Dr. Joy Browne's Blog

So there were many wonderful perks to my trip to Windsor, Ontario.  And one of them, as you already might know, is that I got to meet Ringo.  Yes, the Ringo Starr, as in, you know, THE BEATLES.  He did have a couple rules during the meet and greet.  For one, he doesn’t shake hands.  And I guess we all know that this kind of makes sense when you meet 500 people a day.  When you’re a musician, you just can’t afford to get sick. So there was no handshaking but there was a bunch of peace sign-making.  He also doesn’t sign autographs, but he does take pictures, which I think is always a better souvenir anyway.  We got a great couple of pics which he was such a good sport about.  And let me tell you, he really looks GREAT.  You would never know that the man is 70-years-old and has been in rocking out all over the world for over 50 of those years.  For the show, we sat fourth row, and my what a show it was.  The best parts were definitely when Ringo got on the drums, because lets face it, that’s how we all remember him best from his Beatles days. Now, I was really a lucky gal to get to meet him, but if you can’t get a meet & greet, you should try to get to the show anyhow.

Spending time in Denver last week, you would have thought I traveled thousands of miles east rather than hundreds west.  This is because I participated in my first ever traditional Chinese wedding.  My niece married a man of Chinese descent and their wedding was quite loyal to his heritage.  Most fascinating was the Chinese tea ceremony which happened the day before the wedding.  The elders of the engaged gathered together – yes, I was considered an elder, sigh -  and offered the young couple marriage advice and money.  Being “the love doctor” certainly came in handy at this point.  One piece of advice I gave then was to make sure to tell each other one thing you like about the other everyday.  Something tells me, though, that they may have enjoyed the money better.  The actual wedding itself was more traditional American, with the exception of a show of traditional Chinese swords mixed with good old-fashioned soapy bubbles.  The whole thing was really pretty elaborate and unlike anything I had ever seen.  Needless to say, after all was said and done, I think my other nieces and nephews might have been thinking to themselves “maybe I’ll just elope.” 

So while the rest of you were staying put and barbequing through the weekend, I was bar mitzvah-ing down in Florida.  A dear friend of mine’s two sons were having their big day so we decided to fly down the east side of the U.S. for some sunny Florida fun.  We were only there for about 48 hours, but we were on the beach and saw some beautiful ocean.  I really value my time off though, and the whole trip felt a little rushed.  Not to mention the airport security “hiccup” we had a along the way. 

So you know these days you need your ID to fly.  Well I thought this meant any ID as long is it had your name and picture on it.  The problem was, I tried to use my license which was not one, not two, but four years past expiration.  Living in New York and not owning a car, I can’t say I pay much attention to my license and its past due dates.  From now on I think I will because I was nearly put on some sort of terrorist watch list.  Luckily during my body search I was wearing flip flops and didn’t have to deal with taking off my cowboy boots in front of line of antsy vacationers. 

Here is a letter I recently got, and I want to do what I can to help.

"Dear Dr Joy
>
> I have never heard your radio show as I live in Ireland so I do not know if you will be able to help me or not. My name is Frances McGlynn and I live in Cork, Ireland. I am at present researching my family tree - on my mother's side and her name was Harte. The Harte family came from Castletownkenna Co. Cork.My great-great grandfather was Jeremiah Harte who was born on 28th May 1863 and I believe he had a brother who would have been the father of Cornelius J Harte, who was Chief of Police of Teaneck until he retired in 1966. I understand that he had one son and two daughters and in 1953 he lived in 710 John Street, Teaneck, NJ.
>
> As I said above I have never heard your radio show and do not know if you have requests on it or not but I would really appreciate if at all possible you could perhaps through your show make a request for any of Cornelius' relatives to contact you and then in turn ask them to e-mail me at francesmcglynn@eircom.net.
>
> Dr Joy, your help in this matter would be very much appreciated.
>
> Every good wish,
>
> Frances McGlynn"



If you know any pieces to this family tree, contact me through the contact form at www.drjoy.com.

Teamwork, cookies.

Sincerely,
Dr. Joy

So who’s idea was it for everyone to take their mom’s to see Iron Man II for Mother’s Day?  Don’t deny it, you must have been there.  Iron Man raked in 135 million this past weekend so there must a been some mom’s there.

Well, I myself was not in the theater seats.  I actually was at the New York Rescue Mission this weekend, one of my favorite non-profit charity organizations to volunteer at in NYC.  They honored me with the Maria Mcauley “Mother of the Year” award. I even got my own apron complete with my name embroidered in the pink on the front. How cute?  On the plaque it read:

“In praise of and thanks for years of welcoming, receiving, greeting, serving, hugging, kissing, consoling, and befriending – in other words, blessing – a multitude of Mission guests”