It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like 2021

Los Angeles, California

As 2020 comes to a close there is much to reflect on. But, let's NOT. It was, plain and simple, an awful time. Not that some good hasn't come of it. But reflection would be a dismal exercise at this time.

But 2021 is looking good. First of all, despite the horror of the pandemic, it will start with the continued hilarity of that petulant, whiney bitch of a loser leaving the White House. And what have we learned from this transition? Well, it appears that the president can continue to create alternative facts by not conceding to his loss. In idle moments, I like to extrapolate that into other areas of life, starting with my friend, Lynnette, with whom I play games including our favorite Ticket to Ride board games. We're both pretty good sports, and fairly evenly matched in wins and losses. But maybe in the future, there will be no loser. Maybe if she wins, I can just declare that it was rigged. In fact, they can all be rigged, except the games where I win.

It's been years since I watched Jeopardy, but I seem to recall that someone wins, and the other two players come in second and third. No longer. They can just stay at their podiums and refuse to leave the studio until they are declared winners. If they brought their own people to the audience, they can rally and sign petitions. Once outside the studio, they can wave their guns around. Oh, no they can't. It's not Michigan. Nor Texas.

Speaking of California, I think if you don't have the winning numbers for the California Lottery each week, you should sue. And don't sue locally. Take it to the Supreme Court.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, from now on, the Los Angeles Dodgers should refuse to accept any losses of games played. Against the Houston Astros? Well, we all know the fix is in on that one. But, what the hell? Why should they accept any losses at all? Other teams will be cheating and rigging the game, right? And the Dodgers shouldn't just win. They should have THE BIGGEST WIN IN THE HISTORY OF BASEBALL. Every game. It's a new world.

Uh... No it isn't. Despite my cynicism, I am counting on a healthy dose of reality, ethics, consciousness, character, and kindness in 2021. Let's be good sports, good friends, good neighbors, and good losers when losing occurs. It can be a better world out there. We can all be better. And, eventually there will be times spent with the people we care about, and time doing all the things we enjoy. And maybe someday in the not completely distant future, there will be hugs. Hugs for winners. Hugs for losers. Hugs for us all. Wasn't 2020 terrible? Look in the rear view mirror. Any minute now you will see it behind you. Happy New (and improved!) year. Wishing you the abundant joy of faith, friendship, and fun in 2021 (remember, 2021 rhymes with fun!).

It's a Wonderful Pandemic?

Los Angeles, California

One of the signals that the pandemic Christmas is affecting me is that I recently cried my way through the end of It's a Wonderful Life. I'm not talking about tears forming, I am talking about big, gulping sobs. I am sure I have wept at the ending before, say like forty years ago when I first saw it. In the fifty times, more or less, that I have watched it since, I have mostly found it humorous. It's got some great lines: George Bailey lassoes stork! And it is comforting in its familiarity. It's not my favorite Christmas movie. For the past decade or so as my family was unraveling, I came to love The Ref. If you watch it, and you see a battling family wearing lit St. Lucia wreaths on their heads, you will comprehend this.

A few days after watching It's a Wonderful Life, I decided to try Queen's Gambit. This series, more than any other, came at me from all different directions. A lot of my friends who tend not to agree on a whole lot of stuff including what they are watching, all recommended this series. To be totally redundant, I am not a series-watcher. There is something about the dull mesmerizing focus of sitting through multiple episodes that makes me balk at investing the time to do this. Currently, I can handle watching movies and also a series on PBS' Masterpiece, when not a mystery, viewing only one episode per week as they roll out. So, that's not to say that I never watch series TV. I just mostly stay away from the Reese Witherspoon/Nicole Kidmanesque ones. For me, those fell into the fool me once catagory, with Big, Little Lies. No thank you. And, I tend to find that British series are usually better than the shiny ones originating here. Despite the rough start, I loved Fleabag. I may be the only person on the planet who liked Run until the last episode when I wanted to throw something large and heavy at the TV.

So, I tried Queen's Gambit. The first episode was darker than I expected. A bit Dickensian in theme. But after a couple of episodes, I got hooked. And, unexpectedly, wept through most of the last episode. Here we go again. What is with all this weeping? I am usually pretty good at recognizing what I'm feeling, and why I'm feeling it. This is clearly tied to the isolation and the pandemic and Christmas. And maybe that's all it is: Feeling isolated during the pandemic at Christmas. Voila! And, maybe for added measure, it was knowing that the last episode of the series meant another ending. Loads of endings without the finish of the thing we all fervently want to end.

But another part of what was so moving in the last episode of Queen's Gambit was how her community stepped back in to support her. Even the ones who she hadn't been so good to throughout her struggle with her own issues. It reminded me of how much it has meant to me during this long hard year, to have the friends I have and how we have texted, emailed, and called to keep each other on an even keel. I have been isolated all year, but I have never felt alone.

It is a great series. I liked it a lot, and it kept me busy for a few weeks. Busyness is good occupation through all the time that is flowing by. Now approaching the nine-month mark, with the vaccine just beginning to be administered, it is sobering to think that we probably have about another six months of this. Joel and I speculate that we will be out dancing again around the time of his birthday in early July. So by next Christmas, perhaps I will be able to watch It's a Wonderful Life again, sans sobbing. And maybe even with an appreciation that in a post-pandemic world, it really is a wonderful life. After all, one can always hope. Hoping whatever holiday you celebrate this holiday season brings (has brought) you joy and hope. God bless us, everyone. ♥️

Offending the King

Los Angeles, California

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical, 1776, there is a scene where the delegates are going over the declaration penned by Thomas Jefferson, essentially adding and removing passages which are of interest to each individual colony represented. At one point, someone requests the removal of a portion of the declaration which he feels to be offensive to the King. In response, John Adams declares something to the effect of: It's a revolution, damnit. We're going to have to offend someone!

This popped into my head recently as the pandemic rages on and in Los Angeles in particular, the numbers and prognostications are dire. And yet. And yet, vast numbers of our population seem to feel that they should be able to engage in many, if not most, of their pre-pandemic activities. Which, by the way, is why the pandemic increasingly rages on.

Granted, the government guidance in our country, in our state and locally, has been spotty at best. And, given that the nature of the virus as well as the scope of the pandemic is novel, there was to be a certain amount of trial and error involved. On the subject of leading by example, California's governor attending a birthday dinner at The French Laundry would fall into the error category. And as far as national guidance? That will come into the category of tragedy plus time equals comedy. In this case a comedy of completely irrational inattention.

If we had gotten a more organized government response, say as was seen in New York or San Francisco in the beginning of the crisis, would we still be in this place? I think we probably would. And I think that is partly because we have a populace who feels entitled to not be kept from having a good time. Many have failed to heed the fact that, in following the reference to 1776: It's a pandemic, damnit. You're going to have to forego the fun!

Perhaps I'm bitter because I spent Thanksgiving with a bowl of macaroni and cheese. It was very good macaroni and cheese, but I would rather have shared the holiday with other humans. I don't have a pod, but I don't begrudge people celebrating the holidays within their family pods. There is attention in that. But my heart goes out to the hospital careworkers tending those dying of Covid, who travel to and from their work past restaurants and bars teeming with outdoor diners and revelers. It's not that I think all restaurants and other businesses should be shut down. Obviously, take-out dining is currently viable, and if you happen to be a restaurant-owner you certainly want to have patrons even if they are only picking up prepared food for home. But, come on, this is a pandemic. The disease is only spread through person-to-person contact. We had been warned that second and third waves were coming. But too many people chose to treat their pandemic fatigue rather than consciously adapting to all of the pandemic precautions. I expect young people to be that stupid (in another blogpost I might outline some of the ways in which I was ridiculously careless and moronic when I was young). But what surprises me is the people of a certain age who simply need to get out of their house and go to a restaurant. Huh? P.A.N.D.E.M.I.C.

The business that Tom and I started and ran for thirty-two years weathered a disasterous earthquake, two recessions including a great one, and a city edict that basically meant the product we sold could not be used by homeowners. The setback from these events lasted anywhere from months to many years. Being in business involves risk and preparation. You have to get prepared to support yourself in times when the business cannot. If you can't do that, then you shouldn't be in business. During better times you live within your means and squirrel away whatever surplus profit you can so you have back-up, because the one thing that is for sure is that worse times will come around. Do I think the government should be doing more to help businesses and employees? Absolutely. But I also think the number one responsibility of us all, after voting, is to follow the guidelines explicitly. Because it is a pandemic, damnit. And in any language that is going to mean hardship. When we're out of it, we can sort it all out. New business will rise out of failed businesses. Restaurants and shops will fill again. Maybe people will have retired earlier than anticipated. Not a bad thing. The bad thing is dying. The worse thing is your actions cause someone else to die. Someone who wanted a future with holiday celebrations, restaurant dining and all the other trappings of a hopefully normal, post-pandemic life. Someone who didn't have a choice, because they had to go to work at the hospital, care facility, warehouse or market. Those are essential service workers. Most of us have a choice. And we all need to do our part by keeping calm and carrying on. But let's do it at home, with the certainty of knowing that the life you save may be many. Thanks for reading my blog. And, yes, I was careless and moronic in my youth. No longer careless. Working on that other thing.

 

The Unbearable Lightness of Solitude

Los Angeles, California

I just spent my first ever solo Thanksgiving dinner. Joel and I found ourselves in a Love in the Time of Covid Redux situation. He was exposed to Covid by a co-worker who worked at his side for an entire day. There were masks, there was hand sanitizing and washing. There was Lysol spray at the end of the day. But there also needed to be a test, which Joel got on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I had some trepidation regarding his ability to obtain results just before the holiday. Remember, we've been to this rodeo before. But the last time he was tested after exposure at this same urgent care facility, the results came back in under 24 hours. This time, we were not so lucky. Joel had three days off, Wednesday through Friday, and returned to work on Saturday still not knowing his results. Did the lab have his results? Probably. But they were so overloaded with the proactive testing of people who wanted to be clear before partying through the holiday, that the lab's website crashed, their phones went to voicemail and though he tried at all hours of the day and night, he could not get his results.

I had not anticipated spending Thanksgiving together, until this exposure occurred along with a work schedule that gave him three consecutive days off. With testing, we could see each other. But I couldn't plan a real Thanksgiving dinner (roasting a duck in our case) until we knew he was clear. The logistics were too complicated, so I made the executive decision to prepare macaroni and cheese and an apple crisp. Good for one, but equally good for two, should things work out.

My macaroni and cheese is not cheese-sauce based. And, there is actually a recipe for it in a previous post (available here, for free!). I began making it when I was about ten years old and the original recipe came from my Betty Crocker Boys and Girls Cookbook. Could you even name a cookbook with that title in these politically correct days? But I digress... I have been making this for years, and have tweaked it a lot through the decades. About twenty years or so back, the Los Angeles Times posted a very similar recipe and tagged it as: Ronald Reagan's Macaroni and Cheese. Huh. What I love about this recipe is all the ways you can vary it by using different cheeses and substituting creme fraiche for the sour cream and tarting it up in a variety of different ways. This year I made it with sharp cheddar, gruyere and that truffle cheese from Trader Joe's. The apple crisp may very well also have originally come from that same cookbook. I pretty much cooked my way through it before I entered my teens and graduated to adult cookbooks, so to speak.

By Thanksgiving afternoon I was fairly certain that Joel was not going to join me, so I shook up a martini, prepared the casserole, and an hour or two later, I sat down on the den sofa to eat it out of a shallow bowl accompanied by a glass of sauvignon blanc. And some bleakness did set it at that point. I had planned to watch Hannah and her Sisters but courtesy of TCM, I saw it earlier in the week. So I watched Pieces of April, a different Thanksgiving-themed film. And then I watched a favorite, bittersweet film: Celeste and Jessie Forever. I didn't have to think too much about solitude because it has been with me throughout this year. And, the bleakness of macaroni and cheese out of a bowl was tempered by the fact that I had set my expectation bar low. And, while it was my first Thanksgiving spent completely alone, I have the belief that it may be my only one spent alone. And with everything that has happened this year, I can deal with that.

During this pandemic time, a friend remarked to me that the only thing she could imagine that was worse than going through this, would be to be going through it while living alone. I think I smiled ruefully. I don't know, I replied. Let's see. I get to eat whatever I want for dinner. I have total control over the remote. If I want the TV off, it will be off. ... and there is no conflict in my life. Not to say that going through the pandemic with loved ones will cause a resemblance to the battling Bickersons. And of course I intensely miss spending time with Joel. But there is a lot to be said for solitude. The downside is that I worry how and who I will be out the other end of this. Most of the invitations I have received through this time, I have turned down. And the few I have accepted have felt awkward. Even spending some time with my lovely neighbors, a happy hour while their twins nap, is a bit of a challenge. I enjoy their company, but it requires a push on my side. And this is not who I have ever been. But the experience of this year has brought changes to us all, and perhaps in many ways that we don't yet recognize.

The ability to tolerate being alone is essentially important. And not just for the reason that about half of us will end up living alone. I don't think I recognized the importance of this during my long marriage, until I began spending time on my own in Carmel. It was initially a challenge of adjustment. But it brought with it a clarity that I had not experienced in years. Our lives get so taken up with stimuli: activities; conversations; media; traffic; news. There is always something and someone there. And it's constant, and that's not good. You don't have to meditate to take time out. You just have to be alone in quiet to think. A simple thing but all too rare in the world in which we live, and perhaps the most important thing we can have in our lives.

Do I welcome the end of this time when we can once again spend time with all the people we care about? Of course. I want to spend time with Joel and catch up on all of the postponed conversations with my friend, Larry. I want Lynnette to come once a month so we can run around all day, then stay up late to play Ticket to Ride. I want my friends from northern California to come and stay in the summer for days by the pool and nights playing Sh*#head. I want to do pilates again, to see Cathy weekly as she guides me through this practice, and to have lunch with her, and more frequently, with my partner, Beth. I want to see movies and shop with my girlfriends like Lisa. I want to meet Todd and Christopher for lobster rolls at Connie and Ted's. I want to spend holidays with Connie and Curt and their wonderfully bright and interesting adult kids. I want to dance salsa with Joel in clubs, sharing the floor with my friend, Joy, surrounded by the music we love and the people in our salsa community. I want to go to The Hollywood Bowl to relive the magical night Joel and I shared there seeing Paul Simon. If I listed all of the things and all of the people I look forward to doing and seeing, this would be the longest post that I have written. But, on that list would be that I want to continue to enjoy solitude. Just not a 24/7, 365-day span of it.

I had mac 'n' cheese again the next night, then froze the remainder. That day I had begun to bring out my Christmas decorations, including my favorite mugs. I took another paperclip off the chain that will mark the days until the end of the year. We are in the home stretch of 2020. We made it this far, and hopefully more of it is behind us than ahead of us. In the favorite words of my late mother-in-law and my late mother: Better days are coming. This too shall pass. Solitude allows me to reflect on that, and to believe that it is true.  May I be the first to wish you a Happy Christmas🎄! Not your holiday? That's ok. This year we share everything♡.

Oops...

Los Angeles, California

With Thanksgiving approaching, I am reflecting upon the gratitude I feel. Near the top of the list is that I don't have relatives to fight with this Thanksgiving! In this sticky pandemic political goo, many families will be fighting over the mashed potatoes. And worse, I have friends who have already fallen out with family members over the crimes of the Trump administration. Some of the hell of what he hath wrought.

I haven't fallen out with anyone so far. I am fortunate that Joel and I are aligned on almost every moderate political point. As I recently wrote, we are all on our own squares of the political chessboard (I have to write this again, because I do love this metaphor), but even if on the same color we are not necessarily on the same square. And that is ok. It's a spectrum out there, so even those of us on the same side of it, rarely agree on everything.

Which brings me to a recent incident when a friend objected to something I had written on this blog. You didn't see her comment? She didn't leave one. She is a close, though out-of-town friend, and we catch up every few weeks with a long phone conversation. She recently texted me to ask if I was angry at her since it had been awhile since we had been in touch. But when I checked, it had only been nine days. And the text string had been left in her court. But, as with the Pirates of the Caribbean code, that's more of a guideline than a code. While responding to her text, in the back of my mind was Psych 101 (or more accurately, a lot of years of therapy), which reminded me that when someone out of the blue stamps an emotion on you, it's usually a projection of something they are feeling. So, I texted her back asking if everything was ok. I'm fine. No biggie, she responded. Ok.

During the first part of our catch-up conversation, I noticed that she seemed distracted. Again, I pushed that to the back of my mind. Then, in the middle of our conversation, she suddenly and forcefully stated that she had read my blog. And what followed was her letting me know, in no uncertain terms, how she felt about something I had written.

I don't write my blog to upset my friends. I write my blog as a practice of writing. I write my blog to keep my writing in the forefront of my life. That is the purpose and the intent. However, it should not be a surprise to anyone that politics have crept into my writing. Politics are a hot topic currently. And, frankly, I have to think up things to write about, which can be challenging. But a blog isn't Facebook. It's not social media, and it is not interactive, although comments can be left if you feel moved to do so. Friends have let me know that they enjoy reading my blog, but I am certain they don't agree with everything that I write. And I wouldn't expect them to. In fact, when I reached out to Lynnette about a recent post, she responded: Nothing new there. And what kind of a friend would I be if I thought you weren't entitled to your own opinions?

My conversation with the angry friend was briefly unsettling. Writing a blog is not writing an educational thesis, nor an op-ed journalistic piece. So, I don't expect to be called upon to defend what I write. I mean, I've moved on to the next topics in the next blogposts, but I suppose I could be prepared to defend the opinions stated in a previous post if I was given a heads-up: Hey, I read something on your blog that I disagree with. Can we talk about it?  Instead, being couched in the middle of a let's catch-up call, it felt like a bit of an ambush. And... it felt a bit parental. As if I my behavior was necessitating a lecture of disapproval. Afterwards, I reread the offending post. I stand by it. And, simply put, I will continue to assume that if friends and readers don't like what I am writing, they will simply not read my blog.

I did, however, feel sad that I had caused a friend to feel upset, especially in the midst of this maelstrom of Covid angst. This particular grist for my writing mill was a moderately liberal viewpoint regarding reform in a hot button issue. It certainly was not written about her specifically, nor in any way mindfully, but clearly it hit a nerve with her. And for that there was some remorse. Not for the expression of my opinion, but that it collaterally offended someone I care about.

My writing process is essential in my life. And, perhaps even more so right now. And, writing through a politically-correct filter in a fruitless attempt to please all of the people all of the time would grind my blog, my memoir and all of my writing, to a halt. I am happy to have friends who read my blog. But, in all honesty, I would be happy to have no one reading it. It's not about the reading. It's about the writing. And, frankly, it is about getting through these times which are almost insurmountably difficult. I am trying my best to get through them by utilizing all I can to help me to do so. Perhaps in better times I will write more cheerfully, and less politically. And I do believe better times are ahead. In the meantime, I took heart in what another friend wrote to me recently regarding a different post:

It's your opinion and your beliefs which shouldn't be offensive to anyone who knows you well enough to read it. I think it's very brave to open up and be so thoughtful of current issues.

I truly and absolutely love the process of writing. Without writing and dancing, I don't know how I could survive everything that has been thrown at me. Both allow me to lose myself in the complete joy of the process. And I would still feel that joy without anyone reading what I write, and most certainly without everyone agreeing with everything I write. But, on the other hand, an affirmation like that above? As Joel would say: It's the cherry on the top (or the one luciously marinating in the bottom of my Thanksgiving manhattan cocktail). Happy Thanksgiving to you, with abundant gratitude for us all making it this far in 2020, and with fervent hope for all of the freedom in the year ahead of us! Be well! 💟

Genital Copulation

Los Angeles, California

It is inevitable that I have damaged my hearing. I spent my youth attending rock concerts, and once after a David Bowie concert at the Hollywood Palladium, my ears were plugged up for at least a day afterwards. And then, about fifteen years ago, I started dancing salsa in clubs. I do wear earplugs... sure, now. But I am in that place where at times, I hear but I don't quite comprehend. Or maybe I am so used to talking to myself, that it is the only voice I now hear succinctly.

The election is over, mas o menos, and there is weak house moritorium on watching CNN. But I do check in on Sunday mornings. And that was when I heard an interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci. For all that Fauci can't throw (Red Sox Opening Day reference), he has been an admirably respected voice of reason throughout this bizarrely misdirected pandemic year. But there is still a lot of polishing the stone -- going over the same material, and on CNN there is the incessant baiting to get him to badmouth Trump. Trump badmouths himself every time he opens his mouth, so this seems like a bit of a redundant gesture.

I think Fauci was being asked about the news that Pfizer has recently released regarding a 90% effective vaccine. I was only 30% listening when I clearly heard Fauci say: Genital Copulation. Ok, this is new. I mean, if we're wearing masks, and staying six-feet away from each other, what could that be about? Perhaps a reminder that we shouldn't be doing that outside our pod? I think I was folding laundry at the time, but hearing those words completely stopped me in my tracks.  Luckily in our world we have rewind, which is what I immediately did as soon as I could get to my remote.

Yeah... yeah, he's talking about a vaccine. It needs to be kept cold. They want front line workers and the elderly to be vaccinated first. And then it will go to the General Population! Ah-ha! Honestly, that does sound a lot like genital copulation.

In The Pirates of Penzance, Frederick's nurse, Ruth, has been told to arrange a seaman apprenticeship for Frederick to become a pilot. Unfortunately, she mishears and instead she apprentices him as a pirate. The words were so similar, Ruth decries about her error. Graciously, Frederick, now a grown pirate, agrees: They were. They still are!

Sometimes things that sound similar can have quite opposite meanings. And so it was when I heard Dr. Fauci casually mention genital copulation when talking about the vaccine. Ok, so you can blame my ever-escalating Covid-induced lack of attention span. Or my failing hearing. As for me, I think I'll just blame David Bowie. Rank your more leading by fog. Or something like that.

Boats Against the Current

 Los Angeles, California

I think that I expected things would be ok after the election. Don't ask me why I thought that. I'm not the eternal optimist by any measure. But I do this thing. I set this point in time ahead and decide that everything will be ok upon arrival. Sometimes I even think that everything will be... perfect. And, I never seem to learn. In this case, I waited one-hundred days. I made a pretty, colorful chain of one-hundred paperclips which I hung on a hook in a convenient location. Each day I removed a paperclip, knowing that at the end would be November. The summer felt relentlessly long as I went through it more or less in isolation. And I was longing for the fall season. And for the election to be over.

Additionally I celebrated a birthday. Well, actually I celebrated a birthday week. Joel had a six-day vacation from work. After work, on his last day, he got a Covid test and his negative results came back the following morning. During the week, we watched the Dodgers win the World Series, we cleaned my garage (my requested birthday gift), and on my actual birthday, we drank champagne and danced salsa and bachata. We didn't get out together away from my house. But for a Covid birthday, it was unexpectedly stellar.

I took down my last paperclip the morning of the election. Four days later when Associated Press called the election for Joe Biden, my neighbor texted to invite me to their front yard for champagne. It was my fourth gathering (if a gathering is defined by 2-4 people) in the past eight months. They are a lovely couple with 2-year old twin boys. While the twins napped, we sat outside, socially-distanced. We drank champagne, and talked about the awful situation in our country that we would thankfully be leaving behind when Trump left office, and about our elation at the change that would be coming. While on the same color, we were clearly not on the same square of that life's chessboard metaphor I used in the last post. They had been supporters of Elizabeth Warren. I had not. But we shared an intense desire to see the acceptance of the hatefulness and deceitfulness in the current administration become something that can never, ever again happen. But, for now it continues.

The day after my paperclip chain disappeared, I made a new one. It was comprised of fifty-nine paperclips of multi-colors, the last thirty-one alternating red and green, representing December and the season of Christmas. I cannot even remember when Advent starts. I haven't been to Mass since February, and I do very much miss it. The end of that chain will be January first. Where will we be on January first? They are reporting that Pfizer has a vaccine being readied. Hope. But meanwhile, things have not really gotten better. Yes, the Dodgers are still world champions. Yes, my garage is still clean. But the news from Washington is unprecedented. Did we expect statesmanship from this creature and his clan? Yeah... I admit I kinda did.

We're in a mess. So many people in our country impacted by this pandemic. Can you start a new business after you've lost yours as a result of this? Maybe. Can you survive the loss of a job? Barely. Can you find a new job when this is over? Probably. Can you replace a loved one who died? Absolutely not. I have feared that we were creating a populace where all that mattered was money and success. I loosely connected this to the deemphasizing of the importance of the humanities in universities. Yes, I am that simplistic at times. But the concept of higher education serving as job training, and in some cases a springboard to financial success, does not speak well to what the purpose of education should be. Training for occupations should be accomplished in graduate school, or in trade schools instead of universities. Haven't we somehow spun away from what a university education should provide, into a world where it is thought to be a conduit for a lucrative future, say, like in managing hedge funds? Maybe education isn't the offtracker, but when I try to figure out how we could have gotten to this place where our country finds itself, my eyes go to pinwheels. Thoughts rise to the surface, but nothing coalesces to really explain the complete breakdown of ethics that we have been witnessing. It can make you miss Nixon.

So, I go back to my own philosophy that I should concentrate on the micro: my health; my home; my family of friends; my neighborhood and community. But this requires a lot of energy and the effort to be mindful while in the swirling mess. The mess leaks in and has an impact. Life should not be as it is.

So we beat on, boats against the current... is from the last sentence of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In literature, in fine films and in theater and opera, we find the experience of others; their struggles, their tragedies, their triumphs over adversity. Maybe you are drawn to the humanities because you already have empathy, and it gets fine-tuned through the syllabus. Or maybe it helps develop empathy which was lacking in you. In the 80s there was the common saying: Life is hard and then you die. And, life is hard, especially now with so many dying. But there are many other layers to all our lives, and to how we live together, that should not be dismissed as one-dimensionally hard.

I have had to turn away from the news. It is just too dispiriting. Do I think things will get better? Yes. I hope. Joe Biden is a good man. A kind man. It takes a lot of strength to be kind. It takes the strength of getting out of your own way; getting out of the way of your ego. Anyone can be tough, and the weakest of the tough are the bullies. Things will certainly be better with a strong and compassionate leader. And a vaccine may eventually pull us out of our homes, back into some semblance of the lives we used to live. We will shop in malls, eat in restaurants, dance again in the clubs. But, until then we will beat on, boats against the current, and though still yet hampered by the maelstrom of the Trumpian storm, at least now we are able to see the shore. Thank you for reading my blog. Breathe. We will get there. 

Left-Right-Center

Los Angeles, California

I was raised with the teaching to avoid talking about religion and politics in polite society. This way there be dragons. In my youth, people attended church or temple, or not. Holidays were celebrated either religiously or secularly. My elementary school displayed a Christmas tree and a menorah. Macaroni and cheese and fish sticks were served in the cafeteria on Fridays. When elections rolled around, people were to vote their conscience. People were not so forthcoming about what they did in the ballot booth. Clearly this has changed and the landscape is rife with conflict. Have I broken with any friends or family over our current state of politics? Not really. But it has required, at times, patient avoidance.

It is not easy to talk or write about politics nor religion while skirting the possibility of offending someone, which is not my intent. So, acknowledging the slippery slope, I will try to use care. I might also add, it's not easy to write or speak about anything anymore, unless you keep happy company with your clones.

I see both political parties threatened by the extremes in their party. While I am relieved to hear that there are Republicans who do not like the party of Trump, and who would like to see the GOP returned to its pre-religious-right platform, it is clear that a lot of them got into bed with Trump (ok... Ick, why did I write that?). When did the GOP become the party of counterfactualism? Constitutionally-given rights like the right to peaceful assembly gets characterized as unpatriotic on sports fields, even though respectfully demonstrated. While the majority of the BLM movement is perfectly peaceful, they get tagged as rioters and looters. Who made it okay to characterize the whole by the few?

On the left, you see the entire Democratic party being painted with the colors of the progressive wing of the party. For myself, and I am guessing others, the democratic party is the party of the workers and civil rights. In the same way that many Republicans might want Trump out of their party, many Democrats would like to see the Green Party coalition back in the Green Party. I am alarmed by one-issue voters. For example, people who talk about environmental issues as if it is the only issue that matters. How do they not get that when you don't know how you are going to feed your family, you don't give a flying fuck about the climate? In the movie The Graduate, when the partygoer issued the famous line to Benjamin: Plastics; had Dustin Hoffman replied: But, sir, that's bad for our environment, the movie would have ended there.

And now, for the religion side of this coin, because in for a penny, in for a pound. First, from only my own viewpoint and experience, I feel it is important to have a relationship with God. And from that same place, I believe it is wrong to be judgmental about whatever faith leads a person to God, or about the lack of faith in a good, secular person who manages without belief. Faith is personal, as is the lack thereof, and every single being on this planet has a right to their own belief. Where I see religion getting into trouble is when they tout that they are the only true faith. Worshiping, or following the teachings of a beneficent being or higher power, makes you a person of faith. We find God first in faith, not in exclusiveness.

We know that religious extremisism is scary. We know that in some fundamentalist and orthodox sects, women are secondary to men. We know this, because men wrote it. My friend and blog namesake often said that she didn't follow that which was decided by the men who came after Jesus. She was a wise woman; the only true Christian I have known, in that she treated all people with kindness, charity, and without judgement, for her, this was according to the teachings of Christ. I think some "Christians" have forgotten that Jesus was someone who spent time with the poor and those cast out, including women, and treated them respectfully. It was later, when the misogynistic (and homophobic) men wrote things up, that women got short shrift in the dogma. If you need a playbook for your faith, you can always find one. But my belief is that faith is fundamentally a connection to God; not a blind following of someone else's program. My faith is with God. Religion is just a road; a conduit for that important relationship. The Bible is a good book. It's The Good Book. But it should be taken in context.

I have respect for any faith which treats all people respectfully and kindly. For what kind of a Christian hates Buddhists? What kind of a Christian hates Moslems? Christ taught goodness towards each other. And from what I know about other faiths, many teach the same. It's just when you get out to the fringes that the trouble starts. There's no hate in the middle, nor only one right way to be with God. If you belong to a denomination or sect that tells you there is, then you are pretty much in a cult. True faith accepts ecumenicalism. In fact, it reaches towards ecumenicalism. It's the my way or the highway that gets things sticky. The highway should be the high road. That is what we should be taking in how we treat each other as humans regardless of gender, sexual preference, race, ethnicity, political party, or religion. Until we get to that point, there is no we. Only you and them. And then faith, like American politics, follows the example of sports radicals. You're either supporting my team or you are my enemy. And look where that's gotten us. We can be better. God help us.

A friend once remarked that she thought the Millennials jumping so fervently into causes was as a result of not being raised in a practicing faith. I heard David Brooks say something similar, back in the day when he was a guest on Charlie Rose:

The kids want to be part of a moral crusade; they want to have morally meaningful lives, but they are growing up in a meritocracy that treats them only as instruments, as human capital, to get a job. And they've not been given any moral categories or moral instructions. So if you create intense anxieties about the world, loss of faith in liberalism, and no moral education, what you end up with are sort of 'spasms' and a sort of an absolutist moral panic.

I realize that many of the environagelists, people who are the most fervent, indeed the most fundamentalist about the environmental and animal rights movements, have not been raised within the structure of practicing faith. And many of these come at their beliefs in these movements as radically as any Bible-thumping Christian or extremist Moslem. If you are not in their movement, and I mean in it to the hilt, you are a heathen. Truly, life without religion can be meaningful. But life without meaning is lifeless. And while it is all around us, we see that searching for meaning particularly fervent in millenials.

I am a believer in many things, including the teachings of Christ. So I don't want be told that I am not Christian because I am not a certain kind of Christian. And, I don't want to be told that I am not doing anything for the environment because I use plastic straws, or for animal rights because I don't use vegan cosmetics. I believe that the environment is an important issue, just not the desperately singular issue that some are presenting it as. And those who vehemently push that it is should know that they are creating an equal and opposite reaction in me and probably many others. Hence my continued use of plastic straws. Further, these environangelists should recognize that those of us who did not bring any resource-depleting progeny into the world are way out ahead of them. I wonder why these environangelists didn't feel the environment was important enough to practice zero population growth. While saving the planet did not factor into my decision to live a childfree life, it does mean that I have a greatly smaller carbon footprint than even the most conscientious whole foods family. We have all made choices in life, and should not be prosylatized by anyone's evangelicalism whether it be religious or political.

I am fine-tuning this post on November 3rd without a clear idea of how the election will be decided. The tribalism has become astoundingly entrenched. So, what can I do about my dislike of that? I can try harder to treat those in my circle with kindness and acceptance: My family of friends; my neighbors; my community. When all is said and done, that is who we have. I can hold them in my heart, while bearing in mind that we are all entitled to feel and to believe differently from each other. I am on my own square on life's chessboard. You are welcome to share my square or occupy the square next to me. But you are not entitled to drag me onto your square. Right now, as much as possible, I will strive to stay open and centered. And today, on election day, I will continue to pray: Protect me from all anxiety as I wait for joyful hope. And, readers, be my guest to take that in any way that works for you. Thank you for reading my blog. Ever play the game Left-Right-Center? Very fun, though plastic is involved.

Remembrance of Alohas Past

Los Angeles, California

Ten years ago, I was at The Kona Village Resort, waking up in Lava Samoan 8, a hale (Hawaiian for house, in this case more of a cottage) set on a promontory of lava with the ocean lapping on two sides. I wrote about this hale in a much earlier post entitled: Albert Finney Slept in my Bed. We had discovered LS8 by accident, after having stayed on the other side of the Village for a lot of years. But one year we had a bit of a 'Charlie' problem, which was the cute name the staff used for ratatouilles on the roof. And 'ratatouilles' is the cute name I'm going to use for things that you just don't want to see around your home or resort home. Look, it's Hawaii. And there are wildlife in Hawaii: Geckos, rodents, mongooses. The mongooses were brought it to deal with the rodents, but no one did the research and it turns out one is nocturnal and the other not. So that put a bit of a kibosh on the natural control. Now there is a mongoose problem, which anyone who travels from Pa'ia to Hana can clearly see from the roadkill.

We went to The Kona Village Resort in late October, beginning in 1998. And starting in 2000, we went every year through 2010. We had first stayed at the resort in the mid-'80s and early '90s, about a half-dozen times. But by 2000, there were no questions about where we would spend my birthday and Halloween. And that had a lot to do with Sandra. It is now ten years since Sandra and I shared our time, with John and Tom, at the Village. In May of 2011, the Village was taken out by the tsunami after the earthquake in Japan. It has been closed ever since though reconstruction is in process. It won't be the same for a lot of reasons. But the largest, for me, is that it can't ever be the same without Sandra. And without Tom.

I have so many memories of the time spent together, and with all the other couples we met during that decade. I think I had a sense while enjoying it, that it was as special of a time as I might ever experience. I have loved Hawaii since my family traveled there on the Matson Lines' Lurline, with my grandparents, when I was just five years old. I spent two summers there, the first when I was fourteen, and second when I was seventeen and recently graduated from high school. Tom and I spent our honeymoon there, at The Royal Hawaiian on Waikiki, and the Sheraton Maui at Ka'anapali. We traveled at least one more time to Maui before we decided it was way too Newport Beach for us, and we hightailed it to Kona. Our friends, Karen and Greg, had gotten married at the Village, and another woman I knew insisted that we should stay there. So, we changed our May vacation plans to stay at The Mauna Kea, and headed instead to The Kona Village Resort. It was magic from the get-go. But we took some years off to travel to other places, returning to the Village in October instead of May, in 1998. And it was at there we met Sandra and John.

I have written so much about Sandra. You can read about her at the top of this page. But, here, I want to write about how much I miss her. How much I miss her voice, and her laugher. How much I appreciated her goodness and optimism. How much fun we always had together, some of it bordering on getting into harmless trouble. We loved to say "It's our Village" while we were there. And, we did sometimes act like it. But we got along well with staff, and October was an extremely slow time at the Village, so we didn't bother other guests. At least, mostly. Sometimes the guest count dropped to sixty while were were there. We usually knew about a third of the guests, at least to say hello at lunch. And with a number of them, we sometimes took over The Bora Bora Bar.

There was a feeling that went along with vacationing at The Village. Sometimes it felt like being at camp, only without the yucky mountain dust and pines. Here there was sand and ocean, trade breezes and swaying palm trees. There was a feeling that went along with every experience, from walking in the morning quiet down the decomposed granite path to breakfast; to meeting up with John and Sandra at lunchtime at the tiny palapa-roofed Talk Story Bar; our seats at the six-stool bar saved for us by Chad or another of the bartenders we knew. We would arrive at lunch individually, but wait until the four of us were together to eat.

Evenings began just before sunset at The Bora Bora. We were freshly showered and ready for martinis, and for more conversation and laughter. More than ready to enjoy friendship, that felt like family (but in a good way). Each day repeated and was the same and different. From The Bora Bora Bar we watched for the elusive green flash as the sun hit the ocean horizon at sunset. I never saw it.

Sandra told me that once when they were at the Kona Village without us (they returned to The Village in winter and early summer, as well as October each year), a man came to the bar carrying an urn. He set the urn on the chair alongside him, and ordered two martinis. He told Sandra that he was taking his wife's ashes out to sea the following morning. We both nodded at the end of that story. We got it. It would not have been a bad end to one's story. But The Village was an end to its own story after the 2011 tsunami.

I have never known anyone quite like Sandra. And becoming close friends with her, despite her living six hours away in Sacramento, was the greatest gift in my life. When I would be getting ready for the trip, stressed about providing care for my mom while we were away, or about other home and/or business issues, Tom would say to me: Don't worry. You'll be with Sandra soon. And then you'll be alright. Did he recognize that I couldn't provide solace from the stress for myself back then? That he couldn't provide it? Of course, vacations, and The Village itself provided a real respite. But Tom was right. Being with Sandra made everything right.

I celebrated my annual fiftieth birthday there for quite a few years. The last one was ten years ago, and maybe that is why The Village and Sandra are so much on my mind at this time. Friends may come and go. But friendship with Sandra is eternal. Even though she has been gone for almost seven years, I still feel her presence. And somehow, on this late October day, in spite of all of the chaos in our world, I am happy and grateful for that. Thank you for reading my blog.

A Writer's Thoughts

Los Angeles, California

Cathy and I facetimed for three hours on a recent Sunday. It had been over seven months since I had last done pilates in her studio, back in late February. A world ago. That is the longest I have gone without Cathy's presence since I first met her sometime around 2001. She was teaching a pilates mat class at a local studio which later morphed into a circuit training/pilates class which I took twice a week. I also started training with her individually on the pilates reformer. I followed Cathy to four studio locations as she built her own business over the next nineteen years, while doing pilates under her guidance. During that time she went on to become a licensed practitioner of Chinese medicine, so now, in addition to her unique brand of fitness/pilates, Cathy is my acupuncturist and aromatherapy wizard. She is also my friend.

Our conversations over the years have often been in bits and pieces, except on the occasions when we can arrange lunch. Often, we talk through our sessions, with the result that Cathy has to work harder to keep us focused. This is my fault, I know. We have been through a lot together. Both of us have cried; me on multiple occasions. We have shared thousands of hugs. She is one of the kindest people I know, and that is, I think, the best trait of strength that someone can carry. I think only people who are strong can be kind.

What I didn't know about Cathy is that she is a writer. So when she recently shared some of her work with me, I was stunned. Not everyone can write. Certainly every literate person can put words together. But even well-educated people often don't write well. After college, after dropping out of the graduate program I had barely begun, I took a staff position at the university I had attended. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I quickly learned it wasn't that. So, during that time, I started a business called Typing, Etc. offering typing and editing to students and professors. I typed term papers, masters theses, and textbooks on my IBM 'electronic' typewriter,, which was self-correcting and had a bit of memory storage. I should not have been surprised, having gotten my own secondary school education in the Los Angeles Unified School District, that many college students at this Los Angeles-located university, and in particular business students, could not write. LAUSD moved you forward whether you had learned or not. It had been a shock to transfer into that district after having experienced exemplary teaching and true attention to learning in the Burbank School District. Many of these students whose papers I typed had no concept of syntax; their vocabulary was stunted, and they evidently lacked the capability to look up words to correct spelling. Don't get me started on there and their, or choose and chose. I'm not being lofty, here. I am not a good speller. In fact, I once humiliated myself at an elementary school spelling bee by attempting to spell the word CERTAIN starting with the letter S. But at an early age, I learned to use a dictionary, as well as a thesaurus. Later, in my typing business, I relied upon books which list words showing only their spelling and breaking of syllables (all this, despite any evidence to the contrary here in my blogland).

I knew from all of our conversations, that Cathy is intelligent and talented.  But with all of the interests we spoke about, I don't recall literature or writing coming up. So I was completely thrown off my wheels when I read a portion of the work she was writing. It was stellarly good. I started it one night in bed instead of whatever novel I was currently reading. I stayed up until way after midnight, finishing all of it. I was moved to tears at times by her ability to put you right into the emotional bubble of whatever event she was recreating. And... I got excited. Almost eighteen months ago, I put my memoir aside after finishing a third of it. She got me thinking about it again.

So, on that Sunday, we talked about what she had created, going through the pages as we talked. And in between the pages, we talked about other things. Things that are happening right now in our country. And about our lives, both past and present. And, again, I came away with thoughts about my own work and what writing means to me.

I have always written in some form. In elementary school, my poems were chosen for the bulletin board. I wrote my first play in sixth grade, and it was performed at the end of the year assembly. I wrote short stories all through junior high and began to keep a journal the summer before high school. I wrote my first, unfinished novel in my first semester of college, and have finished two subsequent novels. But I have never thought of myself as a writer. I used to tell people in our salsa group that I was a writer. But that was mostly because it was shorter and easier than explaining myself as a business owner of a retail, outdoor furnishings business. Especially when loud music was playing. And, of course, the business did necessitate a lot of writing, though mostly in the form of doing business.

I am a writer. Because I write. And for the first time, I have two writers in my life, and we are all working on similar projects. I feel infused with their energy and am thinking about where I go with my writing from here. I have spent seven months through this pandemic, writing while bitching and complaining about this odd, stunted time; writing it in my journal, and here on this rebooted blog. I want to write more. And with the two writers in my life, and the conversations we have had, I feel a connection to writing that feels empowering. And, part of that is within the thoughts that maybe my writing can actually help someone. Maybe there can be a quality of greater good, instead of what I feel is the low-grade fever of past slights and irritating character issues that I have pinned here. Granted, these are difficult times and a lot of stuff at the bottom of the cauldron has swirled up to the surface. But my conversation with Cathy has caused me to think: What purpose does it serve to skewer an ex-friend for her stinginess on a long-ago trip, other than for a reader to maybe think Oh yeah. I have known those people too? I rationalize that I am imparting a potential thought bubble that says: This is our time to regroup. To not be cheap with our friends and with ourselves in future, non-Covid times. And I suppose that is partly my purpose. But, in another way, remembering what should have been a wonderful weekend getaway with friends, which turned into a bad experience because of one member of the group's dogmatic penuriousness, still makes me angry. And a blogpost is a convenient place for me to offload that anger.

I keep a journal. And, believe me, I offload a lot more into that than I do here in my blogland. But, maybe I can better differentiate in the future. I'm not saying that I shouldn't write from a place of anger, frustration, and despair, anymore than I would want to exclude happiness, contentment, and joy. I believe in trying to live within the full spectrum of emotion (all the rooms in the house). What I am saying is that my recent conversations with these two writers have created the thought that I should set my writing bar higher (at least by an inch or so...).

This post started out to be something completely different, and that is one of the things I love about writing. The writing itself took me down a different lane, to a different place altogether. And, as I was writing, awash in the curiosity of where I was going with all of this, I was able to escape from the reality of both pandemic and election stress, for a time. I hope that you, reader, have something in your life that provides this for you. And, that is the near-Halloween interwoven web of thought, creativity, and, if you will, humanity, making up the ponderings of this writer's mind on this late autumn morning. Thank  you  for  reading  my  blog.    GO DODGERS... on a wing and a Hail Mary! 

Enjoy the Chivas

Waikiki, California (I don't know why I wrote that. I just felt like it. 😎)

I'm not doing much shopping at this time. I go to the market twice a week, where I am now spending a lot more there than in the pre-Covid past. My market, part of a small chain, recently started a rewards program. Last week I was told that I had gotten $20 off my $100 order due to accumulated rewards. Huh! And I haven't even been buying much wine. Yet.

Like most of us, I have indulged in online-purchasing a few pieces to build a pandemic wardrobe. It was sweats and sweaters through the winter; cotton jersey and tanks through the summer. Don't get me wrong. I dress up to go to the market twice a week. I know the employees there, and don't want to go ugly, the way I go around my house. But, more than that, I don't want to get out of the habit, or completely lose my ability to spruce up. So, I match my mask to my outfit, I do my hair and put on eye makeup. Good to go.

But every now and then a dress catches my eye. I'm shopping on Johnny Was or Anthroplogie (both have great masks, by the way) and I see something that I could wear to salsa. And I get a momentary, internal glow that comes from imagining myself in that outfit at that event, moving across the floor with Joel turning me and my dress flowing about me like Ginger Rodgers. A similar thing happens to me when I read recipes. I can visualize making that dish for that smart dinner party that I am not having and haven't been having for a long time, even before the pandemic. I pass on the dress, but I do clip or save the recipe. It costs me nothing to daydream, and you never know...

I bought new dance shoes just before this mess broke. If you watch any of those ridiculous dance-contest, reality shows on TV, you would think that all salsa shoes (called Latin Ballroom) are sexy. They can be. The shoes I wear are kind to my feet, not terribly high-heeled, and come in tan and black. I have them in both colors. They are made by Bloch, a company that makes ballet, pointe, and other dance shoes. They are comfortable when broken in, suede-soled for smooth turns, and not terribly stylish. So I pay more attention to dresses, though I generally alternate between wearing pants and dresses. Sometimes I dance in jeans. The unwritten rule is that we dress up on live band nights. So, when do you think there will be a live band again in an LA salsa club? My salsero friends agree that salsa clubs will probably be the last thing to return. So, I can keep fantasy shopping, but will continue sending my shopping money to Joe Biden instead of to Johnny Was.

I also don't have the upkept hairstyle that I used to have. Most of my friends have returned to salons, but I doubt I will until the salsa clubs open. I've been able to cut my own hair, as it's long which makes it easier, and I have even learned to apply highlights. It's not perfect. It's pandemic.

After my dad passed away, my mom often said that I had given her some advice that she had taken to heart. I had told her not to worry about what she spent. She would sometimes comment that blueberries or artichokes were so expensive. I told her that if she wanted them, she should buy them. She and my dad dined out a lot. They traveled domestically and internationally as if the police were after them. Most of that was going to be curtailed, so why shouldn't she indulge in blueberries and artichokes or even lobster, if it was what she wanted? I feel the same way about this pandemic. Take whatever oxygen is provided, because anything, anything that can bring us any joy right now is worth it. This is the time for the best single-malt scotch -- that one bottle of The Macallan that you thought you should never buy at that insanely exorbitant price. Go for it.

Once, after I was grown up and married, I was visiting with my parents and helping my mom put away folded laundry. I noticed a bottle of Chivas Regal in my dad's underwear drawer. Now, I could have understood this, back in the day when my high school friends and I would steal alcohol from our parents and replace what was taken with water. We were so stupid. It didn't occur to us that this was probably a better plan with gin or vodka. My dad drank J&B scotch, and he actually rather nicely asked me to stop watering it down. But those days were long gone. I was beyond legal, and we were drinking from our own bar, and martinis, not scotch. Plus, the bottle was unopened. I asked my mom about it. Oh you know your dad. He's saving it. My dad was probably around 70 at the time. I said to my mom, Tell Dad that if he dies, the first thing we're going to do is drink that scotch. My mom laughed, but later told me that she did tell my dad. And shortly after, he began to enjoy the Chivas.

We've all known and have said that life is short. But have we lived like that? I had never flown alone, and it was this gynormous wall that I needed to figure out how to get over, because there was no going around it. So, on Christmas Day 2018, I boarded a flight on my own, without a traveling companion. When I came down the escalator in the airport in San Jose, California and saw Lynnette wearing a Santa Claus hat while standing with her husband, Jim, and waving at me, I had the  euphoric sense of having ascended Everest. Then, on my 6th 'solo' flight this past March, I almost died (yes, I will continue to refer to that experience in bold italics). We are dicing with death everytime we leave the house these days. Hence the masks. I don't drink Chivas, but I would hate to think of someone getting into my single-malts because I didn't time the drinking of them to run out before I run out. Or because I stupidly ignored Covid warnings, causing me to leave this world and my fully-stocked bar as a result.

So, maybe a pandemic can bring this life lesson. I keep trying to locate silver linings in all of this, and there are some. Surely not enough to make up for all the deprivation and all we will continue to go through but, still, there are some. And one of those is the realization that whatever we've been waiting to do, whether it's buying those sexy, sky-high Manolos, taking that QM2 crossing, or just enjoying the Chivas; it is time to get on it. Or, in the case of that transatlantic voyage, at least the planning of it. It's not just that life is short. It's that life is unpredictable. So, what better way to cope with it all than to indulge in whatever our hearts currently desire. We might as well, right? Can't dance (at least not for awhile...). Thank you for reading my blog. A scotch toast to you, Tommy 💛 (that's my dad)!

Living on a Prayer

 Los Angeles, California

When Eddie Van Halen passed away last week, I checked my iTunes to see if I had any Van Halen music in my library. I liked Van Halen, but as it turns out, not enough to have downloaded anything by the group. Had I, it probably would have been the song Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love which evokes a lot of memories from that era. I do however have some of Van Halen's licks in my iTunes library, as he did the guitar solo on Michael Jackson's Beat It, which is part of a collection of music that I use when working out.

Tom understood that when a famous actor died, our next trip to Blockbuster Video would be to rent one of their movies. It was my own sort of Turner Classic Moviesque tribute to watch a favorite film by one of the movie greats just after they had left us. That was back in the day of losing the likes of James Stewart and Katharine Hepburn, although we also did this after the demise of lesser constellations. So, did I want to listen to Van Halen yesterday or today? Not so much. I already have a constant ear worm going with Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer.

It's my own fault. It's another song in one of my workout playlists, songs chosen for their meter which makes them particularly good for warm-up/cool-down, aerobics or weight/abs/ legwork. Amidst a lot of songs, this lyric got into my head:

We've gotta hold on ready or not

You live for the fight when it's all that you've got.

Whoa, we're halfway there

Whoa, livin' on a prayer

Take my hand, we'll make it I swear

Whoa, livin' on a prayer

So, I realize it's not great poetry. And if you're not a woman of a certain age, you might not even know that Jon Bon Jovi was about the most gorgeous guy to ever grace rock and roll. But, that's just an aside. My ear worm is we're halfway there. And of course, aren't we all living on prayers? And hopes and wishes, and so much more than most of us were a year ago?

I see all the pumpkins and Halloween paraphernalia at my local market and at the pumpkin patch I drive past, and one-half of my brain registers that this is normal for this time of year. The other half is where the rumination and anger and ear worms reside. There is a plexiglass partition between them.

I drove to my local market last week on a sparkly, autumn day. If you live anywhere in the US besides California and Hawaii, you would probably laugh at reading this about LA. We do have some trees that change color, but for me, autumn is marked by a changing of sunlight. And a certain crispness in how things look and feel. It's subtle. I'll give you that. But as we barrel through MLB playoffs towards the World Series, and the election shortly after, I am daily aware that it is October, and changes are coming. And I am living on a prayer that they will be good changes, and that maybe, pandemic-wise, we might even be better than halfway there.

Lately, I have been watching the series Felicity, which is a college drama from the late '90s and early '00s, which is set in New York. It is well-written, and is a great escape for me, both because of where it takes place as well as when I first watched it. I had traveled to New York in the summers of 1998, 2001, and 2004, and the changes both in the city and in travel between 2001 and 2004 were clear. Life simply altered after 9/11. There was no going back. I have read that what we are going through now will be the defining time of our lives, much as the depression was for my grandparents and the war was for my parents.

My parents eloped on their third date, and my father shipped out with the Navy a month later. They didn't see each other for twenty-eight months, and since they hadn't known each other for long, my mother said she would forget what my dad looked like, and would often have to frantically pull his photo out of her handbag to remind her. As she told it, this would happen while she was riding the streetcar on her way to work. Once reunited, did they take that experience of fear and separation with them throughout their marriage? What will we take with us from this time when we can finally move forward? How hard will it be to adjust to life after Covid? We hope it will be a snap back to what we knew, but will it? And what about life after Trump, whether that comes from this election or later? When he is gone, what will happen to that base with their hatred, vitriol, and the absurdity of comspiracies and "alternative" facts? Will there be a political new normal that is calmer, bipartisan, and, most importantly, honestly factual?

So for now, living on a prayer, living on a multitude of prayers, is not a bad way to live. And I could certainly have worse earworms, like those awful advertising jingles. No, I think I'll keep my worm: Halfway there... We will make it, I swear. Thank you for reading my blog.

The Fly on his Head

Los Angeles, California 

You knew this was coming, right? I was in a three-way text with my friends Todd and Curt, while watching the Vice-Presidential Debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence, when the fly landed on Pence's head. My head craned forward. What was that? It wasn't moving, but it clearly was an insect. I started to laugh. When I tried to text: There's a bug on his head, I started to laugh harder. And then it happened: That full-on laughing until you cannot stop, and you are now crying and gasping as you are laughing so hard. You finally stop, and then it starts again. The fly was still there, and I was in such a seizure of hysteria that I couldn't even key-in the words to send my text. It was a complete and total loss of control; a Mary Tyler Moore and Mr. Peanut moment.

Sometimes, when Lynnette is visiting and we are playing Ticket to Ride late into the early hours of the morning, this will happen. In Ticket to Ride, you have to plot out these routes on a map, and mistakes can be made. You find yourself charting a course to Sault St. Marie when you were supposed to be heading to Duluth. It happens as we get punchy from staying up so late. We are in that let's play one more, and then, in the middle of that game, one of us will say: Wait! Where am I going? and we will start to laugh.

We all know this kind of laughter, and how good it feels. I am not a giddy person who laughs at everything. I think my sense of humor tends to be dry, and my comedy taste runs to wit, rather than silliness. I skew Marx Brothers, definitely not the Three Stooges. A lot of comedy makes me smile, so laughing actually remains special. But the absurdity of that fly on Pence's head tipped my canoe into a depth of hilarity. I COULD NOT STOP.

When I had been married for only a few years, I traveled to Solvang with my parents to attend a Theaterfest production. It was something that we had been doing annually, each summer, but on this weekend, Tom had to work, so I went alone with my parents. At intermission, sipping a hot apple cider outside of the outdoor theater (it gets inexplicably cold there at night in the summer), my parents ran into a friend whom they knew from their church. When she approached us, my mother greeted her, and then turned to introduce me. This is my daughter, she said, Mrs. Healy. I'm sure I looked at my mom as if she had lost her mind, but I greeted and shook hands with their friend, who certainly was confused by the formality of this introduction. After she walked away, I turned to my mom and asked her what the hell was that about? My mom shook her head and said I don't know. I got confused. I just wanted her to know you were married, since you're here with us on the weekend. And all I can say about that is: Yep. That was my mom.

About ten years later, my mom, sister, and I were waiting in line to greet the ship's captain on a Caribbean cruise. My mom nervously asked us how she should tell the First Officer her name, as that was how she would be introduced to the captain. Should I just say I'm Betty? she asked us, or should she say her full name? She turned to me: What are you going to say? I quickly responded: I'm going to say I'm MRS. HEALY! And we both started to laugh. This occasionally happened with my mom and me. We once lost it at The Hollywood Bowl when the first violinist was playing Swanee River on a musical saw. I even think there is a previous post about that. But back to the cruise. We could not stop laughing, and we were nearing the captain and the photographer who would take a photo of each of us with the captain (I think we did this on the first two cruises, then finessed it on all subsequent cruises). We are now both wiping tears and trying to stop, which only made us laugh more. Again, The Death of Mr. Peanut on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. When we finally got to the captain, I was still hiccupping back the laughter, when the captain said to my mother: Are these your daughters? Mom nodded. Very nice, he smiled. I guess we made a change for him in this rote drill he did on every cruise. Besides, we weren't laughing at him. We were laughing near him.

At the fly point in the debate, I was home alone, watching with the fly on Pence's head, the phone in my hand, and heaving with laughter that I could not stop. It may just have been the best time I've had since the pandemic began, and most certainly the only truly humorous moment so far in the campaign. I so thank you Mr. Fly! With love, from Mrs. Healy. Remembering Betty💛.  And thank you for reading my blog.

My New Old Friend

Los Angeles, California

Sometimes good things happen at a time of bad things happening. Six years ago, something very bad happened in my life. And simultaneously, something very good happened to me. It was the gift of a new friendship. As anyone might gleen from many years of blogposts, my friends are important to me. In fact, I've been told that I talk more about the friends in my life than I talk about myself. Joel says by the time he began to know me a little, he knew a lot about my friends.

I had a very bad year when I lost everyone who was closest to me. And then, a friend I had counted on stepped back, and back and back, until she became invisible. I never learned why this happened, and continued to reach out to her. I reach out to her still, on her birthday and at the holidays, despite the lack of reponse. I wish good things for her. She had meant a lot to me, and I would not want to minimize that. The truth is that during a lifetime friends may come and go. Sometimes you are glad to see them go as the friendship has run its course. With others, you might find the only thing you still have in common is the friendship. That can be ok or it can be not enough to sustain. In this case, it was hard to lose the connection to her, but I simply had to accept it.

At the end of that sad year, another woman came into my life. We had known each other in a professional capacity for several decades, and had always liked each other. Without the true friendship and support she offered me when I was at my lowest... I honestly don't know how I would have gotten through it all. She left her house and her husband late one night when I was despairing, to sit with me and listen to me. And I will always, always be in grateful debt for that, and her other acts of profound kindness.

But, this post isn't about Lynnette. It's about Russell. Russell is the brother of one of my family-but-in-a-good-way friends, Karen. I have known Russell almost as long as I have known Karen, which is for many decades. But my friend, Karen, lives out of state so I don't see her as often as I would like. And Russell lives in London, so I never see him. We had emailed early this year as he was going to be in Los Angeles and we made a plan to see each other. That plan was canceled the day before his flight to Los Angeles on March 19th. We continued to email, and our correspondence has continued through all these months.

The way we have chosen or evolved to communicate with each other through this time is as individual as our fingerprints. Only twice have I seen friends during this long period of isolation. But Lynnette and I speak almost daily. I connect by phone with other friends about once a week, and these are long conversations. A few friends who I was in weeklyish contact with, now text with me more frequently. I could go on and on, but the point is that patterns have established themselves. And within one of  these patterns are found the long emails which Russell and I exchange.

Russell and I seem to agree about so many things that I recently wrote to him that only one of us really needs to be here. I am isolated from friends and Joel. Russell's husband has been out of the country for months. And so, our emails have become a touchstone for us both, and have brought me joy and some laugh-out-loud moments (which these days are as good as gold). I wrote to him Saturday and woke up yesterday morning to an email in my AOL inbox, which I enjoyed along with my morning tea in my October pumpkin mug. Not a bad way to start the day.

The pandemic, the politics, the lack of physical contact and disappearance of all of the activities in life that I have come to love -- I could go on and on about what is making me so plain damn ANGRY. You can read it in my recent posts. You can read it in my future posts. Even with my friends, who I truly value, I can find myself pissed off (I write to Russell that I am "American-pissed" to differentiate from Brit-pissed which means inebriated). I offload my anger into my blog and have some relief through that venting, but then I recognize what that is all about. I am just ANGRY and that anger attaches itself to things I have read, or heard, or remember. And I sometimes react to things that my friends have said to me. Which is crazy because they're stressed too and I should understand that. In better times, I am the person who believes that everyone has a right to feel what they feel. So why are these comments or opinions throwing me into this ragespin? One of the tools in my toolbox is for understanding and having compassion for what is different from me. All of the differences: Political, ethnic, religious. So, why is this so hard for me right now during this pandemic time?

Russell is also angry, but what makes me laugh out loud about this is his declaration that people can just fuck right off. Or, as we now both write: FRO. When he first wrote this in his email, I responded that I like that. Americans are so economical, I wrote. We just say it in two words. And I like the urgency. Don't just fuck off. But fuck right off. Like now! Hey, he's on the other side of the pond, yet I tell him that he is clearly American-pissed. So maybe there is an underlying epidemic, during this pandemic, which is plain and simple railing, shaking-your-fist at the sky RAGE. But at times I do wonder if it is just me feeling this unwelcome anger.

I don't have this anger issue with Russell. We debate a bit about American politics. I know so little of British politics that I can't weigh in on that. We dish about food, travel, misbehaving children and parents, friends who disappoint us, and giraffes. He just wrote to me about a giraffe, and I decided to throw that in just for the fun of it.

We sent each other a list of the things we hate. Mine was long. We agreed on our love of staying in luxury hotels and traveling business class on planes. I wrote him that: I get a benefit from applying the proceeds of my frugality to pay for a luxury. He wrote back that he was keeping my sentence. Russell skips daily coffee from Starbuck's because of the annual cost tabulated. I calculate monthly charges for apps, cable tiers, and upgrading my phone, by what it will cost me over ten years. If I'm willing to spend that decade amount, I'm in.

When I was young, we spent summers with my mom's cousins in Reno, and my dad's cousins who lived in the boonies in northern California in a place called Forestville. I loved my fun cousins and all there was to do in Reno. Forestville and those cousins offered up nothing. I was so miserable there where it was dusty and there was no real city with anything to do. I didn't have the language at the time, but I now realize that we had nothing in common with those cousins who were soundly provincial. When my parents would tell them that we were going into San Francisco for the day, they would reply: What for? Thankfully, they must have finally gotten too provincial for my parents, as we stopped staying with them, although we continued to travel to Reno and to San Francisco many summers where we would often shop for our back-to-school clothes at the stores on Union Square.

By the time I was a teenager, we were staying in some pretty nice hotels and resorts. My mom would say that we stayed for free in Reno, so she applied those savings to lush resorts where we vacationed in the Caribbean, or the fine hotels where we stayed in Athens, Amsterdam, and London. I took Mom's cost-averaging rationale with me into adulthood, along with my own philosophy that the only two things worth going into debt over were education and travel. My parents had paid for college, so I had no education expenses. What Tom and I spent at our weekly stay at the Kona Village Resort each October could have afforded us two months at Best Westerns. But, uh-uh. No.

A few years ago I traveled to another city with some friends to see the Dodgers play  a team at that city's home stadium. You learn a lot about friends and family when you travel with them, and usually that is good stuff. This time, not so much. I was surprised by one of the women who had many times previously traveled to and spent time with me in Carmel, where I rented a house for the month of January for about a decade. On this trip she balked at the cost of the mid-range boutique hotel we had booked, and on the second day, directed us to eat breakfast at an inexpensive cafeteria-style restaurant which was part of a pedestrian chain. I went along without complaint. There was a horrific heatwave that weekend, so after the game I suggested we grab a ride back to the hotel from the stadium. After a brief discussion, she threw up a definitive roadblock of an excuse for not wanting to do that. As we walked for over a mile, dripping with perspiration, I realized she was not willing to pay her third of the ride, nor let us pay for her share. That was the proverbial three-strikes straw. I cannot travel with people like that. How much more money did she spend by staying one night in a boutique hotel close to the stadium, instead of a Quality Inn on the outskirts of town? Maybe $100 or at tops $150? What would it have cost her to eat breakfast in the much-nicer hotel dining room, and to split the cost of a mile-long lyft ride? Maybe $25? I always wonder with people like that, where is that $125 now that was saved? Did it change her life? And I understand that paying the extra amount would make a huge difference in the lives of many people. But I knew enough about her to know that this was about financial anorexia, and at the expense of fellow travelers. I had never noticed this about her during her many visits to Carmel, where, like those family trips we took to Reno, she stayed for free. But I probably should have.

So, Russell and I are both checked out on travel and could probably travel well together. We share a desire to do the QM2 crossing some day. And we are discovering a twinship in some areas that I'm not sure we were aware of back in the days when we first met. We both have a memory/date thing though it manifests differently in each of us. And it has been comforting to have this email dialog going through this difficult time. It is one of the good things that have come out of this very bad time.

It's hard to be in month seven of this. Hell, it was hard to be in month one through six. And I am not going through this swimmingly. Read above regarding ANGER/RAGE. But when I try very hard, I can focus on what joy has come my way through new friends; the important reconnections with old friends, and the constancy of Lynnette and Joel, and my friend, Larry who texts me every evening without fail. I have a fervent hope that we all survive the remaining time until we have freedom to be together again. Then I can let my anger abate, stop the circles of rumination, and start catching up on all the hugs, and in-person conversations with friends, which I have missed so much. Lynnette will come visit. Joel and I will dance again. All that and more. I cannot wait. Thank you for reading my blog.