P.J. Colando's Blog

Beatles Songs for Boomers

When I’m Ninety-five(By Bruce Handy and Jay Martel (from The New Yorker )ListenDo you want to know a secret?Do you promise not to tell?Whoa, oh, ohCloserLet me whisper in your earIt’s the left one that still hears?Now I’ve forgotten what I wanted to sayOoh-ooh-ooh-ooh ooh.•Anytime at allBefore 9 p.m.Anytime at allBefore 9 p.m.Anytime at allIf I’m not in bed just callAnd I’ll be there.•All the lonely peopleWhere do they all come from?All the lonely peopleYou’d think some of them would’ve at least sent food for Eleanor’s wake.•Doctor RobertYou’re a new and better manThough he’s off most Medicare plansPay out of pocket if you canDoctor Robert.•When I get older, losing my mindNot that long from nowWill you still be sending me a valentineBirthday greetings, hydralazine?If I keep napping past quarter to threeWould you assume I’m alive?Will you still feed me, please don’t delete meWhen I’m ninety-five.•Why don’t we do it if we canWhy don’t we do it if we canCialis will be helping usWhy don’t we do it if . . . oh, well.•I call your nameBut you’re not thereWas I to blame?For not texting instead?Oh, I left a long voice mailThough no one listens to them anymore(I just wanted you to know that Rachel’s cousin’s brother-in-law has leukemia, but I think the good kind.)I never keep it shortI call your name.•Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstreamIt is not dyingIt is not dyingLay down all thoughts, surrender to the voidI really hope it’s not dyingIt feels like it might be dyingThat you may see the meaning of withinI think I’ll get up nowThank God I can get up now.•Asked that gal what she wanted of meShe said, “Listen, babe, come and see.My kids took my car and it’s breaking my heartBut let’s take a spin in this sweet golf cart.”•Here comes the sunDoo dun doo doo (phew!)Here comes the sun and I sayI’m still here!•Well, she was just seventyWork done, from eyes to kneesBut I’m almost sure she still had her own hairWell, I couldn’t dance with anotherOoooo!Or anyone in level-four care.•Woke up, got out of bedSo glad I wasn’t deadFound my way downstairs despite my kneesAnd looking up . . . I forgot why I’d walked into the room[Breathing sounds]Found my phone, but not my keysIf you see them, tell me, pleaseFound my way upstairs to make a callBut couldn’t make it work, these new phones are such a painIiii . . . Iiii aiii aiii . . . Iiii aiii aiiiiiii . . . .I’d love . . .To turn . . .This on.•Yesterday . . .That’s all I really have to say.

He was a Butt-Scooting Cat

The brass was coming for a visit and the branch manager wanted to impress…

And so, she ordered a sheet cake, to sweeten their evaluation of her skills.

Royal blue icing slathered thickly on the top and down the sides of the cake, with the branch name written in script that pranced around the corporate logo on top. She would certain the brass would be impressed by her celebratory gesture and that she’d get a generous pay raise.

The woman was single, devoted to her fluffy tabby cat. She loved it so much that she brought him to work, emotional support for a stressful job, she rationalized, Because it was outside policy perameters to bring a pet to work. He also obliged to wear the glasses she required to read spreadsheets, but was too vain to wear when others were in the office.

He usually cat-napped in the knee hole of her desk and no one was the wiser. The cat ate fancy cat food out of the can, opened noiselessly with a tiny opener she kept in her desk’s top drawer. All went smoothly for months, each content in each other’s company. The cat never once walked on her keyboard, as others’ cats reportedly did, so he never over-wrote her monthly reports.

But the cat had a thing for sweets… And so,

His nose led him into the break room where the cake was esconced on the tabletop, ready to shown off, and then imbibed by the brass. She intented to impress.

The sassy cat was impressed and had a different intent.

He circled the cake several times, tail swashbuckling the air like a sword, sizing up the possibilities. The scent tantilized his nostrils, his whiskers twitched, and soon he could stand it now more. He sat – splat – at one end of the cake and butt-scooted across the top, Then, he sauntered into the outer office and began licking his blue ass contentedly, interrupting the manager’s presentation to the brass at its climax.

Yes, the cat helped the manager make an impression, but, but, but… his butt scooting stunt conquered her prose.

And so, rather than be promoted, she was fired.

 

Where do you Write?

When an audience of newbies convenes to imbibe the wisdom of an established writer, he/she is often asked, “What’s your process?”

Many things are interwoven in this be-all question:

are you a plotter or a pantser (or, like me, a plodder)what time of day do you writedo you engage in re-writes constantly or wait until the end of the day/manuscript(fill in the blank)I believe the place one writes is an important part of the equation…

Many writers convene at a nearby coffee shop, using their laptop as their writing tool of choice. I prefer to remain at home, in the silence of my home office, rather than decamp to a coffee shop where I’m known and likely to be distracted by people and sights and incidents. BTW, I know of no one who writes their stories longhand these days. If you do, tell me so in the comments.

I like to use my laptop with the built-in grammar and spellchecks, components of WORD. I’ve added Writer Pro as an writing aid, too. I don’t need the dictionary or thesaurus – I need the curbs on my over-reliance on ellipses…  and exclamation points. (ha!)

The drawback of the laptop is its power to distract. I might be busy about the task of writing something sensible and useful and shining light into dark corners, and then succumb to the temptation of sending Google into other dark corners (never the dark web for me), such as the mystery of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance and how much was Howard Hughes worth and has anyone located the original Ten Commandment tablets and was Beowulf a real person and did Teddy Roosevelt kill any beasts on his African safaris or did he only pose with a rifle, and was J.D. Salinger happy after he vanished from public view, and is it true that Albert Einstein was unable to sail a small boat, and how soon as a rule do famous people become unknown.

Yes, Goggle has everything!

Including ChatGPT, but I vow to never use it to write a piece for me.

My Silver Palate

THE SILVER PALATE COOKBOOK came out in 1979, the same year my husbnd and I moved permanently to California.

I adored it, feeling so grown up and removed from my Midwestern roots. Who ever heard of baking prunes with chicken! Blueberries, too. The only way I knew prior to this cookbook was to fry chicken, something at which one of my grandmothers excelled. The Silver Palate was a bit more relaxed than Martha Stewart, but more precise than my grandmother’s methods. More experimental, too – garlic and capers became go-to cooking ingredients – and over the years my husband and I cooked our way through the book.

Despite being a 4-H baking champ, I was seldom invited to help my mother prepare meals growing up.

But in the kitchen, that flighty curiosity was a friend. Savory pancakes for dinner? Certainly. Fruit and meat together? Why not! Raspberry Chicken became my signature dish, something I’d eatern first in the home of a gourmand friend.

 

The pages of the cookbook are sprinkled with notes, friendly inspiration, as if your grandmother stood beside you in the kitchen. Or, your vaunted 4-H leader, Margie Vulmer (yes, I remember her name and have a fully-formed memory of her assistance with making a perfect angel food cake, well over fifty years ago)

The recipe for the banana nut bread I make frequently for my husband is from this book.

Successful flavoring depends on many things. To appreciate this fully you must experiment, something that my husband is much better at than I am. Perhaps, because his nose isn’t allergy-clogged and he has a well-honed sense of smell…

My advice: Try some lemon in the rice. Grate an orange on the broccoli. You will learn to create boldly, trusting in the results. You will be a cook with a silver palate.

Like the “Galloping Gourmet” swigging wine while he prepared a dish, so long ago – and in black & white! – on tv.

Rise and Shine!

How do you start your day? Do you have rituals that enlighten, coffee, tea, or gin that must be inhaleded, or do you stumble and bumble around for a bit when your feet hit the floor? Is a quck splash of water or a full shower required to get your motor running?

I begin each day with a Facebook meme, a message to illuminate or defy my mood, always a #TGIF humor hit on Fridays. I subscribe to the #TBT rite because I have tons of pics.  Pics from our trips, pics from our adventures, pics from free or paid concerts we have attended.

Because I believe that birthdays are special, I acknowledge friends and family on their day, alerted by the FB bots, from a file of memes I’ve collected over the years. Perhaps, dear reader, you’ve recieved one…

As you may have surmised, I am a morning person.

A friend I won’t name wakes up and starts working the group chats, sending a “Rise n’ grind” to her gal pals and guys, mostly authors and others of the literary persuasion. “It’s like starting the day by going to a party with all my friends,” she told me. “Instantly improves my mood when I’ve garned gossip and know what’s shaking.” Did I mention that she’s a night owl, unable to sleep until after the midnight hour, so wake=up for her begins at 9:00 rather than the up-wuth-the-sun persona I am. I tried called her once in the morning –  FaceTime wasn’t pretty.

Is an alarm clock required? Do you wish a farm’s rooster resided nearby? Does a city’s cacophony jangle you into an awake state? Or do you calmly arise from a full 7-8 hours of sleep in the rosiest of moods? Tell me in the comments, friends. This is a survey of immense importance, so do partake. please and thanks.

Here’s what some of my favorite guys, the Beatles, say: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjb9AxDkwAQ&list=RDsjb9AxDkwAQ&start_radio=1

Good Morning! Rise and Shine!

My Legacy of Tylenol and Tape

For nearly a dozen years, I rebuffed knee replacement surgery, but that ended today. (Yes, this post was cached ahead of time) I was dedicated to a regimen of PT – religiously doing the home exercises – taking Tylenol, and applying KT Tape as shown by my PT..

I was also blessed to live in a one-story house with nary a stair in my life. I’d known that my heredity was strong for arthritis because my mother had right knee replacement at about this time in her life – so, when we searched for a new home in 1986, we made a good choice.

Now I have a titanium replacement for a formerly bone-on-bone, fully engulfed in the arthritis of old age, right knee joint.

As stated earlier, I’ve assiduously delayed the surgery, in part because of the advice of a long ago orthopedic surgeon. I’ve written on the topic before, too, most recently while we watched the Summer Olympics: https://www.pjcolando.com/i-am-a-kt-tape-addict/

While intellectually I understand that it’s not possible, I’m wishing, hoping, and dreaming of e pain-free experience.

I don’t subscribe to the aphorism, “no pain, no gain.”

I’m not now, nor have I ever been a jock. I was the lass who could run fast, but couldn’t field or toss a ball, so I was parked in the outfield, if I was picked for a team at all. I could run the bases faster than anyone… if I’d ever hit the ball. I was a better cheerleader than a player, so that I became.

My husband is the jock.

I’m counting on his patient and perfect care because he expects to be next for knee replacement. I’m the nurturing type, so my attentive care can be counted on. While he used to be the “no tears; suck it up” type, he’s changed, lo these many months I’ve struggled through an unfortunate diagnosis of Stiff Person Syndrome. Remember this tortured blog post? https://www.pjcolando.com/wayback-machine/

Thanks for encouragement, peeps who read my blog now and then. Please encourage me again.

 

Edging up to 80

I’m later in my 70th decade than most people suspect, an émigré from the age of the typewriter and the corded telephone, even a party line with a timed-cut off to cut off gossipy peeps. I’ve always been a gregrious gal – even as an awkward teen – so you can imagine how inhibiting this might have been.

Because I’m ancient-adjacent, AI hasn’t infused my work.

I have much to write about, opinions, memories, and other stuff, however. Stories to delight and/or disgust. In short, reasons to write.

I won a short non-fiction prize (applause, please and thanks) for the following multi-point explanation of why I write:

because I’m compelled by blood. I honor my heredity: my parents and their highly literate minds. Humor’s sway is from my dad.because my first fully formed memory shows my mother and me, as ensemble. She took over my chore—defaulted forever to the eldest child—of drying the dishes, because I had homework. She helped me craft a metaphor that marked me forever in the teacher’s clear eyes, and I honed the gift.because my parents’ parents, whom we visited a lot, lived downstate. My folks had flown hundreds of miles from the coop, only to return every holiday, like alcoholics seeking booze. Onboard entertainment wasn’t ubiquitous back then, and the babies had demands. To occupy her eldest, my mom would point to a passing car and suggest, “What do you think their story is?” I was trained to story start—and I still do it at every stoplight.because I have a bodacious vocabulary, one which can implode casual conversation with friends. It’s never my intention to show off or shut down: I just know words. I adore writing for the precision my vocabulary can bring to a page, with beats in my head from iambic pentameter and song.because I can try on personality traits. To have an unknown, perhaps childish, aspect of me become sensate. To experience another’s point-of-view. To gain empathy for someone whose actions I abhor or one who has shown me great hate.because that’s often how I process my feelings, amidst complex episodes that bewilder or cause pain. That is, I write when I’m black, I write when I’m blue…and then I feel all better. Perspective gained; I create a win-win.because it’s a better preoccupation than piss-and-vinegar politics, the national conversation hobbling compassion and independent thought.because if I don’t like a character’s behavior, I hit delete, something I couldn’t do in my adored speech-language pathology career. I closed my private practice with a “whoopee”, not a whimper, and wrote on.because a sibling manipulates the family story, forever casting me as the antagonist and scourged. I’m scapegoated, seldom able to air my side, even when I have one. And so, I write my story. I declare my truth, I persist, I dare.to launch Google searches…I crave learning. On the path to self-actualization, there is no caveat. I’m more of a process person than a product person. I don’t default to research, but I do value its input.to circumvent Alzheimer’s or staleness of brain. I am a word nerd, and I take pride in it. I endeavor to maintain my cherished intellect, a love of my life.

I write because I can, and I am compelled to create. I call writing my elegant hobby.

To paraphrase a message from a famous book: All my reasons are equal, but some are more equal than others. Which ones do you think they are?

Whaddayathink?

 

Peter Uebberoth and Pelican Hill

“Where did you get that?

The manager of Pelican Hill, the restaurant at a posh golf course near our home, demanded. He’d apparently been summoned by our waiter after we’d asked if our personal bottle of wine could be uncorked for us. The well-suited man towered over us, seated at our not-so-prime table. He’d adopted a Gestapo tone and glowered for all he was worth.

My husband and I were celebrating a milestone anniversary and wanted to commemorate it with a milestone wine. While we didn’t recall specifically where we’d purchased the wine, we knew we’d brought it from our personal wine cellar, laying it down for a celebration of significance, for it was worthy. we were certain of ourselves, so my husband mildly replied.

We knew we weren’t thieves.

 To make it clear that he didn’t like the circumstances, the manager didn’t reply, but turned on his heel to stomp away after a brief nod for our waiter to uncork and pout our cabernet, a Peter Ueberroth appellation we felt certain would be prime with our meal.

Peter Victor Ueberroth was an American sports and business executive known for his involvement in the Olympics and in Major League Baseball. He also had his own vineyard – a great investment in California culture… and was part of a consortion that owned Pebble Beach golf course. It was long-established among the best in the world and Pelican Hill Golf Course aspired.Was that why the manager grumbled at the presence of the bottle in his restaurant?

Neverless, the meal was sublime, the service was superb, and my husand and I spent a pleasant meal enjoying each other and the merriment of our marriage. Twenty-five years, many years older than the wine.

When the bill arrived, my husband gasped. It was our first meal total that exceeded a hundred dollars, a happenstance that occurs regularly in these post-covid, tariff-midst times.

In addition, a gotcha charge appeared on the bill. Instead of the advertised $10.00 corkage fee, the manager tacked on $50.00.

Sparky is a Spark

Just for fun, watch this. If you’re feeling blue, this will make you feel better with its simple quest –

https://www.pjcolando.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/video-1720811494-1.mp4

Our dog Spark is a cool dood. He has a sexy walk, happily prancing with his head held high when we set out on our daily walks. Here’s a photo of him, boldly sticking his head out the half-opened back window of our car to take in the scents of Yosemite Park on our recent road trip. He intereacts with the world energetically, reminding us of our younger, adventuresome selves.

He’s rejuvenated our sense of joy.

It seems that every aspect of nature tantalizes his senses. He’ll wade into burr-laden weeds, mindless of the aftermath when he’ll despise the energetic brushing of his curly coat, so like the shag carpet of the ’70s (but with a better color than that dreaded orange). Sniffing out new items received in an Amazon box as if we were our personal bomb sniffer. – or is he just nosy and/or motivated by self-interest that the box will contain a new toy or treat for him.

Thank goodness he only accompanies my husband on all bathroom visits.

During the day, he’s either lying about in sloth mode or zooming like a torpedo when he’s overjoyed. Velcro’d to my husband’s leg, behaving like a Victorian theater kids with abandonment issues, or lovingly working a bone – day after day. Begging for food table side, despite having devoured his full dog bowl of food. Like a growing teenager, he doesn’t modulate his eating, so we must. We also must moniter his food choices: once he ate a small bag of grapes that are highly toxic to dogs.

He must have a cast iron stomach.Taking out the trash? Spark watches from the doorway like my husband’s being shipped off to war or rushes to accompany him in hopes in rifling though the can’s contents for another chew of whatever. He’s dismantled “indestructible” toys within hours, tossing aside the stuffing so assiduously our carpet looks as if it’s covered in snow.. The large ball-like sqeaker from one of those toys has become  almost an emotional support toy. Sometimes he moans orgasmically and/or seems to be miming the squeak sequences of othersIn short, he’s a delight, who’s rescued us since we rescued him.

 

Pre-Tariff Buying Binge

Trumpty Dumpty is have a good time, angling and dangling tariffs over other countries, his entre to making deals, bully style. It’s a see saw and a not-so-merry-go-round for us consumers who will end up with the burden of higher prices, not matter what the pathological liar says. He’s a capricious man who loves to wield his power, conscience be damned.

July was summer sale time for clothing that’s appropriate for our SoCal climate year-round and I went on a spree. This is typical for me – what do I care if the styles are no longer au courant and haute couture – an avowed spender-to-save. But this year, I had an additional excuse, that is, justification for my purchases…

I went on a pre-tariff buying binge.

Plus, dear readers, we enjoy the additional bonus of cash-back on our purchases, gaining a massive check to spend at CostCo in March each year because our VISA card is aligned with them. Sanctioned buying before paying income taxes. Yes, damn it, we perpetually have to pay more – curses and cusses – despite paying ginormous amounts of quarterly estimated taxes. The sad artifact of saving money and making wise investments to flesh out the flimsy amount that Social Security benefits pay…

A first world problem to be sure.

I bought this dress on sale. Trust me when I say it looks better on me, a plump blonde, than it does on this slim brunette. How doe I know? Because I wore it when we dined with friends the other night at a local restaurant. I received numerous compliments – from men and women – throughout our dining time and my husband’s eyes shone, tacit agreement that my pre-tariff buying binge paid off. It’s a party time dress, as resplendent as a Hawaiian shirt for guys.

But, the monthly VISA bill that includes my numerous bargain buys hasn’t arrived yet…

Whaddayathink he’ll say?