Tell us a little about your background.
I grew up in Long Beach, California, and married at 19 to Bob Gordon. We were married for 33 years until he died in 1991. I have four children and five grandchildren. The death of my grandson, Christian, of leukemia in 2007 led to our founding the nonprofit, Gold Rush Cure Foundation, which gives personalized gifts to children diagnosed with cancer and provides mentorship for parents who are experiencing cancer with their children.
You both recently retired from your legal careers and launched Lustre. What needs are you seeking to address with your website?
Retired career women are as vibrant, experienced, and wise the day after they retire as they were the day before, but suddenly they become invisible, stuck behind images of old women who are dowdy, frail, and withdrawn from the world. Those dysfunctional images are not good for our mental or physical health. We need to become visible again, and that is the need that Lustre is addressing.
Legacy and Lores helps to preserve family stories. Why did you launch this business?
It’s extremely important to preserve our family stories! Documenting them in writing is the best possible gift a family gives to future generations. Without this legacy, every generation starts over. By embracing the importance of family, we bring life to the family tree.
You have just published this book, Love Worth Making, which you subtitled How to Have Ridiculously Great Sex in a Long-Lasting Relationship. What need did you see that you were trying to address through your writing?
In our sex-saturated era, I noticed sex advice just kept getting edgier and edgier — bondage, threesomes, prostate massage, and so on — and all this relentless pursuit of sexual adventure struck me as misguided. The key to sexual happiness in a committed relationship is to take care of your sexual feelings. But there was very little sensible advice out there about that. So I knew I’d have to write that book myself!
After a midlife divorce, a great cohabitating experience would convince Karen to quit her boring job and devote herself to creating Roommates4Boomers.
You speak and write about savvy socializing and networking. Why is this skill so critical to success, both personally and professionally?
Networking is a mutually beneficial process whereby we SHARE ideas, support, leads, information and, if we are lucky, laughter. Whether we call it networking or “Living our lives,” this “sharing” is the fabric of life. It’s what we learned in 5th grade science class: Interdependence; a fact of life. Being able to connect with people, connect and introduce people to each other, follow up in a timely fashion is critical to our success and the reputations we have.
