February 2020 - Adulting: Second- Half

Trader Joe Knows

RIP – Joe Coulombe, the original creator of Trader Joe’s

I didn’t know anything about Joe Coulombe, until today, as word of his passing at the age of 89, has hit the internet. I have always loved shopping at Trader Joe’s. (unfortunately, where we live now, doesn’t have a Trader Joe’s store very close by, but even my kids have been praying that one opens up, closer to us, soon, because the experience of shopping at Trader Joe’s is always so incredibly unique and fun and uplifting) What I read today, about Joe and his family, made me, in one part, wish that I had known more about him and others like him, while he was still alive, versus all of the stupid gossip which I could recite about current trendy celebrities, royals and reality stars. However, in second part, I also achieved a lasting smile – a big soothing, internal, happy grin, with the realization that there are a lot of good people like Joe Coulombe doing so much to add to the goodness and the happiness of our collective living experience. We rarely to never hear anything about these people, but they are surrounding us, and elevating us, and loving us and loving life, and they don’t need any praise or notoriety for making the world a happier, better place. These people are the majority of us, friends. Joe Coulombe set out to create a grocery store for the overeducated, underpaid among us, much like his in-laws, who were academics. Before Joe died, a local Pasadena, CA newspaper printed this article about Joe Coulombe and his wife of 67 years, Alice:

“Joe and his wife Alice are entirely lovely people, still very much part of the social fabric of Pasadena, great supporters of the musical arts. But quiet about it. Joe came to a Star-News evening seminar teaching readers the ins and outs of Facebook a couple of years ago, and I doubt anyone else there but me even knew who he was — the creator of one of the most imaginative business ideas of the late 20th century. He saw the tremendous demand created for fresh, non-preservative-filled food by Americans who, thanks to the 747, could finally afford to visit Europe. His famous quote about his ideal customer: “An unemployed Ph.D.” “

Joe graduated from Stanford, was raised on an avocado ranch, served in the Air Force, raised three children with his college sweetheart, Alice and enjoyed six grandchildren with her. As the article said, he and his wife are “entirely lovely people.” When I was perusing Twitter, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people thanking Joe for their favorite Trader Joe’s staple foods. As Debra French Bloom on Twitter stated about Joe: Joe created a “grocery store, a culture, a destination.” As I am writing this, my husband and my daughter are outside, putting up a hammock that she has been wanting. She was home with the flu yesterday and he wants her to feel better, so he bought her the hammock and they are playfully trying it out, giggly at each other’s graceless attempts to enter the cocoon of the hammock. My husband, my daughter and I (in spy mode), are having an “entirely lovely moment” and my heart is swollen with joy. Friends, the world is FULL of entirely lovely people (you are among them), sharing entirely lovely moments, in an entirely lovely space on Earth. Yes, there are problems, there are pains, there are things to fear and to grieve, but mostly, mostly, our collective world is an ENTIRELY LOVELY PLACE, when we really focus on the love that surrounds us and holds us and inspires us and sustains us and connects us. Like Joe, that love doesn’t scream for our attention. It’s “quiet about it.” Perhaps it doesn’t have to scream for attention, because it is contented in being. It is contented in being Love. It is contented in the knowing that Love itself, is what Life is really all about.

RIP – Trader Joe. Thank you for the reminder of all of the wholesomeness and goodness and fun and abundance that life has to offer.

Friday Reset

Wow, the world needs Friday today, doesn’t it? We need a little “Friday reset” to calm the nerves, take a timeout and find some perspective. New readers, Fridays are called Favorite Things Friday here at Adulting – Second Half. On Fridays, I list three favorites: books, poems, songs, books, beauty items, spices, blogs (a-hem) etc, etc. I strongly encourage you to list your favorites and also to check out my previous Friday posts for more favorites. I think that we all could use some comforting right now, don’t you? As a bonus favorite I noticed that the movies Knives Out and Ford Versus Ferrari are out on Redbox. If you are staying home this Friday to avoid germ contamination, I highly recommend both films. They are light, very entertaining, and very enjoyable to watch, movies. Without further ado, here are my today’s favorites:

“Magnet and Steel” song by Walter Egan – My sweet, romantic husband texted me this song earlier this week. (huge brownie points, dear husband) I love these “blasts from the past” when something you loved but have forgotten about, pops up, in the most delicious way. Play it now, friends. You can’t help but sway and swoon to this one.

OPI Norse is Less nail polish – This is the perfect winter blue nail polish. It is a dark, milky, grayish blue. It is a blue that actually looks nice with every skin tone. It is sophisticated, yet off the beaten track and a perfect winter “pick me up.” That’s what I love about lipstick and nail polish. They are quick, cheap, guilt-free ways to add color and life, to our regular, daily existence.

Dewey’s Bakery Moravian Style Cookie Thins – How can you not love cookies that come from a North Carolina bakery that shipped 12,000 pounds of fruit cake to troops during World War II??? These incredibly delicious cookie thins are only 12 calories each, although I like them so much, I typically inhale an entire sleeve of them (I haven’t chosen to do the math on that calorie intake) . The cookie thins come in many wonderful flavors such as Brownie Crisp, Meyer Lemon and Toasted Coconut. This is another delicious “pick me up” that we could all use right now, including the stock market.

Try to stay light-hearted and keep it real this weekend, friends!!

Fear and Excitement

The above is from my favorite Twitter feed, Think Smarter. I live in Florida. We get a lot of visitors from other states, and even other countries, particularly at this time of year. People who are retired, or people who are on fun, relaxing vacations, are definitely operating at a much different speed and mindset, than the rest of us full-time, every day Floridians. I guess that it all comes down to thoughtfulness and awareness that none of us are the Center of the Universe and thus, please act kindly and accordingly. At the same time, we full-time Floridians truly appreciate, and we are entirely grateful for the tax revenues that our Snowbirds and our Sight-Seers bring to us, and for that, we add a few seconds of patience and restraint, in the grocery stores, before we start sighing loudly, glaring sharply, and then go stark raving mad, ramming shopping carts into fully stocked shelves of juice and wine. Consider yourself warned.

On the subject of warnings, I allowed myself to get caught up in the COVID-19 frenzy last night and actually contemplated spending $689 for a couple of surgical masks. (but then my husband reminded me that we have some kind of protective painters’ masks in a dusty container in our garage, probably from 1999, and our fishing gaiters actually look way cooler and more fashionable than surgical masks, so I put my credit card away) Still, even though I don’t ever get the flu shot, and I spend a sizable amount of money on immune system related supplements every month, and I mostly stay at home by myself every day, by last night, I was scoping out crematoriums, as I had myself convinced that I had the symptoms of COVID-19, and I was hopelessly doomed to a breathless death. In all seriousness, I do hope that all of this panic and alarm calms itself down, and that we can find a quick and reasonable way to contain the virus, heal the sick, and soothe all of our collective fears.

Along those lines of thought, I read something recently that stated that the emotions that we feel when we are excited and the emotions that we feel when we are fearful, are remarkably the same. Perhaps when we feel ourselves getting out of control, feeling darkening fear, we should shut off our computers, shut off our phones, and our TVS, wash our hands (for 20 seconds – sing “Happy Birthday” twice – quietly, and to yourself, if you have a lousy singing voice), and instead think about something that we are excited about. Notice that the feelings of fear and excitement are remarkably identical. To stay on the positive side of the identical feelings, stick with the positive thoughts of elation and happy anticipation, knowing that COVID-19 will soon become ho-hum news of the past, and it will be readily replaced with something else horrible in the news, which we can terrorize ourselves about.

Happy Friday Eve, friends and readers!!!

Fortune for the day – “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” – Aristotle

Clearing

This week feels very poetic (in a beautiful, serendipitous kind of a way), for some reason. I read this poem today and I had to share it:

Clearing

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worth of rescue.
― Martha Postlewaite

We all have our own little parts, yet very significant parts, to play in the co-creation of this world that we live in, breathe in, love in, dance in, sing in, cook in, feel in, heal in, obsess in, fear in, anger in, paint in, cry in, laugh in, crunch numbers in, play in, learn in, grow in, give birth in, die in. It is my wish for today, that a “knowingness” peacefully covers all of us – a surety of what our own very unique, highest part is to play, in this co-creation, just for today, for the best interests of everyone. I suppose that I will just call that surety/knowingness/peacefulness, “faith.”

Fortune for the day – “Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast. In the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.” – Ovid

Bait Fish

Fortune for the day – “Luck never made a person wise.” – Seneca

My friend’s husband made a wonderful, easy to visualize analogy the other day. He said that this is one of those times of the year that many of us start to feel like bait fish, with a thousand little have-tos, annoyances, self-created problems and projects, appointments, trips to plan, work issues, tax issues, health issues, house issues etc. etc. nibbling at us, tearing us apart, one teeny bite at a time. If you look at those poor bait fish in the picture above, they certainly aren’t faring that well, at all. I suppose the same could be said about us, when we let our lives swim out of control.

Similarly, I once read that if you dream that you have little bugs crawling all around you or on you, you are having one of those bait fish moments, in your life. (or if it’s a really lucid dream, check your bed closely, for bed bugs) These types of dreams signify that you probably have too many things on your mind, too many things coming at you from every direction possible, and your subconscious is trying to get your attention to simplify, using a dramatic, disturbing, creepy, crawly bug dream to wake you up to your living reality that is currently just too much to handle, right now, for you.

Peter McWilliams said this, “You can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want . . .. . Living on this planet has some down-to-earth limitations. First we can put our body in only one place at a time. Second there are only 24 hours a day, 365 (or 366) days per year. Third, the human lifetime is only so long (150 years seems to be tops). . . . The limitations become even more severe when we consider the time we spend on maintenance: sleeping, washing, eating – and some of us even have to make money to pay for all of that.”

He also said this, “You can have anything you want. Pick what you want most and if it’s available, if it doesn’t already belong to someone else (who wants to keep it) – you can have it. . . . The catch? The more unobtainable the “want” you want, the more you must sacrifice to get it. It’s not that you can’t have it, it’s that you’ll have to give up many and maybe all other things.”

I am seeing this phenomenon happening with my middle son right now. He aspires to go to medical school. He is a junior in college. He is trying to balance keeping his grades up, studying for the MCAT, making money being a teaching assistant, keeping a healthy relationship with his girlfriend, and still trying to stay physically robust and strong. He lamented to me recently that this has been his least favorite semester in college. He has had to forgo almost all of his social life with his fraternity and unlike most of his friends, he is coming home for his spring break, to focus entirely on studying for the MCAT, the test that largely determines, if and where, you will attend medical school. There are no guarantees, at this point. My son and I talked about how his dreams and his future are worth this sacrifice, as hard as it is to “miss out” right now.

As McWilliams states, “At a certain point in most everyone’s life – rich, poor, organized, or scattered – the wants outnumber the available hours in the day. At that point, a want must go a-wanting. . . . The solution is preventative: choose carefully at the outset. Be grateful that, although you can’t have everything, some very nice anythings await your selection.”

Perhaps if you are feeling “buggy” or “bait fishy” right now, it is time to become more selective and choosy as to where you are putting your time and your energy. There is always time for brief pauses to breathe, to reflect, to let go, and to reset. If you don’t take those pauses for yourself, those pauses of consideration, those pauses that are making sure that you are living your priorities, then sometimes major pauses, will be forced upon you, by a worn out body, or a neglected partner, or a frustrated boss, or a mental breakdown, etc. etc. Be a healthy fish. Swim in clearer water, with a vision of what you want your place in the pond to look like – the place that is perfect for you. Let go of the rest.

Your Perfect World

Fortune for the day – “The human soul needs actual beauty more than bread.” – D.H. Lawrence

I am one of those people who is pretty open and approachable. This has been a blessing and a curse in my life. I’ve had to do a lot of studying about boundaries. Yet, at the same time, I have met the most fascinating people, with the most engrossing stories because I honestly find most people, from every walk of life, absolutely enchanting and I think that they figure that out pretty quickly. This morning my friendliness was a beautiful blessing. I met a fellow writer in the least likely of places. We are having the popcorn ceiling removed in our garage. The project supervisor is a lovely man named Walberto Campos. I mentioned that I would be inside writing if he needed me to answer any questions. He mentioned that he, too, was a writer. He writes poetry, political satires about what is going on in his country of El Salvador, and he is currently working on a novel. We completely bonded in the matter of a few minutes over our love for the written word. He showed me a couple of his poems. He had written a passionate, beautiful poem for his wife, as a Valentines gift. I asked him if I could publish it on my blog and he generously offered it up. I was going to wait to publish it on Soul Sunday, but instead, I will offer it up as a gift to all of us today. On a funny aside, with all of this popcorn ceiling business (which is 100 percent my husband’s detail oriented side coming out), I insisted that my husband handle this enterprise completely, from getting estimates, to setting up the project and then arranging to pay for it. I get burned out of babysitting house projects very quickly, and then, the not-so-approachable, not so very friendly side of me, rears her ugly head of snakes. So, this morning, I told Walberto to just text my husband the poem (the love poem) because that would be easiest since he and my husband have been making all of the project arrangements through text. He looked at me like, “Okay, really?!?” I said, “Don’t worry, Walberto. I’ll text him that it is coming, but we’ve been married for over 25 years. He’s used to these things, with me, and the new friends whom I meet all of the time. It would be weirder if he didn’t get a love poem from a contractor on a Monday morning.” Here’s the poem. Start Monday off right:

Soul Sunday

Fortune for the Day – “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” – Mother Teresa

Good morning, my dear friends and readers. I hope that you are well today. New readers, Sundays are dedicated to poetry here at Adulting-Second Half. Please share your poems in the Comments. Soul Sunday, has quickly become my most popular, “read” day on the blog. That tells me that poetry moves many souls, in many ways. Share your poems, friends. When you share your poems, I think that you share your most intimate, less “crafted” self. And that is the greatest gift that you can give to yourself and to the world.

Here is my poem for the day:

Cleaning Out the Garage

There’s a heap of our family life,

Unceremoniously dumped on the curb of the drive.

A litany of sports played by the kids,

starting with small plastic bats, moving on to helmets.

Helmets for everything – bike riding, lacrosse, softball.

Old suitcases, cracked and weathered with age and wear,

But once the housers of our treasures and trinkets as they witnessed,

The grand adventures of our chaotic family vacations.

The suitcases are piled on top of the piles and piles and piles of rags.

Rags, that once started out as the nice, fresh, new towels,

Only to brought out for guests, but after years of use,

Relegated to the rag pile in the garage, best used to wipe down cars.

No one has taken the electric scooter yet,

The in-line skates are past their prime.

The bike baskets are charming, but faded and crumbly.

It takes a great deal of fortitude to clean out the garage.

Most especially, emotional fortitude.

A small piece of my heart is faintly beating,

Underneath the heap of our family life, lying by the road.

Sexy and Alive

Image result for yazemeenah rossi — This is Yazemeenah Rossi, a 63-year-old top paid model and photographer. She didn’t even start a modeling career until her late forties. Below is an excerpt from an interview that she had with a London magazine called *Sweaty Betty*, I’ve highlighted the parts of the interview that **really struck a chord with me**.

What’s the secret to a healthy lifestyle?

Happiness is what makes you glow, not just the healthy food you put in your body. It’s not a question of hair, makeup or clothes. We have to realise that the beauty of it is that we are all different.

What is happiness to you?

Water. Yoga. Fresh, organic food that I cook myself. To live in a peaceful place with light and a view of the ocean. To live at my own pace, doing what I want, when I want. These are my basic needs.

Can you tell us your beauty secrets?

There is no big secret, all I have ever done is eat organic food long before it became trendy. I also love olive oil, I rub it on my skin every day. Aging is an organic, natural process that I have no power over — unless you count the power of letting go.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I never give advice, I give information. Be free and don’t judge yourself. Take advantage of how you are. As I’ve got older I’ve realised sexy means alive. I’m alive.

The Spell of Friday

Hi friends and readers!! I’m ready for Friday. How about you? New readers, Fridays are dedicated to favorites here at Adulting – Second Half. Sometimes my favorites are songs or things or beauty products or food or whatever. I strongly encourage you to check out previous Friday postings for more favorites and please, please add your own favorites to the Comments section. Speaking of favorites, here’s a kindly reminder: McDonald’s Shamrock Shakes are back. They also have a Shamrock McFlurry this year. I can personally attest to the fact that both are delicious, as ever. No particular “things” are sticking out to me as favorites this week, so I’m just going to list some good words of wisdom, I pulled from my internet browsing and reading, this week:

“Difficult roads lead to beautiful places.” – f of f (Twitter)

“It’s okay if you don’t like me, cause not everyone has good taste.” – f of f (Twitter)

“You don’t have to change your life overnight, but try to add good things to each day.” – f of f (Twitter)

“Throw me to the wolves and I will return leading the pack.” – Tiffanie Seiler

“When you put someone on a pedestal, they will always look down on you.” – unknown

Effect – bring about a result. Affect – to make a difference. (good grammar tip)

“You can’t bring up my past to break me, that’s what made me.” – f of f (Twitter)

“Keep in mind that you don’t have to feel brave to do brave things. Brave is more of an action than a feeling anyway.” – Holiday Mathis

“You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.” – f of f (Twitter)

“True friends stab you in the front.” – Oscar Wilde

“Give a man a mask and he will show you his true face.” – Oscar Wilde (think internet trolls)

“I love this crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful life.” – Darryl Worley

“Romantic love is a kind of spell. As anyone who has ever read a fairytale knows, spells have a way of being broken. That’s why it helps when you have many different kinds of love for the same person. The loyal love you feel for country and family; the compassion you feel for the young, old, or weak; the playful, competitive love that siblings and friends share_ if all these kinds of love are woven together in the same relationship, it can withstand the precarious ups and downs of romantic love and even out some of that drama.” – Holiday Mathis

Ana Rosa — In every sense of the word . . . . .

Fancy

Fortune for the Day- “The winds of grace are always blowing; it is for us to raise our sails.” – Ramakrishna

My two middle boys belong to the same fraternity, at the same university. I am delighted that they invited me to “Moms’ Weekend”, coming up here in a few weeks. I just spent about an hour, scouring the internet and making phone calls to find the absolute, very last hotel room available, in decent proximity to the fraternity house for that weekend. Turns out, I’m going to be paying for 5-star accommodations at a 2-star hovel. I guess that it just wouldn’t be proper to crash at the fraternity house. (Was it ever proper for me to crash at a fraternity house??) It turns out that weekend also has some popular events going on in town, such as an anime convention, a food truck rally and “IndiaFest.” I have a feeling that there is going to be quite the interesting crowd in their college town that weekend. I should have a lot to write about. Stay tuned . . . .

Image result for funny quotes about bad hotels