Robert StGenis Voice empowered

I was on the phone with someone at USAA about my insurance and he asked me "how do you like L.A.?" Noting his genuine curiosity, I paused for a moment. I responded "it's a perfect place to have a love/hate relationship with; if you have never been, you should come." I gave an explanation of how it was vast and amazingly different than most anywhere else, but hard to get around, expensive but you at least most often convinced yourself worth it, and usually the weather is amazing. I have lived here most of my adult life, with brief times in the city of Riverside (the Inland Empire a large extension of L.A.) and the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs), a nearby getaway. A friend of mine from Berlin whom I have known some 30 years said to me years ago visiting me that L.A. was "one of the most unique cities in the world." I don't think that it was his first trip to L.A. when he said this to me. He has been back multiple times and repeated it since and he...

Their husbands have some things very much in common. Neither are helpful with caring for the children or helping at home. They find ways to take months, even years to finish a household project that I know my Dad (probably involuntarily bringing in my brother and myself) have done in a weekend.  Neither have a particularly good relationship with their children. Both Father's have been verbally abusive to the children; one psychically abusive. While the one the one Father still seems to hold a fairly strong bond with his kids, the other has children far less interested in his relationship at this juncture. These men have hardly been lovers to their wives. I am not sure at least one, if not both, perhaps may have wanted to want to be but incapable. They may have made some efforts in some ways, at some times, but aren't best friends. They have used sexual demands with leverage. They have humiliated and belittled these women for years. Yet children and rings kept these smart, ed...

"We are the gift" she repeated throughout the visit smiling along with another close friend circling her face with her hand and producing a big smile, letting me know how grateful I was to be that she has attended an event I large in no small part for her. I literally only moved forward with planning this party, something I was initially against doing, in part because she agreed to be here in Los Angeles. She was a champion of my holding it from the beginning. I was holding this party so she, others close to me, could come together with me. When she later backpedaled and I was in for the biggest party expense since my husband and my wedding I said "I will never talk to you again if you do not come."  I was sincere. I have been to everything she has asked from early visits after the birth of the children, the baptism of the children (I am their Godfather) her daughter's confirmation, time for "Uncle Robert" to just be supportive, son's graduation ...