blog

Advice to Young Women: RUN

January 31, 2016 By Elaine Ambrose

A young reporter requested an interview about what advice I would give to younger women. I assumed my wisdom was needed because I’m older and still dress myself and use the toilet unassisted. Picking my brain through the cobwebs required the gumption of a valiant explorer, so I agreed to the conversation and scheduled a meeting at my favorite coffee shop.

In the olden days of my early journalism career, I conducted interviews using a legal pad and pen. I always carried a dozen extra pens because they would consistently run out of ink the moment my subject started to cry about the pending book or government plot or non-fat recipe that would change the world. After the in-depth investigative reporting, I would hurry back to my jobs at the TV station or magazine office to type the story on a manual typewriter. I am a dinosaur.

The interviewer appeared to be only 12-years-old and cheerfully ordered a grande, iced, sugar-free, non-fat, vanilla macchiato with soy milk. My hazelnut latte suddenly seemed boring and old-fashioned. She opened her laptop and said, “Let’s begin.” I sipped my coffee with feigned sophistication.

“What is the most important bit of advice you would give to a young woman today?” Her fingers arched, ready to pounce on the keyboard.

“Run,” I answered.

She stopped mid-peck, slightly irritated, and looked at me. “Could you elaborate?”

A certain smugness bounced through my aging brain. I had all day. She was on deadline.

I settled into my chair and assumed the mindset of a revered guru leading the fresh fledglings to the mountaintop. I imagined being the blind master giving instructions to David Carradine in the 1970s show “Kung Fu.”

“Ah, watch and learn, Grasshopper.”

Again her finger stopped and I received the look of confused pity. I decided to elaborate in a more conventional way. Here is the summary of my remarks.

Young women need to run. They should rush to take advantage of every opportunity, and if they can’t find what they want, they should create their own. Youth provides energy and risk-taking ability that diminish through the decades.

Young women should run away from negative influences. They can’t allow their amateur exuberance and desire to please everyone to cloud their common sense. There are awful people in the world who want to hurt them, steal their resources, and leave them wounded. It took me too long to discover that fact.

Young women should run together. Other female friends can share the load, join in life’s celebrations, and bring dessert after a calamity. Some young women will be fortunate to have comrades that last for several decades. I have a core group of college friends, and we have shared the important events of our lives: weddings, births of our children, births of our grandchildren, and the deaths of our parents. We’ll probably end up playing poker together at some senior citizen center.

Young women should run alone. I can’t run anymore due to a knee injury and because I don’t want to run. But, in a symbolic way, running alone means a woman can survive using her own talents, resources, and determination. When times get tough, and they will, she must pick up a sword and slay the dragons on her own.

I finished my dissertation and coffee at the same time. The interviewer raced to add the last sentence and save her article. Suddenly she gasped with alarm. Her computer froze, and her work was lost. I handed her some paper and a pen.

“Shall we order more coffee?” I asked.

Featured on Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop blog Jan. 31, 2016 and on The Huffington Post.

How to Tell an Enchanting Story

January 27, 2016 By Elaine Ambrose

“Please tell me a made-up story, Tutu,” my wee granddaughter begs as I close her picture book and tuck her into bed. I mentally scramble for an image and suddenly a little old lady pops into my imagination.

“Here’s one,” I say, much to her delight. Then I begin the spontaneous tale of a sad older lady who needs an adventure. I toss in the ability to fly and to find magical meadows with talking birds. It always helps to include at least one princess, a nasty troll, and a few immature bodily noises. For a successful story that pleases the most discerning child, I rely upon past experience: A flying princess, yes. Dead puppies, no.

I have a small collection of ceramic storytellers crafted in Peru and New Mexico. They represent the South American and Native American Indian tradition of using oral stories as a teaching tool for younger generations. The figurines depict a centered, nurturing, and powerful woman who inspires the children with lessons and stories about their culture. Back before the intrusion of electronics, I told stories to my children, and now it’s a privilege to do the same for my grandkids. Sometimes I need to think fast to create the story, but it works best if I make it enchanting.

For the novice entertainer, here are eight tips for how to tell an enchanting story.

1. Begin with a provocative set-up. One day a (pick one) little girl, puppy, mother, King woke up and discovered that no one was home.

2. Explain how something happens, either to the main character or the environment. She searched in all the rooms but no one was there. On the kitchen table, she saw a bright red arrow pointing to the back yard.

3. In one or two sentences, tell how the plot thickens. The stakes are raised when tension appears: She peeked out the window and saw a (pick one) fairy, pony, rainbow, salesman, monster.

4. Mentally analyze the reaction of the audience and adjust accordingly. If the listeners aren’t engaged by this time, strengthen the narrative. She was (pick one) afraid, surprised, happy, shy, vomiting.

5. Build a vision of a scene that involves the senses: sight, sound, taste, vision, and touch. The door creaked as she opened it and tiptoed barefoot in her calico gown into the cool grass. She felt a gentle breeze toss her red hair, and the air smelled of mint and oranges.

6. Weave a climax that produces an “aha” moment for the audience. Suddenly her family appeared with gifts for her surprise party. Or, if you’re feeling more creative, she followed a a cluster of chaotic clowns as they scampered over a rainbow into a secret castle full of toys and sugar cookies.

7. End when the story is resolved. It was the perfect surprise party. Or, she loved her imaginary friends and promised to join them again another day. Or, she scurried home to read adventure books and plan her next excursion.

8. Record your story. To improve your storytelling abilities, record yourself reciting an original fable. You may notice you speak too quickly or say “um” too many times. Also, a recording creates a fun gift to present to your children or grandchildren.

Some people are born to be storytellers, and their yarns and tall tales aren’t limited to children. They often regale adults with their creative narrations, and a friendly bar or boisterous camping trip only intensifies the renditions. Well-told narrations can enrich the imagination of children and entertain adults. As an added benefit, the regular practice keeps the brain energized so you’re ready any time a small voice begs, “Please, tell me a story.”

Published on The Huffington Post Aug. 4, 2015

Stop Being Fragile Parents

January 27, 2016 By Elaine Ambrose

I’ve been embarrassing my children for more than 30 years. They now are happy young adults with loving spouses, adorable children and rewarding careers. Obviously, my strategy worked.

Throughout their childhood, I didn’t worry about harming their delicate self-esteem. Nor did I hover over their every action, schedule daily enrichment activities, make them eat kale, or ensure their socks matched. Instead, I created chaos and commotion just to motivate them to find peace and create order in their lives. I’m altruistic like that.

Children today are so pampered that some timid parents will become marooned in a horrifying, never-ending reality show if they don’t stop appeasing and indulging their tiny terrors. News flash: Your Kid Isn’t a Child Pharaoh. To toughen kids for real life, bewildered parents should halt most organized activities and throw in these handy tips to challenge their children’s self-confidence and encourage self-reliance.

1. Criticize their artwork. If your first-grader comes home with a hand-drawn picture, be sure to say that the tree looks like a spider and the sun should be more round. Then throw it away. Maybe she’ll try harder.

2. Show favoritism. Is the older child has an attractive project, be sure to tape it to the refrigerator for months and often mention the talent to the younger one. Give the older child extra dessert.

3. Exhibit lazy behavior. Stay in bed on Saturday morning and tell them to make their own damn pancakes. This is how children learn responsibility and cooking skills.

4. Take your own time-out. If the children are throwing a fit in the car, pull over to the side, turn off the engine, lean back, and close your eyes. Say, “Mommy is going away for a while.” Then chant in a foreign language for 10 minutes. They’ll be too traumatized to make noise.

5. Condemn their friends. Be sure to mock their friend’s silly habits. And when your teenager has a basement full of rowdy kids, walk in wearing a clown nose, belch loudly, and walk out. This instills a fear in your child that never goes away.

6. Cry when you meet your child’s first date. Sob into a towel, run into your room, and slam the door. This action will test their patience, strengthen their loyalty to each other, and promote tolerance.

7. Threaten them, if necessary. If your high school senior won’t write thank you notes for graduation presents, threaten to publish an announcement on social media that your child is too lazy and ungrateful to appreciate gifts now or in the future.

8. Bribery works. That hellhole of a bedroom won’t get clean on its own. Hide a $10 bill somewhere in the room and tell them to tidy and organize everything to find it. Substitute a $20 bill for particularly egregious cases that harbor toxic diseases. If they demand more money, tell them to move out and find an apartment.

Finally, remember that children can sense an easy target. If mommy and daddy are too weak and delicate to assume their strong but loving roles as parents, the kids will rule the house before the youngest is out of diapers and could stay in diapers for ten years. Parents can reverse this pending disaster by starting now to embarrass their children on a regular basis so the kids find the courage to grow up, move out, and prove themselves.

Go buy a clown nose. Thank me later.

Published on The Huffington Post Sept. 29, 2015

Falling in Love after 50

January 27, 2016 By Elaine Ambrose

Nothing screams “pathetic loser” more than being a middle-aged divorcee alone at a festive party where beautiful couples are trading sloppy kisses and giggling like demented clowns. There’s not enough spiked punch in the world to soften the pain of pretending it doesn’t matter. Many of us graze along the buffet table hoping the crunch of nachos will be louder than the boisterous laughter of young lovers and then we migrate to the bar because all we get to take home is a headache.

We never intended to be divorced at midlife, but it happened.

According to a recent study by Bowling Green State University in Ohio, the divorce rate among people age 46 to 64 has grown more than 50 percent. Almost one-third of baby boomers are single either by divorce, separation or they have never been married. Some are attracted to the single lifestyle while others would trade their original Beatles record collection for some hot passion.

I faced a Christmas alone while in my fifties.

My children were grown with families of their own, and I cheerfully participated in their activities. But I came home every night to an empty house. I unpacked the decorations and forced myself to set up a tree, but the ornaments reminded me of a past life, one that was broken beyond repair. So I turned to retail therapy and bought new ornaments, but it wasn’t the same. Deck the halls with strange boughs of holly was a different song, I didn’t know the verses and my piano was out of tune.

I survived until the wonderful day of December 26 when the world returned to normal. Hairdressers, mailmen and waiters didn’t need to perk up for an extra tip, deranged drivers went back to cutting in line and children didn’t care if the silly elf on the shelf was watching because they had 11 free months to misbehave. And, divorced people could return to work and focus on important things, such as how to lose the extra ten pounds gained while gobbling an entire pecan pie alone on Christmas Eve.

Soon after my winter of discontent, some friends invited me to dinner.

They just happened to have a recently divorced guest who was visiting from another state. I never turn down a free meal, so I agreed to join them. I met him, also in his fifties and ruggedly handsome, and instantly felt a connection. At dinner, our knees touched under the table during the salad course. We laughed at silly jokes during the entrée, and by dessert, he was feeding me bites of cheesecake. I felt like a goofy teenager.

We spent four days together, often to the chagrin of his abandoned hosts, and then I took him to the airport. It was a scene out of Casablanca, complete with winter fog and drama. He held me close and whispered, “We’ll always have Boise.” Then he tipped his hat, sauntered through security and hollered, “Here’s looking at you, Kid.”

I drove home, wondering if he remembered my real name wasn’t Kid. But, it didn’t matter. I was smitten and it felt good. Of all the towns, in all the world, he walked into mine. He called when he landed at the next airport and was about to change planes. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship,” he said. “Say it again,” I said, “For old times’ sake.” And, yes, at that moment we were Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman but without the messy Nazi and farewell forever scenes.

We enjoyed a long-distance relationship over the next few months. Actually, it’s better to talk on the telephone because that’s when you really get to know someone without the physical distractions. After two months of fabulous phone fantasy, he made plans to return to Idaho. We embraced in the airport like long-lost lovers. I expected a crew from central casting to yell “Action” as we clung together in frantic passion. I think I heard music from a mysterious gospel choir but I never saw them again.

At midlife, adults know what they want and don’t want.

There is no time for games because we never know when we’ll get struck by a bus or wander onto a bus and never return. We accept our partner’s wrinkles and well-earned laugh lines, and we’re positively giddy that we can enjoy romance again. My more-than-significant-other got a job in Idaho, moved in with me and we never looked back. He loved my children and I loved his. One benefit of middle-aged marriage is that there aren’t any in-law issues to handle. Our surviving parents just want us to be happy. If only they could remember our names!

We married on an island in Greece with a bevy of Greeks who couldn’t speak English. We sang, ate and danced beside the sea. The following Christmas we hung mistletoe over the doorway and in front of children and grandchildren we kissed, much longer than necessary. We celebrated our current love and future journey, ever mindful that we could have missed this splendid opportunity for happiness. Occasionally I’ll bring home a cheesecake to refresh the memories of our first dinner together. We share a few bites, floss and take our vitamins and then turn down the lights.

Published on The Huffington Post December 14, 2015

Going Solo on the Gratitude Cruise

January 27, 2016 By Elaine Ambrose

Feeling guilty because your Thanksgiving experience never resembles the Norman Rockwell painting of a happy family gathered around a lovely table as Grandma in her white apron proudly delivers a perfect turkey?

Does your feast often include a drunk uncle, at least one pouting teenager, grandpa blowing his nose on the fine linen, a power outage, gag-inducing gravy, cousins chasing each other with the electric carving knife, a devil-nephew cramming olive pits up his nose, and a quarrel between some adults who should be sitting at the children’s table? Maybe it’s time to put down the drumsticks and the shotguns and just relax. If you get to midnight on Thanksgiving without a single drama, count your blessings and multiply by ten.

We should go over the river, through the woods, and keep on going just to avoid all the glossy images, trite platitudes, and impossible expectations about this holiday. Forget Rockwell’s famous portrait because most grandmothers don’t wear white aprons after fixing a messy meal, and there’s a good chance this year they’ll introduce their new boyfriends instead of picture-perfect platters of browned butterballs. And Martha Stewart is not coming over, so forget the hand-painted place mats and pilgrim-shaped gelatin molds.

After a few decades, seasoned women ease up on the stressful requirements and have no qualms about using prepared gravy mixes, boxed stuffing, and leftover Halloween napkins. As long as the turkey is done and the wine is open, we’re just fine. My mother’s generation washed Thanksgiving dishes until their hands turned numb while the menfolk watched TV, smoked, and farted. My daughter’s generation finds both men and women working together in the kitchen. I’m thankful that I’ve lived long enough to witness such profound progress.

Most of us have survived at least one holiday during a painful, pivotal time in our lives. For me, Thanksgiving provided a poignant perspective a few years ago when I was a middle-aged divorcee and it seemed that everyone in the entire world was part of a happy, loving, and thankful couple. I survived the holiday for two reasons: I never miss a good meal, and I was determined to show gratitude. The second reason was more challenging than the first. I tackled the dilemma by doing something completely spontaneous: That Thanksgiving I booked a reservation for a cruise the following March to Costa Rica, Panama, and Cozumel.

The cruise was called, ironically, the Gratitude Cruise. I found the information while researching one of my favorite speakers, Dr. Sue Morter. I previously had attended her International Living Seminar as part of a business conference. She is a healer and a teacher, and she focuses on the connections between the mind, the body, and the spirit. I know this sounds way too new-age for my old-age sensibilities, but when you hit bottom you look for the light. Any light.

I went on the cruise by myself. During the week, the programs included music and workshops about inner peace, meditation, acceptance, resilience, and, most important, gratitude. For the first time in my life, I was truly alone and didn’t know anyone. After wallowing in the negative emotions associated with my divorce, the positive messages from the sessions were the antidote to the poison that consumed my thoughts. I discovered that I enjoyed myself as a travel companion.

I returned renewed, refreshed, and ready to live out loud with an attitude of gratitude. A few months after I booked the cruise, I met my future and last lover. Thank you, Universe. I’m grateful.

Published on The Huffington Post December 14, 2015

My Fish Won’t Hump Your Leg

January 27, 2016 By Elaine Ambrose

We arrived at our host’s lovely home and exchanged pleasantries as I offered my baked won-ton appetizers. Then the dog attacked. The pony-sized labradoodle bounded into the room and feverishly started to hump my leg with the passion of a sailor on shore leave.

“Why is it masturbating on my white pants?” I asked, trying to remain calm.

“He’s just so friendly,” my laughing hostess proclaimed.

She retrieved the dog and proceeded to nuzzle its face. That’s when I knew it would be a long evening. I walked briskly toward the wine bar, wary of sudden attacks from the horny hound. Once again, Cabernet would get me through the ordeal.

I belong to that rare and happy group of people who don’t have indoor pets. Every day my friends on social media post photos and videos of cats and dogs, and I quickly scroll past these visions because I know that the dog licked its genitals before it licked that sweet baby’s face. I’m particularly bothered by the sight of dogs sleeping with babies, pets in human beds, and cats in clothes. At the risk of being pelted with stale dog biscuits and bitten by animal rights activists, I politely request that pet lovers accept the fact that some of us prefer not to live with hairballs, poop behind the couch, and animal hair in our food.

I’m amused and slightly irritated when people prance about with carriers that hold their precious tiny dogs. Why do they expect me to gush over an animal in a purse? If that little ball of fur could talk, it would say, “Get me out of here so I can go sniff that dog’s butt!”

I grew up on a farm surrounded by fields and pens full of cattle, horses, pigs, a few cats and a dog. None of these animals lived inside our house. The dog provided security by barking at dangerous squirrels and by herding cattle. The cats worked daily as mousers in the barn. Not one of them wore a sweater vest or needed a therapist. We all knew our roles down on the farm, and life was grand.

Pet-less people never have dead mice delivered to their doorstep by a warrior cat or hear the blood-curdling scream of cats in heat. They don’t need to worry about getting a kennel when they travel, and they save money by not buying pet food or dealing with expensive veterinarian bills. Americans spend more than $56 billion annually on pets. We could fix some roads, supply new books to the schools, and build animal sanctuaries with that money.

Caveat: I respect those who need indoor animals for comfort and companionship. And, I’m a firm supporter of service dogs and police canine units. These animals earn their keep and provide an important duty.

I have the perfect pets: fish. My outside pond is full of goldfish and koi. They are beautiful, don’t demand anything, and don’t chew my furniture. Best of all, in the winter they hibernate in the rocks and don’t need anything. I love my fish.

All I ask is for tolerance and acceptance for those of us who don’t think your dog/cat is cute. We love photos of your kids and grandkids, but the puppy in the crib is too much. Unless the child has been raised and suckled by wolves in the forest, the baby doesn’t need to sleep with an animal.

I intend to enjoy my patio and watch my goldfish and koi swim around. You are welcome to visit – without any pets – sip a glass of wine, and offer a toast to my fish. I promise they won’t hump your leg.

(Published on The Huffington Post Aug. 28, 2015)

Advice to Young Women: RUN

How to Tell an Enchanting Story

Stop Being Fragile Parents

Falling in Love after 50

Going Solo on the Gratitude Cruise

My Fish Won’t Hump Your Leg

Awards

Badges

Awards

blog

Footer

Awards

Badges

Awards