Elaine Ambrose

Bestselling Author, Ventriloquist, & Humorist

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Not Your Mother’s Tea Party

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There’s a saying about how a woman is like a tea bag – she doesn’t know how strong she is until she gets into hot water. I recently attended a tea party with a dozen really strong middle-aged women. We sat in a friend’s garden sipping tea from her mother’s ornate tea set. We all used to work for the same corporation and as our lives have evolved most of us are still jumping in and out of hot water when we should be lolling around on the patio receiving a massage from a bodybuilder named Thor.Linda was recently widowed after her husband died unexpectedly. Determined to take care of herself, she closed up their Arizona home and drove by herself back to Idaho. She arrived at 1:30 in the morning, only to discover she didn’t have the key to open the door. “It was always HIS job to do that!” she explained. Exhausted after the 13-hour drive, she did what any resourceful woman would do. She took a hammer and broke down the door. “It felt great!” she said. “I got rid of a lot of pain.”Sue described how she was petitioning the court for guardianship of her teenage granddaughter. “We were all set to enjoy our retirement,” she said. “Now we have a teenager in the house.” After listening to the circumstances, we agreed that we would take the same actions if faced with a similar situation. Molly announced that she was resigning from her job. After working for 34 years, she was planning her retirement. We toasted her with vanilla tea and poppyseed cake. A few women described the challenges of caring for a sick parent. We traded suggestions, anecdotes, and recommended care facilities. One woman was eagerly anticipating the birth of her first grandchild. The other grandmothers in the group all chimed in on the wonders of being a grandmother. Of course, we all pulled out photographs and declared that the world would be a better place because of our perfect progeny.Another woman told about being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. We encouraged her to take care of herself and then we arm-wrestled her to remove the cookies from her reach.For over twenty years, we’ve shared the highs and lows of our interesting and varied lives. Sometimes it takes a cozy tea party in an elegant garden to renew our spirits before returning to the real world for the next challenge. As we left the party, we all vowed to carry a hammer, just in case we had to bust down a door.

Today’s Cabernet

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Today’s blog was fueled by a glass of 2004 Moon Mountain Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from Sonoma Valley. A luscious and elegant blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot, this wine offers aromas of mountain blackberry and flavors of cedar and roasted coffee. At $30 a bottle, it’s a little on the high end for every day wine, but I just read that red wine is good for Type 2 Diabetes, so I must have it for medicinal reasons. The article stated that 1/2 glass of red wine helps to lower blood sugar levels. Of course, my glass is a quart jar, so 1/2 glass is just right.

Midlife Cabernet: Blending the Family Frappé

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Organizing an event with blended families requires the logistical coordination of air traffic controllers with the precision of a computerized dispatcher and the help of a licensed counselor. Uniting yours, mine, ours, and theirs becomes a calculated strategy that turns dates on the calendar into targets for negotiation. There’s a reason we never saw the ex-families on the television show The Brady Bunch.

I grew up in a small community during a time when couples married, had children, and stayed married until they died. Our family gatherings often included more than 30 people – and done were divorced. There was minimal tactical planning required to schedule an event. Times have changed, and sometimes I feel the pressure to make sure everyone is happy. I need to get over that.

At a recent family dinner, we arranged for the step-grandkids to join us along with the step-children and assorted step-grandparents. When most of the grandparents and parents have been divorced and remarried, it’s time to stop with the titles. There’s no more “step” because “family” will do just fine.

Both my children married spouses who already had children. That made me an instant grandma, a position I enjoy and welcome. I have been divorced and then married a man with grown children who became new members of the family. At our children’s events, the other parent is often involved. At my step-son’s high school graduation, I sat next to his mother. At my daughter’s wedding, her father and I both walked her down the aisle, even though we were divorced. We do it for our children. Even the receiving line was fun because our daughter’s happiness was most important.

No one is advocating divorce, but it happens. I admire those parents who negotiate joint custody arrangements using common sense. Holiday and birthday parties are less stressful if the parents coordinate plans and speak without assaulting each other. And, what child wouldn’t want to be spoiled and adored by one of eight different grandparents?

A Ceremony for the Rite of Midlife

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Marianne Williamson wrote a wonderful ceremony to celebrate a woman’s passage to and through midlife. How about calling your women friends together to experience the following ritual? Ceremony of the Elder: A Rite of MidlifeBy Marianne WilliamsonAs a generation, we are growing into our wisdom. We are hungry for our wise women, our wise men. We are hungry to know them and to become them. The wise have seen the light at the center of things, and the light at the center of things is who we are. Until we see that, the mission of our lives remains unfulfilled.This rite is very significant when done for someone’s fiftieth, sixtieth, or seventieth birthday. It should also be noted that it is as appropriate for men as it is for women.OFFICIANT: We gather on this day to celebrate an important passage in the life of (name). She is to us a beloved child of God. She is as well the daughter of (name) and (name), the wife of (name), the mother of (names), and sister to the world.The years of her life on earth have brought her to this sacred moment, where she takes upon herself, through the grace of God, the mantle of the Elder. From this day forward, she celebrates and carries forth the purpose of the wise ones, who oversee our human progress, who nurture and sustain us. She shall be grandmother to all children, handmaiden to God and Goddess, revered for her insights and honored for her knowledge.To you, (name), having lived these years, having seen what you have seen and cried the tears of troubled times, we now acknowledge that you have climbed the ladder of the elder ones. May God reveal to you a sacred sensibility. We are blessed by your presence. We are grateful to know you.Please reveal to us your story.(The honoree then tells a prepared story of her life, a letter to the world. It describes her history however she cares to reveal it. She forgives and blesses past times. She offers herself for continued service to humanity and to the world. She claims the full blessings of her maturity, the value of her experience to now share in faith and inspiration with those who seek her counsel.)

Today’s Cabernet

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I’m sitting here enjoying a glass of 2005 Ferrari-Carano Cabernet Sauvignon from Alexander Valley. This wine is always yummy with rich flavors black currant, cherry, and anise. It’s about $27 a bottle and worth every sip.