Your Weekend Buzz is here.

Hang out with Prince, do the Brooklyn BookStore Crawl, the brunch you've been waiting for, and thoughts on "The Sandwich Generation."

Happy Thursday, everyone!

I’ll be honest. I’ve been going through a bit of a hard stretch here, managing aging parents who are in various stages of horrible illness and the indignities of getting old, and learning my bestie from high school died in her sleep, and losing my beloved kitty Penny. But yeah, aside from that, all good.

The Drem, a purple cocktail that will be served in honor of Prince on Sunday(photo by Max Flatow).

I am taking things day-to-day, managing the doctors for my parents, and their nerves and anxieties and humiliations and medications and torrent of emotional pain that come with late-in-life living. Folks call it “The Sandwich Generation,” when you care for your own kids and also your parents. But now that I am in it, I really don’t think that’s accurate. I don’t feel like a filling, or like I am being pressed, or under pressure. I feel like it’s more of “The Mozzarella Stick Generation,” like I am this breaded cheesy log being pulled in opposite directions by two different hungry eaters, my kids on one side, and my parents on the other. I feel like melted cheese stretched thin, fraying, like strings of taffy about to be pulled apart.

It is a lot. But it helps that I have a wonderful village of supportive friends (thank you to all of you), and also that I am training for the RBC Brooklyn Half in May. Running is the cure for all that ails me, it calms me and lets me feel grace and gratitude when I feel like I an living in a trench of anticipatory grief.

I’ll be heading out to Rockaway to do my long run this weekend, a little R&R by the sea. Running by the water is my jam, not only because of the scenery, but because if I get too tired to finish my miles, I can just run straight into the water and float around or collapse on the sand for the rest of my days.

What’s also helped is that we have a new kitty here at casa Strong Buzz, a tuxedo cat named Murray. He’s a very sweet rescue (we got him from Bookstore Cats), who is quite chatty and cuddly, and he gives me a lot of love. Animals are the best medicine. And I think Penny would approve, though that is her chair he’s lounging in so maybe not.

And now, your weekend buzz, full of wine, brunch, books, and Prince!