Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 10

Ep 47 Career Reentry Experts Kelley Biskupiak and Susan Rietano Davey

Kelley is on the left, Susan is on the right

“Workplace currency”: Susan Rietano Davey and Kelley Biskupiak, career coaches and founders of PrepareToLaunchU, on translating the opt-out years into marketable skills, letting go of perfectionism, and the importance of building your midlife tribe.

PrepareToLaunchU website

Maybe the day will come when I don’t hum this song whenever a check from a freelance client arrives in my mailbox. But I hope it never does.

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – check him out here!

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                  Related StoriesEp 46 “Happiness Curve” author Jonathan RauchEp 44 Moving Consultant Margaret VandergriffEp 41 Parenting Author KJ Dell’Antonia 

Ep 46 “Happiness Curve” author Jonathan Rauch

“Transition to contentment”: Jonathan Rauch on the scientific reasons life gets better after fifty, why the midlife slump is a normal and necessary, and how it’s a “we” not a “me” problem. Plus, Nancy’s excited to make like a Grandma Orca.

Jonathan’s website
The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better after 50 – find links to buy the book here!

Time really is on your side, it turns out. As for the video: oh my god they were babies. BABIES I tell you.

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – check him out here!

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                  Related StoriesEp 44 Moving Consultant Margaret VandergriffEp 41 Parenting Author KJ Dell’AntoniaEp 45 HONY Mixtape Couple Ellen and David 

Ego Decernere

During our trip to Ireland last month we weren’t planning to buy souvenirs, since every available air pocket in our luggage was to be used transporting our eldest kid’s belongings home from her semester in Ireland. (There’s a store in Ireland called Penney’s that I blame. I blame Penney’s very, very much. I may also resent it because our daughter took us there on our first day after we had been flying for eleven hours, and anything that wasn’t a bed at that point seemed downright antagonistic.)

But I couldn’t resist looking in a few of the stores that were blinged out in shamrocks and “Game of Thrones” -themed paraphernalia – they film a lot of the show in Northern Ireland, so you can buy posters and t-shirts with just about every catchphrase on the show. To my delight, each store had at least one vertical spinning rack devoted to keychains and refrigerator magnets embossed with Irish surnames, including Davis.

Now, I know full well my maiden name and my forebearers are Welsh, but what I liked about the Irish version I saw is that it included a definition for Davis that I can really get behind:

I Decide

I Am Davis, and I Decide. Well, that’s pretty much the
thrust of what I’ve been saying since I learned to talk. I never realized until
this trip that it’s my birthright.

My dad was a Davis who decided. My siblings are Davises who decide. (My mom married in and puts up with us.) We are temperamentally unable to stand indecision and would rather be seven miles down the wrong road then stuck back there at the fork deciphering a map. I am a really good person to have in a big group because after thirty seconds of people saying, “Where do you guys want to go for a drink?” I’m like, “OHMYGOD I CAN’T STAND IT ANY LONGER THAT PLACE OVER THERE IS FINE AND IN FACT I’VE ALREADY ORDERED FOR US.” Even if there are rats fleeing the establishment, I’d rather be sitting down.

According to the internet, so, definitely accurate, the name Davis derives from the Hebrew name David and means Darling, or Beloved. You could probably ask my husband but sometimes I am so eager to have things decided and behind me that I am neither darling nor beloved. I have okay’d a contractor’s suggestion for mismatched lighting fixtures in the bathroom because it was faster than going to the store, I chose the younger daughter’s middle name without consulting him because the Social Security lady was standing in my hospital room asking what to put on the form, and I have DEFINITELY yelled “get off at this exit!” overwhelming his protest that no, this doesn’t seem right. (That’s how we once took a very exciting tour of Camden, New Jersey.)

You know, one of the Game of Thrones T-shirts for sale at
the Irish souvenir stores was inspired by Peter Dinklage’s character, Tyrion
Lanister.

Tyrion Game Of Thrones GIF from Tyrion GIFs

I think I’ve come up with a fitting one for the Clan Davis.

I almost forgot about this song that my family was obsessed with during the 2012 Winter Olympics. Slovenian World Cup alpine ski racer Tina Maze’s way is her decision, her power is her vision! Et cetera! But Auto-Tuned!

***

Hey there podcast listeners or wanna be podcast listeners…I’m recording the first two episodes of 2019 next week and they’re going to be corkers. Are you all caught up on Episodes 1-45? Leave me a comment below if you’re unsure of how to find them and I’ll walk you through it!

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CommentsVery important – why did you not bring home the “I Drink ... by FloribundaYou are the sort of person I need in my house at dinner time. I ... by EllenRelated StoriesEur-ExitAdventure in the Tried and TrueHappy Holidays from Midlife Mixtape! 

Eur-Exit

Alas, it had to end. 2018, Christmas and New Year’s, and our
long-anticipated trip to Ireland, to pick up our daughter who had spent a
college semester in Dublin.

I’m okay with 2018 ending. Watching the 100 new female members of Congress get sworn in yesterday already made 2019 better than all of 2018 combined. We’re probably all grown too cynical to think that anything is really going to get better quickly, but I’m looking for hopeful green shoots of grass wherever I can find them.

I’m okay with Christmas and New Year’s ending, too. Not spending them at home made the 2018 holidays seem a little weird anyway: no stockings were hung, no Christmas tree, no bottomless pitchers of Poinsettia champagne cocktails on December 25th.  As for New Year’s Eve, we were in our pajamas at 6 pm. The only reason we made it until midnight was because we are, as a family, binge-watching and obsessed with La Casa de Papel which definitely does not translate from Spanish to English as Money Heist, despite what Netflix calls it.

(And yes of course this is only adding weight to my
husband’s belief that he is fluent in Spanish, thanks for asking.)

Which brings me to the thing to which I’m not so happy to bid farewell: our wonderful trip. We flew to Dublin on December 22, flew to London on December 28, and flew back to California on January 2 (on a plane that should have been nicknamed “Crying Baby Express.”) Even if ten days is about all I can stand to be away from my own bed, there were a lot of reasons I would repeat the entire trip in a flash (minus the crying babies.)

First, obviously, was the fact we hadn’t seen our daughter in
3D for four months (Skype has its limits.) We had left unresolved whether she
would meet us at the airport or not, so when she popped up at the Arrivals Gate
I let out a scream of delight that mortified 75% of my family. (I was the 25%
who felt it was a wholly appropriate reaction.) Her study abroad may not
have been the one any of us expected a year ago, but that’s only because it
turned out even better.

Second, this was our first trip to Ireland. (Technically, I
went there once for work in ’96 or so and stayed long enough for a meeting and
a Guinness before flying out again, so I don’t count it.) We stayed in a flat
next door to St. Patrick’s Cathedral that meant we could walk everywhere in
central Dublin.

View this post on Instagram

Good morning and Merry Christmas concert from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin

Happy Holidays from Midlife Mixtape!

I sometimes do an end-of-year wrap up post but I’m keeping it simple in 2018.

Thanks, you guys. It has been an honor to have you spend time with my writing and/or my podcast over the past twelve months. You’ve inspired me with your spirit, your senses of humor, and your tireless efforts in service to love, justice, and doing better.

This holiday, may you all have companionship, laughter, and music that makes you dance. May the cookies be plentiful and the calories scarce.

I’m taking a bit of time off to get a glimpse of where our study-abroad kid has spent the semester, and make sure she comes back to the States. Hey, I wouldn’t come home voluntarily either after the semester she’s had. I’ll be back in the saddle with posts and podcast episodes sometime in January.

I wish you all wonderful things in the year to come.

Love, Nancy

Something new to add to your tired old holiday music mix – The Old ‘97s have a brand new holiday album out



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                  Related StoriesMusic Books for Holiday Gift Giving 2018All I Need Is The Air That I BreatheCaregiving When You’re Not Close By 

Ep 45 HONY Mixtape Couple Ellen and David

“Endlessly curious”: Mixtape mavens Ellen and David talk about what it’s like to be a Humans of New York viral sensation, the midlife relationship that mixtapes built, and why rediscovering yourself is a cure for stagnation.

The original Humans of New York post:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

“He was the RA in my freshman dorm. His nickname was ‘Rock.’ He was blonde and skinny and made legendary mix tapes for the dance parties. We never talked much in college, but we became good friends when we reconnected at a reunion. The event was eighties themed. There were a lot of Talking Heads cover songs, and we danced all night. After that we started talking every day. Even though we live on different coasts, we’d find different ways to connect. He’d create scavenger hunts for me. He’d send me on missions to find obscure books and records. And we began making mix tapes together. Both of us come from research backgrounds, so we take our mix tapes very seriously. MMTR is our acronym for the meaning of music: ‘Magic, Meditation, Therapy, Reunion.’ So there’s a lot of MMTR mix tapes: ‘MMTR I,’ ‘MMTR II,’ ‘MMTR III,’ ‘MMTR 80’s,’ ‘MMTR 90’s.’ Then there’s ‘Clan McJangle,’ which is nothing but Scottish Pop. Then we’ve got another called ‘Buzz Gems,’ which is nothing but guitar songs under three minutes that alternate decades as you go down the playlist. Our mix tapes hold us together. Lately we’ve been working on a business together. And if we ever get too frustrated, we just put on our headphones, choose a mix tape, and hit play at the exact same time.”

A post shared by Humans of New York (@humansofny) on Nov 13, 2018 at 9:46am PST

David and Ellen’s “Buzz Gems” mix was inspired by the Buzzcocks, whose lead singer Pete Shelley passed away last week much too young. I always loved this weird little song. Be homosuperior in your interior this week, k?

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – check him out here!

The post Ep 45 HONY Mixtape Couple Ellen and David appeared first on Midlife Mixtape .

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Ep 44 Moving Consultant Margaret Vandergriff

“Grateful for crazy missteps”: Moving consultant Margaret Vandergriff on common mistakes in finding your midlife happy place, the importance of feeling the vibe, and how she turned her own moving missteps into a new career.

Harvest Moon Coaching
Nancy’s House Talk Spotify Playlist

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – check him out here!

The post Ep 44 Moving Consultant Margaret Vandergriff appeared first on Midlife Mixtape .

                   
CommentsOooh that sounds promising…let us know where you land! by Nancy Davis Kho (@midlifemixtape)Great timing for this podcast. I have a lot of new things to ... by LisaRelated StoriesEp 41 Parenting Author KJ Dell’AntoniaEp 40 Headcount Co-Founder Andy BernsteinEp 39 Ballerina Aesha Ash 

Music Books for Holiday Gift Giving 2018

There’s nothing I love more than a rectangular shaped gift under the tree, bearing a sticker from my favorite local indie bookstore. Hardcover books amirite? And when they’re music books, that makes my heart beat even faster. I’ve pulled together some of my favorite new music-themed books for holiday gift-giving should you and/or any of your gift recipients be similarly inclined.

Women Who Rock: Bessie to Beyonce. Girl Groups to Riot Grrrl. (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers) Gorgeous coffee table book edited by Evelyn McDonnell and featuring essays on 104 groundbreaking female artists from Bessie Smith and The Supremes to Joan Baez, Madonna, Beyoncé, Amy Winehouse, Dolly Parton, Sleater-Kinney, Taylor Swift, and scores more. Each essay, written by some of the best female music writers in the biz including Ann Powers (Midlife Mixtape Podcast Ep 11 guest!), Michelle Threadgould, and Caryn Rose, features beautiful artwork. The whole thing makes me so happy. Whether you like blues, rock and roll, country, folk, glam rock, punk, and/or hip hop, you’ll find your favorite performers and meet some new badass ladies. This book is at the top of the list for a reason.

 

Women Who Rock Cross-Stitch (Running Press) Female rockers! In cross-stitch! This cute book by Anna Fleiss and Lauren Mancuso provides patterns for embroidering twenty iconic women — like Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks, soul legend Aretha Franklin, folk icon Joni Mitchell, and innovator Lauryn Hill — and ten classic song titles. She’s crafty…

 

 

Beastie Boys Book (Penguin Random House) Speaking of she’s crafty, this is the single item on my Christmas list this year. Seriously. I just want this book, written by Ad-Rock and Mike D, about the band that I most regret never seeing play live.

 

 

Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall (Algonquin). Author Tim Mohr meticulously chronicles the improbable rise of punk music in East Germany and traces its impact on the broader social atmosphere that eventually led to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. The courage it took these kids to stand out in a society where conformity was enforced through physical means and jail time, the support given to these young outsiders by churches who recognized their responsibility to protect the vulnerable, and the ingenuity with which East German punk created art under oppression are a timely reminder of the power of small groups of people to right unjust systems of government.

 

Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More (Jawbone Press). Sometimes there are bands that I think I know, but if I’m honest with myself, I know one song and nothing else. Say “Faith No More” and I think: “We Care A Lot!” and then, there’s just empty space in my head. This definitive bio by Adrian Harte fills in all the gaps about this post punk rock band that is the only musical search result when you search the term “midlife crisis.” My favorite is the blurb on the back from band member Bill Gould: “It provided me with more than a few revelations…and I’m in the band.”

 

Creative Quest (Ecco) It’s not a secret how much I love Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson of The Roots, ever since I read his Mo’ Meta Blues and realized he has the sharpest, biggest, most curious mind out there. This book, his fifth, is intended to consider creativity both as a how-to and as a therapeutic endeavor, through the lens of performers like David Byrne, Bjork, and George Clinton as well as Ava DuVernay, Einstein, and Jiro. You know, that dude sitting behind the drum set on The Late Show may be a hologram because how else does Questlove have time to do all this?!

 

Siren Song: My Life in Music (St. Martin’s Press) Seymour Stein founded Sire Records and signed acts from Madonna to the Cure to Talking Heads to Ice-T. This book gives a mic to the legend who’s been shaping the music landscape and making music history since the 1950s.

 

Looking for more music memoir? Tina Turner has a new one, and so does Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, and so does Justin Timberlake.

Bonus recommendations

The Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy (House of Anansi Press) Yes, I get they’re not a music act, but Canadian humor super troupe Kids in the Hall could be considered rock n’ rollers of comedy. Also, we need as much comedy as we can get in 2018. Author Paul Myers gets the inside scoop of this subversive gang of humor hooligans through interviews, never-before-seen photos, script excerpts and more.

 

 

Rock and Roll Oracle Cards – Finally, a gift that my supernatural-loving Aunt Noonie and I can both love! Rock and Roll Oracle cards invites you to pick a card, any card, to resolve your sticky situations and existential questions through the essence of your favorite artists’ souls. Upgrade from your Magic 8 Ball and ask Grace Jones, Elton John, or Ozzy Osbourne what you should do next! And hey: the nice people over there asked me to give you guys the code SOCIAL for 10% off orders!

There are way, way more music books that came out this year than I could possibly read or fit into this list – leave your recommendations in the comments below!

I really do care, don’t you?

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CommentsHa! Even though I have never met your daughter I actually ... by Nancy Davis KhoSo, the Beastie Boys is also on my wish list, but there were ... by BarryCool! Thanks for the tip Jon! by Nancy Davis KhoNeil Fraser, 'Long Shadows, High Hopes: The Life and Times of ... by Jon CRelated StoriesAll I Need Is The Air That I BreatheCaregiving When You’re Not Close ByOh No You Don’t 

All I Need Is The Air That I Breathe

I guess I just assumed that by the time our dystopian future arrived, I would own a pair a leather pants and more survival skills. Or at least a sexy nickname like “Wolfgirl” or “Star.”

Instead, when our air turned toxic two weeks ago as a result of the smoke that drifted down from the horrendous Camp Fire in Butte County and, like so many Bay Area visitors, decided to just stay, we found ourselves trapped inside. It really did feel like the setup for a postapocalyptic YA series. Our normal Air Quality Index (AQI) rating is 20, but for almost two weeks the AQI hovered between 180 and 260 – in other words, you can see the air you’re breathing. As awful as the air quality was, it was worse knowing that what we were breathing in was remnants of the worldly possessions of almost 14,000 households, burned down 167 miles to the north of us. (For people closer to the fire zone, the AQI was in the 500 range.)

Over and over again I reminded myself how relatively fortunate we were.

After the Napa fires last year, I ordered cloth washable face masks for my family and stashed them in the emergency kit, along with a pack of disposable N95s that keep out the particulates so harmful to our lungs. Those came in handy for friends who were too late to get to the hardware stores where the masks sold out; Amazon’s “rush” orders of N95s were showing up days and days later. My mailman showed up one day in his open-air truck with his mask atop his bald head. “You have to wear that,” I pleaded to him. “The air is too bad.”

He sighed heavily. “I’m suffocating. I can’t breathe with it on, or off.”

When we bought this house 15 years ago we started the laborious and expensive process of replacing leaky single-pane windows with insulated, double-sash windows that actually closed tight. We did a couple of windows every year or two, and last spring finally replaced the last one, a picture window in the dining room that let in a small stream of air all day every day; it could only be closed by standing on a ladder outside and pushing the window shut, and even then it wasn’t a tight seal.

Between the new windows, rolled-up towels I placed at the bottom of the doors, duct tape with which I sealed up door frames, and an air purifier we ran on high all day every day, the air in the house smelled mostly fine.

That’s what privilege looks like, by the way.

People with leaky apartment windows didn’t have that luxury of clean interior air. When I drove out to get groceries, I saw homeless people in Oakland sitting on sidewalks or under overpasses, no masks, no windows, no walls to protect them from the smoke even a little bit.

I rely on my daily walk to keep me sane and centered, but we were told not to exercise outdoors or even indoors. After a week my knees and back hurt, and I was finding it hard to remember things or feel motivated to do anything that I usually enjoy and find therapeutic, baking or reading or talking to friends. Toward the end of our air crisis, we got really terrible news about a young person whom I barely know, and I couldn’t stop crying. Couldn’t. Stop. Crying. How in the midst of the end of the world do even worse things happen? I was cracking up.

By that time, it was a few days before Thanksgiving and people were fleeing the Bay Area like rats off a sinking ship. My social media feeds were filled with photos from Lake Tahoe and beaches on the coast with blue skies, all captioned with a variation of #freshcleanair. My husband and I both had to work, and our daughter is rehearsing Nutcracker every day. (No to indoor exercise, unless your tenth and final Nutcracker is three weeks away. More guilt that we made this exception.) I am used to feeling jealousy over people’s vacation pics on Instagram, but it’s weird to envy their breathing. I had to stop scrolling.

Finally on Tuesday afternoon, the creepy light that had been filtering through the house for so long changed and looked…normal. I hit “refresh” on PurpleAir.com for the millionth time and saw that the AQI had finally dropped to the “Moderate” level and ran outside. I couldn’t see the air. I could see the sun, and the thick hazy halo around it had almost disappeared. Up and down the street little kids were out in their driveways (pity those parents trying to keep small children entertained,) dogs were straining on leashes, my two favorite neighborhood walking ladies were once again on patrol. It was going to rain. It was glorious. Since then it has absolutely poured, giving the firefighters an assist although now mudslides have to be reckoned with. From the end of our street, we can see clear through to the Pacific Ocean.

And that was the end of our apocalyptic preview. For now. The Climate Change Report that got released on a weekend most people won’t pay attention says we’ll all experience it again, sooner and more frequently. Maybe your dystopian future looks like snow, or hurricanes, or drought. Oh, the variety!

As for us, we’ll trim back the trees to have defensible space around the house. We’ll donate to help the fire victims in Paradise, aware with every donation that it could just as easily have been us. We’ll hope that the incoming political leadership in DC finds the will and the smarts to counteract the destructive environmental record of the current administration. We will pray that technology and human ingenuity find a way to turn the ship before it’s too late for our children and grandchildren.

But to be on the safe side, “Wolfgirl Kho” is about to order another stash of N95s, an indoor air quality meter, and a pair of leather pants.

Also all out of face masks.

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CommentsWhat a great description of what we all went through. by Síle ConveryRelated StoriesCaregiving When You’re Not Close ByOh No You Don’tMark Your Calendars – Fall 2018 

Ep 43 Humorist/Playwright R. Eric Thomas

photo by Ryan Levine

“Embrace the mystery”: “Eric Reads the News” columnist R. Eric Thomas on how a playwright became Elle.com’s current events humor columnist, his approach to pop culture osmosis, and drinking eggnog with Maxine Waters.

Eric’s website
“Eric Reads the News” on Elle.com
Eric’s weekly “Here For It” newsletter signup page
Eric’s plays

Sorry if you ever tried to check out the Dick Tracy soundtrack on cassette from the library in Baltimore in the ‘90s, some kid with the surname of Thomas had it…

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the Midlife Mixtape podcast – check him out here!***Thanks to everyone who has checked in on the California fire situation – here in the Bay Area we are about 160 miles from the devastation of the Camp Fire but the air quality has been horrible days…which makes me feel even worse for people living closer to the fire area. If you feel moved to help support the victims of these New Abnormal California fires, here are three organizations to which I’ve been directing people:

Wildfire Relief Fund
California Fire Foundation which helps firefighters and their families
UCDavis Veterinary Catastrophic Need Fund to help animal impacted by the fire

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