For You Mom, Finally or Not Becoming My Mother - Ruth Reichl

Not Becoming My Mother was the original title of this book, and when I looked it up, the title had been updated to "For You Mom, Finally". This is a slim volume, written long after Ruth Reichl wrote Tender at the Bone, which was her first memoir about growing up with her mother and how she fell in love with food and the food world. For You Mom, Finally, is a bit of an excavation and an examination of her mother's life, tracing her unhappiness with the life imposed on her, and how she came to truly find and enjoy herself in her twilight years after decades of trying and failing to live up to other peoples' standards. It's a small time capsule of the generation of specific women, who, immediately after World War II, were expected to go back to getting married and having children and definitely not getting a job, because that would be emasculating to the men they married. Reichl describes all these women as bored housewives, and there's a bit of a chilling anecdote about the drug advertisements for these types of women who felt dissatisfied with their lives. Anyway, this was a fast read, and enjoyable, but not among Reichl's best work. 

I couldn't help but compare her mother to my own - while these women were told and expected not to work, mine has never known anything but work. That also worked out to its own unhappiness. 

things that are good

Because honestly I need sometimes to be reminded that good things can still happen:

• The Afroman trial is the gift that keeps on giving. 
• A new media outlet called LA Material just launched, and it looks to be staffed by journalists who love LA. 
• National Academies of Sciences says no to demand it remove climate info. 
• US judge blocks RFK,Jr's efforts overhaul US vaccine policy. 
• Reality Winner started taking a path down anti-Semitism, but it appears some people talked to her and now she is listening. 
• Found a YouTuber (Kavernacle - no idea who he is) who has been debunking "Professor Jiang" who's been going viral all over and is apparently also a Holocaust denier. Maybe at some point I will write more about him, but I honestly cannot stand him, and it's driving me crazy that people keep taking him seriously and think that he's prescient about things that are happening. Mfer I also had the same predictions because I keep up with the news and am not an idiot. Any random person could make the same predictions and also not go down the Nazi denialist route. 
• Apparently there's a "chuck Chuck Schumer" movement among the Dem Senators even if they're not saying anything publicly, and there's high donor dissatisfaction. 
• Underrated point of hilarity in the whole Iran mess is how literate and knowledgeable Iranian politicians think Americans are about their own history. 
• Dems continue to block DHS funding. Not sure why TSA just hasn't gone on strike yet. They totally should.
• Rapid cancellation of Cesar Chavez. Now...as to why there isn't any momentum for any cancellation of the current people who are still alive and abusive...that's another story.
• Funny: White House denies Bill Maher getting the Mark Twain Prize after sources say he was offered the honor.