I call it “shopping therapy.”

I jump on the “consumer bandwagon” and follow the sales to my local brick and mortar store. It’s like a mini-vacation that I book on my way to a gig. I don’t have to buy anything and usually don’t. But there is something about shopping that gets me out of my head and into a kind of hypnotic trance. Well that’s the way it’s supposed to work…

 

So here I am pushing open the doors to Steinmart. I’ve got a fist full of coupons, an hour to spare and I’m in the mood to browse. This store, along with Goodwill and Ross Dress For Less, are my go-to lodges for colorful distraction.

I veer right toward the boutique part of the store and just like that, I am seriously staring down a blue ombré tunic dress. It’s “hippy chic.” Please know that I am not a hippy. Nor chic. But then very little makes sense to me in this life so what the hell. Just then a fellow shopper swoops beside me and exclaims — I mean she EXCLAIMS: “That dress is SO you.” And she doesn’t budge until I snatch the blue thing with its black crochet sleeves off the rack and drape it over my arm. This woman is so convincing I believe her. The short-circuiting has begun.

After that encounter I wander through the rest of the store, drawn to the sale racks first, petites, hats, jewelry, shoes. This is so fun. I balance more clothes over my right arm and proudly dangle that hippy frock by its hanger as if I am a walking billboard for “cool.”

Off to the fitting room I go. I’m second in line behind another woman. She turns around and sizes me up.

“Is that dress for you?” The words slither from her mouth as her eyes drift over the blue ombré.

“Maybe…” I reply, going all wishy-washy and noncommittal.

“It’s too young for you.” She snaps.

“That’s not a bad thing…” I poof, feeling like I have to say something even though what I am thinking is F—K You!

At that point I abruptly turn around and go back into the store to find more clothes. This is supposed to be “Cali Time.” Rest and relaxation and all that… But now I’m descending into the caverns of unresolved psychological stuff. Yet again.

Let’s review:

Within minutes two different people share two different opinions about the same dress. Unsolicited. And thank you very much. But what if one of them is right? Even a little right…

One of the gifts of getting older is that most of us reach a point where we don’t give a hoot what other people think about us. At least most of the time. But these interactions at Steinmart, albeit brief, get to me. They slice a little, like a paper cut. I want folks to like me. I want to feel like I belong to a tribe and this is what my lizard brain hears:

Woman #1: “I like you.”
Woman #2: “I don’t like you.”

Wait a minute! We are talking about a dress. That’s all. A dress. But isn’t it interesting how a whole chapter in our life story can rise out of some mere trifle like this…

The truth is neither of these women know a damned thing about me–my tally of gain and loss; what scares the hell out of me and what makes me giddy; what I value and what puts me to sleep. They don’t know my name.

Yet both of them make snap judgments. Lordy, we all do. And based on what? One of my music teachers was the “deep thinker” type and often likened us to mirrors, we human being people. When we look at each other we are really seeing flashes of ourselves. You spot it, you got it. Could it be that those two women were seeing reflections of themselves in that dress? In me?

And visa-versa?

To be honest, I enjoy the first encounter more than the second! She seems like a pal, a girlfriend. The other woman has a “boss lady” vibe like “I know best.” Or worse “I know you.” Well screw that. We are lucky in this life if we finally begin to know ourselves, much less anyone else. Being a human is THAT complicated. And mysterious.

Finally I lock myself in a fitting room and pull the dress over my head. I turn this way and that way in front of the mirror. Well it’s cute and fits perfectly.

BUT…

On me the blues and blacks look like something Morticia from the Addams family would wear when she’s harvesting this week’s stash of mushrooms in the dark cellar of the old homestead.

What was I thinking?

The truth is both women are wrong. This dress is not “me.” No matter the year I was born. I can hear my inner fashion guru again–the whispery voice that knows only two words: Yes. No. Her batting average is not perfect but it’s pretty good.

I buy a pair of fakey-silver heart earrings. With my coupon I get a whopping 75% off. That’s $4.32 out the door. I love hearts. I’d like to think I’m an open-hearted person. A kind person.

Until some pushy b-i-t-c-h comes along and tells me how to dress.

Damn those mirrors!

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PROGRAM NOTE:

My next “OnGoing Ukulele Workshop & Jam”

AND

My “Five-Week Ukulele for Beginners”

BOTH start Saturday, April 23, 2016 at Boulevard Music in Culver City, California. Make music…make happy!

The flyers are below and a big hug of thanks to all of you!

My friend Wendy leads The Palm Desert Strummers who make beautiful ukulele music near the mid-century modern capital of the world: Palm Springs. Folks drive north, south, east, west from their desert abodes to play with this group. Snowbirds fly in for the winter, escaping the ice and cold of their homelands.

Last week they did one of the coolest gigs ever. And it has everything to do with Elvis.

Yes, THAT Elvis. The guy who would have turned eighty-one years old this month. IF he was still around to blow out the candles. Where was the gig? The Elvis Honeymoon Hideaway.

No kidding.

Apparently this is where Elvis and his bride Priscilla got “up close and personal.” Baby Lisa Marie was born exactly nine months later. You gotta love math.

Of course The Palm Desert Strummers play Elvis songs and are joined by an Elvis impersonator. Is it any wonder that Elvis has made more money as a dead person than an alive one? It’s like he’s still here. And in this case looking especially boyish and rosy-cheeked.

There is a reason I am bringing this up. I have my own Elvis story too…

I am packing up after a gig at an average retirement home in Los Angeles. There is a kind, portly fellow visiting a friend that day and he stays for the show. Afterwards this man offers to load my gear into the car. He has a warm southern drawl, rich with natural resonance that’s sweet like honey. He is what chivalry sounds like…

“What do you do for a living?” I chirp.

“I’m an Elvis impersonator.”

Oh really…

“How’d you get to be an Elvis impersonator?” That’s a good question, huh. I mean do you wake up one morning and realize you look and sound like the guy. AND have the marketing chops to book gigs and get paid for singing “Hound Dog,” swiveling your hips and flirting with the ladies?

He tells me that he sang in Elvis’s backup group. This was towards the end of Elvis’s career when the singer was rotund, sick and his vocal chops were chipped away. According to “Mr. Chivalry” some nights Elvis couldn’t even sing. That’s when the backup guys vocalized his part for him.

So far so good. This story is within the realm of, let’s say, possibility. But just as he’s leaning into my car trunk to re-arrange the amp, he goes all loopy.

“You know Elvis is still alive…”

“Elvis is still alive???” I repeat the words like a parrot who has just been bopped on the head by a falling coconut. “Elvis is still alive?” I aaaawk. He tells me there are things people don’t know. Will never know. This man is very sincere. And serious. I get the impression that, in his opinion, Elvis wanted out of the celebrity life and the only way to do that was to fake his death.

Gee maybe there are flying saucers too. May I remind you that I did this retirement home gig some fifteen years ago, long after Elvis had left this mortal coil. Or so we think.

But I love stories, especially “what if” stories and I begin to construct my own novella about Elvis. And me:

Free at last now that the world is grieving his death, Elvis is taking on a new identity. Like he’s in a witness protection program or something. He begins a second career working in the garden department of my local Home Depot. This is his new normal. One day I mosey in looking for a houseplant that will survive. In spite of me. And there he is. An older fellow, kind of marshmellowy-looking, receding hairline. He leads me to a perfect pothos hanging in a planter and says “how about this one.” I swear his voice can melt snow.

All right. Elvis probably died when Elvis died, but I chew on this story now and then, especially in January when I’m doing Elvis songs in my shows too. Stories can be so captivating. Soothing. They might even compel us to consider the impossible. Or at least the improbable. Isn’t there a brush stroke of imagination, magical thinking even, in the stories we tell ourselves? And others?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Well here’s another story and I’m sticking to it!

The Palm Desert Strummers have invited me to do a ukulele workshop in the land of Honeymoon Elvis, Tuesday, January 26, 2016. I did a workshop last year and let me tell you it feels mighty fine to be invited to do another one. Isn’t this something that makes our day? Being invited BACK. Whatever IT is. I’m doing my “Let’s Arrange A Song” class, but with two new songs. The workshop is totally different this year. We’ll play different strums, finger picking patterns and even try a little chord melody. There is something for both beginners and intermediate players.

I’ll also offer private lessons Wednesday morning, Jan 27 in Palm Desert. Maybe I’ll have time to swing by The Elvis Honeymoon Hideaway and marvel, one more time, how the currents of life move us in the most mysterious ways.

I can’t see the big “E” on the eye chart that hangs in the eye doctor’s office. With my left eye, that is. Actually I can’t even see the chart. I was a little girl when they first discovered my goofy left eye. Was it because I walked into walls now and then?

Like most folks who have only one workable eye, I have adapted. I drive my car with ALL mirrors on high alert. I wear a headset microphone when I perform so I can use my good eye to see the ukulele fretboard. I’m almost sure that my depth perception and your of depth perception are not the same. For a short time I took a softball class at the local junior college. I remember the P.E. teacher groaning loudly as I’d swing the bat. Way before the ball arrived at the plate. Maybe she thought I was on drugs or would do better with T-Ball. Or no ball at all.

I bring this up because I worry about something happening to my good eye. My right eye. Because I don’t have a spare. And that’s how I end up in the Emergency Room at U.C.L.A. The day before New Years. It’s our second trip to the E.R. in 2015.

I’m having a lovely day, doing errands. I like doing errands. I like watching my fellow people behaving in interesting ways in our natural habitat. Stores. Here I am at Target and I like Target. The lights cast a yellowish “buy me” glow from above. Not like outside. And that is when I notice a throng of tiny gnats swarming in front of me. And a miniature Medusa head, tendrils and all, zigzagging to my right. Long waving filaments glistening to my left and a little puddle of goo straight ahead.  What the hell kind of promotion are they doing in Target today? Then I realize I am experiencing my own private light show. In my good eye.

I flash to the last time I visited my ophthalmologist. Before my eyes totally dilate, I am staring down the poster on the wall in the darkened waiting room. It’s a “bad news” poster:  If you have these symptoms, get your ass to the doctor right NOW because you are screwed!  Or something like that. Standing in the express line at Target, I am seeing BAD NEWS and other stuff you might watch swim by in a dirty aquarium.

Lots of us have “floaters” in our eyes. Little knots of diaphanous pebbles that dance around the visual field. I’ve had them for years. They come and mostly go or else my brain gives up and ignores them. But today in Target this is different. WAY different.

And that’s why I’m in the Emergency Room and very embarrassed because, come on, it’s not like I’m having a heart attack or I broke some bones, like my husband did a few months ago. I apologize from the get-go to anyone who will listen. “Maybe it’s just floaters…but this is my only good eye…” I whimper.

But a generosity of kindness and goodwill pervade the E.R. on this pre-holiday afternoon. The doctors and nurses reassure me that I did the right thing. What if this is a worst-case scenario? What if my retina is detaching or tearing, even a little? Then time is of the essence to save my vision.

They begin with an ultra-sound of my right eye. Wow, I didn’t know there was such a thing? The doctor rubs the ultra-sound wand across my covered eye. Back and forth. She doesn’t see a retina tear but calls in the expert anyway. A few minutes later an ophthalmology resident appears and dilates my eyes with an assortment of drops.

I’ve never had an eye exam like this before. He warns me about the bright light he’ll shine directly into my dilated eye and the “poking and pushing.” Ladies let’s just say it’s like having a mammogram on your eye. Okay? And it goes on and on. Like ten years worth of mammograms in one flesh-squashing session.

Well I applaud the guy for his thoroughness and my husband for not keeling over. With his super-duper light probe, the doctor circles my retina as I aim my eyes at an imaginary clock on the ceiling.  One O’ Clock, Two O’Clock, Three O’Clock…

“I have good news for you,” he finally says…

The gel in our eyes is called the vitreous and it’s supposed to stay jello-like; but as we get older the gel begins to shrink and detach from its moorings. The retina. The official name for this is Posterior Vitreous Detachment.

Apparently I’m okay for now, although this is an interesting way to begin a new year—watching spots and goo dance across the computer screen as I write this blog. I have a feeling my new ophthalmologist and I will be having regular meet and greets from now on. Maybe the flotilla of wiggling stuff will recede. Maybe not.

So I’m keeping an eye on things. And that is not a pun. So no groaning. I’m on the lookout for fireworks (not just a little sparkler but the grand finale of the July 4th Show) and a black curtain rolling down across my visual field. That could be bad news indeed—a detached retina.

But why should I, or anyone, be surprised. Everything changes. Our points of view, our body parts… I’m grateful I can still see and do and eat and love and be loved in return.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

When I saw Frank Sinatra perform at The Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, the whole aroma of the evening burrowed into my memory. The theater is gone now and so is Frank. But after all these years I can still smell the evening.

I was one of thousands ensconsed in the darkness of this gigantic space, my eyes focused on the lone spotlight that Sinatra inhabited like he owned the sun, and when he turned his head in my direction and sang “Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you,” magic happened. Every other person in that audience disappeared. I mean “whoosh.” All that was left was Frank and me. He was singing to me. Just me.

Frank Sinatra had that ineffable “thing.” I saw it and felt it that night and certainly hear it today in his recordings. It’s like he’s talking to me and it feels like I’m part of the conversation. This is an astonishing gift of inclusion.

He is my favorite singer. That said, I would not have wanted to take him to lunch.

This is a tough one for me… Living with ambiguity, residing in the uncomfortable gray zone of life. We are all a mixed-bag of stuff and Frank certainly exemplified this. He had that enormous talent. He could be astonishingly generous but he also treated people miserably. I have read the stories and I’ve heard a couple first hand. He is not someone I would have wanted to hang out with.

I bring this perplexing contradiction of emotions to Party Night at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills. It’s Saturday, December 12 and this night is Frank Sinatra’s 100th Birthday. His son, Frank Jr., is singing with a 32-piece orchestra and telling stories about dear old dad.

I saw the advertisement for this show six months ago.

“You want to go with me?” I ask my husband.

He laughs and says “have a good time.”

So I get online, study the seating chart and claim MY SEAT. It’s second row mezzanine, as center as center can be.

The night finally arrives and with my hot ticket in hand I am swallowed in a crush of L.A.’s beautiful people. This audience is inter-generational. Young ladies are wrapped in mink stoles. Older women are wearing high heels and fashionable ensembles with expensive fabric and arrays of fancy jewelry around their necks and wrists.

I am not one of them.

I hunker down in MY SEAT, brush the lint off my jeans (well…they are nice jeans…and clean), push my unhip but totally utilitarian backpack purse under the seat, and arrange my jacket just so…like a warm pillow against my back. My nest is feathered.

I am one person in a sea of couples and groups. That’s when “they” arrive at my row. The very tall woman with the short cropped blond hair and hip blue glasses looks down at me and with stunning hubris announces that “my husband and I want to sit together. Please move over one seat.”

Are you picturing this? They purchased one ticket to my left and one ticket to my right and she wants me to move.

This is one of those moment… Too often in my life I back down, acquiesce and later flog myself for doing so. Then again, what’s the big deal, moving over one seat?

These two opposing thoughts rush through my head. But this woman has such a haughty air of entitlement that she pisses me off.

“No,” I say.

“Why not?” She snaps back.

“Because this is MY SEAT.”

In a huff, she sits to my left as her husband settles to my right and I pull my arms close to my body like a figure skater beginning her spin. I’m thinking to myself “this is going to be a LONG night.”

But the husband is an amiable guy. After a few uncomfortable moments he turns to me and asks if I know what’s going to happen at the show. Do I look like a freaking oracle?

“You like Sinatra?” I ask.

“Well my wife does.”

Oh…so the mister got dragged along for the ride.

“Well at least you are here. My husband is home. Asleep.” I laugh. We laugh.  This brief interlude softens the missus and, like that, she and I start chatting. She tells me that her parents played Sinatra records on Sunday mornings during the family breakfast. “All The Way” is her favorite song. She’s a physical therapist and makes house calls.

“What do you do?” she asks.

“I’m a musician and singer.”

“What kind”?

“The kind that gets paid.” I chirp.

She turns out to be an okay person. Not someone I’d hang out with, but okay. Both of them. And I stay in MY SEAT.

The concert begins and the adoring crowd “ooo and ahh” as Frank Jr. sings those iconic songs and the trombone wails on “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” They purr as the pictures of young Sinatra, middle-aged Sinatra and finally Sinatra on the memorial postage stamp appear on the big screen behind the orchestra. It’s a love-in.

But I’m not feeling it.

These days my adoration is tempered with a measure of ambivalence. Truth is messy. People are a complicated concoction of ingredients. We can be kind and cruel. Wise and stupid. Self-centered and open-hearted. The list goes on and on.

I’m not solving this one. Just living it.

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PROGRAM NOTE:

My ukulele group, The CC Strummers, really rocked our holiday party. My idea of a good time is getting the audience in on the fun. I put together a short video of our program. It’s two minutes and forty-eight seconds of joy. Click HERE to watch.

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2016 is looming large. Another 366 days of UNKNOWN. Leap year, it is. What makes you happy? Or content?

Good health for sure… Hanging out with people who feel like sunshine on a cloudy day? Yummy food? Homemade. A job well done, whatever it is? A solid night’s sleep or a deep dreamy afternoon nap? A clear black sky where you see wisps of the Milky Way? The husband you love? Wife? Kids? Friends? Dog? Kitty? Catching all the green lights? A place to call home, with floor, ceiling, walls, heat and pictures on the wall?

I hope you have lots of sweet moments to remember in the New Year.

I wish you all lived in Southern California.

At least for one weekend.

Next weekend. Because that’s when Torrance, a neat little town in the South Bay part of Los Angeles, becomes “ukulele central.”

I like Torrance because I like to shop. Well I call it “shopping therapy” and Torrance is bubbling over with glorious opportunities for that kind of feel-good escape. Don’t even have to buy anything. I just run my hand over the hangers and neat stacks at Kohl’s or the swell booties at Designer Shoe Warehouse.

Saturday, September 26, 2015 we can add ukulele music to the mix with The Los Angeles International Ukulele Festival. It’s a double bonus for me because my group, The CC Strummers, is opening the party at 10:00 A.M. on the big stage in the big plaza on what we hope will be a big beautiful California day.

We follow our set with a Strum Along where everyone is invited to play and sing with us. We’ll be doing play-it-by-ear songs like Jambalaya, Dream Baby, Hound Dog and more. In fact, if “C” is the only chord you can play, we’ve got a song for you!

I hope you can join us and Grab a Little Sunshine (which is the name of my song The CC Strummers just performed at our last show). Click here to watch our video on YouTube and sing along.

This festival is a bargain at $35 which includes continuous entertainment on the main stage AND all the workshops you can squeeze into your day! I’m teaching a class,” Let’s Arrange A Song on the Ukulele,” in the afternoon. After my nap…
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Coming soon! Craig’s Bionic wrist update. We visit the surgeon next week to find out how well his bones are knitting rightly with all that metal. “Fingers crossed” the doctor gives him a “thumbs up.”

Recently I did one of those heart stress tests because, well, I’m really stressed out. So I’m sitting there in the lab room as the very young and terribly sweet technician prepares to inject radioactive goo into my arm. She asks me, with all sincerity, “do you have any problem with needles?”

“Oh no,” I retort, “as long as they’re being stuck into somebody else.” Poor little thing. She believes me.

Oh what the hell. Our parts start leaking and wearing out but it sure helps to laugh a little and make music. (And yeah, I’m okay…)

Take care of yourselves!