The Portal to Boomeranger World

On the Road Again Pt 2--Boomer Nostalgia on the Radio

Boomer nostalgia is all over Broadway:   Boomer Broadway
in renewed Beatlemania:   Beatlemania

in Collectibles:
USA Today,  Boomer Auctions

and what is filling the airways is Boomer Oldies radio shows playing 60s, 70s and 80s tunes.

Today cruising west on Rt 80/90 to Toledo where we will turn north to Michigan. We are passing in and out of radio range and changing the stations as we go along. Town after town has a 60s, 70s, 80s station.

We pass the turn off to Kent State while listening to The Animals singing their rendition of "House of the Rising Sun"--which was the ruin of many a young man... 

Who were the National Guard members, probably not too much older than the students they gunned down? Were they ruined by their actions? Kent State

Gordon Lightfoot is coming to Cleveland and Roseanne will be playing Vegas soon...all this is looking back is fun and a distration from engaging in the more difficult tasks ahead  posed by the coming elections...Elections- Huff Post

That's the Way the Cookies Crumble re Bush and Minions, but If You Nibble on Nancy's Own Lemon Ginger Shortbread Cookies the World Will Seem a Little Sweeter

All things Bush gets me so agitated that I cannot stand it. So munching one of Nancy's Own Cookies soothes my fevered brow and makes my heart sing. I like my Nancy's Own Lemon Ginger Shortbread cookies with a cup of fair trade and organic Earl Grey. Delicious! Nancy Newman the baker of these delectable cookies will be offering them in the Vaboomer Book Cafe and Tea Shop in early August when Vaboomer expands. Here is a bit about her.

Nancy Ann Newman, 52, a French-trained chef, has 25 years experience as a cooking instructor.  She has taught home cooks, executives and children.  She has also been the Executive Chef for corporations in NYC and NJ. She has also spent over two years substituting in public school system in grades K-12. She has two children ages 10 and 13 and teaches privately to others individually or in groups. She is now in process of creating live-stream cooking classes to reach a larger audience.  She bakes and sells cookies called Nancy's Own.  They are: Lemon Ginger Shortbread, Cheddar Shortbread with Spiced Pecans, Crispy Chocolate Chip and Almond Crisps with Chocolate Mint Kisses. She attended La Varenne in Paris and worked at Peter Kump's and the Institute for Culinary Education in Manhattan for 15 years.

She was with King's in New Jersey for eight years.  Her experience includes a stint at Ladies Home Journal and with an interior design firm in Manhattan, L.I., and Connecticut for two years.  Nancy’s Own Cookies Lemon Ginger Shortbread cookies are a delectable 2-bite delight. Melt-in-your-mouth texture with a delicious ping of lemon and a back hint of ginger. Try with a steaming cup of Earl Grey. As a technical note for lemon ginger cookies-they are made with a coarse Caribbean "spiced" lemon sugar and crystallized ginger.  This makes them extra flavorful, and crispy. 

The Crispy Chocolate Chip cookies are made with a "secret " ingredient to make them richer and with organic chocolate chips. They would go fine with a steaming mug of fair trade organic java!

The Almond Crisps are topped with a chocolate mint kiss and are studded with chunks of almonds. The Cheese Short Biscuits are meltingly fine with aged Cabot cheddar and topped with spicy pecans. Rich and delicious with a tickle of heat.

The Homemade Healthbars are nutritionally packed with Irish oatmeal, applesauce, orange zest, and raisins.  At only 103 calories, 3 g. fat, these bars will add fiber and be a good energy source.
I'll be on the road for the next 3-4 days on our way to MICH. I'll try to post from the road. That will be a new one for me.

In the meantime think sweet cookies--not Bush and his waning days of presidency.

Sometimes You Just Got to Say It No Matter How Foolish You Might Seem

Malvonia came out of recovery last week singing. Her doctors called her a miracle patient. The liver transplant took and a week and two days after surgery she was home. I visited her July 4th and while she was resting and I was outlining my vision for an expanded Vaboomer next month and how I thought she would be part of it, her sister  came in to her bedroom. Linda looked at me and said, "You are a prophetess." I gaped. Then she drilled me with dead serious eyes and said, "You know who you are."

I want to squirm away from her flat definitive delivery. This is way too much like church revival talk for my comfort. I am pinned dead center--no wiggle room. No duck and shuffle. No aw shucks, 'mam. No embarrassed giggle, no modest brushing away of her naming. I am seen. I am called forth to be who I feel myself to be.

Yes, I do know who I am. And I can see. I can see pain. I can see truth. I can see hurt. I can see love. I can see misery. I can see anger. I can see real effort. I can see injustice. I can see honesty and lying. I can see beauty. I can see need. I can see tremulous hope--aching for a flicker of recognition. I can see talent. And I can see some of the path ahead.

I do see I have a calling--a mission to save lives by creating a channel for the treasures of the heart to flow into the world and the world's treasures to return in accord.

We who have dwelled in the inner darkness of injury and suffering require a way for that muted, damped, veiled, obscured brilliance to shine forth.

The expansion of Vaboomer next month is one means for that light to shine.

Wow! that was serious, but I had to say it.

Now here is what is coming in early August--a Suite of Viosks (virtual kiosks) all (va)Boomer created and produced

Vaboomer Book Cafe and Tea Shop--offering books, fair trade coffees and teas, delicious cookies and chocklates, hand made coffee mugs and antique tea cups and linens

Vabooming Times Two Galerie--offering original paintings, fiber arts, photography, ceramics

Club Gig--offering original R&B, Jazz, Rock and Roll

Words of the Wise Education Center--offering teleseminars on all things boomer and vaboomer--from sex to wealth to heart health to launching an acting career

Nostalgia Central--offering goods from tie dyed onesies to unique photos of Jazz greats to oldies and goodies LPs

Lady M on the Mend: An Amazing Jazz Singer Gets a Second Chance

Just a quick post to say that Lady M, amazing jazz and R&B singer, is cautiously on the mend from her liver transplant. She has a chance for a fresh start. And I ask all out there to send her your loving and supportive thoughts. You won't be sorry when she has healed and begun singing again. .

I don't know the circumstances of the person whose life is over--giving her a second chance. But as her friend and admirer who wants to hear her sing and sing and sing, I am grateful to that person.

We all get second chances. Sometimes they come as shocks, as sorrows, as if the world as we know it has ended. They come to us unbidden or even against our will. They come to us whether we want them or not. The test of character, of self-belief, of faith in an unseen future, is meeting those chances with an open and believing heart. Of moving into an unknown future, when all is murky, miasmic, when the next stepping stone in the path seems to hang over thin air and the way forward is dark. I am not a believer in fate--too much predestination indoctrination in the ARPs as a child turned me off on that score--but I am a believer in trusting to your deepest inner voice/direction/light to show where the next step or steps forward might be and who else is there to travel the path together.

Robert Frost taught us years ago about the road less traveled and  how taking it makes all the difference.  

Money on Monday: Is It Crass to Be So Bold About Money? Is It a Sellout of Boomer Values?

I asked you last week this question: "When I think about money I feel_________?" I know I felt many different ways--mostly as I said, 

baffled.

And truth be told somewhat guilty. Was I, am I a sell out for wanting enough money to care for my daughter and myself?

Leading edge boomers of the more progressive persuasion, have often had this ambivalent relationship to money. And as a result, many of us are not in good shape fiscally speaking. Being a late blooming boomer, I've mashed all the life cycle aspects into a short period of my life instead of spreading them out over time--so here I am with a minor daughter and looking at the road ahead when many people are thinking of slowing down and I see nothing of that picture--ever!  . Well, also, I have no desire to take that route either...but that is beside the point for the moment.

So is thinking about money a sellout

of the best of boomer values?

Where is the line between selfishness, greed and caring for self? Is it crass to be so focused on money?

For us women boomers especially the link between money, self-interest and efficacy (or power) is a complex one. It is a critical link, because of the longevity tables, the divorce rate, the double even triple responsibilities of caring for children, parents and self, the economic earnings disparity between women and men, and the basic right to have a roof over one's head and eat fall disproportionately on women. Women have more responsibilities, fewer job options, over all less earning power and live longer with less money than do men.
SO, YES, YES, YES Boomer women especially need to think about money, a lot, and think hard about it. We did not create a system that discriminates against us.And we cannot fix it over night. Activist boomer women and the men who support them have fixed a lot over the last 30 years.

What faces us now is the reality of a combination of social factors, cultural barriers and inner barriers as well.

My question to you this week is when you get a picture in your mind about you and money, "What do you see_________?"

For many years I saw a "black blank". Then a few years ago, I began seeing very dimly a very thick high stone wall and I, like the Kilroy character, was peering over the wall longingly and as I said, baffled.

Then in a discussion with a friend, I had an epiphany.

And that wall separating me from abundance, love, money, financial stability, "enough" changed to a very big dam with a very big reservoir behind the dam.

Every night I try to remember to see that dam, see the streams of abundance flowing into the reservoir and see it filling up and up and up, and overflowing.

With the abundance that overflows I  see many things I want to do with the amount that is beyond the "enough" I need for a comfortable life. I see an economic development project in the Michigan Upper Peninsula.

I see an economic development project in Newark, an urban cottage craft, recycling and empowerment project and more and more.

So what, I ask you, are the inner barriers  between you and your enough?