{"id":4099,"date":"2015-06-14T08:14:02","date_gmt":"2015-06-14T12:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/?p=4099"},"modified":"2015-06-14T08:14:02","modified_gmt":"2015-06-14T12:14:02","slug":"aging-with-vinegar-honey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/?p=4099","title":{"rendered":"Aging with Vinegar & Honey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Olive<\/a><\/p>\n

What does it say about me that I love the ornery, razor tongued Olive Kitteridge? I loved her in Elizabeth Strout’s engaging book<\/a>\u00a0by the same title and I love her as played by the superb Frances McDormand in the HBO <\/a>series.\u00a0Olive, lives in a gorgeous, small seaside town in Maine. The rocky, rough setting is the perfect backdrop for Olive who is kind of awful. No, wait: she’s really<\/em> awful. She’s mean to her sweet husband, to her kid, to everybody. But I love her even as she makes me flinch. I don’t really know what to say about that except maybe she reminds me a tad of me — were I not to self-censure. And she definitely reminds me of how my own mother could be.<\/p>\n

The other day ran into someone who worked with my mother in the real estate business more than 30 years ago. She said, “Cathy was a nice woman.” this former colleague said. I responded incredulously, “Really?” And she answered, “Well, you know…”<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, the woman clearly appreciated Cathy, probably got a kick out of her since she was smart as a whip, had integrity and wit and I know for a fact, shared the same leftist social consciousness as this former colleague. But nice? Not an adjective I would use to describe my mother. Nor myself.<\/p>\n

\"19JPKITTREDGE2-articleLarge\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But, I’m trying. I’ve learned to curb my tongue in order to keep jobs, avoid fisticuffs in the subway, road rage incidents on the highway and just because – life is better<\/em> without meanness. Our’s is not a home of fights – we are mostly kind to each other and when we’re not, we call each other out on it and quickly make amends. I am proud of how kind and empathetic my daughter is and she always help keep my nasty, devil-side in check. And frankly, it’s just easier to go to sleep at night without the guilt and regret of some verbal dagger thoughtlessly delivered during the day.<\/p>\n

Olive has a soft spot for the broken ones – the drug addicted mother and her son. And she grows, eventually recognizing – at least within herself, the mistakes she’s made, the time she’s squandered. And in the end, she learns to love a little better (though still in her prickly Olive way). Now that’s inspiring. As we age, it seems we just become more of what we are. Late-life transformations, even slight, are rare. So there’s the challenge to pay attention to who we are now, decide if that’s who we want to be, and if not — get on with the work of changing.<\/p>\n

Have you read Olive Kitteridge or watched the HBO series? Do you hate or love her?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does it say about me that I love the ornery, razor tongued Olive Kitteridge? I loved her in Elizabeth Strout’s engaging book\u00a0by the same title and I love her as played by the superb Frances McDormand in the HBO series.\u00a0Olive, lives in a gorgeous, small seaside town in Maine. The rocky, rough setting is … Continue reading Aging with Vinegar & Honey<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[48,14,11],"class_list":["post-4099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seasonal-musings","tag-aging","tag-books","tag-love"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPzTS-147","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4099"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4115,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4099\/revisions\/4115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}