Archive for December, 2007
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
If you missed our December newsletter, you can
read the archived version by clicking here.
Tweet This Post
Sunday, December 16th, 2007
“We are not in therapy right now. We’re in real life.”
Reality is a production for which theatrical types Jon and Wendy have not rehearsed. In the film “The Savages,” the midlife brother and sister confront painful choices as they care for their estranged father whose memory is now clouded by dementia.
This grown-up comedy has been called “brilliant, darkly hilarious” and a “coming of middle age story.” As self-involved siblings Jon and Wendy Savage assume responsibility for their emotionally distant father, the commitment-challenged brother and sister grow up and grow closer.
For me, as a member of The Sandwich Generation, the film’s portrayal of sibling rivalry rang so true. The debate over who had more obligations, the freelancer or the one with the “job job” sounded all too familiar.
The film shines a light on retirement communities with their mindless one-size fits all approach to aging. Do you play bingo now? Do you really think you’ll be thrilled to play it when it’s your turn for Valley View?
Have you ever noticed the ridiculously idyllic and bucolic names they give to nursing homes? They all seem to include some reference to villa, haven or manor. The wellness propaganda with fancy landscaping panders to us, what the film calls “the guilty demographic.” Jon torments his sister and robs her of her optimism. Professor Savage, who teaches Theater of the Absurd, leaves his sister no exit. He tells her that the tranquil videos with the compassionate caregivers are meant to assuage her guilt and to mask the brutal reality that “behind those walls, people are dying.”
“The Savages” features moving performances by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as Jon and Wendy Savage and by Philip Bosco as their father Lenny. But be forewarned. This is not a popcorn movie. Depending upon where you are on the caregiving continuum, you may find your stomach more than a bit queasy. It’s hard to hide from the omnipresent nursing home smell or the home healthcare worker from hell. If you’re investigating nursing homes, like Wendy, you may feel that you’re “horrible, horrible people.” <>
“This isn’t a crisis. It’s an alarm, not a crisis,” Jon says as he struggles to stay calm and in control. If only it were that simple.
Tweet This Post
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
What’s the best predictor of success in a relationship?
Today there are dozens of companies and websites that offer complex instruments to assess your compatibility across a range of values. Are you indoor types or outdoor types? Introverts or extraverts? Optimists or Pessimists? Morning people or night people?
I say, “Forget about the larks and nightingales. Forget horoscopes or computer dating.” I suggest that the best way to predict domestic bliss is to assess how early your prospective mate thinks you should leave for a scheduled event.
Paul is brilliant man. He earned a Phi Beta Kappa key from UCLA. But he seems to have a blind spot when it comes to timing. We live in Los Angeles, one of the worst traffic quagmires in the world. Yet every time we go anywhere, especially to the Hollywood Bowl on a Friday night, he is surprised that we hit traffic. “I didn’t figure on this,” he says.
There must be something like traffic amnesia. Or maybe Tommy Lee Jones dropped in with that little blinky thing from
Men in Black—the thing that erases only certain memories.
I’m a planner and on the emotional continuum, I’m prone to anxiety. I always plan for the worst case scenario. When deciding what time to leave for an event, I count backwards from curtain time. I always expect the curtain to go up exactly when the ticket says it will, except of course at the Hollywood Bowl, where an 8:30 concert begins promptly at 8:40. After traffic and parking, I factor in the wait in line for the restroom. God bless those establishments with the foresight to hire those walkie-talkie-wearing women who expedite the worst traffic jam of the night.
When leaving for a concert or the theater, the routine in our house goes something like this. Fifteen minutes before the time we agreed to leave, I start packing up the house, turning on lights, closing doors. Paul decides it’s time to set the VCR to record some obscure show he’s found in the television guide. I start pacing. He gets annoyed. I sit by the door with my purse on my arm. He gets really annoyed.
We eventually get stuck in traffic, and I feel self-righteous and vindicated, if only for the moment. We always make it to the event on time, but just once, I wish the angst were confined to the characters on stage.
Does this sound familiar to you? What rituals do you have in your house?
Tweet This Post
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
Don’t make me click “delete.”
As the Internet evolves, we’re all learning how to leverage social networking and viral marketing opportunities. I know I make myriad mistakes myself—like using too much alliteration. I learn a great deal from marketing newsletters. I value their content. It’s the style that drives me nuts.
My least favorite features include:
1.
The Local Weather Report
I don’t care if it’s snowing where you are. We’re having Santa Ana winds and it’s hotter than hell here.
2.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
Nothing succeeds like success. I guess that I am supposed to extrapolate from the photos of you with celebrities that if you can do it, I can do it. I understand the modeling thing. I’m glad that you enjoyed Maui and the Italian Riviera, but lately, reading Trader Joe’s
Fearless Flyer is the closest I’ve come to an exotic getaway.
3. Shameless Self-Promotion
Unless you just crawled out from under a rock, you know that newsletters and e-zines serve several purposes. They should educate, drive traffic to your website, and help promote your goods and services. I get irritable when I have to wade through 10 pages of product promotions and ads by other vendors to get to the paragraph with useful content.
4.
Fonts That Look Like Ransom Notes
It’s good to use larger type and bright colors to draw attention to headlines, subheads and key points, but some of these sales letters look like they should be featured on
Without a Trace.
5. Goofy spelling to avoid spam filters
For years, copywriters have been artfully weaving the 12 most powerful sales words into marketing materials. We know that spam filters are turning some of those words into red flags. Some authors are inserting extra spaces between letters or mixing numbers and letters to get past the filters. But when I read the secret decoder words, I want to whip out my red pen.
6.
When Cute Headlines Turn Ugly
It’s important to have a snappy headline to entice your readers, but I was turned off by a headline in an e-zine by two professionals whose work I respect. During the height of our recent firestorm, they pitched their teleseminar with the header “Don’t Get Burned.” It’s not as if they didn’t know about the fires. They live here and wrote about the disasters in the body of their work.
Bonus Element: Now You See it. Now You Don’t.
Busy people need an incentive to
BUY NOW. I just don’t believe that your product is going to self-destruct before I finish reading your e-zine.
Note: I didn’t title this post
7 Things I Hate About e-zines because I’m tired of the overuse of the “magical number seven” by everyone including me.
Now that I’m done ranting, I want to thank all the people whose techniques I just trashed. Although I complain about your style, I keep taking your classes and buying your products, so you must be doing something right! Thanks for sharing your experience and insight to help others achieve success.
Tweet This Post
Sunday, December 2nd, 2007
When Rosemary Clooney was worried and couldn’t sleep, she counted blessings instead of sheep. When Anna arrived in Siam, to summon her courage before meeting the king, she whistled a happy tune.
In these days of fast-acting medicine tabs and liquid gels, I’ve found a low-tech emotional health habit that helps me flip from sad or mad to glad. I hear song lyrics in my head. I’m not having auditory hallucinations. I don’t really hear voices, but the songs in my head help me deal with the stress of balancing caregiving, career and my own health.
A happy little song is no substitute for professional counseling, a good support group and rational problem solving, but I don’t always have the luxury of time. Sometimes I need to shift emotional gears in the moment.
Wheeling up and down the hospital halls, I sang to myself “I Will Survive.” Instead of obsessing over a minor annoyance and giving myself a migraine, I think “Let it Be.” When I feel my inner critic about to sabotage my performance, I think of Elphaba and sing “Defying Gravity.”
It’s no secret that what we think, the language we use and the stories we tell ourselves can affect our physical and emotional health. Humming to ourselves can help with a bad mood. Listening and making real music may actually help us heal.
Judy Foreman reported the benefits of music in conjunction with pain management, work with stroke patients and other medical challenges. Read her Nov. 5, 2007 article, “Music Soothes and Awes—and May Help Us Heal,” in the archives at
latimes.com.
If you enjoyed “Awakenings,” you might enjoy “Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain” by neurologist Oliver Sacks. To learn more about the benefits of music therapy, visit the American Music Therapy Association at
musictherapy.org
What songs do you sing to help you make it through the night?
Tweet This Post
