. I know that there are things I see in ads that make me want to scream because they are so patently false. Each side calling the other liars is to be expected. It has been going on since the birth of the country and the election of John Adams. What I truly resent are the lies that contend the president is either a Muslim or that he is not a citizen at all. I really thought these attacks were beneath contempt but they keep surfacing.
     The irony of the questions being raised about the President's religion makes me think of all the talk during the primaries of the problems that would be faced by Mr. Romney because he is a Mormon. I have not heard or seen a single thing attacking Mr. Romney's faith. Yet a man who has been a practicing Christian throughout his adulthood is having his beliefs questioned. With the questions about his faith and religion the haters are saying that the Muslims in this country are less. That they are to be feared and that they are terrorists bent on destroying the country. This couldn't be further from the truth. It is akin to the accusations raised in 1960 that the Pope would have a line direct to the White House should JFK be elected. We all know how that turned out.
     The accusations that the President is not a citizen are so ludicrous they should not need to be addressed but there is a certain millionaire who, whenever he is on TV, manages to cast these aspersions. I doubt that there is a person in the country who has had his citizenship more closely reviewed. If there was anything that could have been found or proven it would have been long before election day 2008.
     Personally I don't care what your politics are. Your politics like your religion is your own. The only thing I ask is that you vote your convictions and not your hate. And I ask that you vote. If you don't vote you have no right to complain about what might happen
     And that is the end of my rant.

     What other fun things have been going on? Well the new TV season is well and truly underway. And my guilty pleasure this season is 'The Neighbors' with Jami Gertz. It is dumb and silly and it makes me laugh. But then I do like Jami. Her comic timing has always been great. I also like 'Partners', 'The New Normal' and 'Go On'. None of these shows will go down in history but they all make me laugh and that is a blessing in this day and age. And if you're wondering about new dramas....well nothing new on the radar. I haven't been impressed. If there is something I'm missing just let me know.

     One final thing, I'm loving the Spotify music app. I make playlists that I can share with my friends and with the cost of only a few moments of commercials in the course of an hour it is priced just right at $0.00. If you like music and hate paying for it then check it out. You could do worse.

Mary Had a Little Lamb

     Have you ever said something and then been teased about it but you weren't exaggerating or boasting...you were simply stating a fact? That happened to me recently.
     Last month my sisters and I attended a baby shower for our niece. Liz is expecting her first child and as Great Aunts we were all looking forward to being there. My sister Eileen does all the shopping for such events (I shop only online) and she had seen something for the baby that came in a couple of different shapes. She was rattling off the choices and the word 'lamb' was no longer past her lips when I piped up "Yes, a lamb. Mom had my room decorated in lambs when I was born. I had a lamb on my crib and a rocking chair that played 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' and a night light that was a lamb." My sisters thought this was hilarious. I being the oldest actually had a decor for my childhood bedroom. They, and my brother, all being younger got my hand me downs and they had no memory of my lambs. (Except of course for what is left of that ceramic night light that I can't bear to part with.) So the gift was bought and it was indeed a lamb.
     That brings up up to yesterday, which just so happened to be my sixty-fourth birthday. I ran away from home in Philly to spend my weekend with my youngest sister and her wonderful husband in the peace and quiet of South Jersey. Said kid sister was making one of my favorite dinners, meatloaf, at my request. She also went out and bought a chocolate cherry bread pudding for dessert. Our brother, the soon to be grandfather, was also going to join us and my remaining sister had a dinner date with her hubby to celebrate his birthday.
     I was happily reading when the front door opened and the sister I hadn't expected to see came in with a bag containing some Hagen-Dazs Blueberry Crumble and jelly beans. And then a box also appeared. A box with a funny shape and a head sticking out. It was a Lamb, a white fluffy lamb with pink ribbons at her ears. The softest lamb you can imagine. My sister is a mush ball like me. A joke gift with a soft edge and a sweet heart. A sweet heart, I was informed later, that my sister had kissed before it was put inside my lamb.
     I am so blessed by my family. My mother always told us to love one another. We fought and had lots of disagreements when we were kids. And when I say we fought I mean the kind of fights that included fists and feet and slaps and screaming at the tops of our lungs. But then we grew up. We lost our father and we came kicking and screaming into adulthood. Twenty years ago we went through a protracted hospital stay and the death of our Mom. We learned to lean on each other and treasure what it meant to have siblings that you loved and that loved you , unreservedly, in return.  
     To get back to my lamb I think her name will be Pi. Yes like the number used to measure circles. I have checked and it is called an irrational and transcendental number. Sort of like my siblings and I. We might occasionally be irrational but we transcend that and love each other anyway.
     The next time you hear "Mary Had A Little Lamb" you can think of me and Pi.  
     Pictured below is Pi and right under her you'll see me and my great sisters and brother.
     I am indeed a very fortunate woman.      
               

 

Friends and facebook and Angst

It's been a while since I've done a blog but I'm back again and I have a few things to say about Friendship and facebook and angst.  

Facebook is a funny place when you think about it. It is a virtual world where we connect with people that we might have actually met and those that are, for all intense and purposes, simply phantoms in our lives.

We go to a page and we say we like the subject and we can exchange words with others. We can do that over and over and we will 'friend' or be 'friended' by those we come in contact with. Those with similar likes. In that respect I've been very fortunate in that I'm a member of communities of women who share some of the same loves that I do.  

There are women in those 'Pages' that I admire and respect. I admire the talent and the character they share with the world. I respect that they are individuals who have private lives and lines that shall not be crossed. We are 'friends' in a virtual world that exists in cyberspace and nowhere else. These are not the people you will run into while you're shopping for groceries or filling your car with gas.

Unless you are invited to do so there are lines that should not be crossed with those you know from facebook. You don't ask for names, addresses or phone numbers. If that information is offered that is one thing but it should not be sought. And if private information is offered without reason or inappropriately flags should be rising all over the place.

Whenever there is even the hint of something funky make a copy, do a screen print. Document even the slightest incident because someday it may come in handy. If someone gives you pause for thought once make note of it and it there is a repeat run in the other direction as fast as you can and block them from all avenues of access that you think they may try.

Last but not least do not engage in discussions on the pros and cons of your action. Warn those you know might be effected about a potential danger and disengage. The person sending off warning bells and raising flags will have defenders who may take issue with your action. In the end you can't take that into account. You may respect those defenders but that doesn't mean you need to change your mind. Stick you your guns.

There will be angst. You might be criticized and loose a virtual friend or two. Ignore it. Trust your instincts and know that you've done the right thing. If a person you've never met and you have no true relationship with 'unfriends' you haven't really lost anything except a few lines of type on a screen.  

Now you all go ahead and have a wonderful time. Play games, chat and enjoy. Just be careful out there.

      

Stars and Celebrity

It used to be that when you called someone a Star it meant something. It meant that they had reached a level of fame or accomplishment in their field. Think of Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig in baseball or Cary Grant and John Wayne in the movies. We knew a star because they did something that stood out above the normal. That being said I take exception to the new show NBC is touting that they call “Stars Earn Stripes”.  To call Todd Palin a ‘star’ is ludicrous. Dean Cain is a fine journeyman actor but I don’t think he is a ‘star’.  And the other participants are not what you can call the best in their fields. The exception is Gen. Wesley Clark who was once the commander of NATO. I’m guessing that he’s in it purely for the money and is laughing all the way to the bank.

I once heard the phrase that he who praises everyone praises no one. If Todd Palin qualifies as a star how do we classify Michael Phelps. People who are famous for being famous, think Paris Hilton or the Kardashians, did nothing to earn their fame. They rode in on the coat tails of family fame or notoriety. Conrad Hilton built a chain of hotels and Robert Kardashian was a well thought of attorney. The fact that they were at the top of their field should not make their progeny celebrities.

When my niece and nephew were kids and we would talk to them about movies and the actors who appeared in them we told them that some actors were stars and some stars were actors BUT not all actors were stars. Spencer Tracey was an actor who was a star too. John Wayne was a star who acted. Frank Faylen, Thomas Mitchell and Edgar Buchanan were all fine actors and none of them were stars.  

Stars had qualities the put them above the rest. We have diminished the term STAR when we apply it to people who have done nothing to earn the title. Please folks Lets be sure someone deserves title before we apply it to them.

That’s my rant for the day. You may now return to your normal activities.   

Possibilities

     Did you ever get a word stuck in your head? For the better part of a week the word Possibilities has been stuck in mine.
     The thing is we are faced with endless possibilities each and every day. The possibility we have to say 'Good Morning' to a stranger, or a friend, and bring a smile to someone's face or to pass someone and say nothing and let them continue on, feeling invisible to the rest of the world.
     We have infinite possibilities as to the food we eat, the books we read the shows we watch and the movies we see. Our choices may bring us joy, hope, love or even death.
     The dictionary defines a possibility as something that may be, exist or happen. Once upon a time we were all a possibility. What if your mother or father had not believed in the possibility of love?
     We think of about the "What if's" of life and play with possibilities. What would we do if we won the lottery? What would happen if we were brave enough to say hello to that stranger? It's easy and fun to do when we consider the future but can be sad and depressing when we play that game with the past. What if they hadn't taken that turn? What if they had gone to the movie on a different night? What if I made that phone call or had said I was sorry?
          We don't know what the future holds and the past has already happened and must be borne. But the next time you you need to make a choice think of all the wonderful things that may happen. You may meet someone who will bring joy and love into your life. And the possibility may make you brave and change your life for the better.  

"Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult." 
— Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire)
"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." 
— Anaïs Nin (The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934)

Happily Ever After?

     I recently wrote a short story and I ended it with the corny old line..."And they lived happily ever after".
     When I was a child and someone read a story with that ending it usually meant the heroine married her prince and they went off to live in happiness and splendor for the remainder of their lives. But then I started to think just what that line means these days.
     When I was in my twenties and friends were getting married it meant a wonderful wedding and honeymoon followed by the newlyweds getting out of that first apartment, moving into a home and having children.
     When the thirties hit living happily meant having a decent job, travelling and visiting with married friends and their growing families on those rare occasions when they had a free day to spend chatting and catching up.
     In my forties living happily, note the "Ever After" is now long gone, meant that parents, if you still had them, were healthy and thriving and that the teenagers or young adults in your life were interested in the world around them and not self obsessed or substance abusers.  
     By the time I reached my fifties my friends and I prayed that our jobs held out till we reached  retirement age. We put as much money into saving for retirement as was possible and hoped the people that ran the banks and stock market don't screw up too badly. My friends prayed their kids were able to keep their jobs and either finally move out or that they don't move back. We all prayed for the strength to take care of the people we love that might need us in a crisis. And we prayed for no crisis to strike.
     Once the sixties happened I learned that for me living happily meant loosing my job, collecting Social Security, and living my life honestly. For me that meant coming out. (Yes...in case you've been living under a rock, I'm a lesbian.)
     Along the line I learned that even in a life that is relatively happy there are losses. Parents and their contemporaries die. You lose friends to death and circumstances and sometimes the loss will rock you to your foundation. But you get up and keep getting up and eventually you start looking for happiness again.
     For me happiness was discovering facebook and communities of women with interests similar to mine. It means finding friends on the other side of the world. It means having time to read wonderful books. It means time to write a couple of stories of my own.
So did I get my "Happily Ever After"? Not quite all of it but then my story isn't over yet.
     I see a lot of happiness on the horizon. Friends are still falling in love so I know that the possibility  exists. My family moves into the future with my niece expecting her first child come October. And the people I love are healthy.
    You can't ask for a lot more than that.

 

Father's Day, Friendship and Pride

     It's 06/17/2012. Father's Day. If you saw the post I did on facebook yesterday you know that my Dad has been gone many years. I miss him and my mother every day. I miss my grandparents too. The two I was lucky enough to know and the two I never met. I often wonder what life would have been had all my grandparents survived into their 60's or later.
     What I do know is that the loss of her parents while she was young made my mother very aware of the importance of family. The support and love that only family can provide was critical to her. It is because of her love and care of family that my siblings and I are close. They are a blessing in my life and were it not for a wonderful set of parents I would not have the angels I call Eileen, Skip and Karen in my life.
     So Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there. Remember that the love you show your children today will be paid forward in the love they show to the people who will be our future.
                                                       **************************

     I was lucky enough to spend a part of last week with my dear friend Linda. We have been friends for a very long time. We met back when we were kids slaving away coding for an insurance company. (We basically filled in sheets of paper with numbers so they could be key punched onto data cards and then transmitted to the main office the company. Does anyone remember those old keypunch cards?)
     We laughed and joked and even after more than forty years we discovered new things about each other. We remembered the past, discussed the present and dreamed about our futures. What more can anyone ask from a friend.
     I often wish that she lived closer and that we could spend more nights staying up and laughing uproariously but I'll take what the good Lord and our travel budgets allow and say Thanks.
                                                      *****************************

     Life is going along very well for me these days. I have family, old friends and new friends who bless my life and keep it from being dull, boring and barren.
     The fear and tension that I carried with me for so many years has disappeared since I let the people that love me know that I'm a lesbian. I'm so blessed because everyone who loves me wants me only to be happy. Not a single person important to me turned away.
     I added this last section only because June is Pride month. I'm proud to be the person I am. I'm proud I have the family and friends I have.
   
     Basically I'm a very lucky person. I hope that anyone who takes the time to read this is equally as blessed.     Thanks.

                                             
      

    

Just about me....

I've been thinking for a while what this next piece should be about and it has to be about what has been happening with me recently. 

After many years of fear and worry and a lot of denial things hit a critical point for me recently and I came out as a lesbian to my closest family and friends. Now I'm coming out to anyone who may take the time to read this blog. 

I recently wrote the following to a niece and nephew:

There are things in this life that we all have problems dealing with. The biggest thing I have had a problem with is that when I was in my forties I came to realize and accept the fact that I am a lesbian.  I think it was something I always knew on some level but that I was afraid to know on another.  I know that is a very contradictory statement but that’s how it goes.

I can remember the first book I read with a gay character and I can remember distinctly the first time I heard the word lesbian. There was something about being a female and homosexual that resonated inside me. It just took me forever to figure it out and admit it.

My youngest sister told me she had known for years and was simply waiting for me to say something. My other sister hugged me and told me she loved me. My brother did not hesitate to tell me he loved me and wanted me to be happy. The friends I told could not fathom why I was afraid to tell them. Every single person who has been told has offered nothing but love and support.

This revelation had been building for years.

It was the friendship I found in an on-line group that brought me to the point where I could no longer hide who I am. The support, humor and example of these wonderful women have been invaluable to me. I feel blessed to have become acquainted with them.

Coming out has been a positive experience for me. I no longer worry that I’ll say or do something that would cause someone to question me or look askance. The fear I woke up with each morning and fell asleep with each night is no longer present.

If reading this causes you to think less of me, well that’s your problem, not mine.

I still like movies, books and trivia. I still love my family and friends.

I will be the me I have always been….but happier.

***********************************************************************************  

And now a couple of Quotes: 

No matter how far in or out of the closet you are, you still have a next step.  ~Author Unknown

Straight Americans need... an education of the heart and soul.  They must understand - to begin with - how it can feel to spend years denying your own deepest truths, to sit silently through classes, meals, and church services while people you love toss off remarks that brutalize your soul.  ~Bruce Bawer

Easter 2012

For Easter I was going to put a picture of an Easter Basket out on facebook; the kind the Easter Bunny left when I was a kid. There was a problem with that...there was nothing close in all the pictures I found on Google. We didn't get movies or toys, we got eggs and candy. Generally we each got a large coconut creme egg that mom bought from school or a hollow chocolate bunny. There were the eggs we colored the night before that usually became egg salad within a day or two. And of course there were jelly beans. I'm not talking about the designer jelly beans that became so popular during the Reagan administration; I'm talking the cheapest jellybeans a mom on a budget could buy. There were some small chocolate or coconut eggs along with some speckled malted milk ball eggs that were thrown in to round things out. These were all lovingly placed in baskets made with straw or colored plastic strips that were padded on the bottom with crumpled newspaper that was then covered with pink, green or yellow cellophane straw. As kids we were thrilled to get these baskets but most kids today would find them lacking.  


And this I posted on facebook yesterday. I'm including it here for those of you who don't do the whole social media thing.
When I was a kid Easter was the one holiday we could count on my father being home for the day. I guess from about the time I was 7 or 8 we would go to church and then we would take a series of buses and trolleys and to go visit my Great-aunt Katie. She was a nun and was stationed at in parish in No. Philadelphia. The convent she lived in was a series of 3 or 4 connected rowhouses that had a connected and enclosed front porch. My mother would dress us all in our new clothes and the nuns stationed with Aunt Katie all made a fuss. We would go to the music room and hit the piano keys or take one of the rockers on that front porch and rock it till it moved from one end of that highly waxed floor to the other. When we left the convent we went out to dinner and then rushed home to get to our Easter baskets.
I hope all of you have happy memories to look back on this weekend.


One other thing and I'm gone...   Today is April 7th. It would have been my parent's 65th wedding anniversary. My dad has been gone since 1976 and my mom passed away in 1993. They gave me a some wonderful gifts. The best gifts being Eileen, Skipper and Karen. I love my parents and think of them every day. Every year for Easter and Mother's Day my father bought my mother an orchid corsage. If things work as I hope they do you'll see a picture of one with this post.  

HAPPY EASTER ALL!!!!!!!!!!!

Hammerstein

Earlier today I was listening to some music from Broadway shows and I was struck by the fact that Oscar Hammerstein II was responsible for so may of the songs we consider standards or are so ingrained in our culture we forget that someone had to actually sit down to write them.

Oscar was the man who introduced us to the "possible" love song. In "Show Boat" he gave us "Make Believe" and in "Oklahoma" he  gave us "People Will Say We're In Love" and we can't forget "If I Loved You" from "Carousel". The man could take the yearning for love in a human heart and put words to it. How gifted he was.  

The last song he wrote was for "Sound of Music" and it was "Edelweiss". Most people actually believe it was an old Austrian folk song when in reality those words came from the fertile imagination of Mr. Hammerstein.

The next time you listen to any music think about the work of the people who sat down and figured out how to get the words and the notes you're hearing melded to make a song. And it makes no difference the type of music. Opera or Rap someone has to come up with an idea and then get it down on paper or the modern equivalent thereof.

Oh, and if you have any doubts about the the man's talent just read the words. The music is beautiful but the lyrics stand on their own. Here is some of "If I Loved You". The man knew the human heart.

                                                                  If I loved you,

Time and again I would try to say

All I'd want you to know.

If I loved you,

Words wouldn't come in an easy way

Round in circles I'd go!

Longin' to tell you,

But afraid and shy,

I'd let my golden chances pass me by!

Soon you'd leave me,

Off you would go in the mist of day,

Never, never to know how I loved you

If I loved you.

Rain Boots & Umbrellas

So earlier today we got one of those catalogs in the mail. You all know the kind, purporting to be 'gifts' and full of those 'as seen on TV' products. One of the things in the book really took me back. Rain boots for women, we called them 'raindeers'. We wore them over our shoes and they were almost clear, sort of frosty, and they had a little loop on the side to close them over. Remember the days when a well dressed woman would never dream of going out in the rain and allowing her dress shoes to get wet? Men too had slip on covers for their shoes and they were commonly called rubbers.  I know I went through more than a pair or two of raindeers when I was in grade school. Back in those days the nuns would check to be sure your feet were dry on rainy days so you better have your rain boots.

And thinking of rain boots made me think of umbrellas. I used to love to walk through the ground floor of Gimbel's Department Store on Market St. and stop at the umbrella display. There were solid colors as well as beautiful prints with wooden and heavy plastic handles in all manner of colors and designs. In a rack of 20 or 30 umbrellas no two were alike. A good umbrella was upwards of $20. and in the late 60's and early 70's that was a lot of money. I remember when the first clear umbrellas came on the market and they were great cause you could keep your head totally covered and still see your bus coming down the street.  

I don't know what happened to those boots and umbrellas that used to protect us from the rain. Can you imagine a teenager today who would prefer to use an umbrella instead of getting wet or imagine anyone under the age of 40 who would wear a pair of boots to keep their shoes dry. Folks would rather carry a good pair of shoes and wear an old pair out in the rain or snow and change shoes.

Ah well it was just another of my YOU KNOW YOU'RE GETTING OLD moments and I thought I would share.  

Buying Shoes....ARRRGHHH!

My sister has been having a hard time lately finding shoes that will help her get through the day with as little discomfort as possible. She suffers from fibromyalgia and does childcare so she spends most of the day on the go and in pain.

You would think that with all the different shoe companies around that make walking or shoes for all kind of specialized activities it would be easier. It's not. The main problem lies with size.

Now you need to understand that the women in my family have big feet. I wear a women's size twelve and my sisters a ten and a half and a ten respectively. The manufacturers of women's shoes stop half sizing at size ten. Did you know that? Did you know that women who wear larger than a size ten pay more for their shoes than our sisters with smaller feet?

Forget really high fashion styles. I'm talking your normal athletic footwear. We used to call them sneakers but they're so much more than that these days. If you can find sizes over 10 you might pay $5 to $10 more for them. Hush Puppies is a very popular brand and finding anything over an eleven for a woman is difficult. Very difficult if on top of having big feet lengthwise you also have wide feet. It becomes impossible. I was just checking out Rockports and their women's shoes go to 11's but men go to size 16. For the longest time I bought men's shoes from them. You can't tell me that they have machinery that can make a man's but not a woman's shoe.

We women are crazy that we allow shoe companies to walk all over us (pun intended). If your feet are narrow you pay more. If you wear a very popular size you pay more. If you wear a large size you pay more. If you want a well made dress shoe you not only pay more you are talked into wearing shoes that can cause injury to your back or ankles just because they might be stylish. Would any man worth his salt be talked into wearing shoes that elevate his height 5 inches so his legs and butt would look better?  

Ah well that is my rant for today. I hope you all have a good night and a good day tomorrow and that you think about this blog the next time you buy a pair of shoes..

Rudeness at a Funeral

Every once in a while you meet someone who has so little regard for you or your feelings that you can simply turn your back on them and walk away without getting angry or upset because you know that they are not worth the energy those feelings would create. Recently I was with some people like that and I just have to get it off my chest.

Last week my siblings and I went to Williamsburg to lay to rest my mother's youngest brother. He was a great guy who loved his family and he had lived a long and (except for the last six months or so) a wonderful life.

My Uncle took accelerated courses in high school so he would be able to serve in the Navy during WWII. The war ended while he was in boot camp so he spent four years stateside as a medical corpsman. When his enlistment was over he found a job in sales and loved it and was a salesman for his entire professional life.

My Uncle married and had 3 children; a son and two daughters. He considered being a father his best and greatest accomplishment. His first marriage failed for a number of reasons and he remarried and was very happy. His wife had two daughters that he adopted when they were adults.

This was a man who worked longer than necessary to provide for him and his wife an idyllic retirement. They lived in a lovely and exclusive community in Williamsburg and by anyone's definition lived the "good life".

In the last six months his health failed and the health of his wife is also not what it should be. (Let me interject here that my Uncle and his wife were both 83 years old.) Her daughters seemingly began making all the big decisions regarding his health care and finances. My uncle, when he was lucid, was not very happy with how things were going but because of his failing health was unable to do anything to make the situation better. My cousins, his son and 2 daughters, did everything they were able to do to make things better for their father but they live 350 miles and 6 hours away and were stymied at every turn.

Now when "steps" are involved it has always been my practice to take things with a 'grain of salt' figuring that not everything is as black and white as they seem. These women and their blatant rudeness have certainly opened my eyes where they are concerned.

When I went into the wake the other night and I was ignored I gave 'S' the benefit of the doubt when I said hello and she ignored me. I explained who I was and she told me that she knew who I was and then continued to ignore me as did her younger sister. This was no great loss to me. They are not a part of my life and I don't need them to validate my existence.

The thing that has my blood boiling was that they ignored my other Uncle. The 85 year old who was burying his little brother. These two women ignored him and did not say one word of condolence to the man even though they rode to and from the cemetery in the same car. They whispered in the back seat of the limo and ignored his presence when they could. When my Uncle wanted to give a eulogy at the graveside they did that eye roll thing that we all know too well. My Uncle may not have seen that but one of my siblings did. My Uncle was able to make his farewell remarks despite them.

My mother and her brothers were orphaned at very young ages. They had only themselves. After their mother passed away they were sent off to boarding school. At the time my mother was 13 and her brothers were 7 and 5. They lost their father 7 years later. Because of the gap in their ages my mother was not able to spend as much time as she would have liked with her brothers. They were on their own for their years in school with only each other to count on.

When my Dad died 35 years ago my uncles both stepped up and played greater roles in the lives of me and my siblings. When my Mom passed away 19 years ago they were both devastated by her loss. To loose my Uncle was difficult for me but what it must have meant to his surviving brother is almost incomprehensible.

My cousins have lost their Father and I know how that feels but loosing a parent is something that you expect in the course of life. What you don't expect is the rudeness of the people who say they are sharing that grief with you,

Someday in the not too distant future these two women will be mourning their mother. I hope when that happens the people around them have more concern for their feelings than they have shown to others this past week.

Watching TV

I was born in 1948 and don't remember a time when there was not a TV in my home. It has been a constant in my life. The TV was tuned to the Today Show when I was getting ready for school in the mornings and we watched soap operas when we came home for lunch. I learned how to do homework while watching TV. When I turned 13 I was allowed to stay up to watch the shows that came on at 10:00 pm. (The trick with that was I had to be able to get up on time the next morning or I couldn't stay up for a few nights.)

Now you should understand that my parents were night owls. My father was a bartender who didn't get home from work until after 2:00 am. My mother had been a nurse before she got married and was very used to staying up and getting by on not a lot of sleep. And with no husband around at night the TV and telephone were my mother's friends.

I can remember before starting grade school that if I woke up before my mother went to bed she would let me come downstairs with her and we would bake muffins (from a box mix) and watch the late movie on our local station. Ed McMahon (pre Johnny Carson) was the local announcer who would introduce the movie and do commercials. Once the movie was over so was the broadcast day and the station would play the national anthem and go to a test pattern.

I remember a lot of trivia about TV. I remember "Winky Dink" where you had a film that went over your screen so you could crayon on it as part of the program. I remember Miss Frances and "Ding Dong School". I remember 15 minute soap operas at lunchtime and I remember it being a big deal when they went to 30 minutes and then 60 minutes. I remember the reason I wanted to stay up late was to watch Vince Edwards as "Ben Casey". I loved Richard Chamberlin as "Dr. Kildare". I remember a series called "Circus Boy" with Mickey Dolenz (who later became famous as a Monkee). I remember a news report about a fire at Lady of the Angels school in Chicago (and the fire drills we had in school after it happened). I remember Arthur Godfrey, Dennis Day and Queen for a Day. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and Peyton Place and a presidents assassination.    

The thing is I remember a lot of TV's past but a lot of what I see now barely leaves a ripple in my consciousness. Back then we had 3 channels and it seemed like there was always something worth watching. Now we have more than a hundred channels to choose from and most of the time there isn't a lot to choose from. A cousin of mine wrote today the he had spent an enjoyable hour watching reruns of "The Rifleman". It was a boyhood favorite of his and he really had a good time watching it. So with cable he was paying to watch a show that was more than 50 years old that cost him nothing to watch when it was new.

My problem is not with cable. My problem with TV today is the lack of imagination in programming. We are inundated with cheap reality TV. Really..."The Bachelor"? They couldn't come up with something better? I remember "The Defenders" and "East Side West Side" and "Naked City". Surely there are talented writers out there who can come up with a plot line and script. That would put actors and grips and studios back to work on something that the public will watch.    

We are the public. If we don't watch what the networks put on they will be forced to come up with something new. Let the programmers know that ""We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more".       

If all else fails turn on some music and read a book. Your imagination can cast anyone you want in the lead role and you can go to a library and borrow a book about anything that interests you for nothing.

Don't watch what you don't enjoy just to fill up time.

Bye for now!  

 

What can you live without?

Last night, for some reason, I was thinking about a survey group I participated in a number of years ago. It was one of those instances where you walk into a mall and someone comes up and asks if you have a few minutes to answer some questions. Well it turned out to be a bit more involved and I wound up returning to that mall for 2 or 3 weeks to answer questions and watch videos. The question we eventually focused on was if we could give up music for 30 days. A few of the participants initially said yes but then we were asked if we could do it over the Christmas Holidays. Not one out of the dozen or so of us taking part would agree to that; even when they offered to pay us.

So thinking of that made me think...is there anything in my life I could do without for 30 days? There is a lot more to choose from now than there was back then. Could I leave my cell phone behind? No, there might be an emergency where it is needed. Computer? TV? CD's? iPod? Microwave? Kindle? Nook?

I guess that if I absolutely had to do without I could handle a month without everything mentioned above. I wouldn't want to but I could. I could live with out a computer because they still do print newspapers. There would still be radios for music and movies and plays for entertainment. I could use my regular old land line phone to keep in touch with my friends & family. The stove and oven still work so I wouldn't starve. As for books...they are still printed and available in brick and mortar stores and libraries.

The thing is that all those things that we could live without do make our lives pleasant. My grandmother lived without all those things (well she did have a TV for the last 40 years of her life) and she would think that all these things were absolutely frivolous.  But I can only think that popping a meal in a microwave to heat it up would have been easier on her than having to heat up leftovers on the stove or in the oven. My mother would have adored cell phones and computers. I love being in touch with people via facebook. I touch base with people from my past and I meet new people who bring light and laughter into my life.

So think about what you would give up for 30 days. What would the impact on your life be? And here is something else to consider...most of the things I've mentioned living without have only come into our lives in the last 25 years or less. Can you imagine what might be on that list 25 years from now?

Pens and Stuff

A few years ago I gifted my sister with a really nice ball point pen. I had one at work that I loved and decided to buy a bunch to give to family for Christmas. Since they had a company logo on them and they were sold from the company store they were quite reasonable for the quality. Well the pen has finally gone dry and needed to be refilled. When called and asked what kind of refill was needed I responded promptly "Parker T-ball Jotter". When my sister told me she was standing in front of a refill display at Staples and there was nothing labeled T-ball Jotter. I had to dash over to Amazon so I could tell her what the modern equivalent would be.

I should pause here to let you know that I worked in a stationary store for a couple of years after high school. I love walking through stationary stores the way some people like walking through hardware stores or book shops.

Well the search for refills prompted me to look at Amazon for similar things that were a part of my youth. Things like fountain pens and stationary. Fountain pens were not hard to find but I was amazed that there is such a thing as disposable fountain pens and that a good Waterman Pen could cost $100. A nice Parker was anywhere form $24 to $100 and a bottle of ink is shown as costing $10.

Using a fountain pen was mandatory while I was in 7th and 8th grade and I spent many a day with ink stained fingers and clothes. Ink cost less than a dollar a bottle and it would last for months. The only colors the nuns would allow were blue or blue/black. Peacock blue ink was much too showy for the Sisters of Saint Joseph back in the day. I was not allowed the use of a ball point pen for schoolwork until I started high school in the fall of '62.

So, once I finished shaking my head in disbelief at writing instruments I thought I'd look for letter writing stationary. I can't remember the last time I wrote an honest to goodness real letter. I still have half used boxes of stationary that I was saving for special occasions that are probably 30 years old.

When I was in my 20's I wrote letters to friends and relatives 2 or more times a week. My brother was in the Navy and away from home and I had friends who moved away from Philadelphia. Long distance calls were not an option because of the expense so letter writing was the thing to do. I would get onionskin paper for air-mail because it would cost less to send. I went through tablets of paper and boxes of envelopes for a few years.

Emails, facebook and blogs have replaced putting pen to paper. Makes you wonder how we will be communicating 20 years from now.

Ah well, I've rambled enough for now.

Take care all.
         

Sunday 01/29/2012

It is a lazy Sunday afternoon and I've been on the laptop for a while now. I surfed around facebook, played some games, and learned to clear my cache and flush the DNS on my computer. (Thank heaven for Google!)

The TV is on in the background and I'm listening to my latest CD's here on the computer via earphones. I have the McGuire Sisters "Greatest Hits" and Doris Day's "My Heart". So I like the music of the 50's and early 60's. It's when I was growing up and I like it. Sue me! (HA!) I've also discovered Spotify recently and have a few playlists there. One for Broadway, one for my favorite female singers and one for country.

Something new this week...I got a haircut the other day (very short even for me) and made the decision to let the gray/white grow out. I started coloring my hair when I was forty and I want to see if I now have the white hair my mother always wished for. If it gets too wiry I can always go back to coloring. I figured I'm retired now and why the heck not.  

My rant for the week...I've been reading a lot lately about marriage equality. It is my personal belief that if a same sex couple wants to marry they should not be prevented from doing so. It has also been pointed out that this is a civil contract and that the religious aspect is a "celebration". I was raised a Roman Catholic. I was taught that Matrimony is a sacrament. I was also taught that this is the only sacrament not officiated by the church. In Matrimony the church, in the person of a priest or deacon, serves only to witness the sacrament that the parties confer upon each other. That being said you have to believe that any couple, no matter their gender, may confer that sacrament upon each other if they believe that it is indeed what they are doing. The folks in Rome or the local diocese may not recognize it but that does not take away the grace of the sacrament. Here is the other side of the coin...if you have a sacramental marriage the bond may not be broken if you just decide you don't want to be together anymore or someone better comes along. This is just my 2 cents on the issue. (And when did the cents sign disappear from keyboards?)

Tonight, four weeks from the Oscars, we  have the Screen Actors Guild Awards to watch. The thing I love about this ward is that actors are voting for actors and both TV and movies are represented. I'm looking forward to seeing this and it will be shown on TNT and TBS. I hope THE HELP wins. It was a  fantastic movie.

I hope that you all have a great week. May your troubles be small and your graces be many.

Sunday 01/15/2012

Good Lord! It's 2012. To be honest when I was a kid I never thought I'd live this far into the new century. Of course I was going by what I knew then. When I was a kid and looking at movies made in WWII people in their 40's looked to be in their 70's and people in their 60's were old and crotchety and were ready to pick out headstones. Now we see Jane Fonda in a leotard at the age of 74 teaching all us boomers how to stay fit and active. My, how times and perceptions have changed.

Today is the day that the 2012 Award season kicks off. Tonight the Golden Globes will be seen on NBC. Ricky Gervais will again host as the Hollywood Foreign Press salutes what it feels is the best and brightest in movies and TV from the past year. We'll get to watch a red carpet and see what female actors will be touted as fashion icons or fashion fools. We'll get to exchange comments among ourselves about the commentators and who of them are the best and the worst. This is our fun for having to watch hours of commercials for the nominated movies and shows. So tonight pull up your favorite snacks and beverage and put on your comfy jammies and enjoy. And remember that the OSCARS will be telecast on February 26th. Tonight is just the warm-up.

Nothing else is new around here. So all have a great week.