Happy, Sunny Saturday

I've been out walking, with Husband and Cling the Greyhound, down the road and back in the sunshine. It's chilly but not excessively so; would be downright pleasant if not for the north wind. Cling started getting excited as soon as she saw me putting on my weighted shoes: she knew what came next! Husband held the leash, and she started pulling him before we even made it down the driveway. Of course the scenery is still painted in winter bleakness; bare trees and bushes, faded tan grass; but it all sparkled in bright sunshine under robins-egg blue skies. The hope of spring is in the air all around us.

For Cling, it was a time to catch up on her snuffling. She hadn't smelled that roadside all winter, and many of her friends and acquaintances had left pee-mail for her. She "read" it all and left several replies. With nose down and ears up, she wasn't missing a thing. Meanwhile Husband and I checked out scenery that we'd only seen from inside a moving car these past few months. Our neighbor with the "Fill Wanted" sign is making quite a lot of progress getting his (practically vertical) property filled in and leveled off. The folks at the end of the road, who keep chickens, ducks, turkeys, and goats, have added a horse to the menage. Hmmmm, I was expecting pigs -- but we'll see what the summer will bring.

Stuck in my head: 70s music explosion

Young'un enjoys the infomercial for the "70s Music Explosion" on so many levels. His favorite part of my commentary is when I talk about songs I couldn't stand. "There's one I hoped I'd never hear again," I snarked, when they launched into England Dan & John Ford Coley. "Sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much, and I have to go back to lying my ass off..." or whatever. Crappy song. Another one I absolutely loathe is "The Pina Colada Song". Now in my opinion the narrator in that song is a jerk, and his lady is another jerk, and it's a blessing they got together and didn't spoil two other families. "If you have half a brain..." Yeah, he's got half a brain, she's got the other half, and it doesn't surprise me a bit that nobody else answered his stupid ad.

There's truly no accounting for tastes. I'm well aware that there are people who hate "Undercover Angel", another exploding 70s hit, and find it every bit as annoying as I find Mr. Holmes and his pina coladas. And I just love it! It grabbed me the first time I ever heard it, on the AM radio of my 1972 AMC Gremlin. Now that was a song I was glad to hear every hour and seven minutes, while my then-husband and I drove through Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. And back then I had no idea that someday I'd own a cat named Angel who likes to sleep under the covers. ;-)

Betty Friedan, 1921 - 2006

"It changed my life"

The Feminine Mystique, that is; when I read it in the early 1980s and realized that I wasn't destined to lie the rest of my life in a bed that I'd made with my early, bad choices. "Call your local junior college", Ms. Friedan urged in her book. I did exactly that, achieved a 2-year degree in 1 1/2 years, and went from miserable stay-at-home mom living with laid-off husband on his unemployment to breadwinner whose every day was filled with the joy of being paid to do what I love.

In another of her books, she wrote of feeling more 18 at 50 than she did at 18; and I found that inspirational as well. Like her, I was too old and serious at too young an age, and her words gave me hope that I could feel that young and vibrant in my 50s. (I'm now 52, and I do.)

Like Betty Friedan, I was born and raised in Peoria. Unlike her, I'm still here. But Peoria, like 50, is a state of mind; it doesn't have to define you -- and that's the kind of freedom she made possible, with her earth-shaking, life-changing book. I'm very, very sorry to hear that she's left this world, but I celebrate how much better a place she made it during her years here.



Betty Friedan (at left) at a 1971 march