One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 63

Happy Birthday sweet little granddaughters 
Cassidy Grace (left) and Khloe Angelia (right)

#63 – “Put coins in a jar for your children.”
This one of one hundred things my mother taught me a million times is superficially simple but deeply complicated – at least for me. I tend to perceive my bank accounts and credit cards in a dangerously abstract way, diminishing and increasing their numbers with the speed of the Internet – reality rarely entering the equation. However, I guard a $20 bill in my purse with the ferocity of a momma bear protecting her cub.

Mom knew that when you see money going away, in a very concrete visual way, you’ll spend it less quickly, or at least think about the expenditure a little longer before emptying the “jar.” When I was a young adult carrying a checkbook, I was equally protective of the balance waving bye-bye in the right-hand column. Then banks came up with online banking, overdraft protection, and credit cards, and reality became virtual reality, and began to slowly slip down the slippery, seemingly bottomless slope.

There’s also the issue of mom not wanting me to ask her for money. Although it’s speculation on my part, it seemed as though she felt it was degrading for me to “beg,” which begs the question, why was mom so sensitive to this issue? Did she have to beg for money at some point in her life? I don’t know. Of course it could have simply been that she didn’t want me constantly harassing her for nickels and dimes (the standard child-currency of my generation).

I am absolutely positive that if I withdrew all the cash I have in banks, and put it in a home wall safe, closed all my accounts (including credit cards), and lived on a cash-only basis, at the end of the day or year I’d have a whole lot more money left over, than under my current system! So why don’t I? Because I am addicted to the drug of dreams and the illusion of possibilities. The habit of having more than I, or anyone, needs.

I am a financial child. My coins need to be in a jar.

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

I was  living in Spain (briefly), as were Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Rex Harrison when they were filming the movie, “Cleopatra.” It was 1958 and I was 12 years old.  I remember with illogical clarity that Elizabeth Taylor, although married to Eddie Fisher at the time, fell in love with Burton. It was tabloid high drama. Then came that enormous diamond ring, but back to the “real” Cleopatra.

Well, probably not the real Cleopatra, but rather author Stacy Schiff’s “Cleopatra: A Life.” Schiff is no neophyte. She won the Pulitzer in 1999 for “Nora,” which I now must read, about Nora Nabokov, wife of “Lolita” author, Vladimir Nabokov, but back to Cleopatra.

Honestly how can we expect Schiff or anyone to get Cleopatra’s life-story accurate? She lived fifty years before Jesus was born, and her city, ancient Alexandrian, was destroyed by tsunamis and earthquakes! Besides there are no vowels in hieroglyphs!
  

What we do know about Cleopatra is that she was the last pharaoh before Egypt became part of the Roman Empire. We also know that she was 21years old when she met 52-year-old Caesar, who was married at the time, and fathered his child, Ptolemy Caesar, nicknamed Caesarion (no relation to the similar-sounding surgical birthing procedure). We also know that after Cesar was assassinated, she had three more children with Mark Antony (also married).

But most fascinating is that Cleopatra was unanimously considered a brilliant ruler who knew how to use wealth, power and intelligence to gain political and military advantage. Schiff says, “From every ancient source, we have testimony to Cleopatra's irresistible charm, to her ability to speak many languages, and to turn people to her will.” Cleopatra was making hefty economic and military decisions at the age of 13. Click on Read More Below...