“Hazel McCallion is a wonderful example of leadership for many reasons: she has been the mayor of Mississauga, Ontario for 30+ years, re-elected 10 times, and is responsible for a debt-free district while creating a vibrant downtown. She’s done all this with great energy and enthusiasm while approaching 90 years old! Watch her interact with others and you’ll find her smile to be contagious!”
(Courtesy of karmatube.org) Click here: Hardest Working Mayor in North America
This YouTube video features the 1980′s pop classic “Africa” which was the rock band Toto’s biggest hit. It has been reinvented by an a cappella jazz choir from Slovenia called Perpetuum Jazzile. We here at oops50 hope you music lovers agree that this is an amazing a cappella performance. Turn your volume up high to hear Perpetuum Jazzile recreate an African thunder storm at the beginning of the song. It’s quite a treat. Enjoy!
As I sit here, I’m excited to share the first of what will hopefully be a series of insightful, poignant and fun bits about the wild yet wonderful journey I’ve embarked upon. Honestly, I’m a nervous ninny right now as I take the responsibility of “representing” us over 50 Divas quite seriously, and more than anything – want to leave you, my sisters, in good and powerful stead.
So here goes. What you may have read in “About Us” told you some about me, but I want you to know more, so as I continue to write you will know me better and better and will (hopefully) stay with me as I go. I’m the youngest and most dramatic of four kids – I know it and won’t try to deny it. When I was little I asked my Mom to help me get on Romper Room (remember that?) and she promptly told me “No!” Years later when I completed a theatre degree as part of a double major, my parents asked why I bothered with it and “what was I really going to do?” After I flailed about for a while, auditioning half-heartedly and getting nowhere fast, I gave up, took the LSAT and entered law school.
Fast forward 10 years. I’m a partner in an entertainment law and management firm heading up the international division. I’m crossing the globe minding the business of our crazy “creative professional” clients and generally having a blast. For one I’m cutting production deals in the UK, for another I’m commandeering marketing plans in Rome. For yet another – a musical diva in the making – I’m designing and directing her live performances in Tahoe, Atlantic City and Tokyo.
After years, I tired of the midnight to three “woe is me” tirades I suffered and decided to call it quits. I closed our Miami office and moved back to New York to be near my family. Within months of relocating, my daughter, then 9, was diagnosed as what is referred to as a “brittle” diabetic; black outs and return trips to the hospital became our norm. We rode it out; my family was my rock. Years pass – she’s now in college, in better control of her diabetes and thriving academically so I can breathe again.
Now comes the question – what do I do with the rest of my life? I muse. I write. I take classes. I read. I don’t even THINK of going back to lawyering as I’ve been there done that. No thanks.
Through all of this I’ve worked – for money – but nothing that incited me to jump out of bed in the morning, excited to start another day. That is, until the day my daughter came home to visit and pronounced “Mom – alright already. You need to get back into acting for you are way too dramatic to not at least try to get paid for it!”
And so began my midlife journey into the field I love…. Oh boy! Stay tuned. I’ll even explain this crazy pic!
Sadhvi
Hello and welcome to this week’s “Sadhvi Sez” here at oops50!
I am going to let you all in on my private arsenal of sleep aids that help me get the sleep I need. I find it quite interesting that almost everyone I talk to these days tells me that they are having a hard time sleeping - men, women, teenagers. Even my dog, Bello, recently told me that he wakes up all the time during the night and can’t get back to sleep! I flip through the 358 channels on TV and there seem to be a lot of commercials for drugs that make you fall asleep…have you noticed that too?
Hmmm…
If the big pharmaceutical companies are spending money on these TV ads, then what my belly is telling me must be true: there are a LOT of people who cannot sleep! I have nights when I cannot sleep too, and if I go without sound sleep for too many nights, I feel like I am about to go insane during daylight hours. I never had this until I started menopause about a year ago. This could be why.
Or it could be something an astrologer friend of mine who is not wacky told me. He said that a new “portal” had opened and it was streaming energy in from another galaxy and this energy was hitting everyone’s nervous system in a big way. That could do it.
Or maybe we really ARE all connected and those people who are getting their adrenals short-circuited with the double and triple shots of Starbucks are creating a rippling effect? On my last road trip, I noticed that there are hundreds of energy drinks on the shelves of gas stations everywhere. The best according to my 16 year old nephew is one called “Java Monster”. I tried it and I must say that I got the biggest rush since, well, let’s just say that this stuff ROCKS!
I don’t do HRT or Prozac or anything else (YET!)
So what to do when sleep just does not come???
Being the scientific type, I tried things at the health food store and online out of desperation, and here are a few of my favorite things:
Sleep’n Restore: This contains melatonin and valerian and some other stuff. I order it online and it works. www.natrol.com
Rescue Sleep: This is a Bach Flower Remedy that ”…calms your restless mind providing natural relief of occasional sleeplessness caused by stress and repetitive thoughts”. www.rescuesleep.com
Coffea Cruda: Since I do drink coffee, this is a homeopathic formula that does the trick every time. I don’t know if it would work as well if one does not drink coffee. www.borionusa.com
And lastly, if I know I need to sleep deeply because I have not slept well for a few nights, I make an herbal tea that just about knocks me out.
Fidnemed Nighttime: The tea I like the best is from Mountain Rose Herbs called “Fidnemed Nighttime”. This is what they say about the tea, “Fidnemed means a sacred and quiet forest grove. Relax, and enjoy some of this full flavored infusion blend after a hectic day. We almost called this ‘Sleep on Rocks’ because it works so well.” It has interesting ingredients like lemon balm, skullcap, hibiscus and hops, valerian root, passionflower, and lavender flowers, all organic. In my opinion, Mountain Rose Herbs make the best tea blends. www.mountainroseherbs.com
If you are having trouble getting a good night’s sleep, you might want to give these a try and let me know if they help.
And may your efforts lead you to peaceful dreams, really and truly.
Sadhvi
Since I haven’t been sleeping for about fifteen years, my doctor recently put me on hormone replacement therapy. The idea was that this would 1) help me sleep 2) make me feel better and 3) give me more energy for all kinds of things, some of which will remain nameless. I’ve been on the little patch and the round pink pill now for about three weeks. I’ll admit that I have been sleeping somewhat better, when I’m not up at 3 a.m. worrying about a serial killer loose in South Carolina or North Korea bombing us all to smithereens. But I’m not sure it’s worth it because my temper has returned. It’s taken up residence in me again, like a long-lost but unwelcome friend. I haven’t had this kind of whirlwind, blow-the-roof-off-the-house temper since my glory days of PMS, and I’m on the smallest possible dose of hormones-and the most natural variety, the kind that doesn’t cause horrible things to happen to you later. I hate to think how I might be acting if I were taking the urine-from-pregnant-horses kind. Not to mention in a larger dose!
Yesterday was the icing on the cake. Since my oldest daughter and first-born child is turning 22 this weekend, I decided to take her shopping, to pick out what she wants for her birthday. It was going to be a lovely, happy mother-daughter outing, just like in the movies. Grown mother. Grown daughter. Out having fun together. What I didn’t realize before we left the house was that I had forgotten to remove the hormone patch that I was supposed to remove before I replaced it with a new patch yesterday morning. So I essentially had two doses of estrogen going through my skin into my abdomen. Sure, the old one was probably somewhat weakened, since it was, after all, time to replace it. But it was definitely not dead. Next thing you know, I’m yelling at my daughter–in the store check-out line, mind you–about her specific choice of present and about her whole approach to birthday presents in general. Then I’m storming out of T.J. Maxx, in front of a line of people waiting to check out. Next thing you know, I’m in the car, with my daughter asking me to calm down, and I’m calling her names. I’m railing and ranting against “young people today” who have no appreciation for material things, so they simply replace something perfectly good with something newer whenever they get tired of it. I’m making my daughter wish she had never even suggested we do something like this together–and wish she didn’t have a birthday coming up at all. On top of everything else, I’ve left my 13-year-old daughter, who made the mistake of wanting to share in this fun outing, in the store, wondering where I am.
There was probably some tiny bit of validity in what I said to my daughter. Sure, she spends too much. She’s 22, for goodness sake, and she has her first real full-time job. Also, she probably really doesn’t need another purse, especially not an expensive one where the brand name jacks up the price. Certainly she needs to learn how to budget her money. I’m sure I had a point, somewhere in there! But, for crying out loud, it’s her birthday this week, and I love her, and I’m so proud of her in so many ways. So why did I have to do what I did?
This whole experience made me wonder: how many women who go out of their heads and commit violent or abusive acts are on some kind of hormone replacement therapy?
I’d at least like to blame it on the hormones. I don’t really feel I have any other reasonable choice.
In the end, hormone replacement therapy may turn out to be great for me. It may make me want to put on a black negligee. Who’s to say? Whatever happens, it had better be worth it. It would sure be nice if I could call my doctor and discuss my reaction to this stuff. She’s certainly never called me to find out. That’s not how American medicine works. But don’t get me started on a different subject for ranting. I’m still feeling some effect from that second patch!
In any case, I’d like to know what other people have experienced with HRT. If anyone out there reading this blog has any helpful suggestions, comments, experiences to share, I, for one, would appreciate hearing them. (I suspect my daughter would, too!) Jane
