First post: GONE TO THE DOGS...
AND LOVING IT
Second post: CLASSIC MOVIES
Third post: THE LADIES' ROOM
THE LADIES’ ROOM
Wit and Wisdom from
367 World-Famous Modern Women
Edited by Walter Oleksy
These are just a few of the hundreds of wise and witty
things famous modern women say in this compilation
of quotes about women, marriage, divorce, relationships,
sex and sexuality, fitness, fear and courage, beauty and
fashion, success and money, coping with age and aging,
beating housework, attaining happiness, combining
marriage with motherhood and career and, last but not
least, everything you ever wanted to know about men.
“The best smell in the world is that man that you love.”
-- Jennifer Aniston
“Making love is like hitting a baseball. You just gotta
relax and concentrate.”
-- Susan Sarandon
“Big girls need big diamonds.”
-- Elizabeth Taylor
“The only time a woman really succeeds in changing
a man is when he is a baby.”
-- Natalie Wood
“I married a German. Every night I dress up as
Poland and he invades me.”
-- Phyllis Diller
“The main problem in marriage is that for a man,
sex is a hunger like eating. If the man is hungry
and can’t get to a fancy French restaurant,
he goes to a hot dog stand. For a woman,
what is important is love and romance.”
-- Joan Fontaine
“Marriage is not just spiritual communion.
It is also remembering to take out the trash.”
-- Dr. Joyce Brothers
“Sometimes I need to learn to bite my tongue.
And that’s the whole give-and-take about marriage
– you don’t always get your way. And let’s face it –
until you get married, you get your way. Once you
get married, you suddenly have to think of
somebody else before you make decisions, before
you speak. That’s about putting your ego in check,
about growing up and about putting someone else
in front of you.
-- Madonna
“Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy
is the same.”
-- Gloria Swanson
“My husband and I didn’t sign a pre-nuptial agreement.
We signed a mutual suicide pact.
-- Roseanne Barr
“The trouble with some women is that they get all
excited about nothing – and then marry him.”
-- Cher
“When I attained a certain advanced intimacy with
a man, and I don’t just mean sex, I married him.”
-- Hedy Lamarr
“Husbands are like fires – they go out when
unattended.”
-- Zsa Zsa Gabor
“I am a committed wife. And I should be committed,
too for being married so many times.”
-- Elizabeth Taylor
“It is better for a woman to compete impersonally
in society, as men do, than to compete for
dominance in her own home with her husband,
compete with her neighbors for status, and so
smother her son that he cannot compete at all.”
-- Betty Friedan
“Men should keep their eyes wide open before
marriage, and half-shut afterwards.”
-- Madeleine de Scudery
“In a marriage, you’re promising to care about
everything. The good things, the bad things,
the terrible things, the mundane things. All of it,
all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your
life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it.
Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will
be your witness.”
-- Susan Sarandon
“He’s the kind of man a woman would have to
marry to get rid of.”
-- Mae West
“Now, I think that I should have known that he
was magic all along. I did know it – but I should
have guessed that it would be too much to ask to
grow old with and see our children grow up
together. So now, he is a legend when he would
have preferred to be a man.”
-- Jackie Kennedy
“What has the women’s movement learned from
Geraldine Ferraro’s candidacy for vice president?
Never get married.”
-- Gloria Steinem
“Now, look, baby, ‘Union’ is spelled with five letters.
It is not a four-letter word.”
-- Dorothy Parker
“Marriage is too interesting an experiment to be
tried only once.”
-- Eva Gabor
“Marriage is a series of desperate arguments people
feel passionately about.”
-- Katharine Hepburn
“All married couples should learn the art of battle
as they should the art of making love. Good battle
is objective and honest – never vicious or cruel.
Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings
to a marriage the principle of equal partnership.”
-- Ann Landers
“Why does a woman work ten years to change a
man’s habits and then complain that he’s not the
man she married?”
-- Barbra Streisand
“'What’s for dinner?' is the only question many
husbands ask their wives, and the only one to
which they care about the answer.”
-- Mignon McLaughlin
“There are some who want to get married and others
who don’t. I have never had an impulse to go to the
altar. I am a difficult person to lead.”
-- Greta Garbo
“In Hollywood, all marriages are happy. It’s trying to
live together afterwards that causes the problems.”
-- Shelley Winters
“When two people marry, they become in the eyes of
the law one person, and that one person is the husband.”
-- Shana Alexander
“I think every woman is entitled to a middle husband
she can forget.”
-- Adela Rogers St. John
“I don’t want to be married to someone who feels
inferior to my success or because I make more money
than he does.”
-- Grace Kelly
“I try to remember, as I hear about friends getting
engaged, that it’s not about the ring. It’s a grave
thing, getting married.”
-- Gwyneth Paltrow
“I’d marry again, if I found a man who had fifteen
million dollars and would sign half of it to me before
the marriage, and guarantee he’d be dead within
the year.”
-- Bette Davis
“Marriage is like a phone call in the night: first the
ring, and then you wake up.”
-- Evelyn Hendrickson
“For marriage to be a success, every woman and
every man should have her and his own bathroom.
The end.”
-- Catherine Zeta-Jones
“Remember if you marry for beauty, thou bindest
thyself all thy life for that which perchance,
will neither last nor please thee one year:
and when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no
price at all.”
-- Virginia Woolf
“A woman asking ‘Am I good? Am I satisfied?’
is extremely selfish. The less women fuss about
themselves, the less they talk to other women,
the more they try to please their husbands,
the happier the marriage is going to be.”
-- Barbara Cartland
“Single women have a dreadful propensity for
being poor, which is one very strong argument
in favor of matrimony.”
-- Jane Austen
“Forty for you, sixty for me. And equal partners
we will be.” -- Joan Rivers
“I was married for thirty years. Isn’t that enough?
I’ve had my share of dirty underwear on the floor.”
-- Martha Stewart
“Marrying a man is like buying something you’ve
been admiring for a long time in a shop window.
You may love it when you get it home, but it
doesn’t always go with everything else in the house.”
-- Jean Kerr
“I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell
this to my children, they just about throw up.”
-- Barbara Bush
“For years my wedding ring has done its job.
It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded
my husband numerous times at parties that it’s
time to go home. It has been a source of relief
to a dinner companion. It has been a status
symbol in the maternity ward.”
-- Erma Bombeck
“Frank is a better husband to me than I am
a wife to him.”
-- Kathie Lee Gifford
“Just because I have rice on my clothes doesn’t
mean I’ve been to a wedding. A Chinese man
threw up on me.”
-- Phyllis Diller
“I wish someone would have told me that just
because I’m a girl, I don’t have to get married.”
-- Marlo Thomas
“Marry Prince William? I’d love that. Who wouldn’t
want to be a princess?”
-- Britney Spears
“Being a princess isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
-- Princess Diana
(Want more of these? Comment or email me at
waltmax@comcast.net)
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
GONE TO THE DOGS -- And Loving It!
This is the beginning section of my new book about my nearly forty years with three dogs. The manuscript is finished and I’ll add chapters from it regularly to this blog. Please don’t steal it, but if you can help get an agent or publisher interested in it, I’d be eternally grateful.
GONE TO THE DOGS
-- And Loving It!
by Walter Oleksy
Introduction: That’s Love
Why is it when I kiss someone’s puppy, I feel like I'm cheating on my dog? It must be because I love my dog so much, and she loves me even more. A gooey answer? Yes, but true.
Some years ago I told my older brother, who was not a dog person, that my beloved dog Max, a big black Lab mix, loved me so much, he often licked my face. I took that as his way of kissing me.
“He’s not kissing you, he’s licking the salt off your face,” my skeptical brother replied.
So I asked my veterinarian about it, and he asked, “Does Max sniff you first, and then lick you?”
“No, he licks me without sniffing.”
Dr. Jim replied, “That’s love.”
And I believe it.
When Max died four years ago, my second dog to live to more than 16 years, I took care of a neighbor’s dog for six weeks while they were out of the state. It was another big black Lab mix, but with a longer coat than Max’s. Would you believe? Its name was Maxine.
I would wait until I finished caring for that dog before looking for another dog of my own. I would definitely get another dog, because my philosophy is, when your dog dies, you can’t do any more for them. But you can get another dog and pour all the love from the dog who died into a new dog. They get my love running, without proving themselves, without earning it. They get my love as unconditionally as dogs give us their love.
When the six weeks were up and I returned Maxine to her owner, friends asked if I would take care of their dog for a week while they were away. I said yes, and postponed a search for my own new dog for yet another week.
Meanwhile, I had asked local police where I could look for a stray or abandoned dog. They said they take those to an animal hospital near my home. I thought I’d go there in another week, after taking care of my friends’ dog, a tall black standard poodle. He was called Valentino because they got him on Valentine’s Day.
Driving home to my empty house after feeding and walking Val, I heard a message in my head. I’ve never had a more intense message come to me from out of nowhere in my whole life. More than a message, it was a command:
“Go to the animal hospital now. There’s a dog there that needs you, and you need that dog.”
Where was the intense message coming from? I had no idea then, but did later.
I passed up the block where my small ranch house is, and drove on to the animal hospital just a half mile away.
A sign on the hospital’s front window said: CLOSED FOR LUNCH. I was about to turn away and come back later, but some girls working at the front desk waved to me to come in,
so I did.
“My dog died recently after sixteen and a half years,” I told them. “And my dog before that also had lived to sixteen and a half years. They were both black Lab mixes. I want to get another dog. Do you have a stray or abandoned dog for adoption?”
“Yes,” a clerk replied.
“Do you have a puppy for adoption?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a black Lab for adoption?”
“Yes. Would you like to see her?”
Her? A female black Lab puppy? My first two dogs had been females and they were wonderful. How could I get so lucky, my first time looking for a new dog?
I said yes eagerly.
As I waited and lunch break ended, a young couple came into the reception room with two healthy, active golden retrievers who were going to be boarded for a few days. Then the puppy who was up for adoption was brought into the
room.
It was a good-sized puppy; I thought maybe not quite a year old. Her short black coat was so shiny, she looked like a panther cub.
The puppy immediately began playing with the two golden retrievers and also with the girl clerks. With other dogs and women around, she didn’t know I was in the room.
“Wilmette police found her wandering the streets a few months ago, without any tags,” one of the girls told me. “No one has claimed her while we’ve cared for her here.”
Another girl said, “She’s healthy and has had all her shots. We’ve even had an IV chip put inside her, in case she gets lost.”
I could see the puppy was friendly with both people and other dogs. She finally came to me easily and without fear. And she was beautiful, with big expressive eyes.
“I’ll take her,” I said, making my mind up faster than I’ve bought a pair of penny loafers, and those shoes all look alike, so it’s a no-brainer to buy them. It was a no-brainer to take this new dog into my life.
Thus began new doggie adventures with my fourth darling. But what would I name her?
When I was caring for my neighbor’s dog for six weeks, while walking it I thought about what I would name my new dog. I decided if it was a male, I’d call him Charlie, after a friend’s golden retriever who loved to play with my first dog.
If my new dog would be a female, I’d call her Annie.
As it turned out, Annie was a most fitting name. Having been abandoned and adopted, she was a rescue dog. She was my Little Orphan Annie.
This book is not about one dog, it’s about the four dogs I’ve had for nearly forty years. And it’s about their dog and people friends, and even some cats. At times, you will probably see yourself in me. It is even more certain you will see your dogs in mine.
I write books, but am not a famous author. I also am not a veterinarian or dog trainer, nor do I hold a degree in human or animal psychology. I just happen to be a dog lover who has owned four dogs over nearly forty years, so I think I know some poop about dogs.
None of my dogs ever had a chance to be a hero, such as save a baby from a burning building, although I’m sure they would have been up to the job. They dug in the back yard, but never struck oil. They were just dogs, doing things dogs do, sharing their lives with me, and mine with them.
My dogs guarded me and our house, fetched tennis balls and sticks, wagged their tails for treats or play, barked at the postal carrier and all delivery persons, caught tennis balls and Frisbees on the fly, turned in circles before bedding down for a nap or the night, and their hind legs walked a little sideways.
Most important, they did what all dogs do best... give us their never-ending and unconditional love. Each of them, more than once, rescued me by being there for me with their love when things weren't going well.
Without question, I admit I love dogs. I go to garage sales every weekend and if a dog’s there, it’s the first thing I go to. I’ve never met a mean one, always a loving one.
Of course, I’m not alone in the world for loving dogs. About 52 million dogs live in 35 million homes in the United States alone, and I’m sure the owners love their dog or dogs to one degree or another.
I love some people, too, but you can wonder about people, even those you love most. You wonder if their love is going to be there for you, every day or tomorrow.
With your dog, you never wonder about that. You need only to look it looking at you to know that you have its love not only every day, but every moment of every day. And you’ll have it tomorrow and the day after that and all the years after that you will be together.
You can never lose your dog's love, because you never earned it in the first place. It is a gift to you, from your dog and whoever created them and us and this planet.
GONE TO THE DOGS
-- And Loving It!
by Walter Oleksy
Introduction: That’s Love
Why is it when I kiss someone’s puppy, I feel like I'm cheating on my dog? It must be because I love my dog so much, and she loves me even more. A gooey answer? Yes, but true.
Some years ago I told my older brother, who was not a dog person, that my beloved dog Max, a big black Lab mix, loved me so much, he often licked my face. I took that as his way of kissing me.
“He’s not kissing you, he’s licking the salt off your face,” my skeptical brother replied.
So I asked my veterinarian about it, and he asked, “Does Max sniff you first, and then lick you?”
“No, he licks me without sniffing.”
Dr. Jim replied, “That’s love.”
And I believe it.
When Max died four years ago, my second dog to live to more than 16 years, I took care of a neighbor’s dog for six weeks while they were out of the state. It was another big black Lab mix, but with a longer coat than Max’s. Would you believe? Its name was Maxine.
I would wait until I finished caring for that dog before looking for another dog of my own. I would definitely get another dog, because my philosophy is, when your dog dies, you can’t do any more for them. But you can get another dog and pour all the love from the dog who died into a new dog. They get my love running, without proving themselves, without earning it. They get my love as unconditionally as dogs give us their love.
When the six weeks were up and I returned Maxine to her owner, friends asked if I would take care of their dog for a week while they were away. I said yes, and postponed a search for my own new dog for yet another week.
Meanwhile, I had asked local police where I could look for a stray or abandoned dog. They said they take those to an animal hospital near my home. I thought I’d go there in another week, after taking care of my friends’ dog, a tall black standard poodle. He was called Valentino because they got him on Valentine’s Day.
Driving home to my empty house after feeding and walking Val, I heard a message in my head. I’ve never had a more intense message come to me from out of nowhere in my whole life. More than a message, it was a command:
“Go to the animal hospital now. There’s a dog there that needs you, and you need that dog.”
Where was the intense message coming from? I had no idea then, but did later.
I passed up the block where my small ranch house is, and drove on to the animal hospital just a half mile away.
A sign on the hospital’s front window said: CLOSED FOR LUNCH. I was about to turn away and come back later, but some girls working at the front desk waved to me to come in,
so I did.
“My dog died recently after sixteen and a half years,” I told them. “And my dog before that also had lived to sixteen and a half years. They were both black Lab mixes. I want to get another dog. Do you have a stray or abandoned dog for adoption?”
“Yes,” a clerk replied.
“Do you have a puppy for adoption?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a black Lab for adoption?”
“Yes. Would you like to see her?”
Her? A female black Lab puppy? My first two dogs had been females and they were wonderful. How could I get so lucky, my first time looking for a new dog?
I said yes eagerly.
As I waited and lunch break ended, a young couple came into the reception room with two healthy, active golden retrievers who were going to be boarded for a few days. Then the puppy who was up for adoption was brought into the
room.
It was a good-sized puppy; I thought maybe not quite a year old. Her short black coat was so shiny, she looked like a panther cub.
The puppy immediately began playing with the two golden retrievers and also with the girl clerks. With other dogs and women around, she didn’t know I was in the room.
“Wilmette police found her wandering the streets a few months ago, without any tags,” one of the girls told me. “No one has claimed her while we’ve cared for her here.”
Another girl said, “She’s healthy and has had all her shots. We’ve even had an IV chip put inside her, in case she gets lost.”
I could see the puppy was friendly with both people and other dogs. She finally came to me easily and without fear. And she was beautiful, with big expressive eyes.
“I’ll take her,” I said, making my mind up faster than I’ve bought a pair of penny loafers, and those shoes all look alike, so it’s a no-brainer to buy them. It was a no-brainer to take this new dog into my life.
Thus began new doggie adventures with my fourth darling. But what would I name her?
When I was caring for my neighbor’s dog for six weeks, while walking it I thought about what I would name my new dog. I decided if it was a male, I’d call him Charlie, after a friend’s golden retriever who loved to play with my first dog.
If my new dog would be a female, I’d call her Annie.
As it turned out, Annie was a most fitting name. Having been abandoned and adopted, she was a rescue dog. She was my Little Orphan Annie.
This book is not about one dog, it’s about the four dogs I’ve had for nearly forty years. And it’s about their dog and people friends, and even some cats. At times, you will probably see yourself in me. It is even more certain you will see your dogs in mine.
I write books, but am not a famous author. I also am not a veterinarian or dog trainer, nor do I hold a degree in human or animal psychology. I just happen to be a dog lover who has owned four dogs over nearly forty years, so I think I know some poop about dogs.
None of my dogs ever had a chance to be a hero, such as save a baby from a burning building, although I’m sure they would have been up to the job. They dug in the back yard, but never struck oil. They were just dogs, doing things dogs do, sharing their lives with me, and mine with them.
My dogs guarded me and our house, fetched tennis balls and sticks, wagged their tails for treats or play, barked at the postal carrier and all delivery persons, caught tennis balls and Frisbees on the fly, turned in circles before bedding down for a nap or the night, and their hind legs walked a little sideways.
Most important, they did what all dogs do best... give us their never-ending and unconditional love. Each of them, more than once, rescued me by being there for me with their love when things weren't going well.
Without question, I admit I love dogs. I go to garage sales every weekend and if a dog’s there, it’s the first thing I go to. I’ve never met a mean one, always a loving one.
Of course, I’m not alone in the world for loving dogs. About 52 million dogs live in 35 million homes in the United States alone, and I’m sure the owners love their dog or dogs to one degree or another.
I love some people, too, but you can wonder about people, even those you love most. You wonder if their love is going to be there for you, every day or tomorrow.
With your dog, you never wonder about that. You need only to look it looking at you to know that you have its love not only every day, but every moment of every day. And you’ll have it tomorrow and the day after that and all the years after that you will be together.
You can never lose your dog's love, because you never earned it in the first place. It is a gift to you, from your dog and whoever created them and us and this planet.
about me
I'm Walt Oleksy, a freelance writer in the Chicago area.
A bachelor, I live with my dog Annie in a suburb near
woods and a river where we walk together every day.
She's 5, a black English lab, and as good as she is
beautiful. She was abandoned at age one and I adopted
her from a shelter after my previous dog Max, a black
lab mix, died after 16 years.
My dog before him, Chelsea, also a black lab mix,
lived to 16 and a half years. My blog will be about me,
my books both published and unpublished, my thoughts
on current events, and other stuff.
I call my blog Walt's Wallow because I had a column by
that name in the student paper at Michigan State
University when I was going to Journalism School there
and was one of the editors. That's many moons ago.
I hope you will want to read chapters of some of my
books, both published and as-yet unpublished,
and I invite you to email me good or bad at
waltmax@comcast.net.
A bachelor, I live with my dog Annie in a suburb near
woods and a river where we walk together every day.
She's 5, a black English lab, and as good as she is
beautiful. She was abandoned at age one and I adopted
her from a shelter after my previous dog Max, a black
lab mix, died after 16 years.
My dog before him, Chelsea, also a black lab mix,
lived to 16 and a half years. My blog will be about me,
my books both published and unpublished, my thoughts
on current events, and other stuff.
I call my blog Walt's Wallow because I had a column by
that name in the student paper at Michigan State
University when I was going to Journalism School there
and was one of the editors. That's many moons ago.
I hope you will want to read chapters of some of my
books, both published and as-yet unpublished,
and I invite you to email me good or bad at
waltmax@comcast.net.
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