Month: September 2016

  • Okay – So Here’s The Deal


    OMG, the US Open ended Sunday after two weeks of intensive and extensive TV coverage that demanded my attention from sun- up to sundown every day. Beyond the obvious “live” matches that were fantastic, I had to get the late-night  commentary reviewing the day’s completed matches that occasionally went into the wee hours of the next morning and of course had to get the previews of the day’s matches every morning starting in the wee hours on the Tennis Channel. Honestly, Pretty and I were exhausted after the men’s final Sunday afternoon, but the tennis Grand Slams are my one weakness.

    Okay. So here’s the deal. I am somewhat of a morning person – not necessarily early morning –  but the dogs and I usually start our routine around 7:30. Pretty typically prefers the 9 o’clock range; consequently Charly and Spike and I are left to our own ramblings for the first hour and a half every day. As long as tennis commentary is on during that time, all goes well.

    Beep, Beep, Beep…danger lurks when there are no tennis matches for retired tennis pros to discuss on an early morning sports talk show because that means I will be surfing for…I’m not sure what for…just channel surfing.

    When I began the search this morning, the first image to pop up was a semi-attractive woman leaning on a small stand that held an open Bible which she was apparently using as a reference manual for her message to depressed people to get up and get going with their lives. No more lying around in bed until 9 o’clock. Absolutely not. Get out of bed and make something of yourselves. Depressed people of the world, unite – it was like a Create Space on steroids for adults.

    My goodness, I said to Charly who was lying on the floor next to my chair. Maybe Pretty needs to get up right this minute and we need to busy ourselves doing something. But before I could pursue going upstairs to wake her, the woman on the TV began promoting her new book that could be mine if I made a donation to keep her show on the air so I lost interest and switched the channel. No thanks, I have my own books to sell. Plus, my doctor prescribed wellbutrin for depression and that means I rise and shine every day full of piss and vinegar – well, piss certainly.

    Ding, Ding, Ding – step away from the TV, Charly said to me.  Oh, if only I’d listened to her. Instead,  I decided to watch a news show called Morning Joe because the ostensible co-host Mika the Meek was hosting in Morning Joe’s absence. My apologies to the Morning Joe lovers in cyberspace, but I find him to be rather rude. I may even agree with some of the comments he makes, but I do wonder why Mika Brzezinski stays with him sometimes. Perhaps it has something to do with the $2 million she receives every year whether she says a word or not. Which is mostly not word one when Morning Joe is around; Mika turns to mush when he’s at the table. I have to fight the urge to tweet: Mika, be no longer Meek. Speak up, your opinions are just as valuable as Joe’s.

    But I don’t know how to tweet on my cell phone so she’ll never know how much I’m longing for the day when she will speak  up and out loudly above the men who regularly sit at the MSNBC desk with her. This is a woman who writes about equality for women and then lets her cohorts ignore her.  Sweet Lady Gaga.

    Surprise, surprise. This morning’s topic was the 2016 presidential election and the ongoing public concern with the health of the two leading candidates – a concern that became a firestorm of news items after Secretary Clinton had to leave a 9-11 ceremony in New York this past weekend due to a highly classified secret that she had pneumonia. She needed three days of bed rest before rejoining the fray that is her life right now. I hope no one tells the semi-attractive Bible lady that HRC was in bed – the Bible lady might just vote for Trump who is not in bed and is in a dead heat with Hillary according to the most recent polls.

    Noted famous TV personality Dr. Oz interviewed Donald Trump about his general health on his wildly popular TV show and Mr. Trump produced a two-page note signed by his mother releasing him to run for President. Just kidding – the note was signed by a certified doctor who proclaimed him fit to serve…for something.

    Sigh. Then the Morning Joe conversation went downhill from there when visiting opinionated person Donny Deutsch interjected the interesting fact that 40 – 60% of men Donald Trump’s  70 years of age have erectile dysfunction.  Neither Mika nor I wanted to think about that fact. Charly barked at the TV and ran upstairs to get back in bed with Pretty. Spike jumped down from the living room sofa and walked back to get into his crate in the laundry room. Alas, only Mika and I wandered in the wilderness of erectile dysfunction together until the clock struck 9 and thankfully, Morning Joe was over.

    Tomorrow I plan to sleep until 9 o’clock. How many days until the Australian Open in 2017…hm…too many. Maybe I can get the Singapore tournament on the Tennis Channel – it’s almost like a Grand Slam.

     

     

     

  • P.S. Stan the Man


    Stan Wawrinka won the 2016 Men’s Final at the US Open today in four sets after losing the first set in a tie-breaker. He appeared to get stronger each set as the match continued for nearly four hours. At 31 years and five months, he is the oldest man to win the US Open since Ken Rosewall in 1970. Congratulations to Stan for a thrilling match and a remarkable example of courage and determination!

  • Closer to the End Than the Beginning


    During his interview with the ESPN team following a four-set victory over Kei Nishikori in the men’s semi-finals of the 2016 US Open tennis tournament, Stan Wawrinka was asked if he had an explanation for his winning ways in recent years – a victory over Rafael Nadal to win the 2014 Australian Open, a win over Novak Djokovic in the 2015 French Open final and now another opportunity as a finalist in this year’s US Open against Djokovic who is also the number one player on the tour.

    “I believe I am closer to the end than I am to the beginning,” the 31-year-old Wawrinka responded and implied that he understood the limits of playing professional tennis into his thirties like the Williams sisters and Roger Federer who are apparently the equivalent of the proverbial Energizer bunny in their tennis careers.  The reality of the finite nature of his capabilities had inspired him to prepare to play his very best on the biggest stages at the Grand Slam venues in Melbourne, Paris, London and New York City. Stan played to win.

    I resemble that remark, I thought, when I heard the Swiss player make it.  Closer to the end than the beginning – part of the largest generation ever, a generation gradually passing into what? The twilight years, the golden years, the days of wine and roses? The days of fixed incomes and variable costs of living…the days of eye floaters and arthritis…of grandchildren that bring joy and hope… and parents with special needs…the days of loss of friends and family…the days of disbelief in news headlines…you know he didn’t, but he did.

    We are living on the short side of time and if we share Stan’s spirit, we also have an opportunity to play our best games in the championship matches that challenge us to reach beyond what we can see and hear and touch in our everyday lives – a call to dig deeper and continue to contribute our abilities that will make a positive difference in a world we helped to create, in the families we choose to love.

    And so Stan Wawrinka will play tomorrow in the final with an outcome to be determined on the Arthur Ashe Court of the Billie Jean King Tennis Center. He will bring his best game and when he needs encouragement, it won’t come from the fans who watch but from within himself. He has a tattoo on his left arm in Italic script by the Irish writer Samuel Beckett:

    “Ever tried, ever failed, no matter. Try again, fail again, fail better.” 

    Good luck to Stan and to Novak, too – and to all of us a good night.

     

     

  • Happy Pride Day! Observations from a Street Corner


    Happy Pride Day! Today was an unbelievably gorgeous South Carolina day following the drenching rains from Hurricane Hermine yesterday…only white clouds floating in the sky above us and lots of sunshine for the 2016 Pride Parade in downtown Columbia.  Teresa is able to navigate with a walker now so we packed up two chairs and drove to a perfect spot to watch the parade at the corner of Sumter and Washington Streets.Splendid! Enjoy the parade with us…

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    Cap, scarf, phone, walker – and that fabulous smile

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    Early arrivals on the opposite side of Sumter St Corner

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    Two Moms with little girls dressed in Pride colors

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    A picture of diversity walking across Sumter St

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    Looking up from our corner in downtown Columbia

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    Girls waiting to cross at our corner of Washington and Sumter Streets

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    Lighting up and hanging in

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    Famously Hot South Carolina Pride!

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    Local ballet legend William Starrett –

    looking festive in  red as he waves to the crowd

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    Mother of Pride Harriet Hancock with daughter 

    Jennifer Tague and Grand Marshall Tony Snell

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    Diversity is always in style at TJ Maxx

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    Amen, Brothers and Sisters

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    Nothing says Pride like feathers

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    These clergy have been with us since the beginning

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    Happy faces of Pride

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    Our friend Saskia and her son Finn join us

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    South Carolina Pedal Parlor – I had no idea what this was – our neighbor Mark explained it to me.

    Mark and his wife Debbie had joined us on our side of Sumter Street

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    Finn brought his personal mask

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    Girls Rock followed by hula hoopers

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    What are they doing with those hoops??

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    Love wins

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    What a sight!

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    Love has no labels

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    When Finn grows up, he will love the gays

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    So much happiness as the Parade passed by

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    My personal favorite the Prime Timers remember Stonewall – where the Revolution began

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    Our corner – lots of friends joined us

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    Finn has seen enough

    (photo courtesy of Nekki Shutt079

    T and me with our friend Jack

    The day was really fun for us, but when the Parade was over, we had to pack up our chairs to go home to Casa de Canterbury. As we said goodbye to our friends in the bank parking lot, I turned to see two girls at the ATM machine. This really said it all for me. Happy Pride!

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  • I’m Thinking of a 4-Letter Word that Rhymes with Fall…


    Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
    With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
    Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
    A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
    Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
    Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
    Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
    The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
    “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
    With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

    This poem New Colossus was written by Emma Lazarus for a fundraiser to complete the construction of the  Statue of Liberty on Bedloe Island in New York Harbor in 1886. The people of France gave the copper sculpture to Americans to celebrate the emancipation of slaves and the survival of the democracy in the United States following the Civil War that ended in 1865. It had been shipped in 350 pieces, however, and was no small task to assemble – not to mention the additional $120,000 of expenses that would be necessary for the project.

    Emma Lazarus initially declined to participate in the Libertas construction fundraising efforts because she was very much involved in the movement to relocate Jews fleeing anti-Semitic persecution in eastern Europe and relocating them in the United States. Luckily, she reconsidered and found a way to express her own activist feelings in a poem with powerful words that have  become almost as famous as the iconic statue itself in welcoming the brave people who cross oceans and continents to find a home in the land of the free. The last lines of New Colossus are on a plaque in the museum at the base of the monument.

    Last night in Phoenix, Arizona – a city that is 2,400 miles from New York Harbor –  a brazen giant of the very small screen rewrote New Colossus as he talked once more about building a Great Wall along the US/Mexican border to keep the huddled masses yearning to breathe free south of the border down Mexico way where they belong.  Don’t send your tired…and certainly not your poor…northward. We don’t want them. As a matter of fact, we are deporting 12 million Latinos who live in this country through a hole in the Great Wall back to you. See how you like them apples,  my new BFF President Nieto.

    And don’t think we want any wretched refuse from your teeming shores in eastern Europe or the Mid East, either.  A hundred thirty years ago in 1886 the problem  we were worried about bringing over to America was the Jewish refugees – now it’s the Muslims. Sometimes it’s hard to keep straight exactly who we want and who we don’t want. But I’m pretty sure now it’s Muslims and Mexicans in the don’t want category. Hm…something about the M words…gosh, next it might be the Morrises that we need to deport. They’ve always been a suspect family group.

    Innnnyhowww, as my friend Libby Levinson used to say to me, I’m thinking of a four-letter word that rhymes with Fall and it turns out to be Wall, a wall that has become a talking point in the 2016 presidential campaign in these United States by he who shall remain nameless. A wall meant to separate, to divide, to exclude – a wall that has captured the imagination of millions of potential voters in November.

    When T and I drove to Sioux Falls, South Dakota in March to watch our Lady Gamecocks play basketball, we took a small detour through downtown Sioux Falls on a sleepy Sunday morning after an early spring snowfall. We were looking for the park where the actual Sioux Falls were located. I never will forget the three people, two men and one woman, who were standing on a corner of the main street in town holding a homemade sign which read: Build The Wall.

    If people in the Midwest were worried about the border between my home state of Texas and neighboring Mexico, the light from the lamp of the lady in the harbor in New York City was surely gradually dimming and in danger of going out. But of course the Mother of Exiles will overcome the doubters and naysayers and continue to glow her world-wide welcome to those who need her and the Great Wall will remain where it belongs – in China.

    At least, that’s what I’m counting on.