I’m afraid the 2025 holiday season will be forever remembered as the “Year of the Knee.” Arthroplasty is rough, people. My husband is doing OK, but the pain is quite brutal. Thank goodness for opioids. I honestly don’t know how anyone gets through this without a partner. (I know they can and do, but it would be really hard.) Outpatient PT has started and now I get why folks call the PTs “Physical Terrorists.”
But on to happier things…
I have been enjoying looking at the lovely, happy holiday posts and photos from Scillagrace and others.
Last year was such a special Christmas because we had my brand new baby granddaughter—so perfect in every way. After the sting of the horrible election in November 2024, she gave me so much hope. She was—and is—a miracle. All babies are. I thank my wonderful daughter for the greatest gift of all last Christmas. Infants are pure love, pure light, pure joy.
My granddaughter and me last December Our tree last year The new mom managed to decorate—and even bake—last year. Hand-dipped and decorated Oreo cookie ballsWhite roses for Christmas last yearI got Christmas “crackers” from the British imports store and did special napkin folding last year.
I hope everyone can find some way to enjoy the season this year, despite whatever pain or hardships burden you. I recommend watching Sweden’s National Santa Lucia Day broadcast this Saturday, December 13. It’s always such a beautiful celebration of light in the darkness, with gorgeous choral music—including young children singing in tune. It’s typically available on YouTube the same day.
December Rx:
Music, lights, babies (if you can’t get your hands on a baby, watching young children sing is a good substitute)
Yesterday I went to a concert by the world-renowned Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston’s historic Symphony Hall.
Boston’s Symphony Hall yesterday afternoon
My friend Eileen and I had wanted to attend this particular concert because the planned guest conductor—a young man we knew from our days working together at the Conservatory—was making his Boston debut.
AFTER we bought our tickets, we were notified that he wouldn’t be conducting due to “ the recurring effects of a shoulder injury.” Instead, 29-year old BSO Assistant Conductor Anna Handler would be making her Symphony Hall debut. OK, well at least we were seeing someone’s debut!
The first piece was “The Imagined Forest” by 31-year old British composer Grace-Evangeline Mason. It was atmospheric and beautiful.
Something about seeing these two young women—the conductor and the composer—take their bows together felt like Progress. I’ve seen plenty of women take their bows as soloists, but not as conductors and composers—the artistic leaders—at the very highest level of classical music.
There was no mention of it being a historic first or anything like that, but you could feel that the audience was 100 percent supportive. Partial standing ovation (unusual for the first piece in a concert). Many cheers.
Brava, ladies. Well done. Respect.
29-year old Anna Handler commanded the podium in a focused, confident way as she stepped in for an ailing guest conductor of one of the world’s finest symphony orchestras
If you’re GenX like me, about half your life was captured on film only (if at all). Digital cameras were not a thing when we were kids. If you were the third or fourth kid in the family, there may be very few photos of you as a child. This is not the case with me. I am the oldest and my parents were diligent. There are a lot of pics of me as a kid. Later on, I liked taking photos and even took a photography class or two.
Therefore, I’ve got a huge closet full of photo albums, boxes of loose photos, and a folder of black and white negatives in my basement, most of which have not been digitized. These include photos from throughout my life from 1965 through the birth of my second child in 2000. (After that, we went digital.) The photo albums are pretty easy to leaf through as they mostly have the correct year on the spine. And the boxes aren’t too bad because they’re pretty small. Until this weekend, I had ignored the big folder of negatives.
Welp, I finally decided to have a look and it turns out that the negatives are almost entirely from the year 1989–the year I took a photography class at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston. There are apps now for scanning negatives with your phone. I used one called FilmBox. It worked OK. There were a few surprises in those negatives. Things I had completely forgotten or only vaguely remembered were jolted back into my mind through the tiny black and white images.
My three best friends from college and me in Boston’s North End. This was about 18 months after we graduated. I had forgotten that we briefly all lived in the same city.
This was an art exhibition opening at the museum where I got my first job: The Institute of Contemporary Art. I had forgotten about those openings and the cheap white wine we always served at them. I typically invited my friends who lived in Boston.
The woman on the right, Teil, was my second boss at the museum. She taught me so much and was such a wonderful person. I think this is the only picture I have of Teil. It’s appropriate that she has a plastic cup of that cheap white wine in her hand.
I had forgotten that my 80s friend Debbie came to visit me in my first studio apartment in the Fenway. Seeing her in front of my turntable, CDs and record albums (in milk crates) reminded me of how people used to look through each others music collections as a way of sort of figuring out what they were like. At that point, I think our musical tastes were diverging, but we both liked Prince.
In that same studio apartment, I had forgotten that my very bad cat Kimba was SO bad that I had to keep the bathroom trashcan above the mirror or he’d spread it all around the apartment. He was very cute, but a real pain in the neck.
I definitely remember going to the massive March on DC for abortion rights in April 1989, but had forgotten I went with two friends from work—Ann and Bridget. Later that year, Bridget and I became roommates in the North End.
My father turned 91 yesterday. My granddaughter will turn 1 next month. And this beloved poem from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, which I first read in college, still resonates so deeply with me.
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.”
Welp, yesterday we learned that Ozzy Osbourne passed away at the exact same age as Jimmy Buffett—76. So, I decided to ask my “Generation Jones” husband (age 63) the same questions about Ozzy that I had asked him about Jimmy Buffett two years ago.
Question: You heard the news that Ozzy Osbourne has died at age 76. How did it make you feel?
Answer: Surprised. I didn’t know he had Parkinson’s and I had heard about the farewell concert two weeks ago (which was billed as the last time Black Sabbath would ever play together).
Question: What were your overall feelings about Ozzy?
Answer: I really liked Black Sabbath, but only with Ozzy. Together they were great. (Didn’t really like Ozzy on his own or Black Sabbath without Ozzy.) Iconic sounds. Ozzy’s voice and Tony Iommi’s guitar…there was nothing else like it at the time (early 70s). First started listening to Black Sabbath in junior high school.
(Tells me the whole story about how Tony Iommi’s fingers were severed in an industrial accident, which forced him to play the guitar an octave lower and make that incredible sound.)
We then listened to a couple of his favorite early 70s Black Sabbath songs: “Sweet Leaf” “Into the Void” “NIB”
He says that their 1978 album “Never Say Die” was the last album of theirs that he liked.
Question: What made him a cultural icon?
Answer: The Black Sabbath/Ozzy sound. They were the first ones. The low guitar, the slow riffs, Ozzie’s Voice. Influenced everything that came after.
As an illustration of how truly different and awesome their sound was at the time, we looked at the Billboard Top 100 Hits of 1971. And I really got the point. I mean…I love Carole King, The Osmonds, The BeeGees, John Denver, etc…but you can see how Black Sabbath felt like the start of something entirely new and exciting to a lot of people—boys especially.
And then came the true revelation: my husband still listens to Black Sabbath all the time—even more than Led Zeppelin—especially in the gym.
It’s his jam.
Deadlifting 485 pounds
I guess Black Sabbath makes a better soundtrack for powerlifting than say… Taylor Swift. I get it!
Question: Would you say that they were a uniquely British band?
Answer: No. They were just completely different than anything else out there.
Question: You’ve now read his obits, was anything a big surprise?
Answer: No. (Already knew the whole story of Sharon dragging Ozzy out of the gutter and resurrecting his career—way before “The Osbournes” TV show.)
Question: Did you ever know any other big fans?
Answer: We all listened to them in high school. (He has an older Boomer sister who introduced him to cooler music in the 70s. Meanwhile, I was listening to The Osmonds and the Bay City Rollers.)
Question: What do you think his legacy will be?
Answer: First answer: young people don’t listen to Ozzy anymore.
Upon research, we learned that certain subgenres of metal continue to cover Black Sabbath songs and even sound a lot like them.
A cat outside my window has awoken me early here in the westernmost part of Europe—the Dingle peninsula.
I’ve officially turned sixty and it’s OK!
I had two shots of Bailey’s before ascending the iconic Cliffs of Moher. Highly recommend.
Cliffs of Moher
The sun came out yesterday and it was spectacular.
“The Three Sisters” in the background View from Slea Head Drive, Dingle Peninsula I took a selfie with an owl (that takes skill people)
I’ve been to at least four pubs and had my first Guinness, which I liked. (I got a half pint, which you can do.) I’ve learned I do not like straight whisky.
Music abounds.
This GenX pub singer was great
They have free healthcare and college here! And I have not seen a single American chain—no Starbucks, no Dunkin, no McDonald’s. Weed is illegal here. So…🍻!
Billy Keane (son of writer John B Keane) behind the bar at his pub in Listowel
As of today, May 31, 2025, Greater Boston is experiencing its 12th consecutive rainy weekend. Since early March, every weekend has included some measurable rainfall, with more than half of those weekends seeing rain on both Saturday and Sunday.
GenX, there are a couple of rain songs from our childhood that will never leave my brain.
The first is “Rainy Days and Mondays” by The Carpenters. It came out in 1971.
The other one is “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” by BJ Thomas. (I didn’t know the artist. I looked it up just now.) It came out in 1969, so perhaps only older GenXers like me remember this one. Apparently it was featured in the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” but I don’t remember that. I just remember singing the song along with the radio, with the most memorable line being “Just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed.” I always pictured that guy. His feet must have been enormous.
What are your rain songs? You know—those songs that just emerge in your brain on rainy days.
I think one of the hardest things about accepting Trump’s reelection is that it feels like a mortal wound to the idea of the “beloved community” that many of us 70s kids grew up with.
Popularized by Martin Luther King Jr, the “Beloved Community” is a global vision in which racism, poverty, and militarism are eradicated—a society based on justice, equal opportunity, and love of one’s fellow human beings. In King’s words, the Beloved Community was not utopian, but attainable through hard work and commitment to ethical principles and systemic change achieved through nonviolence.
Mr. Rogers brought that vision to life for those of us who were a bit too young to remember MLK when he was alive. Mr. Rogers (and also Sesame Street) taught us there’s a place for everyone in the neighborhood. It’s better to be kind than to win. Bullies were unequivocally bad. Even the cold old Catholic Church got nicer in the seventies when the reforms of Vatican 2 led to a focus on the New Testament—lots of felt banners and folk music.
And raise your hand if you remember Free to Be, You and Me. For those who don’t remember, it was a pioneering children’s album and television special created by Marlo Thomas in the early 1970s that promoted gender equality, individuality, and emotional expression. Featuring stars like Alan Alda and Diana Ross, it encouraged kids to reject traditional stereotypes and embrace who they are, becoming a cultural touchstone for a more inclusive generation. My sister and I listened to that album over and over again.
Someday Trump will be gone.
And on that day, I’m going to listen to Free to Be, You and Me from start to finish.
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 got to see Broadway legend Patti LuPone perform live in concert last night and it was inspiring.
She’s 75 (about to turn 76) and she fully commanded the stage for a full two-hour show (with a short intermission). She was accompanied only by a pianist and a very talented guitarist/violinist. Both men sang some backup vocals on a few songs.
At first I thought her voice sounded a bit weak, but as the performance went on, she won me over with her incredible ability to deliver the lyrics. The performance was called “A Life in Notes” and featured songs which were meaningful to her from throughout her life.
The crowd loved her and jumped to their feet many times. I think the single biggest cheer of the night came when she added a “HA!” after the line “They say I won’t last too long on Broadway” while performing the song On Broadway to open the second half.
She sang songs from each of her Tony-award winning roles including “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” from Evita, “Some People” from Gypsy and “The Ladies Who Lunch” from Company.
She sang several popular songs from the 50s – 80s including poignant versions of “Make You Feel My Love” and “Time after Time,” which she dedicated to her family (her husband and son) with whom she spent the long Covid lockdown (“washing hands and washing groceries”). She said that time with her family had been a gift.
She talked about being in The Third Act (of life) and how she’d been looking back on all of it, from the mundane to the extraordinary, with gratitude.
I know a lot of us are anxious for “certain people” in their 70s and 80s (👀: Congress!) to relinquish their power and let younger generations fully flower, but Patti LuPone is not one of them. Her talent, wisdom, humor and sheer stamina are inspiring. She’s a Diva in the best sense of the word. A woman who owns her talent and power and does not apologize for it. I hope she never steps aside.
Three-time Tony winner Patti LuPone performing last night. She turns 76 next month.
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