I love laughing and I love people who laugh. I’m not partial to one style of humor. George Carlin made me laugh. So do Tracy Ullman, Mel Brooks, Steve Carell, Martin Short, Alec Baldwin and Charlie Sheen (although I’m guessing he’s not too funny in real life.) I think The Golden Girls is hysterical and so is Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Bill Cosby used to make me laugh. Now he takes himself entirely too seriously, which I find tedious, arrogant and uninteresting. Donald Trump also takes himself quite seriously, but I think he’s a clown. Dr. Phil, Martha Stewart, Tyra Banks, Jack Welch, Larry King and Brian Williams seem humorless.
They’re not comedians, and they don’t need to make me laugh, but I can’t imagine any one of them yukking it up or making fun of themselves. I think they’re all a little bit too self involved.
Hopefully, they laugh on the way to the bank.
If I were filthy rich, I’d buy a new piece of jewelry every week. I love the stuff and don’t know many women who wouldn’t agree. It’s so much fun, no matter what it costs.
I wear the same four (or five) bracelets on my right wrist every day and get compliments on them all the time. I guess you’d call them my signature pieces.
I collected old charms over many years for a necklace I wore constantly. Eventually, I tired of it. Now I’m not loyal to any one necklace.
My inexpensive rings consistently get more praise than the costlier rings.
The Chanel necklace from the eighties and my "signature" bracelets
I don’t care about big diamonds, emeralds, sapphires or rubies. Really big diamonds look cheesy to me. I prefer funkier, less traditional looks.
Pins aren’t my style, although I keep thinking they will be someday. I look silly in most earrings but I keep buying them.
I don’t buy or wear jewelry to impress anyone, although I think my Hermes watch makes an impression, anyway.
Most every piece I own has a story behind it, from the ancient wax filled gold necklace from the Far East to the Chanel watch my aunt gave me when she got sick.
My daughter never cared about jewelry until a few years ago, when she appropriated the stacking rings I collected.
Three women have offered to buy my Chanel necklace from the eighties.
There’s jewelry for every one of our FOF personalities and styles. That’s a lot of jewelry.
P.S. My latest acquisition is this 18k rose gold necklace with diamond eyed bat charm. It’s designed by Jack Vartanian. My FOF friend, Cathy Paul, said it’s perfect for me because I’m batty. LOL.
Which of the following doesn’t belong?
1. Defense Attorney
2. Defensive Guard
3. Health Defense System
4. Defense Department
5. Defense Mechanism
6. Defensive Driving
As far as I’m concerned, the correct answer is 5. While everything else protects us one way or another (against crazy drivers or a flu epidemic, for instance), the ways we protect ourselves when we’re anxious can hurt, more than help.
Anna Freud, Sigmund’s daughter, defined ten ways we become defensive, including rationalization (you’re anxious that you may loss your job so you rationalize that your boss doesn’t know what he’s doing), rejection (you tell your sister she’s wrong when she advises you to be less emotional), and reaction formulation (you act completely opposite from the way you feel e.g. you detest a new colleague and you act like you love him).
If we didn’t have defense mechanisms, we might go crazy, as in kill our new boss or be haunted by self-doubt. But we can’t let our defense mechanisms subconsciously take over and prevent us from dealing with a problem. A woman I know refuses to understand that she’s overly critical of her daughters, and they are starting to avoid her.
I work hard to sense when my defense mechanisms are rising to the surface. I try to stop myself by saying: “I am overreacting and not being realistic. I will not die if I act calmly when someone questions something I’m doing. I don’t have to keep debating if my friend doesn’t see my point of view.
One of the beauties of being FOF is letting your defenses down.
*Song from “Annie Get Your Gun”
It’s thrilling to watch teams win which everyone dismissed before the competition even began. That’s what happened yesterday when the Butler College basketball team beat Michigan State to became a finalist in the NCAA Championships (NCAA stands for National Collegiate Athletic Association for my FOF friends who don’t know. The ONLY reason I do is because my son is a sports enthusiast).
How cute is Brad Stevens, even when he's determined to win!!!
Butler is a small school (4,000 students) right outside of Indianapolis, Indiana, and its 33-year-old coach, Brad Stevens, is the youngest to lead a college team into the finals. The little-known school is now known and its victory will help its basketball recruiting efforts.
I am excited when underdogs win because it proves everyone can win. Anyone who works hard and has talent deserves to win, or at least to have her day in the sun. Butler plays Duke in the finals on Monday. Duke is the heavy favorite.
But why do we often wait for individuals and teams to win championships, awards and contests–or become rich and powerful– before we fall in love with them?
The greatest thing about the internet is its ability to give voice to talented people who aren’t competing for Academy Awards, Basketball Championships or even elections. At the end of the day, these are pretty arbitrary anyway.
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