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The Midlife Second Wife ™

~ The Real and True Adventures of Remarriage at Life's Midpoint

The Midlife Second Wife ™

Category Archives: What’s the Buzz?

Women and men, boomers beyond and below, married or single, people love TMSW. Check out the buzz!

(Older) Women in Love

13 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Love, Midpoints, Remarriage, Transitions, What's the Buzz?

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

boomers, Cindy Joseph, Love, Lynn Forbes, Remarriage, Tammy Bleck, WHOA Network

What do we talk about when we talk about love? I recently had the honor to participate, via Google Hangout, in a lively panel discussion on the WHOA! Network. I loved talking with these accomplished, thoughtful, and insanely fun women about what it really means to find love at 50-plus. We talked about the lessons of our past relationships. We talked about the exhilaration of discovering that one amazing person who is perfect for us—and our surprise in realizing that person happens not to possess some of the qualities and life experiences we’ve toted around on our preconceived checklist of “must-haves.” We talked about the courage it takes to make a commitment, to upend our lives in order to start a new one with THE ONE.

Lynn Forbes, a co-founder of WHOA!, moderated our chat, which features model and entrepreneur Cindy Joseph and writer Tammy Bleck. You can view the short clip above to eavesdrop on what we had to say, but you can also watch the full conversation right here:

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Enter to Win a KitchenAid Pro Line Dicing Food Processor!

30 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Giveaways, Product Reviews, What's the Buzz?

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Cooking, Cuisinart, Food, Food processor, giveaway, KitchenAid, product reviews, Viewpoints

The Midlife Second Wife, Marci Rich, KitchenAid, Viewpoints

Can’t you just picture this beautiful food processor in your kitchen?

This contest is closed. Watch this space for the announcement of the winner!

I’m thrilled to partner with Viewpoints, a leading product ratings website, on an exclusive giveaway. We are inviting you to try your hand at winning a KitchenAid Pro Line Dicing Food Processor—just like the one that I’ve reviewed for Viewpoints. With a suggested retail price of $599, this is by far the biggest, most valuable giveaway I’ve ever hosted on the blog. Yowza!

Viewpoints helps consumers make smart purchase decisions through the use of honest reviews. And as regular readers of the blog know, I’m a member of Viewpoints’ Blogger Reviews Panel. (You can read some of my other reviews here.)

Viewpoints sent me the KitchenAid Model KFP1642 (pictured above) to test for about six weeks, after which I wrote my review for Viewpoints’ website. Comparing KitchenAid’s Pro Line Dicing Food Processor to my trusty Cuisinart really wasn’t much of a contest; the Cuisinart came up short in more ways than one.

The Midlife Second Wife, KitchenAid, Viewpoints

In this case, size does matter. The KitchenAid Pro Line Dicing Food Processor, on the right—as big as a MINI Cooper—dwarfs my old Cuisinart, seen in the left corner. The KitchenAid food processor, along with the accessories shown in the center and the two additional work bowls, are included in what you’ll win.

My review addresses the pros (and a con or two) of the KitchenAid. You can read the full review here. (Viewpoints is giving the food processor that I tested to me in return for my six-week-long test and impartial review. The one you’ll receive is brand spanking new!)

The Midlife Second Wife, Viewpoints, KitchenAid

Revolutionize your kitchen! Enter to win this!

How to Enter:
If you’ve ever fallen in love with a product (or wondered how something inferior ever made its way to market), Viewpoints wants to hear from you. This is your chance to tell the world what you think—your opinion is your entry card! Here’s what you do:

  1. Sign in and register for a free Viewpoints account. Just head over to the  Viewpoints website and set yourself up with a username and password.
  2. Write two qualifying reviews on Viewpoints by Tuesday, August 6 in the Refrigerator, Freezer, Dishwasher, Microwave, Espresso Machine, Washing Machine, Dryer, Air Conditioner, Fan or eCommerce Website categories. Want to write more than two? Go for it! Each review is an entry, so the more you review, the greater your chance to win. Ya gotta write at least two, though.
  3. What qualifies as a qualifying review? Each of your two reviews must be at least 700 characters long to qualify. The character counter at the bottom of the review form shows your review length before publishing. Viewpoints is a stickler for quality, so write engaging reviews—as though you’re talking to a friend or a family member. Write about what you liked, what you didn’t like, and whether or not you’d recommend the product.
  4. Comment on this post (see the section for comments at the end of this article) with the links to your reviews and your Viewpoints username. If you’ve never commented on my blog before, please take a moment and register by adding your name and email address in the fields after you’ve written your comment with your review links and Viewpoints username.
  5. For good giveaway karma, be sure to like Viewpoints and The Midlife Second Wife on Facebook.

The winner will be chosen on Tuesday, August 13.

Here’s a short-hand checklist so you’ll remember what to do:

REGISTER on Viewpoints
REVIEW on Viewpoints
REPEAT on The Midlife Second Wife by posting links to your reviews, including your Viewpoints username, in the “Comments” section at the end of this post.

Got questions? Email support@viewpoints.com with Giveaway as the subject line. One of the gracious Viewpoints staff members will get back to you!

The Fine Print
As with any sweepstakes giveaway, there are a few rules and regulations. I strongly suggest that you read the Official Rules found on the Viewpoints website, noting the restrictions on eligibility. In a nutshell:

Employees of Viewpoints, its affiliates, agents (including Blogger Reviews panel members), and its advertising and promotion agencies, and their respective immediate family members (spouse, children, parents and siblings) and those living in the same household of each (whether or not related), are not eligible to enter.

Now go forth and go for it, friends! I can’t wait to see which one of you will be the lucky winner!

Good luck!

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Hey Boomers—Verizon Will Hear You Now

21 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Product Reviews, What's the Buzz?

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

boomers, consumerism, midlife, product reviews, technology, Verizon, Verizon Communications

VerizonBoomerVoices

Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Boomer Voices program and will be provided with a wireless device and six months of service in exchange for my honest opinions about the product.

Now hear this: Verizon is partnering with a select group of midlife bloggers across middle America as part of a new program called “Verizon Boomer Voices,” and they chose yours truly to lend her voice to the chorus. This an important step in the right direction—for boomers and for Verizon.

According to “The Boomer Consumer: Preparing for the Age Wave,” our cohort controls 77% of all U.S. financial assets and 50% of discretionary spending. And a 2012 article in the Huffington Post reported on a study by the media ratings firm Nielsen and BoomAgers, a creative company that assists companies in marketing to boomers. The study’s findings reveal that boomers, which will make up half the U.S. population by 2017, are “the most valuable generation.”

Pardon me while I indulge in a brief editorial digression:

Duh.

And yet, despite our obvious value, boomers have been largely invisible to advertisers and television programming executives. A segment on HuffPost Live last year, “Over 50, Under Counted,” focused on this oversight. One of my very smart boomer blogger friends, Darryle Pollack (in a previous life Darryle was a television reporter), contributed wisely to the conversation. And it delighted me to see that a comment I sent in during the segment’s live stream received attention by the moderators, even if the impossibly young woman did mispronounce my name as Marc. I. Rich.

With Verizon’s program, it appears as though at least one mega-brand recognizes that it’s good business to pay attention to our colossal clout.

Here’s how they’re doing it: Verizon will put some of its best technology into the hands of boomer bloggers who are keenly interested in learning more about tech and becoming something of an expert in the realm. Those among us who have felt sidelined by advertisers and the mainstream media should take heart by Verizon’s initiative. Verizon gets it. They care what we have to say. (And no NSA jokes, please.)

In an e-mail, Verizon Social Media Strategist Iskra Dobreva explained the evolution of the two-year-old Verizon Voices program, which, she notes, was established “to pull together like-minded bloggers to check out some of the latest and greatest Verizon devices, products, and accessories, and then network and share their experiences with one another, and with their readers and social following.”

Since its inception, the Verizon program has, according to Dobreva, “pulled together bloggers that focus on a variety of topics and interests, including sports, fashion, health and fitness, food, family life, etc. Boomer Voices is the latest group Verizon has launched.”

While the Verizon Voices program exists in a variety of markets in the United States, Dobreva notes that the program in which I’m participating is “a Midwest-based program and … the first time a group of Boomer bloggers was formed.”

Verizon is flying me to Chicago this weekend for some training on the device I’ll be testing. In return, I’ll post about the device once each month through December, and I’ll augment those posts with tweets and Facebook updates. One could nickname this program “posting and hosting,” since I’ll also host two house parties where I’ll invite friends, family, and neighbors to eat good food and check out the Verizon goods. I’ll also have to attend monthly webinars, so you can see that this endeavor will keep me busy.

It goes almost without saying that I’m thrilled they chose me for this program, and not just because of the perks. (One of my favorite lines from All About Eve is when Bette Davis says, “I’m … not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut.”) What Verizon is paying for is my honest opinion, and that’s what they will get. If you’ve read the product review I wrote for Viewpoints on a kitchen appliance, you know that I play it as it lays.

I think it’s great that Verizon cares what boomers have to say about the products we buy in the marketplace, and that we use as an integral extension of our daily lives. I should note that I’ve been a loyal Apple consumer ever since my first desktop back in the 1980s, so if I’m to be playing around with non-Apple devices, doing so will mark a first in my own consumer history (except for the Kindle I received from my husband as a Christmas gift). I don’t count the Kindle Paperwhite that I reviewed for Viewpoints, since I donated that to the Richmond Public Library.

Suffice to say that if I encounter any cumbersome learning curves, I’ll try to make reading about them enjoyable for you.

So let’s all raise a glass (and a salted peanut) to Verizon for thinking that the opinions of boomers have value. And for being willing to listen.

Updated on June 22, 2013.

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TMSW is Now a Huffington Post Blogger

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in The Writing Life, Transitions, What's the Buzz?

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

blogging, BlogHer, Facebook, Huffington Post, HuffPost, HuffPost/50, Katie Couric, Life, Sally Field, Sissy Spacek, Viewpoints, writing

MorgueFile Image

MorgueFile Image

Have you heard the news? I’m now a blogger for the Huffington Post!

My essay about how I met John on Match.com appeared this week on what is known in the trade as HP’s “vertical”—HuffPost/50. The first day it ran, I received nearly 600 visits to the blog. Yowza!

This has been quite a year, friends: blogging for Katie Couric’s new show, joining the Viewpoints Blogger Review panel (look for my next report tomorrow!), interviewing Sissy Spacek and Sally Field for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, being named one of the top seven blogs for those over 50 by the Huffington Post, and now this relationship with them.

As always, I couldn’t do it and I wouldn’t be here it if weren’t for you.

If you have a moment, I’d love it if you could visit the HP site and like the article on Facebook, or tweet it, or leave a comment. In the wonderful world of digital publishing, that sort of activity makes a tremendous difference. Thank you in advance for your extra support!

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TMSW a “Great Blog,” Says Huffington Post

28 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Special Events, The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Blog, blogging, Facebook, Huffington Post, HuffPost, Midlife Second Wife, writing

So happy to see that my friend Judy Krell Freedman, pictured above, made the list with me!

There was no phone call. There was no email notification. There was only me, taking a brain vacation to scroll through the Top 100 Tweets about Liz & Dick on my iPhone while cooking dinner. Then, at the top of the phone, a Facebook alert appeared: one of my blogging colleagues had mentioned me in a post. A moment later, a second alert, from another colleague, arrived. And then several more, in rapid succession. I noticed the word “congrats” was being bandied about.

What was going on?

I interrupted my mindless stroll through the snark about Lindsay Lohan to check Facebook, where I found this news:

The Huffington Post has named “The Midlife Second Wife”  one of seven “great blogs” for post-50 women.

Crikey! Dinner was in danger of being burnt.

I don’t know how this happens, especially with so many excellent writers—many of whom I admire—blogging for the post-50 set. I count quite a lot of them among my friends. You can find some of them on my blogroll, and I encourage you to visit any of them the next time you’re here.

What I do know is that I’m humbled by this honor—and recognition by the Huffington Post is an honor. HuffPost, after all, is the first commercially-run digital media outlet to win a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Pulitzers aside, I imagine this recognition must be what it feels like to win a MacArthur fellowship—you know, those “genius” grants where you’ve no idea you’ve even been nominated, but one day you receive a phone call that changes your life.

Yes. This feels that big to me. And once again, dear readers, I must share this with you. Thank you for joining me on this adventure!

My thanks also go out to those at the Huffington Post who are responsible for giving the Midlife Second Wife the surprise of her life. I’ll work very hard to ensure that I’ve earned your recognition.

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From My Home to Yours, Happy Thanksgiving

21 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Relationships and Family Life, Special Events, Transitions, What's the Buzz?

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

blogs, Family, Life, Thanksgiving

English: Saying grace before carving the turke...

English: Saying grace before carving the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner in the home of Earle Landis in Neffsville, Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Quite a lot has happened on the home front of late—so much, in fact, that I haven’t had a chance to fully process it all, let alone write about it. But on this Thanksgiving Eve, the most important thing I can share with you right now is to tell you that I’m keenly aware of all that I have to be thankful for this year—my husband’s love and the health of my family foremost. I’m writing this from the home I carry with me in my heart, rather than from our physical home. We’ve traveled again this year—to Ohio again this year—and I’ll have more to share with you about that at a later time. For now, I just want to add one more item to the list of things I’m grateful for: Your readership and support. Knowing that you are there, at the other end of the line, as it were, fills me with joy. Because of you, this little blog has grown beyond my wildest imaginings. A Thanksgiving post that I shared with you last year on this site appears today on Better After 50, a weekly online magazine, curated by Felice Shapiro, that was featured in the Boston Globe last month. So thank you, dear readers. Your support, your visits to this site, make a difference. I wish you and your loved ones a very happy, healthy Thanksgiving.

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Viewpoints Product Review: The Kindle Paperwhite

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Product Reviews, What's the Buzz?

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

AmazonKindle, Books, Consumer Electronics, Kindle Paperwhite, product reviews, Reading, Viewpoints

What happens when you invite seven women bloggers from diverse areas of the United States to discuss the merits of Amazon’s new Kindle Paperwhite? I mean really discuss—together as a group—despite their geographic limitations?

Here’s what happens. Take a look:

This video of the Viewpoints Blogger Review Panel represents our first-ever Google Hangout chat, which took place on Tuesday, November 13, 2012. Carol Fowler, vice president of content for Viewpoints, moderated our discussion and recorded it live, as it happened. You’ll see and hear us address such aspects of the Paperwhite as its battery life and overall durability, the touch screen and its readability—even the colossal Amazon library. It will probably take you about 35 minutes to watch the video, so feel free to come back later if you’re short on time.

If you prefer your opinions in written form, I wrote a review of Amazon’s new Kindle Paperwhite for the Viewpoints website, as did my colleagues on the panel. You can read it here, if you like. I’ll even provide you with a teaser from my review:

Reading with the Paperwhite is, I imagine, like driving James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5, had it been manufactured five minutes ago: smooth, sleek, and with all the latest gadgetry. Reading with my old Kindle is like driving the first car I ever owned: my grandfather’s 1964 Chevrolet Biscayne. No power steering, no power brakes, no power anything really except for a gigantic motor.

The differences are that substantial.

As you might have gathered, I own a Kindle Keyboard—John bought it for me for Christmas two years ago—and last year I wrote a post about the experience of reading books versus the Kindle. If you’d like a side of context to go along with this review, please feel free to check out that earlier entry. I’ll be glad to wait for you.

You’re back? Okay. Good. Now before I give you my rating, I’d like to highlight one aspect of the Paperwhite that impressed me so much that I’ve illustrated it here with a graphic. It’s the social media sharing function—an incredibly cool feature that the Kindle Keyboard apparently has as well,  but I never noticed it and therefore never used it.

Say you’re reading and a wonderful quote or passage just begs to be passed along to your friends. I experienced this many times while reading Arianna Huffington’s On Becoming Fearless: In Love, Work, and Life. I dragged my finger across the Paperwhite’s touch screen to highlight the text I wanted to share, synced up with my Facebook account, and voilà!

Take a look:

You can see the three quotes I shared on my Facebook page by clicking to enlarge this screen grab. What do you think? By all means, join the conversation by leaving a comment below!

Okay. Enough preamble. You’re busy. Maybe you’re one of those cut-to-the-chase kind of people and you just want to know whether or not I recommend the thing already. Okay. I’ll tell you.

I give it five gold rings.



One of the ways in which Viewpoints ensures the honest and impartiality of our reviews is to require us to donate the products that we test. I’ll be donating the Kindle Paperwhite to the Richmond Public Library.

Now before you go I have one small favor to ask you. if you do plan on buying a Kindle Paperwhite as a gift this holiday season, and I think that’s a fine idea, please also stop by your local bookstore and pick up a book or three. I say this to you as a bibliophile, as a reader, and as a writer—credentials I hope I’ve established during the time you’ve spent with me here. And tell your bookstore owner that The Midlife Second Wife sent you. Thanks! Happy holiday shopping!

Related Articles:

Test-Driving the New Kindle Paperwhite

Kindle Paperwhite: ‘The Viewpoints Blogger Reviews Panel’ Test

TMSW Partners with Viewpoints to Test Consumer Products

Top Female Bloggers Join Viewpoints Review Panel to Test Consumer Products

Your Kindle Can’t Do That

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There’s Something About Mary: Sally Field Becomes Mrs. Lincoln

11 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in The Cultured Life, What's the Buzz?

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, movies, Sally Field, Steven Spielberg

Photo and trailer courtesy of DreamWorks II

Sally Field very nearly lost the role of Mary Todd Lincoln, even though Steven Spielberg, the Academy Award-winning director of Lincoln, had already offered her the part in 2005. During a recent telephone interview, she told me how she fought to hold on to a role that could well earn her a third Academy Award—and how two-time Academy Award-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays Abraham Lincoln, helped. My article about this astonishingly gifted actress, and her role in the epic bio-pic that is being called “Oscar-bait incarnate” (The Hollywood Reporter), appears in the November 11, 2012, edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“Mary Todd Lincoln was a feisty little thing,” she says. Listening to Field discuss America’s 16th First Lady—and her approach to playing her—reminded me of another real-life character she once portrayed—union organizer Crystal Lee Jordan, more commonly known as Norma Rae.

That role earned Field her first Best Actress Oscar, and is one of the “steel magnolia” parts blooming at the centerpiece of her career. Mary Todd Lincoln takes her place alongside Edna Spalding (Places in the Heart, and a second Oscar win), M’Lynn Eatonton (Steel Magnolias) and Mrs. Gump (Forrest Gump).

At 66, Field is steeped in the methodologies of Lee Strasberg and the Actors Studio, employing those processes throughout most of her decades-long career. She called upon her craft as a Method actress, prodigious research, and “every bit of life that I know” to bring Mary Todd Lincoln to the screen. She adds that the work of the “brilliant” costume designer Joanna Johnston also contributed, as did her own physical transformation—Field gained 25 pounds for the role.

Watch the trailer for a glimpse of the majesty and moving humanity of this film, and to see a great actress at work.

Lincoln was filmed on location in Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, last year.

RELATED ARTICLES:

“Sally Field Talks About Becoming Mrs. Lincoln”

“Sally Field: How Her Pluck Won Her Role in Lincoln”

“‘Lincoln’ New York Film Fest Screening Turns Oscar Race Upside-Down (Analysis)”

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The Huffington Post Features the Midlife Second Wife

09 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Midpoints, The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Baby Boomers, Facebook, Huffington Post, HuffPost, Life, midlife, Wisdom, Women

What a week this has been! You might recall that on Monday, I posted an essay called “To Marci, On Your 20th Birthday,” which I wrote as part of a “blog hop” sponsored by Generation Fabulous, an amazing Facebook group to which I’m honored to belong. (We lovingly call it GenFab.) If you haven’t had a chance to read that post yet, please do, and please check out the posts by my GenFab compatriots. There’s a lot of collected wisdom there, and it seems that the Huffington Post agrees. Three Huffington Post sections—HuffPost Women, HuffPost50, and HuffPost Healthy Living—as well as HuffPostLiving’s Facebook page, featured 14 of us in an article about our blog hop. (You can find my quote on the second panel of the Huffington Post slideshow.)

My deepest thanks to the GenFab troika: Chloe Jeffreys of “The Chloe Chronicles,” Sharon Greenthal, who writes “Empty Nest, Full Mind,” and Anne Parris, the voice behind “Not A Supermom.”

The question—”What Advice Would You Give Your 20-Year-old Self?”—is really striking a chord with readers: people all over are sharing and commenting. I’d love to give readers of “The Midlife Second Wife” a chance to weigh in on the topic. So tell me:

What would you say to your 20-year-old self?

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Three Degrees of Celebrity Dog Whispering

25 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Humor Me, What's the Buzz?

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Callie Khouri, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Celebrities, Dogs, Hayden Panettiere, Katie Couric, Pete Docter, pets, Susan Sarandon

Rigby Sue Sarandon can’t resist the Midlife Second Wife’s charms. Television image by Matthew Janas; used with permission of ABC.

You never can tell what each day will bring. One morning you’re driving to New York City to join the audience of Katie Couric’s new talk show as a member of her blogging crew, the next thing you know, Rigby Sue Sarandon, one of Susan Sarandon’s two sweet puppies, interrupts her grand entrance to make a beeline for you.

Once upon a time, no canine grapevine was quite as effective as the “Twilight Bark,” the alert system popularized by Disney’s classic animated film One Hundred and One Dalmations. But as social media has changed for humans, it stands to reason that the ways in which household pets communicate across great distances have also undergone a paradigm shift. Although I didn’t know it yet, something was afoot, and I suspect that Sandy, our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, had a paw in what it was. She’s not much of a barker, but she does have her own Facebook page…

Sandy Rich is waiting for ‘Katie’ to come on. She heard that Susan Sarandon’s puppies were going to make a cameo appearance.

Rigby Sue and Penny Lane Sarandon, with their owner, actress Susan Sarandon, and their gracious host, Katie Couric.

…and the Sarandon dogs—Rigby Sue and Penny Lane—each have their own Twitter accounts. (Sandy has been clamoring to get on Twitter. She wants to parody the Honest Toddler by calling herself the Candid Spaniel, thereby cashing in on the adorably snarky tot’s popularity. I told her not to obsess over the commercial aspects of her brand—that she should instead focus on her art. She walked away from me.)

I imagine that somehow—whether by status update or tweet—a communication chain commences. Rigby (whom Sarandon acknowledged on national television has addiction problems—perhaps to Twitter?), ignores the stage manager’s directions and scrambles over to where I am sitting. Just as she is about to dive into my arms (I’m sure that was her intention), an ABC official scoops her up and carts her back to her owner. Rigby, although our time together was brief, I will always remember you…

…Just as I will always remember another celebrity dog whom I happened to meet (by coincidence? by canine social media intervention?) less than four hours later.

After taping ends, my husband and I leave the ABC Studios in midtown Manhattan and drive across the George Washington Bridge toward Tappan, the hamlet where he grew up. We are spending the night with one of John’s old school chums and his wife. In residence at Mike and Mary Jane’s are two dogs. One belongs to their adult son. The other, Ka’ala, is even more tenuously related—her owner is the best friend of their adult daughter. Ka’ala and I really hit it off. She brings me toys to inspect, sleeps outside our room that night, and is the first to greet me in the morning (after John, of course).

Now as far as I know, Ka’ala is not wired into social media.

Ka’ala, Hayden Panettiere’s lovable mixed-breed rescue dog, is one link in the chain of canine coincidence.

But her owner, Hayden Panettiere, star of the new ABC musical-drama Nashville, is.

Imagine the scenario: Sandy is posting status updates on Facebook, the Sarandon pups are tweeting, and Ka’ala, sensing—with the innate sixth sense of the canine—the chain of coincidence, logs into Hayden’s Twitter account to follow the action.

Is there a new Disney animated film somewhere in this scenario? Pixar perhaps? Pete Docter, call me.

So, to recap, let’s all play Three Degrees of Celebrity Dog Whispering!

Ka’ala is owned by Hayden Panettiere, who stars in Nashville, which was created by Callie Khouri*, winner of the Academy Award for her screenplay Thelma & Louise, the iconic film starring Geena Davis and …

… Susan Sarandon, owner of Rigby Sue and Penny Lane. Rigby Sue made an enduring connection with…

The Midlife Second Wife, owner of Sandy.

Wait—what? The Midlife Second Wife is not a celebrity? Look—please do me a favor. Don’t let Sandy know.

*Callie Khouri is also of Lebanese descent, and so am I, on my father’s side. But that’s another blog post.

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