No-Where-istan is getting crowded

Posted on September 25, 2009 by 40andover

A friend emailed that she wants a senior position in government AND the townhouse must be in Tribeca. Then again, she thought, the townhouse wasn’t a good idea because there is no staff to help if there is a leak or something. Ok, so she is sensible, but . . . . .

I need to tell you more about this sensible friend. We saw her last evening at a function and she was wearing Jimmy Choo, insanely high-heeled shoes. She is not a short woman and already has a presence about her without being 5 inches higher as a result of lovely but insane shoes. (By the way, back-breaking shoes are NOT allowed in No-Where-istan.)

Of COURSE, it was an I-am-40-and-over-and-I-needed-these-shoes crisis. For those of you not yet in your 40s, don’t think that we are exaggerating the phenomenon. Save up just for your impulse buys for the 40s decade. Trust me. Or ask a female financial planner. Really.

On the plus side, our friend’s calves looked fabulous (for the real confirmation, she couldn’t ask straight women, so she made sure she asked POB (partner of blogger) and me about how hot her calves looked).

But she is not going to be senior health advisor (high heels knocked her out of the running) and we don’t have health care in No-Where-istan anyway.

But, we will have a senior official with killer calves.

She’ll have to take off the shoes when trying to enter the country that is still in my head.

107 year old woman is looking for husband no. 23!!!!

Posted on September 15, 2009 by 40andover

107 year old woman is looking for husband no. 23!!!! (Even Liz Taylor can’t beat that.)

It is so odd on so many levels. The math suggests an analogy to buying a new car every few years (a new riff on the cash for clunkers campaign) or changing husbands every time your car gets an oil change (no lubes, please). Her current husband is 70 YEARS younger. No visual, please. AND, he is a drug addict. But that only adds a seamy aspect to this otherwise perfectly rational story. She thinks he is going to leave her for someone he met in rehab. Isn’t that always the way it is, huh, Britney and Lindsay? (I am guessing here, because I don’t keep up with either of these “stars”.)

What happened to the other husbands? Hmmmm. Would she be eligible for health care coverage under the Obama plan if she didn’t live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia?

The truth is the best fiction.

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

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – A 107-year-old Malaysian woman says she is ready to marry for the 23rd time because she fears her current drug addict husband might leave her for a younger woman, a report said Monday.

Wook Kundormade headlines four years ago when she married Muhammad Noor Che Musa, a man 70 years her junior in northern Terengganu state, with pictures of the couple’s wedding splashed across regional newspapers.

But Wook is now looking for new love as she fears that Muhammad, 37, who is undergoing voluntary drug rehabilitation treatmentin the capital Kuala Lumpur, will leave her once the programme ends, she told the Star newspaper.

“Lately, there is this kind of insecurity in me,” the paper quoted her as saying, showing a photograph of the smiling, wrinkled-faced centenarian wearing a Muslim headscarf.

“I realise that I am an aged woman. I don’t have the body nor am I a young woman who can attract anyone.”

“My intention to remarry is to fill my forlornness and nothing more than that,” she said, adding that she felt lonely without her husband by her side to celebrate the coming Muslim festival of Eidal-Fitr next week.

Wook said she planned to visit Muhammad on the second day of Eid if her neighbours were willing to drive her to the capital.

Muhammad, who was a lodger in Wook’s house, had previously said it was “God’s will” that the couple fell in love.

Visiting Mom

Posted on September 7, 2009 by 40andover

So I let my son wake me earlier than usual on a weekend [dulcet tones of “wake up, WAKE UP, Mom, there are CARTOOOOONS on!!”] because I need to pick up my sister and father to go to visit Mom at the cemetery. My son didn’t want to come because he says cemeteries are creepy and make him think of ghosts and skeletons. I get that. Cemeteries are creepy, I tell him, but I have to visit Grandma’s grave. He says he will visit us but he is not ready yet. We are not ready to be visited there for a really long time, I tell him. He nods and then asks to turn on cartoons. Good, I think, death and destruction before the pilgrimage to the cemetery.

Lots of people are buried in Queens and on Long Island. Very convenient if you need to pop in on two funerals on different sides of the family on the same day. We had to do that once. Very convenient, indeed.

I pick up my sister who is limping badly, even with a cane. Her husband who is NOT coming with us (he hasn’t met Mom yet) is feeling sheepish but he needs to focus on a painting. He is trying not to look like a heel by carrying my sister’s stuff to the car. He even offers to carry her cane. Ok, he IS funny.

We drive to Dad’s and set off to Long Island. Once, when I mentioned that Grandma is in Heaven, my son asked, “Heaven is on Long Island?” [ To some, yes, I guess, Heaven is on Long Island.] I stammered that her body is there but her spirit is somewhere else. Then I called for my partner because I was WAY out of my element. Kids are smarter than adults. But I digress.

Dad gives me helpful driving hints like, “is there a reason you are driving behind the slow car?” and “go straight. no, make a left. I said make a left!” and “well, I guess I told you to get off at the wrong exit.” It is really ok. My dad is going to be 89 in October, and he is in terrific shape (spit in the evil eye, a Jewish superstition).

We arrive and get a little lost in the cemetery. So many dead people. But we find Mom and our other relatives. Luckily, they haven’t moved. We three say a few prayers for all of the family members, leave stones on the graves and reminisce about Mom. My sister brings pictures of Mom through the years. It is good to have the gravestone as a focus of our thoughts. About 45 minutes into our visit, a couple stops and visits another grave nearby. After they finish their drive-by visit, the woman comes over to us to say, “we come all the time and never see anyone else here.” Gee, thanks. Very thoughtful of you to say and I don’t really notice all your ugly plastic surgery.

My sister needs to take pictures to document the occasion. No joke, these go into our family photo albums. I wish she had taken a picture of the woman with the bad face lift.

You’re young one day, then Mom stares back from the mirror

Posted on September 3, 2009 by 40andover

Dear Mom:

You weren’t a fan of summer, especially the humidity. And some of your summer outfits were — how does one say — sartorial tragedies.

The summer is over. You loved the fall for the crispness in the air and that back-to-school sense of starting anew. You also loved the springtime for the promise of warmer days and rebirth and renewal.

So, this time of year (who am I kidding, every day) I think about you especially.

I looked in the mirror and saw your eyes staring back at me. More particularly, I saw the extra skin in my eyelids. I remember that you were adamant about not having that extra skin removed. Remind me again, why?

I have started to moisturize. I know you gave us such good skin, but I think I have taken enough advantage. You always had beautiful skin on your face, but your neck — well, it is looking like I may need to go back to turtle necks or scarves like Candace Bergen in Murphy Brown.

All kidding aside, you were beautiful throughout your life (maybe the 70s wasn’t your best decade). I am grateful for all of you that is in me.

Love, me

Random Thoughts

Posted on August 31, 2009 by 40andover

I realized that I was talking to someone on her cell while she was in the office bathroom. I heard people talking and flushing. I need to sterilize my ear.

I am for universal health care coverage, but I will not pay for hearing aids or ocular implants for people who blast music in their ears. Especially on my subway car.

I saw a man standing just outside the employees entrance at a funeral home looking at the traffic going by. Was he waiting for something to happen?

My partner promised to handle a matter but left my cell phone number. Lesbian merger or dumping it back into my court?

How nice do I really have to be?

Would I get away with driving a person off a bridge if I promise to devote my life to public service (even though that wasn’t the quid pro quo for Teddy)?

If a bald, portly nerdy guy doesn’t see that he is lucky to have the girlfriend he has, will a baseball bat knock sense into him?

How come men think they are way better looking and way more desirable than they really are?

If you are blasting Karla Bonoff or The Pousette Dart Band and dancing around thinking you are cool, should you be entitled to social security benefits out of pity?

Did Sarah Palin drop off the face of the earth or was that just a fantasy I had?

Does Dick Cheney sometimes crawl back into his secret bunker for old time’s sake?

Do I have to go to the gym or can I imagine just how gross it is?

Elul — A Deep Moment on Blogcation Day 3

Posted on August 25, 2009 by 40andover

When I was in Hebrew School, we were taught a song that starts, in new age, non-gender-specific translation, “Oh G-d, my G-d, I pray that these things never end: the sand and the sea, the rush of the water, the crash of the heavens and the prayers of all.”

The song is, in essence, a prayer for humanity to pray, a prayer for the basic elements, a prayer for the majesty and healing of the world.

It is the beginning of the month of Elul, which culminates in the Jewish Days of Awe, during which Jews repent and atone for sins. This leads to introspection (one hopes) about the gulf between who we are and who we want to be. That introspection is supposed to help one re-set one’s internal compass, toward righteousness and good. The annual gut-check, and if you are really not so righteous, a sucker punch to the gut (or groin).

I am not religious. Really. But tradition is important because it ties me to those generations who came here and struggled so I could have advantages, opportunities and the life I lead. I stand on their shoulders and my generation’s prosperity fueled their dreams and they stood tall with pride. Tradition also ties me to the generations that will follow mine. From generation to generation.

My grandfather renounced religion (it was the original Kumbaya Age: the Age of Socialism and communal living) and preached free love (he was ahead of his time — free love idled until the 1960s) but got married and never missed religious ritual built around the family. So Passover, Bar or Bat Mitzvahs were important, but non-family self-inflicted synagogue time? Hmmmm. Not so much.

But whether or not one is a deist, taking the time to think about life and mistakes, and things to do better, can’t be bad. The problem I have is that people can off-load responsibility on some sort of fatalistic rationalization based on the existence of G-d. Judaism doesn’t really afford that off-loading option but lots of Jews don’t seem to acknowledge that.

With all these caveats, there is something mystical about starting the month leading into the Days of Awe enjoying and marveling at the sand and the sea, the rush of the water, and the crash of the heavens (a little too much crashing, if you ask me, but rarely does anyone ask me). Maybe prayer isn’t so bad, as long as the responsibility to make the prayers come true rests with us singularly and as a human collective.

Maybe I believe in G-d, somehow, some way. The only compelling argument I heard for the existence of G-d was from an orthodox Jew with a nihilist edge (and not an insignificant case of depression). He said, “could everything be so screwed up by accident?” Can’t argue with that.

Lynette Squeaky Fromme

Posted on August 14, 2009 by 40andover

The only reason to feel sorry for this Charles Manson follower and would-be assassinator of our then President Ford, is that she is 60 years old and STILL she is called Squeaky. Is Lynette such a bad name?

Do you think she is different now? It is hard to imagine a 60 year-old Manson follower. It is like imagining your grandparents’ having sex. But not as gross. Eeewww. Eeeeewwww. I need to stop now.

Whistle-blower: Health care industry engaging in PR tactics

Posted on August 12, 2009 by 40andover

Health care companies, like all persons invested in maintaining the status quo, stoop to any thing to prevent change. The whistleblowers deserve our gratitude and thanks.

IT IS NOT ABOUT THE OUTCOME; IT IS ABOUT A FAIR AND OPEN DISCUSSION AND DECISION BY VOTE OF OUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES.

Are there too few of us who believe in the ideals of the democratic system?

From CNN, Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Wendell Potter . . . [t]he former vice president of corporate communications at insurance giant Cigna, who left his post, says the industry is playing “dirty tricks” in an effort to manipulate public opinion.

“Words matter, and the insurance industry is a master at linguistics and using the hot words, buzzwords, buzz expressions that they know will get people upset,” he told CNN Wednesday.

Now a senior fellow on health care for the watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy, Potter writes a blog on health care reform. He is focusing on efforts to defeat legislation supporting a government health care plan — something he supports.

In early July, Potter testified before the Senate Commerce Committee, telling senators that “I know from personal experience that members of Congress and the public have good reason to question the honesty and trustworthiness of the insurance industry.”

Potter described how underwriters at his former company would drive small businesses with expensive insurance claims to dump their Cigna policies. Industry executives refer to the practice as “purging,” Potter said.

“When that business comes up for renewal, the underwriters jack the rates up so much, the employer has no choice but to drop insurance,” Potter had said.

In an e-mail to CNN, Cigna spokesman Chris Curran denied the company engages in purging.

[go to CNN for more of the article]

If Mom were alive, would this be her comment?

Posted on August 12, 2009 by 40andover

I’m guessing this is what my mother (of blessed memory) would comment on my blog.

Hi, darling! [said with a thrill that only a mother could have in corresponding with her child]:

Please be careful. There are crazies out there who might be reading your blog. So, I called the Secret Service. They are so efficient; the person who answered knew exactly who I was. Technology is SO marvelous. I asked for protection for you. The agent wasn’t sure, so I called the White House and they said that I looked marvelous at the last march on the Mall. Who knew? I wasn’t feeling great that day, chemo and all, so it must have been my new wig. Thank Goodness your father was there. He takes such good care of me. When I went over to talk to anti-abortion people, they were very nasty and your father stepped in. My ovaries haven’t worked in decades, so why couldn’t they have a civil conversation on a theoretical level? Which proves my point about protection for you.

Your sister came along on the march as my physician. (Isn’t it a MUST to have a health care professional in the family? Don’t worry, I remember how you helped get me a $200 rebate so paying for law school was worth it.) Having a travelling doctor IS the new accessory for us old people. I have Dad and your sister. Let the Secret Service top that for Obama. By the way, isn’t he handsome? So smart, so funny, such a leader. If only he were Jewish and not married, he would be perfect for your sister if she weren’t already happily married to a wonderful man (I am not schlepping in Central Park to look at birds). After all of these years of keeping an eye out for eligible men, it is hard to remember to stop looking now that she is married. I forget things at my age, but I am always thrilled when I remember that she is, in fact, married.

You looked thin last week. Is there enough protein in your diet?

Well, off to chemo, then a gallery and then there’s a protest at One Police Plaza. Maybe I’ll get lucky and get arrested. I have your card in case I need a lawyer. One should get arrested for a good cause once in one’s life. But only for peaceful protests.

So, all right, Tootsie. See you for Sunday night dinner.

Love, Mom

Us, in a rear-view mirror

Posted on August 11, 2009 by 40andover

I am sitting in a restaurant and there are nine loud girls and one guy celebrating one of the girls’ birthday. Rachel is her name. They are impossibly young, loud and full of energy. They are maybe two years out of college. I am transported back 22 years when a bunch of us lived in NYC post-college and we were similarly impossibly young, loud and full of energy. Instead of being annoyed, I am comforted by this scene. In my mind’s eye, I see OUR group of friends with mid-80s hairdos (one with especially puffy hair) and outfits (shoulder pads a la the TV Show, Dynasty).

I wouldn’t trade places with them for a second. The life I imagined for me back then bears no resemblance to the actual course of my life so far and I am happy for the difference.

And their possibilities are limited only by the passage of time and that is a hard and heart-breaking lesson. If I had one thing to tell these girls it would be : freeze your eggs (assuming the technology gets better) or freeze embryos. Time waits for no one. That’s years and years away and, yet, it goes so fast.

It seems like yesterday that I was 22 or 23. I still act about 12, which still makes me more mature than my 7 year-old but barely.

Life is beautiful. It just goes so fast.

Have fun, girls, and remember what I said.

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

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