LONG DISTANCE PARENTING – BY ELLIN CURLEY

01/20/202001/15/2020 / Ellin Curley / 7 Comments

I’ve had a long-distance friendship with Christine, who lives in London, for close to 50 years. I learned how to stay in close touch before texting and emails and Skype existed and when long-distance phone calls cost a fortune. I learned to appreciate how short but intense visits, living in each other’s homes and traveling together could create an intimacy that no amount of shared dinners can equal. I understand the emotional connection forged by sharing the little, everyday moments. This bond can withstand both time and distance.

: Christine and me in 1974

: CHristine and me in 1985 with my newborn daughter, Sarah

: Christine and her husband and me and my husband in 1996

Now I have the same kind of long-distance relationship with my daughter, Sarah, who lives in LA. Like with Christine, our relationship is one of the extremes – extreme distance punctuated by periods of intense togetherness. For most of the year, we communicate via text and phone. Then, for periods of ten days to three weeks, we live together and spend all our time together. My daughter and I have learned to enjoy different types of sharing and appreciate our own combination of relationship modalities.

Thanks to modern technology, Sarah and I can share the major and minor events of the day with both words and photos. I can tell her if a dress she’s trying on looks good and she can help me decide which outfit to wear tonight. We text our reactions to TV shows we both watch and I can also give her hourly reports when her sister-in-law was having surgery.

Sarah and me a few years ago.

My daughter hates the phone so we don’t talk that often, but once we’re on the phone, we have long, rambling conversations hopping from one topic to another. To me, it’s almost as good as sitting together with a cup of tea.

Then she comes to visit. She’d been going to UCLA for the past two years to get a certification in Interior Design, so she’s been able to come east at least twice a year for two to three weeks at a time between semesters. What a joy! We are together 24/7 and do everything together. She comes to the supermarket with me and I take her dress shopping. We watch TV, play with the dogs, visit with friends and family, hang out with Tom, play gin and double solitaire and laugh a lot.

Sarah, a few years ago

Sarah loves to tackle major projects when she’s home, like the hoard of photos and papers that were sitting in boxes in the attic. Now everything is organized and labeled in plastic, mouse-proof containers. That project took two visits to complete. This holiday season, her project was to create 14 photomontages (on a special photoshop program) representing different phases of our family history from my grandparents’ youths to the present. She had to go through all my photo albums and search through all the photos I have on the computer. Then she had to see which photo-combinations worked well together in the montage. The result is amazing!

Sarah and her brother on one of her recent visits.

There is something about this kind of mundane sharing that creates and/or reinforces strong bonds. In fact, I probably spend more hours a year physically with my daughter in LA than with my son who lives one and a half hours away. This is similar to the difference I see between my local and my long-distance friends. The intense time I spent with Christine, in our homes and traveling together, with and without our children through the years, forged a strong and different kind of bond than the ones I have with my local friends.

With local friends, we go to dinner and hang out at each other’s homes, but we never share the day to day details of life. We never wake up and see each other before coffee and brushing teeth and hair. We don’t see each other’s daily routines. It’s like the difference between dating someone and living with them. NOTE: My local friends have changed over the years, with people moving in and out of my life regularly. But my friend in Germany has been in my life for 35 years, one friend in London for 35 years and the other for 50. I do have US friends for that long, but it’s a small percentage.

So I’ve learned to accept and appreciate different kinds of relationships. I would definitely prefer to have my daughter live closer so I could see her more frequently. But I can also see the benefit of our intense periods of togetherness. I know we can maintain our incredible closeness over time this way, so I can be grateful for that. This is the silver lining of our cross country existence.

Sarah, Tom and I have planned a trip to London in April of 2020 and we’ll be staying with Christine for five days. It’ll be like old times! I’ll get to live with my long-distance friend and my long-distance daughter at the same time. I can’t wait!

Christine and me in 2013

WOULD YOU PLEASE ANSWER THAT PHONE? – BY ELLIN CURLEY

01/18/202001/18/2020 / Ellin Curley / 27 Comments

The world can be divided in many ways – Republicans vs. Democrats, religious people vs. non religious people, cat people vs. dog people. Here’s another way – people who love the phone vs. people who hate it.

I love talking on the phone. I have many close friends who live far away now and it’s the next best thing to spending time with them in person. You can have real conversations that drift from one topic to the next. You can even interrupt each other! You don’t get the subtleties of body language that you get in person, but you’re actually engaging with the real person. You can remember why you loved this person in the first place.

Another important advantage of phones is laughter. We can hear our friends laugh at our jokes and our friends can hear us laugh at theirs. We get to laugh TOGETHER, which is huge. Laughter is a powerful bond. Most women list a sense of humor as one of the things they most value in a man. Sharing laughter is one of the great joys in life. You can’t get it in a text. Typing LOL is not the same thing!

When I was dating online, I discovered that liking someone’s emails was NOT a good indicator that I would like them in person. But liking someone on the phone gave me a pretty good chance that I would like them in person. That’s when I fully realized that writing and talking are on two separate planes.

Talking is personal. It reveals personality and connects people on an emotional, visceral level. You get most of what you get when you are physically with someone.

Emailing may tell you the writing style of the person but not their speaking style or their personal “je ne sais quoi.” In texting, people tend to write shortened sentences with abbreviations and even Emojis. So you don’t even get the “voice” or writing style of the person. The time lag with texts also annoys me. Write then wait. Read then write. Rinse and repeat.

Try watching a movie or TV show and hit pause for twenty seconds after each person speaks. Not very gratifying. In fact, it will probably drive you crazy.

To me, texting is great for short, immediate communications. Like: “In traffic. Running 15 minutes late.” OR “What time do you want us for dinner?” Otherwise, not really communications.

Nevertheless, I understand that some people are just not phone people. My daughter is a phonophobe. She would rather talk for an hour every few weeks and text in between to stay in touch. My mother hated the phone. When I was growing up, she would have me call people to change or cancel appointments for her so she would not get “stuck” talking on the phone.

My husband, Tom, is also not a phone person. When we were dating, it didn’t even occur to him to talk on the phone the nights we weren’t seeing each other. Once I started the pattern, he was fine with it. But he wouldn’t have done it on his own.

I think the younger generations are growing up totally immersed in texting and internet communications. They may never learn the pleasure you can get from a long phone conversation with a friend. They may not even have long conversations in person anymore either. From what I hear, kids spend time online even when they are really with other people. The art of the conversation may be dying out altogether.

I guess I shouldn’t be worrying about fewer people talking on the phone. I should be worrying about fewer people talking to each other. At all!

OVERCOMING MY NEWS ADDICTION – By ELLIN CURLEY

01/13/202001/13/2020 / Ellin Curley / 12 Comments

I confess. I became a news addict. A true junkie.

The first thing I did every morning is to reach for the phone and check out the Washington Post to see what Trump has done while I was sleeping. The headlines tell me whether I’m going to have a peaceful day focused on my own life, or a stressful day glued to the 24-hour news shows on TV.

My husband, Tom, is worse than I am. He has MSNBC on the TV or his computer playing in the background, if not the foreground, pretty much all day. He only takes a breather when he’s playing video games or Beat Saver (an exercise game). On a big news day, we often drop everything and watch one pundit heavy show after another. I’m not proud of this but it seems to make me feel more in control – like I actually have a handle on what’s going on. I am clearly suffering from Trump Trauma and Anxiety, which is a form of PTSD that psychiatrists are calling a real syndrome that they see regularly in their practices.

I didn’t think I’d be able to break my news habit. On some days I wondered how I had survived before 24-hour cable news came into being. When I had to run errands or have lunch with a friend, I’d listen to MSNBC on the radio and grill Tom when I got home to catch up on anything I might have missed while trying to have a life. I’m exaggerating a little, but unfortunately, not that much.

Weekends were not looked forward to but dreaded. We’re retired so the only difference for us between weekdays and weekends is that we can see our friends who work on the weekends and the cable news shows are mostly repeats. So we don’t get our weekday news fixes. We manage to get through most weekends without any ill effects, though we do long for our regular news anchor friends to return on Monday. Did I mention that I can tell what time it is by which anchor is hosting the MSNBC show of the moment? And I can do this from just the voices – I don’t even have to look at the TV! Again, not something I’m proud of, but there it is.

Then my daughter came to visit from LA for three glorious weeks in December. I didn’t realize that she would be my own personal twelve-step program. I wanted to spend every minute I could with her and she is well informed but not a news junky. So I had to go cold turkey. During the days we hung out, went visiting, shopping, and did projects around the house.

I played lots of gin and double solitaire. In the car, the radio was set to a music channel, not the news. In the evenings, we binge-watched Amazon and Netflix series and watched movies – no news. Not even my favorite, Rachel Maddow. I was having such a good time with Sarah, I didn’t miss the news at all. I noticed that when Tom mentioned some new development and I had no clue what he was talking about, I didn’t care!

“So this is how normal people live,” I thought.

Many of my Facebook friends are also Progressive/Liberal. They religiously keep abreast of what’s happening in the world and we regularly share articles of interest. We also share our outrage about Trump and what he is doing to our country. So I found myself skipping Facebook for days at a time. I got my daily quota of cute animal videos on YouTube.

My news blackout was complete, except for my morning survey of the newspaper headlines. I limited my reading to the headlines and didn’t read any articles.

Sarah and me, December 2019

I wish I could say my three-week detox program had a lasting positive effect on my behavior and my outlook. Or on my habits and my psyche. But it’s too early to tell. I do feel a bit calmer and more positive. Without the daily dose of man’s venality, mendacity, and hypocrisy, my general outlook may have a chance to revert to normal, which is sunnier and less pessimistic.

This is all good.

Sarah has only been gone for a short time and I haven’t watched cable news yet or obsessively read article after article in the papers. My radio in my car is still set to the ‘Broadway’ channel and I’ve decided to get back into baking when I see friends, instead of buying desserts as I have been doing for several years. Baking used to be something I loved, but since I was on Prednisone for over a year and a half and gained ten pounds, I have been on a constant diet and stayed away from cooking and baking as much as possible.

Now though, I wanted the fun of baking again. Of sharing my desserts with friends. I’ve also started working on updating my photo albums – a humongous task involving close to a thousand photos spanning sixteen years.

I see my new interest in these projects and activities as a way to enhance my life apart from the news. It’s good to focus on everyday things that I enjoy doing and bring my daily life back to ‘my’ world and not the national and international world represented by the news. I’m going to work on doing my own thing more and worrying less about our society and the planet plunging into darkness.

I hope my new perspective lasts past the next Trump crisis!

KINDNESS IS NEVER OBSOLETE – BY ELLIN CURLEY

01/06/202012/20/2019 / Ellin Curley / 17 Comments

I wrote a blog recently about Fred Rogers and his show, “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” I focused on how he helped generations of parents be better, more empathetic and connected with their children. Since then, I’ve read many articles about Mr. Rogers because of the newly released documentary about Fred Rogers and the movie starring Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers. Both movies have had good audiences and great reviews.

Mr. Rogers movie

Mr. Rogers documentary

On November 27, 2019,, I saw an article in the Washington Post titled, “What Happened When I Showed Vintage Mr. Rogers To My 21^st Century Kids.” Then on December 2, I read another article, also in the Washington Post, celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Sesame Street and it’s receipt of the Kennedy Center Honors – the first TV show to ever receive this award.

These two articles made me think about how today’s kids relate to these two classic kids shows from a kinder, simpler time. Fred Rogers retired from his show in 2001 so he never had to deal with the iPhone, social media and video game obsessed kids of today. But Sesame Street is still going strong, which is a tribute to the evergreen concept of the show.

Mr. Rogers and one of his signature puppets

Both shows are firmly rooted in an understanding of early childhood development, cognitive psychology, and curriculum design. Both shows understand how children think and react at a young age, so they know how to speak to the children’s concerns, interests, and fears, on their own level. Both shows are rooted in kindness and acceptance. Their worlds are inhabited by empathetic, caring characters but these characters have to learn how to deal with others who aren’t always nice.

Kids are told in these shows that they have the ability to be good people but they also have the strength and confidence to handle whatever happens in their lives. These lessons are eternal, so they still appeal even to the social media immersed kids of today.

The aforementioned Mr. Rogers article documents the accidental exposure of the writer’s kids to old Mr. Rogers Shows. The writer, Mary Pflum Peterson, was tasked to produce a national TV segment on Mr. Rogers in connection with the release of the Fred Rogers documentary. She wanted to binge-watch hundreds of old shows and get representative clips of some of the classic Mr. Rogers moments.

Mary has four young children but assumed that the show was a part of a bygone era that would not resonate, or even hold the attention of today’s short attention span kids. Her children had previously dissed vintage music, like Madonna and Springsteen as boring and called their parents’ favorite childhood movies like ‘ET’ and ‘Karate Kid’, too slow. So she didn’t even ask her kids to watch Mr. Rogers with her.

Then something shocking happened. The kids drifted into the room where Mary was watching ‘Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood’. And they became immediately entranced. “Who is that nice man?” they wanted to know.

Then, “Can we watch with you?”

To their mother’s surprise, after each episode, they asked to watch another. The two slightly older kids also started to watch episode after episode – for days on end. The kids applied modern technology to their newfound passion. They used their iPads and their mom’s laptop to pull up old Mr. Rogers shows and then created a playlist, ranking their favorite episodes.

Mary asked her children what appealed to them about the show and discovered that it’s all about the man, Fred Rogers. “He likes kids, Mommy,” said one. “And he’s not too loud. When we watch him, we don’t have to worry about anything.”

Another child described Mr. Rogers as “…the one who makes people feel better.”

So it boils down to kindness, calmness, and sincerity. Even in a fast-moving world that is often noisy and chaotic, kids are drawn to and reassured by what is real and what is kind.

These same qualities have kept Sesame Street in business for 50 years. Its goal is still to make kids grow up stronger, smarter, kinder and more accepting. Sesame Street fosters the same thing as Mr. Rogers – a sense of belonging for everyone based on acceptance and inclusion for everyone. Acceptance of people who are different has continued to be a major theme on Sesame Street through the years.

To adapt to the modern era, Sesame Street has become brighter and a bit faster and ‘zippier’. The set is cleaner and spiffier and there’s a recycling bin next to Oscar the Grouch’s trashcan. There’s also a community garden and Hooper’s store serves birdseed smoothies. The songs have also taken on a more modern tone, like a catchy R&B riff on self-assurance.

Most importantly, the show is still helping kids cope honestly with difficult issues, like the incarceration of a parent, the deployment of a family member and the aftermaths of hurricanes and other natural disasters. In 2017 they introduced a character, Julia, who has autism so as to address the increasing number of kids being diagnosed on the spectrum and to demystify the condition.

Michelle Obama celebrating the Sesame Street Anniversary

Kids still want to touch and talk to the Muppet puppets wherever they go for public appearances. The kids ask them questions and listen intently to the answers. They still feel comforted by this kind and accepting characters who help make the world a little less confusing and scary.

Just like Mr. Rogers, who still also appeals to young children everywhere. So I guess young kids haven’t changed that much over the past 50 years.

VIOLENCE, VIOLENCE! – BY ELLIN CURLEY

12/30/201912/09/2019 / Ellin Curley / 33 Comments

My husband is a sweet and gentle man. He is not aggressive and doesn’t have a violent bone in his body. Yet he spends hours a day watching violence on TV, in movies and actively participating in it with video games. What is going on? His appetite for onscreen blood and gore is unfathomable and unsettling to me.

He says that it’s all make believe, that none of it is real. But my problem is that to me, it’s all way too realistic. I have no tolerance whatsoever for any kind of on screen blood and guts. I can’t even watch realistic operating room scenes on my TV medical shows. The sight of someone getting an injection makes me cringe, let alone someone being sliced and diced, even by a pretend doctor. I am a total wuss.

I may have become more sensitive as I get older. Or maybe it’s just that the entertainment industry has taken onscreen violence to another level. It’s more extreme and more gruesome these days. It’s also more graphic and much more realistic looking.

Onscreen violence used to be more suggested and less in your face. When someone got shot or hit on the head, they just fell down and maybe bled a little. Now, wounds are gaping, flesh is torn, internal organs are everywhere and blood is all over everything.

I can’t handle it. I could deal with pretending that someone’s hand was cut off. But in a recent episode of my favorite show, “Outlander”, the cutting off of the hand looked so real I almost lost my dinner. This is true everywhere in the mainstream now, not just on the military, underworld, superhero or shoot ‘em up shows.

There is so much fighting and brutality on TV and in movies. People seem to be more inhuman to each other, and also more creative in their violence. Torture is portrayed, again realistically, all the time. People don’t just shoot each other or stab each other, they use more inventive and sicker ways to inflict pain and suffering.

The world is portrayed these days as a much more brutal place. Man’s inhumanity to man is front and center and perverse sadists are everywhere you look. Many shows are very dark. They are dark in theme as well as lighting. I can tolerate some, like “The Blacklist” and “Blindspot.” But some — like “Gotham” — are over the top for me.

They portray the underside of life, the worst of the worst, the ugliest of the ugly. The public’s appetite for darkness, crime, and plain meanness seem boundless.

Close to half the shows my husband watches on TV, he watches without me. I can’t stomach them. If I did try to watch them, I think I’d be depressed and anxious all the time. I know there is horrible stuff going on out there. But I can’t focus on it or wallow in it. I can’t even bear to read stories about cruelty to animals or children. If I think about it, I become obsessed with awful images and I literally feel sick.

I need to spend most of my time dealing with the normal and the positive. I get enough angst from reading and watching the news. I don’t need to add to that by watching sadism and butchery as entertainment. There is enough crazy and destructive going on in the government, I don’t need to watch pretend craziness and destruction on television in my downtime.

Please let me keep some of my illusions about people having common sense and caring about each other. If I can’t keep some of these fantasies alive, I don’t think I’ll ever make it out of bed.

ICE ART – BY ELLIN CURLEY

12/23/201912/20/2019 / Ellin Curley / 10 Comments

We recently had an ice storm where I live, which knocked out our satellite dish and made the roads hazardous to drive on for a while. But the next day, the ice-covered trees and bushes around the house created a fantasy winter scape, which I want to share with you.

A PET GOAT? – BY ELLIN CURLEY

12/16/201912/03/2019 / Ellin Curley / 23 Comments

Goats were the first livestock species to be domesticated, about 10,000 years ago. Scientists believe that dogs and cats can connect with humans because of changes in their brains over thousands of years of domestication and companionship with humans.

Did goats experience the same brain evolution as dogs and cats? Researchers from Queen Mary University in London have studied goats and believe the answer is yes.

Adorable dwarf baby goat

This research has shown that goats are quite intelligent (unlike sheep) and they interact with humans in similar ways as our domesticated house pets, such as cats and dogs. There is also strong evidence that goats are capable of complex communications with humans.

There is a classic experiment that separates wolves (non-domesticated) from dogs (domesticated). This experiment was done with goats and they reacted like the dogs, not the wolves. The subject animals were all trained to open a box in order to receive a treat. Then the researchers made the box impossible to open and watched what the animals did. The wolves just kept trying to do what had opened the box before. But the dogs and goats both stopped fairly quickly and looked over to their owners in a pleading manner – asking their humans for help in getting the treat.

Dogs and goats also gazed longer at the person doing the experiment when that person was looking at them because they understood that they had the human’s attention. That is clear evidence of communication and emotional connection between the species.

Affectionate goat

Goats have also proved their superior intelligence by figuring out how to break into a sealed box using levers and the goats can even remember this skill four years later! This is a test used by researchers to gauge the intelligence of apes.

Household goat

I’ve seen videos online of goats brought up from birth as house pets and I must say, they look adorable. They are smart and affectionate but are also very curious and mischievous. They can become clever escape artists and can do damage to a house. Not a pet for everyone. But I know dogs who are extremely difficult and destructive, so how much worse can a goat be?

Goats in coats

Apparently, goats eat and evacuate throughout the day, so the best you can hope for in housebreaking a goat is to train him to go in a specific place, like a kitty litter box. It’s been suggested that the best way to keep a pet goat is to have an outdoor structure for him to live in part of the time and only stay in the house when the temperature is extreme outside and/or when the goat can be supervised indoors.

Throughout my long life with pets, I have become attached to birds, frogs, turtles, snakes, hamsters, and rabbits as well as cats and dogs. So I can definitely see falling in love with an interactive and intelligent animal like a goat.

I don’t plan to goat proof my house any time soon, but I like the idea of bringing unusual pets into the family.

WINTER’S BACK – BY ELLIN CURLEY

12/09/201912/09/2019 / Ellin Curley / 12 Comments

After last week’s big snow, my back and front yards looked like a lacy, white wonderland. So, from north-central Connecticut, more pieces of the same huge snowstorm!

The stream in my backyard

Another view of the stream

Front yard from the family room window

Artistic view of the front yard

Backyard again

THUS QUOTH THE RAVENMASTER – By ELLIN CURLEY

12/06/201912/04/2019 / Ellin Curley / 12 Comments

In this work, there are some unusual professions. Many of them exist within the British Royal Household, like Keeper of the Queen’s Stamps, Grand Carver, and Royal Clock Winder. However, the one that caught my eye was written about on October 21, 2018, in the Washington Post: Ravenmaster.

The Ravenmaster cares for the seven ravens who reside at the Tower of London, the 11th-century fortress that is one of Britain’s most popular tourist sites. It was a prison and an execution site for many nobles — Anne Boleyn being a primary example.

The Tower holds numerous lurid stories throughout its long and brutal history, though it was originally built as a tower for the earliest royal family (post-Norman invasion).

Christopher Skaife in his regular Ravenmaster uniform

Ravens seem to have started living at the Tower in the Victorian era when the Gothic Revival was in full swing. Charles Dickens kept a raven as a pet.

The Tower birds are now celebrities in their own right and they receive loving and meticulous care from the current Ravenmaster, Christopher Skaife. He gives them treats of dog biscuits soaked in blood and he has had to climb parts of the Tower to retrieve rogue ravens.

Treats for the ravens

Mr. Skaife was a machine gunner in the British Army for 24 years and then became a Yeoman Warder, one of 37 élite guards who are keepers of tradition and tour guides. He now lives at the Tower with his family. It must be fun for his kids to bring friends ‘home’ for playdates!

The Tower ravens come from bird breeders. They are wild, though acclimated to humans. They roam free during the day. At night, Skaife has to round them up and put them in airy enclosures to protect them from foxes, who ate two ravens in 2013.

Night enclosures

In the morning, Skaife releases the birds in careful order, from least dominant to the most dominant. The birds apparently have a very strict hierarchy which the Ravenmaster must respect. They have also divided the tower into individual territories according to that hierarchy.

Ceremonial Ravenmaster uniform

The birds are scavengers and like to rummage through the trash cans. They are particularly fond of potato chips but they don’t like the flavored kind, like cheddar or onion. So they wash the flavored chips in puddles to get rid of the extra flavoring, which is very clever! Ravens are surprisingly bright compared to other birds, probably on par with parrots.

They are also known to steal sandwiches from children.

Ravens at Tower

Ravens can fly but not too far or too often. They can fly to the roof or the ramparts, but that’s about it. Previous caregivers would trim their feathers so they couldn’t fly at all. But one bird, on Skaife’s watch, climbed up some scaffolding and leaped off it. He died in Skaife’s arms so Skaife will no longer limit the ravens’ flight.

Once one raven did manage to escape the Tower and flew down the Thames River. She was captured by a local birdwatcher who recognized the bracelet on her leg as belonging to the Tower flock. The Good Samaritan put the raven in her gym bag and returned her to her home.

Raven at the Tower

I love all animals so this job caught my imagination. While not the cutest or friendliest of birds, it must be gratifying to preserve a long-held tradition at a historically famous site. Caring for a ‘conspiracy’ or an ‘unkindness’ of ravens, the words for a group of ravens is clearly not a job for everyone.

After eleven years, Christopher Skaife is still going strong at his job. He’s even written an autobiography. Who knew that being a Ravenmaster could be the route to becoming a published author!

CANAL BOATING HOLIDAYS – BY ELLIN CURLEY

12/02/201912/02/2019 / Ellin Curley / 18 Comments

I’m planning an exciting trip with another couple for next fall. It’s a boating holiday unique to England and parts of Europe, called canal boating. Everything about the English branch of this subculture is different from what most Americans think of when they think about boating.

The boat used is called a narrowboat. It’s like a long, thin steel barge designed for use as a houseboat. It can be 45, 55 or 65 feet long but it is always only 7- feet wide. It has a small diesel engine that can go up to 5 miles an hour. You steer with a single rudder in the back of the boat. This would not work well on the ocean or a lake, but you are floating on a totally calm, 20-foot wide canal that gently winds its way through the countryside of England.

Tom and me on our first canal boat

The boats are usually painted with colors and designs specific to the canals. They are surprisingly spacious, with a living area and kitchen, full bathroom and sleeping areas. The boats sleep from 2-10 people. Some have a separate eating area, like a banquette but the smaller boats just have a table in the living room.

Interior of our canal boat

Tom and I have spent three weeks on the canals of England for two excursions. Both trips were just us, which is easily doable and enjoyable. Many retired couples in England buy a canal boat and choose to live on the canals during the open season from April through October.

However, this kind of traveling lends itself to traveling with other couples or groups because there are plenty of tasks for everyone. My first canal boat experience was in 1987 with four adults and four children ages two, seven, eight and nine.

We brought bikes so anyone could cycle to a nearby town or through the countryside. The advantage of having at least 3 adults is that there are many locks throughout the canal system, which take physical work to get through.

Tom on our second canal boat

One person has to drive the boat into the narrow lock and it goes a lot faster when you have two adults manning the lock-machinery. It can be done with one person on the ground but it’s slow and tiring for the lock operator.

The experience of just puttering down the canal is peaceful and relaxing. You can go through all kinds of scenery. There are suburban stretches with beautiful, manicured homes along the canal; there are areas of farmland with fields and cows, sheep and horses. There are woods and marshes as well as more urban areas. Each route is different. This is a vast canal system that wends its way through much of England and Wales.

House on the canal

Canal field

Canal scenery

Once you are on the water, you’re fully independent on the canal. You can do what you want when you want. You can pull over and stake the boat down whenever you choose to eat, relax, sleep, walk along the picturesque canal or enjoy the local sights. There are numerous pubs to stop at for a drink or a meal (the food is really good).

There are nearby towns to walk around or shop for food. There are also museums and other local curiosities that are worth a stop. We toured the Wedgewood china factory, which was fascinating. We also saw one of the rare underground ‘bomb shelters’ from the 1950s which was designed to house the local government in case of a nuclear war.

Local canal town

Pub on the canal at a lock

Local canal town

When you pull over to stop, you’ll usually find other boats and end up chatting with other boaters. There are also lots of dogs and cats on canal boats and they are also very friendly. We had a cat come into our boat and sleep with us one night.

Other canal boats

Dogs on the canal

Driving the boat and manning the locks are a form of constant activity for people who like to be doing something all the time. But there’s also plenty of downtime for those who prefer to put their feet up and relax with a good book or listen to the fabulous BBC4 radio station. It has all kinds of programming, much like our TV stations. News, talk shows, game shows, dramas, sitcoms, continuing series, all high quality.

For the nature lover, you’re usually in the middle of nowhere but for the homebody, you’re always ‘home’ in your boat.

Canal locks

If you are traveling with other folks, make sure you can spend 7-days together most of the time. You have to make lots of decisions as a group. You need to decide where to stop, for how long, where to eat or what to cook. Someone has to be the driver and the others need to manage the locks, and so on. On my first, family trip, the 2 dads were both alpha males and spent most of the time arguing over everything! One of the kids asked why the dads were acting so childishly.

This can be an amazing vacation, with something for everyone. I’m planning my fourth canal holiday because I just can’t get enough of this immersive, unique vacation.

STELLA, HE TALKING DOG – By ELLIN CURLEY

11/25/201911/13/2019 / Ellin Curley / 13 Comments

I’m sure you’ve heard about the studies in which chimps/apes are brought up from birth by humans and taught to ‘talk’ through sign language and other means. It’s not a big surprise that other primates close to us on the evolutionary scale can learn to communicate in a fairly sophisticated, ‘human’ way.

But I just read about a woman who trained her dog to do roughly the same thing! I am so excited! This dog, Stella, has learned to communicate in words AND sentences by touching buttons that signify specific words on a soundboard. To me, this is the coolest thing ever! I’ve always known that my dogs had complex thoughts running through their heads but just had no way to share them with me.

Stella next to her soundboard

Now, don’t get too excited – you won’t be able to teach your significant canine to do this. It’s not for amateurs. The lady who helped Stella master language is Christina Hunger and she is a speech-language pathologist who has vast experience working with children who have speech-language deficits. Many of these kids need ‘ linguistic technology’ to communicate, like modified computers, flashcards, soundboards, etc. So she’s an expert at creating and using these tools.

Christina got Stella, a Catahoula/Blue Heeler mix, at eight weeks old and started to train her immediately. She set up a soundboard with buttons for the words she wanted Stella to use. At eighteen months now, Stella knows 29 words and can tell her mom and dad her thoughts. She can even combine words into sentences of up to five words. Human babies usually can’t speak in phrases and sentences initially and have to master individual words first.

Stella using her board

Stella can ask for walks, playtime or a trip to the beach. She can communicate emotions, like anxiety, as well. One day, she heard a noise outside and pressed ‘look’ nine times and then ‘come outside’! Another time Stella was whining at the front door and Christina assumed that Stella wanted to go out. But Stella went to her board and tapped out ‘want’ ‘Jake’ (Christina’s fiancé who lives with them) and ‘come’. Stella then planted herself in front of the door until Jake came home. Then, to Christina’s amazement, Stella pressed ‘happy’ and assumed the position for a belly rub!

Stella and Christina

Stella recently started using both paws on the board and she appears to be developing the turn-taking skills of conversation, like answering questions. This also develops in children only after they are able to say words and phrases on their own. Here’s an example:

Stella: ‘Stella’, ‘bye’, ‘play’

Jake: ‘Where do you want to play? We’ll eat now then play’.

Stella: 15-20 second pause. Then, ‘eat’, ‘eat’, ‘park’. This indicates that she understood the sequence of eating first and then playing. Remarkable.

Another big advance in Stella’s communication skills is her mastery of time. She can now talk about something that just happened, not just what she wants now. After she eats, she’ll press ‘eat’ and after coming back from the park, she’ll press ‘park’ as if she’s trying to tell Jake where she just went. This implies a more sophisticated concept of language. To test this, Christina added an ‘all done’ button for Stella to signify something that happened in the past. And Stella used it after a walk!

In addition, Stella originally could use only single words, like a human infant. Then she started using short phrases once or twice a week. Now she uses as many word combinations each day as single words so her skills are improving along the lines of a human baby.

I’m sure that Christina devoted a huge amount of time to training Stella and that most average people couldn’t duplicate her experiment at home. But it’s still wonderful to know that our dogs are capable of understanding more human language than we thought and when given the opportunity, they can use it to talk back to us. I’m beyond thrilled that much of the anthropomorphism of my dogs is warranted and backed up by science!

Stella using two words.

You can follow Stella on Christina’s blog at HungerForWords.com.

OUR END OF SUMMER – BY ELLIN CURLEY

11/18/201911/15/2019 / Ellin Curley / 7 Comments

Summer has a different meaning to Tom and me than it does to most people. We are boaters, so to us, summer simply means ‘boating season’ and it lasts for six months. We start getting our boat ready to go into the water in late March or early April. It’s still chilly and there are no leaves on the trees, but for us, ‘summer’ is starting and our mindset shifts from land to sea.

Similarly, our boat isn’t taken out of the water till November 15. So despite the falling of the leaves as well as the thermometer, and even after daylight savings makes it dark before 5 PM, we still cling to the concept of summer because our boat is still afloat. We often spend time on it when it is mild in October and November, which has been often the past few years.

Our boat, Serenity.

On November 5 this year, we emptied all the food off the boat and in a few days it will be ready for its shrink-wrapped hibernation in the parking lot of the marina. So our summer has finally ended and we’re prepared for our landlocked existence for the next half a year.

Our life is quite different when the boat is the focus of our life and when it’s not. Once the boat is in the water and ready for its close-up, all our social life takes place on the boat – rain or shine. We recently built a lovely patio outside our kitchen but no one ever gets to see it except Tom, because the grill is out there. We never have dinners or parties on our patio when the weather is conducive because we’re always on the boat during these warmer months.

The living room on our boat

We love taking guests on our boat for a ride but often the weather doesn’t cooperate and our friends just hang out with us at the dock (which is quite lovely). We have entertained on board through thunderstorms, pouring rain, gusting winds, and extreme heat and cold. We almost never move the party to the house because of the weather.

During boating season we only travel on the boat. We take short trips (under two hours) to other marinas nearby and stay one or two nights. We also take longer trips to the Connecticut River, Montauk, Block Island, and even Martha’s Vineyard, and live on the boat for a week or more with the dogs. We usually get on a plane only when there’s no boat to travel on. And then we go visit our daughter in LA, friends in Portland, Oregon, and Disneyworld in Florida. Next April we’ll be going to London for ten days. The exception is when we plan a big trip to Europe which only makes sense for us in spring or fall when the weather is great but it’s not prime tourist season so it’s not too crowded.

Dining area on the boat

Another difference in our lives when the boat is in or out of the water is how much ‘together’ time Tom and I spend. Whenever he can, Tom will spend the afternoon on the boat rather than at home. He has the same TV and video games set up in both places and the same Wifi service. So he’d rather be looking out at the water than the woods.

I usually choose to stay home during the week except when the weather is ideal, so Tom and I spend a lot of time apart for six months of the year. The rest of the year we’re in the same house most of the time. I think this bifurcated system works well for us since it dilutes the time we share in the same living space and makes us appreciate being together when we are.

Boat kitchen

So now we are finally transitioning into ‘winter’ mode. We’ll start lighting fires and having friends over to the house. Tom will immediately start pining for the next boating season. On the other hand, I’m a homebody and I don’t mind the cold (I have lots of sweaters) so I’m just as happy with my ‘winter’ existence as I am with my water-based life. Variety is the spice of life!

So welcome to winter and toasted marshmallows!

SPACE AND SUPERHEROES – ELLIN CURLEY

11/14/201911/13/2019 / Ellin Curley / 9 Comments

I’m usually not a big fan of space or superhero shows, but I really like the “Star Trek”-ish television show “The Orville” and the movie “Wonder Woman.”

I think the reason I like these two particular representatives of their genres is that they focus on the human (or not quite human) relationships. The shows are not primarily about the pyrotechnics, battle scenes, superpowers or twenty-third-century technology, although those are elements of both shows. In these two stories, the characters and their interactions don’t get lost in — or play second fiddle to — special effects.

In the first part of “Wonder Woman”, I became absorbed in Diana’s early life on a mystical island of Amazon women. Then I enjoyed watching her adjust to life in the early 1900s of WWI. I also loved the way her romance with Steve evolved. The movie is, at heart, a beautiful love story.

I’m a big fan of WWI and WWII movies. The major plotline here revolves around a ratty band of anti-heroes — plus Wonder Woman. They are trying to destroy the Germans’ new, extra lethal nerve gas before it can be used on the Allies. You could also almost call the movie a WWI drama with superheroes.

Talking about “Wonder Woman”, I have to mention the star, Gal Gadot. In addition to being breathtakingly gorgeous, she exudes intelligence, strength and compassion. She embodies the quintessential modern female superhero.

If you have any reservations about watching something like “Wonder Woman”, I recommend it as more than just a typical comic book-based movie.

“The Orville” has a “Star Trek” vibe. But again, it is much more than your average space travel adventure. Members of the crew have quirky and interesting personalities and there are many fun and intriguing relationships on the ship. For example, the Captain and the First Mate are ex-spouses who haven’t fully worked through their issues.

Seth McFarlane is the writer, producer and also plays the Captain. He is fantastic, as usual.

There’s lots of humor and lightness in the show as well as charming banter between the exes. In addition, there are serious and topical issues that are brought up and discussed in most episodes. There was one that dealt with the conundrum of whether or not to change the sex of a female baby who would face serious discrimination and banishment on an all-male planet.

The plots are good and I find it an engaging and entertaining hour of television. I have ADD and often can’t sit through a one hour show, so that says a lot for me!

Over the years, I’ve become an expert at glazing over during most of the comic or space ship-based shows I watch with my husband. These are two that actually got my attention and kept me engaged.

Kudos to the makers of “Wonder Woman” and “The Orville.” You can watch “The Orville” on Hulu and Wonder Woman is, I think, still available on Netflix. But if not there, it’s surely on one streaming channel or another.

DOWNSIZING YOUR LIFE – BY ELLIN CURLEY

11/11/201910/28/2019 / Ellin Curley / 39 Comments

One of my friends, Rachel, is trying to get her 94-year-old mother, Blanche, to clean out the house she’s lived in for 45 years. She’ll be moving from a big house in Long Island, NY to a small apartment in an independent living facility in Portland, OR. That’s where Rachel, Rachel’s two daughters, and Rachel’s brand-new granddaughter live.

Blanche is a ‘collector’ to put it charitably. She doesn’t like to part with anything. She has literally hundreds of paintings, many by her late husband, on the walls and floors of every room as well as in storage in her large basement. She has almost as many photos and photomontages and old holiday cards crowded onto every wall and piled on every flat surface in the house. Then there are the piles of books and papers literally everywhere. Rachel found a file cabinet with tax returns from the 1960s.

An example of a cluttered room

The problem is that everything is precious to Blanche. She feels that the house and its contents represent her life and she has trouble getting rid of anything. To me, she seems overly attached to the physical objects, which only represent the memories of the past. I’m not sure how the move will go because Blanche has not yet accepted that her smaller accommodations will not hold everything she insists she needs.

Another example of ‘stuff’ on every surface

This got me thinking about what I would do if I had to downsize dramatically. What would be important to me to keep with me? A good portion of my memories are in my photo albums. These start with my grandparents and go through my mom’s life, my early years, and my life with my kids. But the albums stop in 2002 when I married Tom. My kids were 22 and 17. My phone has most of the recent photos and I have boxes of photos that have not yet been put into albums. I can be happy with my mish-mash of photographic memories.

Some of my photo albums

I’m also lucky in that I have written a lot of biographical material over the years and I’ve collected my writings into binders. For 40 years I’ve written humorous, rhyming poems commemorating birthdays, anniversaries and father’s and mother’s days. My early poems were ostensibly ‘from’ my young son, David, so they documented his early years and his relationships with his family and loved ones. Then I started doing poems about the birthday person and I branched out into major events like Bar Mitzvah’s and weddings.

Early poem from my toddler to his Dad

The Family Poetry Album

A later poem for my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah

But my major biographical opus is my collection of blogs for Serendipity that tell my family history starting with my grandparents’ early years. I documented stories from my parents’ lives, my childhood, and my kids’ childhoods into the present day. I also wrote blogs about relationships that shaped our lives and I arranged the blogs in a sort of chronological order. I ended up with a 370-page document that I am very proud of. I have given copies to both of my children so they will always have their family stories close at hand.

My Family BLog Binder

Blogs are organized into chronological sections

Because I have so many of my cherished memories saved in photographic or written form, I think that I could pack my ‘life’ into just a few boxes. I’m not really attached to my furniture – except for a beautiful, custom made kitchen table embedded with sea glass and a matching sea glass mobile. I do love some of my chatchkis, particularly my glass and paperweight collections and a few things from my mom and grandmother. But I could live with just a few of them, decoratively placed around my living space.

So I don’t think I’ll drive my kids crazy if I ever have to leave my home and move to a smaller place. I’ve already condensed my past into manageable form.

However, my jewelry is another story!

VISIT TO THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, PART 3 – BY ELLIN CURLEY

11/04/201910/28/2019 / Ellin Curley / 4 Comments

This is the third installment of photos from my trip to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. We only covered the furniture and decorative arts section of the American Wing. Here are more photos, this time of miscellaneous things that caught my eye.

Ceramics from the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th Century

I loved this early 20th century piece

Very contemporary looking vase

An assortment of old clocks

Early American doll and doll accessories. I love the coach!

More doll furniture and an adorable toy horse for the dolls!

Painted wood chest from colonial times

Another example of a painted wood chest

Plates painted in the American style

Plates painted in a more typical Oriental Style

Ceiling from the recreated Frank Lloyd Wright room

Door and wall lamp designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, in the Frank Lloyd Wright room

Ornate street lamp just outside the American Wing of the Met

Silver vase with gemstones

Odd work desk with bag hanging underneath to store work materials, like for sewing.

Unique piece pairing wood and stained glass

Recreated room with wallpaper on all the walls with different views of a single scene

Another wall of wallpaper with no repeat patterns, just a continual scene going around the room

Wall over the fireplace continuing the rustic scene

A VISIT TO THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, PART 2 – BY ELLIN CURLEY

10/28/201910/03/2019 / Ellin Curley / 9 Comments

I recently went to the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City with my daughter. She’s studying interior design so we focused on furniture and home decor through the centuries.

Here are some more photos of the wonderful pieces we saw.