Alan Fox

. . . with the Sound of Music,

This beautiful, Oscar winning film starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, was first released in the United States on May 2, 1965, more than sixty years ago. The film has just been meticulously restored and remastered for the big screen. Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending the annual sing along and watch party at the Hollywood Bowl. Attending this event has become a beloved tradition for our family. Daveen and I, together with other members of our family, thoroughly enjoyed this year’s show. We sang out hearts out along with a chorus of our 18,000 fellow audience members

Before the movie began at 7:30 pm, there was a pre-show costume contest, with many members of the audience on stage in costumes represented in the Sound of Music. People were dressed in lederhosen, as nuns, and some had even repurposed their curtains!  As I sometimes say, to Daveen’s consternation, “a timed good was had by all.”

I hope that my two grandsons who attended with us may, fifty years from now, take their own children and grandchildren to enjoy this traditional Bowl summer evening, as they say, “under the stars.”  I believe that Julie Andrews herself is still living nearby. At eighty-nine years old, I hope she was smiling to herself at the vigorous applause.  She certainly deserves it.

I believe that a large part of the reason we are here on earth is to help each other. Daveen and I make a habit of taking on tasks the other doesn’t care for. For example, I shop for most of the groceries, and Daveen handles our social events.  (I like shopping for food. I don’t like long telephone calls.)

But creating a successful work of art like the Sound of Music is complex and requires hundreds of talented individuals, each contributing their best efforts. That to me, is one of the best uses of our time, working together to make one another’s lives better.

And speaking of making lives better, this time at the bowl, I paid $90.00 for valet parking.  Those of you who have attended a concert there know why I splurged on the parking.  If you self-park in the lot, you either need to wait up to 30 minutes to get out, or you have to park blocks away and walk.  I think I’ll continue to use the valet– isn’t that one of the reasons why, in my thirties and forties, I worked on Saturdays?

So, thank you Rogers, and thank you Hammerstein.  Your Sound of Music brought a whole lot of delight to the sold-out crowd at the Hollywood Bowl last Saturday night.

And thanks to my readers for spending a few minutes with my blog.

Alan

I woke early this morning.  Lying in bed, I watched the tiny green light on the ceiling —a smoke detector perhaps, or maybe a spy camera.  It seemed to be moving around.  Isn’t the brain weird, presenting us, as it does, with visions and thoughts?

Then my mind conjured up an unrelated memory and I began to think of my two dear pinochle partners from yesteryear — my father and my brother. Sometimes we played until four or five in the morning.

I always had mixed feelings about playing pinochle.  It’s a competitive card game, and when I compete, I like to win. Although the effort it takes to win feels like work, and when I’m relaxing, I don’t like to “work.”  Aha, you’ve got it!  A dilemma — work at it and win or relax and lose.

After years of working at it, playing as well as I could, I realized that I had won fewer than one- third of the games, about the same odds as sheer luck.  That was when I relaxed into the purely recreational aspects of playing and began to actually enjoy myself.  Patterns persist, but sometimes…

Despite the preamble, what I intended to write about in this blog, is letting go of a mistaken self-image.  One example for me, is recognizing that I wasn’t the best debater on the college debate circuit.  That happened the day I lost a knockout round to Lawrence Tribe, who later became our nation’s top constitutional law expert at Harvard Law School.

But the mistaken self-image I’ve currently let go of is that I’m any good at investing in the stock market.  I might have, in the past, told myself I’m great, but my actual experience has been losing money almost every time.  I’m lousy at holding stocks.  I once lost one third of my (then) substantial investment in the market.  Then I hired a professional money manager who went on to lose as much as I had. Well, no more.

Live and learn. And learn. And learn.

I often wonder why can’t we benefit more from the mistakes of others?  That’s one reason I like to read biographies – maybe I’ll learn something.  But mostly, we humans seem to insist on repeating the same mistakes, over and over.

Is there anything you think you’re good at, but from which you actually get a poor result?  (You might go back and take a peek at my Pogo Stick blogs.  I won’t touch a Pogo Stick ever again.)

The breeze outside seems as promising as it does on any other day.  And if there is anything I’ve come to understand, the wind will always, eventually, change direction. I wish you a happy day.

Alan

It’s happened to all of us. The cashier scanned an item twice, or we realize we were charged for something at a hotel or restaurant that we never asked for or never received. If we catch the overcharge in time, we can ask to have it reversed. But sometimes, we discover we’ve been shortchanged after it’s too late to do anything about it. Sometimes, we might even realize that we were actually scammed out of our hard-earned dollars. That feeling of being cheated, can leave us frustrated at best, and downright angry at worst.

I used to let myself get irritated and even enraged by these situations. But, now, rather than let that kind of loss impact my mood, I deal with it differently. We all make conscious choices about how we react to things. In this case I’ve decided it isn’t worth letting myself feel disappointed about losing a certain amount of money, either by mistake or deceit. And I begin by reminding myself that the loss of that money isn’t the end of the world.

To make this easier for me, at the beginning of the year I mentally allocate a fund for mistakes and related financial losses. It’s just like a budget for a vacation, (though the use is not quite as much fun). The amount you allocate, of course, will be in relation to the amount you can lose without incurring any actual hardship. (Someone who is living hand to mouth, probably can’t afford to allocate anything to a “lost money” fund, while someone who regularly treats themselves to expensive spa retreats can allocate more).

In my case, I allocate several thousand dollars. While I’m not actually spending the money, I am budgeting for my future peace of mind. This allows me to focus on more important things in my life, like my family and friends and the people I love.

The overall point of this exercise, of course, is to not let certain kinds of material loss overshadow our days. Save your feelings for things that really matter.

The past is always instructive for the future and I’ve found that, indeed, experience is the best teacher. So, if, in the past, you’ve found yourself “crying over spilt milk” focusing on your losses, why not take advantage of my experience and break out of that unhelpful pattern. Why not put things in a different perspective?  Life is always better when we spend our time appreciating the positive, the joy and beauty that comes our way.

Alan