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Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Words of Wisdom

In my 50s I'm still learning life lessons. The biggest one is when someone ghosts you, chances are it is about them and not about me. Sure, there are times I tick someone off so beyond repair they'll never speak to me again no matter what I do, but 90% of the time, it is them.

Over the weekend a friend apologized for not replying to my texts. I won't go into it, but it wasn't me. Another friend texted out of the blue and said she'll be in Philadelphia next month, can we get together?

People are busy. People are stressed. People don't have the bandwidth to do it all --especially since the pandemic.

Another lesson learned about work, the problems were not about me. My successor has tried explaining she needs to know what tangible items we are using for the donations. Key information is kept secret when asked, and not forthrightly disclosed when not asked. 

It was never about me.

Knowing this, helps me move forward with my life with less caution and more ability to live.

Bridge Gala

Saturday was my first time as a guest at the Bridge Academy gala. Mind you, I still worked my tail off at the event, but this time as a volunteer instead of paid staff.

Before the event I was anxious about attending it. I haven't seen most people since before I left, and I left on shaky ground. Though I ended up giving them four months notice, I barely got a good-bye and certainly did not receive a warm send off. Still, I told my successor I would attend to help her with computer details. She also asked for help setting up since they were only given 60 minutes to set up before the event.

Keeping busy meant anytime I felt trapped in a conversation I could (truthfully) say I had something I had to do behind the scenes. In the moment, though, I rarely felt trapped. People seemed genuinely pleased to see me and were curious about what has been going in my life. Conversations felt richer than when I was working at Bridge. I left with promises to get together soon for lunch.

Mom had a good time hanging out with the "trailer" teachers. I had a good time sitting in the bridal suite playing tech consultant. Turns out I still remember how to run an event like this and that I am pretty good at finding on the fly solutions to problems. The only one I couldn't figure out was how to find tissue for a mom who expected to be in tears during the speeches. If I was running the event next year, I'd add "bring tissues" to the list.

Next year, though, I hope to be someplace else, or be paid for consulting. 

Four Years Ago

Four years ago today the world shut down for two weeks. If were were honest with ourselves at the time, we would have known the shut down would last much longer than two weeks.

I remember five months earlier when we heard about the strange illness coming out of Wuhan, China and that the country was on a two week lockdown. Vivian, a recent college graduate, said to me she couldn't imagine anything that terrible. 

Then it happened to us.

Around the 40 day mark I was worshipping online at the American Church of Paris and the pastor said the word quarantine is based on the French words for 40 days. Lent is 40 days long. Forty days is a resetting.

Clearly we needed a lot of resetting because 40 days was not enough, either.

So where do we stand 1,461 days later?

At least a year ago the CDC gave up keeping track of cases. About a month ago they officially declared as long as you are fever-free and feeling okay, you don't have to quarantine. It is still advisable to wear a mask in public following  a positive test. Basically, they are matching what people were doing. 

Some people still wear masks. Sometimes you see a reminder to keep six feet apart.

Many days I can forget COVID ever entered our lives.

People are still getting it. Seems to be hitting those who have not had it before. People who thought they were immune. However, hospitalizations are way, way down, and it does not last as long.

The CDC recently recommended people over the age of 65 get a mid-year booster. The rest of us *should* be okay until the fall.

Unlike four years ago, Ashley is planning to graduate from college with the hoopla denied this class when it was high school graduation time. 

We are traveling. Unlike our trip to New Zealand where we acquired free COVID tests, for our trip to Cuba we were advised to bring our own tests.

For much of the time, life has returned to what we were doing just over four years ago. 

One change I noted to someone is that now when you say "I'm sorry I can get together with you, I don't feel well." The response is "rest up, feel better" and not "come anyway." We respect people taking time to get healthy.

Another is that some companies still allow people to work remotely. That has opened up opportunities.

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Egg-citing Class

My head wants to fill this post with egg puns ... it was EGG-cellent. It went EGG-actly as I thought it would. It was EGG-citing. 

Instead I felt EGG-nored when I wanted help, and YOLK-gotta-be-kidding-me-now when I wanted a moment to breathe.

The topic was learning how to create Pysanki Eggs at church last week. The story begins at church last summer. As we climb out of the pandemic places are realizing we have become disconnected as a society. Many have drawn themselves into tight cocoons only allowing close family and friends to enter. We've forgotten how to socialize. Meanwhile any day now the church will begin a construction project that will shut down the main fellowship room for a few weeks/months, you know how construction goes. They brought back a fundraiser that had worked about a decade earlier: Frolics.

The way frolics work is someone volunteers to run a group activity (pasta making, woodworking, pool party, BBQ, bead making, and yes, making pysanki eggs). They donate all expenses associated with the project and charge a fee to each participant. The church receives the fee as a donation. The participant receives the experience.

The way the timing happened, most frolics took place in September, the traditional start of the year for people with children. The few that happened in August or October either did not appeal, or filled too quickly. As the frolics were sold in late May and early June I was still trying to decide how long I would be away Down Under. I probably could have attended a couple of more frolics, but I only signed up for the one I knew I could make. The one that would take place at the end of February.

Traditionally Ukrainians make these fancy eggs Palm Sunday weekend. I'm not sure why the date in February was chosen (this year Palm Sunday is March 24). but it was. As we got closer we were told there is a waitlist. If we gave up our slot, someone else would fill it. If an offer had been made to refund the $35 fee, I probably would have taken them up on it even though it is a fundraiser.

Eight of us sat around a table. EGGS-amples (sorry, couldn't resist) were shared. The eight of us thought they were EGGS-eptionally complicated. The three people teaching the class assured us they were simple. Just choose one from the hundreds of samples, and make your decision lickety-split so they can start teaching the technique.

I got off to the wrong start with the class. I was a few minutes late, but arrived just in time for the pastor to open the side door as a pedestrian I use, so I considered that a win.

As soon as I saw five of the seven people set up their stations with candlestick holders and a rag, I realized I didn't finish reading the instructions. I got so hung up on a short, narrow candle, I couldn't process the rest of the instructions. As I was apologizing to the organizer for not following the instructions, he pointed out everyone else got it correctly, so it wasn't his fault -- which is EGGS-actly what I was trying to say to him.

Then I sat down in an empty seat at the head of the table that seemed to belong to the leader (there was a book at the spot), so I moved to the other end. Immediately a a mother and daughter arrived wanting to sit next to each other, so when I realized the leader wasn't going to sit down, I took my original seat.

Flustered much?

Either they did not explain well, or I did not understand, but the instructions seemed to be even more complicated until the end when I saw the final product.

Step one: put wax on everything you don't want to be dyed.

No wait, step one is choose the design you want to make. They are limitless. This one is easy. No, try this one. Don't touch the egg. Wear a glove. Don't wear a glove. Use a tissue. Don't use a tissue. Why haven't you chosen your design yet?

Back to step one: put wax on everything you don't want to be dyed.

Put a little bit of wax in the kistka and hold it over the flame near the blue part of the flame at the bottom, but don't get any candlewax in it because you don't want that kind of wax on the egg.

Draw thin lines on it. No, that's too thick.

Sketch out your design with a pencil, but don't ever erase it. I don't use a pencil, just freehand it. Don't you know what design you want? I think of one side as the practice side, you can only see one side at a time. It's okay if they don't match. The sides are supposed to match.

Are you finished yet? 

Oh, you dropped a glob of wax where you didn't want it. Too bad, it is part of the design now. The charm is in the imperfections. Later as we burned the wax off after dying them, I wondered why we couldn't have just melted those imperfections off?

Add more design. That's too plain. A lot of people add swirls. Why did you add swirls? That looks great! (Said to the people on other side of me.) Hmm. (Said to me.)

Amazing how everyone is given the same example and they all turn out differently.

Isn't this relaxing? It is just like a Zen experience (said by another participant). I made hundreds when my child got married (said by one of the teachers). 

Step 2: dying the eggs. I wish I took a picture of the table with all the dyes on it.

Are you ready to dip it? Use the lightest color first. Each additional level gets darker. Use three different dyes. Which one do you want? There are at least a dozen different colors ranging from yellow to light blue to dark blue to royal blue to purple to pink to red to gold to orange to green to ... I don't know what else because the three leaders were alternating telling me to choose a color. Dip it in vinegar first. Why? To rinse it off to make it easier to hold the dye. Teacher two: I've never done that. 

What colors do you want it to be in the end? How do you want it to look? Why haven't you chosen a color?

Okay, what about pink and blue?

That sounds good. The pink is very dark, so dip it quickly. Here, I'll do it. Oh, look it is really dark. You shouldn't have chosen that color first. Let's pat it. Now it looks uneven. Let's rinse it off. There! That looks a lot better! 

Head spinning having three different people give three vastly different opinions simultaneously. No chance to shout -- no, I don't want a dark pink, I want to choose a different color.

Step 4: put dye on the sections you want to stay pink.

No, you want more pink on it -- even though someone else convinced me it was a hideous color, more raspberry than pink.

Are you done yet? Ready to dye the second color? What color do you want? That color won't turn out so well on top of that pink, you should have chosen a lighter/different color.

I really like that person's blue. I think I'll do that one! (There were three different shades of blue.) That won't turn out the same because you already dyed the egg pink. (Internally I am hearing: you should have thought this through better before rushing into that hideous shade of pink. Not what was said, but what my head and heart both heard.)

Step 5: after dying, melt the wax off the egg.

This is the slowest, must frustrating stage because by this point you just want to be done. Rushing it makes a bigger mess. Hold the egg too close to the flame and you burn the egg. Hold the egg too far from the flame and the wax doesn't melt. Rubbing too hard you feel like all your hard work will rub away. Rubbing too softly and it won't come off.

It is at this stage I started to second guess all of my design and color decisions. To the teachers, they just shrugged and said that is part of the learning process. 

Step 6: getting the yolk out of the egg. 

Here is where the teachers debating the most: one does it before decorating, the other two at the end. If you do it up front, the yolk can be saved and used for baking, which I think is the reason the baker in the group opted for that option. Doing it at the end make the egg less fragile during the decorating stage.

Someone poked the first hole out (the harder one) and told me to poke a hole in the other end, then blow it out. If I had realized I would have to poke a hole in either end, I would not have decorated the ends, even though they did in the example.

Unfortunately as I blew the ends, the dye left the egg and landed on my lips turning them blue. Someone quipped that would make me sick -- which I suspect was a joke, but having seeing Radium Girls the day before at Rider University, it didn't feel like a joke. After that, they blew out the yolk for the other seven people (they had blown out the yolk for the first three, then thought it was safe to let me do my own, they realized it wasn't and finished for the others.)

One teacher pokes only one hole in it and uses a siphon to get the yolk out. The other two teachers poke two holes with an awl and push the yolk out.

No matter how you do it, it is messy!

If you skip this stage, 90% of the time the yolk just dries on its own. The other 10% of the time, though, the egg explodes everywhere -- including all over your walls -- and smells terribly.

As we wrapped up, were were offered a kit for $10 (which includes a kistka, wax, six different dyes) so we could make more on our own. I passed. I knew there was very little possibility that I would sit still and do this again. Alone. Doing it with a friend would involve needing another kistka

Things I learned towards the end: 

  • The person who made hundreds says it takes her 4-5 hours to make each masterpiece. Our class was only three hours long.
  • They make kistkas in three different sizes: from very narrow to wider. I could have made wider lines, which I think would have appealed to me.
  • There is more than one way to do things and end up with similar results.
  • There are ways to improve upon the official way to do it. Case in point ... factories where a lot of pysanki eggs are made put them in the oven to melt the wax off. The one teacher uses a blow torch (was he kidding?). Others use a hair dryer. Using a candle method may be the official way, but not the only way.
  • It didn't matter if the candle was brand-new or old, or thin or wide, it only matters that you can put the egg and kistka inside the blue part of the flame.

I've thought about how I would change the instruction process.

Before teaching the class, I would have the three people sit down and do it together so they see how their techniques vary. This way they'll spend less time debating between themselves and more time helping us!

I would start with giving people a chance to sketch their design and think about their colors up front. Maybe even have a color chart of what the second color would look like based on the first color. Maybe show step by step what to draw instead of the final product. Once I realized it was like a negative -- cover thee parts you don't want dyed with wax, the process started to click.

These are ones a teacher recently made. He took the class ten years ago, then waited eight years before making another one. Each one is a work of art. He covers his in oil-based polyurethane (if you use water-based polyurethane, the image washes off).

I'm really surprised no one's eggs cracked in the process since at times I felt rushed.

Friday, March 1, 2024

Six Months Ago

Six months ago I left my position with no safety net. No plan. Very un-Virgo-like of me.

I spent the first month in New Zealand and Australia.

The day after I came home, Don was laid off.

I spent the next five months figuring out what to do next.

I have described this time as feeling like I am on summer vacation without knowing when school will start up again.

It also feels like the first year of the pandemic again, but with being able to leave the house.

There is so much I want to say to help remember this time, and so much I don't want to say in case I am on a job interview and someone reads my blog to learn more about me. I tend to hide behind knowing only a few people read any of my posts, but you know that always ends up being the wrong person. The one person I am trying to impress with how together I am, when inside I am just as much of a mess as everyone else.

Over the past six months I have:

  • Read 67 books
  • Wrote 103 blog posts
  • Saw at least 20 plays (several on and off-Broadway, one in Australia)
    • Seeing five more plays this weekend, and three the next
  • Saw at least 7 movies
  • Volunteered with five organizations:
    • Alliance Francaise
    • Bridge Academy
    • Dress for Success
    • English School
    • Ewing Historical Society
  • Caught up with friends (and continue to do so)
  • Doctor's appointments
  • Rested my left foot to heal it
  • Went on three bike rides -- one on the tandem
  • Wasted too much time playing Spelling Bee, Wordle, Connections, and Solitaire on my phone
  • Took a photography class (one class to go)
  • Took roller skating classes (which is not the best way to heal a hurt foot)
  • Cheerleaded Don as he looks for a new job
Things I wish I could say I did:
  • Learned a foreign language
  • Traveled the globe (at least after I came home from Sydney)
  • Started a best selling novel
  • Decluttered photo albums
  • Cleaned out closets
  • Cleaning out the basement
  • Cleaned out the garage (detecting a theme here!)
  • Donated the excess from decluttering and cleaning

I did send out a few resumes, and went on some job interviews. I learned I would rather freelance than have a steady job, that we are financially able for both of us to not work. It would be better if we both brought in some income, but freelancing/gig work would give me the flexibility to follow my dreams. It might even lead to a regular job. A new career. A new passion.

I was turned down from one such position by someone desperately seeking people to help her because she sensed I didn't have the passion she needed. She hopes I find it. 

I hope I find it, too.

Monday, February 19, 2024

SMASH! The Musical

A few weeks ago I received a too-good-to-be-true email from TeleCharge that was actual true. TeleCharge emailed many of their customers (probably all of their customers), inviting them to sign up for a lottery to win tickets to see a Broadway show while it was still in production. Best of all -- the tickets were FREE. We would see the numbers performed, but, as the show is still in rehearsals, we did not see the finished set or costumes or the finishing touches. All we had to do was answer a few questions at the end. To date, this has been my favorite lottery win.

The musical SMASH is based on a TV show that ran for two seasons from 2012-2014 about the behind-the-scenes work to create a Broadway musical, in this case one about Marilyn Monroe. 

No knowledge of the show is needed to enjoy the musical. After watching the show, though, Don and I got curious about it so we borrowed the DVD from our wonderful library. In hindsight it is fun seeing how they took 32 hour-long episodes and condensed it into a two-and-a-half hour Broadway musical. They are using many of the songs from the show, combined some characters, and cut others. Before the show, and again right after intermission, the director came out and explained how things will be different in the final version (sets will fly, words will appear on a scrim, etc.). 

Many in the audience were invited guests, people from the industry, perhaps friends of the cast. Us regular folk were in the minority. We were seated together towards the back of the 600-seat CUNY Hunter school theater. 


As the show ended, we were each handed a cell phone and instructed to complete a quick survey. They asked us our favorite scenes (I could barely remember any scenes), our opinions on the chemistry between different characters, what we liked, what didn't work (be specific). Then there is the demographic information including how many Broadway musicals do you see in a year, how many Broadway plays, and how many non-Broadway, but still in New York City shows do you see in a year. Tough question. As people keep pointing out, we see A LOT. After that show we had plans to see Night of the Iguana off-Broadway, the week earlier I saw two shows in New York, and we have plans to return in a couple of weeks. Since COVID we have successfully been trying to see more. The harder questions were: what show does this remind you of? and, in the past couple of years, what have been your favorite Broadway shows? 

With the chance to absorb what we saw, I wish I had been given the opportunity to answer the questions again.

We were asked to keep the new plot twists a secret until after the show opens sometime in the 2024-2025 theater year. Since we haven't seen the TV show, I don't know what is a surprise, so I won't share much about the show. I will share Alex Brightman was in the cast as Jerry. We last saw him at Beetlejuice, in the musical of the same name. Completely different role, which made him feel like a completely different character. With Beetlejuice he was larger than life. As Jerry, just about any male actor could fill the role. That is one of the few roles that fell flat.

Actors hanging out after
the show!
We are already planning to see the show after it opens, if only to see if any of our concerns were addressed in the rewriting, as well as to see the flying sets and fancy costumes.


We are both wondering how we get on the mailing list to be invited to see more shows in the pre-production stage. It is exciting seeing how the magic happens.

After the show we walked to our new-favorite theater district restaurant, a Chinese restaurant on 10th Avenue. Last month The Counter closed suddenly forcing us to find a new favorite place.

That morning we tried for the $30 rush tickets to see Night of the Iguana. The day before we tried to win lottery tickets to see Sweeney Todd, Merrily we Roll Along, A Beautiful Noise, and The Notebook and lost each time. The ticket prices without the lottery were starting above $150 each, in one case the cheapest ticket we could have gotten was $319 each. If we hadn't won the rush tickets, we would have paid $42 to see Iguana instead.

Night of the Iguana is by Tennessee Williams. Emily Mann, formerly of McCarter Theatre, is the director. It received decent reviews. A couple of problems. The first was we were in the front row and with the stage elevated on a platform to simulate being on a veranda, our necks were at an awkward angle. The second was I'm not a fan of Tennessee Williams, or at least not of the plot. Rather than listening to the characters whining and repeating themselves, and having the German tourists parading in every now and again to remind us this takes place in the mid-1930s, I could trim the whole thing down from three hours to 30 minutes. It was well done, just not something I'd want to see again no matter who was performing it.




The other winner for the night was I saw on Facebook NJ Transit was having a bring your sweetheart for free deal. Don and I were able to take the train from Princeton Junction for $32 today instead of $32 each. In a couple of years, he'll qualify for the 50% off senior rate. That will be a game changer.



Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Ouchie!

I'm not sure when or how it happened, but I have bruised a bone on the bottom of my foot. Ouch!

Let me backtrack, in September when I got off the plane in Brisbane, Andrew commented I was limping. Until he said that, I didn't even notice I was favoring one side over the other. I shook off his concern saying I was tired (which was true). As the rest of the trip progressed, I realized I was really in pain. There were times in Sydney it was so bad I wanted to cry as I hobbled to a restaurant for dinner. Being alone, if I wanted to eat, that was my only option. The pain was worse when I first woke up, and dissipated as I walked, only to return any time I rested.

A classic case of plantar fasciitis. 

Throughout the fall, the pain came and went. It was non-existent when I went for my annual physical in November. As Don kept going for physical therapy (which the Canadians call by the more charming term, physio) and to the chiropractor for an injury he sustained on the trip, I kept shaking mine off.

I reached a point last month when I had enough and went to a podiatrist. He listened to me for a moment, felt my foot and diagnosed me with (you guess it) plantar fasciitis.

Gee, why didn't I think of that?

He did give me a cortisone shot, sell me some insoles, and sent me home with a sheet of exercises to do. He said come back in two weeks if I am still in pain. He also said to take it easy.

I dutifully did the exercises.

I then bought new sneakers. Since Nike brought back the Zoom Structures, I found the shoes online and bought a second pair. They had been my go-to sneaker before they were discontinued.

Feeling better, I went for a gentle run: 60 seconds running, 90 seconds walking. Okay, at the end I ran for 150 seconds straight to round up to a 5k. I felt some pain in my heel, but shook it off.

Two days later I returned to the podiatrist in pain and with a new diagnosis: bruised bone. This appointment was even shorter than the previous one. Left with less instructions, just keep off of it as much as possible.

This time I was told no running, limit my walking, and stick to low impact exercise like biking.

With temperatures in the 50s, I took my bike for a spin in Mercer Meadows. It felt wonderful to exercise without feeling shooting pain in my heel. Two days later, I convinced Don to go for a ride on the tandem. That's when I noticed my butt bones (not sure of the technical name) were sore from the earlier ride. At that moment it was as if a lightbulb went off: bruised bones do heal if you leave them alone and let them rest. So that's what I'll do this time. I've cut my daily walk goal down from 10,000 steps a day to 3,000 steps a day (I had cut it to 5,000 steps after the first doctor's appointment). It hasn't been a week yet, and I do have a trip to NYC coming up in four days.

Meanwhile, I signed up for the Spring Lakes 5 miler Memorial Day weekend because I do want to get back to running someday soon.

PS: A week later I had my first nearly pain-free day. The feeling in my foot was tenderness rather than stabbing pain. My limp felt more out of habit than out of necessity. Here's to it continuing!