Here are the signs that menopause has a firm grip of your brain and how to cope:

CRS, Can’t Remember Shit    

Write everything down. Do not say to yourself that you will remember, you will not! Write everything down on a note pad that you keep in the same spot in your purse or on your desk so you can check it often and frequently.

 Do not leave it to your phone because you will forget to charge your phone.

DGS, Don’t Give a Shit

You think you look better, younger, and sexier, than anyone else you know even when others may comment lovingly, critically or snidely to you about your dress, hair or overall appearance and you don’t care.

You think you used to be the smartest person in the room. You know that may not be the case because you can not remember some words or have become dependent on spell check but who cares?

You can not watch a beauty pageant, the Olympics, a Lifetime/Hallmark movie with-out sobbing. You hate criers at work and now there you are blubbering about someone’s story and you don’t care.

Mood Swings

Remember when you were a teenager and your own Mother was frustrated with your snotty attitude? No? Well she was and you didn’t know what set you off? Your hormones are fluctuating like that again. One day you are happy and satisfied and the next you are selling the house, leaving the family and job to eat chocolate in Paris!

Are people saying things like “You just need your morning coffee”? Do you have co-workers who only email you? Does your family ask “Why are you so sensitive?” Do you have some road rage? Have you gone Ape Shit in a public setting? Have you been arrested?

What can help? Try to get a good night sleep. Ask your Doctor for sleep medication. Not even when you were at the top of your game did you function well while sleep deprived! Try exercise of some kind. Whacking a ball in some sport or joining an exercise/dance class can help with the mood swings. Don’t self medicate with wine or drugs. Talk with friends your same age. Just know it is normal, you are not going crazy or becoming emotionally unbalanced; you are menopausal.

I am sure I forgot an important tip or sage advice but you can comment here.

1. Wear layers that you can peel off. This means a tank top or T-shirt, preferably wicking as your first layer. Second layer is a sweater or blazer or blouse. Do not peel off past the first layer!
2. Do not wear a crop top, belly shirt, tube top, a sheer blouse, or a sheer blouse over a tube top, or just your bra no matter how hot you are and think you can pull it off. You can not. Are you listening Trudie Styler?
3. Wear slacks with-out stockings. Loose fitting slacks or skirts that are not lined. Wear a skirt with-out stockings, tights or leggings unless it is winter and you are outside.
4. Do not wear a mini skirt (with-out tights or leggings) a kilt, a short dress or short shorts. Even if you think you have Rockette legs it is the menopause evil inner voice talking, do not listen. Remember do not forgo the panties.
5. Wear open toe shoes or peek-a-boo toes with-out stockings or socks for extra ventilation, year round. It may get chilly and damp but it will keep you cool so who cares.
6. Don’t wear hats. Hats keep in the heat, great in the winter but not for those having personal summers.
7. Wear your hair pulled up at the neckline. If you wear a short hairstyle keep it light at the nape of neck. If you wear a bob keep it over the nape of the neck. These precautions are for the sweaty neck and look of wet hair. No one wants to hear the question, “Did you just come from the showers?”
8. Do not wear Spanx or any other control foundation unless you are going to a party. Be sure to put on your make-up after you put on the Spanx. Plan on not going to the bathroom during the party because then you will have to yank them up and it will put you into a flash and there goes the make-up and hairdo!
9. Wear bright polish on your fingers and toes. They are the only things that won’t sweat off during a flash. All make-up must be water resistant and extra long lasting. This doesn’t mean that you won’t have to re-apply foundation, eye liner, eye-shadow, mascara, blush, and lipstick, only that it may not end up running all the way down your face after a few flashes.
10. Clean and put away your turtle necks, mock turtle necks and long woolen sleeved sweaters for a few years as you experience the long hot summers of year round menopause. Keep an extra top, bra, panties and slacks in your car, office, or briefcase, just in case these tips do not work-out.

If you follow my tips and do not listen to the evil menopause inner voice regarding fashion you will be safe from jail and life as a felon. No one will arrest you for indecent exposure. You won’t humiliate your children or spouse or co-workers with a fashion faux pas. More importantly you will not humiliate yourself!

Becoming a felon means you have really stepped over the line. You have acted out regrettably in a way that can not be sorted out easily. You have become irrational. You have listened to your inner estrogen deprived voice and snapped. You may be reading this too late. For those of us clinging to our rational though estrogen deprived sanity, I write these words of advice. Full disclosure, my advice is from the point of view of someone who can not offset her menopause symptoms by hormones natural or otherwise.

Most women over the course of several years go through a phase called ‘peri-menopause’. This means little side effects are happening. Most women think something critical is wrong with them or it is stress. In reality more often than not, it is the start of menopause. Denial is one of the first side effects of menopause or peri-menopause. I liken the denial phase to the river The Nile. The banks are very lush, the water is very cool the area is very beautiful and if you could just live there in la-la land of denial, everyone and everything would be great!

Sooner or later, the denial phase does not make sense anymore. Maybe a friend, a spouse or co-worker mentions more than once that you are not quite yourself. Maybe you even have a self reflective non-denial thought and think that you are not yourself either. You start to wonder where the hell did you go and who has taken over your body and mind?

There are many wonderful web sites, books and resources available to find out everything about menopause. From the medical to the spiritual to the alternative to the myths, there is information out there. I am going to share in the following weekly posts the most important information and that is how to survive menopause with-out becoming a felon.  The biggest tip I can give overall is that your inner voice, that voice of rational reason may be compromised because of lack of estrogen, and you need to really truly absolutely positively think and think again before you act, lest you become a felon!

Next Week; How to Survive Menopause with-out becoming a Felon: Fashion

To some women this seems straight-forward.  They know they have a history of breast cancer on their Father’s side and/or their Mother’s side of the family so they see the geneticist specializing in breast cancer found at major urban hospitals.

Let me put up the common road blocks that makes this situation anything but straight-forward; Money, time, insurance, and knowledge. 

The test will be administered after counseling which takes time.

The counseling is after a doctor recommends this to you which is insurance.

The test is not 100% covered by insurance which is the money component.

The knowledge component is the big roadblock for many women. What do you do if you find out you are positive for the gene? Remember the positive outcome of the gene does not say you will get breast or ovarian cancer, but that your chances are higher than the general public.

My opinion is that this is a very important issue for women who are in their mid 20’s and 30’s and are thinking of having children. If a woman in this age group tests positive she can make changes. She can opt to harvest her eggs for a later date, have children as soon as possible or opt to have prophylactic surgeries. These are not changes in diet, exercise or life-style changes, but life altering changes!

Currently there are 250,000 women living in the USA who were diagnosed with breast cancer before age 41. Usually their cancer is a more aggressive form. The financial burden and emotional costs of cancer are difficult to measure at any stage of life but even more difficult to measure in a young woman. Extrapolate this to a young woman who is healthy but has a family history. Do you push her to have the counseling and to take the test?

Many women give the reason why they don’t get a yearly mammogram is because they are afraid of the results. Ignorance is bliss is a common reason of non-action for many. With that in mind how would you react to the genetic counseling and test? What would you suggest to your friends, sisters, or daughter if they fit the criteria for genetic cancer?

I don’t know why Komen picked pink to represent their logo, the ribbon, but they did. Their success with breast cancer awareness has snowballed all breast cancer charities and research to use pink in their marketing.

Some people are out raged that Komen.org, the largest charity in the world pays high salaries to their top employees. Some people are outraged that a company will put a cap on their matched donations of $500,000.00, $50.000.00 or $5,000.00 to breast cancer. Some people are outraged that Fast Food outlets will sell nutritiously bad food while donating a nickel per bucket to breast cancer.

Let me address some of these thoughts:

The treatments for breast cancer are; slash, burn and poison. There is nothing cute, soft or feminine about that!

Komen did not get to be the biggest charity by only using volunteers. Just because they are a nonprofit does not mean that their employees don’t get paid. Komen takes the millions of dollars they raise from around the world and fund research on drugs, treatment programs, mammograms and outreach programs. Almost all the drugs used in breast cancer treatment have been a result of Komen dollars.

A company willing to make any donation to Komen or breast cancer research is voluntary and they will get my dollars. Why not?

If you eat fast food in a bucket, and many do, why not have a nickel go to breast cancer research? You are not making the breast cancer patient or survivor eat it!

Here is the low down on breast cancer. There is no cure. There is no cause. The treatments can be barbaric and debilitating.  95% have no family history of breast cancer. The leading causes of breast cancer are being a woman and too many birthdays. 1 out 8 women will get breast cancer in their lifetime. Look around and count starting with me, a 9 year survivor, and count 8 more women in your life.

The next time you consider scoffing at the pink in October, ask yourself if your nickel or dime won’t help your sister, friend, daughter or self in the future?

• Took a leave of absence and traveled alone for 2 months to South America with-out being fluent in Spanish!
• Quit her job and started a 3 year graduate school program at over 50 years old!
• Took a sabbatical to Europe, bought a car and drove through France and Italy by herself!
• Sold her home and moved to Mexico with-out being fluent in Spanish!
• Started her own business in a new service industry she developed!
• Joined a Dragon Boat Team and traveled to participate in races around the world after breast cancer treatments!

Yikes, right! Did I mention that these friends of mine are every day normal women?  No trust fund babies, Housewives of wherever, extreme thrill or sports junkies in the bunch. Women who through emails or over coffee mentioned to me casually in the same manner as they would say, “I am going to the mall instead of downtown to shop for some black pumps”, except they are doing these huge brave things!

Now we all have done some brave things or events from time to time, but these women are demonstrating a commitment to a new challenge that goes beyond doing a  zip line, walking over a bed of fire, taking up conversational Cantonese, starting a new job, ending a bad marriage or horseback riding! These women are demonstrating a new experience that only 1 out of not very many are willing to take.

 I think what makes my friends remarkable is their desire and willingness to go or do their  adventures by themselves.  How often have we heard someone say “If I had someone to do this  with or if I had the time I would do it”? These women were not held back waiting for that  someone or the perfect time. They left spouses, partners, children, pets, homes, careers and many exclamations of “Are you Crazy” to pursue their goal. Some said it was a lifetime goal, others a whim to seize the opportunity.

So here are my questions: Is there a brave new woman in all of us?

Have you become a brave new woman in the last few years?

Are you like me, almost a big fat baby?

I fight off the squirrels and the birds, as well as nosey neighbors but a new more difficult prey has besought my front garden, the teenager. Last Saturday around 8 AM my husband heard some talking and giggling out front. Being the nosey, alert person, he encountered 2 teenage girls with 3 of our squash in their arms! He asked them what they were doing and they told him they picked the squashes because it didn’t look like we were using them. My husband showed good sense in not explaining that squash need to stay on the vine until it dies down, but instead told them he wanted 2 back and gave them one. He also instructed them not to smash it. I thought he handled it well.

You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce where the smashed squash remains 2 blocks away all over the road came from! These squash are a mutant of acorn and butternut and pumpkin, which I happened to plant all in the same bed. I said I love to garden not that I am very good at it! They are spherical shaped and green but turning orange and weigh about 4-5 pounds. I call them ‘Butt-Corns’. I have no idea how they will taste but we will eat them and we will like them. At any rate they are mine in my yard.

So if these teenage girls were not intimidated by a 6 foot tall man confronting them, the question remains how to protect our crops from this urban prey? I came up with a plan. I am yakking them to avoidance. That’s right; I have become the crazy lady in the corner house who starts talking and asking questions any time they walk past the house. Trust me I am not talking about anything that would engage them but I am giving the yak of urban legends; rabid squirrels, coyotes in the woods, and bona fide weirdoes in the neighborhood. It seems to be working. Yesterday I saw them walking on the other side of the street. I waved and asked them if they heard about the one arm homeless guy perving around the neighborhood? The kept on walking!

Have you had your home egged, TP, or vandalized by teenagers? What would you do?