The Portal to Boomeranger World

Moving and Grooving to the Oldies with Richard Simmons!

Richard Simmons has always made me giggle. He is unabashed in his out there personality AND his committment to health and fitness.

He has teamed up with Ocean Spray to promote their new cranberry drink and get another go round for himself. Well, I say good on him!! He is certainly  a boomer icon and a leader in the fitness movement--speaking to ordinary women and helping them with a model of supportive man that may have been missing in their lives.

It is hard to do anything in life if you are totally on your own. So Richard good for you and good for Ocean Spray cranberry juice which has been a life saver for many women suffering from yeast infections. 

Rock on Richard!

Free Ocean Spray Bogercise Recipe Booklet

Boomers & the Mortgage Crisis -- Help Your Neighbor--Buy Housing and Provide It as Resonable Rents or Prices

I never think of the future, it will come soon enough, says Albert Einstein (www.alberteinsteinblog.org). He makes the point that if you are too future oriented you miss you life right now. I agree and disagree with this insight. If you never think of the future, you might end up as many home owners have--which is--OUT. Even some renters are out on their ear, because their landlords have not looked ahead adequately. But I do agree in general that if you ONLY look ahead you miss life right now and so you have MISSED life by never living it here as it is actually happening.

I am hoping that some boomers will boomerang by banding together, buy devalued homes, fix them if they need to be and then find a way to offer them to families and people in need of housing.

But a word of caution here. As with any real estate purchase and especially when the sharks will be swimming, look carefully at the contracts. Make sure you get a fine tooth inspection. Follow the rules of responsible home buying. Don't look for get rich quick financing. And if you partner, be clear about your responsiblities to and with each other.

I think boomers can do a good turn here. They can make some money and provide help to families and people who need housing.

Honor Your Mother by Creating a Backyard Habitat Environment in Your Yard.

In a reply to Bull's Shoals comment I gave the wrong site address for the Montclair Backyard Habitat Community Project. It should be www.montclairwildlife.com .

By 2010 we intend to have our entire town of about 36,000,  certified as Backyard Habitat Community by the National Wildlife Federation.

So far we have most of our town's schools, many of its churches and synagogues, many homes, and some businesses.

When I moved here from Newark, NJ, where I also gardened without pesticides and other toxic additives, I began converting my yard to organic immediately. That means I stopped using anything on my lawn except grass clippings--the ones that fell back on the lawn when they were cut.

Each blade of grass is mostly water and the rest is minerals and cellulose. So when you rake or bag your clippings you are robbing your lawn of free water and feeding.

You have to retrain your mind to see a lawn as a patchwork quilt instead of an indoor outdoor carpet. In other words, the "weeds"  that pop up are really wildflowers. 

Ten Tips for backyard habitats: Ten Tips

LECTURE TONIGHT: I am lecturing tonight! (Yikes, it's late) on China, so this post will be it for this week unless I get inspired and find some time over this busy weekend. My lecture is called, "Think 'Go' not 'Chess': The Chinese Global Encompassment." With production, technology, raw materials, debt, and such moving to China, we urgently need to look to our inventive future and go green in our economy and thinking. While we individually can Go Slow Green in our daily lives--our best creativity needs to be in high green gear. I hope to be able to put up some of my lecture on Youtube.

Below is the Youtube film on my book, "The Dragon's Daughters Return." It gives an arm chair view of contemporary China seen through the eyes of middle school daughters returning to visit the country of their birth with their adoptive parents. Very heartwarming story.

Go to  Thimble Berry Press to order the book.

Remember make peace this Mother's Day. Don't buy anything. Plant something. Give hugs and kisses. Write a poem. Start a backyard habitat yard. Honor all the mothers that gave and give you life.

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Of Interest:

Love is Out at the Pond   (why we need natural spaces)

Gift Ideas:

 

Tomato Heirloom seeds:   Mariseeds

 

 

   
Make an  Eco-Shopping Bag:  Long Meadow Farm

Slow Green: An Action A Day by 78,000,000 Boomers Would Have a huge Impact

                           

There are 78,000,000 of us Boomers. That is a huge, HUGE, HUGE number. Imagine if each of us did at least one action a day to reduce our individual carbon footprints. Imagine!

Some years ago, I realized that I was not being active in environmental organizations because I felt OVERWHELMED by the magnitude of the problems.

I recall a Time Magazine cover that showed the rain forests blazing in the Brazilian Amazon to clear land for cattle ranching to grow cheap beef for American fast food burgers.

 I felt sick and I turned the cover over, because it was so so so very upsetting and I felt so powerless.

                     

I was not and am not a consumer of fast food (unless it is a real emergency). So my boycotting Burger King or Big Macs was not going to help. I wasn't going to fly to Brazil and become a fire fighter or perch in a tree protecting it from being cut. But I remember that cover. It was branded on my brain.

Some years ago I started working on a book called, "Garden for Life." It was inspired by volunteering in my daughter's kindergarten class with a gardening project, making planting pots out of newspaper and planting lettuce and cuke seeds.

When we dug a little plot outside in the school grounds and the kids planted their seedlings pots and all--newspaper just rots of course and adds humus to the soil--one innocent child asked, why we were doing this, because food comes from the supermarket. "What's a garden for?" was the exact question. I was staggered and began to explain again how seeds sprout etc. But the most distressing realization was how disconnected a WHOLE generation and more of children are from the earth and its riches. Since the 1960's more and more people live in suburbs.  I was amazed two years ago to learn as I was researching "Garden for Life" that over 66% of Americans now live in suburbs and that number is growing!

Those burbs are mostly not like my town which is old and filled with lots of mature trees, dotted with little shopping areas you can walk to (but I mostly don't, I confess! I'll TRY, I promise. I need to for my health!), but they are new developments that have hungry lawns and few trees. They require a car to get to shopping, because they are what are called pod and corridor developments. Imagine a line with little circles off to the sides. The line is the corridor highway/road where stores are, and the circles are "pods" of housing. You must drive to get anywhere.

So what can you do? Bundle your errands to save driving. (I do bundle.) Walk when possible. I have seen people drive from one end of a shopping strip to the other--maybe only a foot ball field or so to go to different stores. Forgo plastic bags to put a few apples or snow peas in.  Even better plant apple trees and grow peas. I've got both in my yard.

I'd love to hear from you with your suggestions. I am working on another book, "365 Really Easy Ways to a Greener Life in Just One Year." I'd love to include your ideas in my book.

I look local now and co-founded a Backyard Habitat project  of the National Wildlife  Federation. We have been working to green our community one house and store at a time. We are about 1/2 way through.

Go see the NWF's program and take action in your community. (www.nationalwildlifefederation.com). Forgo an unnecessary mother's day gift and go to www.memory-of.com and buy a virtual candle of which $1.00 will go for breast cancer research funded by the Susan G. Komen Foundation, www.komen.org.  Clearly environmental pollution is one factor in the rise of these cancers. Or plant a native flower or bush for Mother's Day.

Remember Mother's Day was not originally a day to honor mothers and certainly NOT to buy them stuff, it was an effort of mothers to bring about the end of WWI and create peace. Take daily small actions in your life.

They will accumulate and help turn the tide.

Let's all Go Slow Green right at home.

Backyard Habitat Sites:

 

Bull Shoal's Backyard Habitat

 

   South Carolina Habitat

 

Environmental Sites:

   

   Endangered Species Blog  Blue Algae - the new gas for cars

 

Global Warming is Real

 

Environment & Politics:

   Kevin Cassell Blog

   

 

Boomers: Let's Start a Slow Green Movement like the Slow Food Movement

   

We are nearly at the environmental tipping point. And with that knowledge, each person can change her or his everyday habits. One simple thing is to turn off your computer each night. I hate to do this, because I get impatient the next morning waiting for it to reboot. But very simple things like this may slow the tilt to the edge and give us time to reboot our economy making it green.

         

Let's have a Slow Green movement. while we are learning to slow down our eating habits and rebuild our community connections, we need to relearn an overall slower pace of life--earth pace I call it. We Boomers can make a significant contribution just by finding ways to go slow green . More on that later. 

More info:

Are you Carbon Intense?   Read the  Exhausted Earth blog.

Thank You to Bob, the Guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 19th and 20th Century European Collection

Thank you, Bob, the Guard, in the 19th and 20th century European Collection at the Metropolitan (www.metropolitanmuseum.com) ! Your enthusiasm, your knowledge and your boomeranger spirit added a wonderful vavavaboomer dimension yesterday during our visit to the Met.

I went into NYC yesterday with out of town guests, one from Spain who was making his first visit to the NE and New York. We sprinted around Manhattan--Rockefeller Center, St Pat's, Empire State Building (www.empirestatebuilding.com), 5th Ave, Madison Ave. We walked from 79th to 59th in Central Park drunk on the red, pink and yellow giant tulips and cherry blossoms cloaking the brillant green grass. Bird song and street musicians filled our ears--a harpist, an Acapella men's group singing doo wop, wearing bowlers and T's; a Korean revivalist chorus. All beautiful and melodic--The Song of New York. Oh yes, add a few car horns honking and ambulence sirens. This all is The Song of New York. And then there was the food. We lunched on Brazilian seafood (www.intl-food.com/brazilian-recipes) and dined on Korean BBQ (www.koreaneats.com/index.htm) --lovely little restaurants and delicious cuisine. We toured a 24-hour Asian-oriented grocery store CRAMMED with YUMMY food stuffs.

But the best was our visit to the Met. Luis especially wanted to go there. I love the Met. It is always too crowded with art lovers. And there is never enough time to visit all my old friends and see new exhibets. My feet always hurt and I get hot and tired of carrying my coat. But I love visiting the Egyptian wing and seeing the funerary masks on the caskets of the mummies.I feel like I know the life stories of some of the women who died thousands of years ago. You loved to laugh--those dimples are too deep for a solumn person. You were elegant and powerful. I can see it in your eyes.

I love to go see the Greek and Roman statues. All those gorgeous hunky men and their secret smiles--what--WHO--are they thinking about?

Yesterday we went to see the Impressionists in the European collection. Monet still amazes with his ability to evoke the early misty dawn. Berthe Morisot's luscious colors...

But it was when my cousin-in-law's (former in-law and still friend) friend looked at a portrait of an angst ridden man and said Italian and I said Russian, that Bob, the Guard, stepped in to enlighten us. It  was a painting called The Russian. I didn't notice by whom. But Bob began talking about how depressing that painting was and how he disliked standing near it. He preferred to look at one on the opposite wall of a stunning sunrise. Southern raised chit chatter and cultural antropologist that I am, I began to talk with him.

Bob, is a Boomeranger in the making. He retires from the Met in 2 1/2 years. He is # 5 in senority now and has worked in the European Collection for 23 years. He began to analyze the paintings in the room we were viewing and added a wonderful dimension to the general knowledge I have. One painting has been in the collection for over a hundred hears, but on display only 50 or so years. Partially due to  exhibet space and partially to taste. Bob went on to discribe the brush strokes and light sources.

Then he shared that he intends to go to school after he retires--no, I told him when you stop working at the Met and as you reFire! I would love to be in an art history class with him. What depth he will add to any class. What an exciting student he will be. The most enjoyable aspect of our brief interchange--after all he was guarding the paintings--was how vital, excited, forward looking he was. His joy just radiated from his beaming smile. It is easy to pass by guards in museums, or toll takers, clerks in stores, servers in restaurants  and the like, and notice their service only and NOT their person hood.

Bob's personhood was front and center and I thank him for sharing a bit about his life and plans and expecially giving us a brief art history class. Thank you, Boomeranger Bob! a new sunrise for you! You've got your vavavaboom!

Cloudy Day today Made Me Think About Groundhogs. I'd Rather Be A BOOMER Goddess!!!Than a Groundhog

Where did the ritual of Groundhog day come from???

See below for an interesting book on the subject. Just crossed my mind. Been meaning to post this for several weeks. Enjoy.

Going to see Young@heart. I'll let you know how it was.

Fertility Goddesses, Groundhog Bellies and the Coca-Cola Company

http://originsofholidays.com/home/home/

Fertility Goddesses, Groundhog Bellies and the Coca-Cola Company

Year after year, many of us perform holiday rituals with little understanding of their meaning, or feeling for their purpose. A part of us yearns to understand how and why these special days originated.

What does May Day have to do with a celebration of human sexuality and Roman prostitutes? Where did Valentine's Day come from - did the greeting card companies, chocolatiers and florists create it, or is there something original, pure, or even carnal about it?

"Fertility Goddesses, Groundhog Bellies, & the Coca-Cola Company" uncovers why humans have a need to mark certain days of the year. It considers how these celebrations could enhance our everyday lives if we understood the purpose they once served.

This book digs through mythology, history, politics, and psychology to discover the elusive origins and meanings of many of our modern holidays. It connects the holidays to the cycles of nature and the human psyche. It reveals how holidays have been manipulated over time to serve certain religious, political and commercial causes.

My fertility is long past, but my fertile creativity is in full vavavaboom! How about YOURS?

Why Woodstock Still Matters to Boomers and Everyone

So were you at Woodstock? I almost went--life intervened. But the impact of Woodstock can not be underrated. Go take a look at this youtube posting about the era and meaning of Woodstock.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19VhCCly_9s

It's gotten a really bad rap in the intervening years. This might be movie and Tom Hanks (I'm a fan, really! Really, I am!) heresy to say so, but I did not like "Forrest Gump--for its pretty conservative views. Mom and apple pie and all that. We do see a sweep of American history through the 'Innocent's' eyes, but the view of the social change that emerged in the 1960s and extended actively through the 1980s is certainly pretty negatively presented in that movie. And I think these views mirrored the backward looking national mood in the post-woodstock era opposing extending the promises of our constitution to everyone.

What I found inspiring and still find inspiring about those early years symbolized by 'Woodstock', was the opening of our national mind to new ideas about the promise of America. There would be no Senator Hillary Clinton or Senator Barack Obama running neck and neck for the presidency If the "60's" hadn't happened. I mean this is totally astonishing and INSPIRING. Regardless of who you support, whether Hillary, Barack or John, it is WONDERFUL that at long long long last, our country is saying to everyone and to the world, we really believe in the truth of our constitution. Not only do we believe, but we have viable candidates to vote for. Amazing and wonderful.

I still have my grandmother's wide gold satin sash which she wore in sufferage marches in North Carolina prior to women (of all shades of tan) winning the 78 year long battle to vote. It's just so "duh" now that women of every ethnicity, class and religion  vote. But in my family immediate family history that was not the case.

So when you think 'Woodstock', don't just think sex, drugs and rock and roll (rock history), but think civil rights that brought the Voting rights Act and the 1964 Civil rights Act, the peace movement that ended the Vietnam War, the women's movement that opened education and jobs to women NOW, that said violence against women in any form is not acceptable, that laid the ground work for the internet connecting us all and sent us into outer space to see our lovely lovely and environmentally fragile home environment--the beautiful blue marble of Earth.

So Woodstockers--whether you went or not, BE PROUD. And get active!

WOODSTOCK LAND FOR SALE! By the way, Max Yasgur's farm is up for sale for $8 million, according to The Boomer Chronicles. 

Mr. Yasgur died in 1973.  Mr. Roy Howard, who owned a package store and beverage distributorship in the area, bought his home and about 100 acres around it in 1985.   Lovely acres in Bethel, NY with a lot of history!! 

Read more:  Boomer Chronicles
Real Estate agent and details:  Jospe Properties