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Oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch by thinking I’ve gotten too big for my own.
I’m fully aware I’m no video star—and that’s my point.

The title is a riff on that old 80’s song “Video Killed The Radio Star”  and how we tend to think that we need to be perfect to be creative and step out!

I had to move rooms because of the noise;
The lighting sucked;
And my computer was running out of juice.
Too bad. You know what else perfectionism kills? Spontaneity.

The show must go on. And so should yours!

Thanks for indulging me you guys!

xox

Oh yeah, there’s an outtake!

*Below you will find my latest Huffington Post essay you guys.
A reworked post from earlier this year about aging, and mothers and feeling completely unprepared for middle age.

And believe me when I say, that I know that you’d rather watch a slide show of Aunt Tilly’s vacation pictures from Bocca; than to write a comment on a fucking blog; I’d love it if you’d gush about me over at the Huffington Post. Then once I build a following, you can all go back to the anonymity of the shadows. Thank you and I love you.
xox

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/things-my-mother-forgot-to-tell-me-about-aging—-a-cautionary-tale_b_8155736.html

(This was taken during my five, um, 11, okay—15-year “awkward phase” — you can see she had her work cut out for her.)

I was reminded recently — as I continue my snarky, sweaty slog through my 50s — that I’ve done so without the guidance, advice or fair warning of my mother.

She was too busy; engaged in the parental heavy-lifting of delivering the three of us to adulthood, that it never occurred to her to share these pearls of wisdom.

So I’ll do you all the favor; pulling back the curtain to expose all the hidden truths (in no particular order), of life in middle age.

1.) Invest in a good bra, and for God’s sake, if you have anything over a D cup, don’t jog. It is for that reason alone that I have to tell the girl at Nordstrom that I wear a 36 long.

2.) Carry an across-the-shoulder messenger bag and keep the weight below 35 pounds. Yes, you heard me. I have a divot in my shoulder and the posture of a Sherpa from carrying around the kitchen sink everyday for over 40 years.

Oh, and ladies — after you stop menstruating, you can toss all the tampons. I’m giving you the all clear. I put them in my time capsule along with my Midol, my flat stomach, my perky tits and my happy-go-lucky disposition.

It’s okay — give up the fight.

3.) If someone says they’re sorry — forgive them. You may never talk to them again, or wish them well — but the forgiveness will set you free.

4.) Make eye contact and remember people’s names.

My trick? I repeat it back to them and use a rhyming game (in my head, not to their face).
Along those lines — Listen without interrupting, ask people questions about themselves and always introduce yourself and anyone standing with you.

These are the Golden Rules of any dinner party, staff meeting, black tie event or ladies restroom line — really, any social situation you may find yourself in.

5.) Use those dental-pick-thingies every night. I brush and floss like a maniac and yet I still manage to pull an entire steak dinner out from between my teeth with those things!

6.) Listen to advice but only from the smart people — never the stupid ones. Pay attention. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

7.) Word to the wise. You can forget about those mustache and chin hairs.

After 40, pubic hair will lose its genetic coding and start migrating around your body.

It will crawl up your stomach and onto the back of your legs if you let it. I tried to wrangle mine, to fill in my over-tweezed eyebrows (a ’70s fad that went horribly wrong), but to no avail. I did find one on my arm last week. Consider yourselves warned.

8.) Men stay boys all their lives. This needs no explanation.

9.) Stay curious. About people, life and the planet. It will help you to appreciate and demystify every seemingly mundane thing that surrounds you.

10.) Beach hair only looks good on 23-year-old models named Tia. The same goes for a navel piercing. Trust me on this.

11.) This is a big one. A lie is someone’s imagination working against them. Remember that.

12.) Always carry matches or a lighter. And lipstick. Always carry lipstick.

13.) You will never use calculus beyond college — but good table manners, clean fingernails and comfortable shoes will carry you far in life.

14.) Carrying (and reading) an interesting book will be an amazingly effective airplane conversation starter — and the perfect companion when dining alone.

15.) Be polite and try every food that is offered to you, (which means eat a bull testicle even if you’re a vegetarian.) It will broaden your horizons in unimaginable ways and make you a sought after dinner guest.

16.) Self-tanner is a catastrophe-in-a-can waiting to happen. Make peace with your paleness. End of story.

17.) Know that your looks will fade and reconcile yourself with that. Your neck will waddle, the hair on your head will thin, and your breasts will sag. If you decide to take matters into your own hands, make sure your surgeon has a light touch.

You still want to look like you — only rested.

19.) Pay attention to your feet. They will start to fight back after 50. All the years of squeezing them into severely pointed, one size too small, five-inch heels have made them…cranky.

Can you blame them?

20.) Take the effort to make a good first impression — you may never get a second chance.

And last but not least — reinvent. Don’t rest on you laurels, don’t question your intuition, and don’t tell yourself you’re too old, too fat, or too busy to reassess your situation and reinvent yourself.

Now pay this information forward and don’t say I never gave you anything.

It’s noon on Monday the 21st and I should be on my way to the airport as I write this. Instead, I’m eating a peach (which looks and tastes suspiciously like a cookie), and pondering the fact that we postponed, (a much more accurate and less sad-sacky word than cancelled) our motorcycle trip to Italy last week.

As I think back on the last seven days, it’s hard to deny—many, many miracles have occurred.

By Wed—Thurs of last week, almost as if by magic, reports came back from various friends and family members; “I’m feeling SO much better!” they all enthused with great…enthusiasm.

Whew, that came as such a relief.

Because they had no idea how much their health and wellbeing had been weighing on me, and the fact that I was about to go off the grid for two glorious weeks (oh, did I write that? I meant to just think it), had tied me up in knots.

So of course when we canceled, postponed the trip—everyone miraculously recovered.

Emotional shitshow on Friday—postpone trip on Saturday—Wednesday—Miraculous recoveries all around! Yeah.

By golly, isn’t that just so..so..

The same was true on hubby’s job front.
Inspectors who swore on their mother’s grave that they could not possibly show up before he left—did. These same stone-hearted men who were impervious to bribes and copious amounts of tears and shameless begging; called out of the blue—all chipper and accommodating—showed up on time the next day (gasp) and passed not only the rough electrical—but the framing as well. (You have no idea what a big, hairy deal this is. I called the Vatican to have this miracle sanctioned, only to be told the Pope is really busy right now—something about Cuba).

Anyhow, refunded vacation money started to show up in our accounts.
Wait.
What?
Refunded money you say?
I know! We even got $1000 of our motorcycle deposit back. From Italians. All the way in Italy.
Miracles #2, 3 & 4.

Long suffering lumber showed up. Drywalling commenced. Lions and lambs lay down together and I lost three pounds!
Tuesday it even rained a big, sloppy, tropical rain—in California.
Well, now you’re just showing off.
More miracles?
Will it never end?

Laughter even made a brief appearance in our home over the weekend. (Don’t get excited, it was a guffaw really—we’re not out of the woods yet).

But it sure started to feel like it.
How about this unexpected side effect? So many things started to right themselves that it made it hard for disappointment to enter the picture.

Here’s the thing you guys, we made one really hard decision.
We stopped the bleeding that was killing the lead-up to our trip.

We called it. (I’m big on doing this now when something ends because I think attention must be paid)

Our Splendid Italian Vacation. Time of Death: 8 a.m. Saturday September 12, 2015.

Another miracle? Did it resurrect in three days? Nope—The vacation will have to wait—But our life did.

It turned its badass self around and starting behaving more like our wondrous, well oiled, things-always-work-out-for-us life again.

“Things are going so well, maybe we shouldn’t have cancelled”, hubby announced over lunch on Saturday.

Is he fucking kidding?

If we hadn’t called it quits I’m convinced the shitshow would still be in town.
And if we were still flying out today—I can guarantee you that the wings would fall off the plane.

Carry on,
xox

*Recently, a couple of you emailed me about this video. Yes, I did post it—over a year and a half ago—and yes it is derived from the work of the wonderful Brene Brown.

And yes, I’m so happy to do it again!

Here it is, using the voice of the brilliant Brene Brown. It’s short, sweet and insightful.
Enjoy!

Carry on,
xox

Mind your own business. She said; the voice in my head.

Who the hell are you? I replied.

Mind your own business!
Okay! I heard what you said.

Her insistence I could not deny.

Who does that voice sound like?
I want to know who?
Shit—It sounds like my mother.
Hey, Mom, is that you?

Mind your own business.
She warned, don’t look over there;
it’s not your concern;
Why do you care?

I see some disaster;
I’m compelled to assist;
like a poor choice of lipstick;
I can hardly resist.

Mind your own business.
She said, leave your thoughts to yourself;
that’s the best piece of advice;
better than any book on a shelf.

Mind your own business.
She said, and take this advice;
keep your nose outa trouble;
don’t make me ask twice.

Goddamnit you’re bossy;
Get lost! Too-da-loo!
just who do you think you are?
Darling. I’m you.

Mind your own business this weekend you guys!
xox

What in the hell was going on? I had unwittingly been given a front-row seat to a disaster that I’d known was going to happen for a year!

Why the hell was I in Hawaii again? What was my part in this tragedy?

I never wanted to be someone who predicts disasters. Seriously Universe? Give me another job. Anything.
Something else. Something not so fucking scary.

Be careful what you wish for. Now I talk to dead people. But not the scary ones. Funny ones. The bossy but kind ones.
Thank God (Scott) for small favors.

Anyway, the local anchor came back onscreen to inform us that one of the deep ocean buoys had registered a tsunami fifteen feet high and getting larger, with a velocity of over five hundred miles per hour, headed directly toward the Hawaiian Islands.

It would get to us in five hours.
3 a.m.
Of course it was coming in the middle of the night! Fucking three a.m!
The witching hour. The time when nothing good ever happens. Oh, and by-the-way, dark water is one of my biggest fears.
I was petrified.

Ginger was feeling sick and went bed. The guys opened another bottle of wine and started playing cards, remaining lighthearted, partying while waiting for the inevitable.

I went back to our room, shivering with anxiety under the blankets, glued to the TV while the disaster siren wailed in the background.

Right around midnight they got the second buoy reading. The wave was larger and picking up speed as it headed our way.

Suddenly the intercom came on inside the condo. Nobody even knew there was an intercom connected to the main resort which was run by Marriott.

A voice cleared it’s throat.

An extremely nervous young man’s voice, shaky, cracking and squeaking, blared loudly throughout the condo. Haltingly, he instructing everyone in units below the fifth floor to evacuate to the roof. “Bring blankets…pillows…water and, um, your shoes, it’s going to be a long night”. His anxiety was palpable.

Uh, okay Voice of Authority.
Didn’t they have anyone available with a more mature tone? Something deep and fatherly? A voice that could console us and instill calm.
This kid’s voice and delivery were comical to me. In my imagination he was the pimply faced nephew of the lady who fed the stray cats behind the parking garage. One minute he was doing his calculus homework, the next, he was behind a microphone, advising hundreds of tourists during an impending disaster. He was the only one that was expendable in an emergency. Everyone important had a task.
Holy crap, he was the best they had.

Thank God something was funny.

One of trembly, squeaky, scared guy’s announcements advised us all to fill our bathtubs in order to have plenty of drinking water in case the sanitation plant was wiped out.

Intermittently he’d come back on with further instructions, Anyone with a vehicle in the lower garages, please move them to higher ground behind the main hotel, he advised, sounding as if he were on the verge of tears.

Not long afterwards I heard voices, car keys, and the front door slam as the guys went to move our cars.

In the dark from our balcony, I watched the groundskeepers running around like headless chickens rushing to clear the sand and pool surround of hundreds chairs. Then they emptied the rental hut with its kayaks, snorkels and fins, inner tubes and dozens of surf and boogie boards.

If you watch the Thailand tsunami videos it is those seemingly innocuous beach toys that become deadly projectiles in fast-moving water. You may not immediately drown, but a surf board or a beach chair coming at you at hundreds of miles an hour will kill you for sure.

It was too much. The destruction in Japan was too much for me to handle.
I watched multi-story buildings get washed away like they were kids toys. We were so close to the water. Could our building withstand the rush of the initial wave? How high up would the water come?
The third floor, the fourth—or higher? What was going to happen?

I turned off the TV, the room was dark and quiet and instantly I felt a drop in my anxiety level. You can get sucked into the endless loop of death and destruction—its like a drug.

I unhooked the CNN IV, grabbed my phone, inserted my ear buds, pulled up a meditation, and started to calm my nervous system down. Slow…deep…breathing. In…and out… after a few minutes I could feel my shoulders drop and my face relax. I’d been unconsciously clenching my jaw for hours.

My mind started to unwind. The siren went way, fading into the distance, the boy’s terrified voice becoming a muffled form of white noise.
I actually relaxed into a half sleep state. Aware of my surroundings, but extremely relaxed.

The meditations came to an end. Silence. I was still okay.
No longer spinning in fear. No longer afraid.
“What’s going to happen, how bad will this be?” I asked no one in particular.
Just a question I needed answered.

Here’s where the magic happened.

A very loving, clear and calm voice answered back:
What do you want to happen? How bad do you want it to be?

What? I get a vote? This answer left me flabbergasted. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this felt extraordinary.

Somehow, instinctively I knew that I couldn’t say make the tsunami go away—there are some things we are powerless to change.
What I could change was MY experience of it. What did I want to happen to me, to us?

Script it the voice said, and that has changed my life.

Okay…I said in my head, remembering the videos from Thailand, you can come up to the palm trees that line our pool area and define the boundary between the beach and our resort. That’s it. To the palm trees only, not into the pool and not into our resort.

No further conversation was needed. No idle chit-chat, no more Q & A.

I fell asleep. A deep sleep rich with meaningful dreams that I can’t remember
Inside one, a muffled voice that felt like it was underwater warned: Stay away from the ocean, Do NOT get near the water, We are on lockdown, stay inside your rooms.

It must be happening crossed my mind, but I was too deep to care.

Only as far as the palm trees…up to the palm trees…

When I finally opened my eyes I could see daylight. Raphael was asleep next to me and I could smell coffee.
Obviously the tsunami had come and gone—and everything seemed…normal.

These are pictures of the waterline the tsunami left behind. It is still waaaaay up the beach at this point, about three hours after it came ashore. It surged forty feet UP the beach, over dry sand, and stopped right at the palm trees that line the pool, and our resort.

Script it. Imagine it. Feel it. Ask for it. Relax.

That proved to me, without a doubt, that we can script our circumstances. There are things we can’t control, but there are so many that we can.

Get calm, and set boundaries. How bad/good do you want it to be? What do you want to happen?

We have control over our immediate circumstances.
Script it.

This changed my life–I hope it changes yours.

Carry on,
xox

IMG_0914 (check it out)

I wrote about this a long time ago, but I’m going to tell it again.
Partly because there are so many new readers, and also because its come up a lot lately—and besides, it’s a fuckin’ great story.(*Also because as of tonight 9/16/15 there is another tsunami watch in the Hawaiian Islands after a large earthquake in Chile).

If you’ve heard it before, go make yourself a sandwich. And don’t give away the ending.

In the spring of 2010 I went to Hawaii with my friend Wes to get some clarity about which direction I should take my life after Atik (my store) died.

Oh who am I kidding. We went to drink Mai Tais, eat like escaped death row convicts, sit on the white sands of Waikiki Beach all day gossiping and people watching—and get massages.

All we did was laugh. Well, he laughed, I cried—then he laughed at my crying. Then I cry-laughed. It was wet and sloppy. Lots of running mascara and snot-bubbles.
You get the picture.

About mid-way through our seven-day trip I got the sense there was going to be a tsunami.
You know—like you do…
That evening when Wes met me at the bar for happy hour I voiced my concern. “I want to move to a higher room in our hotel. I think there’s going to be a tsunami and I’m not going to be safe on the second floor.”

“Did you start without me? How many drinks have you had?” he was laughing, flagging down a waiter in order to join this crazy party he figured I’d already started.
“I’m serious. You’re on the third floor, but I’m not even sure that’s high enough. Let’s look into moving.”
All I could see in my mind’s eye were those horrible videos from the tsunami in Thailand.

His eyes said: Have you lost your mind? But in order to calm my fears he immediately whipped out his phone and started to look up Hawaiian tsunami.

“The earliest on record was reported in 1813 or 1814 — and the worst occurred in Hilo in 1946, killing 173 people.” he was reading a Wikipedia page.
“So it happens kind-of-never; and I’m okay with those odds.” He raised his drink for a toast “To surviving that rarest of all disasters—the Hawaiian tsunami” We clinked glasses as he shook his head laughing at my continued squirminess.

“But if it does happen, which it could, ‘cause you’re pretty spooky that way— it will be one hell of a story”.

The first week of March the following year, 2011, our great friends, the ones who ride the world with us on motorcycles, asked if we wanted to join them at their condo in Maui. I was printing our boarding passes before I hung up the phone; you don’t have to ask me twice to drop everything and go to Hawaii.

On the beautiful drive from the airport to Lahaina, the air was warm and thick with just a hint of the fragrance of rain as we wove our way in and out of the clouds that play peek-a-boo with the sun all day on the Hawaiian Islands. With a view of the lush green mountains formed from the ever-present volcanos to the right, and the deep blue Pacific churning wildly to our left, that place really felt like Paradise Lost.

That’s when it hit me. I turned down the radio of the rental car that was blaring some five-year old, Top Forty song.
“We’re going to have a tsunami.” I announced.
It didn’t feel like if — it felt like when. A certainty.
“I think we’re more likely to have a volcanic eruption than a tsunami.” my hubby replied nonchalantly, turning the radio volume back up.

Damn I love my husband. He cohabitates with all the voices in my head without batting an eye. Most men would run for the hills.
He just stays rational. A volcanic eruption in the Hawaiian Islands is…the rational supposition.
God love him.

I had never mentioned my premonition from the trip the previous year—too odd; but I let loose for the remainder of the drive, wondering aloud about what floor their condo was on and worrying if it would it be high enough. Neither of us had any idea and I for one breathed a sigh of relief when the answer came via text. The sixth floor. Their condo was on the sixth floor, overlooking the pool, facing the ocean.

We spent the next week eating and drinking amazing food and wine, snorkeling, swimming, driving around, and whale watching. As a matter of fact the ocean outside of our resort was a veritable whale soup.

There is a passage between Maui, Lanai, and Molokai (both which we could see in the distance), that the whales like to use instead of the open ocean, and we could see them breeching from our balcony. They were present in high numbers and especially active. It was extraordinary. The guys on the whale watching boats agreed with our friends—they’d never seen a year like that one.

Two days before our departure, on the eleventh, it all seemed to come to a screeching halt.

The ocean was as passive as a lake. I hiked down the beach to a cove that was supposed to be like “swimming in a tropical fish tank”—nothing. Literally no fish. People kept remarking how odd it seemed. The guys on the whale watching catamarans were perplexed. Suddenly,no whales.

That night after my shower I turned on the TV in our room for the first time the entire trip. I’m still not sure why.
We made dinner in that night and I was just the right amount of sunburned, buzzed, full and sleepy.
As I got dressed and dried my hair I casually flipped around the channels. American Idol, Baywatch re-runs, CNN. Then I saw it.

The bright red BREAKING NEWS banner at the bottom of the screen: Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami.

I screamed something incoherent as I ran out into the family room, half-dressed, knocking things over, becoming hysterical.
“You guys, Turn on the TV! Oh my God! Turn on the TV!” I grabbed the remote, but it looked like something that powers the International Space Station, so I threw it toward my husband.

“Oh, I don’t want to watch TV…” I heard someone say, but Raphael could tell something was wrong. He said later it felt like 911 when everyone was calling and the only thing they could manage to say was: turn on the TV!

“CNN. Find CNN!” I was so freaked out I could barely speak.

When the images came up on that big screen HD TV they were even more terrifying.
It was a helicopter shot, high above the coastline of a small city. There was a wave with a white cap as far as the eye could see. it looked like it spanned almost the entire coastline and it was headed straight for cars, boats, houses…and people.

Now we were all transfixed. Silently glued to the screen with the frantic sounding Japanese commentary running in the background. This was all happening LIVE.

The CNN anchor sounded reassuring, telling us that Japan had one of the most advanced tsunami warning systems on the planet. Sirens had started sounding a few minutes after the large off-shore earthquake, warning the population to make their way to their pre-determined evacuation points on higher ground.

We watched in horror as churning brown water began rushing onshore with a ferocity that was nauseatingly familiar.
It just kept coming and coming. Undeterred by the breakwater…and the thirty foot wall they had built to withstand a tsunami.

“God, I hope they had enough time” I whispered.

Suddenly the CNN picture was minimized as the anchor’s face for the local Maui station took up the entire rest of the screen.
“Good evening”, he read off the cue card, “The entire Hawaiian Islands have been placed on tsunami watch due to the large earthquake off the coast of northern Japan. We will keep you posted as scientists get the readings off of the tsunami buoys that dot the span of the Pacific Ocean from the coast of Japan to the west coast of North America. If it looks like a tsunami is coming our way, the watch will turn into a warning.” He swallowed awkwardly, “Stay with us for further instructions.”

The screen was again filled with the escalating destruction in Japan.

I started to shake uncontrollably, my eyes filling with tears.

I saw him flinch out of the corner of my eye. It got my attention and when I looked his way his face looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
With the remote still in his hand, my husband turned toward me slowly, deliberately.
His mouth dropped open, his eyes were full of…questions.

Then with no sound; his eyes locked on mine; he mouthed my prophesy from earlier that week: We’re going to have a tsunami.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

The shrill wailing of the Disaster Alert Siren brought us both back to reality.
It was official—the tsunami was imminent.

To Be Continued…

IMG_0910 (watch this)

https://youtu.be/Rzu6zeLSWq8

Here’s to the crazy ones.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
~Apple Ad 1997

Carry on you crazy ones,
xox

When you hold a book up next to your face on video; a book on surrender, and you tell all of your readers how you’re committing, to the best of your ability, to live your life that way — to let the “Hand of Life” call all the shots—said life immediately turns into a three-ring traveling shitshow and you end up canceling your Italian motorcycle vacation at the last-minute.

Yep. So that’s how I spent my Saturday. Canceling plane reservations, hotel rooms and motorcycle rentals.

It was the next logical step. All hell was breaking loose on several of my husband’s construction jobs and we couldn’t in good conscience, just leave town.

Arrivederci! See ya in two weeks!
Yeah, not gonna happen.

I saw it coming, (if i’m honest with myself; which I almost never am), about three weeks ago.
Everything that could go wrong—did.

But you know how you’ve made deposits—both financially and emotionally? Ones that you just can’t bring yourself to give up?

So we stayed the course until there was flaming hair, crying and name-calling (those were his clients, not me), and ended up canceling at the worst possible time. The last-minute.

So. What would I do differently, if I had it to do over again?

That’s just it. Nothing.

I called bullshit every step of the way. You know, like a good wife does.

My French husband, bucking the stereotype, refused to surrender.
Alas, there are two of us in this couple, and he sincerely thought he could make things right before our departure date. He is a magician after all, always pulling rabbits out of hats.
But as that date drew near, “The Hand of Life”, depending on where you were standing, either made the decision easier for us—or gave us the finger.

It’s still too soon to tell.

I can honestly say that at this very moment I’m not disappointed in the least. (Check with me in a week when I should be lounging on the Amalfi coast, tanned, drunk, and being attended to by a handsome waiter named Marco.)

Surrender. Who in the hell said this was a good way to live? Oh yeah, that would be me.

So you guys, here’s what I learned from this:

All the sleepless nights;

All the 3 a.m. walks around the block to clear his head;

All the angst filled conversations;

All the lists of pro’s and con’s;

All the endless vacillating.

All of that misery came from fighting the inevitable.

And after the surrender came a tiny nugget of a gift. Instead of disappoint; I feel peace. (I’m not sure my partner’s there yet. He still has a lot of magic to perform).

Carry on,
xox

The way the energy’s been lately this felt good for a Sunday.
‘nuf said.

Carry on,
xox