Mothers and Sons

Two recent stories in the news have helped me forgive myself. Yesterday I read about a healthy 56-year-old British woman who travelled to Switzerland to end her life through assisted suicide. Her 22-year-old son had died four years ago, choking in his sleep on a bit of a sandwich she had made for him. She simply could not endure the emotional pain of missing him any longer. I totally understood her decision.

Then this morning I read a book excerpt written by a woman whose eldest child and only son, age 23, was taken hostage in the October 7 raid on the Israeli music festival in 2023. Held captive and grievously wounded, starved, tortured and ultimately executed by Hamas, his ravaged skeletal body was returned to his family after 330 days. Somehow she goes on living but writes that she is dead inside, her grief cancelling out every other possible human emotion. She writes that she will feel this way forever.

My own son is now 38 and I thank God every day for his continued fortune and good health. The thought of some harm befalling him haunts me. Recently I feared that a bad cut on his hand would become infected and lead to sepsis. (It didn't.) Whenever he has a cold I pray it won't lead to pneumonia. (It never has.) When he flies, I worry. ("Text me when you land!")

I thought I was crazy but now I understand that I'm just an ordinary mother of a son. Profound attachment comes with the territory.

Trying to Communicate

The purpose of language is to communicate with other beings who speak the same one we do. Without language we are forced to use other methods, such as facial expressions, hand gestures and body movement. Language is by far  the easiest. Which is why it pisses me off when I come across writing that uses rare words I don't know, when known ones are readily available and will achieve a more inclusive result.

For example, in today's Wall Street Journal a theater reviewer discusses a new Broadway play, possibly to encourage people to rush out and purchase tickets before the show closes. You'd think he'd go for the common denominator, since the totality of theater-goers range in education. 

Instead I, a former newspaper writer and editor raised on Scrabble (like all Jewish children) and in possession of an extensive vocabulary as a result of a good education, much reading and years of playing word games and crossword puzzles, had to dictionary-check three words just in the article's opening two paragraphs. This annoyed me no end and made me doubt the opinion of Mr. Charles Isherwood, the paper's theater critic. 

I guess we're supposed to be in awe of his vast knowledge of esoteric words and not care that his sentences may be unintelligible and thus his intended meaning lost. This, to me is dumb. Say what you mean, goddammit! And in plain English! (Unless you are French or Spanish or German or whatever, you get my point.) What else does a writer aspire to besides communicating with his/her readers?

FILM REVIEW: The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson

Moriah with her parents after winning a gravel bike race.

Reportedly the top choice of Netflix viewers since it arrived earlier this month, this chilling documentary detailing the joyful life and shocking murder of a 25-year-old leading cyclist is deeply touching and will likely stay with you long after the final credits roll. Moriah Wilson's lifelong dream of being in the Olympics was brutally snuffed out for the oldest of reasons: romantic jealousy. 

Her killer turned out to be the new girlfriend living with Moriah's former beau, who was also part of the cycling community. She eluded capture for 43 days, using her sister's passport to leave the country and undergo plastic surgery to alter her looks before finally being caught, tried and sentenced to 90 years in prison.

Through a combination of family home movies, still photographs, TV news footage and current interviews with police, family and close friends, The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson paints a compelling portrait of an extraordinary young woman who was beloved by a wide circle of people and hated by just one. That person ultimately took her life. 

Despite the gruesome subject matter the film ends on a high note, with her grieving parents and younger brother looking healthy and happy four years after her death. This 95-minute film is part of their ongoing effort to keep Moriah's memory alive through the charitable foundation they set up in her name. See it to find out more.

Get A Life!

If you're like me, you've noticed a steady decline of intelligence in the average American since the invention of the Internet. The evidence is everywhere, from the decreasing test scores of our students to the increasing weight of the typical citizen. Instead of eating well and exercising, the masses -- including billionaire Oprah Winfrey, an obvious non-masser -- now ingest drugs to diminish their appetites and girth. But perhaps the most telling sign is the overwhelming interest in the personal lives of celebrities, most notably a singer named Taylor Swift.

I, a former Woodstock Music Festival attendee who saw just about everyone who was anyone in the music world perform live in concert, have never seen Swift's act or heard any of her music, at least not that I know of. But being alive on the planet, I do know that she is dating a pro-football player and they are now engaged. Their relationship impacts my life not one iota. So imagine how little I care about rampant rumors that she is pregnant. The news is going viral! In fact, her fans are going absolutely wild over the possibility, excitedly exchanging tweets online. 

Here's what I don't get: Why would anyone except for the immediate family of the singer and her boyfriend, and maybe some of their friends, care? How can anyone get excited over the birth of a child they will never meet? What's the difference?

As the popular saying goes, people need to get a life. I usually avoid "sayings" but that one is very appropriate to several generations of today's youth, most of whom exist wholly online, forgoing their own lives and instead living vicariously through celebrities and influencers. This is a sad mistake that many will realize too late.

Earlier today I read about a 38-year-old Brazilian fitness influencer with 61,000 Instagram followers who drowned during the swim portion of an Ironman triathlon in Texas, shortly after she told followers to "savor every moment of life." Now what the heck are all her followers supposed to do?

Series Review: BIG MISTAKES

Levy and Ortega as siblings in very hot water.

The title says it all. Dan Levy, who was so engaging in the comic series Schitt's Creek, is less so in this new Netflix offering wherein he plays a closeted gay pastor who inadvertently gets swept up in the activities of a violent Russian/ Italian drug gang smuggling cocaine into the country via a bull's testicles. One wonders what the writers were smoking, drinking and snorting when they devised the storyline.

Starring along with Levy are Laurie Metcalf as his mother and comedian Taylor Ortega, who as his sister steals every scene and is the only reason to watch it. The twisted plot, which stretches the viewer's believability as well as patience to grievous limits, also involves Metcalf as an obnoxious, possibly mentally ill, harridan running for mayor of their unnamed small town. The two stories barely connect but occasionally crash into one another, adding to the total mayhem and chaos that defines the show. 

It's not funny, unless you find train wrecks funny. There is a fair amount of men kissing men, people screaming at one another, foreigners with guns kidnapping people, and some really triggering music, so if you like all that then you'll like this. 

I watched all eight episodes which mercifully were each just about half an hour long, hoping things would improve. They didn't. A second season is being threatened. I will not be tuning in.

People, They're the Worst!

Cher: Not bad for a cadaver.

Let's face it: The average American woman is hideous. Morbidly obese with ugly facial features, covered in tattoos like that will help, messy hair crudely dyed in Crayola colors, bad skin, multiple piercings and terrible taste in clothing. Yet she trolls the Internet writing scathing criticisms about Hollywood's elite, those chosen few among us who have risen above average to become beautiful, thin, fabulously dressed and often wealthy role models. For these very reasons they are hated by the average American.

For example, in an article online about Cher, one of the most gifted singers to ever exist, and who at 79 looks 30 years younger, still has a fabulous figure, beautiful flowing hair and lovely features -- thanks to Botox and surgery no doubt she remains wrinkle-free -- some bloated nobody likely munching on a bag of Cheetos in some dark hellhole in Boise, Idaho called her a "walking cadaver."

The walking cadaver has a live-in boyfriend who is 39. Someone should tell him she's dead!

Forgotten Memories

This blog has so few readers that I could post photos of me giving Bill Clinton a blow job and there would be no comments. Of course I never did that and so have no photos of it, and certainly wouldn't do it now, and would never post anything lewd or vulgar here. All I'm saying is that I could, and that they would go unnoticed.

Sort of like when disgraced Congressman Eric Swallwell raped and choked a woman until she blacked out and thought she died back in 2018, yet she never called the police or told anyone about it until he was running for governor of California in 2026. Don't get me wrong, I think Swallwell is scum, but still, his latest accuser reminds me of Christine Blasey Ford and her patently false accusations about Brett Kavanaugh on the eve of his Supreme Court nomination.

Where do they get these women?

Judgment Call

Judgment: the act or process of forming an opinion or 

evaluation by discerning and comparing.

My son's girlfriend thinks I'm too judgmental. That's just one on her list of things that are wrong with me, but it's the only one that irks me. After all, if we are not discerning then what are we? How do we differ from squirrels and birds and worms and lions and camels and crows and -- somebody please stop me, you get the point.

Many people earn their living by being judgmental. This includes theater critics, movie reviewers, therapists, doctors, dentists, lawyers, hair stylists, car mechanics, newspaper columnists, chefs, house painters, fine artists, furniture repairers, plumbers, piano teachers, dress designers and every last judge in our entire legal system, including the nine sitting Justices on the Supreme Court.

Following are some judgments heard every day in common conversation:

1. It's too hot today.

2. It's freezing out there.

3. That's way too much to spend on a car.

4. Your nails look beautiful.

5. Donald Trump is an asshole.

6. That movie sucked.

7. These grapes are spoiled.

8. Buying a lottery ticket is just throwing your money away.

9. New York City has the best pizza.

10. That song is so annoying.

I could go on literally forever, but I won't. Anyway, a few nights ago I attended a play with my husband, my son and his girlfriend. Afterwards I commented that one of the costumes on one of the actors did not fit well and was very distracting. I thought it looked bad. I later learned that my comment was considered too "judgy." I would tell you what I think of her thinking that, but I can't. Not here. (Email me.)

Stuff We Never Think About

How many times have you wondered who is the poet laureate, not counting Maya Angelou who was famous for being black and reading her poem at Barack Obama's inauguration that, according to my husband, had something to do with mastodons?

If your answer is "never," you are on track with the rest of America. What are poet laureates, why do we have them, what do they do and who picked them for the job are questions one would ask if the subject ever came up, which it rarely does. 

The poet laureate is appointed to a two-year term by the Library of Congress. Currently it's someone named Arthur Sze, a handy fact to know if you do a lot of crossword puzzles. Starting his second year in the job, Mr. Sze says he is, "Excited to travel to multiple cities to celebrate poetry and poetry in translation."

The position earns $60,000 a year, which is $10,000 more than an elementary school teacher in Maine earns to educate children during their most formative years. I don't know if poetry is one of the subjects in the curriculum, but I do know that Maine scores lowest on all national tests and graduating seniors can barely read beyond an 8th-grade level or do advanced math beyond addition and subtraction. 

I've never heard any young person say they want to be a poet laureate when they grow up. Or a poet, for that matter. Personally, all I can summon up is "Jabberwocky" and "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening."  That being said, I do have a poet of choice and his name is Billy Collins. Following is my favorite poem of his:

I Chop Some Parsley While Listening to Art Blakey’s Version of “Three Blind Mice”

And I start wondering how they came to be blind.

If it was congenital, they could be brothers and sister, and I think of the poor mother brooding over her sightless young triplets.

Or was it a common accident, all three caught in a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?

If not, if each came to his or her blindness separately, how did they ever manage to find one another? Would it not be difficult for a blind mouse to locate even one fellow mouse with vision, let alone two other blind ones?

And how, in their tiny darkness, could they possibly have run after a farmer’s wife or anyone else’s wife for that matter? Not to mention why.

Just so she could cut off their tails with a carving knife, is the cynic’s answer,

But the thought of them without eyes, and now without tails to trail through the moist grass or slip around the corner of a baseboard, has the cynic who always lounges within me up off his couch and at the window trying to hide the rising softness that he feels.

By now I am on to dicing an onion, which might account for the wet stinging in my own eyes, though Freddie Hubbard’s mournful trumpet on “Blue Moon,”which happens to be the next cut, cannot be said to be making matters any better.

In Sickness and In Health

Most young people, blinded by love, accept the usual marriage vows and recite them easily. They promise to love and cherish and even obey, and be faithful and remain loyal in sickness and in health, til death do them part, confident that those issues will never come back to bite them. Well they're wrong, and those vows need a rewrite.

My husband of almost 40 years has had a terrible, loud, hacking, near-constant cough for going on two weeks now and I am fit to be tied, whatever that means. When I said I would stick with him "in sickness" I was imagining something much quieter, like him languishing in bed with me bringing him chicken soup and fluffing up his pillows, not me lying awake on the guest-room-too-hard bed pulling the blankets over my head to drown out the explosive hacking. And that's just at night -- the days aren't much better. 

I know it's worse for him and I'm sad about that, but I'm exhausted. Sleeping is a thing of the past, although Mitch seems to have mastered the art of coughing without waking himself up. Two visits to the doctor and a chest X-ray have netted no results other than it's bronchitis not pneumonia and it will simply have to "run its course." But the doctor never said one word about what I'm supposed to do.

About those marriage vows: Coughing should be mentioned and have a definite time limit.

80 Is The New 90

I am currently 79 years old. Happily, this number still retains some dignity. Nobody considers being 79 the same as being 90. Nobody uses it as the precursor to the grave. But 80 -- now that's a different story. When you're 80, people treat you like you're already dead. Being just two months away from that milestone, I can tell you from personal experience that it's a monumental drag.

The fact is I am limber. I work out with a trainer at CrossFit twice a week to help stay that way. I walk unaided, and with a spring in my step when I feel like it. (I would run but my hip replacement will last longer if I don't.) I live in a three-story house and run up and down the stairs all day long, too many times to count. (Yes, I hold onto the handrail, I'm not an idiot.) Still, lately I am treated like an invalid by people who know my real age, especially my own family. 

Just last night, descending the stairs at a theater after seeing a play, my son turned to me and asked if I needed any help, something he has never asked in all his 38 years, even when I could have used some. And just last week as I was emerging from an airplane, a  porter rushed over and shouted --just in case I was deaf -- "Do you need a wheelchair?"  Quickening my pace I shouted back, "Hey buddy, do I look like I need a wheelchair?"  (I was remorseful later, realizing he was just trying to earn a living.)

I'm sick of it. Treating seniors like they have one foot in the grave sucks. Can't we be permitted to feel good if we do feel good? A shining example is Cher, who is 16 days older than I am and lives with her 39-year-old boyfriend. (See photo.) 

So I've decided to cancel my upcoming birthday and continue telling anyone who asks that I am 79, steeling myself for the inevitable intake of breath followed by,"Wow, that's almost 80!" 

I'll take "almost 80" for as long as I can get away with it.