No one has ever called me a mathematical genius, but I know, right off the top of my head, that if the odds are 1 in 176 million, that’s not good.
My question: Why would we Americans shell out an estimated $1.5 billion dollars on those odds. Even if the payoff is $640 million. Seriously?
Americans spent 1.5 billion dollars on Mega Millions lottery tickets. AP Photo Paul Sakum
I would not have known about last week’s Mega Millions mania had I not driven through Primm, California, last Monday. For some unknown reason this community, which sits low on the tourist-attraction scale, was rock-and-rolling. The town of Primm, located in a stark, barren part of the Mojave Desert, is plopped right on the California-Nevada border. It’s a mishmash of casinos, restaurants, and outlet stores. Truthfully, what happens in Primm, stays in Primm.
What I soon learned was that Nevadans were in a frenzy over the Mega Millions Lottery jackpot. The payout, $640 million, would be the single biggest lottery win ever. Nevada is one of the eight states that does not participate in the Mega Millions Lottery largesse. We have our gambling standards, after all! If Las Vegans wanted a piece of the action, they had to visit the Primm Valley Resorts Lotto store. It’s in California, about 40 miles south.
Apparently, by the end of the week, most Las Vegans had been to Primm. In the frenzy leading up to Friday night’s drawing, the store had been selling about 165,000 to 170,000 lottery tickets per day. On Thursday the waiting time to buy tickets was four hours. It was hot. Ben Spillman of the Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote, “The line stretched out the front door of the store, around the building, along the perimeter of the parking lot and down the road more than 1,000 feet.”
A dollar or two, even ten, I could understand. But there were some pretty serious number$ rumor$ flying around Vegas this past week. $20,000. $850. $350. The numbers for “group pools” was even higher.
Why do people spend money that vanishes in the reality of the odds.? I have a theory. Not one of those ticket buyers thought they would win this windfall. Not one. But we’re Americans. We’re the 99%. We dream big and enthusiastically and against the odds. We’re a country of, “What Ifs”. We laugh loudly and eat too much and make our fun if we can’t find it. What’s wrong with grabbing some friends, packing a lunch and carpooling to paradise. That’s what the Primm pilgrimage, in my opinion, was all about.
At a time when the political climate of this country has turned mean-spirited and negative and combative, I, for one, am happy to see the rest of us marching to a happier drummer.
After passing through Primm, and without a lottery ticket of my own, I also began to think, fantasize and dream. If I won this lottery, what would I do with the money. Within an hour, the time it took to reach my Henderson house, I had those millions spent. Here’s how………
Pay Uncle Sam $178 million for taxes, leaving me with $462 million.
Provide financial stability and security for my family. (PS to Kids: No One stops working, quits their job, or retires!)
Give generous financial gifts to my church, favorite charities and alma maters.
Take my family to the Galapagos.
The silly things, for me: A new wardrobe. iPad 3. iPhone.
Create, design and fund a national program, privately financed and administered, to assist first-generation female college students.
During my four years at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas I continued to be impressed and amazed by the perseverance and determination of first-generation female students. The first in their family to attend college. These students, who come in record numbers to UNLV, are usually, but not always, children of immigrants. They are often less academically prepared and somewhat intimidated by the educational challenges. Doubt reigns supreme. There are cultural conflicts, unique personal challenges, and economic obstacles. Go to classes. Go to a job. Study. Go to classes. Go to a job. Study.
Not that these women are complaining. They are tough.They are resilient. They will take risks. Frankly, they have nothing to lose. They are proud to be on campus, realizing their American dream. But their journey could be so much easier and fulfilling if they acquired skills and experiences and knowledge that many of us and our daughters already take for granted.
When I was a kid growing up in Iowa, I thought only old women with blue hair, forty cats and a husband wintered (their word, not mine)in Florida, Arizona, California, states with no snow. It seemed rather silly to me.
For the past three months, I have wintered in Cambria, a small and sleepy community on the central California coast. In addition, many of my friends, husbands in tow, no cats, have headed for warmer climes and greener golf courses. We’ve all checked our hair. It’s not blue.
Wintering, in a word, is bliss.
I no longer play golf. The climate in Nevada, where I presently live, is heavenly. Many people come here for the colder months. Why leave? It’s simple. After more than a decade of caregiving and more responsibility than I ever wanted, my well had run dry. When a good friend rented a home overlooking the Pacific and invited me to visit for the winter, I considered the possibility. My family, my friends, and my husband’s professional caregivers encouraged me to go west. In all honesty, I felt they were a bit more encouraging and enthusiastic about my leaving than was necessary.
Cambria, California shore
I loaded my car, leaving only the kitchen sink at home, and made the 8-hour trip to Cambria. Admittedly, the first two weeks were rocky, abandonment guilt ruled each day. Twice, I packed my bags to return home. Constant reassuring calls from the professionals, the daily, “It’s okay, Mom” e-mails from Melissa and my strong-willed friend’s insistent, “Leaving here is not a good idea” mantra, saved each day until I settled down and settled in.
Why is it so hard? According to 2011 government statistics, 5.4 million Americans now have Alzheimer’s. If you’re over 65, it’s one in every eight. Although fifteen million of us provide unpaid care to our loved ones, assistance from paid professionals adds another $183 billion dollars to the care costs. This is the good news because, in the future, these numbers will grow astronomically. Most of us in that 15 million group have no training nor idea how to respond to this catastrophic illness. We’re just frightened and grief-stricken, bumbling and stumbling through each new and unexpected challenge. For us, there is usually no offense. It’s all defense. It’s exhausting. So I am not the only caregiver that needs a break, I was just a lucky one.
Hanging out with the neighbors, Elephant Seals
What I discovered in Cambria is that once I gave myself permission to relax and be happy, I could do that very, very well. Each day was a gift. There was no To Do List pasted on the refrigerator. My alarm didn’t ring at 5 a.m. No two to three hours in the car everyday, navigating around Las Vegas. Since, in Cambria, I’d always walked everywhere, I didn’t even realize gas was over $4.39 a gallon. My telephone was off but for an hour-a-day. The three-bedroom house was quite large so I had my own writing desk, reading chair and office. There wasn’t a minute, day and night, that the doors weren’t open for me to hear the ocean calling. It was soothing.
You get the picture.
So it was with some foreboding last Monday morning, when I left the Cambria city limits to return to reality, my real world, all I’d left behind. Sitting next to me…….. yellow pad, pen in hand, To-Do List.
I was headed back to Henderson, my adopted-home of eight years, located just a blink-of-the-eye and two neon signs from the Las Vegas Strip. It’s a place we’d moved to not by choice or desire but from necessity and process of elimination. Although the move had been a good one, for all the right reasons, leaving our Rocky Mountain home of 25 years has never been easy.
Anthem Country Club, Henderson, Nevada
But something wonderful started to happen after crossing into Nevada, just an hour away from Henderson. I was still doing “happy” very, very well. How fortunate I was to have been offered a lifeline to heal and re-charge the Mary-motor. (Is this a good time to say, once again, that gasoline in Calli is $4.39 a gallon?) Although I had, to some extent, been selfish for three straight months, I’m a member of that group of 15 million who, just maybe, had earned the right.
Anthem Country Club, Henderson, Nevada
When I turned into Anthem Country Club, my tiny gated community of 1800 houses, it felt like home. For the very first time. It’s beautiful here this time of year. Everything’s in bloom. Like always, the resident heron was on its rocky perch, on-the-grab for an unsuspecting fish. Our abundant quail coveys were skittering to and fro, fro and to. They’re crazy.
The elderly gentleman who always stands in his driveway, smiling and waving, was “on duty”, smiling and waving. Skateboards and bikes, as always, were scattered dangerously close to the road, causing everyone to take a wide berth. To my chagrin, a neighbor who uses a walker, discovered my front yard is well-positioned to allow her to have a cigarette, twice a day, without being discovered. As I pulled in my driveway, there she was, cigarette in hand, welcoming me home. Does it get any better than that?
All of you reading this essay either are Me or knows a Me or may sometime be a Me. Although those of us who are losing loved ones to Alzheimer’s know we will not win our battle, may I suggest that you can extend a hand of kindness to help us stay the course that we’ve been handed. You cannot walk in our shoes but you can stay at our side.
“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had more of a tendency to look for people who live by kindness, tolerance, compassion, a gentler way of looking at things. Martin Scorsese
Last Thursday morning I shot off an e-mail to an East Coast friend suggesting we coordinate a time for a long chat. She quickly responded and we set up a time on Friday between her book club and a doctor’s appointment. She mentioned, however, that she was quite busy putting together her NCAA March Madness Brackets but would expect my call. Did I not detect a lack of enthusiasm here?
Although I understood her apparent time constraints, I was puzzled by her NCAA Brackets remark. After all, Judy and I are both on the high side of Baby Boomer-eligibility and, in the many years I’ve known her, she’s never expressed any interests in sports. Although I didn’t want to annoy her, interfering with her “putting together her brackets”, curiosity trumped good manners and I called immediately.
Unlike my friend Judy, I was born into a baseball family so I cut my teeth on catcher’s mitts and Louisville sluggers. To this day, all my friends have a healthy respect for my over-all knowledge about sports. March Madness, I know, is that crazy period in the NCAA basketball world when 68 college teams compete down to just one winner. The losers sit, dejected and crestfallen, on the bench with sweaty, smelly towels hanging off their heads. The winners, who bring sweaty and smelly to a higher level, hug, squeeze, high-5, and run around the basketball court like demented people.
NCAA Basketball Tournament 2012. Bench of losing team. Photo by newstime.com
To my memory, it’s also the time when “the guys” hang around the water cooler, trash-talking their colleagues’ picks for the twenty-dollar office pool. “Jeopardy” gets shoved aside for the countless games that are played in venues throughout the country. It’s a time when college alums return to their “roots”, wear looney costumes and paint their pusses.
There’s a reason this is called March Madness.
Tournament Pep Band Getty Photo
NCAA Basketball Tournament 2012 Fan. Photo by getoffmylawnkid.blogspot.com
But, back to Judy and our conversation. Every year, she told me, she picks the Winners/Losers in the four NCAA divisions, starting with 64 teams and working down to one. This all has to be done prior to the first shot being dunked. (By this time in the conversation, my respect and admiration for her had climbed to an all-time high.) This started, she added, about 20 years ago when she was persuaded to put her picks (and, money) in her son’s fraternity pool at the University of Pennsylvania. To Judy’s delight and the chagrin of her son and his “brothers”, she won the Pot.
This got me thinking. Is this such a “guy thing” after all? According to Bob Scucci, Race & Sportsbook manager for the Stardust in Las Vegas, it’s not. “It’s growing every year,” he says. “The interest (in the tournament) is crossing over into other demographics. It’s not just the male population from the ages of 21 through 50 like it was years ago. It’s crossing over now and you are seeing a lot more women who have their favorite teams that they want to follow and they get caught up in the excitement of the tournament. You see a lot more people of all different ages. It has crossed over to different segments of the population.”
It seems March Madness is big business in the gambling world as well as at the office.
Although the Nevada Gaming Commission does not keep specific records, they estimate that March Madness could possibly bring in more money than the Super Bowl, the single-day biggest betting event in the world. Las Vegas alone could bring home as much as $90 million. Holy LeBron James!
Now I’m thinking perhaps I’d like to “get in the game.” After all, both my alma maters, Florida State and Iowa State, are competing. I live 40 minutes from the UNLV (University of Nevada at Las Vegas) campus. They’re playing as well.
SO, HERE’STHE SNAP: Why not give yourself permission to participate in something, anything, you know absolutely nothing about. A screwball idea? Go for it. Get crazy. Shove the “better you” aside for some hijinks. And, prepare yourself for failure. It’s character building.
Emboldened by Judy’s encouragement, I asked a good friend (male sports fanatic who always makes picks)) if I could piggyback onto his NCAA Bracket choices. While cutting off his right arm seemed more palatable, he agreed to let me participate and share in the effort with the understanding that next year I’d be on my own. Right………
NCAA Basketball Tournament Brackets Photo by basketball.org
Last weekend there were 48 ball games played. My job was to record the winning teams, moving them up in the brackets. We tumbled a bit, like everyone, when highly-seeded Duke and Missouri were upset. The field was cut, however, from 64 teams to the “Sweet Sixteen”. Starting again, on Thursday, these winners will compete to reach the “Elite Eight” and, then, the “Final Four”. (Those names seem silly to me but I’m keeping my mouth shut.) Many of “our” picks are still marching on and our choices for the “Final Four” are all alive. GO TEAMS!
OUR CHOICES:
The Final Four: Kentucky, Michigan State, Ohio State and Kansas.
SNAP #28 – WHO SPEAKS FOR THE TREES WITH NO TONGUES?
Last Friday, while buying a movie ticket, eager to see The Separation, an Academy Award-winning foreign film about modern day Iran, I noticed the “See The Lorax” button on the lapel of the young ticket seller.
The lovable Lorax, a feisty guardian for trees, air and water, created by Dr. Seuss. blogs.wvgazette.com
“Is the movie coming out soon?”, I asked.
“I think so,” he mumbled, “sometime in mid-March.”
Then, I popped the right question, “Did you ever read The Lorax?”
Grinning widely, his face lit up. “Oh, yes, it was the first book I ever read,” he said. “I liked it but it was so long. It was really hard.”
I laughed, loving this kid, chuckling about his remembering Dr. Seuss‘ book about a loopy, walrus-mustached oddball, who speaks up for trees, water and air, as lengthy and difficult.
As I gave my ticket to the ticket-taker, a young man in his, I would say, mid-twenties, volunteered that he had “read The Lorax in grade-school.”
“My teacher had me write a book report,” he remembered. “I made a 3-dimensional clay display of the Lorax standing on the stump.”
“I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” Dr. Seuss pankmagazine.com
Just then, the young ticket seller came bounding out of his booth, “I just called the manager and he says The Lorax is opening today.”
Excitement reigned!
“That makes sense,” I said, “because today is Dr. Seuss’ 108th birthday.”
March 2, 2012: Happy 108th Birthday to every child’s good friend, Dr. Seuss
When I finally walked into “The Separation”, the young people selling popcorn as well as those hired to sweep it up, had also congregated in the Lobby to trade Lorax memories. I have no idea who was selling movie tickets!
A feel-good moment, for sure.
So, here is the Snap. Every time we connect with a kid, be they 10, 20, 30, or 40 years of age, it’s a good thing. For them, and, more importantly, for us. Frivolous as it may sound, I believe with ever fiber of my being, that such interactions are an essential element to aging well and happily.
That doesn’t mean, as I’ve often written, we need to look, act, speak, or be like these younger generations. Horrors! We just need to try harder to relate to them. The effort needs to come from us, since Americans-the-Younger are already rushed, busy, self-absorbed, stressed, pressured, under-financed and over-booked. Even casual encounters, like my theatre experience, are happy and amusing moments.
Granted, my friendships with younger people are not as comfy or historically significant as those 25-year treasured relationships where we can finish each others sentences. And, young people DO NOT gather to talk about health issues, Social Security and obituaries. (Although, in time, they will, won’t they?) But, these friendships have a richness of their own. They have value.
If you want to enrich your cultural understanding of a young family’s daily life in Iran, see “The Separation,” a 2012 Oscar winner. If you’d rather watch a film about a shortish and oldish and brownish and mossy character who speaks with a voice that is sharpish and bossy, see The Lorax.
“The Separation”, 2012 Academy Award-winner for Best Foreign Film openfilm.com
I joined. I follow and am followed. I pin and am re-pinned. I create my boards and am impressed, inspired and invigorated by the boards of others. Everything about this spunky new social-networking tool hits my pins…..uh, make that, buttons. It rains feel-good, drip by drip by drip.
Petula Dvorak, a writer for the Washington Post, recently called Pinterest “digital crack for women.” If that’s the case, then I’m addicted.
Pinterest – a visual bookmarking site that lets you “pin” and share images of things you deem worthy of sharing.
For those of you unfamiliar with this site, let me explain. First, Pinterest, a virtual pin board of pictures, is the fastest-growing Web site in history. Last month, according to Forbes, about 11 million unique visitors navigated through. It is on-line scrap booking at its simplest. You’re the pinner, filling memory boards with images of your interests. If others like your pinned images, they can re-pin them to their boards. I have created 9 boards. I follow a gal who has 38, another, 52.
As New York Times writer David Pogue recently wrote, “The ability to round things up into tidy collections is powerful and visual.”
Apple Pie, Pinned on PINTEREST http://mashable.com/
Wedding Photo, Pinned to PINTEREST http://mashable.com/
I first learned of Pinterest last year when Lynn Burgoyne, a professional artist and educator, mentioned she was dropping Facebook and moving to Pinterest as her social networking outlet. Since she is such an innately imaginative woman, a powerhouse of creativity, I was interested. Lynn sent me an invitation (no longer required), and I joined.
I recently asked Lynn what distinguishes this new kid from other on-line social networks?
“I was attracted to Pinterest because I needed some creative stimulation,” Lynn replied. “Facebook allowed me to connect with people I know and with long lost school buddies. It was wonderful but after a while I was totally bored. I felt that I was wasting precious time and wasn’t being productive throughout the course of the day. A friend introduced me to Pinterest and a whole new creative world opened up to me! It’s a smorgasbord full of visually stimulating ideas!”
Even the Washington Post’s Dvorak is impressed with the site graphics. “These bulletin boards are simple, clean spaces,” she says, “and are filled with cool pictures of food, crafts, fashion, travel spots, home remodeling, decorating ideas, fitness tips, hairstyles, furniture, architecture, kid projects, pithy sayings, cute animal photos, and cheeky wedding plans.”
To my thinking, it’s worth a visit to this site just to read a few of the hundreds of labels given these imagery boards. For example: Besotted with This; Sweet on the Standards; I Carry a Torch; Gris Galore; Felt Up; Their Dish & My Dish; Green Eggs & Pam; For Crying Out Loud; Women Roaring; Whacked My Funny Bone; Noah’s Intention; Ways to Save Moo-lah; Nuts about Nutella; and R U Worth Your Salt?
Lynn, who has created 97 boards, has 627 followers and has been re-pinned 12,076 times, making her one of the more successful pin-pals. “I’ve been on Pinterest for over a year” she says. “Since then I’ve been inspired to paint three paintings, produce a beautiful garden with a bumper crop of goodness. My culinary art skills have improved. I’ve read books that I might not ever have known about and saved money doing DIY projects. I’ve come up with new art project ideas for my students and become more educated in world culture, travel, art, music…the list goes on!”
As for me? I joined Pinterest last Fall. Since I’ve never bonded successfully with any social-networking sites nor even played interactive computer games, I’m surprised (and, pleased) with this playful, responsive and, yes, time-consuming, platform. It’s relatively easy to gear up and start pinning, although I admit to being helped by computer-geeks-the younger.
A Honey-Do for Pinterest Users someecards.com
It’s important to note, however, that Pinterest primarily attracts females (80%) but is not geared to aging Baby Boomers like me. To my thinking, that’s the narcotic. I feed off the frenzy of the enormous creativity produced by countless younger generations of women. Their imaginative ideas help me visualize, more fully, their thinking process and the rhythm of their vibrations. It’s fun, really, really, fun, to look and learn from them.
For Lynn, who lives in an isolated area of California’s Sierra-Nevada Mountains, it’s another critical lifeline to a bigger world. “I have interacted with several “pinners”,” she says. “The first to come to mind is Sam. We share similar tastes in art as well as other interests, and I’ve learned a lot from his pins as he is a world traveler and collector of art in every form!”
Like anything that is the newest, latest and greatest, the buzz has landed Pinterest squarely in the media spotlight. According to the Wall StreetJournal, it has also grabbed the attention of Silicon Valley angel investors who have, to date, pinned $37.5 million onto the Pinterest boards. Although the closely held company, created by Ben Silbermann of Des Moines, Iowa, wouldn’t disclose financial figures, it is currently valued at around $200 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Ben Silbermann, PINTEREST founder (middle) shopsweetthings.com
It seems to me that New York Times writerDavid Pogue puts this phenomenon in proper perspective. “It might seem hard to believe,” he writes, “but yes, even in the Facebook-Twitter-Tumblr-LinkedIn era, there’s still room for yet another successful, popular social media site. At least there’s room online. Whether there’s enough room in your busy life is a different question!”
Welcome to my new early-morning Coffee/Crossword morning-routine. While this might not seem strange to you – many folks begin each day by working through a crossword puzzle – it’s totally weird for me. Even weirder? I like it.
The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper Photo by margotmagowan.wordpress.com
For more years than I can remember, most of my life, in fact, I’ve been a 5 a.m. early-morning-rise-and-shine type of gal. Mornings are my cup-of-tea, uh, make that bold coffee, French Roast, no additives. Before the sun climbs over the horizon, I have usually knocked an hour of exercise off my list, shampooed and showered, glanced at the newspaper over breakfast and am ready for work, errands, appointments or chores, whatever my busy day might offer. That’s a full day and translates to an 8:30 to 9 p.m. bedtime.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Welcome to a perfectly normal American lifestyle.
For me, what Year 2012’s all about is “slowing this train down”, a phrase adopted by my family. The train they seem to be referring to is me. I’m trying not to take offense at that but only if I can still remain the engine. It’s coming up for a vote at our next family meeting!
That’s why, these days, I’m all about Bathrobe-Coffee-Crossword. Throw in an extra hour of sleep and that may make me a downright slob!
Here’s the SNAP. Whether it’s a Crossword Puzzle, Sudoku or a daily dose of Jeopardy, it’s necessary and age-appropriate for us to choose some, any, a myriad of, mind-games-of-choice. Ten-thousand Baby Boomers are retiring each day. While that’s phenomenally exciting, there’s no gold watch awaiting our Brain.
Do you remember author Watty Piper’s bedtime story, The Little EngineThat Could (it was a She, by the way)? That little engine chugged along, never gave up, but needed help and assistance. That’s how I like to think about our Brains!
Our family meeting convenes Sunday night. I’m bringing the book.
