Blyth Times

Color Me Beautiful

"I like you as a brunette,"  someone said to me the other day.   They were at my apartment and were looking at my wedding photograph.  I had almost black hair in those days and wore it short and full and curly. At that time  Elizabeth Taylor was my role model.  We all wanted to look like Taylor then.  The joke, of course, is that some of us now do.

My granddaughter, who is almost four, has spectacularly beautiful curly red hair.  It stops the little boys in the play ground in their tracks.  She already knows how to graciously say , "Thank you very much," when someone comments on her hair.  And almost everyone comments on that hair.  "Oh, she takes after you," a couple of friends who knew me the many years I had red hair have said.  Not exactly.  I never really had red hair.  I just colored my hair red.  I did it until the gray roots became visible.  That was about a day and a half after I left the colorist's salon. It became just too darn much trouble.  In the picture on this blog I am still sort-of a redhead. 

My whole family, both my mother and my grandmother, became gray quite young.   My mother just put a blond rinse on top of gray and whatever streaky color it turned out seemed to be all right with her.   Now I am blond, too.   Very, very blond.   Not because I am testing whether platinum blonds  really have more fun or if gentlemen prefer us.   I am doing it out of necessity.  I can go for months without a visit to the hairdresser.  In truth,  I really think I have yellowed gray hair .  Don't knock it.  It seems to blend right into the platinum.

Of course I don't  exactly feel like a blond   I felt  more like a redhead.  I  think I also felt like a brunette though that is hard to remember.  But I know I never felt like a washed-out brownette, which was, I believe, my natural teen-age color.  I had to change that.   And now yellowed gray hair and all the experience that goes with it seems okay these days with me.    

Is It Sexism?

    What has been the ugliest lesson of the current campaign? That it remains nearly impossible for a woman to run for president or vice president. Is it sexism? Not exactly. Certainly the voting public claim they are not sexist. Don’t most polls show that over 90% of Americans say they would be ready to elect a woman of their party president?

     Rather the barrier is how the press filters and distorts a woman’s candidacy making her far more vulnerable than any man to appraisal and criticism on so many levels.  This time around, we saw what I would call this rampant “pressexism” first with Hillary’s campaign , and have seen it relentlessly aimed at Sarah Palin.

     “Pressexism”--and I’ll define it --is an inordinate focus on a female candidate’s looks, her family life, the way she speaks, her emotional make-up, and, yes, her clothes. In this telegenic age if a female candidate is unattractive it’s a very big problem. But, interestingly enough, if a candidate is very attractive it turns out to be just as big a problem. It becomes the easiest way not to take her seriously.

     What also seems to happen when the press has a woman in their view-finder , they tend to completely ignore the personality, the background, the style of the male candidates in the same election. All the juicy little details about the guys are just ignored. Didn’t that happen when Hillary was competing with Obama? Without Palin to concentrate on wouldn’t there have been far more commentary on Obama’s somewhat chilly personality. Certainly his languid haughtiness would have been noticed and mentioned, possibly relentlessly. When Bush was competing with Gore, wasn’t Gore given a constant personality analysis by the press.

    Whether or not it is important, there might have also been a lot more in-depth examination of Obama’s exotic background. And without Palin to criticize wouldn’t there have been more media shock and dismay over Biden’s frequent foot-in-the -mouth really dumb goofs. Looking back to last fall and winter, while Obama was praised for his ideas, didn’t Hillary get a lot more press battering for her wonk-ish personality, her coolness, and her hectoring style of speech than for any of her policies.

    Part of the reason for the new “pressexism” is, of course, the nature of media today. For the past decade and a half the press has been focused on entertaining human-interest stories. With so many hours to fill, the 24/7 news cycle needs to devote lots of time to the softer side. A woman candidate, just because she is a woman, from her Naughty Monkey heels up, supplies more possibilities. Let’s face it, most journalist can’t really analyze the ramifications of either candidate’s health plan. They don’t really know what to do about Iran either. But every blogger or commentator can make an easy joke about Palin’s rimless specs.

     To be honest, Hillary with her well-publicized marital ups-and-downs and her attention-seeking spouse, and Sarah with her special needs baby and a pregnant teenage daughter, are women whose personal lives one wants to talk about around the water cooler. So maybe that’s been part of the problem, too. The women who reach high are often complex. But the media seems to always concentrate on their vulnerabilities rather than acknowledging their strengths or capabilities. We still don’t know the outcome of the election yet but one can wonder how a woman can ever succeed in breaking through that highest of glass ceilings in the midst of this “pressexism.” I think an American Margaret Thatcher type, attractive but not too attractive, with a bland personal life, and very strong policy ideas might be a possibility. If she exists. And if there is no one who could imitate her for big laughs on Saturday Night Live.

Party Time

The party season is approaching and, yes, I know some people just love to give parties. My mother liked to entertain. I can remember as a child passing around the smoked salmon and cream cheese canapes to her dinner guests. I think she really liked having people over and expected people to reciprocate with dinner and party and afternoon card game invitations. I think she and my dad were busy most Saturday nights.

 Nowadays, it seems, people, at least in Manhattan, don't have guests over for dinner very much. In Manhattan couples go out with couples to restaurant. Those dinner parties for eight or ten are so rare that one is really amazed when a friend polishes the silver and invites you around. In the country where many New Yorkers go on weekends it is much more social. People do have people over for lunch or dinner,and, I think, that is one of the reasons New Yorkers go away for weekends. For some old-fashioned social life.

I am a nervous hostess and, I must admit, a reluctant one. Everyone once in a while I do give a cocktail party but I am always apprehensive beforehand. What if nobody shows up--or so few people come that the ones who are here are really bored. What if I don't have enough food, drink, little napkins. Usually everything turns out fine. Afterward, I say I must do this more often. Then I don't. But, I think, one has to entertain not only for the sake of friendship. But, just as important,it makes you clean your house!

How to Raise An American

Myrna was featured on Fox News Channel this morning talking about her book, "How to Raise An American."

Gossip (old) Girl: Mamma Mia

So how did Mamma Mia!, the fun chickflick of the summer really do.   Yes, I know it wasn't as good as the show but if you love Abba like I love Abba it was a great couple of hours.    Well, I am happy to say that the somewhat menopausal Mamma did just fine.  Worldwide it brought in a half a billion dollars.    Lots of "Money, Money, Money! " to quote an Abba song. 

The movie  was especially popular in the UK , taking in more than $125 million dollars and that doesn't include soundtracks and T-shirt sales.  It is in striking distance of overtaking "Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone" as the second highest grossest film in the UK ever.   It was also widely in popular  in Greece where the story is set and, of course, Sweden, home of Abba.   Check out the quartet's memorable version of "Dancing Queen" on YouTube.  They are in 18th century  royal dress and sang it for the King of Sweden in 1976. 

The movie was such a hit that Universal Pictures is considering a sequel.   But Judy Craymer, the force behind the stage show and film, says to put together such a project would take a considerable amount of time.   Here's hoping  even if it will be Grandmamma Mia!

The Autumn Leaves

Drift by my window.  In fact, they have been flying past with a vengeance because a fierce Northwest wind is blowing.   It is entirely too cold too early.   I like living in a temperate zone where there are seasons.  There used to be four but it seems to me that spring has more or less disappeared the last few years.  Nowadays it seems it is cold  in May and then it is hot in June with a few blooming azaleas thrown in between.   There is still definitely summer and winter and autumn.  I'll give you that. Though, this year autumn is passing through very quickly with that cold Northwest wind at its back. 

I used to play a game with myself about never wearing a winter coat until Thanksgiving.   But the last couple of days have had me hunting in my closet for my almost-winter coat and wishing I had taken it to the cleaners last spring when I should have.   I have noticed that everyone on the subway looks pretty bundled up already.  And everyone has reverted back to wearing black.  The cute colorful little summer dresses and sandals are as if they never existed.    There is  nothing but black pants, black boots, black jackets and black raincoats.   Cold weather takes away individuality and it makes everyone look tired.  Even the babies in the strollers on the street are wearing hats with ear flaps and screwing up their faces against the wind.   

Wth my black pants suit I have been wearing a bright turquoise and blue scarf.  I bought it in Thailand in a village in Chiang Rai province which is in the Golden Triangle on the border of Laos and Burma.   It was in a tiny village where refugees from Burma live.   The women, including some wearing rings to elongate their necks,   make these bright scarves to sell to tourists and only cost a couple of dollars.  You buy them to help them out.   

As the weather cools I find myself picking out one of the two scarves I bought to wear every day. The other one, just as bright, is tuquoise and green.   They remind me of a hot, sunny,very foreign place---a dash of exotic color to cheer me up on a day that seems  to me to be too cold too early.      

Gossip (Old) Girl:Liza Minnelli Plays the Palace

I am not exactly a wild and crazy fan of Liza Minnelli.   But I am pleased that  the 62-year-old Diva is about to sing and swing at the Palace, the theater where her mother, Judy Garland,  had one of her greatest triumphs.  "Liza at the Palace" opens on December 3rd and runs through December 14th.   While ticket prices range from $55 to $125, Minnelli has requested that $25 front row seats also be made available daily at the box office by lottery.     The iconic singer/dancer/actress has promised to fill the evening's performance with hits from her extensive catalog like "Cabaret," "Maybe This Time," and "New York New York," as well as personal stories, anecdotes and reminiscences.

Liza is one of those performers who, it seems, I have known about my whole life.   I saw her in her first off-Broadway performance in a show called "Best Foot Forward," which played at a tiny off-Broadway theater at the Jan Hus House on the upper East Side of New York.  Even at seventeen, she was pretty good.  Good enough to win a Theater World Award.     I remember her '60's movies playing off-beat characters in one movie called "The Sterile Cuckoo" and another in a movie, based on a best-seller of the time caled "Tell Me That You Love Me Junie Moon." She played the kookie girl, a type I knew and emulated in that era.  Hey, I went to Bennington and  I think, the girl in "The Sterile Cuckoo" was just like a Bennington girl.

Liza has suffered up and downs, coping with addiction, weight gains, and a couple of crazy marriages.   She is a favorite of New York's real Gossip (old) Girls Cindy Adams and Liz Smith, who are always cheering her on.    You have to hand it to her she seems once again to have pulled it all together, lost the weight, keeps fighting the addiction, and is still able to sing "Liza with a Z."  Certainly she can make all Baby Boomers feel if she can reinvigorate once again so can they.   And wouldn't we all rather see her at the Palace than  on "Dancing with the Stars?" 

Simple Pleasures

In the early 1990's when there was yet another economic slowdown , though not as enormous as the one with which we are now coping, I wanted to start a magazine called "Simple Pleasures."   After the excesses of the '80's---which now seem sort of small potatoes compared to the excesses of the past seven or eight years--- I used to say that people had gone  from thinking about how much they needed to make them happy to deciding how little they needed to make them happy.

Certainly this is another "Simple Pleasures" time.   It may take some effort to focus on such pleasures but it is worth trying.  In fact, I think we will need to keep trying as we all go through some challenging times.    I know this week my simlple pleasures have been just taking long walks and enjoying the fabulous leaves.  Having one good night's sleep after a couple of nights battling middle-of-the-night insominia.  And having coffee with a friend, who I don't see often , but whom I like and respect.

But my best simple pleasure of all was baby sitting with my adorable nearly four-year-old granddaughter.   Her mother was at work, her dad had to go to a class, so I had the chance to  play with her for a while,  give her a bedtime snack, watch two episodes of Dora The Explorer, read her two bedtime stories and sit with her until she fell asleep.

Let me boast--she ls tall, beautiful, with amazing curly red hair.   Her nanny told me that a motherof one of her little friends said to her, "You are so tall and gorgeous."   And it is true.  She has already learned to modestly murmur "Thank you," as the compliments, especially about that hair, pour in. 

She sat curled in my arms as we watched Dora.   She corrected me a couple of times when I missed a word in "Madeline" and "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom."  Yes, she is that smart.    We painted an autumn scene together, an apple tree, pumpkin, dog with black spots , and she traced her name.  Yes, she is really that smart.   

Maybe we adore our grandchildren so much because we have given up some of our illusions about own children and so we transfer our expectations to the next generation.   Or maybe because playing with them, sharing a hug and a kiss, we are enjoying the distillation of a simple pleasure, knowing there is nothing else or nothing more that we could want than to have this moment of utter contentment and joy.   

Gossip (old) Girl

Occassional updates on celebs over 50 just in case you care.   

Guess who has osteoporosis, too?  Fitness freak and former 007 arm candy Ursula Andress, now 72, admits she too is suffering from  the bone loss that plagues so many women.  Andress who played bikini-clad Honey Ryder in 1962 says she still exercises, walks, and gardens.  Her entrance in “Dr. No” was voted #1 in the “100 Greatest  Movie Sex Moments.” by the BBC in 2007.    Ursula says that nowadays instead of getting under the covers she is glad she can still get out of bed!

She’s Still Hot: Meryl Streep

It’s a romantic triangle you never thought you might see onscreen in the days when movie comedies are all about twenty and thirty somethings looking for love.   According to Variety, Steve Martin has joined Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin in an untitled romantic comedy written and directed by romantic-comedy veteran Nancy Meyers.    Meyers and Martin go way back, as she wrote and produced both of his “Father of the Bride” films.   Glad to see that Meryl can still turn the guys on.

No Fool Like an Old Fool: Madonna

Muscular  Madonna , 50, and Brit film directorGuy Ritchie, 40,  to the surprise of no-one have called it off.   But what is surprising is that the supposedly shrewd Material Girl did not have a pre-nup.   The London-based tabloids have already reported that Madonna has lined up a top London divorce lawyer and QC, which  may mean  she’s ready for a court battle to hold onto as much as she can. She doesn’t seem ready to meet him halfway.In many ways it could be a reversal of the Paul and Heather McCartney divorce – only with the wife looking to preserve as much of her cash as possible.

Yikes! Paul McCarthy

Yikes!  Macca has lost his head and not over another woman.   According to A frantic search was launched yesterday for the waxwork head of Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney.    Auctioneer Joby Carter accidentally left the head in a cardboard box on a train.     The model, in which Macca has his 1960s mop top, began its Magical Mystery Tour after he had it valued on Thursday ready for auction.   He left his London studio and boarded a train at Ealing Broadway but got off at Maidenhead in Berkshire, leaving the waxwork under a seat bound for Reading. Joby, 33, said: "Somebody must have the head or know where it is - it's quite distinctive."Distraught Joby told the train guards but there was no sign of it at lost property.    The head, thought to have been made in the 1960s as part of Louis Tussaud's museum in Great Yarmouth, was valued at £5,000 to £10,000. Joby added: "I'm really gutted that it's gone. "We're putting up a £2,000 reward for anyone who hands Macca's head in."

Sarah Style

Sarah Palin has style, real personal style which means knowing what looks good on you, sticking to it, and, often , pushing it up a notch because you are so confident about your look.  That’s different from fashion-magazine style which is, after all, an ever-changing marketing scheme.   This season Vogue, Elle and Marie Claire are pushing six-inch heels, see-through lace and hounds-tooth jackets.  Exactly who, beside the size 0 seventeen-year-old models in their pages, really could wear or look good in any of the above?

But Palin, unlike other women politicians, manages to look both attractive and appropriate all the time. It isn’t easy to do.    Heavens knows, Hillary certainly tried and tried to get it right.  But no matter how many fashion stylists she had advising her she always looked dowdy.   Remember those blocky pants suits, jackets made out of upholstery fabric, and contrasting beads she wore on the campaign trail? 

Nancy Pelosi, who favors Armani suits and marble-sized South Sea pearls, bought by  her husband who is her personal shopper, tries hard, too.  She wears rich-ladies’ fashions which create a pricey look but not a particularly flattering one for her.   It often appears as if her $2000 suits are wearing her.

So what makes up Sarah’s style?   Well, as they say, in the fashion magazines here are some secrets of how the former Miss Wasilla gets it together:

• She starts by wearing one very personal accessory all the time.  With her it is those great Kazuo Kawasaki 704 rimless glasses.   They cost more than $300 but they are worth it because she wears them all the time.  And she has managed to turn what could be a liability, wearing glasses instead of contacts, into a fashion statement.
• She proves that price really doesn’t matter when you have personal style. Sarah looks virtually the same whether she is dressed in a big-ticket Valentino jacket,  which she wore at the Republican convention,   or an off-the-rack $250 suit which she has been wearing on the campaign trail.
• She knows she looks good in curvy skirt suits and so she wears curvy skirt skirts,.no matter what this season’s hot jacket or skirt style is supposed to be.      And, yes, once in a while she does wear pants.   Because she wants to not because she has to. (Let’s be honest and admit, Hillary has to wear pants. I know that’s kind of mean,  but, hey, try watching Project Runway.) 
• She chooses somewhat tacky accessories with pride  such as the dangly earrings in the shape of  her home state.   Fashionistas mock such down-market jewelry choices but “Sex and the City’s” Carrie Bradshaw always wore a tacky necklace that spelled out her name and that was considered part of her great style. Not much different than an Alaska glitter pin.
• She wears open-toed pumps with a business suit  So she looks serious but feminine as well, a fashion combo most career women struggle to master. Part of real style also happens to be having fun, darn it, with fashion.

Sarah’s  dress sense is so crystal- clear that Palin look-alike contest contestants and Tina Fey know exactly what to wear when they are making fun of her.    And even women who dislike her politics, admit they  admire her look.  I have  a friend who thinks Obama’s the One and totally disagrees with the McCain-Palin ticket on everything  especially the war.  Just the other day she told me how much she liked  Palin’s belted military jacket and wondered where she could get one.

In truth, great style depends not on the clothes or accessories one buys but in knowin g and liking oneself.   The campaign has been very rough on Sarah Palin but, no matter what happens, I know she will keep the  ebullient self-confidence she has.  That, after all,  is the real key to great personal style. 

The Day of the Thriller

Needed distraction so I watched movies I had never seen two nights in a row.  Both were thrillers.  First night I saw Mission Impossible III which I recalled had received pretty good reviews.  But it wasn't as successful as the previous Mission Impossibles because Tom Cruise's popularity was cratering at the time of its release.    Tom had just climbed on a chair to declare his passion for Katie Holmes and had also given Brooke Shields a tongue-lashing for taking medication to cope with her post-partum blues.   Women didn't like ( or believe) Tom in Love and, especially, didn't like Tom the Scientologist, sharing his advice on how to handle depression. So they had stayed away from the movie.

In fact, it was pretty good.  Lots of special effects, lots of glitz.  Tom, in pursuing Philip Seymour Hoffman, the villain, who was about to sell a doomsday machine of some sort to unnamed enemies, managed to blow up some post-modern Berlin architecture and climb various Shanghai skyscrapers.   There was even a black-tie party at the Vatican with champagne, canapes and one of Cruise's sexy fellow spies wearing a $6,000 Valentino.  Gee, I didn't know the Pope had boldface names in their fanciest attire over for drinks. 

The second night I watched Day of the Jackel a 70's movie, based on a very poplular novel , that  was a big hit at the time.   It is about an assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle just after De Gaulle had given the former French colony Algeria independence.  Some,  in the Army, were enraged by this action and hire the killer to get De Gaulle.    The  French police  learn that an assassin has been hired.  They first have to learn who he is, track his movements, and finally thwart the assassination attempt.   Now, you know right from the start, he will not succeed because De Gaulle was not assassinated.  And yet the long, slow movie remains quite fascinating.

There is no glitz at all and the heroes are French and British police and intelligence operatives, all played by middle-aged character actors.  Even the star of the movie, the Jackal,  is played by Edward Fox, a slight, not particulary attractive British actor who, even then, was no leading man.  The women in the movie are quite ordinary, too.   The "bad girl" who seduces a French official to learn if the police are closing in wears, in one scene, a simple cotton dress and in another a nightgown that looks like she bought it at the Galarie Lafayette's bargain basement lingerie counter.   Yes, it is so believable that you check out Google just to make sure it wasn't all based on fact.

Real evil  like in "The Day of the Jackal" happens without special effects.  Lee Harvey Oswald changed history with a Carcano  rifle  and the terrorists on 9/11 were armed only with box cutters and enormous hate.   In the last decades we have watched superheroes and superstars battling  oversized villains.    That's entetainment and big box office.    But reality is  colorless killer who can do enormous damage facing ordinary nameless heroes, who I am sure right now,  are trying to protect us.   

 

Ghost Stories

It is almost Halloween, time to tell the only ghost stories I know.   Have I ever seen a ghost?  No.   Do I believe in them?  Probably not.  But then I haven't had much chance.  I have only lived in city apartments which tend to be extremely short on ghosts or in fairly new houses that never had time to acquire visitors from another world.    But the ghost stories I am sharing were told to me by two eminently sensible women. And, in truth, they are less ghost stories than ghost sightings.   Maybe that's why they are so believable. 

Ghost sighting # 1: An old friend told me that several years ago  her mother had rented an old  house in a small Massachusetts town.  She was helping her mom get settled.  They were sitting in the living room , having tea  by the fire, after a long day of unpacking.   It was twilight time and quite dim in the room except for the fire's glow.   Suddenly, a Revolutionary War soldier, a Redcoat, as a matter of fact, slowly walked through the room and seemed to disappear through the wall.   She saw it.  Her mother saw it.   They were both speechless and both terrified.  They wondered what was going to happen next.    Her mother, however, stayed in the house , and they never saw the soldier again.  But she swears they both saw the ghost.

Ghost sighting #2 : Another friend, raised in California, was playing by the side of a railroad track with her younger brother. She was about ten or eleven at the time.    It was a train track that had not been used for decades and decades.   Suddenly, they saw a train roar by, whistle sounding.   They both watched, amazed, and ran home to tell their mother.   She told them it wasn't possible.  Trains had stopped running on that track long before they were born.  My friend said she knows she saw a ghost train and so did her brother.  They stopped playing by those tracks.

A third  ghostly tale : A friend has a very old house in Connecticut.   When they first moved in they would often  hear things that go bump in the night.  Once they were even sure there were footsteps on the porch on a snowy evening . But when they went out to check there were no footprints or even animal tracks.   Meanwhile they were renovating the house and doing some research about it.   One room they discovered was called "the borning room."  The contractor who was working on the house told them the stain on the floor in that room appeared to be blood.   He changed the flooring.   The sounds and the footsteps stopped.

Have you had a ghost sighting or know a ghost story?  If anybody out there is listening and wants to share them, let me know.  Happy Halloween!

Ink -Stained Wretch

  The first mistake was buying a printer only because it was on sale at Staples.  The second mistake was listening to the woman who was standing by the printer and told me that it was "really good."  Her college age son liked it a lot.  I should have known that anything a college-aged guy found easy to use would not be a good choice for me.   

What printer was it?  In the interest of full disclosure I have to tell you it was a HP Photosmart C4480.  When my IT expert (my son) set it up he mentioned that he didn't like the printer.   "It will get paper jams," he said, the prophet.   It worked fine for, maybe, two or three weeks. Then I tried to print a few pages.  Big mistake.  Yep, paper jam.   Okay, I extricated the paper, more or less.  Not good enough.  The printer screamed back at me in the cute little screen on the side : Carriage jam! Carriage jam!   That was it.   I spent an hour, consulting the manual and trying to convince the thing that the paper was clear and the carriage was moving, even it didn't seem to know it.  No luck.  Then I called HP.  That only took about another hour, waiting for the tech representative.   The guy on the other end of the phone had an accent, faintly reminiscent of Sarah Palin's.  I wondered if he was  from Minnesota.  Doesn't she sound like Minnesota?    No, but he was not that far away in Toronto.

He was sympathetic.  He wondered why I had even  bought a Photosmart. ( Don't ask.) They are really for printing photos, he said.  Oh, great.   He would send me another, a rebuilt one.  Okay, okay.   I just had to give my credit card for collateral, to make sure I would send the broken one back in three days.   I guess they need lots of broken C4480s to rebuild to send out in a constant stream of replacements.

Got the new one.   This printer never even lasted two or three weeks.  The little ink cartridges simply would not click in.   The little screen on the side kept telling me to put the cartridges in even after I had put the cartridges in.  They wobbled.   Every once in a while, just to be funny, it also kept telling me : Carriage jam!!! Carriage jam!   I had heard that song before.  And, yes, they are now sending me my third and perhaprs final C4480 but I am not so sure. 

Computers are wonderful.   And  the internet and email and even printers.( My son recommends Epson printers.)      But when technology goes wrong, it takes hours and hours of time.   Lots of frustration and an arm wrestle with those little cartridges. So I am once again an ink-stained wretch with a ruined manicure who, at least today, is remembering the simple  non-tech joys of a typewriter, a sheet of carbon paper and a bottle of Wite-Out.

It seems that I am not the only one who has printer problems....

Money Talk

Everybody talked about money this weekend.   It struck me as if there were a couple of basic styles of reacting to the crisis.

First of all, there was The Person Who Didn't Lose Money.  Or at least told you he didn't lose money.   The kind of person who never loses money, who claims he has always rode the roller coaster of the last decade only when it was climbing to new heights.  Except his lifestyle has not changed in any way.  In fact, over the years, he has seemed to be cutting back quite a bit.   Still you had to smile and say how great it is was that he shorted everything last week.  And that next time you'll call him first before you sit it out and get clobbered like everyone else.

Then there is The Guy Who Says It Is All Over, who has lost all confidence in the market, the future, even America itself.   And he has probably lost little more than anyone else.  Yet the downturn in the markets confirms his basic pessimism.   The losses he has suffered has made him  feel really dumb.  And even though the market has made us all feel dumb, he is frightened because  he had relied on his shrewdness to protect him in the past from that innate basic pessimism.   Though he did tell me his father started his business in 1936 with only $200 and became a very successful man.  He said he could do that too.  Only trouble , his dad was probably 30 at the time, and he is pushing 60.   I didn't want to point that out.  It would have only made him gloomier.

Most people were shaken but sensible.  One friend, as much as she hated the thought, talked about going back to work and doing the practical things necessary to start a job hunt.    Another told me his basic conservative investments gave him enough money to live in the comfortable but not lavish style he had grown accustomed to, and so he felt upset but okay.     Another said he kicked himself for not putting stops on dozens of stocks.   But, he consoled himself by the fact, that the wizards of Wall Street didn't seem to have  put stops on their stocks either. 

Living in a once-in-a-century event may be memorable but it is something you wish you could have missed.   It is a lesson writ so large that it  affects and shakes us all.  Dealing with it emotionally and handling the fear and the disappointment  may be as trying as looking at those  diminished 401Ks and IRA.      

The Spirit of Columbus

  Columbus Day was once a day filled with pride throughout the country, a day for school children to honor a great explorer, and a reason for another really big parade.   For years, Columbus was portrayed in our history books heroically, as a great visionary and adventurer. In 1892, the 400th Anniversary of Columbus’s voyage of discovery was such a big deal that there were festivities in every State of the Union planned years in advance.   But in 1992, the 500th Anniversary was practically ignored, and Columbus and the other early explorers received far more condemnation for their actions than praise for their achievements.

One thing most of us don’t know is that the Pledge of Allegiance was originally written for school children to recite as part of the 1892 Columbus Day celebration. That first time, twelve million children put their hands on their hearts and spoke the 23 words of that first Pledge of Allegiance, and school children have been reciting it ever since with a slight modification.

Nowadays Columbus is politically incorrect.  His great skill as a seaman is forgotten.  Even his determination as an entrepreneur is forgotten. After all, he did seek funding from the venture capitalists of his day, the kings of Spain and Portugal.  You may have a teenager who has read Howard Zinn’s dissection of   Columbus in “A People’s History of the  United States" which is used as a textbook in many high schools and colleges.  After reading that book your teen may be half-convinced that “Columbus Day” should be changed to “Indigenous People’s Day.” 

This might be a good time to debate the current case against Columbus, who was once considered a great visionary and a masterful mariner.   Yes, Europeans like Columbus brought diseases to the New World, but nobody knew the causes of diseases at the time nor did they know the native population would have no resistance.  Yes, the actions of the very early explorers were often cruel but so were many of the practices of the native populations.

Most important, shouldn’t we ask is there a right and wrong when cultures collide?  It’s important to learn about the positive qualities of North American natives, but isn’t it almost as important that our children learn that many explorers, especially Columbus, were daring, ambitious, and devout.

Right at this moment don't we desperately need our own "explorers?"  Those who can lead us into an unknown and stormy future with vision and confidence and courage. Some ways to celebrate Columbus Day with the kids:    Read a book about Columbus such as:   "Follow The Dream by Peter Sis (Knopf Books for Young Readers), ages 4-8,   “Meet Christopher Columbus” by James T, Dekay, (Random House Books for Young Readers), ages 9-12. or “Pedro’s Journal” by Pam Conrad (Scholastic), ages 9-12.

Try some crafts projects related to maps and ships.  The web site www.enchantedlearning.com has directions for drawing a simple map that illustrates Columbus’s voyages as well as making tiny replicas of his ships.  Also, look for www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/columbusday.html, where you’ll find one of the best sites for activities, crafts, quizzes and games.    An interesting web site for older kids is the Columbus Navigation Home Page which explores the history, navigation and landfall of Columbus  (www.columbusnavigation.com )

And, of course, Columbus Day is the perfect excuse to order in or make pizza.   First find out more about the history of Columbus with them. Then find out the history of pizza at www.foodmuseum.com.  And debate the importance of Columbus and his great achievement over a slice.   

Cheap is the New Normal

My father was very cheap. My mother was a penny pincher, too.   Dad had gone to work when he was only fourteen and though he became a successful businessman, he remained excessively frugal his whole life.   In Florda where they retired, my mom and dad went to Early Bird Specials, took home the packs of Equal and the individual creamers.  My mother wasn't above stowing an extra roll or two  or three in her handbag.   And they shared every course and still managed to take doggy bags home.   

Even though I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood, where most of the residents were into various forms of conspicuous consumption, my father drove his cars for years and years.  Once --this was in Florida--my husband and I borrowed my parents' car to visit a friend.   He was a guy who had just sold his business for millions and millions and was living in an exclusive  gated community.  In my parents' car the inside lining of the car's roof was drooping.   They had it stuck up with masking tape in various places.   I wondered what the guys doing the valet parking must have thought of that car.   But, hey, I remember my father once gave a valet returning that car only a quarter tip.   The valet threw it on the ground.  My father picked it up and put it in his pocket.    I am sure he and my mother were  only in a restaurant with valet parking because we had insisted on going there.

Some psychologist believe being cheap is an ingrained character trait.  I know both my sons are fairly frugal.  I used to think one of my sons had granddad's gene.  He is the one who believes that you never take a taxi, if you can take the subway and you never take the subway if you can walk.     But now with the current economic crisis, I wonder if my parents' thriftiness was as much learned as inborn. After all, my father's older brothers had lost their money in the stock market crash of '29.  My father had not married until he saved several thousand dollars penny by penny, a daunting task at the time.    He almost never bought stocks,any stock,  only putting his money in the safest , most conservative investments.   And my mother, after my father died, started to sell things--her best antiques, her jewelry--even though she didn't need to.  She had the anxiety that so many very old people have and she needed the comfort of a wad of bills tucked in her drawer that she never spent but would just finger for comfort.

We are all going to learn to be a lot more thrifty now. And it may be a lot tougher for us.  My parents had so few expectations that taking less never bothered them because they didn't imagine  more.  it will be a lot harder for us to accept that being cheap  from now on is the new normal. 

No Country For Old Men

    I live with a Cranky Old Man.  And, yes, during the Town Hall debate, John McCain reminded me of my nearest and dearest.   It was not only the stiff gait and jerky movements, it was his repeating himself over and over.   And the constant self-promotion. And the unclear and meandering sentences.  And the complex ideas presented as half-baked notions.  When he took his “That One!” swipe, he sounded like a granddad complaining about the young whippersnapper across the room. 

Obama is an Artful Dodger and so cool that he doesn’t have to keep telling you how capable he thinks he is  compared to McCann, he has the telegenic appeal of youth and has managed to tone down his incipient arrogance so that, even if he is distant, he seems business-like and competent.    He doesn’t defend himself, unduly.  He must think obvious comparisons are enough.

It makes me wonder if now and in the future the sell-by date for Presidential candidates will be age 55. Anyone older, honed by experiences and with too much of a record,  will not seem right for the job.    I can imagine by mid-century a pack of still spry ex-Presidents giving speeches, starting Foundations, competing for television appearances.    I wonder if now that the $250,000 European and Asian speech market  has dried up, we won’t see Clinton popping up more often as a high -paid commentator on news shows.   Can’t you just imagine him on “Dancing with the Stars?”

McCain seems to have aged a lot during this campaign.  He also seems to be dealing with a lot of anger mixed with bitterness.  He must want to rail at the unfairness of it all, having to run with this cratering economy , combined with the burden of Bush, whom he never liked.    In a way, Bush is defeating him once again. 

I am sure many of those over 60 who admire McCain’s history and agree with his basic ideas, no matter how inarticulately he presents them, are made uncomfortable by his current debating style and appearance.  Do I really look that old? they think, sitting on the couch and watching him.   Is my voice getting raspy, too?    Do I forget what I just said and repeat it over and over again?   We all, both young and old, suffer from ageism, and we don’t even have to pretend we don’t have that prejudice.  .   McCain is certainly no advertisement for the currently desirable Botox-enhanced “ageless aging” that we are all supposed to achieve.   

Right now the media is not criticizing McCain’s campaign and his latest performance as much as they are dismissing it.     That’s even more damaging.     They are still beating up on Palin,  including a particularly unflattering blown-up cover photo on Newsweek that didn’t even airbrush the touch of fuzz on her upper lip or a tiny pimple on her nose.    Angelina Jolie wouldn’t have looked good that close up.  But she has the energy to withstand the attacks and press on.  Besides she’s 44 and there are lots more opportunities for her in the decade ahead.

I think what is most upsetting about McCain is he has become such a bad advocate for himself.   Every time he says “My friends,” and he says it over and over and over, I feel he is losing some. 

The Mom of Mad Men

I like lots of things about "Mad Men" including Jon Hamm's dishy good looks.   What I find especially accurate is the portrait of motherhood, early 60's style.  The character Betsy Draper, Don Draper's confused and depressed wife is a very typical mother of the times.   Although it was an "Ozzie and Harriet" era where women stayed home presumably to take care of their kids and be happy homemakers, Betsy, like lots of moms during those days,  ignores her children.  She is  either scolding them about their manners  at the dinner table or telling them to turn off the TV, wash up and go to bed.  When they try to talk to her she doesn't listen.    

Like Betsy, mothers during the 50's and the early 60's didn't think they were supposed to be their children's pals nor their protectors.  They were not terribly interested in what their kids' felt or thought.  Betsy goes riding, drinks too much, and is angry at her husband.   Other mothers played cards, played golf, volunteered.   I remember the humor columnist Erma Bombeck once wrote a piece about hiring a baby sitter to mind her children when she went off to volunteer to read stories to her baby sitter's children at a child care center.   At the time it was considered  just a funny piece, not political  commentary. 

Mothering styles changed radically in more recent decades.   Today moms are intensely involved in their children's lives.  Today we are friends, confidantes, guidance counselors, sometimes even marriage counselors.   College  presidents complain about "helicopter moms" always circling around their kids, and always on the phone complaining.   Nowadays we are closer to our children and in some ways that's good.   But have you noticed,  it takes a lot longer for kids to grow up.    And once we teach them to tell us their problems, even when we don't want to, we have to keep listening.   

Down Five Hundred and Still Falling

I was with Sam Walton's wife the day the stock market crashed in 1987.  We were at a board meeting and while she and Sam were losing millions she seemed extremely calm and unconcerned.  I think the Waltons in Bentonville, no matter how much money they had , lived a simple lifestyle.    I remember other crashes or semi-crashes, as well,  the tech bubble  evaporating,  and what happened after  the horror of 9/11.  But, let's admit it, this time it feels different.  Bigger and much uglier.    

In 1987 I remember friends talking about being afraid they were going to end up as bag ladies.   That was the time when the streets of New York seemed full of  homeless,  old women carrying plastic and paper shopping bags, stuffed with their possessions.  Now my friend are a lot closer to the age those bag ladies  must have  been, but I haven't heard anyone envisioning such a future.   I think they can't even admit such a possibility because this time it is a lot scarier.

Like everyone else I am confused and enraged that money I worked so hard for and thought I had invested wisely, even prudently, seems to be evaporating moment-by-moment. For the past ten years everything seems to have been about making and spending money.  Yes, we all knew trees didn't grow to the sky but as they grew taller and taller we liked the blossoms and the fruit, and never thought to check the roots.    So even if you did not  live above your means, even if you were careful about saving,  you are still caught in this terrifying storm and watching so much being washed away.      

Strangers in a Strange Land

  Read a wonderful book called The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer.  I knew nothing about it when I picked it up at my local library.  But I was about to give a speech in Houston and since the book was in a paperback edition and looked fairly interesting I thought it would be a good plane read.   My speech in Houston was rained out because of the hurricane and so I let the book languish on my bedside table for several weeks.  But when I picked it up I found it beautifully written and very moving.

It is about a prosperous Jewish family in Iran right after the Revolution.  The father is imprisoned, because he is Jewish and well-to-do with some slight ties to the Shah.   The previously pampered mother is forced to cope without him.  The ten-year-old daughter and an older son, studying in America, try to understand the upheaval in their lives.  The author and her family fled Iran when she was ten, and one can only assume that they had many of the same experiences as the characters in the book.

The book is about a family whose whole world changes , who have  had  comfortable,  easy lives filled with beautiful clothes and good food, a luxurious  weekend house and vacation trips to marvelous places.   Very suddenly they  become strangers in a strange land that used to be their own.

I am sure  the current economic crisis will be almost as unsettling for many  people.  It will change their world and it will change them.   In the book the family  manages through the father's shrewdness and his acceptance of a new reality.  They lose a lot of shallowness and a lot of beauty as well.  But they are together and they survive.    

Meet Me for Breakfast

Had a breakfast meeting yesterday.   First time in a long time.   When you go to work in an office every day you do have breakfast meetings and business lunches and often even dinners with colleagues and clients.You fill your calendar with them and you tell yourself that they are all very important and necessary.  But  once you stop going to an office you really wonder why you have to watch somebody,to whom you are not related, eat an egg white omelette.

In fact, what you realize once you are home all the time that one spends lots of time in an office doing very little really related to work.  You often just sit around and talk to other people.   No doubt millions of people in offices have been talking for hours and hours  about the economy and Sara Palin and how boring the new TV shows really are.   And after that conversation is done and their second cup of coffee finished, they pop into their office to read their emails-- half of which are personal-- search the web for a half an hour and then  think about how long it will take to get to their business lunch.

Only looking back do you realize that no matter how hard you thought you worked it wasn't all that hard. And that's okay.    You also realize that the people you spent most of your waking hours with every day, five days of week, who you knew so much about, who you thought so much about, mean so little to you now.  But it's better, even necessary, while you're working, not to know that, to think you are working so very hard, to think your colleagues  really matter to you so much.  And when someone suggests breakfast say, "Love to see you.  I really would.    But I am so-o-o busy, I won't be able to do it, at least, until the end of the month."   

The Intrepid Comes Home

From my windows, overlooking the Hudson River, I just watched the USS Intrepid come home.  The 900- foot ship with 16 restored aircraft  on board was guided into Pier 86 at 46th Street by a flotilla of tugboats.  Fireboats welcomed the carrier with fountains of colored water.   It's a beautiful sunny day and it's good to have the Intrepid back.

The ship has a long history. She served in World War II and Viet Nam.  During the Second World War it survived at least four Kamikaze attacks. The Intrepid's crew once sewed a cloth sail to help steer the ship out of harm's way after a torpedo hit one of her propellers, making  it a sitting duck for the Japanese.   During Viet Nam, John McClain took off on bombing missions from its deck.

I have been on the Intrepid several times.  My son, a Naval Reserve  Lieutenant, has for some years worked as a public affairs officer during  Fleet Week.  That's when a variety of Navy ships dock in New York harbor and invite visitors aboard.  As part of Fleet Week, special ceremonies were often held on the Intrepid.  In December 2006 the ship was freed from Hudson River mud --it took a couple of attempts--and was hauled  off for $115 million worth of repairs and refurbishing.

Living with a view of the Hudson has given me a lot of great sights. Besides the dazzling autumn sunsets,  I remember when  Macy's awesome firework shows on the 4th of July took place over the Hudson.   Best of all, was in 1976 when tall sailing ships from various countries sailed up and down the river as part of our country's Bicentennial celebration.

My son joined the Navy because he said he wanted to serve his country.  But, also , I think, that throughout his childhood, he watched from his bedroom window the houseboats in the 79th Street Boat Basin,and tugboats, ferries,sightseeing crafts, even ocean liners.  And just down river there was a Navy ship that truly deserved its name, Intrepid.      

Tabloid Guy

   Once my husband didn't come home at his regular time in the evening.   It  happened several years ago, maybe five years B.C. (Before Cellphones.)   I didn't panic too much until he was more than an hour late.  I called his office.  He had left the regular time.   An hour later I was anxious enough to call one of my sons who lived nearby.  We speculated where dad could be.  An hour after that I called my other son, really getting upset.    It was so unusual that I had begun to worry about all the things one worries about when someone, fairly regular in his habits, just doesn't show up.  Heat attack, muggings, kidnapping?    My sons were about to converge on my apartment when my husband finally staggered in after ten.    "Where were you" I demanded.  "What happened?" 

"Met Steve," he muttered and collapsed into bed.  Only the next day between Alka-Seltzers he explained, he had dropped into an Irish bar, just to use the restroom he claimed, and bumped into the New York Post's Steve Dunleavy.     I understood how four hours had disappeared and why my husband could barely talk when he arrived home. 

Steve Dunleavy, a swashbuckling Aussie journalist, the ultimate tabloid guy, is retiring.  He has worked for Rupert Murdoch for 41 years and at the New York Post since 1976.  He epitomizes the energy and derring-do of the type of journalism practiced daily on Fleet Street and throughout Australia.  I know quite a bit about British and Australian tabloid journalists.  My husband is a British journalist.  There is an old jingle that goes “Never try to bribe or twist the good old  British journalist because what the man unbribed will do, there is never an occasion to."   Same thing, in spades, is true about the Aussies.

Steve is famous for lots of scoops--interviewing the Boston Strangler, helping break the Son of Sam case, interviewing one of the "boiler room girls" in Chappaquiddick, managing to get an embargoed  copy of Judith Exner’s tell-all autobiography.  .  He also penned the book about Elvis's decline which came out the week Elvis died of an overdose. 

He is also famous for the way he got his stories-- often using his charm and good looks--- and how he handled the competition.  Once in Australia when he was a copyboy, just fifteen, he punctured the tires of a rival paper's car.   It was the car his father, a photographer for that paper, was using.  Steve says yes, he punctured the tires, but he really didn't know his father was there.   Ruthless but not that ruthless. 

His brash tabloid style and his right-wing politics, which he expressed in his Post column, tended to irritate his more liberal colleagues on other New York papers.    Once, outside of Elaine's, he was, shall we say, affectionately embracing a young woman, lying down in a snow bank.  A snow plow came along and hit them.   His foot was broken.  Pete Hamill of the New York News quipped,   "I hope it is his writing foot."

Steve always supported policeman, fireman and our troops. He wrote of his pride when his own son Captain Peter Dunleavy went to Iraq  in 2004. Steve says, “I always dreamed of dying at my desk." But he has back trouble that makes it hard for him to get around.   Just the other week, my husband and he were discussing stenosis and knee replacement surgery.    My husband doesn't drink anymore. and I hear that Steve has tapered down to beer.   But whatever is in the glass, Steve, here's a toast to you.