Elaine Ambrose

Bestselling Author, Ventriloquist, & Humorist

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Author Featured in KNOW BOISE Publication

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KNOW BOISE is an annual publication known as the Who’s Who of Boise and features women leaders and business owners in virtually every industry. Women are nominated by members and vetted through peer-review. The premiere issue was introduced in August, and Elaine Ambrose was included in the showcase of entrepreneurs as a bestselling author, workshop facilitator, and creator of Mill Park Publishing. The local chapter is affiliated with the global organization, KNOW WOMEN, and offers workshops, master classes, conferences, and networking opportunities.

The following page was included in the Boise, Idaho publication:

KNOW WOMEN is a global media company and community dedicated to amplifying the voices of female leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs. According to Sarah Benken, founder and CEO, “When successful women are lifted up for their hard work and achievements, they inspire the next generation of female leaders.”

 

The Broad of Broadway

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Thirty years ago, I traveled to New York on business and managed to secure a single ticket to the hottest show on Broadway: Les Misérables. I was 36 and wore an elegant suit, four-inch heels, and carried a designer bag. People smiled at me. Last week, I traveled to New York for a writing conference and found a single ticket to the hottest show on Broadway: Hamilton. I wore prescription eyeglasses, hearing aids, a knee brace, sturdy shoes, and carried a utility bag with cough drops, tissue, eye drops, arthritis cream, and acid reflux meds. People ignored me. I’ve added new meaning to the term “old broad” on Broadway.

 

The musicals continue to lure me across the country from my home in Idaho. I’ve experienced more than a dozen Broadway shows, from Cats to Miss Saigon to The Phantom of the Opera. My favorites are Les Misérables (eight times) and The Lion King (three times.) My perfect musical would combine the two as a passionate story of freedom fighters dancing with lions. I would play the lead, Hannah of the Savannah.

I grew up in the village of Wendell, Idaho when the population was 1,000. Our tiny school didn’t have musical productions, but we had a choir, and I sang with gusto. I’ve seen the massive performance halls in city high schools, and I wonder, “what if?”

At my age, I’m tickled pink to be able to travel. The past few years have brought some unwanted consequences of living this long. I’ve worn glasses since I was ten years old, but now the lenses include adjustments for distance and for reading. I also tote a pair of computer eyeglasses and a pair of prescription sunglasses. My eyes water all the time, so I bring special drops that work for a few minutes. People think I’m crying, but I’m just sad because my eyes are watering.

Hearing aids are the most recent addition to my growing list of necessities. I had been reading lips for several years because I couldn’t hear conversations. I had the television volume turned so loud, the neighbors could hear the news from across the street. I finally relented to the hearing test because I often watch my darling grandkids, and I didn’t want to miss one sweet song or one frustrated tantrum. My hearing aids are so fancy, they can connect to my electronic devices through Bluetooth. I don’t know what that means.

My new malady worries me the most. I’ve developed osteoarthritis in my hands and there are ugly nodules on the first joints of my fingers. I’m having a procedure soon to cut off the biggest growths. As a writer, I need my fingers to type. I’ve been advised to try a dictation device and to change habits after half a century of typing. I also enjoy playing piano, and the hand doctor told me I would need to relearn how to play with flat fingers. And, so I will.

After 30 years of Broadway Musicals, I’m moving a bit slower but I still give my regards. Last year, I saw the musical Beautiful featuring the music of Carole King. It reminded me of a time so far away when I felt like a natural woman. Now I’m tired and often wonder if my family will still love me tomorrow. As long as I can feel the earth move under my feet, I’ll venture back to Broadway. The Great White Way, nicknamed in the late 1890s when the street was one of the first to be illuminated by electric lights, is some kind of wonderful.

 

 

 

 

Stepping and Schlepping Off the Plane

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Super Hero Ripping Clothes
Typical garment and attitude of airline travelers.

After observing humanity during a 14-hour journey from Sag Harbor, New York to Boise, Idaho, I’m convinced the standard travel attire for passengers includes ripped clothes, disheveled hair, and a grumpy attitude. They resemble comic book rogues who tear their clothes in fits of pending rage. I felt positively radiant in my coordinated knit ensemble, complete with a patient smile. As I cued in line for the privilege to sit in a child-sized space for four hours, I reminisced about a forgotten time when traveling was a luxurious pleasure.

Years ago, when I was fancy and corporate, I often visited an exclusive dress shop in downtown Boise. The proprietor, a thin and elegant woman named Dorothy, was hanging onto age 50 with clenched but manicured fingernails. She exuded all things classy and could have posed for a 1950s cigarette ad. Her arched eyebrow raised even higher whenever I entered. She liked me but mourned my conservative fashion sense and untoned body. I was on the D-List of Preferred Clients.

Once I needed a business outfit for a conference out of state. She welcomed me with bangled arms and air kisses and proceeded to collect various outfits to hang in a dressing room.

“This one is perfect,” she gushed as she held up a white sweater with white pants. “You’ll look fabulous as you step off the plane.”

“I’ll look like an albino ox,” I replied. “And what’s the fuss about stepping off the plane? Most of the passengers are wearing flannel pajama pants and stained sweatshirts as they stumble to baggage claim. I could be roller skating in a potato sack on fire with live rats dancing on my head and no one would notice.”

Dorothy sighed. “Where has all the glamour gone?” She replaced the white ensemble and added a serious navy-blue dress with a red collar.

“At least add a splash of color,” she begged.

woman in airport.jpg

I liked the dress and purchased it for the trip. After the plane landed, I entered the terminal and paused for a brief moment to pose as Dorothy would prefer. A young mother pushing a stroller the size of a recliner crashed into my legs, snagging my pantyhose. She mumbled an apology while throwing fish crackers to her crying toddler and ambled down the corridor in a mass of harried, hurried people.

I limped down to the taxis and reflected on the time when travelers wore their best clothes. Typical attire included men in suits with ties and women in dresses and hats, some with gloves. Children and pets were rare and properly packaged. Passengers who stepped off the plane indicated they had, indeed, arrived.

I don’t work for a corporation anymore, so when traveling I opt for a more casual, practical outfit such as black leggings and a black and white tunic. At my age it really doesn’t matter because women over 50 are invisible to the huddled masses yearning to simultaneously read their cell phones and walk while ignoring the repetitive message from Big Sister, “Do Not Leave Your Luggage Unattended!”

Yesterday I️ had two hours before my connecting flight so stopped at the wine bar in the airport and ordered a Cabernet. A sophisticated older woman also sat at the bar. She wore a red cashmere suit with white pearls and her hair was full enough to hide small treasures. Her exquisite fingers curved around the wine glass as she smiled and offered a silent toast. I️ returned her gesture, thankful to no longer be invisible. After finishing her drink, she gathered her designer bags and sashayed from view as I heard distant music from Nat King Cole singing, “Unforgettable.” I imagined her name was Dorothy.

 

 

Do You Need Daily Erotica?

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daily erotica authors

Eight years ago, I organized a writing group in Eagle, Idaho called “Writers Who Wine.” We met to read our work, critique prose and poetry from others, and to focus on writing prompts. And, we enjoyed wine.

After a few festive meetings, four of us decided to create a book of poetry called Daily Erotica – 366 Poems of Passion. We chose the  provocative title because we  knew Daily  Poems was too boring. We brought our poems to my cabin for a weekend in the fall of 2008 and rated the submissions from 1 (Oh, yes!), to 2 (Warm, but not sizzling), to 3 (Get out of here. You can’t write.)

daily erotica authors oct 2009We published the book through Mill Park Publishing and released it on February 14, 2010. The book is dedicated to all the women who are searching for their lost libidos.daily erotica coverThe 366 poems begin on February 14 and span every day for a year. The content varies between romantic, silly, and a bit naughty. The authors are convinced their writing is better than the insipid lines in the bestselling book Fifty Shades of Grey. Here are two examples:

September 17

All that I am

unafraid

unashamed

uninhibited

undressed,

I am yours.

 

September 2

The first time she saw his smile

she knew he was worth the wait.

Finally, after all these years,

she let down her guard,

opened the door to her heart,

and invited him inside.

He took off his boots

and decided to stay.

 

Response to the book was fun and we enjoyed presenting selected poems at various events and for community organizations. The four of us ranged in age from 37 to 57, all of us had children, and three of us were divorced. One in the group, Gretchen Anderson, had been happily married for more than 17 years. The other three, Liza Long, Rachel Hatch, and I found true and lasting love after the book was published.

Copies of the book are available on Amazon.com for $12,95 or from the authors or Mill Park Publishing in Eagle for only $5.00.  If you’re interested in a unique Valentine’s Day gift that will last all year, email me at [email protected]. I’ll deliver Monday and Tuesday to downtown Boise, Eagle, and Meridian.

Everyone sing along now, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” (I don’t like ending a sentence with a preposition, but that worked for Jackie DeShannon and Dionne Warwick when they sang the famous song.)

This Valentine’s Day, be a lover, not a fighter. Read and share Daily Erotica.

daily erotica authors sitting

 

 

 

 

When Loneliness Isn’t Funny

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sad older woman

 

I’ve never met Leslie Delamater Anderson Aitken, but we’re friends on social media. We’re both in our sixties, we like to write, and we’ve been stand-up comediennes. However, her life didn’t turn out as she planned, and now she writes about dealing with loneliness. Her latest blog is a reminder for us to reach out to those who didn’t receive flowers and gifts on Valentine’s Day. Leslie, I’m sending you a virtual hug.

FADING AWAY
by Leslie Delamater Anderson Aitken

I was 23 and married for a year when we moved to our first house in 1976 in southern California. Across the street, an aging widow lived alone in a tiny home only 650 square feet that she and her husband had built in the early 1930s. Her name was Avie, she was in her late 70s, and she had lived alone for more than 40 years.

She was short in stature, partly because of a severe curve in her spine, probably due to osteoporosis. She had been quite the gardener in her day. There was a big blue spruce in the front yard, a rarity for the area, and also a Cedar of Lebanon in the back yard, a persimmon tree and a black walnut tree, along with many very old rose varieties. She even had some lilies of the valley and a couple of rare Jack-in-the-Pulpits.

I would wave at Avie when I saw her outside wearing her big sun hat and watering her yard while balancing with her cane. I said hello a few times, but never really spoke to her other than the occasional greeting. One night her house was broken into by a couple of young thugs who knocked her to the ground, put a love seat on top of her, and stole a can of pennies. They fled out the back door, leaving it open.

A neighbor heard her very faint whimpers, and he told me later he thought it was a cat under her house. He found her and called for an ambulance. Avie never returned to the little house that she built and shared with her husband and where she planted her gardens. She went to a nursing home and passed away the following year.

Through the years, I’ve thought a lot about Avie, and I felt guilty because back then I was young and too busy to reach out to her. I should have stopped to talk with her as she worked in her yard and I never considered the many days and nights that she spent alone, never wondered if she was lonely, never asked if she needed any help with anything.

Now my children have grown up and moved away, and I am divorced. I have only left my house twice in the last two weeks, and in that time I have only talked, in person, to two people who know me. In that same two weeks that I have only eaten two meals in the company of other humans. Those were when I was so lonely for human companionship that I went to eat at a restaurant, not so much for food, but just to be around other people and to hear other voices than my own talking to myself or my pets.

Have I inadvertently picked up the long forgotten baton of solitude left behind by Avie Abbot? How did this happen to ME? And is this how we start to just fade away into the oblivion of someone that people used to know? I’m reminded of a verse in a familiar song: “I am…I said to no one there. And no one heard at all, not even the chair.”

Many well intentioned people have suggested that I volunteer for various organizations and community activities. For many years I traveled that route, “busying” my life with hours of volunteering my time to parent-teacher associations, school functions, and Girl Scout meetings. I increased my services after my children moved away and after my divorce as I tried to fill my hours with “doing things.” I was running as fast as I could from the reality that there was no one home when I got there, and that there was no one coming home “later” either.

There is something weird about all the years I donated my time and energy. There are dozens of groups that welcome the willingness of others who give hundreds of hours of their time and gladly soak them like a dry sponge. But if you stop giving, no one reaches out, or even seems to notice. It is like you were there, and thought you were making a difference, and then just fade away, unnoticed. In all of the years of volunteering, fund raising, parking cars, selling programs, organizing bake sales, delivering cookies, planning events, catering teachers luncheons, I can honestly say that I never made one real friend. Oh, I have lots of acquaintances and people who know my name. But at the end of the day, very few who know my phone number or would think to reach out.

I am only 62, but the thought of a long future filled with vast amounts of companion-less days and weeks feels like cruel purgatory. I will no longer engage in self-serving, busy endeavors to make me feel less lonely. I guess I have lost my motivation, but am not quite ready to fade away. Dear Avie, I should had stopped to talk with you.