Tag Archives: Fun

For a good time, read…”Rats, Mice and Other Things You Can’t Take to the Bank.”

Doesn’t this look fun?! It is, but it is so much more. Join Leslie Handler in her journey of essays from a smitten young college student (I would love to hear so much more about her love story with Marty) to her journey through cancer, her willingness to walk a mile in your shoes, her true discovery to the key to incredible weight loss, and her wish to enter the elusive heaven of menopause (yep…she wants it, she wants it bad)!

Leslie keeps you smiling, laughing, crying, astounded and astonished with her stories of seemingly every-day-life. But is it? Is this your life or mine? Well if it is, everyone should write a book because the jaunt of Leslie’s life is remarkable.

I started to write about which chapters are my favorite, and when I went back through the book, that I literally just finished reading, I started reading each chapter all over again. I can’t pick a favorite. But what I can tell you is that Leslie’s honesty will roundhouse you like a 2×4, sometimes in a fun way and sometimes in a Jewish Bubbie’s , “What? You think only you have all the fakakta problems?”

A perfect book to give as a gift, take on a plane ride, a beach, or put in the bathroom. Leslie would be okay with that, I’m sure. It’s honest and heartfelt, just like her and her book.

Full disclosure, Leslie and I share an extraordinary Publisher, Donna Cavanagh and HumorOutcasts Press. We thank our lucky stars…we both say so in our books!

Just go click on this and order:

 

2,018 ideas for the New Year! Just kidding………..only 7…..

Well, here we are, the first week of January, where everything changes and becomes new. Where we get to be a whole new person, with a whole new life and whole new ideas about what the next 365 days will bring.

When I thought about that on the scale this morning ( I sure did ‘let it go’ the past two weeks!) I realized this January thing is the same damn thing, every damn year,  for the past 300 years for me. And I’d take the wager that most of you feel the same.

So here’s my January suggestions:

  1. It’s cold. Wear a hat.

    Maybe not these hats. But they do come with a snack!
  2. Stay hydrated. Your hands, lips, and skin are begging for water and you don’t drink enough because it’s cold. (Even if you live in a warm climate, do it anyway).
  3. Read a book. Even a pop-up book is a different experience than a screen. And how fun is a pop-up book? You know you love them.                
  4. Call your Mom, your best friend, your therapist or your spouse for no reason except to say hi. Better yet, take them out for coffee.
  5. Get some alone time. We all need it. If you get too much, go back to number 4. If you don’t get enough, repeat number 5.
  6. Dance. I just read where one of my Facebook writer friends has to dance around like a washing machine when she takes her new meds because it will keep her from getting nauseous. Dancing will keep all of us from getting nauseous every time we read the news. So dance like a washing machine!
  7. Make a list of all the things that you love to do and do more of that….not list making, the things you love to do…unless it’s list making, then do that.

None of this even remotely looks like resolutions or life-changing habits. But as I lather on lotion, dance like a washing machine, while being alone, searching for my hat to go buy a pop-up book and have coffee with some friends, I’ll tell you my list for 2018 already looks pretty darn fun………..that’s a revelation! Which is ever so much better than a resolution.

HAPPY JANUARY……….AND ALL OF 2018 TO COME!

“You Just have to Laugh………….”

©2018 Cathy Sikorski

Having Fun is Hard……

I have been working diligently on my new website as well as doing a wonderful amount of speaking engagements for the last three months. I am so happy with my work right now.  I think I forgot how old I am, having fun is hard.

I was fortunate to get a free pass to the party of the season, the Kentucky Derby, two weeks ago. This was between some intense prep for speaking and trying to work on two online classes I’m taking to be a better speaker, a booked speaker and an entertaining speaker. Steve Martin is one of my teachers. I got an email from Steve today asking me where the hell have I been? How do you expect to be funny if you don’t show up for Steve’s class? I was working on it while having fun. I did my best at the Kentucky Derby to be hilarious. Just ask my friend Jim, who saw me trip in front of 158,000 people and still keep my hat on.

 

See, Steve. Jim is laughing.

Last night at a dinner party, I was doing my best to wow the crowd with the antics of my mother and her kleptomania.

You can’t be trying out new material while taking a class, Steve.

I’m procrastinating right this minute as  I’m supposed to be practicing my talk for tonight. In an effort to ramp up my hilarity, I have changed my talk completely, added props and new stories, mostly because the venue doesn’t have PowerPoint capability so I had to come up with some new crutches. Since Steve is my mentor now, I thought emulating him would be my best effort.

I don’t know how to make balloon animals and I didn’t have time to go find an arrow like Steve’s but these turkey legs were just hanging around my house. I hope I can find just the right words to integrate this into a talk about the legal and practical issues confronting caregivers.

Never be chicken to laugh at yourself!

Perhaps it will be funny enough that I will bring a free package of Depends as a door prize for the participant who laughs the hardest.

See why I’m tired? Having fun is really hard.

By the way, that picture is with Jim’s mom. At least I have two fans!

“You Just have to Laugh…..”

©2017 Cathy Sikorski

One is Silver and the Other’s Gold…….

Remember in high school this conversation, usually in the girls’ bathroom:

“Oh my God, he’s so cute. I hope he asks  me out!”

“Oh my god he IS SO CUTE!,” replied your girlfriend in the next stall.

Of course this was before you could text between stalls.

My friend Lisa, is going to her high school reunion for the first time. It’s her 45th reunion. Add 18 to that and you have deciphered the age of most of the participants with a certain very tiny margin of error of no more than a year, unless they had an unusually high percentage of child geniuses in her small upstate New York town. I feel quite certain this was one of their former conversations four decades ago.

Oddly, Lisa attended a singing event in that same small upstate New York town several months ago. She made a special effort to contact some old high school friends and voila! She was convinced by these dear, kind friends from the past to make a special effort to get to that reunion.

Since her traumatic brain injury, Lisa does not drive and no one from her high school lives anywhere near her. But these old pals from the past, whom she hasn’t seen in a very long time, have agreed to drive many hours to come pick her up and the same many hours to return her safe and sound to her home.

This has restored my faith in humanity.

Lisa hasn’t seen these people from high school in many years. She hasn’t spoken to several of them at all since high school ended. And yet, these girls (yes, I’m going to call them that) are willing to make big sacrifices to get her transported, housed and taken care of so that they can all reminisce about their teenage lives.

I have been know to comment that “high school never ends”, and not in a good way. I have seen cattiness, jealousy and spitefulness continue among high school compatriots all around me. And, of course, we see it as a staple in reality TV like “Real Housewives” of anywhere, “The Bachelor(ette)”and any “reality” show requiring contestants to compete for attention, living space, food, or screen time so they can be famous. This is high school behavior at its finest. Small-minded, petty, self-serving behavior. It might be fun to watch, but it’s really not fun to be in the midst of it.

Life has continued to become a popularity contest, and not in a good way. What else would you call a host of mudslinging, bully tactics designed to make your opponent look bad in the eyes of the student body…oh a political campaign, that’s right.

I am one of those few lucky girls who even after 40 years of  high school,  still regularly sees my high school girlfriends who are a rock solid foundation of support, fun, and constant joy in  my life.

That my friend, Lisa, has rediscovered the possibility that old friends could be ‘gold’ does my heart good.

This, of course, did not exempt any of these 60-something women from having a big internet powwow in the last few days about whose old boyfriend will be showing up and which of those might be single and a possible “love connection.”

I imagine those ladies in the girls’ bathroom this weekend when they see their former flames saying:

“Oh my God, he’s still so cute, I wonder if he’s single?”

“Oh my God, he is cute, and he has his own teeth AND HIS OWN HAIR?!?!?”

See, high school never ends…….no, really, it’s true. If only you knew that when you were in high school.

“You Just have to Laugh………..”

©2015 Cathy Sikorski

A Vogue Valentine…

The day of love has arrived,

It couldn’t be sweeter

If you were a poster, a blogger or merely a Tweeter.

 

But you, even you, must acknowledge the One

Who has made your life

Happy and Special and Fun.

 

So buy him a card or a shirt or a bottle,

Buy her some candy or shoes or a bauble,

But buy it you must

Or your love will not show.

 

Unless you get them star-billing

On your blog on HuffPo

 

You can show them your love

When you make them a star,

When you scribe all their beauty

From near and afar.

 

Your grand gesture will take them

To Facebook and Pinterest,

Your schmoopie will be known from

Paris to Minsk.

 

So use your skill on the Internet and over the Web

It’s cheaper than chocolate

And will get you in bed.

 

Shout it from Instagram, Tumblr and Snapchat

Your special one is nothing to sneeze at,

She’s grand and he’s fine and totally the best

She’s better than Kim and Beyonce and

Screw you, Kanye West.

 

Your love is abounding

So text it and wait

Read your comments and endorsements

Of how it’s so great

To love and to cherish all over the web

Happy Valentine’s Day, you’re now a celeb.