Mad Men Is Not The Sopranos For Me

Well, after fighting it, and ignoring the show for one entire year, I followed the hype and settled down determined to become a fan of AMC's Mad Men. I liked it well enough and the tales were familiar to me. After all, it's an era I know. But mostly, I was slightly bored.

I think that although I related to the both the times and the characters, my own life has developed into so many new spins, that I became a bit restless with what had been. No, it wasn't painful to watch the past. It was simply long distant for me to much care. However, I wished my grown kids could see it (I'm doubtful that they would sit through the program) to understand an era they don't truly comprehend. They have no way of understanding the life their parents lived and the freedom of choice the current generation has as a result of the emancipation from those years. I'm slightly disappointed, but not so much that I won't try again. Who knows, the slow pace may manage to lure me in. So far, HBO's interaction and psychology programs remain my favorites (The Sopranos, Tell Me You Love Me, and In Treatment). For my personality, they hit a bull's eye.

Tomorrow Begins A New Today

I had a lousy couple of weeks before and after I got away for a vacation in Argentina where I had a blast (see my blog Too Old To Tango? Think Again ). The before and after part included computer glitches (hard for someone who pours herself into a website), staff and family illness, as well as loss of key staff members. I was reminded of some of those long-ago days when I was a multi-tasking, sometimes overwhelmed single working Mom. Wisdom, luxury and help be damned. Clawing through "administrivia," negotiating contracts, caring about staff under duress and taking care of ill family members is never easy - even though I sometimes forgot it can happen again and again.



Life can be slippery and bumpy at any stage or age. At this age, sleep beckoned and was needed more than in my youth. To put it mildly, it's been one helluva not fun time. However, I look around at the wonderful summer fresh air, watch my tiny herb garden grow, and go to yoga to breathe, relax and help get the kinks out of my body. I remember some of the good parts of having perspective as a result of living long enough to go through the downs and ups. I can begin to see light at the end of the tunnel and tonight I go to sleep remembering: Tomorrow Begins A New Today.



Oh, and in a few weeks, I plan to take some quiet healing spiritual time in a Zen monastery. Dear fellow FiftyandFurthermores, what a gift Saging has given me - to feel free enough to live at both ends of the spectrum. This summer I will have vacationed in the city some call the Paris of the Western Hemisphere, as well as quietly soaked up the tranquility of the East. I haven't enjoyed the chaos surrounding these vastly different vacations, but I am grateful to have the opportunity to reward myself for a job well done.

Gloucester Pregnancy Pact

This past June the media was buzzing about the Gloucester, Massachusetts, high school girls who may (or may not have) made a pact to become pregnant together. Seventeen girls in total are pregnant, more than quadruple the typical number of pregnancies in a class per year. Some are blaming movies like Juno and Knocked Up for their portrayal of young unmarried mothers. Personally, I loved Juno because it was such a real life, down to earth, yet sweet movie about the things in life that we can't predict.

School officials in Gloucester are wavering from their original statements that the young girls made a pact to raise their children together. Some people are wondering if it's because this particular town has absentee parents that don't chaperone their sons' and daughters' all-night adventures. The small fishing town has been through a rough patch lately due to unemployment and economic hard times. Some residents and media are saying that these kids are not well-loved enough and are on their own' so often that they are looking to have babies for someone to love them back.' Others are claiming that in this Catholic town, perhaps the rates of pregnancy are not increasing, but rather the rates of abortion are decreasing as pregnant girls are receiving more and more support for having their babies. Gloucester High School offers on-site day care and a supportive school environment that allows the girls to be mothers and also get their high school diploma at the same time. The school hallways are flooded with students shuffling along with pom-poms, sports equipment, backpacks, and baby carriages. Or is this something that could happen anywhere in the Age of Nicole Richie, Brittney Spears, and even Brittney's 17-year-old sister Jamie Lynn? Maybe it has more to do with Realty TV and People Magazine messages than one town's struggles?

No matter what the cause of this supposed pregnancy pact, teen pregnancy is nothing new. In my day, girls were sent away to have their baby in private facilities. Grandma raised the baby as their own, only to release the secret years later to the family (or have the secret stumbled upon). Back alley, hanger-induced abortions were more common because safe medical care was often not an option. Doctors that dared to participate often went to jail. For young teenage mothers who had their babies and were public about it, well, many of them did the right thing and wed the guy, whether he was a one-nighter or a significant relationship. My generation knows all too well how poorly many of these marriages worked out.



Times change. But as the saying goes, what goes around comes around. Many grandparents are once again becoming new parents as they raise their children's children. If you have the energy, resources and inclination for this, great. But how many of us really would choose this when we've already raised our brood? Besides, many of the grandparents I know are busy with their own lives and also have the responsibility of monitoring their own or a significant other's illness.

Do I really want to deal with peanut allergies, complicated car seats, soy milk, in-car DVD's, X-Boxes, and piles and piles of plastic toys on a daily basis? Not me. I love being a grandma who has gotten to spoil my grandchildren rotten by taking them traveling, to ball games and especially doing something my wonderful kids would never do like let them stay up past bedtime playing poker. I'd much rather be a support staff grandma than a primary caretaker. How much easier to wonder about the Gloucester girls than to stay up past my bedtime fretting about what my own teenager might be doing. Been there, done that.

How many of you are, or know, a grandparent who is raising their grandchildren? What do you think about the Gloucester pregnancy pact? Sound off with your comments.

Too Old To Tango? Think Again

After my recent trip to Buenos Aires, I truly believe that if we are willing to risk a little, summon up our courage, and with a little spunk, FiftyAndFurthermores can do just about anything. My husband and I walked and walked this stunningly cosmopolitan and beautiful city. Of course we visited several of the mandatory tourist attractions. One of the "must sees" was our visit to the Carlos Gardel Tango show.

http://www.esquinacarlosgardel.com.ar/cg/index_eng.htm

Touristy, yes; but even as kitschy as the show may be, the dancers' grace is fantastic. My husband and I even decided to go the whole hog and sprang to have our pictures taken with the dancers. (Even though we felt a little silly, the picture is pretty cool.)

The image of the straight backed señors and the señoritas with sensual hips that moved at will, with gracefully curved backs that could lithely touch the floor; it was a seductive elixir. For a moment, I felt envious and wanted to look like that too. So my husband and I planned a dancing lesson of our own at a well known studio. Life intervened in the form of a sick stomach, so we didn't make it to our dance lessons this time. But between the vibrancy of Buenos Aires and the fabulous leather clothes, I just may have to return to obtain a pair of my very own hand made tango shoes and dance my way through my very own version of OZ. Robert Duvall*, here we come.

*Assassination Tango is a 2002 movie directed by and starring Robert Duvall, a crime thriller based on the Argentine tango.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_Tango

Source: Wikipedia, a quote from the rottentomatoes synopsis:

For Duvall, the making of Assassination Tango is the culmination of a long-held dream, combining two worlds he loves so much. In the tango, Duvall finds an amalgam of contradictions, which is what makes it so appealing and also parallels his character in the film. "Tango is sweetness. Some people call it sensual. Some call it sexual. Others would disagree because a mother can tango with her son, a father with his daughter. It's a very personal kind of thrust and a world that's very special."