Thanks to blogger Dwight Roth (a wonderful poet), I’ve learned that sometimes an iPhone photo of an old print is just as good or better than a “scan.”
Today’s discovery is Rainbow—the original guinea pig.
Rainbow was the first in a series of guinea pigs that my sister and I had as pets in the 70s. My main memories of the little fellows involve the absolute anguish we felt when they inevitably got sick and died. I can’t believe my mother spent good money taking them to see veterinarians when they stopped eating. (Maybe she lied about that and just drove around the block a few times.) I remember praying to God to save my guinea pigs. He never did.
In any case, I’ve learned that Rainbow was my class pet in kindergarten and I took him home for the summer.
I was happy to discover some good guinea pig memories in one of the old photo albums.
Good times in Kindergarten with two boys whose first and last names I still remember. (Yet, I can’t recall the name of a new person I met in church last week.)
I love how Rainbow got his own square in the class photo.
I was a wary little kindergartener. Thank goodness Rainbow didn’t die on my watch.
We hosted a neighborhood party for our guinea pig “Cookie” and another guinea pig in the summer of 1973. It looks like they had a nice little feast.
A happy memory of “Candy” roaming free in our backyard in the summer of 1974. I remember the guinea pigs loved nibbling clover and were very cute doing so. 🐹
I have just one sibling, a younger sister, and my mother loved to put us in matching outfits, many of which she sewed herself.
I’m giving my mother an A++ for the extraordinary effort it took to not only make some of our clothing, but to have the two outfits clean on the same day and get us both to agree to wear them. You must admit, we looked very cute and were a big hit when out in public.
Unless you had hippie parents, this was a common thing for girls in the late 60s and early 70s. Sisters matched. I don’t remember boys being put in matching outfits, but maybe some were.
To be honest, my sister and I are not close and have not been for many years. We are extremely different people. I don’t know if being seen as a “set” of girls from a young age had a negative impact or not. I know there was a certain expectation that I would set an example for her. And as you may have heard, oldest daughters tend towards perfectionism, which probably isn’t fun for the ones who come after.
But darn it, we were cute.
Christmas 1969
June 1971 (these may have been dance recital costumes)
November 1972 (sometimes our outfits were similar, but not identical)
Here we are with our close family friends who happened to have boys. They were never in matching outfits.
Below is a ChatGPT description of “Peter Pan Syndrome.”
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Peter Pan Syndrome refers to individuals who struggle with accepting adult responsibilities, often exhibiting emotional immaturity. While it’s not an official psychological diagnosis, the concept identifies key behavioral traits. The six main signs often associated with Peter Pan Syndrome are:
1. Avoidance of Responsibility
Difficulty committing to long-term goals, careers, or relationships, and a tendency to avoid adult obligations such as financial independence or household management.
2. Emotional Immaturity
Difficulty handling criticism, conflict, or stress, often reacting in a childlike or overly defensive manner.
3. Fear of Commitment
Reluctance to commit to relationships, work, or life plans, often prioritizing short-term pleasure over stability.
4. Dependency
Relying heavily on parents, partners, or others for financial or emotional support instead of fostering independence.
5. Escapism
Seeking constant distraction or entertainment, such as video games, social media, or partying, to avoid facing responsibilities.
6. Narcissistic Tendencies
A self-centered outlook, prioritizing personal desires over the needs of others, with difficulty showing empathy or maintaining healthy relationships.
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Do you have an adult in your life who acts like they never grew up? It may be Peter Pan Syndrome. My advice is to set boundaries early and stick to them.
And parents: don’t raise a Peter Pan. It can (and most likely will) damage your relationship with your other children.
This New Year’s is getting me down. I had so hoped that 2025, the year I turn 60, would be the year we’d finally stop seeing his ridiculous orange face and hearing his racist, lying voice forever. I had thought if we could just get through the November election, he’d fade from our consciousness. I worked hard to try to make that happen.
Instead, the shitshow continues. All the anger, fear and bitterness of the past nine years is back. I’m suspicious of old friends who seem to blame all their problems on immigrants. I’m worried that racism or god forbid—gun violence—is going to affect my family. I’m so sad for the planet. I’m scared that our new leaders are truly just self-dealers.
I used to want to try to make the world a better place for all our children and grandchildren. Now I just want to try to protect my own children and grandchild in whatever way I can.
All the expansive positivity, American pride, and hopefulness for all women I felt watching Kamala Harris accept her nomination for president is gone.
I am taking solace in the unparalleled personal, private, internal joy of becoming a grandmother. Maybe my love for this one child will save me.
The first time I got to hold my granddaughter was magical. I loved her immediately. (Photo taken by my daughter 9.24.24)
At Christmas dinner yesterday, my father told me he had run into my old friend Debbie at the fish market. They recognized each other and exchanged some quick pleasantries.
Debbie and I were neighborhood friends who ended up becoming close friends for many years. She knew my parents well and I knew her family too. Her dad was a great guy. We took several trips to California and Florida in our late teens and twenties. We did a fair number of edgy things together including lots of underage drinking, shoplifting, dine-n-dashing, and at least one crazy 80s Spring Break trip to Fort Lauderdale. (Wet t-shirt contest anyone?) Debbie was 18 months older than me (a year ahead of me in high school) and liked to party and dance. I’m sure my first nightclub experience was with her. Even though she was a true redhead, she loved the sun like I did and we went to the beach as often as possible. We went skiing a few times too and once spun out in my mother’s car driving in a snowstorm. We did a 180 and hit the guardrail. (Debbie was driving at the time and we were fine.) In fact, we wanted to carry on with our ski trip with one headlight dangling, but when we called my parents from a gas station, they made us come home.
Debbie and I stayed friends for many years through a variety of life experiences including her being severely burned in a freak accident. (I remember visiting her in Shriner’s Burn Center where I saw the most horrifically scarred young children.) We knew each other’s deepest, darkest secrets. We attended each other’s weddings and then drifted apart as we became mothers and got busy raising kids. Still, we sent Christmas cards and occasionally saw each other in person.
Then, at some point during the second Obama administration her right-leaning political posts on Facebook caused a tiff between us. We unfriended each other and that was that. Some years later, I felt badly about it, but figured she had probably morphed into a Trump supporter, so what would be the purpose of reaching out. We were too different by then.
You know that expression about some friends being for a reason, some for a season, and some for a lifetime? Well, at one point I might’ve thought we’d be friends for a lifetime, but it turns out we were friends for a season. And our season was the 1980s. Big time.
Christmas 1989 (towards the end of our close friendship)
If I had to pick one song that tends to trigger a Debbie memory, it would be Kool & the Gang’s Celebration. I picture us dancing around in front of a mirror, sipping some alcohol, while we made our hair as big & fluffy as possible for whatever came next.
This year is a milestone Christmas for us—our first one as grandparents.
We know our sweet little baby granddaughter won’t remember this Christmas, but we hope to have many more where we’ll make memories she can remember.
Christmas already feels so exciting again just having this perfect little girl in the world.
Twenty years ago we were a family of four. We stuck together through good times and some not-so-good times and now we have a whole new person to love. A whole new person. Imagine that.
I was recently complaining that I’m no longer able to answer the WordPress “Daily Prompt” because I’ve completed a full year of them and apparently, that’s all you get! Several smart people (including my daughter) said why don’t you just write your own prompts. Good idea.
Even easier, why don’t I choose one of the many daily prompts readily available to me through the Apple iPhone Journal feature, in which I’ve been dutifully logging my yoga workouts, manicures, and doctors appointments for almost a full year.
Prompt from iPhone Journal
This is Elfie.
He was given to me in the mid 1960s by a babysitter. I was a tiny toddler at the time and apparently I really loved Elfie. He’s not only cute, but he has a gentle bell in his tummy that makes a pleasant kerplunkety sound when you rock him. My parents made sure he never got lost and eventually passed him on to me when I was settled in my first home.
Each year, I take him out of the attic, where he lives with my other Christmas decorations, and sit him on the piano. Don’t you just love his little red nose and skinny legs?
At this point, I think I cherish him because he’s SO old. He’s old enough now to move to a 55+ living community. Maybe I’ll bring him with me if I ever move to one of those places. Also, Elfie reminds me of the pure magic of Christmas I felt as a little child…that gasp of delight when I descended the stairs on Christmas morning.
For those of you who successfully raised kids who are now independent young adults in their 20s and 30s, well done. It’s a heavy lift. From sleepless nights to FAFSAs, it’s not easy. I mean just keeping them fed, clean and alive for 18 years is a major undertaking.
People are understandably proud of their adult kids. They worked so hard to get them to that point!
I think it’s that primal, arduous journey of parenthood that makes becoming a grandparent the most incredible blessing imaginable, and I am not someone who typically uses the word blessing. But having a beautiful, healthy baby grandchild in your arms, smiling up at you, is like walking through a field of flowers on a sunny day with a double rainbow overhead. It’s pure joy. Pure love.
OK, here’s the whacky confession. After spending the day with my perfect baby granddaughter (and her lovely mommy) yesterday, I missed the baby the second I got home. So I requested that my 6-foot 180-pound 23-year old son—MY baby— briefly sit in my lap like when he was small. He obliged. He knows it’s easier to just humor me than to argue.
My parents are part of the so-called Silent Generation. They were born in the 30s, in the decade before the baby boom started. My father is about five years older than my mother so he remembers being a kid during World War 2. He was born to poor Italian immigrants, but thanks to the GI Bill, after serving four pre-Vietnam years in the Air Force, he got to go to college for free. He wisely studied engineering and his life went straight up from there. My mother was born to lower middle class second-generation immigrants of mixed European descent and her parents were able to afford to send her to UMass on their modest incomes. She graduated debt-free and stopped working as a teacher the minute she started “showing” with me and never really had to work after that.
They were able to buy a new house (actually two), raise two daughters, send them to college (in my sister’s case, numerous colleges), travel the world, and enjoy a decades-long comfortable retirement, including 6+ weeks in sunny Florida each winter. Now, as they enter the final season of their lives, they are in remarkably good health and have various good options. They could sell their two-story home (which they purchased for about 30K in the 60s and is now worth 1M+) and move into one of several different high-end assisted living facilities nearby, or move into their one-floor condo, or adapt their two-story house as needed and just stay there. They have many different options.
From the GI Bill to plentiful and affordable new housing, quality public education (including college), Medicare, Social Security, and generous ongoing veterans benefits, America has been great to them.
Now, I’m not complaining (much) because I’ve been lucky too, but things were a bit different for us. My husband and most of my friends incurred tremendous debt to go to college and grad school in the 80s and 90s. We made sacrifices for me to stay at home for a couple of years when my kids were babies, including buying a dilapidated, antique house with a down payment I had to ask my father for in a humiliating conversation.
We worked hard to fix up that tiny old house with the severely slanting floors, lead paint, and leaking fieldstone basement. I got a job, my husband got a second job, and he also put in tons of sweat equity. We were able to roll his student loans into our mortgage. And then, when we decided to try to sell that house in 2004, we got lucky. I found buyers that overpaid significantly for our house. I met a woman on a playground (another young mom) who wanted to buy a house in our town and I told her that ours just happened to be on the market. We hit it off personally and that predisposed her to like my house more than she should have when she and her husband came to see it with a realtor. We ended up making nearly 150% on that house in just nine years. If we had waited three more years to sell it, the subprime mortgage crisis would’ve been underway and we never would’ve done so well. That one lucky sale set us to be able to get most of the things my parents got. We’ve achieved a similar lifestyle to theirs, but without the second home, extravagant travel, and 6+ weeks in Florida each winter.
After we moved to our bigger, newer house, we were super savers and got lucky with some corporate stock from one of my husband’s jobs and were able to give our two kids debt-free college educations. We know this is rare. This is not what most Americans can expect these days.
And as we face very uncertain times ahead, I can only hope that my kids, and their kids, will be able to get most of what we had. We will help them as much as we can, but we have our own retirement to worry about. Who the hell knows what will happen with Social Security and Medicare. We have to be prepared to pay for everything ourselves.
The contrast between what my immigrant grandparents arrived with and what my parents have been able to achieve in this country is staggering. Yes, my parents worked hard and stayed married (divorce is a real wealth killer), but they also happened to be born at a very good point in American history. I think it may turn out that they got the absolute best of America.
Four generations together for the first time yesterday
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