Sexism and the City

I’ve been revisiting old episodes of Sex and the City a lot lately. It’s a fun show for a girl to watch. New York City neighborhoods, ultra-chic fashions, Manolo Blahnik shoes, ever-changing hairstyles. And an endless stream of nameless but memorable lovers.

The show becomes decidedly less fun when any of the girls ends up in a serious relationship. Can a long-term partnership ever compare favorably to a brand new sex-soaked love fest? Surely not. I can handle Carrie and Mr. Big because Christopher Noth is incredibly dashing and always just a hair out of reach. And Charlotte can have Harry because she’s the show’s I-believe-in-love ingenue and she needs monogamy. But the relationship between Miranda, the successful attorney, and Steve, the soft-spoken bartender, is a huge drag to watch.

Miranda is the least attractive of the girlfriends and her personality is off-putting. Brooklyn boy Steve-with-a-heart-of-gold is able to overlook her coarse communication style and soften her with his sympathetic ear and tender loving ways. Okay, fine. I could take that for a few weeks.

But for some godforsaken reason the writers let this stupid relationship go on until Miranda winds up preggers, wants to abort, can’t because Steve’s so adorably earnest, has the baby, decides to keep Steve, blah blah blah. The writers should’ve killed them both off right then. There should be no happily ever after on Sex and the City. The whole point of the show is the friendship between the women. Men are unreliable, thus expendable. But girlfriends are forever.

The thing I really hate about the Miranda-Steve relationship is the whole rich girl/poor boy thing. Charming initially but odious when morphed into powerful-manly-girl/emasculated-but-fighting-nobly boy. Financially secure Miranda is portrayed as shallow, greedy, hardened and immoral, while affable loser Steve is the white knight come to love her into domestic simplicity.

Forget independence, ignore achievement, never mind separate identity. The message is that what we really want, in the deep recesses of our scarred hearts, is to give it all up to a good guy like Steve.

American Idol

My former personal trainer and very good friend, Karyn, is a two-time Olympian in team handball, a sport little known in the U.S. Across the globe, however, team handball has more fans and more participants than ANY OTHER sport outside soccer.

The sport requires skill in dribbling, passing, throwing, leaping, and goaltending, so team handball players in the US -- where we don't grow up playing the sport like the rest of the world -- are generally basketball, volleyball, softball, and soccer players who bring their athletic ability to the court, and learn the rules and nuances of the game as they train. My friend was a three-sport letter winner in college and was a shoo-in for handball, as it's called everywhere but here.

Because it encompasses so many different skills (including an intuitive understanding of physics!) team handball has actually become part of the gym curriculum in our school district. I hope, bit by bit, the beauty and incredible coolness of the sport sink into our national psyche, and it becomes part of the mainstream.

Watch the following video (only 30 seconds) to see poetry in motion.

This sport gives me goosebumps, seriously. Can't wait for Beijing.


1992 Olympic Team, Karyn is in the center row, second from left.

1988 Olympic Team, Karyn is on the bottom row, second from left.

Hiking Section 16, Colorado Springs

Today my best chum, Kiwi, her kooky new Weimaraner, Raven, and I hiked our favorite trail. Section 16, part of Manitou Springs Trails and Open Space, is an area of old-growth pine forest, babbling brooks, awesome rock formations and outstanding views of the city and the Garden of the Gods.

The hike we took -- the Palmer Red Rock Loop -- is a six-mile trek, reasonably difficult for the first hour (all uphill), and then open vistas and easy sailing the rest of the way.

Yay! Spring hiking has arrived! Me so happy!

In Memoriam Kathy Verlo 1938-2008

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Newborn Hope and Faded Beauty

On Thursday and Friday I, along with 1600 of my closest friends, dolled up and went to the Broadmoor International Center to attend the annual Newborn Hope luncheon and fashion show. This is a spectacular event, something that we look forward to all year. Filet mignon, chocolate mousse and champagne are culinary staples. Beautiful models from Denver, both male and female, entertain us. We have a silent auction (Botox, rounds of golf, ski jackets, jewelry), we sell table decorations and Christmas ornaments, we have a balloon raffle. We have fun. We raise money.

I have been involved with Newborn Hope for more than a decade. I have co-chaired the event, co-chaired the Advisory Council, been a member of the Corporate Board. Newborn Hope is about prematurity prevention and maternal/neonatal healthcare. I could go on and on about my passion for our mission and for the organization, but I think I'll save that for another time.

What I want to talk about are the women who are Newborn Hope. Shortly after I became involved with the organization, I discovered that I was pregnant with twins. I had had 4 easy pregnancies in the past so this discovery did not deter me from my normal behavior in the slightest. At 26 weeks (normal gestation is 40 weeks) I went to my doctor for a routine check up. Ironically, she informed me that I was in pre-term labor and that I needed to walk across the parking lot and check myself into the hospital.

The long and short of it is that I ended up enduring 10 weeks of strict bedrest. I had 4 young children at home but was told that I was allowed to get up only once every 2 hours to go to the bathroom. Yeah, right. Puh-lease.

My Newborn Hope friends, none of whom I knew well at the time, heard of my plight and knew how important, and how impossible, compliance was. In order to help me and my little preborns, they arranged for a different committee member to deliver a meal to my home, enough to feed the 6 of us, every night for 10 weeks. A woman I hardly knew called me and said, politely but firmly, "I will be in your driveway every morning at 7:45 to take your kids to school. Please have them watch for me." Another woman drove my little David to preschool three times per week, a thirty minute round trip.

Twice during my confinement, 20 women or so brought me a moveable feast. They showed up on my doorstep with egg dishes and waffles and bacon and sweet rolls, flowers even. They arranged chairs around me, hugged me, talked to me, made me laugh. Two hours later they gathered everything up, washed and put away every dish, left me with a few good books, and out they went. It was a bit surreal. Kind of like Cat in the Hat.

My new friends came and took my little ones to Happy Apple Farm to get Halloween pumpkins. They showed up every day at 3:30 to lift my little Lara out of her crib after her afternoon nap. They heard that I was having a hard time reading so they blazed in, taught me to cross stitch, brought me everything I needed to complete a project, and raced back out to their own lives.

A severely premature infant is the most expensive medical patient there is. Much more expensive than a cancer patient, a transplant patient, an accident victim. More importantly, premature babies can have developmental delays, vision problems, physical difficulties that last a lifetime. My twins, had they been born at 26 weeks, might be very different children today. I am grateful for their good health. I'll be forever thankful for the women who helped me carry to term.

I took a friend of mine, a guy, to the luncheon this year. I wanted to share with him an important part of my life, to show him what I've done for 10 years, to introduce him to the people who've made a huge difference to me and to Devon and Ryan. He was one of only a few men among 800 women. I thought that it would be fun. Educational. Inspiring perhaps. Sadly, he saw a bunch of middle-aged women, shoved into leather pants and halter tops, flaunting back fat and delightful but embarrassing fake boobs, hoping to regain lost youth. How sad and how jaded. I'm really sorry that that is all he saw.

I saw my angels. I saw my friends. I saw love in action. I saw gorgeous women who've made a difference to me and to the community.

Relax, guy friend. You don't need to tell us about our faded beauty. We already know. Many of us who are involved with Newborn Hope have had heartbreaking experience with prematurity. We've also dealt with breast cancer, aging parents, learning disabilities...you name it. As a result, we don't worry too much about our saddlebags. Our chin hairs. Our wrinkled foreheads. Our sagging boobs. We'd rather revel in the potential and perfection of our children. And in the beauty and kindness of our aging friends.

So go screw yourself. You'll never again be invited to hang out with the ladies who lunch.