 Overwhelmed koala It has been some years since I've written this blog post, which still seems to stand the test of time. New statistical information about the oversupply of men in some countries, however, has come to light. Err ... yes, you read it correctly, ladies; it's not a typo, and I did write "OVERSUPPLY". But more on this later; in the meantime, enjoy the following blog post. We have an expression in Australia that we sometimes use when we're feeling rather overwhelmed; and when I finished reading a certain article about the chances of women finding men after a certain age, I was left trembling with apprehension. As I clutched the newspaper to my breast and shakily boarded the train on the way home from an appointment the other day, I said to myself: "How much can a koala bear?" Once on the train, I re-read the by-now-crumpled-paper so I could take things in once more, this time sitting down. A flashback to the movie "Sleepless in Seattle" brought back the comment made to the Meg Ryan character that "A woman has a much higher chance of being killed in a terrorist attack than getting married after the age of forty." Well, I have news for you, sisters--the age has now dropped dramatically since they filmed that movie. This explains my downing a Valium when I arrived home and making myself a huge bowl of pasta with pesto (my favourite comfort food) so I could get over the shock of what I had learned. The following comes from a regular column in the mX newspaper (courtesy of City Rail), written by Emma Merkas. WARNING: READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL!!!
 Never mind being past 40 years of age (plus the growing number of global terrorist attacks these days). Bloody hell! They are now saying if we don't land a man by age 29 we're done for! So what are the chances for us older chicks? As we fondly say in Australia: "Buckleys and none". This is how much of a chance we have of landing a man past the age of 29, 30, 35, 40, 45, and so on (I won't even go into the 50s). Therefore, our mission is not just impossible; it's "frigging IMPOSSIBLE!" Hence, with heartfelt sympathy and condolences to my older, wiser, and sometimes dumped sisters out there, bring on the terrorists! In fact, I think we have a much better chance of capturing a whole terrorist organisation and bringing them to justice, while winning millions on Lotto three times in the space of a week; and for me, also having George Clooney and Clint Eastwood entering into a bidding war for the film option to one of my novels, than landing a man who is decent, faithful, loving, and considerate. Oh, fudge! Forget the last bit and simply make it ANY man. Okay, I'm off to find a mining town now, where women are few and men are desperate, or if all else fails I can always move overseas and try my luck over there. AND NOW WHAT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR... The article on the OVERSUPPLY of men, courtesy of the Washington Post.  Too many men? Knowing our luck they're also after 29-year-old females :(
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 The power of friendship is important at any age. Friendship can transcend the sometimes conditional love of families and relationships. True friendship doesn't judge; true friendship doesn't place conditions on people--your friends will love you as you are; true friendships encourage you to grow and be the best you can be; true friendship is there when your whole life falls apart and you need someone to help you pick up the pieces. No matter how old one is, friends will be with us from the moment we start interacting with the world, and if we're lucky our friends will walk alongside of us through life's bumpy journey, and until death. This is more than we can expect from some families and most romantic relationships. So we established that friendship is extremely important in one's life--but have you ever asked yourself when friendship seems to become the most important of all? For me, and millions of people the world over, friendship is most important when we reach middle age and start sliding very quickly toward old age. For women, this is doubly important--women being the nurturing creatures they are (most of them, anyway); they bring special love to those whom they love whether it be a family member, a spouse or a friend. But why is middle-age friendship so important? Well, let's take the case of the average female at age 50. Unless she's extremely lucky, she's probably been divorced at least twice, perhaps dumped for a younger model. Her work/career is no longer as important besides which, she's probably getting passed over for promotion by younger work colleagues and more satisfying work is difficult to find due to ageism in the workplace. If she's had children, she's possibly an empty nester by now; and if she's divorced, her middled-aged ex is involved with a chick half his age and driving the proverbial Porsche. On top of this, the average 50-something female is going through menopause, and all those fluctuating hormones do not help at all! She's suddenly flushing every few minutes, she gets ectopic heartbeats, her moods suddenly feel like they're on a pendulum, anxiety might hit too, and she experiences panic attacks or she simply ends up getting depressed. Then, if one or both of her parents are alive, she might end up having to care for them as they are ill and need someone around. This woman is dividing herself in 100 different directions in the treadmill of middle age, only to be spat out at the other end (if she survives) feeling lonely, without a support system, her dreams for life as yet unrealised, and she's stuck in a nightmare of a life, especially if she's also trying to deal with her own health problems. And let's not even go to her poor looks, some of which might include: frumpy, faded, overweight, grey hair overnight, wrinkles, cellulite, a pot belly and/or that dreaded middle age tyre around the middle! Okay, so I think by now you'll agree with me that friendship's quite important, especially at this time of life, when we think living through another day is torture. Oh, and let's not forget we've also become invisible to the world, especially to men. Is the picture getting darker and darker by the minute? But don't despair. Life has a way of making things possible if only we remain open-minded and maintain our resilience. Enter "The Power of Three".  You might ask: "Who are these women?" Well, they're women like you and me, only they got together and became a force to be reckoned with. "Yeah, right," you say. "I bet it's just a movie!" And yes, you're right, it is a movie, but it's a movie that's based on the lives of three amazing, true-life, 50-something women who decided to make things happen. So read on! Ann Cameron, the writer of the Indie film "The Power of Three" read one of my blogs about Baby Boomers and the challenges faced particularly by women, and she contacted me to share her experience in this time of her life. Have a look at this short video regarding the film and the real women behind the film.  Ann Cameron - Writer & Filmmaker Ann shared this press release with me to further drive the point of what the three friends were trying to achieve: We generally think of film-makers as big budget studios or even faceless business organisations. Just coming together to make a film seems so difficult...and so expensive in today’s climate that it’s easier to just confine ideas like that to a pipe dream. But that’s not what happened to Yvonne Deutschman , Thereza Snyman and Ann Cameron. Ann and Yvonne met at University in Canada. 30 years later (and having never seen each other during that time), Yvonne invited Ann to London. Ann was at a bleak point in her life - her mother was ill (she died later that year), her legal work was boring. In short, there was no fun. One evening, while bitching about life in general, Ann, Yvonne and their friend, Thereza, were bemoaning how women were portrayed on film. Chick flick movies were so disappointing: it was obvious that even the ones written by women (few and far between) showed the influence of male producers. Women could have fun… but not too much fun. They fantasised about a chick flick that breaks all the rules. Women working together instead of backstabbing each other. No script line that starts with "but I saw him FIRST". No singing into household appliances and definitely no "let's go shopping” sequences. And breaking the biggest rule of them all - having women over age 50 driving the action! Using Ann’s writing expertise, Yvonne’s knowledge of the film industry and Thereza’s business acumen, they went out and found their three leads: British actress Toyah Willcox, South African Brümilda Van Rensburg and Canadian, Robin Craig. Veteran performers Shirley Anne Field, Margaret Nolan, Richard Bremmer and Hilton McRae joined the cast. Each woman invested £5,000 and found others to do the same until they had £50,000 – enough to do the shoot. Everyone came on board as a profit share and they were in business. The film Michelle (Toyah Wilcox), once a promising film director, now finds her career slowly sliding backwards. Olivia (Brümilda van Rensburg), once a strong and elegant activist who makes a great marriage, now lives in the shadows of the same failed marriage that is stopping her moving forward. Lizzie (Robin Craig) has morphed from wild child into a slobby, middle-aged lawyer with nothing but her work to keep her going. Events are set into motion when Michelle turns 50 and she is reunited with her two oldest University friends at her party. At first everyone is keen to keep up appearances and live up to their previous glory days...but inevitably the truth comes out ...and there’s no going back...only forward, and together the three women help each other achieve the dreams they had almost given up on. The Power of Three is for anyone who has ever felt stuck or stalled. It’s a heart-warming reminder that sometimes you just need help to make something happen. The Power of Three was released on 10th November 2011 with a DVD release that followed in January 2012. If you wish to find out more about the film, visit this site. So where are the real life friends now? The three friends are planning another film; this one is about turning 60! Meanwhile, The Power of Three was invited to major film festivals in the U.S. and Canada: the Women's International Film Festival (Miami), the Brooklyn Girls Film Festival (New York) and the Toronto Indie Film Festival. It also secured a distributor in South Africa where the film has been shown on TV and is selling briskly. Ann Cameron reports: The real life story for the three filmmakers is also heartening. England has now become my second home-- I just returned from a visit with Thereza Snyman. I went there in 2003 to visit Yvonne.. after not seeing her for 30 years. My mother was very ill and would die on Christmas Eve of that year. I was trying to look after my parents, look after my aunt and uncle, and working non-stop. My cousin Bill asked me what I was doing and I rattled off a litany of obligations and duties. He looked at me and said: "No, Ann. I meant what are you doing for fun?" I had no answer and it was this conversation that propelled me to visit London. It changed my life for the better. Our director Yvonne has gone on to more projects focusing on her first love, the Caribbean. She recently completed a documentary about life in the 50s and 60s for Caribbean immigrants in the UK. http://www.hangingout.org.uk/film_project.htm Thereza has found her dream job as head of IT at a London law firm. As for me, although I'm still struggling with health problems stemming from an accident where I was hit by a car in 2012 plus the aftermath of my father's death, I am rejuvenated every time I visit my friends in London.  Heart-warming, funny (sometimes wacky), but mostly depicting the real life issues of ageism, growing older, and the power of friendship, this film is a must-see for anyone at any age. After all, when things start happening, and the friends become a force to be reckoned with, the most beautiful thing we see is that people of all ages, and both genders, come together to work on a great project for the greater good. Inspiring and empowering: that's The Power of Three!
... Only, we’re in Detroit and not Chicago. Picture this: Detroit in the late 1920s. A beautiful, headstrong, young girl determined not to follow in the wake of well-mannered young ladies of that period and be “married off” to the best suitor. A mysterious walk-in closet; a mother with a dark secret. Men and women with self-serving motives, gangsters and molls, booze, murder, and flying bullets!  All this, and more, will you find in author Patty Wiseman’s trilogy, The Velvet Shoe Collection, consisting of: An Unlikely Arrangement, An Unlikely Beginning, and An Unlikely Conclusion. Patty is experiencing great success with her romance suspense series featuring 17-year-old Ruth Squire, and her “unlikely” adventures. I’ve just finished reading Book 2 in the collection, and caught up with Patty in between book tours and literary award dinners to ask her a few questions about her unique series.  Author Patty Wiseman Sylvia: You picked an interesting era to write about--Detroit, late 1920s--what made you write about this time in history? Patty: Imagine a tow-headed, five-year-old runt of a girl crouching behind the stairwell in her grandmother’s three-story mansion, listening to the grownups talk about her life during the roaring twenties. We were leaving to move to Kansas. My dad took a new job there. Kansas is where my grandmother met her second husband, and where her story took an unexpected twist. She’d fled from Detroit, Michigan, to save her life and her son’s. I’m a naturally curious being, and my vivid imagination worked over time while grandmother spun her story of intrigue. I’ve often thought she missed her calling. She should have been a writer herself. Over the years, I made a point to stay with her on any occasion I could and sat in rapture most of the time as she told the story of her life’s journey. Those stories never left me. I knew I had to write about them. Life, of course, got in the way. I put it on the back burner, but shortly before I retired, the stories grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let me go.  Sylvia: How did you find having to research details to write about this era? Patty: First of all, I love, love, love that era. Partly, because of the stories I heard, but more because when I did start to research that era, the role women played during that time fascinated me. This was an era of women really coming out of the shadows, and making themselves and their desires known. I put my grandmother in that category, as well. She was headstrong, passionate, and beautiful. She knew what she wanted, and was going to find a way to have it. I found a lot of information through ancestry.com. I also have a lot of online friends who live in Detroit, who were very accommodating when I needed to verify facts about the time period. I really had a lot of fun researching.  Sylvia: Why did you name this series of books "The Velvet Shoe Collection"? Patty: As I said before, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother growing up. She had a huge house, and the guestroom I stayed in had a cavernous closet. I was always exploring; and one night, I found the closet didn’t end in the guest room. It actually turned the corner and continued into my grandmother’s dressing room. When I turned that corner, I was amazed. Rows of fancy dresses, jewelry and shoes! So many shoes! There were all kinds to match her dresses, but the ones I liked best were the velvet ones. Especially a red velvet pair. That’s where I came up with the name. I wrote that closet and those dresses into the books.  Sylvia: So the idea to write this series come from real life, as with most authors? Patty: Yes. I wrote the stories from my grandmother’s perspective, but really to honor her first husband, my father’s father, who never lived to see him grow up. I had only planned on one book at first, but I got such a wonderful response, I decided to write a series. Now, people are clamoring for me to write about some of the other characters in the books and to expand on their lives. There is so much material there. I could write for years! Sylvia: I see you are doing some book tours and talks around the country. Please tell us more about this. Patty: In 2012, I pulled out all the stops and traveled everywhere for book signings and festivals, libraries and book stores. I hardly ever had a weekend off. What I found was women who love to read about strong women who have found a way to live their dreams. This year, I’ve slowed down on the tours and am working on a series of workshops designed to encourage women to pursue their dreams no matter what station in life they find themselves. If you follow me on my website, www.pattywiseman.com, you will be able to keep up to date on the progress of these endeavors.  Sylvia: I like the slogan on your website: "Challenge, Conquer, Change". What is the premise behind this?
Patty: I’ve been able to live my dream, and it is a passion of mine to encourage other women to follow theirs. So many women feel that time has passed them by, that they don’t have anything meaningful to contribute anymore. There are two blogs about "Women of a Certain Age" on my website. One spotlights quotes from women at various ages, and what they like most about the age they are. The other, affirms the worth of women as they get older and spotlights the man’s point of view, and the beauty they find as their partner travels through each decade. We should never discount our influence in this world because we are aging. Too many times, women get trapped in what the media portrays beauty to be, thus creating an impossible image to sustain. We need to stand away from the television, the billboards, and the magazines, and examine the virtues we have to offer to the younger generations. We are beautiful at every age! We need to find the jewel within! Sylvia: That is inspiring indeed! Ageing is not very kind to women because of the media, and the culture we live in, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries such as the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Is there anything else you'd like to tell your readers? Patty: I’d just like to encourage all women to explore the UNLIKELY! Many times, we fall into a pattern, and just stay on the same old treadmill. Try something new, whether it be in the books you read, the entertainment you enjoy, or the places you travel, even the food you eat. Open up your world! Explore the possibilities. It’s an exciting time to be a woman! Sylvia: Patty, it has been a great pleasure to feature you on "Sylvia Says". Thank you, and I wish you all the best with the Velvet Shoe Collection and your workshops on inspiring women to reach their potential. I think this kind of empowerment is something we can never get enough of. Patty: The pleasure is mine. Thank you for the interview, and for having me on your blog. I wish you all the best with your own "Unlikely Adventures" as a strong woman and novelist!  They say that it's better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all. Hmm. Let's examine this further. I think we can all agree that when we first find love (no matter how misguided or blind we are) we feel like our little friend "Super Kitty". We are faster than a speeding bullet, can leap tall buildings in a single bound; we fly through space and everything looks absolutely "f....ckng" fantastic; that is, until we crash! This is when it turns out that the object of our affection has feet of clay. In fact, it would be nice if the object of my affection had cement shoes instead (but that's another story and something for The Godfather to work out).  So, after the devastation of a breakup and the death of our dreams, we are left feeling a little bit like our friend, The Pink Panther. Oh, just shoot me! And we start asking all sorts of questions: "What did I do?" (This is a typical one asked, mainly by females. I mean, why should it be our fault all the time?). "Why did he/she leave?" And some of us get the good old: "It's not you, it's me" bullshit.  Okay, so the answer to the question: "Is it better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all?" The answer: I DON'T FREAKIN' KNOW!!! And you thought I was going to say something really philosophical, right? Sorry to disappoint you. All I can say is that while the first phase of love can be as exhilarating as landing a 747 airplane on your own while being guided by "ground control", and have Bruce Willis in the back of the plane shooting all the bad guys; having your heart broken is like crashing the bloody plane and killing everyone onboard--including Bruce Willis! Is there a payoff to putting yourself through all this, only to come out bruised and absolutely crushed with disappointment at the other end? Ask the Dalai Lama.  There is only one thing I am sure about, and it is this; having gone through some harrowing experiences with the opposite sex, I've learned the following: *If you’re an author, your writing suddenly gains more depth. *If you’re a woman over 40, you have a higher chance of being killed by a terrorist than finding a real man. *You get sick of people telling you that “what goes around comes around”. This means to me that I must’ve done something really terrible in a previous life (or even this one) in order to deserve meeting those #%&@#@ good-for-nothing SOBs. *Life’s a bitch and then you die :-( *“Eat, Pray, Love”. I tried eating and got indigestion; I prayed, but this didn't change any of the psychos out there; I didn’t find anyone to love yet, but then, I'm not Julia Roberts; however, ... I AM STILL COOL!  |
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