This & That. A Few Thoughts This Week…

It’s been a good week; a Michigan win, college football season has started, the only good thing about summer coming to a close and we had some time away to refresh and to reflect. All good…

Esther Perel has written several books on relationships.

I listened to a very interview with Esther Perel. Esther is a popular psychotherapist with a focus on human relationships. She was born in Antwerp, Belgium, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, studied in Israel and the United States. Esther has done two Ted Talks on the subject of marriage and romantic relationships. The interview this week featured on marriage and her focus was on her observations that most adults will have two to three romantic relationships. They will be with either the same person or two to three different people. Her point was that as we get older and more mature in life, we change as well as our roles. If each person in the relationship doesn’t evolve as life goes on, according to Perel, than one of the spouses may look elsewhere for fulfillment. If you look around at marriages that have stood the test of time maybe that was the key. Did the couple change from the young and in love couple, to the couple taking on the responsibilities of adulthood to the later years with less responsibilities and more time to enjoy? Of course, none of us knows what goes on in others lives but it is an interesting question. Finding common interests when the kids are grown or when retirement hits, keeps life exciting and gives a couple things and events to look forward to. How many times have we seen a divorce when the kids are grown, whether the parents stayed together to raise the kids, one of the parents was too focused on the kids or the kids-for both of the parents- became central to the marriage and family. Anyway, it was an interesting interview and I think Esther brought up some good points to consider…

Top left, Novak, top middle Carlos with hair, right w/o. Bottom, Jelena, Novak’s girlfriend at his first Wimbledon and now.

The US OPEN Tennis Tournament is in full swing in New York. It’s all exciting to me. We have watched some good women’s matches and men’s. Any player talented to make it to the event is a star in my mind and has most likely attained one of the biggest professional accomplishments in their life. To play even one match at one of the four Grand Slams (the others are Wimbledon, The Australian Open and the French Open) is something to be very proud of. Everyone has their favorite players to watch. For me, it’s veteran and possibly soon to retired, Serbian, Novak Djokovic. Now at age thirty-eight, he has moved on to the semi-finals and will take on twenty-two year old Carlos Alcaraz-he’s fun to watch too, but I wished he had not cut off his thick dark hair (which has absolutely NOTHING to do with his fast and hard hitting game). It seemed as if it was just a season or two ago when Djokovic was the odd man out of the two’s company three’s a crowd of Federer and Nadal rivalry. For the Serb’s first US OPEN run, the cameras panned to his pretty girlfriend in the stands wearing a white beret. She was a Serbian journalist from back home. Novak is polished, goes for shots most players won’t and is one of the most fit athletes on the planet, seeing to every precise detail of training from diet to fitness training to flexibility-that is what allows him to go for those tough shots. His family sacrificed so much for their son to have an opportunity to play, Novak has never forgotten the struggles his family endured for him. Now a world class athlete with a wife and young children of their own, his parents and brother are part of his team. This match up will most likely be one of the most popular competitions of the tournament…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current United States Secretary of Health and Human Services.

It’s been interesting to see the changes so far with the Health and Human Services Department and the CDC. RFK Jr. seems to be making progress towards eventually winning back the trust of the American people. The MAHA-Make America Healthy Again -fans seem to like what they see to date. For more transparency on all fronts, especially for vaccines is all a good thing. For full disclosure in any department is a great thing…

Republican candidate for Mayor of New York City, Curtis Sliwa through the years.

New York City is electing a new mayor in November. The Democratic candidate has a good shot at winning the election, unless two of the three other top candidate drop out and throw their support, full on for the other. Each of three has their pluses and minuses. Former Governor Cuomo, the most educated and experienced, having been a past Governor and being an attorney, yet his handling of the COVID debacle is a big monkey on his back. Current Mayor, Eric Adams is the incumbent and a former police chief. Not a bad candidate, but NYC needs someone who can improve the current scenario of crime and cracking down, big time! The last candidate, famed, Curtis Sliwa a longtime NY personality. I have written about Curtis before. He does have his issues, a few marriages, a controversy or two, some say he doesn’t have a chance, but I think the problem with this, in my opinion, best candidate, is that there is no question that he is and has had a life long dedication to the City. I have been reading about him since the 1970s when be formed the Guardian Angels, a volunteer patrol force, unarmed to help make New Yorkers feel safe walking the sidewalks and riding the subways. They are known by the red beret and cross belt. The young voters in NYC don’t know Curtis’s history with the Guardian Angels, they just think he’s the strange seventy year old guy wearing that little red cap. Sliwa’s campaign finally released a video with footage of him through the years that tells his story. One can see why a democratic candidate promising government grocery stores and rent relief or free rent might, sound appealing to a twenty something New Yorker drowning in college debt with a dim outlook of ever having home ownership. I feel that these young voters are smart enough to vote for the best candidate if they have the correct information. The young democratic candidate is good looking, well spoken and very charismatic character that young New Yorkers can identify with. When one feels they have a bleak future, they’ll most likely believe anyone promising ‘goodies’ even when the promises are false and highly unlikely. Hoping Mayor Adams, Governor Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa can pull it together for a victory, some how against the democrat with communist plans for a very entrepreneurial city. Should they not, it will be a good lesson for New Yorkers who see many high earners and their dollars exit the city, then who will pay for the free housing and government grocery stores? …

Speaking of NYC, America’s Mayor on 9-11, Rudy Giuliani was in a bad car accident last weekend. He’s now out of the hospital recovering. President Trump has announced that he will be the recipient of a Presidential Honor. He most certainly stepped up to the plate for his city when the World Trade Center Towers were hit, by stepping in for families of first responders’ on special occasions like weddings & funerals. But that’s was not his only role in being there for New Yorkers. He was also the United States Attorney General for the southern District of NewYork where he took on the mafia and organized crime. Later as Mayor, prior to 9-11, he clean up a city over taken with violence and crime by prosecuting even the smallest of offenses as he felt that those criminals, if not addressed, would graduate to higher and more serious crimes. It worked and New York City under Giuliani was a great place to travel, live and work in. Wishing him a full recovery…