Midlife Cabernet, a sassy blog written every Friday by Elaine Ambrose, will be published regularly on BlogHer – a forum for millions of bloggers and readers throughout the world. Preview the various blogs at www.BlogHer.com.
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Today’s Cabernet
Today’s blog was fueled by a glass of 2005 Fidelitas Columbia Valley red wine. This reliable, inexpensive table wine provides a satisfying blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, syrah, and cabernet franc. And, for less than twenty dollars a bottle, you can save enough money to get another bottle!
Local Publisher Donates to Area Charities
Mill Park Publishing of Eagle has donated $1,000 to the Writers in the Schools Program sponsored by The Cabin, a literary center in Boise. The donation comes from sales of the new novel The Angel of Esperança by local author Judith McConnell Steele.
“The donation will enable The Cabin to have a literary instructor in another area school,” said Julie Strand, program director. “We appreciate this opportunity to bring professional writers into the classrooms to engage students and classroom teachers in the pleasure and power of reading and writing.”
Mill Park Publishing was founded by author Elaine Ambrose. The company publishes books written by women and donates the proceeds to local charities. More than $10,000 has been given over the past four years and recipients include Dress for Success Treasure Valley, the Women’s and Children’s Alliance, the Learning Lab Literature for Lunch, the Idaho Writers Guild, and the Interfaith Sanctuary.
Mill Park Publishing won four of 40 awards given recently by the Idaho Book Extravaganza. The Angel of Esperança won first place awards for fiction, interior design, and cover design. Drinking with Dead Women Writers, historical fiction by AK Turner and Elaine Ambrose, won second place for cover design. Other books have won prestigious awards, including the 2012 Independent Book Publisher Award (IPPY), a national humor award from Foreword Magazine, and a designation as “Best New Children’s Book.” More information is available on www.MillParkPublishing.com.
Midlife Cabernet: My Mother’s Keeper
My mother became a widow at age 62, and so for the last 25 years I have lovingly included her in my family’s Christmas activities. Until this year. I didn’t bring her here, and I want to stop feeling bad about that. Guilt is totally overrated.
Mom suffers from dementia and gets nervous in crowds. She also is confined to a wheelchair after numerous falls and car accidents. I’ve taken her to countless doctors appointments, lifted her in and out of my car, pushed her wheelchair through snow, and changed her adult diapers in cramped public restrooms. Through these experiences, I’ve watched helplessly as her dignity eroded and the positive spark left her eyes. Eventually even my jokes couldn’t make her laugh.
Many middle-aged women understand the responsibilities of caring for aging parents. I see other women pushing wheelchairs, and we nod to each other in a silent sisterhood. My brothers and their wives have absolved themselves from any involvement, and I resent their easy detachment. My children know I will haunt them if they forget about me. Fear is an excellent motivator.
Mom now lives in a small room in a nursing home. The walls are covered with family photographs with labels because she can’t remember our names. Years ago her calendar was full of important engagements and now the only entries are for a weekly hair appointment and a twice-weekly shower. The staff tells me she sits by the window waiting for Elaine to visit. Sometimes she grabs my hand and asks me when Elaine will come. I tell her she’ll be here soon.
My mother was a child during the Great Depression, and her yearly Christmas gift was a fresh orange in a pair of new wool stockings. But before she could open her present, she hand-milked cows in the barn and fed the horses. Her difficult childhood instilled a fierce grit that has sustained her for 86 years, and sometimes I wish she weren’t so tough. I also wish she hadn’t driven her car through the back of her garage because I had to take the car away. And I wish she hadn’t burned up my microwave using it as a timer. And I wish she could remember how to work the television remote to watch Lawrence Welk. She claims he hasn’t aged a bit.
To compensate for not bringing her here this Christmas, we took the holiday to her. On the Saturday before Christmas my two adult children and their families drove with us in three vehicles on a 250-mile round trip to see her. We brought simple gifts of lotion and Christmas sweatshirts. She seemed confused but pleased.
When we prepared to leave my six-year-old granddaughter leaned forward and gave Mom a hug. I captured a photograph that showed her pure joy. Dementia has robbed her of mental clarity, but she continues to crave human touch. To my mother this Christmas, a hug from her great-grandchild was the perfect gift. That might even be better than an orange in a wool stocking.
Today’s blog is fueled by a TNT signature red blend from Twigs Bistro and Martini Bar at The Village in Meridian. It’s $10 a glass, but doesn’t need any silly olives like those boring martinis. Merry Christmas, Mom.
Lighten the Load with Laughter
My distinguished school career as the class clown began in the fourth grade when I told a joke and everyone laughed, except the teacher, of course. Through the years, I continued to annoy my teachers, irritate my parents, and delight my friends with irreverent comments and rebellious actions that resulted in many trips to the principal’s office. Only my good grades saved me from being sent off to some reform school in the wilderness.Actually, I grew up in the wilderness. Anyone ever heard of Wendell, Idaho? I didn’t think so. It’s a small farming community in southern Idaho where you can get to Clell and Mabel’s home by turning left at the brown house with the wooden deck, just past the hill by Chandler’s dairy barn. During the sixties, as I was honing my humorous and rewarding talents in the classroom, the town had 1,000 inhabitants. I knew just about every one of them. My parents had attended the same schools I attended, and I had some of their same teachers. These teachers were OLD!As a child, I relied on my wits to survive. I was the only girl in a hard-working farm family and my importance fell way below that of my brothers, my mother, the hired hands, the dog and the cats. The dog was useful for barking at strangers and the cats were necessary to control the mice. The hired hands worked hard on my father’s farms from sunrise until sunset. My mother, bless her heart, dutifully had dinner on the table every night at six o’clock, whether or not my father came in from work. If he were late, she silently added more milk to the gravy and kept the pork chops in the oven until they became hard enough to use as door stops. But, just smother them chops with globs of reheated gravy and you could choke ’em down with a few glasses of dairy-fresh milk. My brothers were important, well, because they were male and I wasn’t. It all seemed so unfair.Every day my father would play John Philip Souza records on high volumn and pound on our bedroom doors, hollering “Get up! Get up! Time’s money!” To this day, I cringe and get a twitch every time I hear “Stars and Stripes Forever,” even though I’m very patriotic and continue to get out of bed and get to work because I couldn’t possibly waste time or money by lolling around in my big, comfortable bed with the Italian sheets and the coordinated bedding.Anyhow, that’s Part One of my grand adventure into the safety of humor. I find it so much more enjoyable to laugh about this crazy world than to fuss about all the crap. I recently had an article printed in several national magazines. It’s titled “Toss Out Some Humor to Lighten the Work Load.” In case you’re interested, here’s a link to one of those articles. Toss out some humor to lighten the workload
Midlife Cabernet: If We Could Turn Back Time, We Wouldn’t
Today I read an online article that declared women over 45 shouldn’t wear bling jewelry or jeans with decorated pockets. I read these silly rules while wearing my brilliant, dangling earrings with my favorite fancy jeans. I can only conclude that middle-aged women have earned the right to wear whatever they choose, and advice columnists under 45 should remember that.
After several decades of being told what to do, what to wear, what not to eat, and how to behave, I join a growing group of proud and loud women over 50 who gleefully proclaim: I can do what I want to do. (We can’t scream our independence because that would be perceived as being bitchy and obnoxious.) We acknowledge that lolling around in jammies isn’t appropriate all the time, but there are glorious days when we pull on the sweat pants and mismatched sweaters, curl up with good books, and revel in our ability to say “Bite me” to every young, skinny critic wobbling past on five-inch heels and toting exaggerated self-importance.
If a mysterious tornado suddenly swooped us to an alien land and some powerful wizard offered us the power to turn back time, we’d probably decline. Given the choice of being 30 and reliving the demands of young children, new careers, weak relationships, and financial problems, we’d take the chance to be our age and continue living in our sweats and enjoying a glass of good Cabernet. Really.
I do miss the energy of my youth, and there are countless times I wish I could rock my sweet babies one more time. But, now I get to spoil my grandkids. And, they love my bling.