SC SC LIVING San Clemente
PROFILES OF OUR COMMUNITY GUEST OPINION: On Live and Love After 50 by Tom Blake
Dating When a Spouse has Alzheimer’s?
O Missy White started as a pop-up business that sold S’well bottles and assorted upscale party items and gifts two and a half years ago. White opened her first brick-and-mortar location on Monday at 220 Avenida Del Mar. Photo: Eric Heinz
Business Beat News from San Clemente’s business community COMPILED BY ERIC HEINZ AND CAMERON SADEGHI
New Businesses MISSY’S 220 Avenida Del Mar, 949.388.0788, www.missyspopupshop.com Offering a wide array of upscale party items, cards, S’well water bottles and more, Missy’s is now in a permanent location on Avenida Del Mar. Missy’s started two and a half years ago out of Missy White’s home when she started selling S’well bottles. The water bottles keep drinks cold for 24 hours and hot drinks hot for 12 hours. The business is owned by Missy White, and her husband, Paul, helped her with the grand opening, which took place Monday. White said she became interested in retail through her own enjoyment of searching for new products. “I was shopping a lot, and I decided to start traveling and finding items for other people,” Missy said. “I’ve been in retail my whole life. I love finding fun and unique things.” White said she was a sales representative for Billabong and was a manager at a Nordstrom’s. She said she’s sold more than 4,000 S’well bottles in the last two years. “Eventually I’d like to start ‘hydration stations’ at the schools. So the school would sell 250 S’well bottles and that would give us the money to install the system,” White said. “That’s a little bit down the road, but it is a program we’d like to give back to the community.” Items can be ordered on the business’s website, www.missyspopupshop.com. Missy’s also designs parties for people. San Clemente Times June 23-29, 2016
BOOTIE LEASH P.O. Box 3339, San Clemente, 949.463.3052, www.bootieleash.com In the 1970s, Michael Mednick, inventor of the BootieLeash, said he struggled to secure his wetsuit leg during his surfing sessions. Mednick decided to come up with an idea to protect his wetsuit leg. Year after year, he said he attempted to fix his product without success. In 2015, Mednick’s plan was finally resolved. After a series of mishaps in creating the BootieLeash, Mednick used parts of a small beach cooler and other random assortments from local sporting goods stores to create BootieLeash. Mednick’s product stops the wetsuit leg from sliding up. According to Mednick, the elasticity starts to give out once there is no protection for the wetsuit leg. Ever since his new creation, Mednick has sold more than 200 BootieLeash products. Mednick’s product is in 24 locations. From Virginia Beach to Mission Beach, BootieLeash founder Michael BootieLeash Mednick said he created the is in a wide prototype of his product to variety of locakeep wetsuits attached to a tions. bootie using materials from As a start-up a cooler and other assorted items. Photo: Courtesy company, Mednick is the full owner of the product, and his family has provided the financial backing for the product. BootieLeash’s success has garnered the attention of prominent magazines and surf shop owners. Mednick said a surf shop owner once told him, “(BootieLeash is) a great solution to an aggravating problem.”
ne of the most difficult and controversial senior relationship topics that readers bring up is dating when the spouse of one of the two people has Alzheimer’s. A Southern California woman wrote, “I am dating a man whose wife has Alzheimer’s and is very well cared for in an expensive facility. He visits her daily, sometimes as much as three times a day. They had a 35-year marriage in which he raised her children, and he considers them equally his own. “Here is my dilemma. I don’t doubt that he loved his wife, and still does as much as he can. But on his dating profile (how I met him) he said he has more love to give than his wife can accept. That is kind of awkward wording, but I knew what he was trying to say. “I do not think he is morally bad for seeking companionship since his wife has been going downhill for five years, and has been in this facility for the past three years. But his children do not like the idea of their father going out with other women. They know that he is, but they have told him, ‘We don’t want to hear about it.’ “That puts me in the ‘other woman’ category. I feel ‘back door’ and it doesn’t feel good. I have never asked to go with him to visit his wife. I find myself feeling resentful about the position this puts me in. I know he is happy with me as he has told me he loves me and often speaks of our future together. “But I also know that he will always be in touch with his children, who will probably ask at some point if I was ‘dating’ their father while their mother was still alive. I don’t want to be a pariah when the day
comes when his wife passes away. “Would it be reasonable or fair of me to tell him that unless I can be part of his life now, i.e. visit his wife in the facility and not be hidden from his children, I cannot go on this way? “If I cannot go to the facility, then perhaps his wife is not really ‘that far along after all.’ Maybe she has another three or four years to go. I am nearly 71 and he will be 76 in two months. I don’t want to be ‘back door Dora’ for the next four years. Please help me understand my situation better.” My take on the situation: The man went on a dating site, likely because he is lonely. He did not try to hide that he is married and his wife has Alzheimer’s. What he did may not be right, but it is somewhat understandable. The woman entered this relationship knowing the situation. She should have known she was walking into a minefield. Now, she wants to go visit the wife to see how sick she really is. That ON LIFE AND is totally wrong and LOVE AFTER 50 disrespectful. She has no By Tom Blake business going there. Next, she worries about how his stepchildren view her. She’s not going to be able to change that either, probably ever. After all, the ill woman is their mother. So, either she accepts the situation the way it is, stays in the background, and stops worrying so much about herself, or she needs to exit the relationship. I find her motives and dilemma to be her problem. Tom Blake is a Dana Point resident and a former Dana Point businessman who has authored several books on middle-aged dating. His latest book can be found online at www. smashwords.com/books/view/574810. See his website at www.findingloveafter60.com (Yes, after 60, time rolls on). To comment, email tompblake@gmail.com. SC PLEASE NOTE: In an effort to provide our readers with a wide variety of opinions from our community, the SCTimes provides Guest Opinion opportunities in which selected columnists’ opinions are shared. The opinions expressed in these columns are entirely those of the columnist alone and do not reflect those of the SCTimes or Picket Fence Media. If you would like to respond to this column, please email us at editorial@sanclementetimes.com
Sudoku BY MYLES MELLOR
Last week’s solution:
Each Sudoku puzzle consists of a 9x9 grid that has been subdivided into nine smaller grids of 3x3 squares. To solve the puzzle, each row, column and box must contain each of the numbers 1 to 9. Puzzles come in three grades: easy, medium and difficult. Level: Medium
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See today’s solution in next week’s issue.
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