Once upon a time . . . in middle America, a middle-aged woman got the understanding as to why nostalgia is such an acute emotion, at this stage of her life. She watched Once Upon a Time . . . In Hollywood with her husband, and they both completely recognized the 1960s/1970s hair styles, the cars, the clothes, the mannerisms, the music and the complete lack of technology – things that were depicted in great and careful detail, in the movie. The woman and her husband came to the understanding that they had reached a stage of life where they had once lived in a world, that looks almost nothing like the world that they live in today. They had reached the age where they could now see that they were no longer in the long stage of growing up and evolving from one time period to another, but that so much evolution had happened, that it was pretty clear that they had lived in two completely different worlds, just in their lifetimes. “How many utterly unique worlds do you experience in an average lifetime?” she wondered. “And why does it sometimes seem so much more acutely obvious, at some times versus other times, that so much change has occurred?” She understood that change is the only constant. She often spouted that tome to anyone who gave her soapbox attention. “But why don’t we see it happening on a regular basis?” she asked herself. “Why does it seem that we have woken up from one dream world to an instant other world with only a hazy idea of how the transformation happened? And only a foggy inkling of how much change has occurred inside of us, to match the now entirely different outsides of us?” It was a lot to think about on a Saturday morning. It was kind of exhausting pondering this deep realization, and there were chores to be done and kids to be picked up and meals to be made. She would have to put this line of thinking to rest, so that she could just live. She would just “do the experience” of another evolution and perhaps she would reach another stage in life where she would become breathless with wonder, realizing that she had yet again, entered a whole new world.
Author: admin
The Face of Friday
I couldn’t resist this one, guys! I am going to see Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood tonight and I am looking forward to some great acting! New readers, there is nothing but surface stuff here on Fridays, at Adulting- Second Half. On Fridays, I pick three of my favorite items, foods, songs, books, etc. and I encourage you to share your favorites in my comments section. Please see previous Friday postings for over a year’s worth of my favorites!
Today’s favorites:
The Original Make Up Eraser – This is a miracle cloth. I have sensitive eyes, so most make-up removers tend to burn my eyes or make them swell. This item is just a cloth that you dampen slightly and it removes your eye make-up in an easy couple of swoops. I am shocked that it works as well and as easily as it does. It is sort of like a slightly shaggy washcloth, that can be thrown in the clothes washer to clean it. Love it!
SouthEndGirlArt (etsy) – I bought a small woodblock piece of artwork from this artist’s adorable collection and I adore it. The artist, Tiffanie Seiler suggests that their small size is perfect for closets or other small spaces. I actually keep mine in my car, so that every time that I get into the car, a beautiful, whimsical, spiritual looking woman smiles at me with the word NAMASTE resting beneath her ethereal presence. The artist has actually licensed her whimsical mermaids and little girls and cute animal images and they have been featured at Trader Joe’s and even on a wine label. Pick out your own one-of-a-kind piece at her etsy store!
Jardinière – I took Latin, so I just learned this word last week. It is the French word for gardener, in its feminine form. I bought a wonderful, old, interesting vintage flower pot adorned with two dragon handles from a cool retro store in the artsy end of town, last week. The tag had this word on it and I thought that it referred to the actual artist or maker, but I was wrong. Jardiniere refers to any fancy variety of pottery used to house plants. There are a lot of collectors of Jardiniere in the world, and I just discovered that I am one of them and that I have been one of them for quite some time. There is nothing more delightful than a beautiful flowering plant, housed in a unique, eye-catching pot – the house that the plant deserves and where it will be happy to flourish and bloom. Don’t just settle for generic terra cotta pots – you and your plants deserve more! Jardiniere it, baby!
Nine Inch Turnaround
I was reading the reviews of Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which features the time in Hollywood leading up to the infamous Manson murders. Of course, the internet being what it is, so chock full of information- pertinent and not, that I ended up spending a fair amount of time this morning researching some of even the minor details surrounding Sharon Tate and the horrible, terrifying, mortifying events that stunned America for so long. These Manson murders are so evil, that I have known and heard about the Manson murders for my entire lifetime (they occurred a few months before I was born).
Sharon Tate’s sister has been an advocate for victims’ rights and has been dedicated to keeping her sister’s murderers in jail, for the rest of their lives. She also brought a very important “aha” moment to Trent Reznor, lead singer of the band Nine Inch Nails, who had rented the home where the murders took place in 1992, nicknamed it “Pig” and shot a video there. (For the record, the home was finally demolished in 1994.) This is what he had to say:
My awakening about all that stuff came from meeting Sharon Tate’s sister. While I was working on Downward Spiral, I was living in the house where Sharon Tate was killed. Then one day I met her sister. It was a random thing, just a brief encounter. And she said: “Are you exploiting my sister’s death by living in her house?” For the first time the whole thing kind of slapped me in the face. I said, “No, it’s just sort of my own interest in American folklore. I’m in this place where a weird part of history occurred.” I guess it never really struck me before, but it did then. She lost her sister from a senseless, ignorant situation that I don’t want to support. When she was talking to me, I realized for the first time, “What if it was my sister?” I thought, “Fuck Charlie Manson.” I don’t want to be looked at as a guy who supports serial-killer bullshit.
I went home and cried that night. It made me see there’s another side to things, you know? It’s one thing to go around with your dick swinging in the wind, acting like it doesn’t matter. But when you understand the repercussions that are felt … that’s what sobered me up: realizing that what balances out the appeal of the lawlessness and the lack of morality and that whole thing is the other end of it, the victims who don’t deserve that.
With all of the information thrown at us these days, it is so easy to get desensitized to it all. Even if we all aren’t perpetrating any evil ourselves, it’s so easy to rationalize looking the other way. Life is complicated. It is hard to figure out what hills to die on. Still, I suppose looking at everyone we come across with a little more empathy, trying to really do the mental walk of “a mile in their shoes”, might be an excellent way to start towards the journey of more benevolence, understanding and humaneness.
Relics of a By-Gone Time
I’m so sorry that I haven’t been posting early, the last couple of days. I would like to pretend that it is because I am so enthralled with the seminars my son’s university has put together for us parents during the freshman orientation, but that would be a lie. Since my son is attending the same university that his older brothers have attended, I could honestly run some of the parent seminars myself. I have the slogans and fight songs memorized and I don’t need another campus tour. So, instead of attending the refresher courses this morning, my husband and I escaped to a quaint little historical nearby town, about 20 minutes away from campus. This town is known for its history and its antiquities, not for its WiFi connections. I cannot pretend that I found that fact to be entirely disappointing. This was one of those towns that really did feel like a movie set, a movie set dedicated to a different era – a time period when everything was slower paced, so slow-paced that it was like the town had decided to stand still and stay a while, swinging on the porch, as everything and everyone surrounding it, sped into the future at high-tech, warp speeds.
I wandered into one intriguing shop and got to talking with the owner, a lovely, dignified woman, who told me that she had owned and run the shop for 39 years. Her shop was “a feast for the eyes” and even though it was crammed full of things, she had so thoughtfully and so tastefully displayed everything, that it felt like you were walking through a perfectly restored story book. You started out in a lovely, aromatic garden section, walked through a festive Christmas village, wound around into an old-timey Americana rustic display of antiques and relics that still retained their original charm and now commanded prices ten times more than their original costs, and finally ended up in a corner of delightful Halloween decorations. This holiday corner almost managed to put the Christmas town to shame. The Halloween section was unbelievable, not at all kitschy, even with its bright, glittering orange trinkets covering the walls and the ceiling, from every imaginable angle.
“You really have an eye,” I told the owner. “I wish that I could make Halloween look like this, in my home . . . if it did, I would probably keep the decorations up, all year long, it’s that pretty!”
“Oh, it’s easy. You just need a lot of cute stuff,” she said modestly.
“No, usually a lot of stuff looks like a garbled, cluttered mess, but you make it look like a sensible, beautiful pattern,” I insisted.
She sighed. “You are right. I couldn’t teach any young ladies to do this anymore. They aren’t interested. These types of stores are soon to be relics of the past.”
I wanted to assure her that she was wrong, even as I sheepishly thought about how much of my own shopping habits have changed over the years. I probably shop for at least 80 percent of my purchases online and have them conveniently delivered right to my front door. The shop owner and I talked some more and I opened up to her about playing hooky from parent orientation. I admitted to this perfectly lovely stranger that I was growing out of the occupation (motherhood) that had been my major purpose in life, for over 23 years, and that I was struggling to find my next thing.
“That’s a hard stage. It’s hard when things come to a close,” the shop owner sighed again. We looked at each other knowingly, kindly, comfortingly. And then I purchased a beautiful Christmas ornament, fashioned from antique porcelain which was dressed up with a bow that the owner admitted that she had added to it, because her discerning eye knew that it was the bow that was the needed, magical touch. She wrapped my ornament carefully in beautiful colored tissue paper, and placed it gently in a brightly colored bag. And then, as I reluctantly left the unique and charming store, a store that reflected the love and creativity of the owner who nourished it, she smiled at me as she followed behind me. Then, she hesitantly turned the sign, the attractive sign hanging on the front door of the store, the sign adorned with a delicate, carefully considered ribbon of rope, to . . . Closed.
Loosening of A Strand
I’m at my third child’s freshman orientation for college. So obviously, this is not my first rodeo. In fact, he is attending the same large, wonderful university that his two elder brothers attended, so this is really not my first rodeo. In some ways, I feel comforted. I know what to expect in many regards. I know that while our relationship will definitely change, he won’t disappear on me. In some ways, our relationship will mature and ripen in wonderful ways, with a mutual adult respect and a curiosity to get to know each other on a more personal, level playing field. We’ll discover things about each other, that for years was kept under the wraps of more parental guidance and authority, than he will need now.
Still, every child is unique. Anyone who believes that a child is a “blank slate” doesn’t have multiple children or is too blind to see the swirling, beautiful, utterly unique energy and soul, that is encapsulated in the body of each and every child. That soul just needs to be nurtured, loved and coached out – certainly not painted over with forced, blind, uniform expectations. And because every child is unique, every relationship that you have with each of your children, is unique and special and sacred.
I have raised four children. I carry four strands. And today marks the day that I have to let go of my tight grip on one of my unique, beautiful strands. I have to loosen the string and let it wind out to new directions, directions that will no longer be in my control. I have enough experience in this territory now, to not fear the loosening so much. In fact, I’m excited to follow the strand from time to time, to see where it is going, now, almost entirely in the care of my wonderful, capable son’s direction.
Time for a Lettuce Cleanse
This past weekend I got a reminder of how much I love certain gastro-perfections that I had retired due to over-gorging in the past. On our Saturday night date night, my husband and I stopped at a frozen yogurt spot for dessert. I covered my dollop of yogurt with the equivalence of probably about three Reese’s peanut butter cups and a bag of almonds. The overall concoction was divine. We hadn’t been out for fro-yo all summer and I had forgotten what I was missing. I’m sure I’ll be headed back there . . . . later this afternoon.
Yesterday, we drove my daughter to a summer tennis camp several hours away, and she brought along microwave popcorn. I think I retired microwave popcorn after spending hours scouring my microwave and burning a hole in my stomach with Aleve, afterwards. I was trying to get rid of the soreness in my muscles that happened as I tried to remove the burnt popcorn smell from the permanent built-in fixture that our microwave is, in our kitchen. However, all it took was just one handful of the perfectly salted fluffy delight, for me to realize that microwave popcorn is going right back on to our snack menu. Immediately. Stat.
At lunch yesterday, I ordered boom-boom sweet chili shrimp. I used to get that concoction about bi-weekly from a local restaurant, for lunch. I ate so much of it, that eventually just a waft of its smell, would make me physically sick. I haven’t had boom-boom shrimp in years. After yesterday’s lunch, I think I will be getting back to my bi-weekly schedule. I had forgotten what a food-gasm, boom-boom shrimp is for me.
Am I the only one who gorges on food that I love until I hate it? I probably have eaten enough Chicken Parmesan for three lifetimes and I rarely give it a time-out. But every once in a while, I do put it on a menu choice hiatus. I believe in the statement “all things in moderation”, but in practice, with foods that I love, moderation gets thrown out the window, until gluttony sets in, and I take a lettuce cleanse. I eat so much of something that I love, that I swear I’ll never eat it again, but then I have a weekend, like this past weekend, full of delicious reminders and the cycle starts all over again.
“There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” -George Bernard Shaw
“The secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.” -Mark Twain
“My weaknesses have always been food and men — in that order.” – Dolly Parton
“The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook.” -Julia Child
Touches Your Heart
This is also a re-post from Think Smarter. We just never know what someone else could be going through. It is so brave to do something “out of the norm.” It is so brave to try to better oneself. What a beautiful thing to validate and to support!
I hope that you all have a beautiful, relaxing Sunday and that you can just soak in all of the goodness surrounding you. There is just so much good if you open your eyes to it. On Sunday, it is a good idea to follow what your eyes see until what you see, touches your heart.
Real Beauty
I took the above from my favorite Twitter feed. (Think Smarter) Is it just me or does there seem to be so much emphasis on physical looks these days? Or do I just think about it more because I am getting older? When I think about a famous beautiful person who probably aged more gracefully than just about anybody, it had to be Audrey Hepburn. In her words:
Real beauty is timeless and breathtaking.
PYAHT-nee-tsuh Is Russian For Friday
So, it turns out that the FaceApp that I wrote about earlier in the week, the app that shows you what you will likely look like when you are old (honestly, bad idea from the start, right?!?), is probably run by the Russians in order to steal all of our data. I have to thank our son for handing us over to the Russians on a silver platter, all for a few cheap laughs. My husband says that we’ll be vacationing in Siberia next year. Needless to say, FaceApp will no longer be on my list of Friday favorites.
Happy Friday, friends and readers! On Fridays, my consumer side comes out. It is Favorite Things Friday, here at the blog. I’ll list about three of my favorite toys, books, cosmetics, jewelry, songs, etc. and I encourage you to add your favorites to the Comments section. Please see previous Friday posts for more fun to indulge in. Here are today’s favorites:
Rayland Baxter’s cover for Mac Miller’s “Come Back to Earth” – This is one of the best songs that I have downloaded in a while. I listened to it again and again yesterday. I love Rayland’s voice and I love Mac Miller’s talented, soulful song-writing. What a terrible loss he was for us! RIP Mac Miller.
The New Barker magazine – This magazine touts itself as “Florida’s Top Dog Lifestyle Magazine”, but if you love dogs like I do, you will still appreciate its beautiful artwork (the covers are frame-able), its adorable pictures of pooches, its interesting articles and its great products ideas for pet lovers, even if you are not a Floridian. You can find back issues on ebay to see if this is your bag, before you order a regular yearly subscription. This is the one magazine that I keep every issue because just looking at the covers, makes my tail wag.
Totally Taffy – One of my all-time favorite things is a vintage chimpanzee candy dish that I bought over a decade ago. It sits in our entry and I am forever trying to find pretty eye-catching candy for it, that no one really wants to eat. (I know, I know . . . I could go with the decorative glass variety but I don’t want anyone to accidentally break their teeth and/or swallow glass) So, I bought Totally Taffy at the Fresh Market for the chimp dish, because of its pretty colorful wrappers and guess what, we’re Fresh Out! Totally Taffy is Totally Yummy. It is gooey, full of flavor and impossible to eat just one, and keep in mind, I don’t even consider myself a taffy fan.
Have a great Friday! Have a great weekend, but don’t be this guy:
Ewww Gross!
What is it about pimple popping that you think fascinates and intrigues people so much?
It really pulls on emotions for people. It’s so interesting because something that is based on something gross and shocking actually makes people happy. It relaxes them, it decreases their anxiety, it’s thrilling. And when people like it, they don’t just like it ― they’re obsessed.
(the above is from an interview with Dr. Pimple Popper)
I don’t particularly love the TV show Dr. Pimple Popper, but my kids like it. And I don’t tell them to turn it off. I have a very sensitive gag reflex, so I am always sure to have a throw pillow close by, to put in front of my face, whenever the kids are indulging in some watching of some bulging cysts being excised or a weird rash being scraped.
Yesterday, I had to take my daughter to the doctor because she had a clogged ear. When they performed the cleaning and drainage on her ear, so much crud came out of it, I am convinced that our ear canals really should be called the Erie canals. The crazy thing is, we were all fascinated with the little plastic tub filled with her ear wax and gook. Different nurses came in to check it out, my daughter kept asking me to bring it over to her, and even I seemed drawn to the tub, like a moth to the flame. Later yesterday evening, my daughter was lamenting that she should have taken a picture of it. I guess that it would have made great material for her social media.
Why do shows like Dr. Pimple Popper even exist? Why do we find our selves interested in gross stuff? This is taken from an article entitled There’s a Reason Why We Like to Click on Gross Stuff on the Internet:
“The evolutionary idea is, what’s functional about disgust? It keeps us safe,” Skolnick continues. “Rotten food has a sour, bitter flavor, and that’s a cue to us. We spit it out.” The weird taste and nasty smell protect you from eating bacteria that might make you sick. Photos or videos of wounds serve a similar purpose. Skolnick often kicks off one of his psychology classes by encouraging students not to Google image search “recluse spider bite”-though, of course, they do, and you might right now. “Sometimes we’re disgusted when we see someone with red rashes or welts. We don’t want to stand next to them. That disgust keeps us safe from contagious elements.”
So if that explains why we need disgust, why do we like disgust (you know you’ve clicked play on at least one cringe-inducing video that’s popped up on your Facebook feed)? Clark McCauley, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Bryn Mawr College, has some ideas. “It’s similar to why people go on roller coasters. You feel fear, even though you know you’re safe,” he says. “You get a big arousal value out of them.” . . . . . Skolnick also compares Googling gross stuff to watching a scary movie. The whole point is to freak yourself out in a completely controlled, secure environment-you’re never really in danger.
I’ve decided that no matter how controlled the environment, I don’t need too much of this kind of excitement in my life. Uncontrolled gagging is not a pleasant experience. Still, my curiosity sometimes gets to the best of me, I must admit.
“Revel in grossness. Leave food in your teeth. Proudly display feminine hygiene products.”
― Jennifer Ziegler, How Not to Be Popular