jcafesin

Scene from an L.A. Thanksgiving

March 22, 2026March 22, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

THANKSGIVING 1991

The sweet, cloying scent of death was veiled by the sharpness of cleanser in the antiseptic lobby of the Home. Chrome handrails lined the light pink walls. A hunched elderly man clutched onto the railing as he shuffled along in slow motion. Each step looked pained. Pasty white skin, his eyelids drooped over his small black eyes which seemed vacant, as if not only his body but his mind had abandoned him.

I took in the scene and it momentarily robbed me of breath. Old scared me, sometimes worse than not getting there.

Grandma sat perched on the edge of the maroon love seat, her floral print polyester dress hung to her calves and gathered tightly around her short, crossed legs. She clutched the strap of her white vinyl purse between her bony hands resting in her lap.

“Well, it’s about time,” She sniped, as if I were late. It was 4:00 p.m., exactly when I was told to be there.

“You look lovely, Grandma.” I leaned down and kissed my grandmother’s soft white cheek. The old woman gave me a vain smile. At 84, she had flawless skin, virtually wrinkle-free, and her steel gray eyes were still rather piercing.

“And you look like you got your clothes at the Salvation Army. Why don’t you dress properly?” She spoke in a clipped English accent though she’d lived in the States for over seventy years.

I wore my hole-free black jeans, and oversized beige cotton shirt, which I actually tucked in. I even put on a bra for the occasion. The woman was delusional expecting more than that. “You ready to go, Gram?”

She stood and straightened her dress, then squared her petite shoulders and rose her chin up. “I’ve been ready to get out of here since the day your mother stuck me in this place.”

We walked to my Civic parked in the lot behind the building. I was annoyed by her bitterness, my mother’s effort to her care more than sufficient in my view. It had been the right decision to have her committed. Gram almost killed herself overdosing on medication she’d mistakenly taken twice within minutes on more than a few occasions. She was losing her memory, and her once sharp mind could no longer manage life on her own.

It was getting dark, but bits of electric blue sky peeked through the thickening clouds. The air was crystal clean, sharp with moisture. A storm was coming. It was easy to feel in L.A., maybe because they’re so rare. I settled Gram in the passenger seat then took a deep breath, sucked in the sweet wetness and released it slowly to shake off my growing anxiety.

“Try that lane, it’s moving. Don’t just sit here. Go around them. You should get off the freeway, the side streets are faster…” Grandma had a lot of suggestions though she’d never driven a day in her life. Between driving tips she talked incessantly about the ‘crazy people’ she now lived with. She swore her roommate stole her ruby necklace, one she claimed she got on Safari in Africa, though she’d never owned one and had never been anywhere but England until her teens, then the States the rest of her life. She was sure her neighbor across the hall was coming into her room at night to watch her sleep, though had no explanation why. Then she was sure she’d forgotten something back at the Home but couldn’t remember what, then couldn’t remember where we were going. She remembered after prompting, but then didn’t want to go to her evil daughter’s who had stolen everything she owned and had her ‘put away.’

I pulled into my parents’ driveway, alongside the row of rosebushes my mom and I had planted years back, a long narrow island of long-stem yellow and red roses that separated our driveway from the neighbor’s. I stopped behind my sister’s minivan, turned off the car, and looked at grandma who stared straight ahead, seemingly unaware we had arrived.

“You ready to go inside?”

“I told you, I’m not going in there. Why are we here?”

“For Thanksgiving, Gram, remember?”

“Well, I have nothing to be thankful for. Take me home.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” It was cliché and a lie and I felt stupid for saying it, parroting my mother’s Pollyanna tripe. I considered telling grandma I know what hopeless feels like, and I too lived with a pervasive sadness and fear of the future, afraid of what’s to be, or not to be. But there was no point really. Gram didn’t acknowledge feelings, and she never showed fear. “Are you coming into the house with me or not?”

Grandma refused to get out of the car and I wasn’t about to make her. She’d always been contentious, but she’d had a quick wit and delivered it with sharp humor, both of which left her years ago, as did the radiant beauty she once possessed. She was on the fringe of life now, on her way out and almost invisible. Surely she felt it too. Maybe so many old people lose their minds because the reality of their marginal existence is just too degrading. And terror consumed me right then, bearing witness to my future.

I got out of my car and took a deep breath of crisp, wet air, then released it slowly as I went to the back of my Civic and lifted the hatchback, gathered the pie, and the green bean casserole I’d made this morning, then slammed the hatch shut and walked to my parents’ Valley-Ranch, single-story home.

Roasting turkey and smoky firewood wafted from inside as I stepped up onto the landing and then came through the iron screen door into the house I was raised, yet never really felt at home in. I passed the bookshelves neatly packed with encyclopedias and novels into the spacious, modern living room. A large open space wrapped around the centralized fireplace to the open dining area.

Dad tended the fire and poked an iron rod at the burning logs. Sparks flared and sucked up into the chimney. My brother-in-law, Larry, seemed short and narrow standing next to my 6’3″, 220-pound father, though the men looked remarkably alike, even with twenty-five years between them. Each had speckled gray hair and short-cropped beards and wire-rim glasses. Dad wore navy Dockers and a long sleeve flannel shirt. As always, Larry looked like he’d just walked off the set of The Big Chill — Levi’s, maroon Izod sweater, and those over-complicated sneakers.

“Hey,” I announced. “Happy Thanksgiving.” I set the food I’d brought on the slate bench that wrapped two sides of the fireplace, then kissed and hugged my father. He gathered me up in his big arms and drew me in against his barrel chest.

“Hello, Baby.” It was his only term of endearment for me. “Happy Thanksgiving.” He released me and I felt abandoned amidst the pack again.

“Hey Lar. How ya doing?” I inquired when he didn’t.

“Good.” That was it. Larry didn’t turn my question around.

“Grandma’s in the car and won’t come out. Can you please go talk to her, dad?”

My father sighed heavily and shook his head before handing the iron poker to Larry and going outside. Larry rested the end of the poker on the slate bench, held it like a staff and stared at the fire, clearly uninterested in engaging with me. He was a devout Jew, a conservative, directed, precise, with no interest in abstractions like feelings. And Larry dismissed most anyone who wasn’t of like mind or income.

I collected my food and went into the kitchen. “Happy Thanksgiving everyone!” And that moment I felt glad to be there, to have family to be with. They were all I had, all I’d ever really had, as my mother so often reminded me. Everyone else came and went in L.A.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” everyone said in unison, except Scott. My eight-year-old nephew sat at the kitchen table and consumed a finger full of the custard from the pumpkin roll he’d taken a scoop out of when he thought no one was looking.

My sister Carrie sat in front of baby Adam strapped in the portable car seat on the kitchen table. She was feeding him spoonful’s of mushed-up yams that dribbled out the side of his mouth. The gross factor didn’t seem to faze her. Her mass of flaming red hair was pulled back into a tight braid and hung down her back practically to her waist. She wore a Spanish-style gauze dress with a colorful, rather loud floral pattern of red roses, and mid-calf tan cowboy boots with sharply pointed tips.

I set the food down on the stovetop above the oven where my six-year-old niece, Jessie, stood basting the turkey. Mom stood behind her, hand over her granddaughter’s and together they squeezed the soft plastic ball, sucking up gravy into the tube then squirting it back on the bird.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Auntie Ray.” Jessie looked adorably cute in her black velvet dress, her long, strawberry blond hair pulled back in a high ponytail.

“Happy Thanksgiving, baby.” I whispered as I bent to kiss my niece’s head, and before fully straightening I received my mother’s quick kiss on the cheek. Mom was barely five feet, and shrinking with age.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Dolly.” My mother had three terms of endearment for me. Dolly, Face, and ‘my baby,’ as I was her last born. “Is Grandma giving you grief?”

“She still in the car. Dad went to get her.”

“Well, she wouldn’t come in if I went out there.” Mom’s aged, sun-baked skin glowed with beads of sweat that ran along the side of her gaunt face onto the brown plastic frame of her large glasses. “She only listens to your father.” She took the baster from Jessie, pushed the turkey back in the oven and shut the door, then wiped her forehead on her shirtsleeve. “Go wash your hands, Jessie Rose,” she instructed her granddaughter. “Then see if you can help your mother with the coleslaw.”

“I’m feeding Adam now, Mom.” Carrie was in a huff. “I’ll get to it in a minute. I told you I should have brought Maria to help.”

Mom didn’t respond. She busied herself and tuned out, a technique she’d honed to avoid conflict. She got a carton of whipping cream from the fridge, poured the cream into a plastic bowl then set up the electric mixer.

I retrieved the coleslaw my sister brought from the fridge and took it back to the kitchen table. A bottle filled with dressing was on top of the cabbage mixture and I poured it over the shredded leaves until the bottle was drained. Jessie sat down at the table next to her older brother and started coloring, but within moments they were fighting, Scott hording the markers regardless of his sister’s shrill protests. Carrie ignored them. Like our mother, Carrie had the ability to shut out what disturbed her. But the kids bickering annoyed the hell out of me.

“Knock it off, you guys.” I spoke loudly to be heard over the mixer. “Scott, give your sister half the pens. And Jess, don’t grab. Ask.” I got Jessie’s attention, but Scott grabbed the only pen Jessie had out of her small hand. She tried to grab it back nearly knocking a stack of dishes off the table. “Stop! Now! Both of you.” The last bit sounded like I was screaming because mom had switched off the mixer. I grabbed half of Scott’s markers and set them in front of Jess. Carrie looked up from feeding Adam and narrowed her eyes at me, but at least the kids stopped fighting.

“This is ridiculous, Mother.” Carrie stood, wiped her son clean with the cloth she kept on her shoulder. “There is nothing for the kids to do here anymore. You don’t even have cable. They don’t want to be here. And I don’t blame them. They can entertain themselves all day at home. We should just have Thanksgiving at my house from now on.”

“No way,” I protested. I’d never felt welcome in Carrie’s home, always the unwanted guest she felt she had to invite. I looked at my mom standing at the counter near the sink, poised with the mixer over the bowl of whipped cream. I recognized my mother’s pinched expression and felt her rush of distress. “We’ve had it at home since we were born. Thanksgiving should be here.”

“You have no idea what a total hassle it is dragging three kids everywhere.” Carrie picked her son up out of the car seat and held him to her. “You only have yourself to worry about, Rachel. It’s harder for everyone having it here. If you won’t think of me, then at least think of Mom.”

I stared at my mother. “I am.” Mom looked down, busied herself with the cream. Thanksgiving was the only holiday our mother still hosted. She’d mentioned many times how much she enjoyed preparing for it, looked forward to “having the whole family safe in the nest,” even if just for a night. Carrie had co-opted all birthdays, Hallmark occasions and every Jewish holiday from Hanukkah to Passover at her 5,600 square foot McMansion in Agoura Hills. Maids and caterers graced these parties which made it easier for all in some ways. But what Carrie didn’t get is that everyone needs to feel needed, and slowly but surely, she was robbing our mother of purpose, and pleasure.

“So, I hear you’re dating that new guy you’ve been playing racquetball with.” The words seemed to fall out of mom’s mouth as if to fill the exaggerated hush.

I glared at my sister. “Well, we’re not exactly dating…”

“What do you call it then?” Carrie held her son and stroked his back in slow circles. “You’ve been playing racquetball for almost a month like every other day with him. And he’s taking you to Love Letters Saturday night, in Beverly Hills. If that’s not meant to impress, I don’t know what is.” Adam laid his little chin on her shoulder, looked at me, and burped. “I’m going to go put him down, Mom.”

“Night, beautiful.” I whispered softly as he passed, his saucer blue eyes half-mast. And I was sucked into the black hole of Want as I stood at the table tossing the coleslaw.

“Well, are you seeing him or not?” Mom handed each of the kids a whipped cream coated circle of blades. She used to give them to Carrie and me. My mouth literally watered as I watched Scott and Jessie lick off the cream.

“We’re just friends, Mom. We go out to dinner after racquetball sometimes, and we’ve hung out the last couple of weekends, but I really don’t think it’ll go anywhere.”

“Why not? And how do you know this after a month?” Mom’s thin, painted red lips stayed in a tight, flat line. “What’s he do?”

“He runs his own company shipping freight. He’s a consultant, sort of like me, but a lot more successful.”

“And what’s his name?”

I had my mother’s attention, and smiled. “Lee.”

“Does he have a last name?”

I knew why she was asking, of course. “Messer. Lee Messer.”

“Messer…” She contemplated aloud as she scooped the whipped cream into a crystal serving goblet. Then her countenance filled with lightness and she smiled. “Isn’t that Jewish?”

I shook my head, annoyed. I refrained from revealing him agnostic, afraid of dimming her brightness I was momentarily basking in. “What difference does it make, Mother? A last name doesn’t brand him a believer, and if he was, I couldn’t be with him. I’m still an atheist, mom.”

“Then you’re an idiot.” She said it deadpan, like the words just fell out of her mouth without filtering through her brain. She didn’t intend to be mean. It was almost an expression of endearment. She meant ‘idiot’ sort of like ‘my beautiful baby…’ “You condemn yourself to the fringes and then complain you’re lonely. And I know you are. What woman wouldn’t be still single and childless at 33?” My mother had a way of proceeding from instinct rather than intellect and was clueless how cutting her words were. “Why can’t you just accept who you are and embrace your community like your sister. I guarantee if you did, you’d find the life you’re still looking for.” She shook her head and turned away to put the filled goblet of cream in the fridge then went to the stove and stirred the pot of chicken noodle soup.

“Living among the faithful whose belief in money supersedes the moral gospel they espouse isn’t the community I’m looking for, mother.” I sighed and shrugged my shoulders to shed my mounting tension. “And over scheduling every minute of the day with extraneous activities so I don’t have time to think, or create anything, isn’t the life I want either. I don’t want to be Carrie, Mom.”

“I don’t want you to be your sister, Rachel. I want you to be happy, and taken care of.” She stared at me like she was stating the obvious, then her expression softened to empathy, and she frowned. “My beautiful Face, why do you always insist on the hardest path.”

I’d blown it again, pushed my mom away. Non-conformity was disruptive to the woman’s psyche. And Lonely crept in, abandoning me to the outside again from the chasm now between us. I set the coleslaw aside, near Jessie. My niece was coloring a house with stickish smiling people inside. Scott’s picture showed planes dropping bombs and people on the ground getting blown up. He looked up at me.

“I don’t believe in God either, Grandma.” He stared at me as he spoke to her.

“Oh, of course you do.” Mom glared at me over the stove top but spoke to her grandson. “You don’t know what you believe at eight.”

“I did. I knew from the beginning of Saturday school what the rabbis were preaching was a bunch of crap.” I was being combative, to be sure, but my mother was so dismissive that I felt the need to validate my nephew’s pejorative statement. “And if religion is so damn important to family togetherness, why did it break up ours?” She’d chased away her first child, my half-brother, when Keith converted to Born Again Christianity to marry.

“You shut up now, Rachel. Don’t encourage him.” It was hard to see my mom’s brown eyes glaring at me behind the large glasses, but I felt her irritation.

Mom busied herself, and I felt bad I’d come back at her so aggressively. Her reaction to Keith’s conversion had fundamentally scared me. Though she didn’t disown him exactly, she made it impossible for him to attend family occasions. The last time Keith brought his family to Thanksgiving, mom cornered his 4-year-old son — her first grandchild — in the kitchen and told him he was really a Jew, instead of the Evangelos Christian my nephew was being raised. I feared the battle to come when, if I had kids, since I had no intention of raising them with any religion.

“You two at it again?” Dad scowled at me as he came into the kitchen. I felt the familiar twinge of fear, not just from his size, but growing up I’d felt the wrath of his temper. “You still fighting windmills, baby? Don’t confuse your mother with facts, Rachel.”

Mom stuck her tongue out at him in a coquettish kind of way, just the tip, childlike. Dad laughed.

“Grandma and Larry are cowering in the living room so they don’t have to listen to you two go at each other. And I don’t blame them.” Dad went to the liquor cabinet above the utility closet in the pantry and got the big bottle of gin, brought it back in the kitchen and proceeded to make martinis.

“We almost ready to sit down?” Carrie came into the kitchen and dad handed her his first completed drink. “Thank you, Dad.”

“Dinner will be ready in ten minutes.” Mom opened the oven and pulled out the turkey. My seemingly fragile little mother was impressive to watch, straddling the open oven door and hauling that heavy bird onto the stove top. The turkey could have made the cover shot for the November issue of Good Housekeeping. It was golden brown, dripping with juice, and it smelled of garlic, oregano and paprika.

“For you, my dear.” Dad handed mom a martini.

Mom wiped her hands, then the sweat from her face on the dishtowel and then took the wide rimmed glass with a gracious, “Thank you, honey.” She leaned back against the counter and contentedly sipped her martini. “Why don’t you girls start serving the salad.”

Carrie put her drink on the linoleum countertop and got the salad from the fridge. “Jessie Rose. Please go into the dining room and get everyone to sit down for dinner. Scott, go help your sister, please.” Her tone was as stern as her expression and her son only hesitated a second then followed his sister from the kitchen.

Jessie took her drawing to show off, but she and her brother left their mess of markers and pad pages scattered on the kitchen table. I began collecting them to make room for serving the salad. Carrie set the salad bowl on the table and glared at me.

“My children are Jewish. I’m raising them to have an identity and a community, both of which you seem to sorely lack. So keep your fucking mouth shut about what you believe, whatever the hell it is, or isn’t, around my kids.” She didn’t give me time to respond. She grabbed her half-empty martini and walked out of the room.

I watched my sister disappear into the dining area. The satiny fabric of the heavy white drapes that covered the back glass wall of the living room glowed warm and shimmered with firelight. I heard Larry ask his wife if she was OK, and Carrie say “dandy,” but she was “just so tired of her” (my) “crap.”

Then grandma piped in with, “You’re all full of crap.”

I looked at my mom. She glared at me, then emptied her martini and put the glass in the sink behind her. Her displeasure wrapped her like a shroud, and she transferred it as she spoke. “Please serve the salad now, Rachel Lynn.”

I did. I turned my back on my mother and put salad onto plate after plate until the kitchen table had no space for more, then carried them two at a time and served everyone before sitting to eat. Larry was touting his lucrative new strip-mall development in Malibu. Carrie beamed proudly at her husband. Dad nodded with respect. I shook my head but held my tongue. It was foolish to question the need of another 7–11 obstructing the views and scarring the fragile ecosystem along the coast to people who viewed personal wealth as social progress. I knew my opinion was unwelcome among them. Like grandma, I too was almost invisible, or at least wanted to be. And I no longer felt glad to be there. We hadn’t even gotten through the salad this time before I wanted out.

My craving to get high grew exponentially as I crawled along in traffic on the 101 in the rain after dropping grandma off. Brighter than twilight from the streetlights, with five lanes of unfettered highway, and it was beyond irritating how inane L.A. drivers became when it rained. My ire rose with every ten-minute mile, and I felt a desperate need to shed the evening.

I called Lee a hundred times in my head, imagined him coming over, us hanging out and playing Tavli all night. Talking. Laughing. Sharing… Safe with someone who actually liked me. But as I pulled onto my driveway doubt crept in. Inviting him over at 10:00p.m. might imply I was asking him to stay the night, and I had no intention of sleeping with Lee. Intercourse with him would not fulfill me, or enhance the connection we already shared. It would only complicate the friendship I was hoping to maintain.

This excerpt is from the ‘novel memoir’ DISCONNECTED, a coming of age novel for women about a romance that never should have been.

Ever fall for someone you KNEW you shouldn’t, just to be with SOMEONE?

Rachel sought what most women did—to be successful, married and in love, have healthy kids. It was hard enough attracting a man when she wasn’t heroin thin or chic like most Hollywood women, or sparkly, but not too bright, as her mom insisted females should be. But in the 1990s, finding a man wanting an equal partner, a woman beside him instead of behind him, seemed the impossible dream.

Then along came Lee…

“Smart, Honest, Vivid, Poignant,” Contemporary Historical Romance with a very sharp edge…

Outside Looking In

February 27, 2026February 27, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Spent my life looking in at the world I live, but never ‘fitting in’…

Ever been with a group of people, and everyone is talking amicably, (or on their cellphones), and you’re sitting there watching and listening, and you feel like an alien? Not a foreign national among a group of natives. More like you’re from another planet. Or they are.

I’ve known I was different for most of my life, always on the outside looking in at the world I live in. I’ve never been popular, never had a large group of friends to hang with like in sitcoms. Beyond theology like my atheism, there are actual, real differences that separate me from most.

I don’t drink alcohol. Can’t stand the taste of the stuff. Wine. Beer. Hard liquor. BLA! Even rum wrecks some would-be-great desserts, like tiramisu. Virtually the first thing that happens at any gathering is the ritual serving of the drinks. I always refuse, which immediately raises suspicions that I’m either a friend of Bill W, or on some fad diet, or a hippy-vegan. The first brick in the wall between me and the group.

I have no internet connection on my cellphone. I don’t carry my phone with me most of the time, don’t look at it except to make a call or send a text, which I do rarely, especially when I’m with other people. Use a scheduler for posts, so I’m not on any social media platforms. I follow no one intentionally (as X automatically follows back anyone who follows you). I don’t know what is trending online which puts me outside most lite banter about the latest cat video or influencer’s recent divorce. Another brick in the wall.

I don’t watch TV much. I average three movies in the theater a year, and rarely go to plays. I don’t watch or follow sports. Any. Ever. I don’t know the latest shows, any of the actors, or what rock star is hot on YouTube. I must have some mental disorder because people who play no active role in my life just don’t register with me. Not remembering names or faces is yet another brick because I cannot engage in dialog about celebrities or their latest movies.

As a woman, with other women, I feel particularly off-planet. I have no interest in discussing my kids for the most part. I’m with my kids a LOT. I don’t want it all about them when I’m not. I don’t care about sales or shoes. I dress for comfort, prefer my old, soft, often ripped clothes to new. I never wear makeup, much to my mother’s chagrin. Don’t even carry a purse. The diamond studs in my ears have been there for 30 yrs. I wear no other jewelry. Had no grandparents to babysit (or cash) to travel beyond summer vacations once we had kids, so I feel awkward when everyone’s talking about their romantic getaways with their DH to the Big Island, or Caribbean while grandma watched the kids.

I want to talk intimately about issues that matter to all of us, without being politically correct, or woke, and with virtually nothing held sacred — an open forum of communication and healthy debate. But it seems every time I bring up feelings of frustration globally, nationally, locally, or even personally, I create a void in the group’s dialog, this vortex of weighted silence. Either no one wants to share their real feelings, or they don’t know what I’m talking about, or they have no opinion, or they’re too afraid to state it.

The bitch is, I want to fit in, be a part of, integrate as I see others do.

Sort of. I just don’t want to DO what most seem to.

I don’t wish to remain ignorant about global and local issues so not to disrupt my personal bliss. My husband is the son of a holocaust survivor. I grew up on horror stories of the camps told by family, some who lost everyone they loved. We all need to be vigilant it never happens again.

I couldn’t care less about celebs and influencers. Studio City born and raised — where the film studios originally set up, hense the name — at the north base of the Hollywood Hills. Most of the kids’ parents I went to school with were actors or musicians or writers. By high school, half of my contemporaries were artists themselves. The ones who ‘made it,’ were regular people to me, who worked, and networked (partied) obscene hours. Intoxicated crowds overwhelm me. Not my jam.

While I enjoy playing racquetball and pickleball, I’ve little interest in watching someone else play sports. Pro athletes work towards excellence 24/7, yet somehow fans take on team victories as their own while they sit on the couch downing beer. I just don’t get it.

The ‘little bit of color’ my mother insisted was mandatory to put on my lips and cheeks to attract a mate, makes most women who wear makeup look like clowns, or mannequins to me. And it’s a rather ironic twist that the media convinces women they need cosmetics to be attractive, especially since it’s a proven cause of cancer, and cancer isn’t pretty.

Clearly, I am damning myself to the outside looking in. As an atheist, in faith-based (mostly Christian) America, I don’t belong to the neighborhood church, or celebrate any religious holidays, or get how seemingly reasonable people can believe in myths and fairytales at this stage in human development. And since it’s unlikely I’ll develop a taste for alcohol anytime soon, or become addicted to my cellphone, I’m unclear how to move forward, to integrate, fit in with the group at the table now on their second or third drink. They’re getting sloppy, and rather loud, and all I want to do is leave.

So I do. I get in my spaceship (my Prius among the SUVs) and venture home to my sleeping kids and working husband. He’ll ask me how the Mompreneurs’ Meetup went and I’ll say fine, and later I’ll be standing in the shower feeling invisible, valueless.

The road is empty and dark. Houses are lit inside and look warm and welcoming. Mine will be too, a safe harbor where people ‘get me,’ but I know I isolate there too much. I want friends, to be a part of the world beyond my fam, I just don’t know how to step inside where most seem to live. But truth be told, it’s rather lonely out here.

Empty-Nesting IRL

February 23, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

I’m no longer, and will never again be my kids’ demigod…

I wanted kids for as long as I can remember. Have 2. Adopt 1. I was absolutely sure I could raise them better than my mom [and dad].

I’d give them ground instead of ripping it away with critical judgments. I’d show my love unconditionally, not doled out with achievements or ‘acceptable’ behavior. I’d be the best friend they ever had, there for them when they needed me, even when they didn’t know they did but just needed to be heard. And I’ve been all this for my kids for the most part. By their measure, I am their closest confidant, even now.

Now 26 and 24, though both are back home for the moment, we almost never eat meals together and seldom interact beyond quick exchanges. My kids are moving beyond family with boyfriends, girlfriends, media becoming their greater influence. While they both still share with me intimate details of their lives, it’s different now. We truly are friends. Not mom to kid, but adult to adult. And while this is good, and right, it hurts, in almost the abstract, like I shouldn’t be feeling sad they are launching.

I am no longer and will never again be their demigod. As adults, their trust in what I say wavers, knowing my propensity to infuse parables into storytelling. They see me now, know my history, watched much of it unfold. They understand my frailties, and love me anyway, but they [rightfully] no longer believe that mine is the final word.

I was into the arts from the beginning too — drawing, sculpting, building, writing. I was obsessed with creating as far back as I can recall, so my desire to produce children wasn’t lack of other interests or just to do better than my mother. I wanted to put people into this world who would be kind, compassionate, lead with their head and their heart. I figured if each gen raised their kids to embody these traits, in some number of generations forward humans could reach our amazing potential for boundless creation, innovation, intimacy, love. My kids are kind, empathetic people and I am proud to know them, but I get I made it hard on them, pushing them to care beyond themselves in a world that generally does not.

I had kids late, in my early 40s after 6 pregnancy losses before our son, and another before having our daughter. I married late too, at 37, pursuing my career while searching for Mr. Right to father the family I wanted so badly. Together we chose to have children. And together we agreed not to raise latchkey kids as our parents had done. One of us would be home for them, at least through most of puberty.

My husband became the main income provider as a male software developer in Silicon Valley, making much more than me as a female marketing consultant and full-time parent. I focused on being there for my kids — taking them to school and picking them up daily, planning activities, groups to join, sports to play, shopping, preparing meals…etc. And talking, endless talking, being available to help them define and navigate their world. I also helped launch and market startups, taught entrepreneurship at top unis, authored 3 novels, 2 short story collections, 2 business marketing books, and an edtech course.

I’ve been busy, for sure, but now I’m tired. I don’t have a ‘second life’ like most women who had kids in their late 20s or early 30s. I’m old, or feel old.

I hate having more memories than time to make them.

When I was little, I would fantasize about my life forward. I’d marry my BFF by mid to late 20s. We’d have kids in our early 30s. I’d be home for my kids, and a successful author too. (I was clearly naive about the time and head space required to really ‘be there’ for your kids.)

Imagining this stage of my life as a kid, I assumed my children would have launched by now (and likely would have if I’d had them earlier). I’d be well into my second act, engaged in writing fiction, and traveling to beautiful and bizarre places with my beloved husband. We wouldn’t be worried about making money anymore. We could spend freely, like never before. I wouldn’t be grieving the loss of my revered position as a mother because I’d be a selling author, and hanging with my BFF.

The kids are moving on, aging out as a mompreneur, and I still have no cachet as a writer, still relatively unknown. I’m back to being what feels like… nothing. And now there’s an additional twist. Younger, there was always time to make the future what I wanted it to be. But I’ve learned that hope, like time, is fleeting.

The life I pictured is so far from the reality I live it’s verging on surreal. I don’t feel like I’m in my body so much of the time lately, just sort of watching from the outside. I am truly lost, consumed in mourning the loss of my past, and the end of my future. No longer atop any hierarchy, like I was in my kids’ eyes when they were growing up, or my entrepreneurial students. I’m back to being nobody with hardly any time or energy left to create the future I wanted to be living by now.

I am grateful for the life I have, for my spectacular kids, my marriage, and the home we’ve built and share. But I still want more. Don’t you, (whatever your age!)? I want everyone who reads me to share my work with their fam and friends. I wanta be at my kids’ weddings, and play with my grandkids, teach them, listen to them, learn from them. I want to stay close to my kids, as integral a part of their lives as always, but now see that I won’t be as they move on.

Common advice is ‘live in the moment,’ but lately I don’t know how to shake off the suffocating weight of aging. My body reminds me often with injuries taking so much longer to heal. Society tells me I’ve become valueless. I can’t fall back asleep at 4:00am when I get up to pee for the 5th time. Back in bed I start looping on the reality I’m losing the family life I lived. And loved. Sleeping now seems… wasteful since the bulk of my life is over. I can’t get off the bullet of time, out of the tunnel I’m in railing towards the light that I know is the freight train comin’ at me.

While it’s true no one knows when they’re gonna die, let me tell ya, death begins looming — the proverbial ax over your head the older you get. Every illness I wonder if this one will take me out. Past a certain age, you don’t keep getting over it.

In 20 to 30 yrs I will likely cease to exist. My body will return to organic matter. No heaven. No hell. No afterlife awaits any of us. Like my biological clock to bear children, my life clock is running out. I can feel it coming, the light at the end of the tunnel brighter than ever now. Aging is a bitch, but I suppose it’s better than not. Love to end this blog on a cheerful note, since we all love happy endings. Thing about being alive is our ending is always the same.

The Butterfly Effect

February 19, 2026February 19, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

My husband caught his married CEO kissing an employee, setting the Butterfly Effect in motion…

“I’m screwed,” my husband said, calling me from his job at a well-known Silicon Valley startup.

He’d entered the stairwell and saw the married CEO of his company sucking face with an employee. He had a right to be upset. The CEO is putting the company, its pre-IPO stock value, and its almost 300 employees at risk by displaying his extra-marital affair publicly. His sloppy behavior can not only get him fired, but eventually, lead to the demise of the company with scandalous press chasing away customers and business associates alike. And, of course, there are his two kids and a wife at home who will suffer, possibly lifetime scars from his sexual indiscretions.

When a butterfly flaps its wings in Central Park, it does NOT cause a typhoon in India. But the Butterfly Effect is very real, and very personal, for all of us.

The CEO sucking face with his employee saw my husband in the stairwell. He called my DH into his office later that day and made excuses that he was “just comforting” his graphic designer who [ostensibly] was grieving the death of her dog. Sure. Originally hired by the CEO, my husband had never had any issues working with the man until that day in the stairwell. After that day, the CEO was his new micro-manager, and my husband, tired of the bullshit, left the company a month later.

We all engage in the Butterfly Effect in one way or another. When my DH and I fight, I’m more apt to yell at our kids, causing them to snipe at each other. Continual fighting over time may result in fierce sibling rivalry. Instead of becoming balanced, socially aware adults, they grow up defensive and afraid, and become CEOs and Presidents who seek physical contact over emotional intimacy to combat their gnawing loneliness.

The Butterfly Effect is an unalterable phenomenon of the human condition, but that doesn’t mean we must be doomed by it. Our ability to perceive the future, and then adapt our behavior in response is also uniquely human, and dramatically separates us from every other life form on this planet, and one of our greatest strengths.

Monica Lewinsky sucked Pres. Clinton’s cock, getting George W. Bush elected, which led to the 2008 financial meltdown with the Republican’s anti-regulation policies. The real estate recession of 2009 left not only millions of people without any retirement, but my father without enough money to care for himself, compelling us to use our savings to help him. This investment into my father’s care comes out of our kids’ college funds and will most likely affect them down the line.

Had President Clinton been thinking with his brain instead of his little head, or Ms. Lewinsky had stopped to consider the possible ramifications of Bill Clinton’s solicitation, perhaps either would have made a better choice. (Why do I sight Monica? Those who cheat are culpable for their actions, but those who are party to cheating are equally culpable.)

Like a gun sitting on a table, the Butterfly Effect is neutral. Awareness that no man, or woman, is an island is the key to directing the Butterfly Effect to consistently positive outcomes. Every day we touch the lives of others, whether we’re at home, on the internet, at work, or shopping at Target. Holding a door open, giving a compliment, or showing appreciation for service rendered can make someone’s day a bit better. Taking our face out of our cellphone and acknowledging those around us, even a quick nod helps make others feel seen (momentarily valued).

Every one of us touches the lives of others— our environment locally, even globally. Social media that destroys teen users’ self-image, to the consumption of our planet’s resources, the Butterfly Effect is often felt around the world. Choosing a Prius over an SUV or RV means cleaner air for everyone, and less demand for fossil fuel. Picking the appropriate sexual partners (avoiding affairs); helping a neighbor in need, standing up against hate and for equal rights improves all our lives collectively.

“With every action there is a reaction,” Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Be acutely aware of others, and the cascading Butterfly Effect with any actions you take.* And it may just be the lives you touch in your hometown today will indeed lead to the cure for cancer from someone on the other side of the world tomorrow.

—

*No action is a passive/aggressive ‘action.’ You create ill will when ghosting or ignoring others.

Why Do You Write?

February 18, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Ray Bradbury reminded me why I write…

I sat on the floor in the back of a bookstore in old-town Pasadena perusing the selections. It was Saturday, late afternoon, another sunny day in L.A. I didn’t notice the store owners hustling everyone out the door and they didn’t see me in the back on the floor. After a while, I picked a book I liked, got up, and went to pay for it. The store was empty except for an old man sitting at a large desk awkwardly placed in the center of the main aisle. It blocked my way to the checkout so it was impossible to ignore him.

I greeted him with a quick ‘Hi,’ and smiled as I wriggled around the desk. He smiled back and asked me if I could get him a glass of water before the signing. I told him I didn’t work at the store. Then he asked me what I was still doing there. Buying a book, I told him. He took the book out of my hand and read the title, looked at me, and smiled. This is good, he assured me and handed the book back but kept staring at me with this funny grin on his face, like he had a secret.

He looked familiar but I couldn’t place him. There was a tall stack of books on the desk next to him. The Martian Chronicles, one of my all-time favorites. Then I noticed the sign on the easel in front of the desk. Ray Bradbury Live! Today at 5:00.

I blushed. He smiled with my acknowledgment. Ray Bradbury was one of my few idols and he was sitting in front of me. I was speechless at first, which is rare for me. The man was what I aspired to be, a great writer. I picked up one of the ‘special addition’ hardcover books on the desk and held it up. This is really good, too, I assured him. He laughed. In the five years I’d been seriously writing I knew nothing I’d written touched his talent.

And then I got sad.

I felt the tears come. I couldn’t stop them. I smiled at him, put his book back in the stack, and turned away, started to walk to the checkout but he stopped me. He asked me what was up but I told him he couldn’t possibly understand, knowing who he was, what he was, and what I was not. Try me, he insisted.

So I did. I explained that I wrote too, but didn’t label myself a writer. Though it was easy for me to recognize talent when I read it, it was impossible for me to see it in my own work. Every time I put word to paper I questioned if it was any good.

Surprisingly, he laughed. Then he told me that he too had the same question running through his head with everything he wrote. More often than not when he read his own work he thought it was crap.

I was astonished. The man was a renowned novelist. How could he still question if he was any good? I had assumed once my work was recognized the uncertainty would never plague me again. The idea that I would have to battle my self-effacing ego the rest of my life, published or not was appalling, and I told him so.

His expression softened and he shook his head. Then he asked me why I write.

I’d never really considered the question before. I’d been writing for as long as I could remember, diaries and journals when I was younger, then stories and eventually novels. I assumed that once I got good enough someone would publish me and I could quit my day job and write full-time, but that hadn’t happened yet. Clearly, I wasn’t good enough. Perhaps I never would be. I constantly questioned when I should give it up, though the thought of not writing anymore was on par with going blind.

I write because I love to, I told him.

He smiled. Good answer, he said. The question is not if you’re any good, but if you love the process of writing. Published or not, keep writing as long as you love doing it.

And so I have. I still get disheartened, every other day it seems I’m back to black, trying to talk myself into making my day job my career. Even though I’m publishing now, there isn’t any money in it. Yet. Hope springs eternal. Good or not, published or not I keep writing though, because I love to write.

Thanks, Ray!

SEX is JUST SEX

February 17, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in sex

SEX is JUST SEX. It is a biological drive, a primal/base urge both genders possess (to varying degree between individuals).

SEX IS NOT LOVE, regardless of the portrayal in movies that the act of sex is profoundly loving, a spiritual meeting of minds, bodies, and souls. Having sex can be an action of love, but it isn’t with someone you’ve just met. Love takes longer and requires a lot more work than a quicky. And fucking on a granite countertop in the kitchen may look romantic, but seriously? Ouch!

AN ORGASM IS NOT LOVE. Dopamine, oxytocin, endorphins, and norepinephrine — the brain releases a surge of feel-good hormones with orgasm. This Pleasure/Reward circuit that lights up our brains is encoded in our DNA — part of our evolutionary process — incentive programming to reproduce.

Consenting partners engaged in sex often equate these happy hormones with feelings of love. This is especially true for first crushes, but the notion that sex and love are synonymous is the gold standard in mainstream media and morality. It’s proselytized by religion, parents, and the media — ‘making love’ the climax (excuse the pun), consummating the canonical ‘happy ending.’

Historically, men are more driven by their biology, claiming to require or desire sex 5 times more than women. However, when either gender is touched appropriately, we are equally hard-wired for stimulated free nerve ending nociceptors to trigger a flood of happy hormones.

SEX is NOT LOVE, no matter what your pastor, or TV, or your mother tells you.

LOVE is much harder to attain than an orgasm.

In fact, I can and do take care of my biological craving for intense physical pleasure all by myself. And heads up guys — I’ve asked hundreds of heterosexual women over the years if they have a more intense orgasm with a partner or without. It has ALWAYS been without.

From biblical times, humanity has made the act of SEX so much more than a biological urge encoded in our DNA because the consequences can pass on disease and create life. Even with the advent of birth control, sex is still riskier for women than men.

Close to 42% of pregnancies in U.S. are unintended. Approx. 33% of children live in fatherless homes. Over 20% of dads have little or no involvement in their kid’s lives. Choosing adoption, or to terminate unwanted pregnancies — each carries their own weight, for life.

We all expect the primary parent to be the mother, even today. Common wisdom professes women are programmed to care for our children. True or social rhetoric, we generally don’t walk away from our kids, which is why women and men usually have sex for different reasons.

Women are looking for a deep[er] connection when we initiate or consent to sex. Even with hookups, most women are looking for an intimate bond, a mythical shared emotional space. Languishing with their loverin the afterglow of sex is more satisfying than the orgasm itself. We imagine the moment lasting, blossoming into a loving relationship.

SEX is just SEX. But if Desire — the cravings for happy hormones — is not satisfied, a predictable pattern of behavior generally emerges.

Sexually frustrated men typically withdraw, become more distant, passive/aggressive. They’re less malleable. Less likely to pay attention, be supportive — from helping with daily tasks, to engaging in dialog over concerns and issues. This offensive behavior leads to further discord between partners, and less sex, perpetuating the implosion of the relationship.

Women generally don’t want to have sex when we’re upset with our partners, but most of us don’t ignore sexual desire. As mentioned, we simply satisfy ourselves. Infidelity is not about orgasms for women. They typically have affairs with a man who lavishes attention, praise, sometimes gifts — actions their primary partner is not taking.

It is NOT an action of love, in the throes of passion, to break marriage contracts of fidelity. It is, perhaps, more egregious to nix the condom to heighten erotic stimulation. These are displays of their lateral orbitofrontal cortex shutting down, blocking out all reason, abandoning all behavioral control to spark the Pleasure/Reward circuitry in the brain.

Kind of like a gorilla. (They have a hard time with complex reasoning, and predictive modeling — examining the possible consequences of their actions, like producing a child.)

SEX may be grounded in our biological drive to reproduce, but over millennium women have found it a useful tool, consciously, or not. (You can pretend it’s not true, but you’d be lying to you.) We’ve woven so much crap into coupling — equating fucking with love, making sex the pinnacle of romance, acceptance, and required for intimacy, we ignore the fact that these are myths. Mere social and religious constructs to mitigate the consequences of intercourse.

SEX, by no means, need be 5% of the relationship when it’s good, and 95% when it’s not, as your church, temple, dad, and social media tells you:

Over 18 and still a virgin?
You’ve been on how many dates, and you haven’t made it yet?
Together for X months and you only do it once a week?
Newlyweds? You should be humping like bunnies!
No sex for X days/months/yrs means your marriage has gone stale.

Most loving, lasting relationships do not hinge on sexual frequency. Pressuring your partner to be sexually available at your whim should no longer be acceptable. Sexual Desire is dynamic — changing with circumstance, age, physicality. Over time, being there for the other andaccepting each other’s frailties garners trust. Trust generates intimacy — LOVE.

SEX can be an intensely pleasurable physical exchange between willing partners. It can be an expression of caring, a sharing, bonding experience for couples, but it will not make some rando fall in love with you. The dopamine rush from orgasm is not an emotional connection with your partner. It’s brain chemistry.

Random SEX does NOT make you more desirable/valuable, and will likely not get you the relationship you’re really looking for. More SEX will NOT save your marriage, or a dying relationship from poor communication. Having intercourse may defer but will not cure issues negatively affecting your partnership.

SEX is just SEX.

The TRUTH about Immigrants

February 2, 2026February 2, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Had some yard work done that required cutting concrete. My gardener gave me a quote of $150 to do the job. I accepted his bid as fair and equitable, and we agreed he’d do the work last Sunday.

He arrived promptly at 8:30 Sunday morning and began cutting our concrete patio. He used a small electric saw with a 4-inch blade, which I thought odd, since the last guy I’d seen cut concrete had a major power saw that had to be held with both hands and came with a water supply to keep the blade cool.

Our gardener struggled to cut a mere 20 inches of concrete less than a half-inch thick for over four hours. He left once, to buy new blades for his little saw. He did not take a lunch break. In fact, he took no breaks at all.

It was ninety-four degrees at midday when I brought him some ice water. Sweat dripped down his face and cut brown lines in the concrete chalk covering his skin. He gave me a crooked-tooth grin of thanks, took a long drink then wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Caliente!” (Hot!)

I nodded in agreement and pointed to his little saw. “Pequeño (Small),” I said, closing the gap between my thumb and forefinger. “Why so small? Harder to cut the concrete.” I spoke in English, as my Spanish sucks, but he got it.

He laughed. “You’re right. Yes! Si! Demasiado pequeño (too small). Herramienta incorrecta (wrong tool).” He picked up his tiny cutter. “Muy caro! Expensive! $100 for herramienta. $35 for blades. Aye yai yai!”

I was paying him $150 for the job. He’d just spent over that buying equipment to do the work. I was mind-boggled. I assumed he had all he needed to do the job when he gave me his bid. He downed the full glass of water and went back to work.

I went inside to get him more water and noticed the receipt from the equipment rental place I’d visited the previous week. I’d rented a jigsaw for a woodworking project. At the time, I inquired about renting a concrete cutter. $49.00 for 24 hours. Why hadn’t my gardener just rented the right equipment? He could have got the job done in half an hour and actually made money.

I took the receipt outside and showed it to him. “Do you know of this place? Just down the road?”

He took the receipt and studied the logo at the top of the paper. His expression brightened. “Si! Yes! Alquiler de equipos. Rents. Yes?”

“Yes! Concrete saw is $59.00 bucks for all day. Thirty minutes, a half an hour, to do the job. That’s it. Why didn’t you rent a saw?” Using hand signals and body gestures I somehow communicated.

“Ah. No. No rent. Can’t. No license. No seguro (insurance). Not legal here.”

Four years running our gardener’s been coming. He’s easily the best gardener I’ve ever had. More than a gardener, he fixes our watering system, landscapes, trims trees, and sets fences. He comes every Tuesday around 9:00am, rain or shine, and is on time, every time. He always smiles and waves when we cross paths. He is a stellar model of a dedicated hard worker for our children, and our community at large. I’ve recommended him to neighbors and soccer moms, as they have to their communities, allowing him to build a side business gardening and landscaping on weekends and evenings.

Yet, he cannot get a Green Card.

His company won’t sponsor him. He has no legal relatives here. He is not a refugee. Even if he could get one, the process of applying and then waiting for the Card takes years. My gardener needs, and in fact, has work right now. He can’t wait years to get government approval to work for a living.

Why doesn’t he leave his job for Americans and just go back to Mexico? Without him, and immigrants like him, our free-market economy would get even more expensive for us in the middle. Capitalism requires competition to keep prices of labor and costs of goods moderated.

I had three other bids on the concrete work I needed. A neighborhood contractor quoted me $1,600 to do the job. A mason didn’t want the job because it was 20 miles from his location and not worth the trip. A local handyman quoted $950, but couldn’t start the job for over two months, and required half upfront to hold my time slot. All were licensed, bonded, U.S. Citizens. With the right cutting tool, which was rentable for $59, I knew the job should take 15 minutes, 30 on the outside. I originally considered doing it myself, but the saw seemed heavier than I could manage.

I had no idea my gardener was here illegally and driving without a license until our conversation last Sunday. The man looks in his mid-40s but he told me on Sunday that he’s only 32. He’ll die young from hard labor, lack of medical care, working with poor or improper equipment, like breathing toxic concrete dust without a mask, carcinogenic construction materials, and garden poisons. If he is graced with children, and I hope he is and will pass on his excellent work ethic to them, he still will not be granted U.S. Citizenship. He is always at risk of deportation, more or less depending on who is in the White House. Like many illegals lately, he could end up having to take his American children back to live in the Mexico he left for a ‘better life’ here.

Sunday alone, our gardener put over $150 into the U.S. economy, counting just his little saw and multiple blades. He will buy his food here, pay for his housing here, his utilities, his fuel costs. He lives here and contributes to our economy with every dollar he spends. He probably pays taxes, as do many illegals working for large companies. My gardener is an employee of a huge gardening and landscaping corporation.

Next time you bite into that peach, remember it only costs $0.59 because illegals planting and picking the fruit are cheap labor. (Your iPhone is made in China for the same reason, yet Apple is rewarded with tax breaks instead of kicked out of the country). Illegals contribute billions in tax dollars and consumer spending in the U.S. annually, yet they get none of the protections of citizenship. No Medicare. No social security or unemployment benefits. No welfare or government handouts, like half the southern states. Illegals are invisible here.

I am privileged by birthright for the lifestyle we live and can provide for our kids. I haven’t a clue, and never want one, how it feels to be so far from home, without ‘inalienable rights.’ But I know one thing for sure — our gardener deserves the ‘better life’ he sought when moving here, the one [ostensibly] available to most citizens who work hard to prosper.

With Everything Given, Something is Owed

January 30, 2026January 30, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in Family, friendship, relationships

With everything given something is owed.

With everything given something, not the same thing, is owed.

With everything given—a kindness, one’s time, efforts on your behalf—you owe that person.

I write it three times because most people DON’T GET IT, or worse, refuse to believe it. It’s easier to receive than reciprocate. Denying or ignoring reciprocity doesn’t make the debt disappear; it undermines the relationship.

Just got off the phone with a friend. After describing my husband’s failure in planning our recent trip, I added he ‘owed me’ for 23 years planning unique family vacations every year.

My friend retorted, “I hate that. You don’t ‘owe’ your partner.”

Yes. You do!

With everything given something is owed.If not equitably, the perceived partnership is really a dictatorship.

Gray divorce is trending because the wife spent the last 20+ yrs of her life raising the kids, cleaning the house, shopping and cooking the meals for the family while working full-time, and she’s done being the unpaid labor force for a man who never learned to reciprocate.

Like it or not, mutually beneficial, fulfilling relationships are reciprocal.

Reciprocity goes beyond just marriage.

If your adult child has spent 20+ years being volatile, demanding, emotionally abusive, you may ‘love’ them, but it’s also likely you’re tolerating them.

Relationships without reciprocity become endurance.

With everything given, something is owed. If this paradigm is not understood, and PRACTICED in relationships, resentment festers, and corrodes over time. The union becomes fragile with the [often unspoken, or consciously recognized] weight of hostility, leading to divorce, estrangement from family, ending friendships, even work relationships.

I told my friend I spent three months every year planning our vacations on a shoestring budget. Countless times over the last 29 yrs I’d asked him to plan a romantic getaway for us, but he did only once—this recent trip, which I instigated, and reminded him to plan for over a year.

With everything given, something is owed. Something is owed, but not [necessarily] the same thing. Reciprocity need not be identical, but must be proportional to achieve equity in relationships. And true intimacy—sharing open communication, connection, trust—requires equity. Had my husband invested the same amount of time and focused energy as I do planning our trips, we likely wouldn’t have ended up on Hawaii in a cramped, shoddy, bug-infested Airbnb above a bar. (No resentment there…)

My parents’ marriage of 49 yrs was not reciprocal. It was a hierarchy.

I never heard my mom say a bad word about my dad until two weeks before she passed. Dying of cancer, she lay on her side of their California King spewing her bottled rage towards her misogynistic narcissist of a husband.

My dad was ‘king of his castle,’ but my mother paid the bills, did the taxes, and worked full-time while raising three kids. She planned the vacations, threw the parties, purchased the presents, hosted holidays, shopped and cooked most meals, even did much of the clean-up. She attended his business functions and soirées—‘his arm piece wearing the requisite sunshiny face,’ she’d said during her hate-filled rant.

My dad went to work and was home for dinner most nights. After he ate the meal we served him, he went into his office and watched TV, or read. Oh, and in a grand display, he carved the turkey my mom bought, cooked and served at Thanksgivings.

He left her lonely ‘doing his own thing’ in his free time during his working years, and in retirement. She gravitated to her network of friends (as so many married women do!) who extended their Time to her, as she did to them. They spoke often, met up for meals weekly, traveled together on vacations to far away places— leaving my father lonely too.

Ultimately, neglecting to invest the time and energy my mom had into him served neither of them.

Reciprocity isn’t complicated. It’s recognizing the amount of Time others invest in you—directly, through their time and attention; and indirectly by making your life easier.

It may be as simple as your timely response to a text or email from a friend or family member (since no one likes to wait for a reply).

A child’s reciprocity for a parent’s investment in them may be demonstrating respect, gratitude, cooperation, affection over time.

Husband/wife, parent/child, siblings, friends, associates, practicing Time for Time builds trust, connections, can even repair broken relationships. When we give our time—our most valued possession—we show we care.

Invest your Time in preserving, even strengthening any partnership by taking the following steps (in order!):

We are a TEAM.*
What does my partner need/want?
What do I need/want?
Compromise.
*Steps 2 – 4 can be more easily achieved by remembering #1.

With everything given, something is owed. Not the same thing, but something, in equal measure. This is the price of obtaining, and maintaining connections, friendships, love.

4 Steps to Better Relationships

January 28, 2026January 28, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in relationships

How to build better relationships with partners, kids, friends and colleagues…

The first year of my marriage didn’t go according to plan. The creative, smart, capable man I thought I married appeared to be a jobless, lazy, self-absorbed brat.

I’d waited 37 years to marry, ten years behind almost everyone I knew. I’d waited to find a best friend to share life with. I had this idea of the man I wanted to be with since childhood. He’d be smart. Very smart. Massively creative, anything less would bore me. Financially stable, and able to help support a family with his skill set. And fun, of course, loved exploring new places. Cute was a must. I had to be physically attracted.

My husband had all these things and more, even after we married. And similar goals of having a family remained intact, but something had changed between us. The best friend I wanted became the burden I carried the poorer we got. He refused to take on consulting, and I couldn’t support us both on my salary alone. Ten months into our marriage we’d gone through most of my life savings.

He came into our union with no savings, and no paying job. He was working at developing a tech startup when we met and continued to do so after we married. He spent his days and most nights creating software. My dear husband’s response to going broke was to make his already complex software even more complex. Marketing his startup was a mystery to him and easily avoided by immersing himself in coding. He seemed more intimate with his computer than with me. Many a night I had to please myself while he was downstairs making it with his 64-bit Alpha.

There were many good days, long drives, and hikes along the Pacific coastline, filled with conversation that flowed from one topic to another in a smooth, endless dialog. Those days bonded us, reminded me why we married, and how much I enjoyed his mind, his perspectives, his passion. But things got harsher and more contentious. Eleven and a half months into marital bliss I lost our first baby in utero eight weeks into the pregnancy. And my husband engaged with his muse while I mourned our loss alone.

Time and again that first year of our marriage, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one that considered divorce. A chasm was growing between us. I’m sure he felt it too. He was just better at ignoring it, and me, which I found infuriating. I was so very lonely, and when prodded, my husband admitted he was too. We were stuck in a downward spiral which I couldn’t live with, in a relationship I didn’t want to abandon. Ultimately, fear of missing my childbearing years, and having to start from square one dating again, compelled me to stick with my marriage.

I narrowed the root of our discord down to three possible scenarios:

He fed off other people’s pain, which would make him a psychopath.
He was indifferent to anyone’s needs but his own.
He didn’t know any better.

It was improbable I’d married a psychopath. My husband was guilty of distance, but never violence. Indifference was impossible to work with. Trying to motivate people to care — that don’t — is a fool’s play. So I went with the third possibility. He didn’t know what was wrong between us, or how to fix it, so he froze, paralyzed by uncertainty.

My husband is a mathematician. His brain shuts out chaos. He craves order, creates it daily in tidy mathematical models with strict parameters. Feelings were messy, but exploring them was downright unnerving for him.

My dad once told me the difference between men and women lies in our nature. Men are self-oriented, internal. Women are maternal. Producing life grounds us outside ourselves. Therefore, it is the woman’s role to coax the man outside himself, bring him to her, even his children.

It was my job to figure out a method, a series of clearly defined, linear steps we were both beholden to take that would make our marriage work. I felt certain once a path was apparent my husband would gladly take it with me, if for no other reason than to end the perpetual arguing. And though it took me several months, I eventually came up with an equation and presented it on our vacation, because timing is everything.

We were climbing on the gigantic slabs of granite rocks and exploring the spectacular rugged shoreline of Acadia National Park in Maine. Humbled by the grandeur all around us, we connected in that shared moment. That’s when I unveiled the set of steps I’d conjured that were likely to improve our marriage. I spoke slowly, calmly, lovingly as I laid out the logistics.

We are a TEAM.
What does my partner need/want?
What do I need/want?
Compromise.

Four simple (or not so simple) steps, in this exact order.

Step #1 defines the goal, I explained to my husband. Any relationship — whether husband, lover, friend, or child and parent, must be a TEAM to effectively communicate, and manage discord. We first must acknowledge we are not competing. We’re on the same side trying to work together to solve the issue at hand.

Steps #2 and #3, I continued explaining, are about building trust — the foundation of all productive relationships. If I know you’ll consider my needs and desires before your own (#2), and you know I’m looking out for you before myself (#3), we’ll be able to establish trust knowing we’ll be there for each other before ourselves alone.

Step #4: Compromise, I told my husband, is the functional workings of any healthy relationship. With everything given, something (not necessarily the same thing) is owed. At the very least, each of us must feel heard, and understanding must be achieved before archiving any conflict. Letting issues fester is destructive, and divisive in the extreme. At best, we both get something we want, even if that something is yielding our position to support our team. And as a sidebar — ‘giving in’ doesn’t mean ‘losing.’ Concessions are more easily given by referring to Step #1.

My husband paced me across the granite slabs as we climbed the rocky shoreline. His slender form moved with grace and ease across the rocks. He scrambled ahead to help me with a vertical climb, then reached down to give me a hand. A moment later we stood on cliff’s edge overlooking the Atlantic.

“Other than I think you’re hot, I married you because I knew you were brilliant. Anything less would have bored me.” He smiled at me, then stared out at the ocean, big waves striking the shoreline sending plumes of mist around us.

We walked and talked and climbed for the next five hours, breaking down each of the four steps with specific case scenarios. After analyzing and massaging the data the rest of the weekend, and each step passing QA of course, it was agreed upon to give them a go.

For our summer vacation a decade ago we took our teen children to Acadia to share with them the park’s pristine beauty. My husband spoke of our earlier adventures there and told the kids about our long talk. He quoted the four steps, in order, and explained why each was important, then pointed out how applying them to most interactions strengthens communication and can improve almost any relationship. A big wave sprayed us all. The mist twinkling around us, I spied my husband staring out at the sea and flashed on our moment there so long ago. I held his face in my hands and kissed him.

We’ll be celebrating our 30th anniversary this coming spring. It isn’t always bliss, or easy to compromise, but continually affiriming we are a team, and adhering to the four steps has made our relationship richer, more intimate and rewarding for both of us.

How to Generate Product IDEAS

January 27, 2026January 27, 2026 by jcafesin, posted in Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Small Business Marketing, startup, startups

Need an IDEA [that will likely SELL] to Startup?

Many want to be entrepreneurs, but most people lack product ideas, or can’t think of a service (or app) that isn’t already available.

For over a decade, I taught entrepreneurship at Stanford and Cal Berkeley/Haas. I designed a course to teach the process of turning an IDEA (or product in development) into an offering that SELLS, and building sustainable startups.

Below is the 1st CHALLENGE in the course. It is designed to teach the PROCESS of PROVING an IDEA will sell BEFORE (taking the time and investing the money) developing it.

CHALLENGE #1: Generating PRODUCT Ideas

If you already have an idea (or product in development), skip this CHALLENGE. Focus your learning through the process of validating your existing IDEA.

It is highly recommended that you have an idea to actualize, in order to realize the full potential of this course. The idea is less important than working the process, so don’t dwell on creating a brilliant offering, or even one that you will produce right now (if ever). Learn by engaging in the process, and you’ll be able to actualize most any idea you have now, or any that may come, by simply following the steps of the RAF Method, in order (kind of like working a math equation ;-).

Imagine creating something that solves a recurring problem. Now, come up with a basic (even vague) idea of a fix for your recurring issue…

1. THINK of at least five (5) PROBLEMS you frequently encounter, and create a document titled: “MY FREQUENT PROBLEMS.” Number each problem as shown (though your LIST does NOT need to be by priority).

Examples:

Trash bags that don’t fit or stay fixed to the rim of the can.
Spending an hour or more online looking for a movie you’ll actually like (since Netflix’s rec engine, as with all streaming services, only recommend the content they have).
Xfinity’s internet access that keeps crashing while you’re watching the movie it just took you an hour to find.
Your kids are not doing well in school.
You have no one with whom to share how you really feel, and you can’t afford therapy.
You get tired by 3:00p.m. and want a wake-you-up, but slow burning energy snack.
You can’t get a good job without work experience. And you can’t get work experience without a job.
You know it’s unhealthy for your dog to be locked inside all day, but there’s no way to let him run and play during your workday.

2. LIST [at least] five (5) SOLUTIONS to your list of problems.

Examples:

1a: Trash bags made to fit a variety of can sizes, with a 3” wide rubber-band around the top.
2a: An app that figures out individual preferences for movies and recommends platforms with your desired content.
3a: Some issues we can’t do anything about. If Xfinity is your only internet provider (as is ours), you’re screwed.
4a: Software that recognizes bottlenecks in learning, and dynamically provides content geared to what student likes or will engage with.
5a: Chatbot specifically designed to engage in therapy, available when you need to talk 24/7.
6a: My organic, low-fat, gluten-free, great-tasting cupcakes and scones.
7a: A platform, both online and live meetups, that matches students or recent grads with corporate internships.
8a: A P2P service of local, professional pet care advocates, from doggie daycare to personal pet assistants.

3. Pick ONE (1) of your SOLUTIONS. Use the solution you’ve discovered in this challenge as the IDEA you’ll validate and market for profit throughout the LSM workshops. Walking the RAF method, even with an IDEA that you’ll never actualize, teaches you the PROCESS of taking any IDEA, and PROVING it will sell BEFORE developing it.

CHALLENGE #2: Generating STARTUP Ideas

Unlike finding solutions to problems, as in CHALLENGE #1, in this exercise you will begin with what you enjoy doing. While I’d like a trash bag that stays on the can, I wouldn’t find much joy in developing this particular product, as I have no interest in plastics, rubber bands, or trash.

To endure the missteps and do-overs required in launching any business takes real tenacity, that will be challenged again and again with each disappointment. You’ll want to give up, but don’t quit! You’ll learn to iterate (or pivot as they say in the Valley).

It’s important to build your business around something you enjoy doing, a task you [generally] like to perform (whether you’re being paid or not). A job that engages, excites, will help you weather the onslaught of hardships, as you’ll be iterating on what you already enjoy doing.

1. LIST three (3) of your top interests. Be as specific as possible!

What do you love to do (or even like to do)? Are you a gamer? An athlete? Like to bake? Shop? Read? Enjoy traveling? Gardening? Crazy in-love with your dog, or cat, or parrot?

2. LIST [at least] five (5) things you like to do — activities you enjoy engaging in. Don’t worry about how profitable they may be. Just list what you enjoy doing. Note, you won’t always enjoy even tasks you generally like.* I’m a writer, and often find the writing process frustrating, but overall I love to write.

3. Come up with ONE (1) IDEA for a product or service that’s in-line with one [or more] of your interests and/or pleasures.

Examples:

You’re a gamer and have an IDEA for an MMOG that’s better than World of Warfare.
You bake the best scones on Earth, and you want the world to taste ‘em.
You’re a science fiction fan, and want to share your thoughts on movies, shows and other finds on an All Things SciFi podcast.
You’re an avid reader and want to share your thoughts on a literature review blog.
You love real estate and want an app that gives all the information about a property instead of the current platforms like Redfin hiding critical data.
You love your mom, and she need someone to take her to her doctor’s appts, shopping…etc. — Uber meets vetted and qualified (medical, financial…etc. pros) on-call personal assistant.

Use ONE (1) IDEA to actualize through the RAF Method, and create offerings of value, for profit, with a job you’ll love to do, daily.

*You won’t always get to do things you like when validating and actualizing IDEAS into products for profit. You’ll have to take on job functions you hate, but are necessary to launch and grow any business. I love to write, but I hate marketing my work!