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  • Movie pairings. Group One.

    1. St. Martin’s Lane (1938, set in London) and Once (2006, set in Dublin).
    Paired because of themes: Busking and making it in the arts.

    Vivien Leigh is here a year before Gone with the Wind as the poor, feisty, petulant, manipulative, and selfish dancer, Liberty. With her own British accent in this one, no southern drawl. Perhaps someone saw this “rags-to-riches London musical” and decided she had the perfect energy for Scarlett O’Hara. Liberty hooks up with street performer Charles Laughton’s Charlie to get off the streets and be part of his act. Laughton is absolutely astonishingly good in every way. St. Martin’s Lane is apparently a street in “seedy Westminster,” London. Look for the young and barely recognizable Rex Harrison as the impresario who takes Liberty to stardom, perhaps foreshadowing his My Fair Lady persona as Professor Higgins. Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If,” always a favorite of my mother’s, is featured. (more…)

  • The day my music died

    It would have been the summer of 1962, and Miss Etta James was on the box. Time stood still for me as she raised the gospel shout at the beginning definitely got my little-white-girl-in-suburban-L.A. attention.

    “Sometimes I get a good feeling
    A feeling I’ve never, never, never, had before . . .”

    Her gravelly vocal statements were answered by a back-up group, and then she launched into “Something’s Got a Hold On Me (It Must Be Love).” And I was born again as a hipster at that exact moment. You can look at several YouTube versions. The beginning shout outs are downright primal and still make my hair stand on end. She was full-throated sex and womanhood. (more…)

  • Woman walks into a Denny’s

    I’m not particularly proud of any of this, this eating out at Denny’s. It’s a chain, it’s been racist, and its red-and-yellow logo is not cool, hip, or artistic. But you get a free Grand Slam on your birthday (not everywhere, but at my neighborhood one anyway), the booths are comfortable, the service is great (so I’m betting the training is good), and the food is standard diner, which is usually what I’m looking for. And did I mention I get a free breakfast on my birthday?

    I live in a little town where there are great breakfast places. This is probably because it gets so freakin’, Baghdad hot in the summer. And, since most tourists come to Moab in that freakin’-hot summertime, they want to get up early, eat, and GO; thus, the breakfast places. As I work my way through all the breakfast places here, I’ll share my list of good-for-breakfast diner requirements: (more…)

  • Supporting Leaders in Times of Personal Crisis

    Originally published in eConnect, Electronic Newsletter for Leadrs and Area Administrators in USWest Area Network, August/September 2011, Issue No. 19.

    A personal crisis can happen without warning. A death, a lawsuit, domestic abuse, a sudden household move, a birth with complications, hospitalization, a divorce, home fire, or an episode of mental illness can bring us to our emotional knees in a moment. And whether these crises happen to you, a family member, or a co-Leader, the aftermath can bring up difficult and uncomfortable questions, often directed to a District Advisor (DA) or the Area Coordinator of Leaders (ACL). Discretion, patience, and active listening skills are the watchwords.

    The ACL–or another Area Department Coordinator (ADC) or Area administrator–may get the call or email that asks immediate action be taken. What should I do? the Leader might ask. Should I take a leave of absence? Do I need to tell everyone what’s going on or keep this to myself? Retire? (more…)

  • Visiting the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche

    Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche
    Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche

    Published in 2011 Leaven Issue 2

    The blustery drizzle of a January morning had thrown palm fronds on the ground and live oak leaves at my feet along winding dirt paths as I made my way away from the dry, quiet gift shop. And there it was, a building and a name that had guided my volunteer life for over 29 years. I entered the small, white-washed building with the red tile roof. As I now stood alone in the little room and many candles flickered with each stray gust of wind, I reflected on La Leche Leagues history and my own mothering journey since reading about this little shrine in my Leader Applicant days in the early 1980s. And now I was actually here. Giving myself the January birthday gift of two weeks of warmth and a Key West writing seminar, I had flown into Jacksonville, Florida, USA, and rented a car the day before. But St. Augustine and a bit of La Leche League history were my first stops. (more…)

  • A LLLifeline in an Ever-changing World

    Lynne Rubin interviewed me for the online “Leaders’ Spotlight” feature, and this was reprinted in LLL of Arizona’s SUNSHINE.

    Ed, Kathy (pregnant with Monty), and Sam
    Ed, Kathy (pregnant with Monty), and Sam

    Being a La Leche League Leader takes a lot of time and dedication. We all have it; it’s why we do what we do. Imagine, however, the amount of time and dedication it takes to remain active with the organization when you’ve moved 16 times in 26 years! Kathy Grossman has. (more…)

  • Fast saris

    We were 18 Dubai ex-pats on a bus tour of India in February 2005. The bus offered cool, dry, and luxurious travel, even without an onboard toilet. I sat near the back, unable to tolerate watching the crowded streets, the near-misses of kids, camels, and carts. Our driver’s calm approach to so many distractions was alarming as well, and I grimly waited for the first thunk of hitting somebody. I sketched the Indian women as they worked in basmati rice and wheat fields, wearing wraps of magenta, lime, lemon, cream, and turquoise, stunning my eyes accustomed to Dubai deserts and beaches. (more…)

  • Women sitting in cars

    Have you recently been on the road with a useless woman? A woman who thinks she never has to serve the driver, clean a window, check the oil, or pump gas herself? Was it because I was alone on my latest 1,300 mile road trip and noticed how most women sit like sticks in the passenger seat at a gas stop? If there’s one man on a road trip, is he somehow mandated to be the one outside pumping gas? Is it me, or do most women in cars sit like queens while the man is out in the weather taking care of business?

    If you’re a man, this is what you need to teach your daughters and expect your girlfriends and wives to do. If you’re a woman, this is what you need to teach yourself and expect your daughters and girlfriends to do. (more…)

  • 103 minutes of Eastern drek

    Film review: GERRY

    “A triumph!” “Provocative!” “Visually spectacular!” “One of the year’s 10 best!” (best what is not specified) were the blurbs on the back of this film I got from the library. The exclamation points alone should have tipped me off that this was going to be outrageously bad, and famously Bostonian Matt Damon and Casey Affleck should have been ashamed to have had anything to do with this crap. Shame on them that they shared writing credits with director Gus Van Sant. I’m guessing the three of them were driving out to Wendover one July with beers in their laps, looked around and thought, “Wow! A guy could get pretty lost out here!” and then somebody started writing stuff down, and voila, this drek. (more…)

  • Elfinwild

    Actually it was East Elfinwild Road, Glenshaw, Hampton Township, Pennsylvania, and it was a hell of a place to drive–or learn to drive–a stick shift. A windy two-laner east up the ravine from the river bottom, East Elfinwild Road was lined with trees, so a sunny day threw quick, blinding shafts across a driver’s eyes: sun and shadow, sun and shadow, sun and shadow. Elfinwild was slick with ice and snow in the winter, so you needed to take it at a consistent pace with a steady foot on the accelerator. A false move could land you thrashing and smashing down over the side through the trees. Once you got to the T intersection at the top, you had to ride the clutch or the emergency brake, ready to rocket into first gear once you were pretty sure the coast was clear to make a left onto Middle Road. Elfinwild wasn’t particularly unique to the Pittsburgh area’s twisty ravine-and-valley roads, but it was the convenient ravine-and-valley road in my neighborhood. (more…)