Dec 31, 2020 | 2020 Election, Black Lives Matter, Coronavirus, Family, Journalism, Something. To. Say. |
Top 10 List of 2020’s Good Things
Hello Everybody. I have something to say about the demise of the year 2020. It was awful and you know what was awful about it. But I gave it another think and managed to eke out some positive results. So, without further ado, My Top Ten List of the good that came out of 2020.
BIDEN
- We elected Joe Biden as our new president. And Kamala Harris, a woman of color is going to be vice president.
TRUMP
- We won’t have to see Donald Trump’s orange face and crazy yellow hair. We won’t have to hear his narcissistic ravings or read his crazy tweets.
VACCINE
- We saw scientists and researchers spend only 9 months in their labs to invent several vaccines to prevent us from getting the Covid-19 coronavirus.
FAMILY
- Because many of us were locked down, we spent more time with our families. Parents liked that. Kids liked that. They got to know each other better.
NEIGHBORLINESS
- And we saw selflessness. Neighbors helping neighbors. Young folks getting groceries for old folks. People cooking and delivering meals to families where the parents have lost their jobs.
PRESS
- We saw some of the best investigative journalism ever practiced at one time in our history. Reporters proved to many that they aren’t the enemy of the people, but the protectors of our democracy.
TECHNOLOGY
- With technology, we learned you can do a lot of things virtually. Doctors’ appointments, conferences, meetings. And that technology like Zoom is being used to teach our kids.
ENTERTAINMENT
- We didn’t go to movie theaters, so the movies came to us. Yes, we could watch big blockbuster films in our homes through streaming services.
COOKING
- We re-discovered the joy of cooking. But now, with nothing to do, nowhere to go, we learned that it’s tough to beat a good home cooked meal.
BODIES GOT A BREAK
- We gave our bodies a break by not wearing restricting ties, brassieres and Spanx in favor of sweatpants and lounging stuff.
It goes without saying that it was positive, what doctors and nurses and first responders did to help us during the pandemic. It’s good, that people now realize how much they do for us.
Now we welcome 2021. As we do every year, we pray that the new year will make up for the year before. So, we’ll try this again. Happy New Year.
Aug 27, 2019 | Family, Something. To. Say. |
Hello everybody. I have something to say about sons who get married.
Our family is heading to Los Angeles in a few days to attend the wedding of my Baby Boy to a perfectly lovely California girl. But I am feeling a little melancholy. He’s 38 years old and it’s time, but he’s still my Baby Boy. I feel like he’s abandoning me for another woman. I know, that’s stupid.
I gave him my all. I taught him to walk and to talk and to read. I potty-trained him and made him get his homework in on time. His father and I were like hawks when it came to high school parties. He never gave us any trouble and he’s now a successful Hollywood talent manager representing directors and screenwriters. But he is still my Baby Boy.
No one was more excited than I when he announced he was getting married to his long-time girlfriend. She’s a professional woman in the movie industry, has a great personality and she’s a knockout redhead. We have traveled and celebrated holidays with her. She fits in very well. What more could a mother want for her Baby Boy?
The wedding, I’m sure, will be lovely. And I’ll be happy. But you know what would make me really happy? For my Baby Boy and his wife to have some babies soon. This Grandma can’t wait for more baby boys and baby girls.
See you next time.
Jul 1, 2011 | Family |
“Mom had a massive stroke,” my nephew, Tony, called to tell me in a breathless voice. “She’s being moved to ICU.”
The words stabbed my heart. My pulse began to race. I started to itch. My only sibling, Jackie, could die. I asked my nephew to let me know as soon as there was any news on her condition. I hung up and burst into uncontrollable tears. I wasn’t prepared. I should have been but I wasn’t ready to let her go.
I knew my sister had been sick for a couple of years. This year Tony, her oldest son, told me that she was falling all the time and one day lay on the floor for 11 hours unable to move. She is scheduled for hip surgery next month. Although she has three children and five grand children, the light went out of her life when her husband died nine years ago of lung cancer.
She was lonely and depressed living in her small one bedroom apartment with her beloved cats. She gave up her volunteer work, going out, and stopped eating.
I saw her two months ago when I had to make a business trip to Los Angeles. We were always the same height, and wore the same dress and shoe sizes. But who was this crooked, hunched over, gray-haired woman approaching me in a walker? I almost didn’t recognize her. I was startled by her appearance. I gave her a hug and my arms encircled a shockingly bony frame. In the hospital she weighed a 98 pounds.
Could this be my once beautiful sister who thrilled audiences with her classically trained mezzo-soprano voice? Was this the woman who dressed in stunning costumes and wore dramatic makeup for performances with the Los Angeles Opera Company? I was so proud of her. But she gave up her singing career to teach school to make money for her family.
My sister is nine years older than I. She went away to college while I was still playing with dolls. Then she married and moved to California. We were never close. The age difference and the distance left us with little in common, except our birth parents, both long gone. Over the years there were infrequent visits but we remembered each other at Christmas and on our birthdays.
Late last night I heard from my nephew that tests were performed on my sister and that she was now lying in a bed in ICU, hooked up to a ventilator with tubes all over her body. He said the doctors would know something in the morning, but he said the “prognosis doesn’t look good.” That did it.
I am writing this on a plane headed for Los Angeles. Three thousand miles I will travel to be by her side. I have to be there. It’s just the two of us. Despite the distance and the different paths our lives took I hope she will realize that I dropped everything to go to her. I will tell her I love her. She’s my sister.
Apr 3, 2011 | Family |
I didn’t want to move to Boston. My husband and I were quite content in Washington, DC, where we had made our home and raised our two children over 32 years. But after retirement we, like many other Baby Boomers, considered where we might want to spend the rest of our lives. I could still work and be among friends and family in the nation’s capital. And there would always be those great conversations about politics.
Going back to my native Chicago was an option, but someplace warm was particularly appealing. But there was my daughter, who finished her Harvard Medical School residency in Boston. She began to work for Massachusetts General Hospital and at some party she met the man she wanted to marry. Drat, I thought. We’ll never again be in the same city. They married, set up house in the Boston suburbs and then the most miraculous things began to happen.
She had a baby boy and she named him after her father. Then she had another baby boy, whose middle name is Simpson. Then, oh happy day, she had a baby girl. A girl I could dress up in princess costumes, take shopping and help turn into a strong, savvy woman.
The decision of where to move made itself. My daughter and my son-in-law gave us three grandchildren, the cutest, smartest, most wonderful grandchildren on earth. (I know. All grandparents say that.) So, is it any wonder that in six months’ time we packed up kit and caboodle and drove to Boston?
Where do I want to spend the rest of my life? I want to spend it close to my grandbabies: watching them learn to walk and talk; playing games; reading bedtime stories; taking them for ice cream; praising their school projects; going to soccer games and recitals; and even scolding if necessary, but only when their parents aren’t around. (Of course, I think I know how to raise those children better than they do.)
My husband and I live through our grandchildren. I look at James and see the intelligence and seriousness of my husband; “Action” Jackson physically resembles me and has the wit and humor of so many on my side of the family; and little Savanna has my mother’s long flowing hair and her own mother’s sassy attitude. The three of them are the joy of my life.
So my husband and I have new identities. We were once, just Carole and Jim. Then we became Mom and Dad. Now we are lovingly called MeMe and Pop-Pop by three tiny people who always seem as thrilled to see us as we are to see them. Even though we now live in cold, dreary, and snowy Boston, the children have enriched our lives with new meaning and new purpose. Being grandparents makes getting older not so bad. Not so bad, at all.
What You’re Saying