Stick Horse Cowgirls

I am a baby-boomer/sixties-to-eighties-rock-lovin’ old person.  I am sitting at the computer listening to my Pandora “Dire Straits” Station.  (I have an opera station, too, so don’t judge me too harshly). Along came the old Journey hit, “ Don’t Stop Believing .”  It made me think of a post— inspiration !  You just never know how the Muse will strike, right? Journey said: She Took the Midnight Train Goin’ Anywhere Wow . These lyrics made me think about advice I wish young women everywhere would heed.  It is advice borne of my longish life, tinged with sorrow now softened, and of my very-long work as a divorce lawyer.  Ahhhhh , if only they would listen to me. As I age I am learning the importance of living life intentionally…making conscious decisions about what I like, what I want from life, how I want to live it.  So many of us, women especially (hang with me, here), just drift through days, taking life’s midnight train to anywhere....

Jo and Jim did not have a perfect marriage, but it was a good one, Jo thought. They had been married 26 years and had two beautiful college-student daughters still at home. Each had worked with large companies for over twenty years. They did not make huge salaries and they were not wealthy, but they had no big monetary concerns and had decent retirement funds. They were conservative in their spending, and had enough to make the payments on the home they had lived in for the last 18 years. They lived a bit too much on credit cards. It was hard not to with two college-aged girls, and all four members of the family had cars. Thankfully, two of them were paid off, but they all had to be insured. Monthly payments took planning, but they were able to maintain a good credit score. Jim's father lived alone about thirty minutes from Jo and Jim. He was a bit emotionally removed from his only child, but Jo did her best to include Ben in the family celebration times and she prodded Jim to vi...

Back in 1999 my Son was graduating from high school.  He had a long-standing desire to visit Israel, and we decided to spring for a two-week family visit to celebrate his achievement.  We did our trip ourselves—eschewing tour groups—and we traveled the country by means of a rented car.  We had many adventures and, now that I am recalling the trip anew, I may share some with you later, but right now what is on my mind is breakfast.  Breakfast on that trip sort of symbolizes for me a little breaking free from the “box” of my own acculturalization…at least temporarily, as you will see and as only now occurs to me. During our initial days there, we stayed in a very nice kibbutz-run hotel called Ramat Rachel. That is an aerial view at the top of this post.  It is situated on a hill between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.  Its grounds are gorgeous, as you can see better in this picture. Our first day we arrived early evening exhausted from the overseas flight and...