V-Day Fiasco, Part 1

My great friend, Dorothy is a widow. I am divorced. As I alluded to in my previous post, Valentine’s Day isn’t a fun holiday for the…um…unattached. (And I’m sure that’s not exactly a news flash to those of you who fall into the same category!)

Well, not ones to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves, we decided to meet up with a group doing the Downtown Arts Walk.

The endeavor was doomed from the start. Dorothy doesn’t drive freeways so I was at the helm of her Lexus (a nice change from my lowly PT Cruiser!). She told me she wanted us to take her care because it would be good for it since it never gets driven on anything except surface streets. To blow crud out the engine, so to speak.

We had planned to meet up with everyone at the Edison Hotel where they were offering 35 cent martinis from 5:00-7:00 in honor of the day. Whoo-hoo!

We had planned to leave at 4:30 but that was nixed because my boss had missed his plane and I was helping him get an alternative. So we set off closer to 5:30. First mistake: we decided to take the 405 South to the 10. Bad idea! No accidents (which was good), just too many cars, not enough freeway. When we finally reached the 10 East, it didn’t really improve. But we spent the time chatting so it wasn’t too awful.

Then I noticed the time. It was 6:15. The martinis were officially off. *sigh* But we could still catch the group for the walk. We passed one of those helpful/mocking signs: “Time to Downtown, 40 minutes.” Wait…no we couldn’t.

But, hey, we had all the information we could just do it on our own. Again, wrong choice. We cruised onto the 110 doing a majestic 7 miles an hour. (So much for blowing crud out of the engine!) We got off at 4^th just like Google Maps told us to and promptly found ourselves in an empty downtown. We passed streets with familiar names but couldn’t remember which direction they ran. The Google map had been to get to the Edison, not the start of the walk. (How young and naive we’d been then!)

But, wait! A sign for MOCA! Whoo-hoo! We’ll just go there and catch the Dash bus (which was running in a loop). If we don’t find the group, no problem. We can still see the galleries.

Problem 1: Although we saw intermittent MOCA signs, we couldn’t seem to find the museum itself. The signs were of the “MOCA Nearby – Guess Where!” variety rather than actually giving anything so crass as an exact location. But we figured we MUST be near and cruised into a handy parking lot. There was a lone worker strolling by and we asked where to park for MOCA parking. He confirmed that we were in the right place – we just needed to “Go down there and turn left and follow the arrows……It’s easy!”

Clutching our parking stub, we tried to follow his vague directions. I love it when the implication is that you’ll be able to follow directions easily (“Just follow the arrows”), not allowing for the fact that there are places where the arrows go both ways.

Don’t you love it when the implication is that you’ll be able to follow directions easily, not allowing for things like having to make turning decisions with no signage to guide you?

Amazingly, after a good deal of driving around in the deserted underground parking lot, we managed to find a bank of elevators that promised to take us up to MOCA. We parked (remembering to make a note of where the car was), went up to Plaza Level…and promptly found that MOCA and any signs referring to it were nowhere to be seen.

It was dark, cold and really windy. There were so few people that things had that post-Apocalyptic look – which should have told us something! Spotting a Koo Koo Roo across the street, we headed there for more directions. The lady behind the counter looked at us like we were mad. “It’s right across the street.” Where we’d just come from.

Sighing, we stepped back outside and pushed our way, against the wind this time, back to where we’d started. Turning left we walked half a block and there it was. The man at the ticket booth gave us the good news first: the tickets were free. Whoo-hoo! Then came the bad news: the museum was open for only 23 more minutes. (I swear he said “23 minutes.” Not “less than half an hour” or even “25 minutes”…”23 minutes!”)

Wonderful. We’d just agreed to pay $11 to park for 23 minutes of museum time. Using my trusty calculator, I find that breaks down to just under $.48 per minute.

We sighed (yet again), accepted our free tickets (“Be sure to put the MOCA sticker on your shirt!”) and headed for the entrance. At least there were a few people inside.

Once we entered, we were once again reminded of the importance in putting the stickers on our shirts. Why? To keep people from sneaking in to the FREE museum? As a theft deterent? (“Well, I was going to walk off with that Mondrian, but, see, I was wearing this sticker…”) Or just because they can tell us to do something dumb and we’ll do it?

But at least we were IN!

End Part 1

VALENTINES DAY

Or, as my friend Jenean likes to call it: Singles Awareness Day.

This is a day when all people who are in a loving, healthy relationship feel even more loved…and when those of us who are either in a not-so-loving relationship or no relationship at all, feel crap.

Sadly, I’m more familiar with the latter, having no real personal experience with the former.

Everywhere you go for the weeks leading up to V-Day (which, in our consumer-driven culture, is pretty much from Christmas Day onwards), you’re greeted with hearts and an overabundance of red, pink and white. If you ARE unattached, it’s pretty hard to ignore.

When I was married, Valentine’s Day was the tail-end of the “Deadly Three Weeks.” This unholy triumvirate consisted of our wedding anniversary on January 27th, followed by my birthday on February 8th and ending with V-Day on the 14th. My ex-husband felt it was his divine duty to do as little as possible to commemorate any of them and – despite my efforts to develop a thick skin about it – it always hurt.

Being single has improved the Deadly Three Weeks tremendously!

But it does get old. I’ve been out of a relationship for 14 years and, although hope-over-experience springs eternal, I’ve got to face the fact that the older I get, it becomes statistically less likely that I’ll find my soul-mate.

It’s not that there aren’t men out there to find, it’s just that I’m not going to settle for a relationship without being totally in love. And that ever-elusive chemistry is a real bear to find.

My wonderful-but-clueless long-married friends tell me, “It will happen when you’re not looking for it.” Although I love them, I swear the next time someone utters that platitude; I’m going to punch them in the nose. It’s like saying you’ll get that dream job by not looking. It takes away my power to do anything about it.

It’s damn easy thing to say when you haven’t spent the past 15 years sleeping alone. (Yes, I know I said 14 previously --- but did you think I slept with my ex-husband right up to our separation??)

*sigh* Sheila here…trying not to sound like a bitter bitch. (Probably a losing battle when I’m on this subject!)

The funny thing is, I have many AMAZING women friends who are in the same boat. And most of us don’t even date. And I don’t doubt for a minute that there are a bunch of amazing men out there somewhere wondering where the great women are…although where these men congregate, I’ve no clue!

I’ve tried the Internet dating thing too many times to count and the results have ranged from general frustration to massive disaster to outright hilarity. I could write a book about men who flake out even before you meet or are so completely boring you wonder how they get by in life or spend your first (and last!) phone call ranting about women or who send you a picture of their penis and then claim that they’re interested in more than sex. It helps to determine you’ll be entertained by the situation no matter what…

Here’s my personal take on the single older adult man/woman divide:

1. Women - in general - are smarter than men.
2. If a man has a good woman in his life, he may decide to try for an upgrade.
3. When a woman has a good man in her life, she usually hangs on to him.
4. This is why there are more good single women out there than good men!

I know there are good single men out there – I HOPE there are good single men out there somewhere! Men who are funny, interesting, smart, caring……etc., etc., etc.

But where the hell are they??

Happy Singles Awareness Day!

BIRTHDAY CAKE!

Last Friday was my 55^th birthday. I’ve said before (ad nauseum…) that I don’t lie about my age but, I must admit, it IS a bit sobering to realize that I now qualify for the Tuesday Senior Discount at Ross…

Normally, I consider having another birthday a blessing, not a curse. It sure beats the alternative! But because I feel like I’ve spent the last year and a half marking time, both personally and professionally, I admit I’m finding this milestone frustrating. I'm at the same old bloody place: under-paid, under-utilized, under-loved, and frustrated (on many levels!).

I've now reached a time in my life where people my age are at least looking at retirement and I've not even got any assets.

Well, except for my genius. Yup, like Oscar Wilde, I’ve got "nothing to declare but my genius." Of course, I admit he had the "genius" thing down a bit better…

Back to Birthday Cake...and, yes, it needs to be capitalized.

Birthday Cake is pretty important to me. Not exactly sure why, but it might have something to do with growing up in a small town in Florida. Port Charlotte had just one bakery and my family only made the pilgrimage if someone was having a birthday.

Going to the bakery to order my Birthday Cake was a glorious occasion. There wasn’t much of a selection, really. There were no theme cakes or plastic princesses for the top or cakes with pictures in icing or even cakes with fruit filling. I’m not even sure if chocolate was an option.

But to my little-girl eyes, the fancy roses and icing swirls on the cakes seemed amazing. To the little-girl who still lives inside me, they still do. So much for growing up and getting all sophisticated!

Now, I have very definite ideas about what actually constitutes a real Birthday Cake (the kind with capital letters). Although I certainly believe that others have the right to have chocolate or carrot or whipped cream with strawberries – and most of the time I like all those cakes just fine - that isn’t a Birthday Cake to me.

MY Birthday Cake must be white cake with white frosting, perhaps flavored with a bit of peppermint. There must be flowers – roses and lots of them – and swags of frosting around the sides. The color is important, although I do like to vary that part from year to year. *sigh*

And there must be some leftovers! So I can put them in the fridge and have cold cake for breakfast afterward. YES!

But the sad truth is that I haven’t had a proper Birthday Cake for a long time. I just didn’t feel right buying one for myself and – because people can’t read my mind - nobody got one for me. To be honest, I didn’t really realize how much having one meant to me until last year when my youngest son and I were spent part of my birthday evening driving from Ralphs to Vons looking for a cake that would fit my ideal. (And – even with all that driving - we didn’t find one: they were all chocolate.)

BUT tonight is my friend Jenean’s birthday and I’m going out celebrating with her and some friends. I have the all-important role of cake-bringer. Luckily, Jenean and I both agree on the importance of Birthday Cake and this one will have both our names on it. (She insisted…this is why she and I are such good friends!)

So….HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENEAN! And thank-you-thank-you-thank-you for letting me share your Birthday Cake!

Comfort food

I can always tell when I'm going through a tough time emotionally. Some people get angry; some get weepy; some indulge in too much chocolate; some drink too much alcohol...

I eat bread and milk.

It's something I don't really think about any other time - I never gave it to my sons when they were little and I went at least a couple of decades without having it myself. But in 2001 when I was watching my life crash down around my ears, I ate it a lot.

Soft white bread ripped up (not cut!) and put into a bowl then covered with milk and eaten with a big spoon in all its drippy, soggy glory.

Judging from the looks and comments I've gotten when I've mentioned it to other people, I guess it's not a common combination. Even my kids were repulsed. I can't think of it objectively any more than I can judge whether oxygen is the best breathable gas. It is neither bad nor good tasting to me - it is just comfort. It must go back to my childhood. Aunt Jessie (who was the most nurturing person in my life) would make it for me - not that it required much fixing.

I don't have a lot of fond culinary memories from my childhood. Food wasn't a big part of my life. A boring meat and potatoes diet may be partly (if not wholly) to blame for this. We ate boiled beef, boiled potatoes, boiled cauliflower and boiled cabbage...see a pattern??

Sundays were special. We always had fried chicken - dipped in raw egg, rolled in crackermeal and fried in Crisco. This would be accompanied by noodles in broth one week and Bisquick biscuits in gravy the next. I liked the biscuits best, especially when I could take some of the dough, roll it very thin and cut it with the "hole" part of our red and white plastic doughnut cutter. It was like little crackers after it was baked.

Vegetables were mainly canned corn or canned peas (with half and half added - I've no idea why). In summer we'd occasionally have corn on the cob or fresh radishes. We also had fresh cucumber, sliced paperthin and put in a bowl with vinegar, salt and a bit of sugar. Aunt Jessie would make pickled beets, which I still love, and there were always jars of store-bought pickles, which I like no better now than I did then. I never remember seeing any brocolli, zucchini, asparagus or any other fresh or frozen veggies.

I already mentioned the poor, smelly boiled-out cauliflower and cabbage. Now that I'm an adult, I love cruciferous veggies. I can make a meal out of brussel sprouts, love raw cauliflower and think cabbage is delightful in nearly all of its forms. But it took me a while to get to the point of even trying any of them. That odor wasn't an easy thing to forget.

I was considered a finicky eater as a child. I rarely got stomach aches but, when I did, they freaked me out so much that I tried to avoid them by eating as "safe" as possible. Although, that may not be quite the reason since, once I had the opportunity, I enjoyed such "exotic" fare as Taco Bell burritos, canned Chun King chow mein and spaghetti sauce made "from scratch" using McCormicks little foil packets. We lived in a very small town on the west coast of Florida. There weren't even any cities nearby...so it wasn't easy expanding my culinary outlook. When I moved to California (at age 20), I had my first avocado. And bagel. And egg roll. And I loved them all.

Now that I'm an adult, I'm pretty adventurous in my food choices. My favorite food is Dim Sum. I love Persian, Ethiopian, Greek, Vietnamese, Thai and Cajun cuisines. And, of course, Mexican and Italian food - which is now nearly as mainstream American and burgers and hot dogs. In spite of the fact that I've never warmed that much to sushi, I ate everything offered to me while I was in Japan. This included raw fish, raw octopus and raw squid...and (at a Korean restaurant) even raw liver! I didn't get sick once.

But in spite of living in a culinary nirvanha like Los Angeles where there are literally thousands of funky little ethnic restaurants to choose from, when the chips (and my emotions) are down, I end up eating the whitest food imaginable: white bread and white milk...served in a white bowl.

Would that be getting back to my white-food roots?

Biological clocks...and the men who try to get around them.

A couple of weeks ago I met a very nice guy on Craig's List - during that time we talked MANY hours on the phone, which is not normal for me. Let me just say that I don't "fall in love" or even "fall in LIKE" very often...but he seemed really special. He was 50 (to my 54), funny, intelligent, interesting, sensitive, etc. etc. etc. He'd even run a comedy club in the past so we had comedy in common!

We were supposed to meet this weekend and, I must say, I was really looking forward to it.

That is until Saturday morning when I got an e-mail saying, basically, that he was really sorry but after hearing me talk about my sons he realized how much he wanted his own children and so it probably wouldn't work out for us. To put it mildly, I was crushed. I've been alone for a long time - well over a decade. I usually don't spend a lot of time thinking about what it would be like to have someone special in my life...that's not a fun thing to ponder when you sleep alone every night. But this actually seemed like it might have possibilities.

I've moved from the "sad" stage into the "angry" stage now...not just angry at him (I maintain that he's a nice person or I wouldn't have been attracted in the first place...) --- but angry at ALL the men who didn't bother (for whatever reasons) to have children when it was "age appropriate," figuring that when they were ready to grow up, they could just find a younger woman and everything would work out fine.

Men, unlike women, aren't tied into that inconvenient biological clock thing. They can procreate into their 60s and beyond, as long as they can find a young lady to carry the baby.

Surprisingly, when I mentioned this to some friends, one of them said he too wanted kids and was looking for a younger woman. I wanted to whack him up side the head with a 2 by 4. Lucky for him we were in a lumber-free area...

OK - I admit to being a little sensitive on the subject of older men and younger women. (You would be too, if you were a single middle-aged woman reading personal ads where it seems like most of the guys my age are looking for women in the 25-37 age range!)

Not that people don't fall in love with someone outside their own generaton (one of my very best friends is a widow who was married for over 20 years to a man much older than she and they had a great marriage) -- but this isn't about someone who just happens to fall in love with someone a lot younger. This is about a man making a conscious decision to look for a woman young enough (or darn close!) to be his daughter.

I find this offensive whatever their reason: whether it makes them feel young (not going to make them look any younger though, is it??), makes them feel more virile (yeah, right...), because they think younger women are easier to control (well, we older women have taken enough bollocks from men and aren't interested in doing it any more)...or they've finally decided they're ready to be a daddy (when becoming a "granddaddy" might be more appropriate).

For what it's worth, apparently it's not that easy for these guys to actually FIND a younger woman willing to play along, according to my friend.

I know - it breaks my heart too.

The REAL first post!

Hi, my name is Sheila Stone and I live in Los Angeles, California. I'm the one in the middle. The two bodyguard-sized guys with me are my sons, Kris and Jon.

I just turned 54 years old – and I never lie about my age. I’ve been told I look younger but I never know how to react to that. The socially-acceptable response is, “Thank you very much” but implicit in that reply is acceptance of the belief that “younger is better.” That rubs me the wrong way. I happen to think that – although it’s a pretty much a given that younger usually LOOKS better – youth is highly overrated. I’m much more confident and comfortable in my own skin now than I ever was, even if that skin tends to fit a bit looser than it used to.

In 2005, I graduated from UCLA with a BA in Anthropology. That’s not terribly unusual until you add in the fact that I attended UCLA at the same time as both of my sons. (The picture makes more sense now, doesn't it?) All being at the same school wasn’t as strange as it might have been since we didn’t live together and it’s a big campus. Luckily, Kris & Jon had reached the age where they found the situation more amusing than mortifying. They even deigned to say hi if we ran into each other on campus.

After graduation, I used my student status to get a BUNAC work permit and went to live in Europe. I spent the autumn in gorgeous but damp Galway, Ireland (living in a hostel room with 7 other women & one bathroom!). For Christmas the boys and I met in Copenhagen. Jon was on a study abroad program there and Kris flew in from Houston where he’s a grad student at Rice. From January to April I lived in beautiful, historic York, in the north of England. I also spent time traveling in Spain, Crete and Italy. It was AMAZING.

Now before anyone gets the mistaken impression that I must be independently wealthy, let me set you straight. I did this all on a serious shoestring. Having the BUNAC permits enabled me to work in Ireland and England but I lived very hand-to-mouth. It was still great.

But all good things come to an end. I returned to Los Angeles last June - just in time for Jon’s UCLA graduation. I wasted no time starting to job hunt. Poverty may build character but it gets to be a strain after a while.

I now work at Affinity Media International as the Acquisitions Coordinator. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? Well, don’t get too impressed - at this point, it’s more of a glorified executive assistant. When I began in July, the company didn’t even have a filing cabinet. My position is supposed to grow. Stay tuned to see if I actually DO make it though the pink ceiling...!

I'll be posting more often, now that I've broken the ice. I bought "Blogging for Dummies" (since I couldn't find a copy of "Blogging for the Completely Clueless) and that should help me figure this blog-thing out eventually. (Although I'm still trying to understand just what an RSS feed is!)

Cheers,

Sheila

Blogging - the beginning

Hi all! It's been such a long time since I wrote and so much has happened.

I'll post something amazing soon. I promise.

Sheila