I Feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty!(with apologies to West Side Story)

I Feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty (with apologies to West Side Story)

I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty, and witty, and gay
And I pity any girl who isn’t me today –
I feel charming, oh so charming
It’s alarming how charming I feel
And so pretty that I hardly can believe I’m real!..........

Ah, Natalie Wood! You were so very pretty! As a child star and as a young adult – what in the world happened to you on that boat anyhow!!!!

Well, Natalie didn’t make it to old age, but I like to think if she had she would still be oh, so pretty!

Quick flash to Audrey sitting on the couch watching 5 foot 10 inch, 115 lb. models strut around in beautiful clothes and accessories on QVC and HSN! Sigh! Oh, so pretty!!!!!!!!!

You get hooked, and think – well, that could be me too if only I had that top, those pants, that dress, that necklace, earrings, bracelets! Oh so pretty!

You definitely don’t bother to remember that you are not 20 years old, nor 5 feet 9-10 inches, do not weigh 115 lb. – in short, there is absolutely nothing similar between you and the models on these shows except that we are all female and want to be pretty!

You toy with the idea that real prettiness comes from the inside and the outside IS what it IS – you really can’t change it, and at almost 80 years of age (hey! I still have three and a half months left at 79 – let’s not rush things!) there is no way you are going to look like those models on screen. Nor are you Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind as Scarlett O’Hara – hardly an ugly duckling!

Still, wouldn’t it be nice to own one of those outfits where you could pretend to be “oh, so pretty!” Maybe even 3 or 4 outfits to be even prettier – wouldn’t it be nice to have so much money that you could buy this one, and that one, this too, how about that, oh shucks! Just buy them all and feel virtuous by giving some away – that’s the ticket!

This, my friends, is how you become addicted to 5 closets full of clothes plus 2 garbage bags full of clothes you are discarding and taking to your church in which poor people can also feel pretty for a dollar or two, or maybe even nothing.

It’s really fun to dress up as you wished you could have as a little girl in your mother’s best clothes! I never got a chance to do that because even if it had been allowed, and it wasn’t, already at the age of 10 I would not have been able to fit into my mother’s clothes. No, you’ve got it wrong! It isn’t that I was too small for them, it’s that her clothes were too small to fit me!!

So now at an advanced age I am getting to stand in front of a mirror trying on a whole bunch of clothes I don’t need so that I can “make believe” I am Nat Wood, and I’m so pretty!!!

And if you don’t think this is great fun, well, guess again! It is no matter how you look in the clothes you bought. They’re all yours, all you have to do is pay for them! And you can play dress-up forever!

But deep down inside a tiny voice is fighting to be heard. And it’s saying, Audrey! Don’t buy another thing. You want to feel really pretty? Take that money and start helping a whole bunch of people down and out who just need a helping hand up so that they can feel worthwhile to themselves and others. Sit down and write a check NOW to one of these people or animals. And then another, another, and another, and before you know it you will have spread some joy where there was none, and given someone hope that somewhere someone cares about what is happening to them. And when you’re finished doing that, call your children and find out who would like to go to lunch –a super burger? (Lionel) A steak? (Anthony) – an eggplant sandwich? (Lillian). Then find out which grandchild would like to have lunch with Grandma – steak (David) 2 cheeseburger’s at McDonald’s (Elena) salmon and pasta (Emily), come on Olivia, Daniel, Audrey, Jon when you’re here visiting – and don’t forget the chicken nuggets brought home to Gabi.

Isn’t all the above much more satisfying than to have another package delivered to your door with another price tag hanging from it, to put where? Wear when? More than enough already!!! Not needed!!!!

And so, Natalie, I will leave you dancing in your new dress in front of the mirror – where you look a whole lot better than I ever could. And I shall dance inwardly at the smile I have brought to someone’s face, or the contented sigh from some shelter dog licking his chops because I have supplied him with his daily bowl of food, the medical care and schooling I was able to give a child in Zambia with the big grin of thank you on her face – all over – everywhere I can reach to bring a moment of happiness and feeling pretty to lots of living creatures including both humans and animals. And THAT makes me feel very pretty indeed! It makes me smile and laugh and these add to my prettiness as can nothing else as I connect with other people.

And you will feel very, very pretty if you reach out in whatever ways you can to other people. Better than if you are adorned with diamonds from head to toe. These may make you glitter, but they won’t really turn you into Cinderella at the ball! An act of kindness, however, will.

So – go for it – and watch West Side Story again, or if you’ve never seen it, see it for the first time. Look how pretty Natalie Wood looks in this movie, and look who’s dancing alongside of her!!!! Why, that’s you!!!! And you look oh so pretty too – because you have reached out and touched someone, and now God is smiling at you. Can’t beat that, can you!

What to Write Today




I could write today about the capture of the No. 2 Taliban leader in Afghanistan, but I won’t. If you want to know about him, it’s all over the front page of the New York Times.

I could write today about the rising stock market that always cheers me up as I’ve a few assets to my name, but I won’t. You can read all about the Market in the Times Business section too.

I could even write about how antsy the nominees for the Oscars are since that show was moved back 2 weeks from the time it usually airs so as to not interfere with the Olympics, but I won’t. You can watch those on Channel 4 this evening. Same with the Westminster Kennel Club Dog show, although I did pick the winner of the Hound group last night when I saw the whippet and realized that I had never seen one that good before. Let’s see what he does tonight when he competes with the 6 other Group winners for Best in Show – I haven’t seen them yet.

I could write about a lot of things but they’re all things you can watch or read about whenever you wish.

Instead I want to write you about my flameless scented candles that I have in the living room all set with timers that turn them on at an hour for which I set them until they go off by themselves about 5 hours later. Unless I have errands to run, a hair appointment, am scheduled to baby sit with my youngest grandchildren, take Hugo to the groomer’s or any one of dozens of things I do in the afternoons after I come home from my 5-6 hours of intense physical labor at my job, the first thing I do when I come in my house is to get out of my dreadful looking uniform, take off my shoes and throw on some thick old socks, a warm sloppy sweater and leggings, plunk myself down with a drink of iced tea, turn on TV to listen to Mike Francesca drone on most of the afternoon about baseball, football, or some other sport in season, close my eyes for about 10 minutes before picking up one of 2-3 books I’m alternating reading, and wait until about 5 in the afternoon when ta-da!!!! Eight different candles placed in strategic spots so that I can see and enjoy them turn on spontaneously. I feel then as though I am in a very special place that I wouldn’t trade for all of King Solomon’s gold and money, and that if I could just gaze at the candles as they flicker, scent the room with their delicate fragrances, and cast gentle shadows on the walls, I could be totally at peace and serenely happy never moving again, or at least not for 5 hours until the candles, like dancers exiting from a stage, go off until 24 hours later when they repeat what they do day in and day out, evening in and out too. They are set to go on just as daylight is ending and twilight is taking over. They look completely different in the fading light, then different again in twilight, and finally reach the peak of their perfection once blackness settles outside my windows. Four of them are on my window sill along with some favorite pictures of family members I love. They are all different in color, shape, size, and fragrance, but they are similar in their complete beauty, how they reflect on the photographs as well as the large bay window as though to say, “hello! Welcome to our daily and nightly show. We will enchant and soothe you. How much we are able to do this is entirely up to you, in your mind and heart.”

Meanwhile, four other flameless candles, totally different from those on the window sill are aglow on my round coffee table. Sometimes I hear the opening bars to Swan Lake and imagine a ballet being played out in front of me. Sometimes I watch the candles through half-slit eyes and imagine all kinds of animals I miss and have loved. Sometimes I can even make out the face of a person long gone from this earth, but always I feel as though I am floating in some kind of paradise that I can only find in this room with these candles surrounding me – an enchanted place I have built just for myself and my dog, Hugo, who is generally snuggled in my arms sound asleep as I gaze around me and stroke his head stretched on my arm. Hugo and I are in heaven, and I want to hold this picture, this place, this scene of serenity and love forever.

Eventually I decide to move. I come back again and again to my seat with the candles as they cradle me, and I know that nothing bad can happen because, you see, they are flameless and function with simple batteries. Hugo and I are completely safe. The room is noticeably warm even on very cold days as well as delightfully cool in summer. And though it looks as if nothing is happening at all, I assure you that I am dreaming, dreaming, dreaming even as the candles flicker calling to me, and all is right with my world.

One, Two, Three Strikes-You're Out!

One, Two, Three Strikes You’re Out!




Well, here we are again almost at the start of a new baseball season. In fact, Spring training for pitchers and catchers starts this coming week when they must report for duty. The balance of the teams called “position players” don’t report until the last week in February, but then everything starts in earnest.

For me it’s the happiest time of the year because I am getting ready for another bang-away season for my team, the New York Yankees.

I know – everyone hates them except for Yankee fans. Their Front Office spends too much money on well established players, snagging the best every year. The Yankee fans are too arrogant and nasty to those who root for other teams. Everyone on the team is paid too much giving them crowing rights over top players on other teams. On and on it goes. I’ve heard it all – and then some – a million times.

None of which can take away from the sheer joy of hearing the cry, “play ball!” especially at the start of a brand new season where anything can happen, any team can come out on top, and most of the pundits are proved wrong again and again.

My youngest son is a die-hard Yankee fan as is my older son. The younger one has already predicted that the Yankees will only come in 3rd in their division this year. This before a single ball has been thrown in the new season that hasn’t yet started! What did I just say about pundits? Well, he may not be a household name, but my Anthony IS a baseball pundit. He can tell you batting averages and who does what all over Major League Baseball – not just the Yankee stats. His dream job, I guess, would have been to have been a baseball statistician, if not an actual player, but instead he is chugging along in the IT world at a major cosmetic company even as he and his friends hurl friendly, and sometimes not so friendly baseball remarks to one another all day long while attending to company business. Of course, I’m half-way kidding because yes, they are working at what they’re supposed to be doing, though interspersed with their paid jobs, baseball talk zooms around as fast as a Mo Rivera fastball, and that’s pretty darn fast! Lots of opposing players are still trying to hit it and most of the time, except when Mo is having an “off day” they come up empty.

So with the Super Bowl having been played and decided, we now are about to start on the REAL national pastime which is BASEBALL! And in spite of the fact that some people have picked my team, the New York Yankees, to come in 3rd – I kind of like the look of that World Series trophy and a No. 28 (they’ve won it 27 times to date) for the New York Yankees in the year 2010!

Great Reader-Compulsive Writer

I once knew a doctor (no, not my Heathcliff) who explained to me that great readers are not necessarily the best writers, and vice-versa.




Well, he may have been half-correct, but I can’t entirely agree with this profile.



You see, I love to read, but I am absolutely driven to write, which does not mean if I had more time at my disposal that I wouldn’t read almost as much as I write. The last is compulsive, I admit, and not the former. Actually, I do each in spurts.



So – what’s with this writing thing? Well, for many years I wrote to just one person who amazingly read every word I ever wrote. Literally thousands of pages. Why? I guess because he cared about me, and incidentally, he was a voracious reader. You see, for every writer, there must be at least 1 reader – hopefully a lot more.



What is it we write about? Whatever has great meaning for us. Writers, you see, are essentially writing for themselves, and only incidentally writing for others. Some are honest enough to openly admit this. Others would rather keep this kind of a secret, but I am telling you the truth. I write chiefly for myself, and in the process I hope that some of you will appreciate a little of what I write. It’s like an actor or actress. They cannot help being who they are, changing all the time if they are really good, but they do hope to be able to “connect” with the rest of us.



And that’s a lot of it too – this business of “connecting”. You see, none of us lives in total isolation. Actually, I am firmly convinced that to reach out to one another is as much a part of the “human condition” as breathing. How many times in the course of a day or evening do you think about somebody, only to have that person later or the following day call you? That isn’t coincidence. It’s a “connection via vibes”, to coin a simple phrase. And if you don’t hear from that person I believe it’s either a. he has overridden the thought of you and chooses not to communicate with you for a variety of reasons, or b. he is waiting for a more opportune time to get in touch with you. Yes, I firmly believe this because I can point to many examples where upon thinking of a person, I received a phone call or e-mail from that person within the hour. Not coincidence. There is very little in life, in fact, that is “pure coincidence” – if anything. I am a real believer in cause and effect, not just among humans but within the entire Universe as well because it isn’t only that WE are all connected, it’s that EVERYTHING in the Universe is connected as well because ALL of it is connected to God. Whether or not you recognize Him.



I find a great deal of harmony and balance in this belief, do you? Each of us has our own image and understanding of what God IS and ISN’T. And these images can be as different as Night from Day. But since Day is only the opposite of Night, the root is always the same thing anyhow.



So – voracious reader or compulsive writer – in the end it’s all the same. They both keep us connected with one another, which ultimately connects us all to God.

Another Day At the Office

A typical day at the office, which in my case is in my high school cafeteria, started out in its usual fashion with everyone declaring that yesterday had been a “day from hell”, and how come I wasn’t there to have felt it as badly as they did? I explained I had been sent to another school by our Boss who hadn’t realized when he sent me that 3 people would be out on our staff at my school leaving it worse off than the school to which he sent me to help. I confess I was very happy to see everyone at my school so glad that I had returned after a 1 day absence (spent at another school where I busted my butt trying to help their crisis) but from there it went rapidly downhill right away in that 2 other people were out today and we had to “cover” for them in addition to our own chores which usually take us beyond the time we’re supposed to be working. 2nd day from Hell for my own school, and this time I was there to share it with them.




I don’t care where you work or what your job is, the worst thing that can occur at almost any job is when 2-3 people don’t show up for work. This instantly spells Red Alert for everyone who is there, and one doesn’t need an Army sergeant to get us all moving at breakneck speed. The name of the game is “teamwork” and when part of the team is absent, well you’d have to be an imbecile or totally insubordinate to run away from what is expected by everybody including oneself. Oh, I’ve known people to try to avoid taking on extra chores, but they temporarily lose the self-respect of their peers, and sometimes this becomes permanent if it happens over and over again. Not worth it.



Today, in fact, I started something new in my job description. It appears that lots of the kids are “stealing food” from us (no kidding!) and my new job instead of being on the cash register during the 3 lunch periods, is to watch out for guys who bring in their back packs even though there are 2 huge signs on the doors telling them that no back packs are allowed in the kitchen and to leave them in the cafeteria when they come in to get their lunches, and girls who bring in huge tote bags which strangely seem to bulge as they exit.



Listen, I didn’t get to be almost 80 years of age without trying some stuff myself when I was younger although it was never to the degree that some of our high school kids have perfected their “routine”, so I volunteered for this job thinking I would be quite adept at catching some of them.



I am, and I was today. I hauled out 4 guys at the 1st lunch with back packs that were popping, 3 at the 2nd lunch, and only 1 at the 3rd lunch. I also caught some girls with their totes. In every instance they looked at me with innocent eyes “oh, I was going to take this out when I got to the cash register, really I was – I was just carrying it this way”.



Yeah, right! Carrying stuff that belongs on a plastic tray in your backpack or tote, and then trying to exit by one of the doors where there is no cashier. But guess who was waiting? Big Sister. Or Big Mama. Or Big Grandma. Whatever you want to call me – the point is that you don’t get away with that stuff when I’m prowling around looking for people just like you!!



Gestapo tactics? I don’t think so. I didn’t torture anybody – just made them turn in their food, and/or go pay the conventional way by passing a cashier.



Now, all of this would make sense if we weren’t throwing away in the garbage tons of beautifully wrapped, uneaten food every day. In the face of this, what’s a little stealing from the kids? We’d only be throwing out what they’re taking anyhow, and certainly it isn’t my job to teach them some moral values. I think that is left up to parents still, isn’t it?



A lot of stuff happens in our cafeteria that probably shouldn’t. But then a lot of stuff happens everywhere that shouldn’t. What about our congressmen and their dalliances on the job? And our athletes cheating on steroids? Aren’t they all supposed to be role models for the kids? If they barely get a slap on the wrist, how are we supposed to impress a 17 year old boy that he shouldn’t snatch a sandwich from the kitchen and try to make it out to the cafeteria where he can melt away in the crowd without paying for it?



So – just another day at the office – actually, a more peaceful day than most. One never knows what tomorrow may bring!

Addictions 101 and 102

Now, I don’t pretend to nearly know it all, but if there is one thing on which I think I’m an expert it’s addictions. There’s 101 and 102 and if you at last graduate to 102, you can stay in that class forever.

When I was young, I don’t know what made me think that when I got to be 18 I could have it all my way. First I became addicted to being very mentally ill. It wasn’t by design, although perhaps subconsciously it was. At any rate, my family finally understood that if I were to remain on this earth something had to be done about this early addition of mine because it was creating complete chaos and crisis with my life. After several years of treatment I emerged from this addiction and stumbled back into daily living with the rest of the world.

It didn’t really suit me to be there, but I had no choice because a young doctor who had taken care of me for years insisted that I stay in the “here and now” and that was that. I could have disobeyed and gone back to my never-never land, but wisely I decided this might not be the best course because I wanted to live to have children, and I wanted this very badly.

My next addition came into full bloom when I attended a dog show and fell head over heels in love with red & white American cocker spaniels. From that moment on, I HAD to be in on this and I became addicted to showing dogs. Made 4 champions, one of which was so successful that now at least 55 years later his name is behind most of the red & white cockers being shown in the ring today. Can’t get that much more successful because that’s what showing dogs is all about – improving the breed bit by bit by the best breeding imaginable. It’s generally what separates the ultimate winners from the losers though not always. There are exceptions though they are few and far between.

When I got married at the age of 26, I was finally ready to have children and I had 1, 2 – one right after the other literally, and thought my life was permanently set in a “Go” position. The great yearning I had felt for years was finally satiated – I was a mother and thrilled to be! The 2 children were beautiful looking and very bright. My husband was handsome and supposedly getting educated at night at college to be a CPA while holding a good job during the day as an accountant. My life was perfect.

Except that it was not. Somehow my husband did not fit into the perfect life scenario I had painted for myself, and just as suddenly as he had walked into my life 9 years earlier – he left us.
High and dry. With that and practically no money except what I was able to earn to barely take care of my 2 children and myself, it was obviously time to shed the show dogs. Unlike horse racing there is little money to be made showing dogs except as stud fees. If your dog is very, very good as I told you one of mine was, you can make quite a bit of money in stud fees, and I had. Of course, dogs do not have the life span of horses, so at some point the dog becomes too old to show anymore and to gather stud fees. He is, hopefully, replaced by his offspring as my Buster was. They were all over the show rings, and in turn moved on to get their share of large stud fees while Buster got older and was no longer in demand. I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand it was now time to get out of show dogs altogether and concentrate my meager resources on my kids and myself, so I did. End of that addiction.

My next addiction took place a number of years later when I remarried to a guy who wanted to take care of not only me but my 2 children by another man, and even consented to our having our own child together with a little reluctance as he had 2 grown children of his own, was considerably older than I, and was somewhat afraid of departing this earth before “our child” was grown. But I convinced him otherwise and this is how my 3rd child, Anthony, came into this world. Things were made more perfect because at that time an uncle, who had had no intention of leaving any of his money to my 2 sisters and me, died and his wife had pre-deceased him. They had no children so we inherited a substantial nest egg which I immediately put to use by launching a new addiction. This time, having felt deprived after my 1st husband left and we had had so little to live on, I decided I was going to buy all of the things I had denied myself for years – none of which were really necessary. I was living in New York City at the time, and insisted on switching super markets from the perfectly okay local one to Gristede’s, because their pork chops were so much thicker and juicier, as well as all of their food being of top quality. They were also top-priced, but what did I care! And deciding that I owed it to myself to develop a whole new wardrobe in which to clad myself as I had lost considerable weight, I flounced in to stores such as Bergdorf Goodman and Saks, Fifth Avenue, and bought clothes until my closets couldn’t hold anymore, and then I bought still more. I collected bottles and bottles of imported colognes and perfumes from France, got a Baldwin piano so I could re-launch my love of piano playing (though I’m not very good), and had a complete party until I noticed that my little nest egg was shrinking even as I was just about to start a new enterprise having moved with my 2nd husband to his house in Cranford, New Jersey. So being addicted to spending money as though I were a Vanderbilt, I launched into saving a house that was literally falling apart from neglect. I justified this by telling myself that if I didn’t do this all at once, rather than piecemeal, the house would literally crumble to the ground and we would have no place to live forcing us to buy a new house. This would be a lot more expensive than my renovations, and this is how I adjusted my thinking to my new addiction which included deciding I had not chosen the right new kitchen floor – not once, but at least 8 times. By the time we reached Floor #9 in the kitchen, my husband who had been very busy planing down the 8 doors leading to the kitchen announced that one more floor and we would be living like Alice in Wonderland – giants in a kitchen where the floor was almost up to the ceiling. And that was how I finally stopped with only 8 floors installed in the kitchen – none of which I really liked, but I guessed I was stuck with Floor No. 8. The same thing went for the wallpapering in the kitchen. Over and over and over – different designs, and each time swearing to my husband and my older son who had to help put up the wallpaper that this was it. It never was.

When I finally ran out of money I returned to work, and it was a good thing that I am just as much addicted to work as to other things because at least 1 of my addictions actually brought in money rather than using it all up.

Things sailed along pretty well for quite awhile with my husband finally retiring from work but getting a rather large Social Security check, and my advancing into a Management situation at my job which allowed me to earn more money than I had ever previously been able to do.

Then my mother died and left the 3 of us some money. And then Al died and left me his Social Security. I had by then taken in a boarder for the 2nd floor of our home in Cranford, and proceeded to give her notice she would have to find another place because my younger son, his wife, and 2 dogs were doing to move upstairs at a greatly reduced rate, but after all, this was my son. I certainly wasn’t going to have his wife and him paying rent at the rate I would a stranger some of whose living habits gave me fits (like throwing away hundreds of fish heads into my garbage, missing this much of the time so that the heads were lining my driveway – yuk!)

My son eventually moved out after he bought his own home and I was able to sell the house in Cranford and move to Piscataway where 2 of my 3 children lived into a much smaller house where I took the proceeds from the sale of the house in Cranford and completely revamped the newer little home in Piscataway – spending a lot of money putting on a garage where there had been none, new siding where there again wasn’t any, new windows, electric and gas updating – the works in order to have my new home suit me. At the same time I was doing this, I had a new job working from home doing medical transcription which paid me rather well as I was able to set my own rate. Although the hours were long because I had no control over the volume of work, I got paid well for what I did. Between that, my husband’s social security check, and the pension I was now collecting from my full-time job of 19 years, I was quite secure.

This opened up the avenue to my next addiction – credit cards. I discovered QVC and HSN on TV – a marvelous way to feed my latest addiction to clothes, jewelry, household gadgets – you name it – they have it – until I was literally running up thousands of dollars a year – hadn’t enough room in 5 closets (half of which were double closets except for one downstairs that was triple sized) – and still there wasn’t enough room for my newest addiction to clothes, clothes, and more clothes. As for the jewelry – I had to get a large stand-up jewelry cabinet, purchased from QVC – yes, it’s very attractive, but it still wasn’t sufficient to store all of the earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and pins I accumulated anymore than the excess clothing, some of which I never took the price tags off from because even changing clothes a few times a day I couldn’t wear them all. Addicted? You betcha. I knew it and also knew I had to do something about it. My addictions were finally making me uncomfortable as I recognized them for what they were, and understood they had become a crutch of which I had to rid myself. My self-esteem was finally at stake.

Around this time I joined a group at my church headed by a fantastic lady who really knew how to “facilitate” and “lead”. Being an addictive personality (you can tell that by now, can’t you?) I became very attached to this group – almost to the point of addiction, and then the light slowly began to dawn. Where I had before only prayed to God when I was in trouble, and a nightly prayer to thank him for my blessings, I began to pray several times a day. I also turned to Jesus, and decided to re-read the Bible, the Old as well as the New Testament. I wish I could tell you that reading the Bible became an addiction for me, but I can’t. I can, however, say that I concentrated on several things for which the Bible is well known even as I continued dealing with my buying addiction from QVC and HSN. Occasionally I would pause with these because I understood them for what they were – some kind of crutch against – I wasn’t sure what – but things that had bothered me a lot in the past including Depression. Understanding this, I turned to the Bible and especially to one passage – Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

Now, I can’t prove that Jesus actually said these things as there is no written record of what Jesus did and didn’t say – but on the assumption that he did (and if he didn’t – somebody did in that they are written in the Bible) I zeroed in on what the Sermon on the Mount actually said. Struck by the magnificence of the thoughts this particular passage represents, it suddenly dawned on me that this was what I was really seeking. Something to which I could really cling – be addicted to – and it would matter and suffice. It would not be necessary for me to resort again and again to crutches which were really detrimental to my life and my image of myself. Concentrate on what the Sermon on the Mount actually says, and it was really true! One would and could be saved. And in my case – from myself!

For my Jewish friends, for I have a passion for them too, they need only zero in on what Rabbi Hillel once said – also in the Bible but in the Old Testament. Rabbi Hillel said, “do not do unto others what you would not have done unto you – all the rest is commentary”. He was referring to all the “dos” and “don’ts” in the Old Testament, and I happen to believe he was right. Jesus turned this saying around to “do unto others what you would have done unto you” which is saying the same thing. Jesus was of course a Jew and must have been very familiar with the Old Testament as he showed again and again during his ministry.

So now I have entered Addiction 102, and I hope I never stray from this addiction. It has changed my perspective on many things about me and people in general. I hope it has given me more compassion and less impatience especially with God. I can better appreciate that God does not observe time tables that humans insist He live by. God lives by God’s rules, and once we understand that, it makes Him more awesome than ever because we also comprehend that with our own limitations we should be glad that God observes his own Time schedule. Otherwise, the Universe and everything within it would cease to exist. If it ever does, this will be God’s reasoning as to why – and probably something we are not meant to remotely understand.

I know there are many addictions in this world to which I haven’t fallen prey. And for this I’m grateful because my own addictions have been more than enough for me to try to tame. I shall be eternally grateful for the Sermon on the Mount because it gives permanent hope to the weakest among us, and as such makes it possible for everyone who will read and embrace this to stand up to his own demons and prevail.

Where I am the CEO

Did you not know that all of us are CEOs though we may not get paid anything for it?

Well, we are.

I am the CEO of “my own company” which means that I get to “chair” the Board meetings, and hand out the assignments. To myself.

Here’s how it goes over here. I wake up in the morning and decide to call a Board meeting. I expect everyone to attend – and that means that I will be there, of course.

At the Board meeting I announce the agenda for the day.

Audrey needs to do the following things, and no excuses will be tolerated as to their not getting done. In other words – zero tolerance for neglect or error.

Certainly we’ve all heard that phrase many times at our regular jobs, right?

Here’s the agenda for today, as I announced at my Board meeting early this morning. By the way, nobody is allowed to be late for an Audrey Board meeting.

1a. Get the heck out of bed and fortify yourself with 1 cup of coffee, caffeinated. This will be the only caffeinated drink you will have all day so that you don’t counteract the Topril which is keeping your heart arrhythmia in check.
1b. Take morning medications which are Paxil, Topril, and multivitamins.
2. Cook hard boiled eggs and asparagus for the salad you will make for Elena’s party.
3. Do the laundry for the week paying special attention to the uniforms which get pretty dirty within a few days of wearing them.
4. Write 2 checks for distribution at Elena’s party.
5. Wrap her presents and remember the present for Gabi so she doesn’t feel left out.
6. Wash hair.
7. Style hair.
8. Call Lillian and find out if David can come and bring the snow plow to do my driveway, front walk, and front steps, and can then shovel the steps from the deck to make it easier for Hugo to do his business in the back.
9. Figure out what you want to wear to the party today.
10. Make the salad for the party throwing in the asparagus and hard boiled eggs.
11. Get dressed for the party.
12. Let Hugo out the back door to make his business.
13. Go to the party. Bring a little bit of vodka so you can really enjoy.
14. Come back from the party.
15. Check out what David has done and supplement with shoveling where the wind has blown back some of what he has cleaned up.
16. Make sure he threw enough Blizzard ice melter on the steps and the driveway – otherwise supplement.
17. Feed Hugo his dinner.
18. Sit down and watch Masterpiece Theater at 9 on Channel 13 – it’s a great show from a book by Jane Austin.
19. Take night time medication.
20. Lights out, go to bed!

21. The meeting is adjourned.

P.S. During the week, my CEO functions are greatly increased as I am working from 8:30-1:30 followed by numerous personal chores to be performed in the afternoon. First chance to sit down is generally around 5-6 in the evening when I have done everything I can think of for that day.

P.P.S. So – you think that being CEO is a cushy fun job? Guess again!

Who am I vs. how do I look?

I have reached the stage in life where I am almost obsessed with figuring out exactly who I am, leaving the “how do I look” to those at least 60 years my junior.

Yes, that’s right. At 20 years of age, I was haunted with how I looked to other people. Coming from a family of very beautiful looking women who had done absolutely nothing to develop anything else than the maximum when it came to their looks, I would look in the mirror, sigh, and realize that I was destined to be an ugly duckling, so what else could I concentrate on? And since the men in my family were much smarter, wittier, and infinitely more charming than I – with what did this leave me?

I decided I was going to be the best mother I could be and do everything completely differently from my mother with one exception. I happened to have liked the emphasis she placed on manners, especially when I would gaze at and observe the lack of such with many of my peers, all of whom came from very good families that apparently did not rate common courtesy high on the list for their offspring. In fact, it was so ingrained in us that as late as today my younger sister goes into orbit if she doesn’t receive a snail-mail thank-you note within the permissible (by my mother) time from receiving the gift to thanking in writing for it (10 days was permissible, 7 days was better, and within 3-4 days was best of all). And claiming one was too busy and had already thanked the person verbally at a party were nothing more than feeble excuses to get out of what MUST be done if one was, indeed “well brought up”. I sometimes wonder what my mother would think of the way I casually now respond by e-mail to a gift-she is probably rolling her eyes wondering what has happened to the simple elegance of Manners as she understood them. Sorry, Mum - It’s true that I did teach all three of my children how to write thank-you notes, and when to write them, but I did feel that if you had already thanked someone verbally at the time of receiving the gift, this was sufficient, especially if the “thank you SO MUCH!” was truly warm and sincere.

So having lost out in the “looks” department, as well as in the “intelligence and wit” competition, I just concentrated on what most appealed to me – the love I felt for my children and my wanting to be with them, guide them, comfort, hug, and listen to them, and that this would be enough for me – as well as working for them in an effort to provide them with the necessities of life, as well as some extras which might make some wishes come true. This all kept me occupied for years – in fact, I am still functioning in that mode – I don’t believe it ever ends regardless of how old or wealthy your children become when grown. For me, my children are the main reason I love my life, and in fact, the reason for my existence as they are my only hope for partial immortality.

Approaching 80 years of age, my new obsession is to really find out who I am. Oh, I know, we are all asking ourselves this question throughout our lives, but I have to tell you that if you make it to 80, it becomes increasingly intense. After all, everything else has fallen apart and especially whatever looks you had, so why not concentrate on what is really lasting about yourself, and in fact try to improve on it. I have heard such sad stories of truly beautiful looking people who become recluses in their old age because they are so busy lamenting the loss of what they’ve been most admired for. Marlene Dietrich spent the last 20 years of her life holed up in a Paris apartment hardly ever venturing out to see the light of day much less smell the roses, she was so obsessed with her loss of looks. She no longer had the legs she had been famous for, or the throaty singing voice, and the face was long gone – what to do! She might have handled it differently as has Jeanne Moreau, the French actress who upon getting old decided to concentrate on her smile which came from within, and because of this appeared more beautiful than ever because she was thoroughly alive, out everywhere, involved in all kinds of things concerning other people – in other words she didn’t go into hiding and mourning over something none of us can prevent. Smile, laugh, interact, and mean it – and the world will be at your feet. Mope around and you’ll do this alone with perhaps a few hangers-on who pity and try to comfort you as much as they can. What a waste of one’s final years or days!!!!

When I wake up each morning these days, my first thought after thanking God for allowing me to wake up, and free of pain at that, is to ask myself what of importance I am going to find to make this day memorable, and the next and the next. Generally the things I think about have nothing to do with making a big splash anywhere or even being noticed by others at all. Rather I am thinking of what I am going to do to make me notice myself and nod my head in approval with some kind of silent commendation to myself such as “way to go, Audrey!”. It may be something minute that no one notices, but it generally involves some kind of interaction between myself and someone having a tough time over something because my instinct is to try and help that person.

You see, I have received so much help in the past, mostly by one man, a doctor with whom I became best friends, that I feel this is a way of repaying him just a little for what he gave to me – freely and apparently without regret. It was a gift so tremendous that I can never ever repay him for it – except just a little by doing what I can to lend an ear, or shoulder, to someone in need. This has now become who I am. More than going to church, knowing the scriptures backward and forward (I don’t), or a number of other things I see other people do which simply do not define me to myself or to my God. .

Again, my mother used to wistfully say when she was in her 70s that a person became invisible at that age, and then she would sigh because she understood there was something very big that had been missing in her life, but she simply could not put it into words, it was too painful. Nevertheless, she knew it was there and I believe she knew what it was. I never want to be in such a position because I believe it would make me quite distraught, and as a matter of fact, my mother often was, though she put it down to a variety of reasons which had little to do with the real cause. I believe it made it easier for her to live with herself, another something we all have to do in the end. We come into this world alone – we exit the same way except for many of us, we really don’t. Because unlike the newborn infant, when we exit, if we have paid attention to the signs along the way, we exit with God by our side understanding that this is also to whom and what we return. Can there be any more comforting thought and feeling than this? Nothing to my knowledge.

God was with me when I came into the world, only I didn’t know it, and God will hopefully be with me when I exit. The difference? I will know it, and it will bring me great peace and joy.

Love, Audrey

Are all writers wounded people?

Well, are they? I would have to answer that with a resounding “yes”, and perhaps go beyond and say that all serious writers are in some ways wounded, and that they write in repeated attempts to heal themselves hoping, for the most part, that a by-product is they will somehow entertain or educate their readers into what joins us all. It may be the same with movie directors, especially the good and great ones. Think Fellini or Ingmar Bergman, Billy Wilder, Elia Kazan and the truly great directors of films. They are always, no matter how hidden and often not so hidden, showing us aspects of themselves, and are particularly sensitive and adept at portraying human frailty in all its guises.

How many times do we close a book or leave a movie theater with our emotions profoundly jarred, having specifically “connected” with this or that – well, this is intended by the author or director. He/she knows that we all basically yearn for the same things. We swoon and melt at magnificent love scenes, recoil in horror at evil, become depressed when we view depression, feel degraded when a character is ripped to shreds verbally or physically, and our hearts sing with joy if in the end the hero or heroine is triumphant in whatever the story has been all about. If for any reason this doesn’t happen, the writer has not only failed to connect with his audience, but has of course also failed himself because he has not endowed his words with the ring of truth. It is this last that he should be best at because he must be able to show this in all of its glory or fatal flaws to himself as well as to his readers because we/they need to know. Why? Because too often we are afraid of looking at this by ourselves, we feel victimized in ways that other people aren’t, and a whole host of reasons that we hide from ourselves what we don’t want to see. It comforts us, therefore, to see that somebody else has and is feeling exactly the same if for different reasons. And briefly we don’t feel so alone with what afflicts us.

To be wounded is therefore to admit to being thoroughly human. I don’t think it’s possible to go through an entire life, in fact, without having been pricked again and again. Our pride, our sensibilities, our feelings of right and wrong – what we intend to have seen rather than what actually is – on and on it goes. Let’s face it together. We are all imperfect as can be, and that’s the nuts of it. I don’t care if you’re President of the United States or King Solomon – none of us, no matter how much we aspire, can possibly come close to being perfect at anything, though we may get glimpses of it from time to time. A rare thought that we know instinctively is elevated whether or not spoken, a gesture of pure love and kindness received as such, refusal to do what is basically wrong and we know it, the courage to volunteer for something nobody really wants to do. Not quite perfect, but coming close. We give ourselves a gold star because too often nobody else will, and that’s okay too. One climbs one’s mountains alone with the help of God – and sometimes, in fact too often, no one else is even aware we are climbing a personal mountain, full of traps, huge glaciers, deep dangerous crevices and at every turn we could fail and fall to a personal death. Instead of trying to avoid these personal challenges, I believe we should be welcoming them because it is precisely at such times that we are fully alive, if only to ourselves. And this is what Life is all about. Not to glide through seamlessly but to experience in all of its complexities.

So I’m glad to tell you that yes, I am wounded. In fact, very much so. And when I write to you I am trying to expunge my personal demons to myself which scares me much more than exposing them to you. Of course I hope to connect with you, but I am far more interested, truth be told, in connecting with the deepest parts of myself, even if it means looking at those things I dislike the most that I know rest within me.

You are free to turn me off at any time, but I am not free to do the same with and for myself. A writer seeks the truth, as I have often said as his ultimate pinnacle. It’s a constant, never-ending process – and like Groundhog Day it never ever ends. I love you all for bearing with me.