Second Blooming

Grownup Problems

One Friday, a couple of months ago, I booked a commercial which shot in New York.

WOOHOO! Nothing better than being paid to travel. And it's a commercial which should air a lot, fingers crossed. And they take really good care of you on these jobs - first class travel, a meaty per diem, nice hotel, ground transportation. I was rather excited. I could see my girlfriend Lannyl, take in a museum all by myself, go out to dinner with Aunt Grace. JUST what I needed, in every way! 

My only concern was...

I have two volunteer jobs at Jude's school. 

1. I am co-chair of the Booster Club. We fund-raise for the Athletics Department by running/stocking/staffing the snack bar in the gym during any home games. It's far more work than you'd guess. And I am completely obsessed with it. I actually have anxiety dreams that we've run out of the blue Gatorades, or that nobody bought the seaweed snacks which I insisted on getting as a "healthful alternative". 
2. Bingo Night. One night a year. I get the equipment, set it up, organize the games and prizes, and run the show. 

I was supposed to leave for New York on Wednesday and return on Saturday. During those four days, I had three home games in the gym and...Bingo Night.

Great. So I went into high gear to get myself covered. Not easy. But I could do it if I got super organized and delegated efficiently.

Then on Saturday morning...

Jude and I got home from his 7 to 9 am swim practice (oh yes, that happens every week...) just as Jimmy was about to leave to drive to Beverly Hills to meet a friend for coffee. Jude says hi to his dad and jumps into the shower to wash off the chlorine. Jimmy turns to me as he's walking out the door.

JIMMY

Hey. So I'm meeting Devin. Can you give me some cash for

the parking? They always eobguahs;dffkvuaw'gweilkalk

gwogslk/lzsdlgjdlfjsdkflsskflsakjfllkasjfksffjlsfjalsjf.

GRETCHEN

What?

JIMMY

Dvmnak;fjhsdhf'lasdlfkjlskdfjlsa;kjdf;lkajl;sdkjf;laksdjfll

asdglhsa;dlkfhl;afkj;aslkdjf;laskjdf;lksajdfl;kjasadllfkjas.

Gretchen calmly lifts her phone and dials 911.

GRETCHEN

(to Jimmy)

You need to sit down. Something's wrong with you.

JIMMY

(indignant)

Eiasddv;akng;kv;dk sdkfja;lskdjgl;sdkhg;alkds?

GRETCHEN

(to Emergency Operator)

Hello. I think my husband's having a stroke.

He was.

For 12 years now, I have complained that we live two blocks from a fire station, and have to deal with the constant wail of sirens. I will never complain again. Those guys were here within a minute. They accessed the situation, took his vitals, loaded him into the ambulance, and were about to drive away when I realized that Jude was still in the shower. It went down that fast. And with strokes, Time = Brain. The more time passes before treatment, the more brain is damaged.

I found someone to leave Jude with, then rushed down and met them at the emergency room. They got him there, ran him through a CAT scan, and started pumping him with drugs. As it was explained to me, this miracle drug they gave him works like Draino. It just powers its way through the bloodstream and clears out anything blockages. Luckily, we got him there quickly enough for this Draino to do its job well.

The brain is very interesting. Apparently, Jimmy had a number of small strokes on the left side of his brain, the area which controls speech. And language/speech was the only area damaged. He had no drooping of one side of his face or issues with movement. He just temporarily lost the ability to speak and connect with language. It's at this point that I should remind everyone that Jimmy is an actor, and an acting teacher. So speech? Important.

A crowd of neurologists kept coming in and hovering around him, asking questions. They had a written list of words which they kept making him say out loud. "Huckleberry". "Fifty-fifty". When he first got to the ER, these came out "Hlvrono;e;lvlk" and "Frvnj-veflve". Then after about an hour on the Draino they became "Hookklbuuey" and "Vivity-Vifffffy". By the time they decided he could safely be moved out of the ER to a room, he could say the words, but only with great effort and concentration. He had aphasia. Which basically means the loss of the ability to understand or express speech. But he would heal quickly, and the doctors were certain that he'd have a full recovery.

The man was damned lucky. I mean, really, really lucky. If Jude and I had gotten home two minutes later, we would have missed him and he'd have been in his car driving to Beverly Hills when he had the stroke, instead of speaking right to my face. All the doctors kept going on about how lucky he was. I guess it's not very common that someone has a stroke while somebody's actually standing right in front of them and able to call 911 within seconds. One doctor actually told him he should do some soul-searching about God and the meaning of life, because somebody was clearly watching out for him. The other doctor suggested that the person watching out for him was HIS WIFE. I think it was a combo.

He had to stay in the hospital for two days so they could make sure he wasn't going to have another stroke. He will be on blood thinners for the rest of his life, and he has to seriously be good about his diet and exercise. I have now purchased FOUR Mediterranean Diet cookbooks. But for the most part he's expected to be fine, and his speech is back to normal.

Did I spend the next three days comforting my sick husband and son (who was being very stoic but was probably scared to death)? No. I spent the next three days freaking out about Bingo Night/Snack Bar/Work trip to New York. Because I now not only had to find people to take over all my damned volunteer jobs, I had to leave my 12-year old home in charge of his father who'd had a stroke. It's times like this when one truly appreciates friends. After all, it takes a village. A gang of excellent women swooped in and brought them meals and managed driving Jude to school. All sorts of blessings here.

Jimmy's well, the trip was great, the commercial a success, and Jimmy, Jude, Bingo Night and the Snack Bar survived without me. 

Oh, and everyone has to remember...DON'T TELL MOMMY! Jimmy's parents don't know about the stroke, and absolutely can't. Seriously, it might actually kill Mommy. Ignorance is bliss. 

So that happened.

The other day I was talking to my childhood friend Flavia about Jimmy's stroke, her aging mother's health, and the endless planning for her daughter's upcoming wedding and she suddenly asked "When did we get all these grownup problems?" It's true, right? When did this happen? I clearly remember the days when my biggest worries were what to wear that day and if some guy liked me. 

So that's what I've been doing lately. Taking care of grownup problems. I'll try to do better with my blogging.

 

Spin Cycle: Thinking About Bette Davis

I've been thinking about Bette Davis lately. More specifically, I've been thinking about this quote...

 

 

I think Miss Davis had it right. It's not easy, man. This aging thing is tough stuff.

I've always looked younger than my age. I'll never forget one time when I was at the fertility doctor and I was lying back with my feet up in the stirrups and from down there between my legs my doctor said "You have a very youthful uterus." Which I took as a tremendous compliment. But it was exactly what I had expected. I was very youthful all over.

But no more.

I don't really mind the whole looking older thing. I really don't. I'd rather look like myself than like one of those women who have mutilated themselves with surgery trying to look younger. They make me sad. There was a great interview with Frances McDormand in the NY Times recently about aging. She said that looking good should be a boast about experiences accrued and insights acquired, a triumphant signal “that you are someone who, beneath that white hair, has a card catalog of valuable information.” She makes me happy.

But the other aspects of growing old are a drag. The other day, Jude teased me about saying "a drag". He informed me that only people my age and older say "a drag". I told him that having your child tease you about saying "a drag" was a drag. But I digress...

Menopause is an awful thing. Really, truly awful. I ran into an old friend at an audition the other day and she said "I always used to say that God was a woman. But there's no way in hell that a woman invented menopause, so I think I was wrong." It's really hell. I have decided that the reason God created menopause was a "propagation of the species" thing. The older you are, the less energy you have to care and feed the children, so for the good of the species, the mothering thing needs to be handed off to younger women. So God created menopause so that, between the sweating and the belly fat, no man would ever want to have sex with the old broads again, and would move on to the younger cavewomen. I believe this to be true.

My body is betraying me. I get so tired. I've been exercising like mad lately, which makes me feel great right afterward, but by 8:00 pm I just crash - can't keep my eyes open. The idea of going out after 8 at night fills me with dread. I just want my bed and my Netflix. The other night I didn't go to my choir rehearsal because I had gotten up that morning at 6 am to meet the film crew that was filming our front yard, and then had taken a "Slow Burn" class at the Y, and by 6 pm, I was so, so, so tired that I just got into bed. The idea of getting into the car and driving anywhere was just beyond me. I was asleep before Jude.

I keep thinking "I may be older, but at least I'm wiser." But that's bull because my brain is like a stinking sieve. I forget everything. The other day, I had the following thought process...

Okay. Jude has a half-day at school today, which means I need to pick him up at noon. So I should go to the 9:30 spin class at the YMCA. Then I can be home by 10:30ish and can shower and change. Then I can be over to the church by noon to meet the guy about the bingo equipment. Perfect!

Hmm. Have you noticed the problem here? If not, reread it quickly. That's right, I scheduled a meeting at the church at the same time I was supposed to pick my child up at school. And I really, truly didn't notice this discrepancy. I was operating under the misconception that everything was going perfectly. Until about 12:20, when my kid started sending me ornery texts - "WHERE ARE YOU!!!!!!!". By the time I got over to the school, I was 47 minutes late, which Jude is still complaining about. And saddest of all, I LIED to him about why I was late! I told him I got stuck at this meeting at the church which ran late. I just couldn't admit to him that I had just totally derped. That's a word Jude invented - derp. It means exactly what it sounds like it should mean. And I do it all the time.

If it's this bad now, and I'm only 53, what's it going to be like at 83? Will my brain have melted into a gelatinous goo? Will my middle-aged spread have widened into an old-aged sprawl? Will I end up like Mommy's friend Cathy who talks endlessly about her gas?

I am determined not to let any of this happen because I am NOT a SISSY, though it's hard to keep this in mind when you're having a hot flash. So to encourage myself, I will leave you with a couple more words of wisdom from Bette Davis...

"The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead."

and if that doesn't work...

"There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne."

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Go see Ginny Marie and her other Free Choice spinners!

 

RTT: Endorphins, Rock Stars and Barilla

 

How's everybody doing out there? It is GORGEOUS here in the City of Angels - clear, cool, autumnal - puts me in my happy place. I'm all upbeat and bursting with energy. Of course, it could be the three cups of coffee I've consumed. Or perhaps it's...

 

Oh yes I did!

...ENDORPHINS. That's right, 3 miles, baby. My exercising is coming along well. Very soon I will be able to fit into my skinny jeans (which used to be my fat jeans, before I outgrew even them). Assuming, of course, that I don't get derailed by Thanksgiving. And Christmas. Which, of course, I will. Sigh...

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Last week, I took Jude on his first "seeing a band in a club" experience. Which sounds much more radical than it was. Remember his cooler, older friend, Lucas? The one we took to the Paul McCartney concert? Well, Lucas is in a band. A real band. Or at least as real a band as a group of 14-year olds can form. They're totally old school rock and roll - lots of Zeppelin and blues rock. They played a real club, in a fairly iffy LA neighborhood, but the crowd was all kids. Very fun. I kept having flashbacks to my youth, except everybody at the club was drinking bottled water and nobody was smoking! These kids really blew us away - little rock stars!

 

Bang

Here we are. You can see us if you squint...

 

It was very dark.

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You know that you have moved on to a new stage of your life when Buck a Box on Barilla is the most exciting thing that happens to you all week...

 

I stocked up. Which inspired me to come up with the following recipe...

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I have been fairly obsessed with kale lately. Yeah, I know. Anyway, I've also been trying to minimize our meat eating, so have been coming up with lots of vegetarian meals. I threw this together last night, and damn if it wasn't excellent. The proportions are rough, as I just kind of tossed things together...

Pasta with Butternut Squash, Kale and Walnuts

2 tbsp. olive oil

2 tbsp. butter

2 cups butternut squash, peeled and cubed into 1/2 inch dice (I bought a bag of pre-peeled because I'm lazy)

4 cups kale, chopped

1 large clove garlic, minced

1 cup walnuts (halves and pieces)

3/4 lb. pasta (I used Cellentani, which is like Fusilli but more interesting)

Parmesan cheese - tons

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Get the water boiling. When it's ready, add the pasta and cook according to the box. 

In the meantime, add olive oil and butter to large, heavy saucepan. Heat over low heat. Add squash and saute until softened. Add garlic for about 30 seconds, stirring. Add kale and stir well. Saute until softened. Add walnuts and heat through. Stir a lot.

When the pasta is cooked, drain well and add to the pot of squash/kale/walnuts. Toss well. Salt and pepper to taste. Toss with TONS of Parmesan.

YUM.

I have no idea what the nutritional content on this recipe is, but I'm thinking it's HIGH in nutrition.

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Hey, can y'all do me a favor? My Subaru commercial ran for a while, but now it's just on "Hold". Can you let me know if you see it? And tell me what channel you're watching and what time of day? It would be much appreciated. I'm the mom who wishes she had girls...

 

 

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Alrighty. Happy Tuesday. Go visit Stacy and the others!

 

Spin Cycle: Conquering the Spread

The middle-aged spread to be specific. I just keep spreading. And spreading.

I used to be extremely fit. Seriously. I was one of those weirdo gym rats. I had rocking legs and Michelle Obama arms. I was actually comfortable in a bikini. I know that there's nothing more boring and pathetic than someone telling you how they used to look. But I used to look good.

Now? Ugh. My ass is sagging. My fleshy belly has overflowed. My arm wattle flaps in the breeze. It's sad.

And it can't be a healthy thing. I have an eleven-year old. I need to stay healthy, damn it.

I am a failure at dieting. I just can't stick with it. Before I hit the whole menopause thing, I used to be able to diet hard for about two months and drop a bunch of weight. Now? It's slooooooow going, so I get bored and lose interest. And spread.

So I've decided I have to get back to the gym. The new YMCA up the street from me is finally open and I have joined up. Over the last few of weeks I've managed to get there five times a week. Which I think is pretty gym-rattish. The people who work there actually know me now. I try to mix things up. I run on the treadmill. I do the elliptical machine. I take a Pilates class. I take spin classes. I do the weight machines. I do the free weights.

I drag my saggy butt to those classes and sit there with a room full of other middle-aged ladies all trying to conquer the spread, trying not to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror in my tight yoga pants. I've become quite devoted to Loren, my tall, elegant Pilates instructor, who makes me sore in places I haven't felt in years. And it's not as dirty as that just sounded.

I've also been street running. Which is harder on the old knees and hips than the treadmill, but it feels really good. Looky, I got me some new wheels...

Because black is slimming.

Yesterday morning I did 2.60 miles, which I think is damned good for an old lady. I've discovered that I can use my dorky music to motivate myself. I have created an extremely eclectic "Running" playlist, which I listen to on my earpods while hitting the streets. I've discovered that when I listen on Shuffle and then just run to the tempo of whatever inspirational song pops up I get a pretty good workout. I'm afraid I also tend to sing along. Really loud.

"Cause tramps like us. Baby we were born to run...."

"Hey Sister, go Sister, Soul Sister, go Sister."

"Why don't we d-do it in the road?"

"Big wheels keep on turning, proud Mary keep on burning. Rolling. Rolling. Rolling on the river."

"Shake your groove thing, shake your groove thing, yeah, yeah." ('cause everybody needs a little Peaches and Herb)

Sometimes, people driving past me will smile and give a "You go girl!" kind of look. I used to think it was because I looked so strong and runnerish. But I've come to realize that they're thinking "Oh isn't that sweet, poor old saggy thing running like that. Good for her!" But I don't really care.

Have I lost weight? No. I have not. However...I'm feeling good. Oo! That's on my Running playlist too...

 

I've been getting that endorphin rush thing. Nice. And I think my extremities are starting to firm up - arms, legs, neck. Unfortunately, the mid-section is still a disaster, but I'm hoping that if I keep it up, they will eventually melt away a bit. I'm not expecting to refind my hard body of 15 years ago, but just being able to put on a pair of jeans with no muffintop spilling over the waistband would be very nice.

Anybody have ideas of inspirational songs to add to my Running playlist?

And go see Ginny Marie and the other Conquer spinners!

Spin Cycle: If I Were Queen of the World

Greetings and salutations to my beloved subjects.

As the new Queen of the World, I hereby enact the following changes...

Since everyone will no doubt want to emulate their new monarch, belly fat and upper arm waddle are henceforth the new erogenous zones. Firm, skinny types will be looked down upon with pity.

All monies currently being used to fund medical research in the area of erectile dysfunction will now be put to use to bring an end to the sufferings of menopause. In the future, the women who govern the Catholic Church will decide to canonize Queen Gretchen for the miracle she created in making this happen. In artistic renderings of Saint Gretchen, she will be depicted glowing from a now curable hot flash.

The following words and phrases are hereby banned from the English language...

• Anyways. This is NOT a word.
• Awesometastic. Nor is this.
• Yes way.
• Shout out.
• The 411.
• Cray cray.
• My bad.
• Oh snap!

All convicted child molesters, rapists, drug dealers, terrorists, and loud-mouthed political pundits will be rounded up and put on an island somewhere. I hope they enjoy each others company. Any properties left behind by said criminals will be confiscated and used to house the homeless.

Public spitting is expressly forbidden. No one wants to see this kind of thing. Please make use of a handkerchief. Miscreants will be punished with heavy fines and/or prison, depending on the offensiveness of the spit.

All public signage must be properly spelled. There is simply no excuse for misspelled signs. No leniency to people utilizing a language which is not their mother tongue, spell check is free to all. Be mindful that ones business will be more successful if one doesn't come off as an ignorant boob. All misspelled signage will be removed and business owners will be fined.

All public rudeness is hereby abolished. Those caught doing such distasteful things as cutting in line, shoving, name calling or making rude gestures will be punished with heavy fines and/or prison sentences, depending on the offensiveness of the rudeness.

The entire world will be power washed twice a year.  Areas with an overabundance of water will share their resources with areas which suffer from drought. Like Los Angeles. Just think how happy we will all be when the world is shiny and clean and fresh-smelling. This undertaking will be funded by monies collected from fines for spitting and rudeness and misspelling.

I trust you will be pleased with the new changes and they will make for a more pleasant and attractive world.

I also decree that you must visit Ginny Marie, as well as each of our other Spin Cycle participants who are sharing what they would do if they were the Queen of the World. Which of course, they are not.

We have spoken.

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Spin Cycle: Krickets

Yesterday, my friend Melissa posted this video on Facebook...

 

 

And when I watched it, I started to sob. I did not just get a little teary because it's a cute little parody to that song from Frozen. We're talking real, serious, messy sobs. Jude ran over and watched the video and shrugged, "I don't get it. What's so sad?" How could I explain to him that back when he was about 3 years old, I WAS that lady, that lady with a kid who just desperately wanted to find somebody to play with her!

You have to understand that I was old when I had Jude - 42. All of my friends were either happily resigned to childlessness or had birthed their kids 15 years earlier. I didn't have a single friend who lived within 15 miles of us who was home with a kid Jude's age. We lived in an apartment, surrounded by 20-something Hollywood hipsters. Not a mommy to be found.

Then one day when Jude was 3, my friend Deena, who had a one-year old, told me that she had joined a club called MOMS Club -  Moms Offering Moms Support. I cringed. Eww. I was not a joiner of clubs with hokey acronyms. And a "support" group? Sounded so sad and desperate. What could I possibly have in common with any of these women? Deena assured me that it was a fun group, but I resisted.

Finally, she invited me to her sons first birthday party, and told me that a couple of her friends from MOMS Club would be there who had boys the same age as Jude, and they would all be starting the same pre-school that fall. Hmmm. Maybe this would be a good idea - let Jude meet a couple of his classmates before he started school. We showed up at Deana's house...and Jude and my lives changed forever.

Because at that party, I met Melissa and Juliet, the mothers of Teagan and Jackson, respectively, who would soon become Jude's best friends. And they became mine. Within a month, we had become known in MOMS Club as "The Three" because we did EVERYTHING together.

 

Teagan, Jackson, Jude - Little Boy BFFs.

Melissa, Juliet, Me - Big Girl BFFs

 

And guess what? MOMS Club WAS a fun group! All interesting, educated women who were taking breaks from their careers to stay home with their kids. While the club had numerous big group meetings and outings, the best part was our weekly Friday playgroup. MOMS Club organizes local playgroups based on the ages of kids and they are given kind of dorky names - the Frogs, the Butterflies. We were...the Crickets.

Our Cricket group met every Friday, alternating between the various public parks in the area. Jude and I both looked forward to it all week. Melissa, Juliet, Eileen, Deena, Lynn, Lily, Dawn V, Dawn M, Debra, Elena, Blythe, Brooke, Paria, Susan - all terrific women with terrific kids. We'd meet in the afternoon, let the kids run around like crazy while we sat and talked and gossiped, then we'd wrap things up when it got to be time to get some kind of dinner together for the family.

 

 

It all started out very wholesome, but eventually we became more...subversive. Mommy Juice was introduced. Juliet figured out that if you stuck a box of wine from Target into a stroller and covered it with a blanket, it looked very much like a sleeping baby. Also, sippy cups make excellent receptacles for tequila.

 

Me + Juliet's Stroller O'Wine

 

I'm afraid it wasn't long before someone narced on us, and MOMS Club got wind that a certain playgroup was smuggling liquor into park playdates, and told us to cease and desist.

Undaunted, we simply went rogue, unenrolled our playgroup from MOMS Club and rechristened ourselves The Krickets. Clever, yes? Then we shifted our playdates from parks to backyards, each taking turns hosting. Damn these afternoons were fun. The kids had even more freedom to run wild in private backyards, and the mommies could get even louder and sillier.

I'll never forget one Friday when The Krickets were due at our house at 3:30, and I was stuck in traffic coming back from an audition in Santa Monica. I called Jimmy. "The Mommies are coming in 30 minutes and I'm late!" "What do I do?!" he panicked (the Krickets frightened him a bit). "Just let them in, point them to the backyard and show them the margarita makings!"

I walked in about an hour later. The living room was empty except for piles of purses and bags and about 30 very small shoes. I heard laughter and squealing from the backyard and tentatively ventured out to investigate. When I stepped onto the back stoop I was greeted by the sight of utter chaos. About 6 naked small children, covered in mud, were jumping wildly on our trampoline. More naked, muddy children were running around our backyard shooting each other with waterguns. The mommies all greeted me with a cheer and my friend Lynn, waving a margarita, shouted out "It's like Woodstock!!" Seems the mommies had decided to fill the blowup pool with water and let the kids skinnydip and our grassfree yard had turned into a mudpit. Much fun was had by all.

Man, do I miss those days, and that group of women. Juliet would always bring her famous artichoke dip, Dawn would bring a big bowl of Texas Velveeta queso, and Melissa was known to whip up a batch of BLTs (beer, limeade, tequila - also known as a White Trash Margarita). These women really did support me through those early years of mothering. I guess it was a support group after all.

Interestingly, it was also MOMS Club that got me writing. They had a monthly newsletter, and someone suggested that I might like to contribute something. Me? Write? Hmmm...maybe. I decided to write a park review column, every month focusing on a different park where the Crickets/Krickets hung out. These quickly evolved into rather quirky, silly, and very personal pieces - I gave rankings based on how easy it was to sneak in liquor, and which public bathrooms to avoid if you didn't want your 3-year old to get to know a trannie hooker. Eventually, I developed a little following, people told me that they'd read the newsletter just for my park review. And the idea of this blog was born.

This group became the jumping point for most of our friends and social groups which we're now part of. It was through them that I found Jude's school. We all joined the YMCA together, and the kids all took swimming and Tai Kwon Do together. The Krickets were also the chrysalis for Beach Friday. I honestly don't know what our lives would be like now without having had them.

Sadly, we haven't had a Krickets playdate in many years now. Our kids have grown up and all go to different schools. A while back, Jude and I ran into Dawn M and her girls at the grocery store, and he didn't even remember who they were. Sad.

And The Three? We still love and support each other, though we no longer do everything together. I hope that we'll be lifelong friends.

Oh, and guess what we still have together every year? That's right, the Feast of the Seven Fishes. They are with us every Christmas Eve!

 

 

So who's up for a Krickets reunion? The kids might be a little old for the playground at the park, but I bet we'd all still enjoy a nice sippy cup of tequila!

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Check out Ginny Marie and my fellow Parks and Recreation Spinners!

 

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Spin Cycle: My New BFF Gerd

So this is the kind of stuff that happens to me.

About a month ago I got my annual physical, which I get about every three years. My doctor is not happy about this, but I'm forgetful, what can I say. And despite being in excellent health in every other way, my blood tests come back and I have...high cholesterol. Not just kind of a little bit highish, but really full-blown high. My doctor is hot happy about this either, and insists on my going on...Lipitor.

Now I have rather negative, but somewhat mixed feelings regarding this. I am generally a very cynical person. So I distrust things like giant, evil pharmaceutical companies, and am willing to believe all the negative conspiracy theories that say that the pharmaceuticals created the entire cholesterol scare just to sell lots and lots (and lots) of drugs. But on the other hand, I'm so cynical that I am willing to believe that the conspiracy theorists don't really know a damned thing and did they go to medical school or what?

I am, therefore, torn. In the end, it all came down to this - my mother died at the age of 69 from heart failure. Which was unacceptably young. This was just before they started testing everybody for cholesterol. But considering the fact that toward the end of her life the woman subsisted mostly on a diet of shellfish, pork and bourbon, I suspect that her cholesterol numbers were sky high. I absolutely refuse to die that young. It's just too damned young to leave my boy. I'm aiming for 93. By then, Jude will be 51, and I think that's an appropriate age to lose your mother.  And I think that's old enough to have seen a lot of stuff, but not so old that you've completely fallen apart. At least that's the intention that I am hearby putting out to the universe.

So after expressing my concerns to my doctor, she agreed that I could go on the Lipitor for 6 weeks, and if at that point my numbers have dropped considerably, I can go off it and try to keep things in check with diet and exercise. This is the plan. Since then, I have been possibly a little overzealous - I've been practically a vegan. I am determined to scrub out my arteries.

On the Saturday before Easter, I went to church to sing with my choir at the Easter Vigil mass. It's a really beautiful service which starts off with everybody standing in the dark, and then the priest lights some kind of a holy fire (one year, the priest had the boneheaded idea of lighting it in a firepit, and all the smoke was sucked up into the choir loft, and we all practically choked, but that's another story...) and the whole church is slowly filled with light as we all light candles.

So I'm sitting there in the dark, about to start singing, and suddenly, I feel this weird, pain and pressure in my upper chest. "Hmmm", I think, "I've never felt this before." It does not get better. In fact, it gets worse, and things start whizzing through my brain. Things like that Facebook post I'd read the week before about the symptoms of heart attacks in women. Things like the fact that I have high cholesterol and my mother died of heart failure. I immediately scared myself into a hot flash.

I excused myself, ran to the bathroom at the back of the church and Googled "heart attack symptoms in women". Chest pain and/or pressure. Check. Sweating. Check. Fatigue. Check. Holy crap, I'm having a heart attack!

I immediately walked out of the church, and drove myself to the emergency room. In retrospect, I believe this was a very stupid thing to do. But I didn't want to worry anybody.

When I got to the hospital, they hooked me up to all sorts of monitors - I had those sticky heart monitor thingies all over me. After about three hours, a blood test, a chest x-ray and an EKG, it was decided that...there was nothing wrong with me.

Silly me.

Two days later, we left for Disney World, and I didn't have any problems during the entire trip. Then just after we got back, it returned. The pain/pressure. And it was worse than ever.

So what was it? If it wasn't a heart attack, what was my problem? I went to visit Dr. Google, and decided that I had either gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) or esophageal cancer. I then went to my actual doctor, and she narrowed it down for me. Yes, I have GERD, and she put me on...Prilosec. ANOTHER STUPID DRUG.

I am now on not one, but TWO old lady drugs! What the what? While I am more than happy to take money FROM a pharmaceutical company for playing a woman on old lady drugs in a commercial, I have no interest in giving money TO a pharmaceutical company for an old lady drug!

The doctor thinks that I got the stupid GERD because I changed my diet so much when I found out I had the stupid high cholesterol! Can't win for losing, right?

I am determined to shut the pharmaceutical companies out of my life with diet and exercise, but until then I guess I'm just a full-on old fart. I'm just going to bite the bullet and take the stupid meds and get my lifestyle under control. Bette Davis said, "Old age ain't no place for sissies." But I have never been a sissy, so I am planning on surviving old age for quite some time. Wish me luck.

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Don't forget to check out Ginny Marie and my other Aging spinners. And come back on Monday to find out our next Spin Cycle topic!

 

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Spin Cycle: Inspirational Women

As my life has progressed along its timeline, my idea of an "inspirational woman" has evolved and changed considerably. When I was younger, I admired women for their looks, their talent, their business savvy -  women who I wished to emulate in my career.

Now that I have moved on into my "second blooming", I find that I am far less impressed by those elements, and find myself admiring women most who have a certain quality to their character - an ability to continually grow and evolve, to try new things, to stay intellectually curious, and to stay present and relevant. So many of us get stuck, either by their families or husbands or uninspiring jobs, or by difficulty and disappointment, and become isolated and insular. And when I see women who were able to accept the difficulties in their lives and learn and grow and move forward, I say "yes, that's what I want to be!"

Eleanor Roosevelt

Even though Eleanor was born to extreme privilege, she was the definition of the "poor little rich girl". Both her mother and brother died of diphtheria when she was eight, and her depressive, alcoholic father died by jumping out a window when she was ten.  She was not a particularly pretty girl, and almost all of the men in her life ignored or abandoned her. But she took what she was given and moved on with it. At 15 she wrote "no matter how plain a woman may be if truth and loyalty are stamped upon her face all will be attracted to her." It was a time when a girl's prospects were dependent on making a good marriage, so she married her cousin Franklin, who certainly had great prospects. Despite having six children, their marriage was never a passionate one. Franklin had numerous, long-term affairs, leaving Eleanor deeply hurt and publicly humiliated. Franklin didn't want to get a divorce because it would mean the end of his political career. So Eleanor was faced with a choice - divorce him and make a better life for herself, or stay with him and make a better life for the country. She chose the latter, and their marriage evolved into a strong political partnership. All of her life she was an outspoken advocate for civil rights, women's rights and education. She became one of the most involved and active first ladies of all time, and after Franklin's death, she continued to stay politically active for the rest of her life. At age 61, she became a delegate to the United Nations, and had been named the chairperson of the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women when she passed away in 1962 at age 78.

I want to be like her!

Jennifer Salt

About 20 years ago, Jennifer used to date one of Jimmy's best friends, and we spent quite a bit of time with them and at her house. Though she was a good deal older than me, we got along well, and enjoyed cooking dinner parties together. Jennifer had been a pretty successful actress, who you might remember from Soap in the '70s, but when I knew her, she was just celebrating her 50th birthday, and had fallen into that black hole for actresses when no one wants to hire them. (Oh my, Gretchen, isn't that where you are right now? Mmm...yes.) She hadn't worked in a couple of years and was panicking. She had a teenage son to take care of and a mortgage. What was she going to do? So she started writing. She took a screenwriting class and focused all of her energy on making this new career work for her. I remember her telling me that she realized that few people in Hollywood would hire a middle-aged woman as a writer, but maybe she could carve out a niche for herself writing "women's" films She started focusing on writing what I think of as "Lifetime movies". Sure enough, she started selling scripts. Cut to: Over the last 10 years, Jennifer has become hugely successful as the writer/producer of Nip/Tuck as well as American Horror Story. Both incredibly popular and decidedly NOT "women's" shows. She has become something of an anomaly -  a woman in her 60s who writes some of the sexiest, bloodiest and most cutting-edge shows on television.

I want to be like her!

My Mama

I've spoken about the way in which my mother reinvented herself from an orphaned farmgirl with a troubled youth into the string-of-pearls-Coach-bag-wearing, church-going wife of an attorney who she came to be. Mama knew the kind of lady she wanted to be, and made it happen. But after I left home, she found herself with little to do, and a husband 15 years older than her and in declining health. No doubt she was lonely. So she threw herself into charity work with a passion. She had always been a "doer" - Girl Scout troop leader, room mother, event organizer. But at this point in her life, she kicked it into a higher gear. She started with working at a soup kitchen - she spent several days a week feeding the homeless. She went on to volunteering at the St. Vincent de Paul Society Thrift Store - a job she adored. She loved sorting through all the donations, and made good friends with the Guatemalan ladies who worked with her in the back of the store. I wonder if those ladies knew that her childhood had probably been much like theirs. She became extremely active in the Ladies of Charity, a Catholic women's organization, and eventually was named to the International Board. I'm telling you, that woman HELPED people. One of the last things I did with her before she died was to Secret Santa an entire family - we bought food and presents and delivered it all to their house. She never stopped contributing, and never stopped "doing".

I want to be like her!

Which women inspire you most? Please share your spin on Inspirational Women in the Linky below, and don't forget to check out the other contributors. Maybe they will inspire you as well!

 

 

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Spin Cycle: The Great and Mighty Gretchen

Pull up a seat, folks, and get yourself comfortable while I tell you the tale of the Great and Mighty Gretchen, the best menopausal, multi-tasking mother in all the west.

One morning, not so very long ago, the Great and Mighty Gretchen woke up and realized that her alarm clock had failed. The Kid had to be at school in just 10 minutes!

Undaunted, Gretchen sent her faithful sidekick Fancy the Little Black Dog to wake up the kid, while she ran to the kitchen. With one carefully aimed swing of her mighty arm, Gretchen hit the side of the refrigerator, sending a spray of nutritious and delicious lunch foods shooting out of the fridge and straight into the lunch box which she held in front of her. With her right foot, she punched the "on" button on the Keurig coffeemaker while with her left foot she pulled two slices of bread and a slice of bacon out of the fridge. Using nothing but her bare hands and the heat from her latest hot flash, the Great and Mighty Gretchen toasted the bread and fried the bacon in mere seconds, then tossed them across the kitchen and straight into the open mouth of The Kid.

5 minutes to 8:00, and school's a 10 minute drive! No problem. In a flash, Gretchen fashions her trusty Prius into a rocket ship, fueled by her own belly fat. She loads The Kid and Fancy the Little Black Dog into the Prius rocket, balances a cup of coffee on her knee and they blast into the sky, soaring over the El Salvadorian Restaurant, the medical marijuana store and a number of cheap Korean furniture stores, and land right in the schoolyard. Hurray!

Back home again, it's time to clean the house! The Great and Mighty Gretchen stands in the middle of the living room and starts to spin and spin until she causes a tornado to rise up and propel all of the clutter back into its place and make the beds. The dust bunnies knit together to form handy trash receptacles which the tornado shoots out to the curb and into the trash cans.

Gretchen then makes her way into the kitchen, strips off her clothes and grabs the bottle of dishwashing liquid. Turning on the hot water and shooting the sink sprayer up into the air, she turns the entire kitchen into a giant dishwasher, using her body to scrub the dishes, the counters and the floor from top to bottom. When both Gretchen and the kitchen are sparkling clean, she uses the heat from yet another hot flash to dry the room and her own hair.

Ready to do a little writing, Gretchen sits in the office and turns on both her and The Kid's computers. On one computer she writes a blog post with her left hand, while on the other computer, she writes her book with her right hand. What's this? A phone call from her mother-in-law Mommy? No problem, she answers the phone with her toes and hits the speaker phone button, then continues to write while she listens to Mommy talk on and on about whether she needs to go with paint or wallpaper when she redoes the kitchen. A prerecorded message which says "Uh-huh, uh-huh, ooooooh, I agree." over and over plays so that Gretchen can keep working and not have to listen too carefully.

Time for some grocery shopping. List in hand, Gretchen mounts herself to the front of her grocery cart like a figurehead on the front of a ship and propels herself at top speed down each aisle, expertly grabbing all the food and goods she needs. Forced to wait in the checkout line, Gretchen uses the time to read a book or two and maybe play a few levels of Farm Heroes Saga on her phone.

After The Kid gets home from school, it's time to start cooking dinner. Using 4 knives at the same time, one in each hand and one for each foot, the Great and Mighty Gretchen peels and chops all of the foods they will need for every meal that week. Whirling around the kitchen amid the triangulation of her sink, stove and refrigerator, she carefully arranges all ingredients into bags which she pops into the refrigerator, each labeled with a Sharpie, which she wields with her teeth. Dinner tonight? Enchiladas, prepared, cooked and ready to eat by the time Jimmy arrives home from working. "Honey I'm home!"

What does Gretchen do to wind down at the end of a hard day of multi-tasking? A hot bath, of course, and while she's taking her long hot bath, she balances the laptop on the toilet and works on her two other part time jobs all while reading The Kid a bedtime story over the headset which she has strapped to her head.

Time to sleep, but the work is never done for the Great and Mighty Gretchen. During her sleep, she washes multiple loads of laundry (aided by Fancy the Little Black Dog, who drags the clothes in and out of the washer and dryer with her teeth) and powered by the movement of the menopause-induced restless leg syndrome.

And that's the tale of the Great and Mighty Gretchen. Some of the story is fictional. Who wants to write it into a folk song?

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Check out our other Tall Tales Spinners!!

And come back on Monday when Ginny Marie and I assign our Spin Cycle topic for next week!

 

 

 

 

A Middle-Aged Woman Asks Whiny Questions About the Grammy's

Okay, so I watched the Grammy's. And I have the the following questions...

Why doesn't anybody sing songs by themselves anymore? Every song seems to be "featuring" somebody. Daft Punk (featuring Pharrel Williams and Nile Rodgers). Robin Thicke (featuring TI and Pharrel Williams). Pink (featuring Nate Ruess). Is it a fad? A gimmick? Do record companies think nobody will buy the records with only one star on them?

Why, on the Grammy's, does every single act have to be one of these stunt pairings where some old dude and some young dude sing together? I mean, some of them sort of make sense, like putting Carole King and Sara Bareilles together with back to back pianos - they are different generations of the same type of singer/songwriter, and clearly admired each other, and sounded great together. And some of these pairings are kind of inspired, like sticking Blake Shelton with Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard for a Highwaymen semi-reunion, because bless their hearts, neither Willie or Kris or Merle can carry a tune in a bucket anymore or remember the lyrics, and Blake kind of kept them on track. But most of these pairings were just weird and kind of embarrassing. I mean, classical pianist Lang Lang together with Metallica? And I grew up loving me some Chicago, but the Chicago/Robin Thicke mash up was so dull that it actually made me miss Miley and her big foam thumb.

Why did Pharrell Williams wear that silly Royal Canadian Mounties hat?

 

What was under that thing?

 

Why are half of the presenters on the Grammy's movie stars? Julia Roberts introducing Paul and Ringo? What the what? Jeremy Renner? Jared Leto? Anna Kendrick and Steve Coogan? I mean, I didn't even know who those two were, I had to IMDB them. Is it that nobody trust musicians to actually speak the lines on the teleprompter?

Why is Pink always singing while hanging upside down from a rope? Haven't we seen this before?

Why, after all the hype and build up about a Paul/Ringo reunion, did they end up performing together on this really lame, new Paul song that nobody knew? And why, during this "historic performance" were they showing pictures of Johnny Depp on the screen behind them, hyping some movie that the Paul song must be in the soundtrack of? (But kudos to Yoko and Sean Lennon, looking eerily like a 1969 John,  on the front row, dancing up a storm to Paul and Ringo.)

What's the deal with those Daft Punk people? Why are they robots?

 

They scare me.

 

Why do they keep having LL Cool J host the Grammy's? This is his third time, and I just don't get it. I mean, he's not actually terrible. He's just boring. He's just not host material. Neil Patrick Harris stepped out to give out one award, and it was a breath of fresh air. They should just let Tina Fey and Amy Poehler host all the awards.

Why, at the end of a peculiar but well-meaning and moving, despite it's strangeness, performance by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, during which Queen Latifah performs a wedding ceremony for 100 gay and straight couples, did Madonna come out, looking as if she was doped up on Xanax or maybe it was just that all that Botox has made her unable to express any emotion any more, dressed like this...

 

Huh? Even more inexplicable than the cowboy hat, she was carrying a cane! Is "looked like an idiot" too harsh of a thing to say?

 

Why do I continue to watch the Grammy's year after year when I have all these questions?

If anyone out there knows the answers to any of these questions, please feel free to share!