Black Coffee, One Sugar

I liked Meghan from the beginning.  She was sweet, smart, pretty and I assumed (like many) she would be a good addition to the Royal Family.  Supposedly, she didn’t really know who Harry was until their first date.  That she was biracial and divorced seemed like a sign the Royal Family was moving into the 21 st century. Their royal wedding was gorgeous.   But after a while (as it will), reality set in.   Meghan (now Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Sussex) wore clothes that were a bit daring. Her dresses bared her shoulders, considered a no-no by the Royal Family.   The tabloid press (much bigger in Britain than in the U.S.) started snarking at her.   She was accused of being demanding and pushy, dubbed “Duchess Difficult” and “ME-gain”.   Her half-sister, Samantha, was reportedly writing a book, “The Diary of Princess Pushy's Sister”.   Meghan’s personal assistant quit after six months. The tabloids’ comment sections were...

No Spoilers here! Before I start, I’ve learned through experience that everyone likes what they like, and people like different things.   So this show may not be for you.   However, it’s very much for me! The plot to The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (on Amazon Prime) starts out simply.   A housewife in the 1950’s decides to be a standup comic.   But then it twists and turns in unexpected ways.   It’s never boring! The show evokes the mood of the 1950’s and 60’s in a wonderful way.   Having grown up in the 50’s and 60’s, I am a total sucker for every bit of the show. (Maybe the show will stay on long enough to get to the 70’s! (my favorite decade)).   The elements of production design – the clothes, the settings, the crowds, the décor of each and every room, all of the myriad props, the colors! - are splendid.   So much detail and all of it accurate (I’m always watching for slip-ups, and haven’t seen one.) Mrs. Maisel is a fashion m...

One topic everyone seems to talk about is sleep, and how they aren’t getting enough, or some other problem with it.   They are awake at night when they feel they should be sleeping.   They wake up tired, or they get sleepy during the day.   They use the weekend to catch up on sleep.   And there’s really nothing like a good restful night’s sleep, is there? There are different types of insomnia.   One is not being able to get sleep at all.   Another (my former specialty) is waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to go back to sleep.   Slightly different is waking up too early in the morning (1-2 hours before it’s time to get up) and not being able to go back to sleep.   I’ve had this problem for about the last year, waking up at 4am or 5am and not able to go back to sleep.   Then by 10am I’m tired. If you’re having trouble sleeping, you’re not alone.   48% of people report some trouble with insomnia at least som...

In any conversation about massage, I start by calling it bodywork instead of massage because when you say massage, people make unfortunate jokes about happy endings. To begin, I have learned over the years, from recommending bodywork, that massage is not for everyone.   Some people just don’t like to be touched, and massage is not for them.   No worries! I have been very privileged to receive a great many massages in my life.   When I lived in San Francisco, I knew one massage therapist very well, and she used a variety of techniques on me.   Thus began my learning about different massage techniques:   shiatsu, Swedish, Hellerwork, hot stone, reflexology , chair massage (at work!), aromatherapy massage , trigger point massage, breathwork and others which I have benefited from but whose names I have forgotten.   It was, after all, 20 years ago.   If you have any questions about types of massage, leave a comment and I’ll respond. Now ...

Aaahhh!   My favorite season.   You know summer is here when the water from the tap comes out warm, not cold. Hot weather, barefoot, hot sidewalks, icy drinks, watermelon, berries, air conditioning (mankind’s greatest invention) swimming pools, diving boards, tank tops, shorts.   That wonderful clean feeling when you take off your wet swimsuit in an air-conditioned house, cool dinners (fruit and cheese and chips and white wine), humid mornings and evenings, morning dew, light outside until 8 pm. Memories of a magical time being at a hotel in Panama City – in the pool with my sister Nancy and Dad.   Falling in love with the sun, the glint of it in the pool, the shadows, the playing of light in the water.   Discovering a slide to slide down, trying it head first on your stomach, head first on your back, feet first on your stomach, feet first on your back.   Joy at being young enough to discover lots of things. I grew up in the South.   I ...

Yes, retirement is wonderful! I was in the wrong job, I was miserable and couldn’t seem to find another.   I was lucky.   I was 65 and so I decided to semi-retire.   What that means is, take a year off to rest and relax, and then go back to work for the next year.   The coffers are not as full as they need to be, long-term.   After a year back at work, we’ll see.    When retirement starts, there is a honeymoon period which for me lasted about 2 weeks.   “I don’t have to get up to an alarm anymore!   I can stay up as late as I want!   I can sleep all day!   I have so much free time!   I’ll get to do all the things that I’ve always wanted to!   I can have a night out whenever i want, get a little drunk and sleep off my hangover!   I can wear pajamas all day!   I can watch daytime TV!   I can go to the movies when they are not crowded!   I can know about the news as it happens!” Retirement...

He drives me crazy.  Just in the past week I have finally started to laugh at some of his hijinks.  Like name calling Dianne Feinstein “sneaky Dianne” and saying Steve Bannon is “Sloppy Steve, who cried and begged for his job.”  Thank God for humor. But I’d like to just say, for the record, what specifically drives me crazy:        There is something wrong with him mentally.   I’m not sure what it is exactly (i suspect he has narcissitic personality disorder, after reading what various psychologists have said).  but i do think that the only way we would know would be if he submitted to a psychological examination.  (By the way, his recent “great score” on the cognitive test means nothing in terms of psychological fitness).  I know when someone shows the signs of being unstable.  Trump is very unstable.  Regarding narcissistic personality disorder, it is characterized by a long-standing pattern of grandiosity (ei...