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Posts Tagged ‘growing old’

A Message from the Heart of an Elderly Person to your Heart!

Monday, April 19th, 2021

We found this in the office of an excellent geriatric physician – Dr. Hollis Day. It is quite an office with rooms in which beautiful dolls from many countries can be found. What a walk down memory lane scooping up the humanity on which we seldom stop to reflect.

“When I spill some food on my nice clean dress or maybe forget to tie my shoes, please be patient and perhaps reminisce about the many hours I spent with you when I taught you how to eat with care, plus tying your laces and your numbers too; dressing yourself and combing your hair.

Those were precious hours spent with you, so when I forget what I was about to say, just give me a minute or maybe two. It probably wasn’t important anyway and I would much rather listen just to you.

If I tell the story one more time and you know the ending through and through, please remember your first nursery rhyme when I reheard it a hundred times with you.

When my legs are tired and its hard to stand or walk the steady pace that I would like to do, please take me carefully by my hands and guide me now as I so often did for you.”

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and you can add to the above. It was embroidered and set into a frame so it was someone’s carefully thought out feelings. If you do add to this, please send your additions to us so we can add to this also!!!

Guardianship is a Civil Rights issue and evil!

Wednesday, September 9th, 2020

As we have moved along trying to understand all that happened with Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett, whose life was almost destroyed by Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services and its hangers on, we have come to realize that RACISM – SEXISM – ANTI-SEMITISM – and more are where the targets are aimed in this new area, discovered by those who are determined to keep bigotry as a part of this United States.

Slavery gave way to Jim Crowism. Jim Crowism gave way to Structural Racism. Structural Racism is giving way to a really vile kind of bigotry in the Health Industry where Guardianship is one of the star performers destined to keep slavery, jim crow and structural racism around for an eternity.

It is within the Health Industry where a person can be picked up by the police for no reason and have their lives ruined because of a number of reasons none related to your health. The kind of police power given to the health industry with no safe-guards is astounding. It is an area rife for the arrival and take-over of that industry and its institutions by a strong mafia.

The way there are no guard rails around Guardianship is unbelievable. The end of many minorities lives has been made a living hell by those who see themselves able to benefit financially from pushing into the lives of strangers and wrecking havoc for a few dollars.

Dr. Rebecca Warner needs to have her license to practice psychiatry seriously investigated and probably revoked.

With no prior psychiatric problems of any kind, Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett found himself in Mass General Hospital being given things like anti-psychotic medications, hallucinatory drugs and a whole lot more on a daily basis. This to a man with no psychiatric problems. The attempt to turn a fairly health man into an incapacitated sub-human was done exquisitely by Dr. Warner.

Remember – Rev. Dr. Bennett was not there for health reasons. The police went to his house and picked him up to incarcerate him in the hospital on a Section 12 – with no reason – except for the paper signed by Dr. Rebecca Warner who made the disclaimer with her signature that she did not know Robert Bennet, had never met him, never examined him, never been to his house and yet she signed for the police to pick him up and force him into the hospital to be psychiatrically examined because under the Section 12 she deemed him a threat to society and/or to himself.

He was supposed to be forced into Mount Auburn Hospital, which is apparently very amenable to and – on information and belief – have been practitioners of this ‘Guardianship Game” for quite some time. Instead, his wife insisted he go to MGH where the Section 12 was lifted because he should not have been so forced into a hospitable on such charges in the first place. So he was sent home.

Two days later the police arrived again at his house, this time to incarcerate him in MGH with the claim that his wife was “medically abusive” to him. This was introduced to the court without telling the court about the discharge of Rev. Dr. Bennett from the hospital just two days prior. This group of criminal conspirators were not to be rejected. They had a pattern to put in place and follow and nothing would deter them. Lying – cheating – trying to steal a man’s life for the financial or career gains that would accrue to them – fair game.

At MGH Dr. Rebecca Warner arrived and did what she was supposed to do at Mount Auburn Hospital, but didn’t have the chance because Dr. Bennett went to MGH and had been discharged with “no medicines prescribed” and all vitals in the normal range including blood pressure.

At Mount Auburn Hospital, they were waiting for the arrival of Dr. Bennett under the Section 12 to consign him to their psychiatric wing. There would be no examination, nothing just send him off. They would not have “lifted” the Section 12 at Mount Auburn Hospital because that was the start of the road to “incapacitating” Dr. Bennett. To drain his assets he had to be incapacitated, sent to a nursing home for the rest of his life as unable to be assisted to live any kind of life except tied to a bed. The court papers all say – not even with the help of all of the new technology

Unfortunately, he is not the only African American who has experienced what he has been forced through over the past several months. There have been many and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts needs to investigate what is going on with its Protective Services people.

Blacks, Jews, Latina’s have all been so incarcerated.

What had Dr. Bennett done wrong? He lived in the wrong neighborhood in the wrong house. A house that had been “red-lined” and we believe still is.

In addition, he and his wife and some in their circle of friends, consultants, business associates have been and still are very outspoken and have consistently and for months published how they see Donald Trump running these United States into the ground.

They have lived in the Harvard Square neighborhood for some 37 years and have had to fight, all of those years, some of their neighbors who wanted that African American couple gone. Interestingly enough, almost no African Americans have moved into their neighborhood in all of that time. When they see someone dark of color they discover they are Harvard related and live in Shaler Lane or in another house owned by Harvard, thus assuring the neighbors they will not be permanent neighbors and will not be involved in whatever decisions and community that happens.

Acceptable as a place to live in the Harvard Square area is on the other side of Harvard Square – Definitely not the Brattle Street side.

They put their house on the market for sale. When they decided against selling and took the house off the market, some folks in their neighborhood went crazy. Finally, they thought, their neighborhood was going to ‘lighten’. Instead the ‘darkness’ stayed.

That is only one reason and one example for Guardianship being a Civil Rights issue. There are many more and unfortunately this is becoming true across the country.

Blacks you cannot touch because they are not criminals, not accused criminally can be brought into the criminal justice system and can be picked up and forced out of their homes by the police with just the signature of a willing psychiatrist and Dr. Rebecca Warner turned out to be such a person for the Donaldson/Bennett’s.

Jews are also targeted in this Guardianship scheme – which we consider a criminal conspiracy. The anti-semitism around Jews has to do with the propaganda that Jews actually rule the world – have all the money – and are constantly grabbing for more. That negative stereotype goes on, but I am sure you are completely aware of it.

Immigrants, especially are becoming targets of these schemes to gain Guardianship over and then deplete and draw down the assets of minorities so their next generation does not have the “push” from being left assets to begin to move ‘Up” financially and otherwise in this society.

The hard work of that first generation of immigrants is well known as the way to the American Dream tor their children, grandchildren and more down the generations. Stop that – with the Guardianship conspiracy which has overtaken and felled many immigrant families.

Las Vegas, Nevada seems to be the headquarters for such evil. But it can be found in many states and spreading fast.

In Massachusetts, the Courts – which we believe is the headquarters these days for the Irish Mafia – has been developing a very sophisticated system to strip families of their future inheritance by incarcerating their parents using “Guardianship”.

MA. Health is a supporter of this scheme and they do a fantastic job of ripping assets from families – are they a health insurer or are they a very vicious bill collector. Whatever, their structure totally supports this Guardianship criminal conspiracy.

And what will the state do about that? DENY? Investigate itself and find itself clean and not involved?

Don’t be ignorant – Don’t go along to get along – know what is happening in your neighborhood and to those you know and love. Take action and demand that those being so discriminated against be listened to and made whole – one day, that could be you.

My Response! – No Names Please!

Friday, December 22nd, 2017

Don’t want to lose my job.  But if this keeps on the way it has I will be out there on the front lines – dam the job – I will join the homeless if that is necessary to bring about change.

I noticed a couple of Marceline’s Facebook posts.  One included something – in answer to a ‘friend’ about black teachers.  She was too nice to say many black teachers stepped away from the Black Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s because they saw that as the road to losing their jobs to white teachers and didn’t want that to happen.  They were a part of the Black Bourgeoisie and enjoyed a position in black society they did not want to lose.  I don’t know the person she was answering and commenting in her Facebook page so I didn’t add my say so – it seemed intrusive.  Everything goes on this blog so I am answering here.

That said – I really need to respond to your post on Trump and the very ugly picture of the Republicans assembled on the steps of the White House in celebration of their vote on the tax cut.

I lived through Nixon and I didn’t expect to have to live through another such carnage.  And carnage is what this is.  An American President elected – or rather put into office by Russia and the fascists, and I really believe that.  Not from the media or anything else, but from my life experience in the world.  Trump makes Nixon look like a saint.  Nixon covered up a breaking, but Trump is well into treason.

I loved your little comment on the White House built by slaves.

I believe many of the Republican Congress people are being blackmailed.  We have a president who is a bully – ugly and evil bully – who has bullied all of his life and is now president and bullying on a world wide stage.

Why have we tolerated such?  Why hasn’t he been removed?  Why has his sexual assault not been addressed?  Why isn’t he in jail?

He clearly has surrounded himself with people who are as much able to bully as he – like Nikki Haley.  I had great hopes for her and was wondering if she was someone I could support.  After the way she bullied at the U. N. she clearly was chosen by Trump to be a part of his government because he saw this in her and that is what he wants in his administration.  Either bully or grovel.  Push people and governments around in Trump’s name or grovel to show what seems to be Trump support, but in reality the most dangerous people one can have in your circle are those you have blackmailed and forced to do and react in ways they would not otherwise.

Hopefully, they have been blackmailed.  If this is who they have been all these years – I am thinking particularly of Orrin Hatch – then we have been very short sighted to have re-elected them.  It is time for all of them to go.  There must be a way to immediately remove Trump and his administration.  I am sure you folks will think of something – but make it quick.

My response will be following Marceline out of the Republican Party.  I stayed too long, but better late than never.  I remember her when she was precinct chair in Wayzata, Minnesota.  Wondered then how she could be precinct chair in the Republican Party and on the National Board of the National Organization of Women – or is that ‘for’ women?  She stood strong for what she believed.  I didn’t like her much then – thought she was too “pushy”.  I did respect her, however.  I watched her being trashed in some really crude ways, but she didn’t step down, didn’t step away and I don’t think she even blinked.  Having a family to raise that took a lot of guts and she must have been through a lot of pain in the process.

Not been involved in civil rights and these other activities very long, but I am all in now.  And whether that is good or bad we have Donald Trump to thank or blame for my conversion.  From a sort of racist and sexist to somehow trying to walk a different path and make up for a life not always well led or behaved.  Hope you all forgive me.  I was busy trying to make lots of money – but that’s all over.  Getting old changes your values and priorities.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

How to Look 50 at 80 years old!

Sunday, May 28th, 2017

We took advantage of Bettina Network Hedge Schools and stayed at a house where we wanted to know the wife’s beauty secrets.  We’ve seen her for years and thought she was at most 60 years old.  When we discovered she was actually 79 we almost flipped out so we immediately made reservations and said in the process that we wanted to spend time talking with her about her lifestyle.

We didn’t say we were going to share it and didn’t intend to, but it was so ‘out there’ that we just couldn’t resist.  And, sharing on Bettina’s Blog information about a Bettina family should not be forbidden.

  1.  The first thing we discovered is that she uses no soap and thinks soap is what makes wrinkles.  Well, we asked how do you stay clean?  By showering or soaking in a tub of hot water.  What else do you need?  God created water to wash you clean.  Man created soap to take away your money.  Why would you follow that?  There are side affects to what man makes – and the side affect of soap is wrinkles. Well, with that I knew this was going to be an incredible three days.  What does she use when dirt won’t be washed away by plain water?  Well, organic powdered milk, of course, and to my amazement it works beautifully. – And listen people, I discovered she does have “correct” language and when she says “man” she means “man”.  That is not a sexist ‘men’ being a term which is inclusive of everyone on the planet.  If she didn’t mean “man” she would have said “human” or some other word in that politically correct lexicon of hers.

2.  OK!  Recovering from that we wanted to know more so we rose early – something difficult for us – and discovered she’d been up for hours.  Well, whatever affect that has we just left it alone because no beauty or youthful look is worth getting up at 3:30-4am.  She doesn’t say “youthful looking” by the way.  It is “looking healthy”.  Ageism, you know.

3.  The first thing she does is have a cup of one organic lemon with the juice squeezed into a cup of very warm water and drinks it down like medicine.  I thought that was great and I could modify it a bit with the addition of sugar, but that was forbidden so I tried straight lemon juice.  Not bad, but it takes a lot of getting used to.

4.  Then things got a bit rough.  No smoking – we don’t smoke so that’s alright.  No alcohol of any kind.  Well, what is wrong with alcohol, I protested.  It causes wrinkles, she said.  Well – this is not going to be the walk in the park I anticipated.

5.  I searched the refrigerator and the food cabinets and found only organic foods.  No nothing else –  even the spices and coffees and teas were organic – everything was organic.  Water was in a pitcher with a filter and she apologized because she didn’t know how to get purer water.

This is going to take time – especially since that means also – no prepared foods even if they say organic and no gluten free prepared foods – they are just as bad as everything else.  So as I re-searched the refrigerator – looking at things on a different level, everything was food – real, unprocessed, food “the way it comes from its creator”.

Now that to me was impossible, there must be cheating someplace here,  so I watched closely and they ate only those real foods.  Milk, eggs, butter, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers (which were actually there for beauty reasons rather than food for eating) chicken, beef, lamb – all organic products.  Oh, this is going to be hard.  Her response was – this has to be a lifestyle that you feel is good, right and easy.  Oh, and the bread – organic whole wheat flour and home baked – if they haven’t had time to bake bread, you get fresh out of the oven biscuits.  One day we even had croissants.  Those were several days in the making because she doesn’t have that much time to bake croissants straight through.

I was amazed – this was better eating than I’d done in years and watching a cake being made while breakfast was being prepared was amazing.  The cake took maybe ten minutes total to be prepared to put in the oven.  More time processing – for example – she put sugar (organic turbinado) in the mixer with organic butter and let it beat for what seemed like forever.  She ignored it until she had time to add the rest of the ingredients with a little more beating and then into the prepared pans for baking.  I am going to try this because it is 1-2-3-4 and even I can remember those ingredients.  Even when I can’t remember what is one cup and what is three cups – common sense gets into the mix and I know one cup must be butter because we want butter to be the least of the ingredients and two cups must be sugar because we want medium sweet and three cups must be flour and four must be eggs.

6. Exercise is a part of her day.  But – and this is a big but – I exercise daily, jog, etc. but that is not a part of this exercise regime.  She exercises parts of the body I don’t even think need exercising – your eyes for example (and she wears no glasses at 79 years old), and your toes, and your fingers.  No jogging, she’s never liked that and the incredible exercises I do she thinks is a waste of time and energy.  She suggested I wash the walls, or shampoo the rug or do some gardening outside in the sun without sunscreen.

7.  Make-up doesn’t exist.  Vitamins are the skin care products – vitamin A, E, liquid C and for those aches and pains a good soaking in organic apple cider vinegar switched off with epsom salts.

I could go on because that is the tip of the ice berg.  However, I should say, since I left I understand this is not hard at all.  It takes re-doing your lifestyle and ignoring what the cosmetic and other marketeers have trained us to think is absolute, essential and all the money spent on such is going to result in results.’  I knew that last part wasn’t true – I spend about $200/ month on cosmetics and at 57 I look older than my host family looks spending money only on foods.

Her biggest health purifier comes from the fact that she hasn’t been to a doctor in over 50 years and doesn’t expect to see one any time soon. Right thinking – giving to others – being aware of the messages your body gives out – those are the things important in that Bettina Hedge School.

Totally the reverse of everything I was ever taught.

Thanks for the experience.  It is one I will never forget.

Bettina Hedge Schools rock.  I am not sure where I am going next, but I think living with a classical pianist for a few days while I go to meetings, etc. to give her time to do her thing without me hanging around, sounds like a good deal for both of us.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to bettina-network@comcast.net

The Rev. Dr. Lillian D. Anthony, my friend

Monday, December 1st, 2014

by: Marceline Donaldson, president

Bettina Network Foundation, inc.

 

There are some people one expects to go on forever, but none of us lives forever.

Lillian was a force of nature. Her strength came from the clear, truthful, fearless and love filled way she lived her life.

I have always called Lillian ‘my friend’, but as I look back over our lives I realize she was also one of my mentors from whom I learned a lot.

I met Lillian back in the l960’s in Minneapolis. She was challenging the City of Minneapolis about its lack of civil rights and was in the process of becoming the first head of one of the first city civil rights departments in the United States.

It was amazing for me – a young, southern, quiet, full of my early training.  A person who wore gloves everyplace and usually with an umbrella at hand, who had been trained to always remember who she was and act accordingly – to meet this woman who always knew who she was and she was neither quiet nor southern.

I was just coming out of a not so great marriage and trying to stand on my own two feet for the first time in life. I’d found a beautiful house I loved and tried to buy, but the owner declared he would not sell to an African American. I was furious; was not going to take such; and wasn’t sure where to go or what to do when someone suggested I call Lillian Anthony – which I did.

Lillian responded immediately. She was head of the newly established Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights starting in l968 and had some power to address what happened to me.

We met and talked and hit it off right away. Lillian went off to address the problem and in a couple days called and we met again. She told me the problem was solved, the owner had no problem selling the house to an African American woman and she knew that for sure because she’d just bought it.

We started to laugh, almost uncontrollably. It was a joke that was funny far beneath what was on the surface and so off we went on a lifetime of what can only be described as a hilarious friendship full of one-upmanship’s. When we met at social, civic, or other events we would point and laugh uproariously because we knew we were the sharpest looking people in the room. I knew I looked better than Lillian and she knew she looked better than me.

We often went shopping together – to estate sales, of course – but we had to fight to buy what we wanted because we always saw the same item at the same time and it was a free-for-all as to who got to it first.

I was invited to a meeting in Chicago in the early 1970’s of 100 Black Women and so was Lillian, who was one of the coordinators of that event. Once there I met Elma Lewis – who had not yet become Miss. Lewis. There was a skit in the room with all of us gathered and a woman dressed as a waitress came in with her clothes askew looking very stressed and disheveled, crying out – ‘help me, they shot him’.

No one in the room moved, except me, who jumped up to run to this woman to help her in her obvious distress, while telling everyone else in the room how they should be helping also. Elma wanted to know “who is that woman”. Lillian, who was sitting next to Elma said – that’s just Marceline. She is always in the middle of everything saving the world . Elma called me over to sit next to her and she and Lillian laughed and carried on – at my expense.

Turns out, the waitress was a part of the skit to see who would respond and to then start a discussion on being involved. However, that didn’t work because Lillian, Elma and I couldn’t stop laughing and just having a great time out of all of this.

That was the start of a great trio of friends. We weren’t together a lot, but when we did get together it was always a good time.

Lillian designed the Afro-American Studies Department at the University of Minnesota, becoming its first chairperson. She did an amazing job of helping to found the Department and headed it in a way which helped develop the entire field. No, Skip Gates was not the first and neither was Harvard.

Lillian ran into trouble at the University as Black men challenged her position which they thought should belong to an African American man who they claimed should have better credentials than Lillians’. So Lillian resigned and went off to the University of Massachusetts to obtain a Doctorate in Education. In addition she also served on the faculties of the University of Nebraska, George Mason University and Towson University in Maryland.

Even before all of this, Lillian went to seminary at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and received her Master of Religious Education in 1953 long before women were even beginning to see the possibility of a seminary education. Before that, Lillian received her undergraduate degree from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, MO.

After leaving seminary Lillian worked at Witherspoon Presbyterian Church as the director of religious education. A job most women found if they were lucky enough to finish their seminary education and find a job. The Church was way behind the society- still is today – in addressing the equality of men and women and Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans.

Lillian also taught in Assuit, Egypt and was the North Central Area representative for the Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Ordination was not possible then, even though God’s call to Lillian to the ordained ministry was strong,  so she went instead into Religious Education. Lillian did not ignore this call to ordination into the Presbyterian ministry, which wasn’t realized until decades after she turned to listen to what God was calling her to do. What was clear in Lillian’s life was that God calls and man decides to ignore God’s way and pursue his own, blocking the path of women and minorities. It was clear looking at Lillian’s life, that it is dangerous for men to block God’s call, but they never seem to get that message because they are still today blocking as best they can – only today being joined by a few others who are not White European males!

Before I met Lillian, she had served the Federal Government from 1965-1968 as the district director for the Department of Labor establishing anti-poverty programs in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

When I moved to Massachusetts, Lillian was already there at the University of Massachsuetts working on a doctorate in Education. She insisted I join her because she felt I would need something to fall back on and with a doctorate I could teach in Academia someplace.  I was not an academician, nor anything close and I decided that was not my path. She, Elma and I got together several times while Lillian was studying and both tried to push me into this doctorate business, but I resisted and took another path.

Several years after I moved to Massachusetts, Elma Lewis called to say she had heard from Lillian who was concerned about me because we hadn’t been in touch for quite some time and wanted Elma to make sure I was alright. They both knew my penchant for jumping into the fire and they both have had to pull me out several times.  According to Elma, there were rumors and they were worried about me.

Elma called me to say John Ross was picking me up to bring me to her house for lunch, but before he did he was going to take me on a tour of Boston. I told Elma I already knew Boston, had been living here for a few years and that was great, but I preferred lunch times to tour times. Elma said nothing and John Ross picked me up and took me on a tour of Boston. Elma was now Miss Lewis and you did her bidding.  John Ross asked all kinds of questions – how are you, what are you doing, are you alright financially, can we do anything for you, and on and on he went. I finally stopped him to ask why he was trying to get into my business. John Ross said he wasn’t he was just instructed by Elma to ask all of these questions because they needed to make sure I was alright and didn’t want me to say everything was fine – when we talked over lunch – and everything was not fine.

John Ross took me to Elma’s, where she was on the phone with Lillian and they both demanded I not stay out of touch for so long and whenever I had a problem of any kind they were just a phone call away.

That was a very emotional moment for me, but I knew that was how they both were and I must have had some kind of publicity or gossip which made them think they needed to circle the wagons.

Having had that kind of mentoring, I have tried to live up to their example and be there for others – although I have not been perfect following my mentors. I do fall away and still get busy with my own business and have missed many such opportunities presented to me by the universe.

One passion in Lillian’s life was ‘collecting’. It is a passion we both shared, but mine was about 18th century French furnishings, art objects, etc. Lillian’s was about collecting negative Black images throughout history. She had an amazing collection and her house – wherever it was – reflected this passion.

At one point in Louisville and again in St. Louis her home was a place classes of school children visited with their teachers to take the tour of Ms. Lillian’s home.

Oddly enough – or should I say expectedly enough – our two passions ran parallel because as Lillian became more knowledgeable about her area of collecting she ran across many objects which were from 18th century and beyond  in the time frame of my collecting and items made by some of the same people and companies I loved. Lillian knew about and owned items made by the Dresden, Meissen and other factories of negative Black images and while artistically exquisite the subject matter made you wonder about this use of the artists talent. I remember when Lillian bought a beautiful piece of Dresden china which depicted a Black child being born out of an alligators egg and others pieces that went downhill from there.

My thoughts about negative Black images had to do with the Aunt Jemima dolls and the Uncle Tom depictions, but they went far beyond those simple objects into incredible works of art meant to support the racism against African Americans in as many and as subtle and not so subtle ways as possible.

Lillian brought a part of her collection to Boston for an exhibit along with a program speaking to this form of maintaining the structure of racism. It was well attended and the curiosity and amazement from those who had my early thoughts about this area was astounding.

Lillian was head of the Afro American studies department in Louisville, Kentucky and moved to Maryland to become a professor in the same area at Towson University.

Her life and career extended across the country and in several institutions. She left each one better for having served there.

Lillian’s last job before retiring was as the associate for equal employment opportunity/affirmative action in the human resources department in the Prebbyterian Church’s national office in Louisville, Kentucky.

Lillian was also able to function as an ordained minister before her death and her sermons were memorable, moving and caused you to rethink who you are and how you were responding to God’s call in your life.

Lillian was clearly one of God’s chosen and never forgot that she was called by God to spend her life ministering to God’s people and she did that with love, compassion, fearlessness, dignity and grace.

She received many awards and honorary recognitions like the Mary McLeod Bethune Award, presented by the Louisville National Council of Negro Women. She was also appointed to the President’s Disability Task Force.

What many people did not know was that Lillian lived with Lupus most of her adult life. How she did all of what she did and dealt with a very debilitating disease we will never know. Lillian was never a victim and nothing that happened to her turned her into a victim. She was always a child of God who she believed was the active force in her life and to whom she owed everything.  She lived that life to the fullest – always.

Unfortunately for me, I did not stay as close to Lillian as a friend should and so my grief is not over the loss of a friend – who I know is celebrating with all of her friends right now having a joyous time – but over the loss of my opportunity and responsibility not to lose track of someone who I was close to and loved like a sister.

Through all of this I have learned that life and our society separates friends and families and thereby increases the burden on those we love and don’t keep up with because of our busyness trying to keep body and soul together.

Each time this happens I resolve to not let it happen ever again and then I hear of a close friend who has died and my guilt, regret and sense of great loss starts all over again.

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Making Old Feet New Again!

Friday, July 25th, 2014

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2014

I love breakfast in a Bettina Home.  No matter how horrible I feel arriving, I leave refreshed.

The last breakfast from my most recent stay was great!  The food is always good, but the conversation unbelievable.  I am going home to work on my feet so I can wear high heels again.  I have a closet full of shoes, which are sitting idly on the floor collecting dust and drying out because it hurts so badly to wear them.  The shoes I can wear are so ugly they ruin every outfit I put on.

Would you believe old women at breakfast having a hilariously good time about a conversation over feet?

One woman, who was 80 years old if she was a day, had on these really elegant shoes with high heels in which she was going to spend the day.  I advised her to take another pair with her in a bag of some kind because she was going to be finished for the day before she reached her car.  She just looked at me shaking her head.

The next morning we were all back around the table and I was packed and ready to go.  Before leaving, however, I wanted to know how her day went since she was back at the table in another pair of really fantastic shoes – high heels, of course.  She said her day went just fine, like all her days and suggested I learn to deal with my feet if I wanted to get back into something other than the slip slops I had on.  Expensive flip flops, but no support, no heels and comfortable as could be.

She took off her shoes and her panty hose, as we all howled with laughter, and we went through her exercise regime.  We all shed our shoes, but she was the only one wearing panty hose.  She said she wears them for the girdle effect she gets from the panty part – doesn’t want her tummy to ‘pout’.  We had on ankle length stockings or knee hi’s under pants.  She was clearly from a generation that dressed to the nine’s and she still did with a great figure, beautiful hair and my jealousy is really showing since I am about 20 years younger than she is – at least – and she looks younger.

I really don’t exercise any part of my body – especially my feet.  Who would think of foot exercises as being relevant or doing the body any good?  My bias is showing, but really, I have enough trouble keeping my energy level up to just getting up in the mornings, let alone complicating my life with exercise.

This woman exercises her feet before going to bed at night and before getting up in the mornings.  She widens her toes as far as possible  – spread them open like a fan – and closes them while she watches television or reads.  She also makes circles with her feet going clock-wise and then counter clock -wise moving her feet in these circles from the ankle and sometimes she does the spread-the-toes with both feet at the same time and the circles with both feet at the same time.

We were sitting around the table exercising our feet making sure we got it right.  Unreal!  Must be losing it because I was very avid about doing this and intend to go home and take up this exercise every night and morning.  Nice that I can do these exercises before getting out of bed in the mornings.  Maybe that will help me be diligent about it.

Before I showed up at a Bettina Home I was a little depressed about my feet becoming so old and stiff,  limiting my shoe wearing possibilities. ,  so this did cheer me up a little bit!  I wanted to take pictures, but the women were adamant they didn’t want their feet showing up in  pictures anyplace – so respecting that – and you certainly aren’t going to see my naked feet in pictures, you will have to imagine the scene.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

 

 

An Intensely Religious Week

Thursday, April 17th, 2014

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2014

Intensely Religious – how do we turn that into – gloriously  Spiritual!  I hope it is not the intensely religious who have brought about so much bigotry in the world and the gloriously Spiritual who have given us so much freedom!  Maybe my values are a bit screwed.

It is one of those years when the religious celebrations around Spring are shared in close date proximity by several Religious faiths.  That doesn’t always happen.  After the winter we had and after the destructive forces hitting at the economy and the terrorists hitting at all of us it is no surprise that this Spring season finds some of our religions practically intertwined date-wise.

Within all of this hectic ceremonial time – and there is now a lot of ceremony going on all over the place – with its requirement of watching our diets; scheduling around many religious services – there came that still small voice in the form of guests in one of the Bettina Homes.  It was such a reprieve and a taking back to what we are all about and what is really important that we found ourselves being really grateful for the reminder.

A family came from England to America to witness to the life of a friend, and isn’t that what it is all about.  To take time from very busy lives; to spend money traveling to another country for just a few days to say  by your physical presence that this person mattered. He was important to us and our lives and we want to just stand with a group of his friends to give witness to his life.  In that small act – which today isn’t so small when you consider that most of us would be worried that our lives would fall apart if we took time out to do such a thing and we could better spend the money on something for our family – these guests and friends, by their presence and the reason for their visit,  gave me reassurances about the goodness of humans who can still sometimes come through with what is most important in life in still, small ways.

I am now ready for these Spring Religious Holidays.  I can get through all of the trappings because I know there are people who still care and get it right.  I am human and sometimes frail and one day I won’t be here anymore.  Will anyone witness to my life?  Did I reach out and live so that someone will stop and in the silence give thanks that I lived?

We are fast becoming a society where we don’t and won’t take that time away from the hectic busyness in which we constantly involve ourselves to keep from becoming conscious of the fact that we are slowly and sometimes at a faster pace marching to our own deaths.  We go to great lengths to cover-up that fact so we are not conscious of our limits as humans.  We walk across and away from those who have no home; those who are not so successful; those who are not interested in getting caught up in that busy, busy cycle of life.  We can’t after all be around those who would remind us of our own humanness.

I give thanks today for the family that took just a couple days to acknowledge the importance of the life of another human being.

Ed Note:  Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people.  Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Going to the Toilet

Sunday, October 6th, 2013

copyright 2013 Bettina Network, inc.

What a horrible title for a blog!  We have postponed writing this blog for a couple weeks, but it has been such a great find and the topic of several breakfasts so with fear and trepidation – here goes!!!!!!

We discovered – would you believe across the breakfast table – one of the reasons we think our ‘cultured’ cousins have such a problem with things like colon cancer, bladder problems, etc.  It was an off-hand remark by a guest which, of course, we could not let go of and kept her talking about for quite some time (after everyone had finished eating, of course).

The off-handed comment was about how difficult it is to travel in America and in some European countries because of the problems it generates with the simplest things like going to the bathroom.  We asked why – especially since we felt we had a really up to date bathroom complete with a toilet seat which could also act like a bidet, close by itself, work via remote control and provide heat or no-heat as the user desired.  That comment was totally deflating and one of the few times I became defensive.  All the money we spend in those bathrooms and someone has a problem, not just a problem -a complaint?

As it turns out, all that money spent was spent in vain.  I had a problem that those of us growing older have and it can be embarrassing – and that is, not being able to control the escape of air from the body at the most horrible times.  Nothing like letting people know you are gross without even trying, especially if that escaping air comes with a bit of noise.

That conversation has changed all of that.  It took about a week, but after that time frame I have no more problems with air escaping.

We, in the ‘cultured’ part of the world,  go to the toilet in a very comfortable way which helps to disintegrate our bodies instead of shaping them up and its getting worse.  You can now sit on the heated toilet seat and have a spray of water wash your bottom when you finish.  I thought that was the ultimate luxury, but wow have I ever changed my mind.

Have you ever thought of squatting instead of sitting on a toilet seat?  It is cleaner, quicker and strengthens the muscles which need strengthening to keep your colon, bladder, legs, stomach and balance in good shape.  I used to feel sorry for those third world people who had to squat to go to the bathroom.  I didn’t know how they survived such a throw back to primitive times.  Well, I feel sorry no more!  I can go anyplace, do anything and not be embarrassed by that escaping air – it just doesn’t happen anymore.  My legs are firmer, my stomach tighter and even my balance is better.  It took a couple weeks to make this a habit and to stop complaining because of how difficult it was to form this new habit at my age, but form it I have and a few others have come along for the journey.  We had to form a small support group – a telephone call when we were about to quit for a pep talk.

Today, there are no complaints, we are all healthier for this new way of using the toilet and a bonus – we can use any toilet anyplace and not worry about catching anything the former user of the toilet may have left behind.

Try it!  But you have to give it a good try of at least 14 days before you decide.  It takes that long for the good results to show up and you will be surprised at how many good results there will be.

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Health and Beauty Tips – Who Holds Truth?

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

We had a wonderful breakfast with a small group of ladies all over 80 and I am under 35.  It was not what I was used to, but I am going to change my lifestyle.  I learned a lot, laughed harder than I ever have in life, and have some new values to put in place.

I wanted to take notes to write a blog about this breakfast, but didn’t want to offend the ladies or look too commercial or whatever was going on with me.  I am new at this blog business – I can write, but how do you get the information without being obvious?

What I learned is that you can’t.

I kept running back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room and back, trying to make notes.  As really great things came up, I would run into the kitchen to add the discussion to my notebook.  I don’t know how reporters cope.  I wanted to be a part of the conversation, yet I also wanted to document it.

We did talk about everything.  On one of my trips to the kitchen, when I arrived back in the dining room, one of the women presented me with a pencil and paper and suggested I stay at the table and take my notes.  They didn’t mind, but my back and forth was maddening.  They were laughing uncontrollably and had been since I started these back and forths, but I didn’t realize they were laughing at me and my antics.

Relieved – what follows is that breakfast:

I loved the way one of the women – at 83 years old – had almost no wrinkles and more energy then I have ever had.  I sat next to her because I wanted to know her secrets.  She said she didn’t have any.  She just kept the lifestyle she had as a young person and didn’t take part in the food, cosmetic, housing revolution which she witnessed over her lifetime.  She thought it was all quite dangerous to one’s health.

She smelled of roses – and there was her first secret.  She used organic essential oil of roses and no perfume.  The oil was in her rinse water when washing her clothes and not on her skin when she got dressed.  I will probably never be able to pull that off because a quick trip to the internet and Yahoo-ing ‘Essential Oil of Rose” put me into a state of money shock.  Organic Essential Oil of Rose I didn’t even bother Yahoo-ing because I knew that would be even further out of my financial reach.

So what else could I copy?

None of the ladies used commercial cosmetics – no lipstick, no lotions, no makeup – like foundation, etc.  They took care of themselves out of their refrigerators and their cabinets.  I knew that was the coming thing – I didn’t know that was the past thing.  I knew my grandmother used stuff out of her kitchen, but I didn’t pay attention to what she was doing or using.

One lady used beta carotene capsules for lipstick and a little red for her face here and there.  She clipped a capsule of the beta carotene and used it on her finger.  I knew about that from an article on Bettina Network’s Blog about using beta carotene to color your hair, but hadn’t thought about it for lipstick.  She gave me a couple capsules and I tried it.  The color was a bit orange.  It looked great on me so I am a convert.  I don’t know if it would do well on everyone, but it is going to be my choice from now on.  I notice it changed colors as the day progressed and didn’t last all day, but then neither did the lipstick I wore.  I carried the lipstick in my pocket book and reapplied it during the day.  I don’t know how I can do that with beta carotene, but necessity is the mother of invention and this is all new to me so let’s see what happens.  It is worth the effort to get this down to a great new habit.

The comments and sharing I liked best were from the woman with almost no wrinkles and some 83 years old.  She did this “hot and cold” thing.  She splashed water on her face in the mornings when she woke and it was first warm to hot water and then very cold water.  When she took her shower in the morning, it was without soap – in fact, none of the ladies used soap or soap substitutes – water was all they used on their bodies.  She said she showered in the mornings,  first in a warm shower and while standing in the shower she gradually turned the water to cold – showered a few minutes under very cold water and then turned it back to warm again.

Her friend objected because she used this hot and cold water thing, but she got out of the shower after turning the water to cold.

Apparently, this was big when they were my age, which is when they got these beauty tips.  One read – and had her collection of Prevention Magazines  in her basement.  Hers are from the time before Prevention Magazine was sued and taken over by the Meds (their words, not mine).  They all used to read the magazine religiously, but cancelled their subscriptions after the law suit and it became, according to them –  “an arm of the AMA.”  The hot and cold business was something either someone wrote in about or the magazine wrote an article on and it became big in their circle at the time.  Not many people they know today still adheres to the regime, but they do and they look fantastic.

My great-great grandmother used to do this – but that was because she didn’t have hot and cold water in her bathroom.  She lived well into her 90’s and looked great.  I don’t know why I didn’t follow her example – probably because I was quite young and not worried about health or beauty.  My mother clearly did not follow the family example and today one hears all kind of ugly comments made during many commercials about looking like, acting like, wearing clothes like your grandmother.  The one that comes to mind is “your grandmother’s jeans”.  I guess I was made for this breakfast conversation because I like Jeans that fit and don’t hang around my hips on their way to below my butt.  Isn’t there somewhere a history which says the Jeans being foisted on young people today are clothes that were worn in jail to let your fellow inmates know you were up for prostitution?  When we lose our history, we lose ourselves.

We acknowledge that it looks obscene when we see young men in the “ghetto” wearing pants which show the crack in their butts, but nothing is said when young white women wear the same jeans which show the crack in their butts.  That is considered high fashion.  As a young white woman, keep those butt-crack showing jeans and all those marketing promotions away from me.  I will look to my grandmother for advice, hints and more.

All of that – plus more – which would take me a book to write about – made me think about all the marketing that goes on around products that cost a fortune and deliver next to nothing.  I have been going along with their story and buying some of their products because the ads attracted me.  After using ”stuff”  for a few months and having nothing except buyers remorse.  I think before I do anything else I am going to look at the person recommending some kind of cosmetic to me to see if they use it and how they look as a result.  The people I look to will not be the 13 year olds who model these products –  I want to know what the 80 year olds are doing when they look fantastic, healthy and full of energy with few wrinkles. There is nothing holding truth like seeing results and I have not been getting any from the $300-$400/month I have been spending on cosmetics because I saw an add which made me think it was truth – and finding out it was clearly hype.

This was my first morning on my new regime.  I splashed my face with warm to hot water and then a lot of cold water before I had coffee.  A nice feeling – and I looked better than the person who usually straggles down for coffee early in the morning.

I also took my first hot/cold shower this morning.  After I finished my coffee I tried standing in the shower under warm water, gradually turning the temperature up to hot (but not too hot, I am no martyr for beauty) and then turning it all the way to cold.  It was an unusual experience.  It takes a little getting used to, but I thought of those women and how great they look.  I am going to slug it out until this is as normal to me as it is to them.  They are going to be my inspiration. And – the biggy – the cost is only of the water, which I would have to pay for anyway.

My first Bettina Network Blog!  Hey editors – you don’t have to copyright this under my name, its a gift.  My next blog, however, will be a different story.  Although, maybe I would like the term I just coined under copyright or whatever I need to do to claim it!!!!  I think Yahoo-ing will give Google a run for its money in the search world.  I love Marisa Meyer.

Ed Note:  The highlighting of “Yahoo-ing” was done by the editor. It was an interesting word and since our author saw it as her creation we thought we should give it a boost.

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______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

A Tribute to The Rev. Patricia Riley Colenback (1931-2013)

Sunday, February 24th, 2013

taken from “Alla Bozarth-Campbell’s – From Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey, Paulist Press 1978

Bakerwoman God

 
Bakerwoman God,
I am your living Bread.
Strong, brown, Bakerwoman God.
I am your low, soft, and being-shaped loaf.
 
I am your rising bread,
well-kneaded by some divine
and knotty pair of knuckles,
by your warm earth-hands.
I am bread well-kneaded.
 
Put me in fire, Bakerwoman God,
put me in your own bright fire.
I am warm, warm as you from fire.
I am white and gold, soft and hard,
brown and round.
I am so warm from fire.
 
Break me, Bakerwoman God!
I am broken under your caring Word.
Drop me in your special juice in pieces.
Drop me in your blood.
Drunken me in the great red flood.
Self-giving chalice swallow me.
My skin shines in the divine wine.
My face is cup-covered and I drown.
 
I fall up
in a red pool
in a gold world
where your warm
sunskin hand
is there to catch and hold me.
Bakerwoman God,
remake me.
 

And how many times, Pat,  did you say these words over others…………………..

                              “Give rest, O Christ, to your servant Pat with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.”

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

 
 
 
 

Thanks for your Presidential Post!

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

I would like to add just a couple things, which I think need to be highlighted:

We read lots about minorities playing the “race card.”  No one has said one word about the races taking place today – presidential and otherwise where one person running is blatantly using the ‘race card’ against their opponent.  For example, in Massachusetts Scott Brown is heavily using race in all of his campaign ads and rallies.  So much so that his staff has taken to making tomaawk chops and the supposed Indian war cry at his rallies.  They have picked up what is really being said and they are letting the rest of us know what’s really going on by their actions.

Romney’s campaign is doing the same thing.  It was much discussed after Obama won the presidency that racism would intensify in this country because of his win.  But, no one said why or how and this election cycle we are seeing why and how.  When your opponent is minority or part minority, use the race card to highlight their minority status or do other things to incite the racism which is either active or latent in these United States.  It is how many politicians in the deep south in the 1940’s stayed in office and won office.  They kept their voting populace stirred up over race.

Your breakfasts sound fantastic.  Keep up the good work.  When I retire I am going to put my house in the Bettina Network.  I have to keep active and ageism has made me much aware of racism and sexism.  I must confess I ignored it before I started to realize my age would keep me from credit, jobs and more.  Amazing when things come home to where you live how sensitive you become to others suffering that you hadn’t even noticed before.  Forgive me my transgressions!  I am sure I was one of those letting my racism out against others without realizing it and without taking responsibility for it to make the effort to change.  Well, now I get to fight ageism because I didn’t help lessen the ‘isms in this society.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

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Lifted from Vogue Magazine

Sunday, September 9th, 2012

We hope Vogue Magazine doesn’t object, but the end of an article in the August 2012 magazine about Bel(le) Kaufman was too good not to share with you.  It puts so succinctly what its like to grow oldl  The entire article is worth reading, but the ending is really special.  It follows:

“I’ve lived a long time, a very long time, 101 years and I’m, still here.  I’ve done with the doubts and struggles and insecurities of youth.  I’m finished with loss and guilt and regret.  I’m very old, and nothing is expected of me.  Now, provided good health continues, I can do what I want.  I can write my memoirs. I can edit my works for future eBooks.  I can even do nothing – what a luxury that is!  I have new priorities and a new appreciation of time.  I enjoy my family more than ever, and also a sunny day and a comfortable bed.  I keep up my interest in books and theater and people, and when I’m tired, I rest.  My former students write to me and visit me.  i had many problems and disasters in my life, fortunately at my age, I don’t remember what they were.  I’m glad I am 101.”

I think everyone over 70 years could write a variation of that paragraph.  The older you are the freer you become – and that crosses race, sex, finances, education, and all the other things which separate, motivate and define us as younger people.  All of that drops away and we move closer to the diverse universe promised and worked for, but not achieved, when we were young.  Humanity becomes more humane as year adds to year.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

How is Your Muffin Top?

Thursday, December 8th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

“Muffin top” is a fairly new word in the lexicon of things wrong with a woman’s body and a fairly new concept in what needs to be worked on and “fixed”.  A new word/phrase coined by those who are in the business of making money by increasing women’s consciousness of some part of the anatomy which  is declared defective, ugly and which needs to be made perfect.  We  should hate our muffin tops – they are caused by fat and they and/or their company has the way to make it go away for a substantial amount of money.

One never knows what the conversation will be at breakfast in any of our homes.  This morning’s choice of “muffin tops” at first seemed frivolous to me, but as it went on I realized this was something becoming very important to many women and men.  I would be on the verge of uncovering a bit of knowledge new to me that I could add to my health and beauty routine.   The conversation started in that direction because the youngest woman at the table was fretting over her ‘muffin top’.

The response to her fretting was the information that muffin tops come as you age and your frame shrinks.  The extra skin goes someplace and neither exercise nor cosmetics is going to get rid of it.  Dieting may make it thinner with less fat under the skin, but it will not make it go away and neither will exercise – unless someone out there knows how to eat and/or exercise to shrink skin.

Women of past generations wore girdles – even thin women.  Because this current generation has mostly lost touch with their mothers and grandmother’s, who they consider not as wise nor knowledgeable as their peers, they have lost touch with why women of past generations wore girdles.  Those older generations had to do something to make their garments look smooth and to hide that skin flap – which we now call muffin tops. The old becomes new again.  If only we could go back to having conversations with our relatives who are of an older generation we would be so wise!  You either know history or you are doomed to repeat it – someone actually said that in some history book!!

It became urgent in the discussion to explore muffin tops, because women and girls are now wearing jeans which sit on the hip – right under and emphasizing the muffin top.  Is it because emphasizing such a “problem” area can increase the money spent by women to hide it – eliminate it -mutilate it?  Not even plastic surgeons can rid you of your muffin tops.  You can get a scar around your body to cut out the extra skin, but it won’t last because as your frame continues to shrink your muffin top will return.

What to do?  No one had an answer.  One woman wore control top panty hose because that was the least intrusive way to keep her outer garments smooth.  Another wore a girdle because she wanted to make sure she had everything hidden.  The young woman, who started the conversation with an almost passing comment about feeling uncomfortable with her ‘muffin top’ showing, was the youngest woman around the table.  She was also the only woman around the table who wore those hip hugging jeans.  Aren’t they what started the movement in ghetto’s across the U. S. among African American young boys wearing pants which bag and hang down almost and sometimes definitely below the crack in …………?  Is that where designers’ got their inspiration for those hip hugging jeans?  Is that the direction in which those hip huggers for women are going?

She wore those instead of the jeans which went to her natural waistline – which is what she used to wear – because the advertisements are all equating those who wear those waist-high jeans as wearing ‘grandmother’ jeans and she didn’t want to look old.  (She was probably about 30 years old).  No one had any sympathy for her.  Everyone told her to get rid of those hip huggers and wear normal clothes for normal body shapes and she wouldn’t have to worry about a muffin top since ‘normal’ or ‘grandmother’ jeans hide your muffin top and give you a much nicer, softer shape.  Somehow, I don’t think she was listening – she was looking, instead at the picture of Jane Fonda in pants which are tightly fitted around the legs.  Since she looked as though she had short legs I wonder where trying to wear those tight-legged jeans will lead her?  Sleeping in a leg stretcher?

The woman at the table who impressed was the one who picked up our blog about liquid vitamin C.  She was using every kind of lotion on her thighs and her body from the waist down to get rid of the rapidly increasing look of fat breaking up under the skin – not wrinkles exactly, but a not so great look which only promised to worsen as time went on.  She waxed eloquent about liquid vitamin C.  It took a little while of constant use, which for her was every other day with a liquid Vitamin C overall massage after her shower, but the results were startling.

She did tell us the first two times she used the liquid C she had a bit of a problem with ‘peeing” – her word, not ours – but she just adjusted her water intake – drank a lot more water during the day – and by the third liquid Vitamin C massage she was fine.  She did not offer to show us the results, we had to take her word for the fact that the skin from her waistline down to her knees had dramatically improved – smoothed out and she was now happy about wearing shorts.  She could even look good wearing a swim suit without parts of her body being reminiscent of having cottage cheese under the skin.  That was important to her because she spent the winters in resort areas where looking good in a swim suit was important.

She put a little of her liquid Vitamin C in our saucers and we all tried it.  I must say the results of just one trial were impressive.  The liquid Vitamin C became sticky after a while so we had to rinse it off – one woman asked for olive oil and put the olive oil on her face after she had the liquid C on for several minutes.  She had a grand facial massage tapping all around her face for quite some time – until someone else got a bit irritated at having to watch and she left the table.  When she came back, her face looked fabulous.  She had rinsed off the liquid Vitamin C and olive oil with cold water and just patted her skin dry.  So very quietly I resolved to make that a bi-weekly regimen.

We went on to note that Dr Oz has finally caught up to Bettina Network’s blog.  One of his recent shows talked about not using soap – ever.  I went back and searched the blog and found we had talked about that months and months ago.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.


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