I wanted to read this book after I read Man Seeks God, even though Weiner wrote it first. Again, I got it from the library.

Books about happiness have interested me, it seems like forever. This one is better than most and definitely more fun. It is not a self-help book. It is more like a travelogue.

I laughed my way through it. And some of it is laugh out loud, that just begs to be read to the person in the room with you. In fact, I did. Weiner's sense of humor, his sense of irony, must be very much like mine.

Weiner has, like his name as he points out (whiner) a low-grade depression most of the time. So he is definitely interested in seeking happiness. He learns that certain places have a higher happiness rating, so he goes to those places in search of the elusive happiness, to see if what he has heard is correct. Toss in assorted odd characters, plus ones who show him the ropes. Toss in his penchant for including interesting details, tidbits, sound bites of miscellaneous fitting quotes or just plain trivia that applies to where he is. I can't begin to remember all of it.

His humor is never malicious. Sometimes it is dark, but not always, and he finds he holds love for some of the people he meets along the way that he would not have thought. There is a touching incident in Moldova.

He begins in the Netherlands, then goes to Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar, Iceland, Moldova (the lowest happiness rating on earth), Thailand, Great Britain, India and America. In many ways, he finds that like Dorothy, home holds the heart.

The short of it is that he finds that happiness is relational. It depends on friends, family -- and more. You could read the epilogue first and get a feeling for all he learns. (I didn't and wasn't even tempted -- unlike my usual method of reading.) Then you might not read the book, but you would miss a very good read, indeed.

Have you read it?
I rate it 5 star out of 5 star.

The only thing I disliked was how much alcohol was imbibed along the way.

It is available for Kindle:

Karin
www.savvythinker.com

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I think respite care begins with ourselves. We have to know (or seek to know) what we need, then take some steps, even baby steps, to find space in our lives for respite. We need to ask and let others know, if we need it.

Respite care is talked about in the adoption community, for some children have needs (or problems) greater than one or two parents could fulfill or even handle. It can be very tricky finding any kind of care, and it sometimes involves residential care for the child/teen.

Respite care is likely also talked about in other communities of folks dealing with specific health issues or other.

Of course, there are other kinds of caregiving and caregivers, but the bulk of caregiving still falls on a woman's shoulders, whether she is caring for her or her spouse's parents, for a child, a house, or for her husband.

The need to call 911 can be life defining whether it involves something as 'simple' as lift support or as complex as emergency care or transport.

A friend writes:

I guess we don't really understand how much we need people until there's a crisis. Without the health issues [that some face with their husbands], I'm having the same feelings about my husband. I don't think I've ever been so solicitous or considerate of him as I've been these last two months since he took this new job.

Meanwhile, I think that we get caught up in the non-reality of a situation and don't really grok what exactly is going on. That was true on the street in NYC when I almost lost our son while my husband went to get the wheelchair. We didn't seem to have much of a clue. I think that could be said for another friend and her son, that the surreal-ness of the experience at the end there had so overwhelmed them, created a disbelief and an inability to actually SEE what was going on. I think calling 911, for the average person, is an act of huge significance. We are taught to be so polite and to ask for little, not to take up too much space.

I'm currently reading Inner Peace for Busy Women by Joan Borysenko. I'm a little put off by the cutsy green ink, but I like what she writes about, and it is another book that I will own.

I was surprised to find a chapter on caregiving. Again, I borrowed this book from the library, as I'm reading several of her books having just 'found' her as an author.

She writes:

On a trip to India in the 1980s, I spent a few weeks in a small village, where a schizophrenic woman, talking to herself continually with great agitation, lived under a large banyan tree. Different villagers visited her every few hours, brought food, and cared for all her needs. But most of us no longer live in extended families of close-knit communities where such care is common. We live neither in the welcoming shelter of a banyan tree, nor in the warm embrace of one another. Those who do reap significant benefits as far as health and peace of mind are concerned. p 141

I think especially this phrase stood out to me: warm embrace of one another. I suspect many of our homeless have been left to fend for themselves now that they have been de-institutionalized, but there wasn't another embrace for them, nor a way to be sure they were sound enough to care for themselves wisely.

Contrast the scene in the Indian village with a trip my then 11 year old daughter and I took to Paris about 10 years ago. We were surprised to find in the heat of summer, in a new hotel, there was no air conditioning. Our first room was in the back among sheltering trees and whether it was hot or not, the trees made the heat bearable. Through the night there was a woman who yelled continually, but there was no traffic noise. It was impossible to sleep. At some point, a man yelled out the French equivalent of SHUT UP! The next day we moved to the front of the hotel, no trees, with tremendous road noise right up until about 3 am when it quieted down until about 5 am, and not a breath of air, but the sounds of the traffic muffled any noises she was making. I saw her on the street at one point later in the day. I think I prayed for her just about the whole night.

We could learn a lot from societies such as India. How many of us would long for a banyan tree, for the warm embrace of another to help us get through?

Take the time to figure out, if you can, what would nurture you, if you are care giving. Often it comes in unexpected ways, if we are open to it.

Karin

The Lord is my care-giver
written for all those in need of care and for all those who are giving it
Casting all your care upon him; for he cares for you.
Psalm 23 and Luke 10:25-37

The Lord is my caregiver; I will not fear.
How precious is this thought: that He cares for me!

I love the parable of the Good Samaritan --
its gentle message stands forever,
as the epitome of God's own care:
the wounded left for dead by thieves in certain dread
the passersby who left him for their own chagrin
the neighbor true who bound the wounds, though not a Jew
the hotelier who offered place in which to find embrace
the simple ease with which the wounded had release
the money found to deal with every round
the needs all met by tender ministration in this vignette.

The mercy of the Lord is shown in ever-sweet accord:
whether I am care-giver or care-receiver,
I will not fear that I am alone, or that I will be uncared for.
The presence of the Lord ensures my care.
He enables care to be given that is not a burden.
He brings the care I need so I have intercede.
Both care-giver and care-receiver are in His plan.

O Lord, I give this care to You, for I know
that You are both my care-taker and my care-giver.
With You, I know that my burden is easy, for You are there.
Help me to appreciate my neighbor: each one to know as he is known.
Help me to see myself as You are seeing: forever in the care that You have shown.

Surely care-giving and care-receiving have followed me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in His mercy, well-cared for everyday, forever. (c)

Originally posted 2007-07-02 13:51:20.

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The Sari Shop Widow is a sweet story. I bought it for my Kindle.

The Story
Anjali Kapadia, an Indian-American, was widowed at 27, and it is now ten years later. She is immersed in her work and has sublimated much of her grief. She runs her parents' boutique in New Jersey's Little India, as well as designs much of what is offered. She does not recognize, really, how good her designs are.

Unknown to her, the store is not solvent, mainly because of the number of competitors in the immediate vicinity who copy her ideas for less money, but also because she has overbought. She is shocked to find this out, to realize she has not watched the bottom line better, leaving that to her father.

Of course, we would all like to have a rich uncle who can rescue us, who regularly rescues the family. She finds her father has contacted him, and he will show up in less than a week.

She gets a second shock when her curmudgeonly uncle -- that everyone is afraid of who turns out to have mellowed some -- shows up with a very handsome man with light skin who has an Indian name.

Why is he there?
Well, he will rescue her too, in more ways than one. He has ideas to bring new life to the store, as well as eliminate the competition. And there is some mysterious connection to her uncle who treats him like a son, though he is not his son.

In the meantime, he himself will be rescued from a life that is more sterile than he had seen it.

The culture
Anjali finds herself caught between familial duty and the needs of her own life and heart. She thinks she is too old to have the child/ren she would have wanted with her first husband, but her own mother had a child in her late 30's, so it is not impossible. And her hopes for a world wide business with her husband expired with him.

She has conducted an affair with a bar owner in a nearby town, but truly she isn't satisfied by it, as she feels ashamed of her conduct and the secrecy of it, because of what her parents' reactions would be.

The scents and tastes of Little India factor into the story on nearly every page. Some of the foods make your mouth water. And the descriptions of jewelry and clothes is also mouth watering.

My take
I give this book 4* out of 5*. It has a strong story, sweetly told of familial love within the Indian and Indian-American culture. The unfolding love story, as well as her family's extra concerns for her welfare because of the loss of her first husband, are nicely developed.

If you have any background in retail, you will enjoy the added dimension of the retail business.

Have you read it? or any other of the author's books?
I will seek out her other books too, as I enjoy reading of the Indian culture.

Buy: The Sari Shop Widow

Buy: The Sari Shop Widow (Kindle edition)

Karin
www.savvythinker.com

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In her book Leap!: What Will We Do with the Rest of Our Lives? Sara Davidson also heads to India. She knows some Boomers are living in India; some are living in Ashrams in India (and one long time Ashram dweller decides to leave the Ashram); and some are volunteering in India.

She goes to India to volunteer, teaching English in an orphanage, because of an interesting interview with Ed Wayne, an American Jew, who has retired from the oil business but uses his money in Belgrade to get things done. Because he can; because he can do things without red tape or government interference; because his interpretation of "never again" is "never again for anybody.'

Along the way, she goes to an Ashram and to another Ashram that someone tells her she must go to.

She also meets a sculptor who ships his things back home after he sculpts in India.

Anyway, her volunteer trip is definitely not 5* and she changes the names to protect the innocent. It is the trip from hell in many ways, not necessarily so much where she is or the accommodations, though they are very primitive, but the folks she associates with who are volunteering.

I have never been to India and I haven't volunteered over seas. Have you?

Karin

Originally posted 2007-06-16 14:08:54.

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Katie Holmes, whose change from long to short hair made women everywhere want to chop their locks and was the sound of shears heard round the world, has done it again. She's gone to instant long hair. And it is looking real good -- as good as when she cut it short. Of course, it's hard not to look good when you are as pretty as she is. Didn't you love her part in the movie Mad Money! You can see an article and a picture about ithere.

Katie Holmes is to this time frame what Farah Fawcett and Jennifer Anniston were for theirs. Each of them is credited with hair trend setting.

What did it cost?
What the article doesn't tell you is how much money it set her back. I imagine it cost a pretty penny. Care to hazard a guess?

How is it connected to your hair?
What they also don't tell you is how they connect the hair to your hair. There are several ways, and they are all similar to the ways they can add hair to a man who is going bald. It's a long, tedious process, involving knots and glue. So there is the expense of the hair and the expense of the stylist.

But you can't run your fingers through your hair in the same way, and the knots do grow out into the hair as your own hair grows out. The hair extensions need to be removed and put in again (new ones) further up the hair shaft by the roots, maybe not so much if it is done underneath the hair. And I don't think it's the best thing for your natural hair. It puts some stress on it at the points of the glue.

Recently my hair stylist put some in her hair and took them out shortly thereafter for the very reasons I just detailed. She said she'd never do it again.

Source of the hair
And they don't tell you the source of the hair, which is a temple in India where the women offer their hair to the temple's god. Hair that they haven't cut for a lifetime. Hair that is to their waists and longer.

I recently read an article in Allure Magazine about this. Tons of hair is shaved and sold there every year. Imagine! It is swept up, cleaned, sorted, batched, sold, sold again, and made into wigs and pieces. Then sold to the wholesalers who sell to the stylist who sells to us.

The women do not know that. Even if they are taken aback, by how it looks and feels after they shave it, maybe more than a few tears, they feel and are honored for having done it. There is a camaraderie between women as they leave with shorn heads.

And when they are told what happens with their hair, after an initial hurtful surprise, they recover to say that they had given it to the god in gratitude.

While in one sense this both hurt and repulsed me, having traveled in other countries, but not India, I do respect the customs of other places and try to look at it from their eyes. It's hard to leave my sense of liberating women behind. Too bad they aren't paid for their hair. One of the remarks at the end of the article came from the author who said something like this: if they don't care what happens with their hair, should we? That is a tough one.

For the rest of us who know going to short hair is more permanent, we have to think about it. My hair is easy for me to style when it is long, but it would only look great short, if it were styled.

I had great short hair at one point, but I don't think I'll ever do it again. I even had it asymmetrical, which was way cool at the time, and I felt really chic. I was! I was also as young as Katie is now.

And once I had it cut to a mid length, and it instantly added 10 years to my age. Ouch! My stylist agreed, and a couple of days later, she cut it again, and I looked young again. Which I actually was at that time. Interestingly, when it grew out, it never went through that stage where I felt I looked old, I'm not sure why! Perhaps it was the actual cut as it grew out. But I don't want to chance it now!

OTOH, a few years back I saw an older woman who looked like a caricature of herself. I asked my stylist to make sure I never did that to myself. But who knows, I might!

Other ways to go long in an instant
Other ways to go from short to long is to buy a fall or hair pieces or pony tail extensions. There is a mall kiosk, usually staffed with Asian women, in many places. It has beautiful pieces, as well as jewelry-like clips of all sorts to style it or your natural hair with.

I've had a multitude of pieces and falls at one time, and I wore them all. I still have some interesting pieces to wrap around pony tails (you can find these in drug stores at times) but I'm more into simplicity at the moment. (That's funny, if you know me, because I'm not a minimalist in much of my life! I do try to keep things simple, though.) At one time my oldest daughter had these pony tail accessories with streaks of purple or blue, and she wore them all the time. She could wear these to school around her pony tail, whereas they didn't allow the kids' hair to be dyed.

Fresco Phyrra has talked about getting pieces of long 'hair' in bright colors at Sallys, but I haven't looked at Sallys lately. I might enjoy having a couple of them.

A woman I know has blond hair like me, and about a year or so ago, she dyed the back of her hair black. Her stylist had tried to do blue, but it didn't take. Blue would have been remarkable. Black was not her best look.

How to make your long hair look instantly short
It is also possible to fold your long hair under so that it appears to be short. That's a way to see if you'd really like it or not before taking shears to your locks.

One thing about hair, it grows, so nothing is permanent. It will change.

What look do you like best for yourself?
do you have pieces or falls?

Karin

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