Happy Memorial Day 2010

To all who serve, have served and will serve and lose their lives protecting the rest of us.  We honor and pray for you.  God bless you.

Theme Thursday Wrinkles

Wrinkles...everybody's got 'em; it depends to what degree.  How you feel about them is a different matter.

As a child of the Fifties and Sixties, I never thought I'd grow old.  Boomers have a Peter Pan complex.  It's an ongoing challenge to advertisers as they experiment with  marketing methods appealing to our vanity and sense of entitlement.  We should look young, feel young, act young.  And that's okay...up to a point.

Our parents raised us to believe we'd have a better life than they did during their Depression-era childhoods.  For the most part, we did;  as children, anyway.  I think we had, predominantly, decent upbringings in our respective suburbs, cities and rural areas.  Schools delivered better academic results in those decades;  expectations of manners, customs, rules and religious observances were more rigid.  I won't apologize for mythologizing my youth because it was so care free.  It is, perhaps, the reason we were surprised, angry and rebellious when our ideals proved to be so much fantasy, like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz.

Viet Nam is the key turning point for the Boomer generation.  It's the first deep wrinkle in our heretofore benign lives.  The involuntary draft; friends going to Viet Nam; some not returning.  Vets returning with shattered lives, shattered limbs, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and nobody to welcome them home.  Our country recognized the 40th anniversary of the shootings at Kent State in April this year.  It is not a pleasant memory.  It's still raw.  It still resonates.

I ask myself why I feel entitlement with respect to my body and face?  After all, I did nothing to deserve them but I did spend many years working to maintain what I had by playing racquetball, tennis, jogging, etc.  It was fairly easy and I thought it would last.  But it didn't.   I hit my late forties and my body began to suffer as I, in a characteristically Boomer way said, "My body began to betray me".  I had one hip replacement, then the other.  One knee needed replacing and I stopped playing tennis.  I became depressed and angry.  I drank too much.  I bloated.  My face began to sag and get some wrinkles.  I became even more angry.  You see, I had taken it all for granted.

I see this in my peers.  We have this silly sense of entitlement to things we enjoyed so effortlessly as kids, teenagers, young adults.   We think it's supposed to last but nothing lasts, as Frost said so eloquently in his poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay."

My mother and grandmother believed in growing old gracefully.  I wasn't sure what that meant when I was younger but I have a sense of it now.  We need to like ourselves more, criticize less.  We need to feel good about getting up each day, rather like the little girl I posted on my other blog.  She has the answers and she's only four!  If you haven't see it, you should.  I have nothing against plastic surgery and, if I had a lot of money I might very well have my chin lifted.  But, that isn't going to happen so I'd better get comfortable with this face.

Will Rogers had some pithy comments on aging:

• Some  people try to turn back their odometers. Not me;  I want people to know 'why' I look this way.  I've traveled a long way, and some of the roads  weren't paved.

• You  know you are getting old when everything either  dries up or  leaks. 

• One  must wait until evening to see how splendid the  day has been.

• Being  young is beautiful, but being old is  comfortable.

Theme Thursday Pets

Rather than write about them, I'll show you my current dog pets and my recently deceased kitty, Maggie., the cat who died too young and broke my heart.  She was ten years old and passed away last December of undetermined cause.  My husband and I see her still, sleeping peacefully on our bed or slipping around a corner, just out of sight.  She was a real character and smart and fast and had a killer mentality when it came to critters.

Then, there are the dogs, Zoe and Dewey.  Zoe and Maggie came to us at the same time.  My husband the boys brought the girls home from the pound.  Zoe, at that time, was about 2 years old.  She was so cute, so sleek, so fast, we called her "Radial Zoe".  Wish I had a photo of her from that time but I do not. 

Dewey came to us via a friend.  He was about six months old, living with a biker, swam across the river to my girlfriend's property to get away.  She brought him to us and we took him in .  My younger son named him Dewey because he has big ears, like the youngest brother on "Malcolm in the Middle".  We've had Dewey about eight or nine years. 

Our dogs do everything together.  They are a pack, along with alpha dog, my husband.  They regularly hike and climb with my husband in the summer...

...and Winter.

Then, there's Aerial Dewey.  This is a real shot.  He was catching a frisbee but he looks like he's being blown backwards. 

Finally, there's fun with Photoshop. 

For more of Dewey's aerial antics, scroll to the bottom of my blog page. 

BP, the Oil Spill and Who is Really to Blame

CBS' "60 Minutes" did an interview with one of the last people on the platform to live. It aired last night. If you want to read about it, go here.  If you didn't see it, you should. This is compelling and heartbreaking and infuriating. Part I:


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Part II: Mike Williams describes his escape from the explosive platform on which he worked for 7 years;  his grief etched on his face.


Watch CBS News Videos Online


Robert Reich has been blogging about BP vs the U.S. government, the taxpayers and who is really going to pay.  He stresses the need to change the laws now before BP gets away without paying their full share. Here's his take.

None of this will make you feel better. We, the people are the only ones who can demand and deliver results from our government & elected officials. It's up to us.

My Guilty Pleasure...

...is "Dancing With the Stars".  Oh yeah.  I have to watch it even when it's pretty dull, like this season.  But, the one person who is never dull is Derek Hough.  His sister, Julianne, originally captivated me with her style and ability and her YOUTH!  I think she was only 18 when the show debuted.  But she was so accomplished and appeared, to my untrained eyes, as good as the more mature dancers.   Derek, came on board a few seasons into the show.  He is every bit as accomplished and talented as his sister, perhaps more so. 

Watching him tonight, I am struck by just how incredible he is.  The guy is 21 years old.  21.  He has the athletic ability of Gene Kelly. He has the grace of Fred Astaire.  I do not say these things lightly as I have worshipped both dancers all my life.  I love dance movies from "Top Hat" to "The Red Shoes" to "Chicago", a recent fave.   This young man is also a wonderful choreographer; probably the best on the show.  Again, he is younger than his dancing peers but his talent is mature as you will see in the dance from Monday night when he and his partner scored perfect 10s. 

Prom Night

Snaps my husband took of my favorite girl,
my best friend's daughter.  They call her Breezy.
I've been watching her grow up since she was 8.
I don't have daughters and I am especially fond
of her.  She is just the kind of daughter I would
like.  Saturday night was her senior prom and,
as you can see, she looked adorable.  Her
dress is cocktail length, one of the few.  It was
a mob scene with kids, parents, relatives and
friends.  It was literally pouring rain but nothing
could dampen these kids' spirits!  After all, it's
a day you remember the rest of your life.

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And if you don't think time passes quickly, here's a photo of her three years ago...

How things change.

Happy Mother's Day

Japonica

Today is Mother's Day. I will get up, make breakfast for my MIL and husband. At 2pm, we shall go to a lovely old 19th century hotel for a sumptuous brunch.  My older son is preparing to travel to Costa Rica. He's just finished another year in college. My younger son is away this weekend so I will not see him. It's just my husband, MIL and I.

I miss my mother. She died in 1997. She would be 95 now and I don't think that would please her. She never wanted to live that long. But I miss her terribly; her wisdom, her patience, her kindness, her acceptance. I am not as good or patient or kind as she was but she did teach me acceptance and love and, for my children, I have that in abundance.

Theme Thursday Pink

Betsy's post with a photo of a vintage pink car started me humming "Pink Cadillac" by Bruce.  I then thought of Aretha singing about her Pink Cadillac on the "Freeway of Love" which led me to thinking about Mary Kay Cosmetics and the Power of Pink.  I googled the word "pink" and was astonished to find out it's intrinsically linked to the word "Cadillac".  Thus, my TT is all about pink Cadillacs.

When I was a little girl, my fashionable grandmother worked for Bullocks Wilshire and later Hinshaws as head buyer in couture.  She always drove a pink Cadillac.  She bought a new one every few years.  So chic.

A '59 Caddy was the first car a high school friend of mine could afford.  Unfortunately for him, it was pink which is why he could afford it!  He was teased mercilessly but that car is probably the best remembered of  all our cars today.  I'm told he still misses it.

Aretha is the first one to come to mind when I hear the words "pink Cadillac".  I think it's just because I love Aretha.



But let's face it, NOBODY ROCKS IT LIKE THE BOSS!  I saw this tour @ Hampton Roads in 1984.  He was so friggin' hot.  It still makes me fan myself.  Watch this video and you'll know why.



Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, rewards her top producers with a Cadillac painted the iconic Mary Kay pink.  Ironically, this brief bio on the life of Mary Kay is done in black & white with just a bit of pink tinting where required.



Let's not leave out Elvis. According to Wikipedia, Elvis bought his first Cadillac, a 1954 model spray painted pink.

On July 5, 1955, Elvis purchased a new Cadillac Fleetwood Series 60 in blue with a black roof. Having mentioned a Pink Cadillac in the song Baby, Let's Play House, the first song recorded by Elvis to appear on a national chart which made #5 on the Billboard Country Singles chart in July 1955;^[1] Elvis had the car repainted by Art, a neighbour on Lamar Street. Art designed a customised pink colour for Elvis which he named "Elvis Rose," but the car kept its black roof. Once the car was finished Elvis gave it to his mother Gladys as a gift.

 According to another site, the roof was repainted white after a traffic accident in Texarkana.

 

    The famous pink Cadillac in front of Graceland

I'm postin' early.  It's Cinco de Mayo and as a self-respecting native Californian,  I'll be out among 'em. 

American Sunday: Part II

American Sunday 12 

by Cole Scott Photography

This is another photo from the church journal shoot my husband has been working on.  I first referred to this on a post in February.  As you might have surmised, this shot was taken Easter Sunday.