Gen X

Speaking of ChatGPT…

~ MaryG ~ 8 Comments

I asked it if the United States is still considered a democracy. Here’s its answer:

As of mid-April 2025, the United States is still officially classified as a democracy by major global indices, but it is experiencing significant democratic backsliding under President Donald Trump’s second term.

Freedom House continues to rate the U.S. as “Free” with a score of 84/100, though this reflects a decline from previous years and ongoing concerns about executive overreach and erosion of civil liberties.

The V-Dem Institute has warned that the U.S. is on track to lose its democracy status within six months if current trends continue, citing actions such as undermining the judiciary, centralizing power, and attacking the press.

Recent developments include the Trump administration’s defiance of a unanimous Supreme Court ruling, raising concerns about the rule of law and the system of checks and balances.

In summary, while the U.S. retains its democratic status, it is undergoing significant challenges that threaten the health and resilience of its democratic institutions.

A ChatGPT mini-adventure

~ MaryG ~ 14 Comments

I’m starting to use ChatGPT a lot now. For example, yesterday I had nothing on my calendar so I asked Chat to suggest three local adventures for me and my husband within 30 minutes of my house. One of the suggestions I had never been to (or even heard of): The Bancroft Castle. Intriguing! It looked like a little bit of Ireland in the next town over.

As we were about to leave, my husband was being grumpy (it was about 45 degrees and windy), so I ditched him and went alone.

Here’s the story: In 1906, after a long career as a soldier, politician, and businessman, General William Bancroft began building his lavish retirement home on a scenic hill in his old hometown (as Harvard Men do). He even had a pretentious name in mind: Shawfieldmont. But Bancroft’s dream project only got so far, when he ran out of money. He kept the property for 12 years, but then sold it to Harold Ayres, a physician who converted the structure into a “sanatorium.” Through the 1920s, patients in the area suffering from ailments like tuberculosis (who could afford to pay $20 a week) reaped the benefits of the fresh air and treatments offered by the Groton Private Hospital, as Ayres named his facility. 

When the hospital closed down toward the end of the decade, the space segued from sanatorium to social center, where dances and other events were held by the Groton Hunt Club. The fox hunting-related festivities came to end when parts of the structure burned down after a firecracker accident on the Fourth of July, 1932. (Oops, but at least the foxes could rest easier.)

It was a short but steep hike up to the Bancroft Castle in Groton, Massachusetts.

Kind of creepy, right? And I was the ONLY person up there! But I was brave and went in.

Major ghost vibes inside

I headed up to top of Gibbet Hill from the castle (despite heavy winds) and the view was pretty spectacular.

One more selfie inside the castle before heading home

Thanks Chat. That was interesting.

Rejection

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments

I left my full-time career in late 2023 with the thought of potentially retiring early (at age 58.5) and devoting more time to working on the 2024 election and other volunteer work. We were all done paying for our kids’ college educations, our investments were looking good, and Trump was safely out of the White House with many pending criminal indictments.

My how things can change in 18 months.

On the very bright side, I became a grandmother. Nothing is better than that.

BUT, everything else is looking very scary and one way to try to protect myself and my family would be to start earning money again. I mean who knows what the hell is coming next with this Mad King in the Oval Office—World War III, a deep recession or depression, another pandemic, civil war—any damn thing can happen with him in charge. Money won’t stop the fall of democracy in the United States, but maybe it could help protect my own family. And maybe that’s all any of us can really do.

Anyhow, I opened up my LinkedIn profile to recruiters and immediately got several interviews. One job looked perfect for me and I made it to the final round of interviews. I absolutely loved the organization. I was sure they were going to offer it to me.

Whelp, I found out yesterday that they decided to “move forward with a different finalist.”

OUCH! How dare they?? I was perfect for the job and I really wanted it!

So much for a great job just dropping into my lap. Am I really up for a protracted, arduous job search? I don’t know. I may be too old for this shit.

Related:

Are you retired?

The great joy of family 2.0

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments

Yesterday we got together at my daughter’s house in central Massachusetts. My son drove out from his new apartment in the city. My daughter cooked a lovely meal for us. My granddaughter was able to sit at the table with us in her high chair. She watched us eat and talk and occasionally dropped one of her plastic stacking rings on the floor for someone to retrieve.

There were six of us around the table. And I loved it so much. My heart is full.

Beautiful cupcakes made from scratch by my daughter for our first family meal at her house with my baby granddaughter at the table 💕

People don’t look good

~ MaryG ~ 23 Comments

I don’t know if this is just a New England thing or what, but people do not look well to me. It’s been a looooong winter here in New England (currently 42 degrees with light snow in Nashua, NH), but it’s like this every year. We know this. March is a winter month and it’s foolish to expect anything else, even with global warming. You can easily get snow on Easter Sunday. Hell, I’ve seen snow on Mother’s Day.

But this is different. A lot of people look miserable to me. An older woman with a walker was my cashier at Marshall’s yesterday. At age 65+, she has a job that requires her to stand up—for hours. Can she not retire? Is she one of the millions of Americans whose retirement plan is “work til I die.”

I have no idea of the political affiliation of strangers, so maybe this has nothing to do with the erosion of democracy or ascendent authoritarianism, but it does remind me a bit of my trip to the Soviet Union in 1987. Nobody smiled there. Everyone looked…grey (for lack of a better word). If they did smile, you could see that their teeth were horrible. They did not have American smiles.

I have done a fair bit of traveling and I can tell you that we tend be the warmest smilers in the world. And as a rule, we have fantastic teeth. (Maybe it was the fluoride and all the other public health initiatives we benefited from as kids.) But I’m seeing far fewer smiles lately. And more people are missing teeth.

An older woman sitting in a museum in Suzdal (Russia/USSR) in 1987 – “smiling” without showing her teeth
A couple struggling their way through a Nashua mall today in search of a free wheelchair for her to use

White Lotus Finale

~ MaryG ~ 3 Comments

OK, I have now watched the Season 3 White Lotus finale and am ready to discuss! (I managed to avoid all spoilers yesterday—except for one: I knew there were going to be multiple deaths, thanks to a headline in the NYT.)

In my opinion, it was a very good ending with one truly excellent scene. When the three childhood friends (three women over forty) finally share deeply and openly, Carrie Coons’ monologue brought me to tears:

I’ve been most intrigued by this trio the entire season. Although we’re nothing like these three (other than being white and over 40), my two high school besties and I go on vacation together about once every ten years (usually for a milestone birthday). We live in different cities and usually meet up in a fourth city that we all want to see. We did Chicago when we turned 40, New Orleans when we turned 50, and were planning to go to Montreal for our 60th.

Even though we’re not in each other’s lives on a super regular basis, I get a deep feeling of love and fulfillment whenever I am with them. Our lives have taken different paths, but we started in the exact same place at the exact same time. It’s like Laurie (Carrie Coons) said:

“But I had this epiphany today: I don’t need religion or God to give my life meaning, because time gives it meaning. We started this life together. I mean, we’re going through it apart, but we’re still together. And I look at you guys and it feels meaningful and I can’t explain it, but even when we’re just sitting around the pool talking about whatever and name shit, it still feels very fucking deep. I am glad you have a beautiful face and I’m glad that you have a beautiful life. I am just happy to be at the table.”

When you have friends you’ve known since junior high—nearly 50 years for me—there’s a bit of God in that. Women know this.

Related:

I Hate Funeral Homes

GenX Mom Not Calm

White Lotus Avoidance Day

~ MaryG ~ 1 Comment

My husband and I are major consumers of “prestige TV.” We get all the channels and watch all the shows. (Severance, Succession, Hacks, The Last of Us, The Bear, Handmaids Tale, etc.) We watch together and we talk about the shows. TV is our thing.

Sometimes a show is too violent for me, so I relinquish it to my husband to watch while I’m at choir or doing something else. (For example, I bailed on The Sopranos fairly early on and I never watched Breaking Bad.) I always have a few shows I’m watching on my own, because I stay up later than him. Currently, I’m watching Marie Antoinette on PBS Passport on my own. Downton Abbey is another example of a show that my husband didn’t watch with me, though he fully embraced The Gilded Age, so it’s not that he won’t watch period pieces. (We’re big fans of Wolf Hall.)

We plan our TV watching out in advance. Sometimes, a very important show—like last night’s White Lotus season 3 finale—needs to be watched live (rather than on demand) in order to avoid spoilers, which will undoubtedly be everywhere today!

We fully intended to watch the White Lotus season finale live last night, but then my husband got tired and wanted to save it. Obviously I wouldn’t watch it without him, so now I will spend the entire day trying not to read anything about it, which basically will require staying offline altogether.

So, as the stock market crashes (I’m assuming another Black Monday is underway) and people are distracting themselves by discussing whatever happened on White Lotus last night, I will try to finish reading my library book today.

Ironically, the book is Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (author of Normal People) and I could totally see it getting made into a Hulu series (like Normal People did) that I would end up watching on my own because my husband doesn’t like shows that are too “relationshipy.”

Comments closed due to abject fear of White Lotus spoilers.

Related: Consider the Source

Image from Pexels

Empty nest – for real this time

~ MaryG ~ 15 Comments

My kids are nearly six years apart in age. My daughter is the oldest and is now a mom herself. She owns a home with her partner. She hasn’t lived at home with us since 2018. She’s all the way grown.

My son graduated college in 2024 and has been gainfully employed for ten months, but since his job is nearby, he’s been living at home to save money. Now that’s about to change—as it should. He and his buddies found an apartment in the city and he’s moving out Tuesday.

I will miss him, but at least he’s not moving to New York. I know I’ll get to see him. Heck, he could even come over for dinner after work (our house is that close to his job). Still, it is the end of an era. If all goes well, he won’t move back in with us, probably ever. No more seeing what he wears to work each morning. No more casual chats with my husband after work about the Patriots’ latest roster moves.

I didn’t intend to space out my kids by six years. It was more like I was very happy with one child, but then when the biological window started closing, I had second thoughts.

But maybe it worked out in my favor? By spacing my kids out so far, I became a grandma before my nest was truly, permanently empty. Having an adorable baby granddaughter in my life takes the sting out of my own little birdie flying the coop.

My son and me in 2001.

Babies don’t keep.

Come ON ladies

~ MaryG ~ 6 Comments

Occasionally women embarrass me by doing things that seem to play into stereotypes about us. The gold digger, the gossip, the busybody, etc.

Typically I expect better of women than men, especially ones that have been around for six decades or more. They should know what truly matters in life by our age. They should be using their outgoing personalities and superior verbal skills to bring people together, rather than bickering about nonsense.

In my role as an Executive Team member of my church (thankfully ending soon!), I have been unwillingly cc’d on waaaay too many emails this year.

One recent exchange:

Woman 1:

“overkill”

Woman 2:

“rude” “rash” “confrontational” “provocative”

Woman 1:

“Rants” “put downs” “micromanager”

Result:

Awkwardness for the EIGHT people cc’d on the conversation

Relationship effectively ended between the two women

Good GAWD ladies!

This is not how email should be used!

And if I told you what they were arguing about, you would die about how stupid and minor it is.

Honestly, it reminds me of my role as Mrs. Squires in my high school’s production of The Music Man. Here’s a professional version of our big number when all the self-important hens in the town get together to gossip and complain (aka “pick a little, talk a little”):

🤣

And just for fun, here’s me on stage in my high school’s 1983 production of The Music Man:

I’m on the left in the red dress.

Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little

CHEEP

🐓