The Crab Chronicles

Advice to Aspiring Actors and Models

Every once in a while I have the pleasure of hearing from someone I’ve interviewed and I have a chance to catch up with them. I interviewed my friend Jeff Joslin -- actor/model/director/producer, back in 2013 for a Twenty Questions column. Jeff has just written and published a terrific book called Pick Me! Pick Me! -- subtitled “how to break into the entertainment industry with little to no experience.”

Jeff had been a football player and then a businessman when the acting bug bit seriously in December 2005. He decided to pursue modeling and acting seriously, and used his marketing skills to market himself.

I want to interject here for a moment and say, I have acted with Jeff and he is thoroughly professional. In 3^rd grade we were both in a play called Rumplestiltskin. Jeff had a small part as a soldier and suggested to the director that he and some other boys do a Russian dance -- huge hit with the audience. I had the rather difficult character role of The Miller’s Wife. (I was taller than everyone else, and chubby, so character roles were my third grade claim to fame. LOL)

I have been reading Jeff’s book Pick Me! Pick Me! and it has a lot of great information and advice to aspiring actors. Jeff: “My book is aimed at helping people break into the industry if they don’t have much experience. Models and actors will find it helpful.”

One great takeaway is this: you don’t have to be gorgeous to get work. There is plenty of work for people who look ordinary, and there are also “character” roles that need filling. Jeff has actually lost out on occasion because he is TOO handsome and the director felt like he would draw too much attention away from the lead actors. Example: “I was in a scene in Sex and the City and I got moved, and told, “You look too dapper. You’re too good looking for that scene.”

Jeff has been on sets with some very famous people – Richard Gere, Josh Brolin, Emily Blunt, Tyler Perry – just to name a few. That’s one of the perks of what he does.

Jeff had a small but important role in 2012's Madea's Witness Protection. 

He urges folks trying to break in to showbiz to not limit themselves to only acting. Jeff has worked as a stunt man, an extra, even a hand double. As Jeff explains, “I was Steve Martin’s hand double in “It's Complicated.” I was rolling croissants in the bakery because my hands look like his. I was Josh Brolin’s hand double in Men in Black III. They don’t want to waste the actor’s time doing stuff like that so a lot of times they will use doubles.”

The process of getting cast in commercials, TV shows, and films is nowadays easier than it used to be. Jeff does a lot of auditions on digital video, and sends them to casting directors. That has allowed him to live in Orlando since 2015 and still get work, although he is in the process of moving back to his hometown of Knoxville at the moment.

If you want to keep up with what Jeff is doing, like his Facebook page Jeff Joslin Producer/Actor. Jeff has posted some of his taped audition videos on there.

Jeff is a multi-talented guy. In addition to shooting his own audition videos, he has written, produced and directed two films, Fishbait, and The Quarry.

I can't wait to see what he is doing next.

Oh, and just an an FYI -- Jeff has three handsome and multi-talented sons, too, and one adorable grandbaby.

Bridezillas and Wedding Stories

I spotted what has to be the craziest story about a Bridezilla that I have ever read, the other day. This woman insists that all her wedding guests conform to a dress code, and it's based on what they weigh. Yes, you read that right. You can read all the details in this article: Bride Demands Wedding Guests Wear Attire Based on Their Weight.

If you aren't familiar with the term "bridezilla" it's pretty easy to explain. A woman who is preparing to get married makes a bunch of unreasonable demands and drives everyone around her crazy. If you want to know more, check out: 23 people reveal the most horrifying bridezilla moments they've ever seen — and they'll make you want to stay single

The bridezilla story that I find most appalling is about the bride demanding her guests dress a certain way, though. First of all, she demanded that her guests fly to Hawaii to attend her wedding, at their own expense of course. Next, she demanded that they purchase her crazy wedding outfit --

Her guests also have to bring a formal outfit that costs at least $1,000. Yes, you read that right. 

“Remember, the venue is extremely upscale, and we want to be looking our absolute BEST, ladies and gents,” she wrote. “Please, if you look like trash, so will we. All jokes aside, we want you to invest in an outfit valued at at least $1,000. This includes jewelry, accessories, makeup, and hair. Remember ladies and gents, this wedding is 24k themed for a reason.”

She found out in early December 2018 that someone had leaked her crazy clothes demands online and the post had gone viral. She then was outraged and demanded all guests come to a party and be polygraphed so she could determine who had leaked her crazy demands. 

Needless to say, all of this has gotten a TON of attention on social media.

What most of the stories don't mention is this nugget I gleaned from the MSN story: "Curious for more salacious details? Well, according to the bride, she and her future husband are “spiritual healers” who met at a “psychic’s desensitization chamber” in Italy more than a decade ago."  

Is a "desensitization chamber" a place where you learn to ignore other people's feelings entirely? Is her husband-to-be equally insensitive and controlling?

This couple has been together for a DECADE. That's ten years. Why bother to get married at all? In many states it's already a common-law marriage.

I should mention here that if you get married on the beach in Hawaii and you demand that your guests dress in ridiculously spiky Laboutin high heels guess what will happen? Women will stumble and stagger and trip and fall. I watched a beach wedding years ago [I wasn't invited, just sitting on a restaurant patio having a drink and watching the lunacy] and there were many women in the bridal party who could barely walk down to the beach because they were idiotically wearing spiky high heels.

Choreographed dance number with matching outfits? I doubt it. Bridezilla needs to plan on having EMTs standing by to treat twisted ankles. 

Secondly, and I mean this with all sincerity, I hope nobody goes to her wedding. Any person who would demand people fly to Hawaii and pay thousands of dollars to see a wedding where they will be treated little cattle, deserves what they get. The bride deserves for all her guests to cancel. [Actually, she deserves to be slapped repeatedly, but that's just my opinion.]

I was invited to a wedding once that involved me buying a plane ticket to Miami and then taking a tiny chartered plane across the ocean for a couple of hours, to attend a wedding on the beach, at a private island. The cost was somewhere around $500-800. I was in graduate school. I didn't have the money. The bride was a close friend but she was marrying a much older, very rich guy. His friends could all afford that type of trip. I couldn't. She had her mother call me and practically beg me to go. The words "I can't afford it" didn't seem to register. I held my ground and didn't go. I sent a nice gift. Despite that, the bride got very upset with me and didn't speak to me for months afterward. [Just FYI: She ended up divorcing the rich guy because he was an abusive alcoholic. I wasn't happy about that - I felt intensely sorry for her.]

Weddings used to be about making a pledge before God and your friends and family. A wedding used to be a sacred thing, a sacrament. It wasn't an excuse to have an enormous, costly event. People didn't choreograph dance numbers. My parents had a very nice wedding but they were young and poor and the reception was at the church and merely included cake, punch, and a few mints. The "honeymoon" was one night in a hotel just over the Florida line. Despite the low-key event, my parents were married for almost 40 years, until my dad's death. 

 

I have never been married but I still feel like as a potential guest I shouldn't be forced to spend money I don't have and conform to some crazy idea of what to wear, all to satisfy the demands of a neurotic woman with control issues.

I sincerely hope all Bridezillas get exactly what they deserve on their wedding day.

 

Tucker Georgia, My Hometown

I never write about legal topics here on my blog because I am not a lawyer and I wouldn't want anyone to accuse me of trying to give out legal advice. I have a lot of paralegal experience and I know how to work a litigation case, but I never went to law school, never wanted to be a lawyer, and would never advise anyone on a legal matter, except perhaps to say "Here's the name of a good lawyer I know. Call him/her."

Having said that, I wanted to say a couple of things about businesses and safety, and about my adopted hometown, Tucker, Georgia.

A couple of years ago, an old office complex 3 minutes from my house was demolished and a new shopping center was built. It now contains well-known and popular stores, including a Sprouts, which is a discount farmer's market type place. I like Sprouts, for vegetables and hard-to-find items like gluten-free stuff, organic produce, and nuts. We don't have any other stores like it close by. The nearest Whole Foods or Trader Joe's, for example, are 20 (or more) minutes away. 

Last week, in the middle of a sunny afternoon, a lady was mugged right in front of Sprouts. The mugger got not only her wallet and purse, but her car. A friend of hers posted about this on the Tucker Facebook group, and it ignited a firestorm of comments. A lot of folks agreed with me that Sprouts and the other business owners should have cameras mounted all over that parking lot, at minimum, and patrolling security guards, to be really vigilant. Others felt like businesses should not be penalized for things like muggings in the parking lot.

So here's the debate.

I posted about the fact that business owners should make sure that anyone who comes on their premises is safe. People need to feel safe and not be mugged, obviously. However, businesses have a vested interest in making sure people feel safe, because if their parking lots are the daily sites of muggings, people will not want to visit their businesses. Indeed, some commenters on the Facebook post said they would avoid that shopping center now.

However, in defense of Sprouts and the other stores I want to say a couple of things. Shoppers -- or anyone who comes on the businesses property -- need to have situational awareness, and take steps to secure their own safety -- which is just common sense.

Wikipedia defines it:

Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status.

Situation awareness has been recognized as a critical, yet often elusive, foundation for successful decision-making across a broad range of situations, including aviation, air traffic control, ship navigation,^[1] health care,^[2] emergency response, military command and control operations,^[3] and offshore oil and nuclear power plant management.^[4] Lacking or inadequate situation awareness has been identified as one of the primary factors in accidents attributed to human error.^[5]

The formal definition of SA is broken down into three segments: perception of the elements in the environment, comprehension of the situation, and projection of future status.

My brother has worked in the security field for years and before that was in the military. We have discussed situational awareness many times. If I walk out of a store holding bags of merchandise in one hand and I'm talking on my cell phone which is held in the other hand, vaguely glancing around for my car, paying no attention to the parking lot, thinking about my conversation, am I safe? No. I am distracted. Muggers love to see that. They can walk right up to me, show me a gun, and I am helpless. 

Let's take another example. I walk out of the store holding bags. I pause at the store's entrance, look all around the parking lot for anyone who seems to be just loitering, and I walk to my car with my keys in my hand, ready to unlock the car remotely, put the bags in, and go. I will not be as attractive to a mugger, in that situation.

I am not saying the lady who was mugged at Sprouts had no situational awareness or was careless in any way. I don't know anything about that. I just know situational awareness is important and can sometimes help one avoid being a crime victim.

Women get robbed at gas stations all the time because they have their purses on the passenger's side seat, doors unlocked, and they are looking at the gas pump reading as they pump their gas. It's easy for a car to pull up beside them and a thief can open the passenger side door, grab the purse, and be gone -- before the woman pumping gas even knows they were there.

So here are three true statements:

Businesses should strive to be safe places for their customers.

Customers should have situational awareness and take commonsense precautions for their own safety.

The mugging last week happened less than 5 minutes from a police headquarters building. Anything can happen anywhere.

 

When I was a young paralegal I started learning about premises liability, and I worked a lot of those cases over the years. I was usually working for lawyers on the side of the business owners who were getting sued by "invitees" (shoppers/customers) who were injured in some way after visiting the business. Lots of those cases were "slip and falls" -- for instance a lady walks into a store and trips and falls because of water on the floor, and hurts her back very badly. Was it the fault of the store owner that there was a wet spot on the floor? Or was it the fault of the lady, who was wearing high heels and paying no attention to where she was going? Those questions can really only be decided by a jury, but in many cases, business owners settle those cases for thousands of dollars to avoid protracted litigation and attorney costs. 

Tucker is simply as good and as bad as any other place. I will not let a mugging stop me from shopping at Sprouts.

I love living where I live. I love the fact that although I live in Atlanta, which is a huge city -- 11 million in the metro area, or something like that -- I consider myself a small town resident. I love Tucker. It's where I shop, eat out, hang out with friends, etc. Our little town is blossoming. New businesses are moving in all the time. We have a vibrant downtown area.

Lots of movies and TV shows film around here. Clint Eastwood's new movie The Mule was filmed, some of it, right down the street from my house. I saw the trucks. The new Hugh Jackman movie The Frontrunner was also filmed in Tucker. Tons of movies are filmed in Georgia now, as you can see here. We have mountains, urban areas, small towns, a beach, etc.

I have lived in Tucker since 1993 and I don't plan on ever moving. It's not as big and busy as Decatur or Marietta, but Tucker offers a lot of small town charm, with great access to the city. You can hop in the car and be at a Braves game, visit the Georgia Aquarium or see a show at the Fox Theater in less than 30 minutes. 

 

In conclusion, I want to offer a couple of thoughts. Businesses should take steps to make sure folks are safe in their businesses, including the parking lots. However, it's important for everyone to be aware of their surroundings and for women, especially, to be careful. Women alone are considered easy targets by muggers.

Tucker is as good as as bad as any small town. We have crime, but we also offer small town charm and most people who live here love it. Muggings in parking lots shouldn't deter anyone from living here.

I found a cool video which gives you a small taste of what Tucker is like. Check it out here. 

Main Street

 

Lies and Deception

The title of this post was easy to write (for once) because I know exactly what I want to say. I just hate saying it. I try very hard to steer clear of writing about politics on here or any of my social media accounts, but I want to make some observations that I think pertain to both parties.

A friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to a fascinating and thought-provoking essay by Camille Paglia about Trump and the election of 2016. I'm not sure if my friend realized it was originally published in June 2017. It may not matter. While I don't agree with everything Paglia said, she made some excellent points.

Part of the reason I like the Paglia essay is that she makes intelligent observations about both parties. For example:

"The administration bears full responsibility for fanning the flames of an already aroused "Resistance." However, I fail to see the "chaos" in the White House that the mainstream media (as well as conservative Never Trumpers) keep harping on—or rather, I see no more chaos than was abundantly present during the first six months of both the Clinton and Obama administrations." 

Americans need to hear voices like that. We need to hear folks who look at politicians in both parties and hold a mirror up to them so they can see their own foibles. 

 

When I was a freshman in college I took a class called Key Presidential Elections of the Twentieth Century. For the first time, I heard intelligent, lucid ideas about presidential elections that didn't come from either of my parents. (My parents were both very intelligent and active in politics. Mom is still alive, and in fact still feisty about politics.) This is yet another reason why college is important. We are all vulnerable to different ideas at ages 17-25 (roughly) and we need to hear ideas that shake us up and teach us how to think objectively. I purposely didn't tell my parents a lot about that poli sci class because they were staunch Republicans and the professor clearly wasn't. He referred to President Reagan as "the painted doll." 

I learned to watch the idiotic sound bites that are political ads and to ignore the inflammatory rhetoric. For instance, Democrat accuses Republican of voting against a bill to help xyz group. Republican seems heartless. I do some research and find out the bill had tons of other things in it that were bigger and more prominent and probably Republican didn't realize the rider about xyz group was there; or possibly he felt like he had to vote for the bill because the other issues were more important. You can make the exact same argument for Democrats and how they vote. We really need single-issue bills in Congress, not bills stuffed with a million pounds of pork. 

Politicians do this type of thing all.the.time. They have folks researching every single thing the opponent has ever done or said. By these standards, no politician is safe from mud slinging, unless they grew up in a monastery and have done and said almost nothing to anybody in their entire lives. 

What I find so horrifying right now is that both parties are viciously attacking each other, and things are escalating alarmingly. The mud slinging here in Georgia has become a mud avalanche, and I bet it's that way everywhere.

As yesterday's clumsy bombs sent to Hillary, Obama, and others demonstrate, and the attacks on politicians in restaurants demonstrate, we are becoming less and less about disagreeing respectfully and more and more about being childish. 

I blame Hollywood. 

Seriously. 

When I was a kid I went to see movies where there were lots of words exchanged, and violence was never the point of the whole movie. There were good guys and there were bad guys. 

Nowadays, dialogue takes a back seat to action. Character development is tossed out the window. It's all about special effects. I dare you to think of an intelligent action movie that has been released in the past ten years. It's all about comic book villains and comic book morals.

There's no time for silly old-fashioned things like character development, dialogue, and real ideas.

With CGI, movies have become the realm of ANYTHING GOES. Instead of just a bad guy, we have villains that have to be special in some way -- they can't just be guys who want to kill one or two people, or even one or two countries. Oh no. They have to be out to destroy all mankind, in nuclear-type annihilation. It's like the running joke in the Austin Powers movies about wanting "millions" -- no wait, let's factor in inflation -- BILLIONS -- in order not to detonate a nuclear device.

The mindset is: let's make it bigger and badder and bolder. BIGGER. BOLDER. Let's really BLOW STUFF UP EVERY FIVE MINUTES!

Politicians have taken their cues from the movies and now everything is reduced to shock-inducing TV commercials. People usually don't take the time or trouble to sit down for an hour or more and truly research the candidates, comparing their positions on key issues. Sometimes you see it done in the media, but most folks don't trust the media any more. Did CNN make that chart? Nope, I don't believe a thing from them. Did Fox News make that chart? Oh hell no. They are totally Republican tools. 

See how that works? The media outlets on both sides have lost all credibility.

We are all jaded. 

I think also we are all tired of the mud slinging and the distortions. 

I am tired of Congress in general. Why don't we have term limits or single issue bills? Simple. Politicians don't want those things. They don't want to shake up the status quo. 

I am disgusted and disheartened by all of this nonsense. Wesley was right -- too bad he's not running for office right now...

Weight Loss Ideas

Here's a little piece of trivia I will share with y'all, and I rarely talk about it, even with close friends: twice in my life I have lost over 100 lbs. The last time was from about 1999-2001. Lost 110 lbs. In my twenties when I was in graduate school I lost over 100 lbs. I don't recall the exact amount. 

When I was a kid I loved sports and I was pretty active. I loved tennis and swimming, and I liked to roller skate and play basketball in the driveway. I never walked up the stairs I ran. I skipped stairs. I walked fast. [below, me aged 6]

Of course, then I grew up and got more sedentary.

I inherited short fat legs and a fat fanny from my beloved Memaw, my grandmother. My other grandmother, who died before I was born, was tall and skinny. I didn't get any of these genes, although I was named for her.. 

The gene pool is a crazy thing, I often say.

Anyway, I am not now much of an athlete but I know it's important to MOVE. Don't just sit in a chair for hours. Bad for the back and the waistline. If you sit all day at work, get up every 30 minutes and just walk in place at your desk, for like 2 minutes. At lunch, walk for 10 minutes, even just around the hallways. Just MOVE.

Below, me and my cousin/BFF Lesleigh, when we were both pretty svelte, about 17 years ago. 

So I went to the doctor the other day for a physical. Everything was fine. Test results came in the mail yesterday. I need to up my Vitamin D consumption, and I will get that done. I am researching foods that have a good bit of vitamin D. Ironic. I am deficient in my name.

The doctor didn't fuss at me about my weight but I told her I was back on the program and would get the extra lbs. off. She has seen me do it before. 

BTW the currently popular "ketogenic" diet, Atkins, and plan old low carb are all pretty much the same thing. [You can learn more about the ketogenic diet here.]

There is a myth that low carb is unhealthy. Not necessarily. You can eat low carb and still be very healthy, although if you have naturally high cholesterol you will need to avoid a lot of bacon and butter, duh. Substitute good fats like olive oil and avocado. Honestly, I eat lots more healthy veggies on low carb than I do normally. 

So here are my suggestions. 

 

FOOD TIPS

I wanted to share some low carb tips I have learned over the years, through trial and error. 

One, make friends with cabbage. I hate chopping it so I buy bags of what is called coleslaw cabbage. You find it with the bagged salads, but on the top shelf for some weird reason, at least at Publix and Kroger. For lunch I like to saute 1-2 cups of it in olive oil, with a little chopped onion or onion powder, and add a good shake of soy sauce and garlic or garlic powder. Saute until soft. Add a piece of chicken and it's a good meal. Tastes a bit like an eggroll. 

Two, spaghetti squash is so yummy. You buy the squash and stick it on a cookie sheet and put it in the oven on 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Take it out and let it cool a bit. Slice it lengthwise. Pull out the big seeds and tough middle part -- the seeds look like pumpkin seeds. Take a fork and scrape the sides of the squash and strands of squash appear. I saute it in butter, olive oil, and some chopped onion, and throw in some cheese after about ten minutes. YUM. 

 

My friend Bronwyn has been doing Atkins now for months and has done super well. She is my current low carb guru. She has lost more than 80 lbs. -- and dealt with the death of her mom last fall, which was devastating and threw her off for a couple of months, but she got right back on track.

She has good tips. Just today she was suggesting kale chips. [I don't like kale normally but I might try it, down the road.]  She also suggested microwaving pepperoni slices until they are crisp, and using them as a chip. Also, cutting up slices of cheese and microwaving them until they are crisp. 

In the morning, instead of toast, I scramble a couple of eggs and either add a handful of spinach or a bit of grated cheese. I love eggs but they get boring. [BTW I have been eating eggs every day for years and my cholesterol is normal]

On low carb you tend to miss crunchy things like chips and fries. If you will saute spinach leaves in olive oil they get crunchy. Ditto for kale.

High protein snacks are crucial.

I get sliced turkey at the deli and snack on it. When I am bored with it I add cheese. I also snack on cheese but I try not to eat too much of it or it upsets my tummy. 

I love hummus with carrot sticks, too.

 

I have been doing pretty well for the past week, week 1, and I am down 6 lbs. Woo hoo! I still need to modify it a bit. I love love love sweets. That's my downfall. For this week I have kept chunks of cantaloupe in the fridge and when I wanted something sweet I ate a couple of chunks of cantaloupe. This really helped me. Hopefully next week I can live without the melon and without my 1 slice of bread a day. 

 

RANDOM TIPS

Here's what I have to remind myself and what I always tell everyone about dieting: figure out what works for YOU. Listen to your body. If you are miserable on low carb, like really miserable, maybe a different plan is better for you, like just counting calories, or increasing workouts. Weight Watchers didn't work for me but lots of folks swear by it. Check it out.

Exercise is important but you don't have to go nuts with it. Just walk 20 minutes a day, and gradually work up to more strenuous workouts. I have a dog. She has to be walked. That helps. Or take your BFF and go walk around the mall. Or go to the pool and walk up and down the pool.

I have read that if you exercise really hard for a couple of minutes, then moderately for 5-10 minutes, the interval thing really helps you burn more calories. 

Also, drink LOTS of water. I keep a plastic pitcher of water next to me all day and I sip on it literally all.day.long. You can add slices of fruit or lemon or something if you are bored with it. 

You can add a lot of empty calories by what you drink. I drink nothing but water and unsweet tea. Do NOT drink alcohol. No beer or wine especially -- they turn to sugar in your body. Don't drink diet sodas because I've read studies showing they actually are harmful for you and don't help.

Whatever diet you are on, modify it to suit you. Eat foods you like. COOK. Plan your meals and snacks. IF you plan you are more likely to succeed. 

I only weigh once a week. Otherwise I would go nutty. A weekly loss of 1-2 lbs is great. Don't get crazy. If you lose too fast you tend to gain it right back -- trust me, I know this.

 

SUMMARY

The important thing is to be in it for the long haul. If you fall off the wagon when you're out to eat or at a party, get back on the wagon immediately and don't let it completely derail you. 

I have a birthday coming up. Am I going to eat cake? Probably 1 piece. However, the next day I will be back on the program. 

above, me in 1991, with Dad and some friends -- I still have that dress somewhere. Love it. One day I will get it back on...

Trading Places

Have you ever talked to a friend and thought wow, I would HATE to have her life! I had that experience last night. I had a phone chat with a friend I haven't seen or spoken to in many months, although we have been friends for nearly 20 years. 

I only got a call back from her because she was in the car headed home from working out at the gym. She works 40-60 hours a week at a law office, and works out every day.

She lives in midtown, walking distance to the Fox Theatre. I would love to be able to walk to the Fox. However, when she was pulling her car into the lot behind her condo she was annoyed at having to wait a couple of minutes while a guy standing right on front of her car took his time peeing. 

EEUW. 

Compared to her, I live in the country. It's suburban Atlanta, inside the perimeter, but comparatively? The country. I saw a rabbit in my back yard last night when I let Lola out to tinkle. Lola wanted to chase the rabbit. Holding her back from that was fun. I've seen foxes, possums, coyotes -- in my back yard.

She can walk to fancy, expensive restaurants, to museums, to theaters. She lives smack dab in the heart of everything the city has to offer, and in Atlanta that's quite a lot. I can't do that, but I don't want to.

She is going to have to continue to work the punishing hours, at a high-stress job, for the next 15 years or more, to be able to retire and live at the same high standard she has now. I started to feel sorry for her, after we hung up and I reflected on that. Then I thought about it some more and realized wait a minute, she is very smart, very educated. If she WANTED to change jobs, to get out of the city, to get away from all that stress, she could totally do it. Her child is grown. Her car is paid for. She bought her condo years ago and I doubt the payments are that bad. She is working those awful hours and putting herself through that stress because she WANTS to. There is something holding her to that, and deep down she likes what she does. 

I cannot fathom it. Then again, she asked me about my life and what I do all day, and I told her about caring for Mother, Lola, and Michael, and her response was "I don't know how you do that. I couldn't do it."

I started to chuckle but I realized she was being serious.

I used to think I wanted to travel. Ireland, Scotland, Japan, Australia -- lots of plans and daydreams about going places and seeing things. Now I watch Travel Channel on my nice TV and I am grateful my feet don't hurt from all that walking, and I don't have to worry about finding a clean restroom in some out of the way place. I've been to places like that. I don't care to go back.

Now I am perfectly happy to be right here, in Atlanta, in my own messy old house, doing pretty much exactly what I want all day. Yes, caretaking can be really tiresome, some days, but most days now I am pretty content. I wish I had more money, but I don't want to spend 80% of my waking life at an office slaving away for people who don't care if I live or die, who view me simply as a cog in the wheel. (I used to work where my friend works, still, and I know what type of place it is. Stress City.) In that instance, I would have more money but less time to spend it.

No, I can go outside and take a photo of beauty that's right in my back yard, like the shots below, and marvel at how beautiful Atlanta is in the early spring. I love watching the robins and cardinals in my back yard. I wouldn't trade walking Lola and chatting with neighbors for walking city streets where drunks feel free to pee right in front of me. No thanks.

This country mouse is a happy camper right here.

Pictures from My Life

Life is pretty quiet and calm right now, knock wood. Car runs. We have money in the bank. Mom and Michael are fine. I am fine. Lola is a hot mess but basically fine. 

My old house always has something going on.

A couple of days ago the heat upstairs quit working, which was scary. (Thanks goodness it was not cold on Sunday.) Air would come out, but not heated air, and the Auto thingy on the thermostat wasn't working at all. Called the HVAC company we use and they came out yesterday morning. One tiny wire had come loose in the thermostat. That was fixed easily. YAY. 

I am slowly but surely gathering all the stuff so the taxes can get done, asap. I help Mother get hers done and I do Michael's taxes with him, using a program called Tax Act, which is easy. Mine have to go to the accountant, like Mom's.

I spent the weekend contemplating and then making a red velvet cake, for a friend's birthday. I had never made one before. It's basically a chocolate cake with red food dye in it. The cream cheese icing was easy to make and the recipe made a TON of it. I will definitely make this cake again because it's not that hard and it's festive.

I am not great at layer cakes. They are always lopsided. I also didn't refrigerate the layers, which is a great trick. Nonetheless, when my friend came to pick it up we all had a piece. He loved it. 

Saturday was a rainy and gloomy day so after Michael and I made the obligatory grocery store run -- which can be kind of fun because he has a list and I have a list and it's sort of like a contest to see who finishes first - we went and bought donuts. Not Dunkin or Krispy Kreme, no... a new, no-name donut place in Tucker -- Donut City. Everyone in the Tucker Facebook group had been raving about how wonderful the donuts were so I thought why not try them. We had never been there before and the guy threw in two extra donuts -- of course, he was fixing to close for the day and might have been going to throw them out but it was nice, anyway.. They were more cake-like but they were much more light textured than Dunkin and they didn't have the weird oily industrial taste that Dunkin Donuts have that I hate. These were more pastry-like. They were out of apple fritters, which they are famous for, but oh well..

A friend of mine went out to Comfort Farms yesterday and took photos for me, for an article I am writing for a cooking website. Wish I could have gone, but it's a 2 hour drive and I was waiting on the HVAC guy. Plus, I can't leave Mom all day. Jon posted great photos of his prized pigs on the Facebook page, noting how well-mannered they are. I love this photo -- it looks like they're gossiping. Plus, look at the cool rainbow behind them!

Reminder: please Donate to Comfort Farms and support their wonderful mission of helping veterans

Christmas Gift Buying Ideas

My mother and my son LOVE Christmas. They love putting up the tree, seeing the house decorated, the baking, all of it. Even though she is 83, my mother still loves Christmas and she started telling me back in August that Christmas is "not that far away."

I used to feel the same. I loved Christmas. It was exciting and magical to me, even as an adult. That lasted until.... about 2009? When I got laid off from my job and trying to buy Christmas gifts became a big challenge?! Now I feel somewhat like Scrooge. I grumble and grouse. To me, it feels like just 15 minutes ago we put the tree away from Christmas 2016.

However, this year I am going to make a concerted effort to not stress over Christmas, and to purchase gifts that are useful/meaningful, stressing quality over quantity.

Every year, I try to sort through stuff and sell or donate what we don't need/want/use. Goodwill gets a TON of stuff from us. I don't want to buy gifts that will just go on the donation heap in a year or two..

I have friends who, months ago, purchased an Instant Pot -- the 21st century high-tech pressure cooker/everything cooker. They love it. Everyone I know who has one loves it. I am thinking about getting one for my brother. He likes to cook, and he works a lot, so anything that cooks food fast seems like a good idea. 

I am still pondering what to get my son but I am thinking about a pass to Stone Mountain. It's only about 15 minutes from my house and there are tons of fun things to do there. He has plenty of clothes and buying him THINGS seems less desirable than buying him experiences. I have a friend who doesn't do a normal Christmas [she has more than 20 adopted kids] but every year they go to the beach for Christmas, which I think is an excellent idea. Experiences will be remembered long after things are put away or given away.

Mom is harder to buy for, but she has lost a ton of weight so clothes would likely be a good choice.

BTW, neither my brother or my son read my blog, so no worries about spoiling the surprise... LOL

What I do not want to do is get stressed out about gifts. Some years I stress more about little gifts for neighbors than anything else. I am so glad I work from home now so I don't have to worry about gifts for work colleagues or bosses.  

I hate shopping in stores but I have been able to shop totally online, in recent years, which makes the whole experience easier. I am sorry a lot of brick and mortar stores are closing but I think online shopping will continue to be popular. I miss great stores like Borders but online IS the wave of the future. 

below, our card from a few years ago...

 

Let's Agree to Disagree

I think the reason I have a number of friends who have been good friends for many years is because I can say "Let's agree to disagree" and they can do that. Most of my friends are either very conservative or very liberal. Few are in the murky waters in the middle, like me.

I was reminded of the fact that this country has become disturbingly divided when I read this excellent piece in the New York Times, The Dying Art of Disagreement.

An excerpt from this piece really hit home for me:

"We disagree about racial issues, bathroom policies, health care laws, and, of course, the 45th president. We express our disagreements in radio and cable TV rants in ways that are increasingly virulent; street and campus protests that are increasingly violent; and personal conversations that are increasingly embittering. 

This is yet another age in which we judge one another morally depending on where we stand politically."

This REALLY hit home, and made me stop and think how I would feel if one of my kids married someone I disagreed with politically:

"The polarization is personal: Fully 50 percent of Republicans would not want their child to marry a Democrat, and nearly a third of Democrats return the sentiment. Interparty marriage has taken the place of interracial marriage as a family taboo."

Of course, part of my pausing to think included me wondering if I would be more disturbed by one of my kids marrying a diehard Democrat or a diehard Republican. I am still thinking over that one.

I have friends who no longer speak to me because they disagreed with me during the last presidential election. It bothers me that they cannot see that I did what I always do, every four years, voted for the lesser of two evils. I couldn't even debate with them about it, they just un-friended me on Facebook and in actual life, mush to my sadness.

Last night I mentioned to my son that I think pro athletes should show respect for our national anthem and not use a sporting event as a political platform. I didn't expect the violent response I got from him. He literally shouted at me until I just stopped trying to talk to him. I found it a little frightening, frankly, because I wanted him to just calmly talk to me and explain why he disagreed, not shout me down.

Of course, when I read the New York Times article this morning it really resonated because I thought of Michael's reaction last night.

Unlike most 21 year olds around here, my son wasn't born into middle class or wealthy privilege. He lived a pretty wild existence his first 8 years with an alcoholic birthmom, often homeless and hungry. He didn't get appeasement instead of discipline. He didn't get any participation trophies.

However, he is susceptible to influence by other people his own age, and they do not brook disagreement.

As writer Bret Stephens points out that many millennials consider it "...“acceptable” for a student group to shout down a speaker with whom they disagree. An astonishing 20 percent also agree that it’s acceptable to use violence to prevent a speaker from speaking."

Everything is offensive nowadays. Everyone is "spoiling for a fight" as my daddy used to say. How can one argue anything if there's a huge fear of offending some group?! Stephens illustrates this well:

"The result is that the disagreements we need to have — and to have vigorously — are banished from the public square before they’re settled. People who might otherwise join a conversation to see where it might lead them choose instead to shrink from it, lest they say the “wrong” thing and be accused of some kind of political -ism or -phobia. For fear of causing offense, they forego the opportunity to be persuaded."

What is the remedy for this situation? I don't know. I don't agree with everything Stephens says in his article. I am not sure journalism is the cure. However, I will note this -- journalism today is more infotainment than it was when I was a kid. I watched a lot of news programs as a kid because during the commercials I could actually talk to my dad. He rarely sat still except to watch the news at night, so there were only small windows of time when I could talk to him. All that news watching made me aware of the greater world outside myself more so than many of my peers.

However, maybe journalism is our only hope.

 

I sometimes think my curse is that I am always able to see both sides of any question.

I understand the viewpoint of the athletes who "take a knee" during the national anthem. They are trying to illustrate that people of color in America often aren't treated fairly. They aren't, oftentimes. It's a valid point. I just don't think their protests are the best way to effect real change.

We are all biased, even those of us who are wicked smart.

I have a friend who is homeschooling her kids and overall doing a terrific job, except for one thing. She doesn't encourage any of them to go to college. She didn't go. However, she is one of the smartest people I know and I am often in awe of her ability to express herself in writing. (She blogs.) Truthfully, only perhaps one or two of her many children might do well in college. However, it's impossible to point out to her that her own personal bias shouldn't extend to her kids. She cannot see it.

I have dealt with that before.

I grew up with parents who said YOU WILL go to college. No discussion. I asked my Dad if I could take off a year after high school and just work and his response was a vehement NO. So I started college at 17 but I think I would have really done better if I had taken off that year, grown up a bit more. My parents were able to pay for my college without me having to get loans and pay them back, or work to pay my tuition, and so they viewed my not wanting to start college right away as evidence of ingratitude. They both had to work very hard to get through school, with little or no help from parents.

The point I am trying to make is that we are all prisoners of our individual life experiences. How can we really "think outside the box" if we cannot acknowledge there actually IS a box and we are in it?!

When I was in high school I took a class in debating. I was assigned to debate with another student and I had to argue that Communism was a good thing for China. I didn't agree with that, but as an intellectual exercise it was good for me to have to research and present that point of view. However, the teacher assigned the opposite view to a student who was Asian, whose parents had fled communist China. Very smart girl. She didn't do as well as I did in the debate because to her it was personal. It was impossible for her to be really objective and she got upset with me for taking the opposite side. We were casual friends before the debate but afterwards she wouldn't speak to me. It hurt my feelings, but it taught me a harsh lesson: it's all personal. All of it.

Journalism will never be truly objective because we journalists are human. However, we must STRIVE to be objective, even if it's an unobtainable goal. We must try. We must try to understand views different from our own. We must listen. We must research. If we don't, if we allow blind anger to prevail, everybody loses.

We must teach our children to try and really understand the views of people we disagree with. The kids need to put down their phones and actually talk to each other. They have to try. Only when this current climate of divisiveness cools down will I feel less anxious about the future.

Fixing the Problems

I don't have much respect for athletes or anyone who doesn't respect the national anthem or the flag of the United States. My ancestors have fought in every single war since the revolution, fought so that everyone can live in freedom in our great nation. They put their lives at risk. Some lost their lives.

Why?

America is worth fighting for. It's worth dying for. It's the one nation on earth that overthrew its oppressors and changed the world, at a time when that looked impossible.

Do we have problems in America now? Of course. We have tons of problems. So does every country in the world.

Should we have elected Trump? I don't know.

I do know this: refusing to be respectful when the national anthem is played, refusing to honor our flag -- those are actions which are empty. Nothing is accomplished by those actions. Nobody is helped by those actions.

Here's what I want to say to Colin Kaepernick and all those athletes who take a knee rather than stand for our anthem: PUT UP OR SHUT UP.

You don't like the way things are? Change them.

Angel McCoughtry is a professional athlete. I love this story about how she opened an ice cream store in her neighborhood. She puts people to work.

What about feeding the hungry? Jason Brown was a highly paid football player and now he is a farmer.

Ex-NFL player who made $25 million quit football at age 29 to become a farmer

He is helping the hungry and making things better.

Shaquille O’Neal Raises $5.8 Million for Charity with Toys”R”Us

Shaq is making things better.

Athletes are in a unique position to use their celebrity and influence to help people. The ones who do so have my respect and admiration.

The ones who simply "take a knee" should be thankful they live in a country where it's okay to protest. We have freedom of speech. We have freedom to speak and write what we like. We have those freedoms because men and women who love America risked their lives and some DIED for them.

You may not like everything that happens in this country, but you should still respect the flag, the anthem, the office of the president. It's basic courtesy.