Dogs, more dogs and the pellet of youth

Bitter Root pottery was fun this week, though I found out that my old pottery classes, the Berman Ceramic Studio owners, Kitty and Harry came to scout out the place. Thank goodness I wasn’t there as I had told them I was coming back in the autumn and was having a break. That’ll teach me not to lie.

I’m making pottery hanging pieces with quotes from famous films, such as ‘You complete me’ and ‘Play it again Sam’. I may make some more to raise money for either choir or even the Animal Sanctuary.

There was a new student working there who was lovely called Fred and he told me all about living in Taiwan and going to an American school there. His mum lived all over the world and was Taiwanese American. It was lovely to talk to him and we shared our difficulties of being new to USA life, including weights, temperature and measurements.

Driving here is different not only with the obvious things, but it’s also in the attitude of the drivers. There appears to be very little courteous driving. For example, if there is a gap and you are indicating they will always speed up to close the gap. Numerous times I’ve been in stationary traffic and indicating to pull over and people will almost be bumper to bumper edging forward trying not to look at you. I beep my horn and make hand gestures (no, not rude ones) which sometimes terrifies Mark, as he says they may have a gun. The funny thing is that they are like this in the Aqua class too….’its my space and you can’t get in it’.

My Choir sister Sue invited me to be guest on the committee meeting, which was great to be part of and I was asked to give ideas of how to gain and keep new members. Choir leader Monica had a great idea of painting rocks with our information on the underside which we could place all over the community. We are getting together to paint them shortly.

I also met up with another choir member Jeanne for a breakfast meeting in a lovely restaurant called CiCi’s in Westlake, about what to cook for the Casino night in September. The menu there is amazing with the first 10 pages offering pancakes, waffles and crepes every which way….

After chatting to her about the Casino Night, I’m afraid I may have over sold my abilities, as she is clearly a fantastic cook and there were very high expectations for sure. I may have to practice a few of the dishes before then as we are cooking for over 100 people – why did I say yes? 😊

I had my follow up appointment with Gyno Gary – Doctor Ott, to go over the results from my armful of blood. The whole experience was much better with the helper/nurse actually wearing a uniform this time, making me feel that I was in a real surgery. The results were on about 4 pages of notes – I’m normal and healthy he said, but leaned forward and almost gripped my hand as he said in a sympathetic voice, but your oestrogen and testosterone levels are extremely low and they were. Gyno Gary told me that I was going to live until 90 years old ( wow the rest of my bloods must have looked good!) He said I am only half way through my life and it’s not over yet. He said I can feel like I did in my 20s!!!! $3 a day to feel young again……He then asked me ‘Do you still chase your husband up the stairs’- 'I never chased him' I said, 'but we have no troubles in that department!!' 🤣

It appears the patches I am on are doing very little now and my feeling better was caused by will power along with my not being in full time work. I still sometimes get very tired, still have difficulty losing the weight, still get some bad hot flushes, although I thought it was just the heat here and still sometimes sleep badly. So after a long chat and then a read through all the notes and research online (there is a lot and Oprah’s videos are good), I’m going for the pellet of youth….BioTE….. I’ll keep you posted. The whole conversation made me think about how I was feeling before I left the UK, in that I felt I was onto the old and last chapter of my life and heading for retirement. I am having a good time here, but maybe a little of that was still there. So, time for a new haircut too, as Ive always wanted to go pinky red, so here goes! After all Huge (spelling mistake on purpose) Jackman is nearly the same age as me and look at him….mmmm look at him 😊

Sorry for the menopausal details to the men and younger ladies who may read this, but let me tell you, the menopause can be all consuming and it’s a battle for ladies of a certain age to feel good about themselves. I remember chatting at a work UK dinner party about hot flushes with a lady friend opposite me who was experiencing similar things and then a younger colleague loudly made fun of me for mentioning it, making me feel terrible. You will all experience this in some form, through your partners/wives or you yourself.

I was sent a new Meet Up group called Deliberate Creators: Law of Attraction & Vibrational Mastery in Woodland Hills, just down the road from us, which initially looked very interesting, although the vibrational aspect was bordering on a meet up group involved in some sort of sex act….. Here is the blurb….’What would you say if I told you, that the only thing that’s getting in the way of you attracting all that you desire, is ONE vibrational shift! Becoming a conscious creator is one of the biggest keys when utilizing the Universal Law of Attraction. The second key, however, is understanding how your personal energetic frequencies work...and whether they are working with you or against you! Hello there,...’

After a further read – yes, I did click to find out more – Diego said, in his writeup, to join him in ‘Self Improvement and Self Empowerment by fine tuning our manifesting skills through easy and fun, yet very powerful, Law of Attraction exercises and techniques. My intention for this Meetup is to create a high vibrational environment’, although he later adds that we would need to do a ‘clearing’ so as to clear negativity……

Mark and I feel this is probably Scientology which is prevalent here, although I haven’t actually met anyone who admits they are a Scientologist, apart from the beautiful, young people (actors) standing outside the Scientologist ‘Church’ in funny little suits on Hollywood Boulevard handing out leaflets.

I caught the end of Bohemian Rhapsody on HBO with the Live Aid concert and remembered where I was when it was happening. I think Mark and I were waiting for a car ferry to France with my sister Maeve, ready to go on a road trip across France and Holland . We had the BBC Radio programme on very loud, along with everyone else in the queue and we were all wishing we were there. It was a magical time when we all felt unified in doing something about the terrible famine, we’d all seen on the news. We really felt empowered and the following year, Mark and I ran in the charity ‘Ran the World’ for the same cause. We felt we could make a difference. It was about kindness and empathy for people around the world - looking outwards and not inwards and not about the 'it's mine' mentality. The UK was so proud then, with ‘We are the Champions’, the Queen song, being an especially moving moment, because in that moment we felt we were…..how far we have come…. ???

In Steph’s Aqua class on Friday, there is a couple who go every week and it was their anniversary, so we stopped the class and cheered while they had a kiss – so sweet. A few ladies ( not me) debates with Steph as to why the class couldn’t be extended to a 2 hour class. Steph said that 24 Hour Fitness wouldn’t allow it as they said that it wasn’t healthy to stay in the pool that long (there are posters all over the walls saying that swimming in the pools may cause cancer!!!). In fact, their argument was that we’d all end up like prunes. One of my favourite ladies, who talks all through the class and makes jokes, shouted out, ‘but don’t they know we are all prunes already’, which had us all crying with laughter. We carried on exercising singing loudly to the soundtrack which included ‘Wild Thing!’ Love this class!

On my way to pottery I walk past the Costco outside café, which sells hotdogs – well I couldn’t resist last Friday and joined one of the queues. There was a man in the queue having a go at a Mexican lady about her chihuahua dog with a service jacket on, saying that the dog was sniffing around his legs, which he didn’t like and why was it a service dog. He was relishing the argument and she was saying to him that it was none of his business, but he kept on criticising her. I was incensed. Trumps vile rhetoric just shows people that it is OK to be rude to people. He was looking around for others to back him, but people were either looking away, or like me staring at him. I wanted him to catch my eye for sure. She was at the same level as me and when we’d both been served, I walked in her direction. Unbelievably, he started again as I was in front of him, so I turned to face him and said in my most Mary Poppins clipped English and loud voice,’ You leave her alone, you nasty, nasty man!’ He looked so shocked which was a lovely thing to see and said nothing back. I stormed off saying to the lady, I’m sorry that happened to you and then sat and ate my hotdog, hoping that he didn’t follow me.

,We had a lovely dinner party at the weekend with some of Mark’s workmates. We had a great time comparing British and American life. They brought up the difference between the police and talked about the US police aggression. I have to say there are so many stories about the police here always going for the aggressive stance, I am nervous about being stopped, although to be painfully truthful, I am less likely to be stopped as a white woman. I told them about my New Years Eve experience in London, where at the end of the evening, the police had ‘kettled’ us into certain streets. Mark and I were with my mum, our 3 kids and a French family who also had a baby in a pram. I had that wave of indignation and fearlessness I get (the same wave as in the hotdog Costco queue) when in that instance, I wanted to protect those I was with and so I approached the line of police finding the older looking policeman and demanded he let us through, asking for his badge number and saying we were being treated like cattle not human beings. The American guests said they wouldn’t dare speak to any US police like that in fear of guns being drawn. I now know what position to be in when stopped by the police in the car….you have to keep your hands visible at the top of the wheel, until they tell you to find your license. You then have to tell them that you are going for your ‘purse’/ handbag….all pretty scary if you ask me.

At the Animal Sanctuary this week I took part in the first level 1 dog walking training with the smaller dogs. We met the gorgeous smaller dogs and learnt how to carefully pick them up so as to not get bitten, as well as how to hold the lead to walk them. We looked at their body language as well, which was really interesting.

Charla showed us how to walk the larger dogs too, which did look a little daunting as there are some very large strong dogs there. She showed us one of my favourites a very cute pit bull called Pinto. He is one of the ones who is always wagging his tail and sits immediately for treats. We all got to have a go at walking him on the lead and I got top marks. 😊

Very sad news to finish with this week’s blog, with a local shooting, just up the road from us in Canoga Park, Woodland Hills area. A man killed his family, then took his gun onto a bus and shot someone, then shot someone at a petrol station. The other story was at a food festival in California where a young white man used an assault rifle that he purchased legally in neighbouring Nevada, killing 3 people including a six-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl. Fifteen people were also injured. It was hardly on the news, being only mentioned for one day, as there are presidential debates coming up on TV. It was hardly on Facebook either. It is completely incomprehensible to me that a 19 year old young man is able to buy a gun over the counter and then go to a family event and shoot people without more public outrage.

It is almost as if the country looked sad for a few moments, then just shrugged and moved on....