Waiting for the Next Hummingbird

Who are we kidding? Life is not a bowl of cherries, it's more like a bag of rotten grapes. Okay, fine, so once in a while there is a cherry, but while you're eating it, someone else is slogging through a quagmire of spoiled grapes hoping to make wine, only it's rancid.

I bring you this sour, dour news after just a brief foray into the outside world this morning. What I learned is that things are bad all over, and not just in my own Plavix-ridden body where the slightest tap on my skin results in a swollen, angry, multi-colored bruise worthy of Mike Tyson -- either in or out of the ring. No, my problems are nothing compared to the horrors other people endure and which are documented ad nauseum on varying platforms by the media, including deaths of entire families, devastating fires of biblical proportions, child molestation by priests and pediatricians, stabbings of innocent tourists by terrorists and sexually inappropriate behavior towards women by seemingly every man alive.

The moral of the story which I tell myself daily and try to remember: Happiness is like a hummingbird. One minute it's suspended right before your eyes, flapping its little wings faster than the speed of light, then you blink and it's gone. Then it's back and hangs around for awhile -- maybe long enough to snap a photo -- but then it's gone again. Enjoy it while you've got it and don't waste time bemoaning the fact that it's fleeting. Recognize that you are happy right now, and quit your bellyachin' about the gloom and doom waiting in the wings. There's always plenty of time for tears, so don't taint the good times with the bad.

Private Lives, Facebook Lies

Facebook continues to crack me up! No joke, it's a hoot. Today my news feed featured a photo of someone I know who is celebrating a birthday, accompanied by the message, "Thanks to someone who inspires us to be good as we can be!" Naturally it elicited the usual stream of birthday wishes from his loyal followers.

What it did not menton is how this particular person was cheating on his wife, the mother of his new baby, for two years, eventually fathering another child with his mistress and finally divorcing his wife. But hey -- publicly he's an inspiration to us all!

Sugar Highs and Lows

Today was just one of those days. Hot, muggy and gloomy, with sort of bad things happening to several people I am close to, it begged for a pick-me-up. I was desperate. Think, I told myself, what did I do in years gone by to cheer up my family? I baked.

So I baked. The chosen item was Snickerdoodles, which are cookies that everyone loves. Plus they're fun to make. They came out great, actually beyond great, they are fabulous, delectable, delightful and delicious. But nobody's problems disappeared, and I ended up with a sink full of dishes.

To Err Is Human

What does it mean when someone laughs at a story you begin with the statement, "Something terrible happened to me the other day," and that someone is a close friend? I recently had this experience with not one, but two friends -- same story, by the way-- and I must say it depressed the hell out of me and dampened my feelings for both of them.

Compassion and empathy are  important human qualities I have in abundance. Too much, really, since I feel for others to such a degree that it seriously impacts my quality of life, one might say pathologically so. If it's a close friend or family member I often feel their pain even more than they do, and if it's a total stranger I've only read about in the news, I can still break down in sobs. So it's a real shocker when I don't get a shred of compassion back from the people who are allegedly in my "circle of trust."

I am not a serial killer, pathological liar, sociopath, pederast or thief. I am in reality a pretty nice person. My greatest failing is that I don't abide the obese, and if you knew why you'd give me a pass. Yet I can count on the fingers of one hand the people I can call on in an emergency who might give a damn, and I'm betting the same is true for most others, unless they are very wealthy or hold a position of power.

Yes, to forgive is divine. Most of us can do that, but barring a lobotomy, the hurt remains.

Loosening Family Ties

As the saying goes, Blood is thicker than water. This is supposed to mean that family ties are stronger than all others. All I can say about that is, Ha! Also, Ha, ha, ha -- that's a good one!

My husband is an identical twin. He and his brother are very close emotionally and live just 19 miles apart. They grew up close and stayed close and are closer than ever now that they are in their sixties. But one of them votes Republican and the other Democrat. Still, they remain devoted to one another.

Recently a first cousin of theirs came to town. Their fathers were brothers. When they were kids, all of them played nice and were good friends. Now all grown up, the visiting cousin is a rabid lefty, almost pathologically so. She made a point of visiting the Democrat twin but flat-out ignored the Republican, although she did include his Democrat son. Afterward she was all smiles on Facebook about reuniting with her wonderful cousins, omitting the fact that it was only the ones who vote like she does.

All this "family is great stuff" is such BS. Some family members are indeed devoted to one another, but it's not the shared blood that does it, it's the kindred spirits. News Flash for cousin Nan: Believe it or not, many Republicans are people worth knowing.

Repo Man

I was working on a painting in my second-floor art studio, trying to decide between yellow and pink, when I heard -- and then saw -- a huge flatbed truck rumbling down our quiet little country lane. He must be lost, I thought. But then to my surprise, the truck backed into our driveway. My husband was downstairs, and I heard him go outside and say to the guy, Are you looking for something? He replied, I'm here for the Audi. And so began our descent into either The Twilight Zone or Hell -- take your pick.

Turns out they come for your car after 90 days with no payment. At least that's what the Repo Man said; I had no idea since I have never had a car repossessed. Hey, I never even saw the movie. What this had to do with us was a mystery, as Mitch and I looked at one another and then back at the guy, shrugging and saying, What the heck are you talking about?

The 2018 Audi A4, this one right here, Repo Man said, standing a foot away from the vehicle under discussion. I've got to take it.

Suddenly I realized that I had not received even one bill for the car since we leased it last April.  As the family bookkeeper I saw them all and paid them all, always on time or certainly within a reasonable grace period. But one thing I did not do was ever write a check for a bill I didn't get, and I hadn't gotten any for my beautiful new Hunter Green 4-door sedan with the luscious Chocolate Brown leather interior. Sure, we wrote a check at the dealership when we leased the car, but since then, nothing.

So, you just show up without warning? I asked Repo Man. Pretty much, he mumbled, head down and avoiding eye contact. I just get my list in the morning and go out and get the cars.

This is ridiculous! Mitch said. We pay our bills. Don't we? He looked to me for assurance. If we get them, I said.

Eventually, after 35 minutes of listening to VW Leasing in Liberty Heights, Illinois tell me dozens of times how important my call was to them and that a customer service representative would help me as soon as possible, a woman named Jenny asked in a chirpy voice how she could help. All of a sudden nauseous and a bit faint, I handed the phone over to Mitch and poured myself a glass of tomato juice, straight.

Jenny insisted they had been billing us. Then you must have the wrong address, Mitch said. They didn't. So where are the bills? Mitch asked. You tell me, Jenny answered. Meanwhile, all this time the poor Repo Man was standing outside in the driveway.

I went out and asked him if he wanted anything -- a glass of water, or coffee, or maybe some tomato juice? My offer of tomato juice made him burst out laughing, and suddenly he changed from a threatening, bearded, tattooed, scary biker-looking dude with big biceps into a nice young man with no upper teeth. It's just my job, he explained. Don't take it personal.

Back inside, Mitch was finally making progress with Jenny. He had convinced her we were not deadbeats and she agreed to take our car payments for the last three months over the phone. (Mitch threw in a fourth just for good measure.) Jenny said to tell Repo Man he was free to leave, but he hung around for awhile, answering my questions about his job: Did he like it? You meet a lot of different types -- some nice, some not so nice. Did anyone ever come after him with a gun? That's what you hear, but not around these parts. Had he ever had any trouble at all? If they give me attitude, I just take the car and leave.

After a while we shook hands and Repo Man got into his truck and drove away, leaving my Audi in the driveway. In retrospect, I was glad we hadn't give him any attitude.

Our Universal Addiction

We all put so much stock in computers and barely give a thought to them being wrong, despite having evidence to the contrary from time to time. For example, yesterday 118 people in Spain read my blog. Really? Why would that be? It's either that or the statistics program in my computer that tracks my readership is totally screwed up.

My money is on the latter, since there is no reasonable explanation that anyone could dream up why Spanish readers would be drawn to yesterday's film review of Leave No Trace. I am not Spanish, don't speak Spanish, and don't even like Spanish food. I have been to Spain once, if you call the city of Barcelona "Spain." (During my brief time there everyone I met said, "This isn't really Spain.")

This morning our power went out for about 15 seconds, just long enough to miss it if you blinked. But it was enough time to totally freak out our modem, and my computer. I spent the next two hours trying to get back online, when suddenly it hit me: it doesn't matter. So I went and made some breakfast and read the paper instead, but the whole time I was upset because my computer wasn't working.

Clearly I have a new addiction, one as powerful as any other addiction but condoned by a society and culture that is also addicted. We'd all be in really big trouble if some evil genius from another galaxy figured out how to mess with our power supply.

Film Review: LEAVE NO TRACE

Devoted dad and daughter.

It almost feels wrong to write a review of Leave No Trace, the stunning independent film by director Debra Granik, kind of like laughing at a funeral or eating a pastrami sandwich during Ramadan. The film is so intensely beautiful to look at and simply experience that words can't come close to capturing its meaning, or answer the deep questions about how we should spend our lives here in this paradise called Earth.

The story, adapted from a book that was based on a newspaper article about something that really  happened, concerns a sad ex-Marine with PTSD (Ben Foster) and his teenage daughter Tom (Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie), both deserving an Oscar for their amazingly authentic performances. Years ago they abandoned society to live, hidden, in a densely wooded park on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon, making weekly trips into the city for supplies bought with government disability checks.

They've created a sophisticated camp where they cook their meals and sleep huddled together in a tent, barely visible to the naked eye. Dad home-schools Tom and teaches her survival skills, and so she's smarter than others her age. Of course what they're doing is deemed illegal by our society, and one day their idyllic life is abruptly ended by the harsh barks of a police dog and torn apart by a whole mess of park rangers.

The devoted pair is separated and questioned by the authorities, who we instantly dislike even though they are doing good work. After all, if the homeless suddenly could populate our national parks at will, soon enough they'd be covered in trash, the forests depleted for firewood and the animals killed for dinner. Leave No Trace highlights the plight of all those "nutty" people who refuse to fritter away their lives staring at computers or talking on cell phones, watching TV or shopping at the mall, driving in traffic to cubbyholes where they'll push papers and figure out how to make more money to spend on their measly weekends, holidays and allotted vacations. Underneath it all is the question we each must answer: Who are the misfits -- the people who live off the grid or the rest of us?

Dad and daughter are reunited and, through the vast web of social services, given a place to live and work to do, but it's not to last long. The lure of the woods calls them back, and once again they are hungry, cold and homeless, but somehow able to breathe easier.  Eventually things change in a big way, as they always do, but you'll have to see for yourself and decide if it's for the better or for the worse. 

72 Hours in Crazyland

If these folks are your best friends, you've got a problem.

I am a fan of the TV show called Grey's Anatomy, which I started watching about two years ago when I was recovering from my hip replacement surgery. I liked it for the medicine, and for the superb acting, cutting-edge music and interesting stories, although there was much about it to hate as well. I got off the couch soon enough and stopped watching it, but wouldn't you know something else got me down -- this time it was a heart attack -- and I was back on the couch for a few weeks, at which time I checked in with the gang on Grey's again. Now I'm hooked and watch it on Netflix on the nights my husband is out of town.

A few days ago I had the thought, "I wonder if anyone else hates Maggie as much as I do," Maggie being a character on Grey's that makes my skin crawl. She can't act and is borderline creepy, yet is suddenly being presented as the love interest of the hottest doc in the hospital. So I looked on Facebook and found a closed fan group devoted to the show and clicked "Join Group."

My first indication that something was amiss came when I received an "application" to fill out before being allowed to enter the group. It was in essay form, and asked three questions I had to answer, in 250 words each, about my feelings for the show and its characters. "Hmmm," I thought, "this is sorta nutty," but I did it anyway.  About a week later -- a whole week! -- I received a message saying I had "passed the test" and I was in. And let me tell you, it was quite a scene. I only lasted three days before heading for the exit, but what I learned in there was almost life-changing.

For example, did you know that many, many -- and I mean many -- folks live, eat and breathe Grey's Anatomy? They watch it over and over -- all 14 seasons, with 24 episodes each -- and can recite chunks of dialogue from personally meaningful episodes. They cry over this couple breaking up or that couple getting together. They reminisce about the highs and the lows. They post pictures and GIFs of their favorite scenes. They ask who's the hottest guy, who would you want to have dinner with, what would you tell this character or that character, and on and on. They also talk about their own problems -- "My boyfriend left me and I'm going through hell!" -- and seek advice from others who obviously would know because they watch the same show. ("I need some happiness from my Grey's peeps.") All of this goes on non-stop, day in and day out, with almost no time off for sleeping.

The scariest part is that many of those people are permitted to vote in our political elections.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good

While we each have our own little personal lives to live, nobody can dispute that news we hear about the lives of others often plays a huge part in how we feel and behave. Sometimes it's for the good, like when the young boys trapped in the cave in Thailand were rescued by all those heroic men who risked everything to get them out. That was heart-warming and life-affirming and certainly put a smile on all our faces, except for one friend of mine who never heard about any of it and didn't care because it had "nothing to do with her" and besides, she was busy deciding what color to paint her kitchen.

The Bad

Then yesterday something really bad happened, and I would never know about it if I lived in the hinterlands or if those damn reporters didn't think it imperative to tell us every last thing that happens in every corner of the world in order to up their ratings. Anyway, we all found out about the sickening sinking of a tourist boat caught in a sudden summer storm on a lake in Branson, Missouri. The debacle was caught on video cameras by witnesses, some in lakeside restaurants, drinking and munching on appetizers and groaning about the horror as the boat went under the waves and the lives of 17 people, many of them children who likely had been so excited to ride on a boat on a big lake, ended right in front of them.

The Ugly

As for the ugly, several nights ago for no apparent reason, although I must have hit it somehow, the top of my right hand blew up, instantly red and angry and looking like it was about to burst open and unleash the entire contents of the universe. After ruling out an insect bite or sting since there was no evidence of such and no insects around, I attributed it to my taking Plavix, a blood thinner that causes internal bleeding at the slightest provocation. (It's still ugly but I'm alive, not trapped in a cave or lying lifeless under 80 feet of water.)

A Somewhat Gross PSA

Some topics are too disgusting to talk about, so are rarely talked about. One of those is earwax. There, I said it.

Your ear is really in the middle of things!

Several days ago I got some water in my ear while shampooing in the shower. A common occurrence, many people experience it after swimming in the ocean, a pool or a lake, or anytime they have been submerged underwater, like getting waterboarded at Abu Ghraib. Usually it clears up in a few minutes, maybe half an hour. But my ear was clogged all day and overnight. The next morning, at my wit's end, I made an appointment with our family physician to see if I had some sort of ear infection.

He took a quick look and saw that my ear canal was totally blocked, with, you guessed it, earwax. (Yuk.)  Suddenly I realized that I had not been hearing very well out of that ear for a long time, a fact I only noticed when on the phone and needing to switch to my other ear. Hey, great, I wasn't going deaf after all!

A simple (yet creepy and mildly uncomfortable) procedure in the doctor's office alleviated the problem in about 15 minutes, and netted a giant wad of ---- gulp --- earwax that had been lodged inside my head. Well, inside my ear canal, but still that's located in my head, which contains my brain, and that's not anything I want to fool around with. I was unhappy that I had seen it, due to its grossness, but very happy it was gone. My hearing instantly soared from about 20% to 100% in that ear.

According to the researchers at Ascent Audiology & Hearing, "Many adults have conductive hearing loss in just one ear, and instead of seeking treatment for the cause of their temporary impairment, they use their good ear while waiting for the issue to resolve itself. Studies indicate that delaying or forgoing treatment could lead to permanent hearing loss, so rather than take a wait and see approach, have the issue taken care of by a physician or audiologist immediately. Our findings suggest that audiologists and physicians should advocate for early intervention and treat these middle ear conditions."

Condi in 2020

Last night I had a terrible dream. A nightmare you might say: Hillary Clinton had decided to run for president in 2020. But then I woke up and read it somewhere and OMG, turns out it's true. She must be stopped! But how? I'll tell you how:
CONDI FOR PRESIDENT IN 2020!!!!

Why Condi? She's got it all: She's black, she's female, she's gay (oh please), she's brilliant, she's adorable, she loves baseball, she plays the piano, and best of all she's not a Trump, Clinton, Bush or Democrat. Sounds like a win-win for everyone.

The Stupid N-Word

The founder of Papa John's Pizza was forced out of his very own company because during a training session on the phone with a marketing company said he believed the word "nigger" should never be used by anyone in his employ. And also that he had decided not to use rapper Kanye West in advertising because West says "nigger" in his songs. Of course, in stating that he would not say "nigger" he said "nigger," and so he had to go. If only he had said "The N-word," which we all know means the same thing but has somehow been deemed acceptable, things would have been fine.

This level of stupidity in our society makes my skin crawl. I keep waiting for my ship to come and take me back to my home planet where surely such rules do not exist and people can say how they really feel instead of hiding behind societal norms and pretending to be something they are not.

Face It, You're On Your Own

A typical shrink.

Life is hard. People, if they are brave enough to face the truth and have not deadened their senses through drugs, alcohol, food or video gaming, often feel lonely. They are confused about how to live and wonder if they are lovable. This causes them, in many instances, to turn to a professional for guidance. The pros, called shrinks, have the same problems we all do but hide them better, or try to, during sessions. They are not always successful.

I have been to more shrinks than I can count, even if someone offered me a million bucks to come up with the number. But I remember some of them because of obvious flaws that tipped me off to knowing they couldn't help me one bit. Following are some of the best, or worst, of what I call my Sicko Shrinks, identified here by first names only to avoid an ugly lawsuit.

1. Dr. Eizabeth: A marriage counselor who looked perfectly normal sitting behind her desk, when she stood up and waddled to the door to show you out you realized she weighed about 400 pounds, with a caboose the size of the Acela. No thank you.
2. Dr. Rich: A very small man with a very large Napolean complex, he crocheted during our sessions. The last time I saw him he was working on a pillow cover that said, "Old Age Is Not For Sissies."
3. Dr. Ted: An amateur photographer whose pictures were prominently displayed in his office, Dr. Ted was a dead ringer for Sigmund Freud. When I mentioned, at what turned out to be our only session, that I was a professional illustrator, all he wanted to know was how to sell his work, what did I think of his work and what should he do to improve his work. This occupied at least 75% of our 50-minute hour, for which I paid him 0 dollars and never looked back.
4. Dr. Claire: A legend in her own time, this middle-aged woman was lying on a couch when I arrived for our first session, one of her legs in a cast from hip to toe. When I inquired about her mishap (as anyone would), she countered with, "What is your fantasy about what happened to my leg?" I suggested she get some therapy and quickly fled, more frightened than ever.
5. Dr. David: First off, he stuttered, and one thing you want to avoid in a relationship with a therapist is a problem communicating. (According to NIH, "Approximately 75 percent of children recover from stuttering. For the remaining 25 percent who continue to stutter, stuttering can persist as a lifelong communication disorder.") Also, besides telling me every week that he looked forward to our sessions because I was so funny and made him laugh, he brought his huge St. Bernard dog to the office, explaining it was his "comfort animal." Shall I go on? (I didn't.)

So basically, we're on our own. For the best life results, take good care of yourself, get plenty of sleep, eat well, exercise daily and for God's sake don't smoke!

The Ordinary Imperfection of Daily Life

Last evening my husband and I had dinner out with friends; there were six of us in all. Mitch and I drove there with one couple and were to meet the other couple -- friends of our friends who we didn't know -- at the restaurant at 6:15. When the four of us arrived we asked the hostess if the others were there waiting for us. She assured us in no uncertain terms that we were the first of our party to arrive, and seated us on a side porch.

The four of us chatted for awhile, occasionally checking the time since the other couple was late. And getting later. "It's unlike them, they are usually quite punctual," somebody said. After about fifteen minutes a phone call was made to the latecomers, who answered and said they were waiting for us at the restaurant, sitting outside on the veranda and wondering why we were so late. Ha, ha, ha, I guess?

Not funny if you ask me. This stupid and unnecessary error went unpunished and in fact even unmentioned, leaving the oblivious young hostess with her nose ring and her several tattoos and her five or six pierced earrings in one ear to continue on her blithe, moronic way. I hated that. I also didn't really like the food, we have much better wine at home, and not one person asked me one question about myself all evening. That was supposed to be me out having a good time socializing, better than being at home alone watching Season 14 of Grey's Anatomy on Netflix. No wonder I wake up sobbing most days.

The Art of Capturing Time

Detail from "Still Life #987"

If you are a painter, all you see is color and shapes. Everything you encounter is either a good subject for a painting or it isn't. You spend a lot of money on supplies. While you are not painting you wish you were, and while you are painting you doubt the validity of the activity, think it is pointless, and feel you should be doing something else. But what?

Nothing measures up, mostly because whatever it is, when it's over it's over, whereas when you finish a painting, the memory of those minutes, hours, days or weeks you spent creating it are sealed inside a tangible thing you can look at forever. Seeing it, you remember deciding to make that part there red instead of pink, or to move the purple thing up and slightly over, and how hard it was to fix it when you picked up the wrong brush and mistakenly painted something black instead of white. (Ouch!) Plus, there is always the possibility of a "happy accident," as one of my college professors told me years ago. Those are rare, but they happen, and they make your day.

Best of all, in life what's done is done -- your mistakes take their toll and you've got to live with them. But in art, what's done can always be done over and made better. Mistakes are instantly fixed. A landscape covers a still life covers a portrait covers another landscape. You remember them all. You have captured time.

Stormy Daniels for President!

Official Presidential Portrait?

One can imagine that it's sort of a hoot manipulating the masses, which explains why so many people enter politics. As for me, my only taste of that power comes through this blog, and that's only a teeny amount. Still it proves that people can easily be swayed. Yesterday I wrote a post entitled "Take Good Care of Yourself." It got a paltry reception with less than 100 readers. Compared to sexier titles that get in the hundreds, it's clear that salaciousness rules.

Today's title is a bit of an experiment. But since it's up there I might as well go forward and say that while it's demoralizing to see a stripper and porn star become a celebrity in our society, with fans and her own lingerie company, there might be something useful inside that truth. Since so many people prefer her to our current POTUS,  why not go all the way and elect Stormy as our next president?

Picture it: Our first female president, Stormy the Working Girl! (She works hard for the money!)  Imagine the news stories about her sexy outfits, her newest breast enhancements, her latest movies. (She would continue doing porn during her administration, of course.) And it's about time we had a president with boobs -- the bigger the better. I'm pretty sure Hillary lost because she wore those dowdy outfits and never showed any skin. Who needs that? After all, this is America!

Take Good Care of Yourself

I'm not dying -- at least not right now-- and so there's no need for me to give my final words of advice to future generations, i.e. my son. But still you never know, and so I'd like to spend this time passing along some pearls of wisdom gleaned over the 72 years I have been alive. It all boils down to one sentence: Take good care of yourself.

We all know the basics: Don't smoke. Get enough sleep. Eat well. Exercise. But the most important one is don't have a heart attack requiring stents to be implanted and a year on Plavix, a.k.a. The Drug From Hell. Trust me, you never want to be on Plavix, or as it is known to its close friends and my pharmacist, Clopidogrel. An anti-coagulant used to prevent blood clots, it causes bleeding and bruising at the least provocation, so that within weeks after starting it you look like you have either been run over by an 18-wheeler or you've gone a few rounds in the ring with Floyd Mayweather.

Last night, half awake, I got up to get some water and tripped on a bedroom slipper on my way to the bathroom. Fortunately I only stumbled into the wall, my arm taking the brunt of the impact, and got back to bed in one piece. But this morning it looks like a baseball had been sewn inside my elbow during the night. This now matches the purple and green bumps on my right hip, my left thigh and both knees, all earned by innocuous, barely noticed and only partly remembered interactions with hard surfaces. This happens to all of us daily, way more than you notice if you are a normal person not on Plavix.

So I repeat: Don't have a heart attack! (See paragraph two for instructions.)

There's More to Life Than Killing Babies

It's not really all that confusing.... or is it?

Okay, so maybe you're a fan of abortion and maybe you're not. It doesn't matter since the indisputable fact at the core of the issue applies to both camps, as anyone who has taken a 7th-grade biology class will agree: Life begins at conception.

You can dance around this one all you want, like many people do, and say that life begins at birth or that the baby isn't viable until the third trimester or whatever the heck else you can dream up. None of it changes the basic truth that life begins at conception. Without conception taking place, you would not be here reading this and I wouldn't be writing it.

All of us were teeny, tiny specks of matter once, and if our mothers had used "a woman's right to choose," we'd have become nothing more than medical waste. End of story. So it's surprising that the ease with which one can end a pregnancy (kill a growing baby inside the uterus) via the medical procedure called abortion has become the most important thing in the world to the Democrats, most of whom believe that murder of a human being outside the uterus is a heinous crime worthy of the most severe punishment our society allots.

While I think abortion is appropriate and necessary for many women in many situations, myself having been in some of those situations, I still wouldn't base my pick of who should sit on the Supreme Court solely on that issue. Don't we have bigger fish to fry, like immigration and affirmative action and gun control and equal pay for equal work and scores of other issues that come before the court that impact all of our lives instead of just some of our lives? And BTW, FYI birth control is quite effective these days.

Try V-8 Juice for Depression

Some people can have a good time despite the suffering of others. I am not one of those people. So I am labeled "depressed" or "anxious" and prescribed medication to stop feeling things so intensely. "Don't take it so hard," they say. "Don't read the news," they suggest.

There is no shortage of distractions. The Food Channel. Bowling. Movies. The Superbowl. Golf. Boating. Las Vegas. Broadway. Amusement parks. The beach. Rock concerts. Disneyland. Reality TV. Yoga. Rock climbing. The list is endless. But what if, for some people, distraction is simply not enough? What if nothing cancels out the stories like, "5-month Infant Found Buried Alive" or "4-Month-Old Dies in Hot Car While Mom Socializes" or "Woman Jumps from 25-Story Building Holding Her 7-Year-Old"? Then what should we do? Give ourselves to God, join a convent and turn away from society? That seems boring.

The following time-tested methods used by others to combat depression are open to me:

Overeating: This one is very popular, which explains why so many people are obese. I could stuff my face with ice cream and pizza and chips and dips and tacos and burgers and fries and grilled cheese sandwiches and cupcakes and muffins and cookies and pancakes with syrup and bagels and corned beef on rye until I have lost all feeling.

Over Drinking: This approach would work very quickly for me and at far less expense since just one glass of wine puts me under the table. Must consider.

Over-Drugging: Lots of people go this route, but it's not for me. I hate that out-of-control feeling, unless of course I'm having a colonoscopy, and then I love it. Besides, I could never put a needle in my arm or smoke a lot of anything without coughing.

Good thing I have a cat.

Over-Exercising: I went that route years ago when I was younger and became addicted to daily running. It worked -- but then it stopped working (after 20 years) when my hip gave out and I had to get a new one installed. I'm reluctant to use it up too fast and need another one.

Over-Shopping: This is really aimed at a subset of very low IQ folks, or hoarders who enjoy having a lot of useless stuff around.  I can't even begin to imagine how it could do anything but make me more anxious.

So far the only thing I had found that works even a little is writing this blog most days, and painting pictures that nobody buys (except my wonderful friend Jay who I love to pieces for actually paying for one of my paintings), so now our house is overrun with my paintings and there's hardly any room to hang anymore. Which I find depressing -- and now we're back to square one.

It's a pickle, that's certain. But hey-- while I've been writing this I've been drinking a large glass of V-8 and it seems to have helped. (Or was it the  Lorazepam?) Anyway, this too shall pass, I always tell myself, and it always does. Take Anthony Bourdain; I bet if he had just held on for a day or two he would have gotten in a better mood. Which is just another way of saying: "He could have had a V-8." (It couldn't hurt.)

Facebook Killed My Alter Ego

Have you seen this woman?

In Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll is a goodhearted, honorable man, but after taking a potion, Mr. Hyde, a dark and loathsome part of his personality, surfaces and takes over. That second self is known as an "alter ego." I have always had several, which is nice because it means I'm never alone.

One of my best who showed up about two years ago was Trixie McCoy. She was a cheery sort, very hard-working. She opened an art gallery here in our little town of Freeport, Maine and exhibited a lot of my work. It didn't last long as it turned out that poor Trixie had little patience for dealing with the general public. She closed up shop after four months and slunk off to parts unknown. Nobody has heard from her since.

About two months ago a new one came along. She called herself Aerdna Adour, which anyone with a first-grade education can see is simply my own name spelled backwards. Aerdna described herself on Facebook as a foreigner from a country I never heard of. Anyway, she was an odd one, with only a handful of contacts on Facebook, but those few people professed to like her. She played Words With Friends and did little else; certainly she posed no threat to anyone. Then one day, after about six weeks, Aerdna was gone, vanished without a trace. Facebook eradicated her! Closed her account and wiped her off the map.

My husband, who liked Aerdna even more than he likes me, thinks it was because her foreign-sounding name suggested she was a terrorist. Perhaps. But I would like to know who killed her, and why. If you have any information, please contact me at andreaschamis@gmail.com. (She's another one.)

The Walrus in the Thai Cave

Practicing yoga and extolling the benefits of meditation and mindfulness and saying "Namaste" and shopping at Whole Foods are all the rage among a certain class of people. You know who they are, and maybe you're even one of them. Certainly most of the people I run into fit into that category, and they're decent folks, every last one of them. But it's surprising how few of them practice what they preach, besides yoga which has become a religion for many of them.

What confounds me is that meditation is supposed to help us let go of our petty obsessions within our own individual lives and become One With The Universe. You know, chanting "Ommmmmmmm" and all that, "I am you and you are me and we are all together" business. Heck, I am even the walrus, and so are you! (Don't ask me about the Eggman, I never understood that line.) Yet many enlightened souls are not the walrus and couldn't even pick him out of a lineup. Instead they are only themselves, consumed by trivial concerns with nary a thought to the world at large, the world we are all part of since supposedly there is no separation between us and the cosmos, or something.

So I was stunned to learn that a dear friend, a woman who who has clocked countless hours at meditation retreats and helped me along the path to enlightenment on more than one occasion had not heard anything at all about the boys trapped in the cave in Thailand because she's been busy picking out paint colors and tile, sorting through clothing, rearranging furniture and organizing her kitchen utensils, absorbed in a major home renovation following a burst pipe and ensuing flood that occurred last January. She is definitely not the walrus, yet she's got a yoga room at home where she meditates, and one of those bells.

Full disclosure: I never say "Namaste" because I speak English. I hate yoga and I shop at Whole Foods only rarely because it's a 20-minute drive for me to get there. I try to meditate daily but don't. I might be the Walrus -- still not sure-- but I am definitely The Boys in the Cave. As are we all. And today's the make it or break it day for us, so keep your fingers crossed.

The Boys in the Cave

Some of the boys are as young as 11.

I'm a wimp in terms of survival. I read Jack London's "To Build A Fire" in high school and know to always have matches with me in the winter, but that's about it. My son, who teaches survival skills for a living and knows how to do everything the old-fashioned way, has tried to bring me up to speed but I'm a slow learner. The best I can do is make toast without a toaster, but I need a frying pan and a fire to do it. (Good thing I have those matches.)

I'm on this because sometime during the night, while the residents of our small town and four neighboring towns slept, a tree fell and blew out a transformer, sending us all back to the Dark Ages. Air conditioners abruptly stopped, their blanketing din replaced by the angrier sound of generators owned by people much smarter than me and my husband. For us it was just total darkness, oppressive heat, and worst of all, no morning coffee.

I was pissed, and so was my cat since he likes his food microwaved for 10 seconds and that wasn't happening. Lurch took a few licks of his room-temperature Fancy Feast, shot me an annoyed look and then left the premises, realizing I was no good to him until the power came back on. That hurt.

Another thing that hurt was our lack of Internet service, so I turned to my iPhone, fortunately fully charged, for solace. There I read an update on the 12 young boys in Thailand, members of a soccer team, who along with their 25-year-old coach have been trapped in a cave for the past two weeks. Chances are slim that they will get out before the next round of heavy monsoon rains start in two days, worsening their situation. Rising waters and diminishing oxygen inside the dark cave pose life-threatening danger for all the boys, as well as their adult rescuers. (One former Thai navy SEAL has died already in a heroic rescue attempt.)

Suddenly our power came back on. I reset all the digital clocks, made some coffee, and wrote this blog post. My day will continue as planned. I'll meet a friend for lunch -- we decided on sushi -- and survive the current heat wave with our one window air conditioner and several standing fans placed strategically around the house.  Soon enough, this being Maine, things will cool down and life will improve. My mood will brighten. And all that time, those boys will still be trapped inside that cave --  the dark, wet one with not enough oxygen.

There's no punchline. Just a reminder to appreciate what you've got and pray for the boys in the cave.

Film Review: AMERICAN ANIMALS

The Day of the Robbery: Four young men disguised as old men because, "Old people are invisible."

The best movies grab us by the collar during the opening credits and promise a brief escape from our own disturbing thoughts, serious problems or just plain boring lives. They can do this by teaching us something new, or scaring us out of our wits, or thrilling us with dazzling performances, often set to great music and woven into an interesting and complex plot. If that's your idea of a good movie experience, then American Animals should be at the top of your short list.

A semi-documentary that tells a true story, director Bart Layton flips back and forth between four grown men, today in their 30s, talking about a crime they planned and all but pulled off as college students at Kentucky's Transylvania University 14 years earlier. It was nothing violent like the 1924 Chicago kidnapping (and murder) of a 14-year-old boy by college students Leopold and Loeb, although their motive was similar: Let's shake up our dull lives and see if we can do this.

Instead, these young white men from decent, middle-class families -- a.k.a. "good boys" -- decided to steal a quartet of art books worth $12 million from the university's rare books collection, held under lock and key and guarded by a lone librarian.

The weeks spent carefully planning the heist allow us a look into the vastly different family lives of the two main characters, Warren (Evan Peters) and Spencer (Barry Keoghan), best friends who are both disappointed with the ordinariness of their lives and wistful over their all-but-lost dreams of being "someone special."  The acting by these two young men is nothing less than awesome, and while I rarely use that word, this time it's warranted. (Keoghan especially gives a heartbreaking and soulful performance, and his mournful face stays with you long after.) Eventually they enlist two other classmates to help pull off the "caper," which is how they innocently view it.

Great songs, old and new, accompany the antics of these four as they concoct their plan, not only of the theft but of the sale of the goods afterwards. Trips to New York City and the Netherlands seeking a fence for such high-stakes items add to the excitement of the venture. Despite the fact that they are essentially criminals, we root for them. But ultimately two strong messages surface: Be careful what you wish for, and crime doesn't pay. As Spencer's mother puts it after the fact, "It's like we woke up in a bad dream."

Why Do Women Act That Way?

These are confusing times, especially for men -- or women who are becoming men, or who love other women -- since commenting on a woman's looks is pretty damn close to against the law. Even noticing is probably a misdemeanor. You certainly can't tell someone she looks hot, or that she turns you on, or that you find her jumbo, newly-enhanced breasts that are fairly bursting out of her low-cut barely-there dress to be "titillating," excuse the pun.

Beyonce at The Met Gala, 2016

Indeed, any sort of acknowledgement of how someone looks, especially a female, can get you into very hot water. Just ask the dozens of men who have lost their jobs and their families, and others who are awaiting prosecution, for their so-called sexual harassment against attractive women, none of whom were wearing sweatpants, flannel shirts and work boots at the office Christmas party.

Instead, many young women, mimicking their beloved Hollywood celebrities, try to look their best in public, and for them this means looking sexy. Why else do they walk around on stiletto heels? Why do they spend tons of money on makeup, including eyelash extensions and glossy lipsticks, if not to entice?  According to the financial website Mint.com, "The average woman drops a cool $15,000 total during her lifetime on cosmetic products, with $3,770 of that going toward mascara alone!"

Then there are the manicures and pedicures and hair products, including color to cover the gray, a natural sign of aging which is definitely not sexy. Why do women who no longer want to be treated as "sex objects" wear push-up bras and thong bikinis and sheer lingerie and skinny jeans and perfumes and colognes and dangling earrings and short shorts? And finally, what's with those butt enhancers, or even worse, butt injections of God knows what, to enlarge their derrieres? What's the point, if they're not seeking to get attention by looking sexy and alluring?

Just asking.

Anniversary Sadness Never Dies

The Great Irving L. Keller, and me.

Fifty years ago today my grandfather died. He was my first best friend, and while there have been others since, none have cared for me like he did. I was the only person with him that day, sitting by his bedside and listening to stories of his youth -- he was 78 at the time -- while the rest of the family was off at some cousin's wedding, or possibly a bar mitzvah, I don't recall which or whose. Yet I remember every detail of those final hours with my grandfather, right up to his last breath. I had just turned 22 and had never witnessed a death before. (And haven't since.)

This morning I woke up in a foul mood. Actually, the mood arrived last evening as I was getting ready for bed and continued through the night with unpleasant dreams adding to the oppressive heat, despite this being Maine. (News flash: it isn't always cold up here!) Breakfast helped, but not enough to dispel the gloom that settled over me like, well, like a gloom. (I've never been good at similes unless I can work in Hitler somehow. The gloom settled over me like I was headed to the showers at Auschwitz?)

Anyway, it dawned on me when I saw the date on the newspaper that July 3 was the day my grandfather died so many years ago, but I feel it like it was last week. Doing some research, I learned that anniversary dates of traumatic events often reactivate feelings experienced during the actual event. "Survivors may experience peaks of anxiety and depression," according to psychologist Susan Silk, PhD, of the American Psychological Association's Disaster Response Network. "Some of the reactions those affected may experience as the anniversary date nears include difficulty concentrating, loss of appetite, irritable outbursts, nightmares, difficulty falling or staying asleep and feelings of detachment from others."

Oh well, at least I'm not at Auschwitz.

What to Name the Baby

The usual list of this year's 10 Most Popular Baby Names for 2018-19 is circulating on the Internet, so in case you lack imagination, are totally stupid, or doubt your own decisions, when the blessed event arrives you'll fill in the birth certificate with pride by giving your baby the very same name as some big movie star or star athlete did. By the time your kid reaches pre-school and all the students have the same name, he or she will fit right in.

But take it from the mother of a Zack -- a name that soared to new heights the same year my father, also named Zack, died and we followed the Jewish tradition of naming a new baby after a deceased loved one -- that's not a good thing when you're at an amusement park and a dozen other parents are shouting out your kid's name. It can be quite confusing. What you really want is a name that nobody else has. To that end, choose from my handy list of the 10 Least Popular Baby Names for 2018-19 and be assured your kid will stand out in a crowd.

Girls
1. Melania
2. Ivanka
3. Stormy
4. Honey
5. Sarah Huckabee Sanders
6. Chlamydia
7. Roseanne
8. Pussy
9. Piranha
10. Kellyanne

Boys
1. Donald
2. Vladimir
3. Eric
4. Baron
5. Sepsis
6. Don Jr.
7. Tsunami
8. Hannity
9. Fox
10. Cosby