I went to see the movie "Venus"..it was good. Peter O'Toole was excellent. It was about a old man trying to live out his last days....don't I get enough of this at work???

It was about relationships, what really matters and how age (and the lack of it)can make you see things very differently. It was a little depressing.

What will we miss when we grow old? Companionship? Friendship? Our babies? Sex? The ability to walk or dance or climb or run?
The ability to be attractive? Will we care if the house is clean or the laundry done or if the bills are paid? Will we work? Will we have to? Will we travel? Will we notice the cold air, the sunshine, the moon, the stars, the oceans foam more or less? Will we be anxious to learn or teach or care to keep up with societal happenings?

If we think about it, we may look at life differently now..while we are young.
If we had 50 or 30 or 20 more years to live, how would we view life differently if we had 1 more year or 5 more months? How that matters may make us think differently about what is really important...and what isn't so important.

There was a line in the movie.. as they were viewing a nude female painting at a museum...

He says, "The most beautiful thing most men will ever see is the female body".

She says, "What is the most beautiful thing to a female?"

He says, without hesitation, "Her first child".

How true.

Yes, I am still working on New Year's resolutions.

I am so excited about my frugal resolution.

This time of year, we get ready to do income taxes...always a pain for us. Anyways...when I realized how much money we spent last year I almost had a coronary. I am committing myself to careful spending. I have always been a thrift store and flea market person...I love a bargain and a FIND. After paying those prices, retail seems absurd.
Anyways....I know my friends are snickering...but they will be proud when I stick to this...

I have a lot...a great home, a house at the shore and a couple of rental properties. I do not need to spend money on nonsense...or even spending too much on everything and buying whatever I think I may want or need...books, and movies..well that is my love. Other things will be reconsidered before purchasing.

Recently every time I have decided not to buy something, I actually felt good. There is nothing I hate more that buying something and not using it, or not liking it, or wondering why I even wanted it in the first place.

I have always been a person that thought if I wanted something I would work for it, if I needed to work extra I would and I would expect my husband to do the same, but now we are getting to an age where time is more important than things. Appreciating what I have is fullfilling. Caring for something instead of replacing it feels great. I still feel capable to work but am more choosy now and am glad because it makes me happier to feel I have control..and not to be controlled by consumption. I want to pursue life not things.

Maybe I should start a frugal tips blog.

I am reading the Tightwad Gazette book...the information is invaluable.

I have been collecting lots of hints. Anyone have any good hints?

A Welsh psychologist decided that yesterday, January 22, was the most depressing day of the year. Mostly because it is the optimal amount of days away from the holidays to make us mourn the festivities, and the weather is dreary and our Christmas bills are overdue and our resolutions are starting to look ridiculous to us so we are losing our will to stick to our new plans.

Well..thank God that's over...we all should be looking up today with big smiles..since every other day this year has to be better than yesterday..June 22 ..is the day, according to that Welsh guy, we should be the most optimistic.

I was thinking about my mishaps with my New Year's resolutions...I have been doing pretty good but I get hunger attacks and need to eat until I cry.

Then today, I heard a personal trainer say that exercise and stress reduction increase our life span more than any other thing..
eating well adds 2 years to our lives, exercise adds 10, smoking takes away 8, and eating badly takes away 1. My chocolate chip guilt suddenly disappeared. okokokokokoko
Most of us exercise and try to eat better to look better...end of story...we'll think about health and adding a year onto life later. If we are really out of shape or are in harm's way due to being overweight or unable to function at optimal levels, we start to wonder about quality of life and longevity. That personal trainer sited a doctor who wrote a book about health...I cannot remember the name...anyways...even if we smoke but exercise...as long as the smoking decreases stress it can benefit our lives. I do not know if I'd go that far but there are many people who smoke that live long lives..but there are so many who falter because of smoking.

SOOOOO, in conclusion

Don't worry (I heard that in Rome often)..don't worry too much about messing up your resolutions...just try again, and relax.

Take time every day to relax and de stress: every single day: HIGH stress took away like 12 years of life...

Exercise every day

Don't smoke if you can stand it......

Eat well but enjoy

AND be glad that Jan 22nd is behind us.

Hopefully by June 22nd I'll be able to look behind me without getting too stressed out to preserve my 11 extra years.

When I turned 16, I RAN to the driving test to get my driver's license. Nothing was more important to me. I used to dream of driving, being on my own, holding onto the wheel, flipping on the turn signals. I used to see myself, very glamorously backing out of a spot with my arm so gracefully cradling the leather seat. Yes, driving was like a dream to me. A dream that came true. Excitement overwhelmed me. I wanted to go places.

In the meantime, the car I was to practice my glamorous driving moves was my dad's STATION WAGON. HE LOVED that car! It had paneling on the side of the doors and was as big as a hearse.

No matter, it was a car and I was allowed to drive it...so drive it I did...
until

I got my own car.

Now, this was a time later...about 4 years...I was at the hospital working...and during a break I was reading the "want ads" and "for sale" bulletin board in the cafeteria. In neat, big, bold brown letters I saw it "Italian sports car for sale. Lancia "
There was a phone number and a doctor's name. I was shaking so hard I couldn't get the quarter in the pay phone fast enough. I sat on the hard little wooden seat and closed the glass doors to light up the little phone closet imagining my graceful arms and my glamorous Italian self speeding along Broad street in my Italian sports car. I would get the looks. I would have bought the car without seeing it at that very moment.

I arranged a meeting the next day with a staff psychologist (he was the owner). I was a bit disappointed he wasn't the chief of brain surgery but a psychologist would do ..for a former owner of MY ITALIAN SPORTS CAR. We met in the parking lot. Brown is one of my favorite colors (for real)..and the inside was leather. Real leather. But of course it was....they don't have fake leather in Italy. We settled on the asking price of $750.00 (I had it, in cash, in a crisp envelope, in my handbag (also real leather). When he gave me the keys he mentioned something about the stick and I just smiled and shook and perspired a bit but tried to act cool and calm and dry.

I had to call my boyfriend to help me get the car home because not only did I NOT know how to drive a stick shift...this was the first stick shift I'd have ever seen...but seeing my boyfriend was from the rough side of town...he knew..he knew everything I didn't know. OKOKOKOKOKOKO...

We get home and I burst into the house to show off my new purchase...my father looked at me, popped right off his recliner, flung off his robe (he always had clothing on underneath) and in his slippers headed down the street to where we parked the car (in a flash) (because he is a flash)...I was excitedly telling my mother about the whole thing ..so proud, so happy, so excited. My dad walked back in and sat in the recliner...he flipped his feet in the air and with his new remote control pointed at the air telling me to call that doctor up and tell him to take the car back...tell him to keep the money too...just take it back...because it is a toilet!!!! A toilet. He called my new Italian sports car a toilet about a hundred times.(If you ever watched the show the Honeymooners...well..you'd get the picture) And then proceeded to tell me all the things wrong with my beautiful, brown, with real leather interior, car.

After rebuttals, I kept it...and for a while I was in heaven. My boyfriend taught me to drive it. At every stop sign, if I could stop, someone would ask me about my car...and I would say...It is made in Italy. It is called a Lancia. And with a smile and all the strength in my arm, I'd shift in gear and try to move thru the intersection...all the while trying to maintain the grace and glamour of a real Italian girl.

Lots of people, no matter their nationality, if they hear the word godfather they think of the movie "The Godfather". WOW..AL Pacino was so beautiful in that movie. I do not know lots of real live mafia godfathers but I do know, if they existed, the top one, (in the olden days) is exactly as Al Pacino portrayed him. I just know it.

Lots of people think, because we live in South Philly we have some connection to the "mob", either by being directly "involved" or by knowing all the right people.

My husband has his mob looking hats and my kids have their names..

I will admit there have been times I brushed coat sleeves with one or two. When they are around excitement stirs in the air, it is not only unreal but, if thought about, is not understandable. In the olden days these criminals controlled things, unseen things, seen things, police, clergy and businesses. They probably still do. We show respect because we want to stay on the good side of whatever situation may occur that would bring us together. And they dress and look impeccable. At least, in the movies; the old movies.

It is a lot like politics. Only politicians pretend to be good doers.

I, for one (and there are many more), could never resist an Italian man. The good ones, the real ones, the exemplary ones...are to die for...

Anyone who is christened a Catholic has godparents, usually a godfather and a godmother. These become special people in our lives. They are supposed to be people who become an example for our faith but that is not usually the realistic relationship.

My Uncle Johnny reminds me (and whoever else will listen) often that he is my godfather. And we all understand. My Aunt AnnMarie is much more demure. I do love my aunts and uncles and have favorite things I love about them all but my godparents...well..they are my godparents. It was always brought to my attention growing up for whatever reason..."You know", my mother would say, "Aunt Anna Marie IS your godmother". My husband and I carefully picked godparents for each of our children. And, as a group, my kids have the same aunts and uncles but they all have carefully chosen godparents. In some instances this godparent is a good friend, and in Italian families, that is the same thing as family.

When I was a kid I'd hear my mother referring to "his comar, or her combar"..I thought it was a secret Italian society. After all, they did have those red plastic fingers hanging in their cars and in the olden, olden days, garlic hung around necks of many to scare off a bad omen or a cold. There were even meetings where a special person had the power to take off the maloukies (???spelled wrong)..which were bad wishes bestowed upon you by some envious, jealous no gooder. For instance, if you had a newborn and an unsuspecting person came to visit and commented on your lovely baby but did not say "GOd bless him" that meant, to these paranoid Italians, that a special bad wish was gifted to you. Thereafter, if you had bad headaches or a run of bad luck, you were thought to have the maloukies on you....and only special people, probably someone's comar, could remove these devil offerings. (I think it had to be done on Christmas Eve or a special day and time, too).

We've stopped calling godparents comar and combar...and I wondered why...
I looked those names up in the Italian dictionary...comar: crony, housewife, godmother; combar: is not in the dictionary. When I was little my mom used to say..."Nellie is grandmom's comar". OR...they are "comars". It used to scare me a bit.

Then as we got older...if we were talking about someone who we thought was old fashioned or out of style or "doorky"...we'd call her a comar...("crony").

"Goomba" is another word I don't hear much anymore...this is a real...south philly word to me...I don't think they say these things in the real Italy.....I always thought this meant a real close friend...like buddies. Goomba is not in the Italian dictionary, either. SOOOO.. I looked up buddy: compare, amicone, camerata. There are lots of dialects. I assume some of these affectionate names are from dialects.

When they were going to name that movie...the one about a man that controls his family, his city, his community, his world (and bits of the real, big world), but all the while insisting on respect and loyalty...all the while, surmising his friends (goomba's and comars) and foes (morto), all the while beautiful and scary at the same time...well...The Godfather, was a very good title indeed....