tinder tsuris

she will want to shoot me for this blog...but i can't help myself...i am the mother of a twenty-something daughter...and i am watching the trainwreck of today's "mating rituals" from the sidelines...and i want to throw up...tinder...ok cupid...plenty of fish...on and on...making the old-fashioned bar pick-ups from the seventies look sanitized and clean...although i am sure our mothers had visions of "looking for mr. goodbar" in their heads...thanks to modern technology you can have a whole relationship in one day and never meet...you can reject with a non-swipe...you can ride a roller coaster of attention and rejection and never leave home...when i was her age (wow i sound ancient) there was effort that went into rejection...first, someone had to get your phone number...either in person...or from some well-meaning relative who gave it out like halloween candy without telling you..."you'll like him, he's so nice"...which often meant he needed the trick or treat bag on his head to go in public...then there was the date...and if it was pleasant enough, maybe you went out a few times...and then the phone stopped ringing...because after the weekend date you had to wait for a phone call...or maybe you called...because now it was the eighties...but if you called too much you were suffocating them...and they said..."it's not you, it's me"..."i need some time to find myself"..."i think we want different things"...and then you cried to your friends...got drunk at happy hour...ate a few chocolate bars...and went on...then times started changing...berger broke up with carrie on a post it!...email break ups...text break ups...nothing left to break up...and now it's swipe and the city...and people don't know how to talk anymore...or talk with their eyes...and i am lamenting...people certainly can't write...there are no love letters...or cards...nothing to pull out of storage and smile over so many years later...tsuris...the flavor of the word is lost in translation...but that motherly woe is universal...just don't ever mess with our girls (or boys)...cause we'll rain a whole freakin' mess of tsuris on your parade!...tinder my ass

the red badge of courage...

veteran's day 2015...a time to pause and reflect...from the birth of this day following the great war, WWI, to the mideast battles we cannot seem to leave...and all those in between..to the new veterans continuously joining the ranks of all who came before...how strange the turn of events must be for a veteran...forced to reconcile the past and present...the greatest generation that fought and died on many continents in WWII...without benefit of last rites or kaddish...this generation passing before our eyes in obituary columns from portland to seattle...what must it feel like to remember the skeletal people they rescued at liberation...to seeing the berlin wall go up...come down...and watch as angela merkel leads germany, now our ally...or vietnam veterans...reading brochures for cruises on the mekong...a river that flowed hot and red with blood of lost friends...the wound of all our veterans is memory...it is open...constant...and relentless...veteran's day...skip the run to macy's...there will be another one-day-sale in three minutes...take a minute to appreciate the real cost of war...and pray for sweet dreams for those who came back...

do not go gentle into that good night...

november 1st...new york...you'd be sitting on easy street if you'd invested in nike, neutrogena and advil...the marathon, halloween make-up removal and the headache you've had since the mets started their final leg of the world series journey...it ain't easy being a mets fan...living in the shadow of the presumptive champs across the bridge...waiting during painful years when october meant crying over the giants or jets...or just raking leaves and counting days till february's spring training...i am watching this young team and thinking back to 1969 and classmates being sent to the principal's office for sneaking transistor radios into class...to 1986 when the "R" went to queensboro plaza...and the doors would open...and we would scream to riders waiting on the platform..."what's the score?"...to the 2000 subway series...when the whole world was new york...before all our innocence was shattered in 2001...and now 2015...two teams so hungry...and we arm ourselves with poetic clichés and deep rooted chants...i think back to a lee mazzilli poster in the 70's...the joke that if i'd met ron darling in the 80's...i might be sherri darling now...or the piazza jersey i wore faithfully at the games in the '90s and early 2000's...and now...this baby pitching staff...some younger than lauren...with the enormous weight of years of mounting hope on their shoulders...and i am hoping too...i am hoping for safe and spiritually filling runs for all those marathoners as they cross that verrazano bridge (and they will cross that bridge faster than any poor car come tomorrow morning)...i am hoping that parents of younger children are not od'ing on all the candy you stole while such children went to sleep last night...and mostly i am hoping that our 2015 mets find some extra gas in the tank tonight and continue on to kansas city this week...but remind fans that no matter what the ending to this fairy tale season...that we embrace our team...keep our jerseys poised and ready...we're mets fans...you gotta believe..