Musings of My Meandering Mind

Chicken Song Mystery finally solved!

2010-04-30T06:19:00.002-10:00

I want to thank The Mad Music Archive for sending me the link that solves the chicken song mystery! Bless You!
(see Jan 2008)
I should have guessed Jimmie Dale would be involved somehow...

http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/artist_details.aspx?ArtistID=2847

The record was from the Hub City Movers

Deadheads and crystal bowls

2009-05-07T01:12:00.003-10:00

Check out this guy playing the crystal bowls. I had the pleasure of catching his show a few weeks ago. It was amazing. The whole room was vibrating with the bowls singing. You could feel it to your bones. The whole vibration of the universe right there in the room with you. I thought at one point I saw tiny, little, small angels dancing over my head. When the performance was finished, the silence in the room was amazing as well, I could feel everyone sitting, silent, supporting the silence and each other. Breathing in and out together- just the presence of the energy of each of us, supporting the silence. It was really beautiful- if you ever get the chance to go to one of his shows, take it. Oh, he said the Grateful Dead saved him from a life of violence and crime...he saw his first show and became a deadhead instead, in 1990. Yeah, that's what I said- 1990?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r237ViPHBxw

PS the riding lessons are going good so far- the horse is BIG! More on that later.

Swine Flu Shime Flu

2009-04-29T11:57:00.003-10:00

Check out Jon Stewart's rant on this "pandemic"- I agree completely!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/28/snoutbreak-09-the-daily-s_n_192151.html

Popular Author Found Meandering After Long Unexplained Absence

2009-04-26T11:28:00.006-10:00

Well, you may have been wondering where I have been, and I will tell you. Working. Gasp! OH MY GOD! She works!

Yes, and thanks to our current challenging economy, she now works two jobs to make half as much as she used to make in her one job. But hey, I think most of us are challenged one way or another at this time, and I don't want to be moaning and groaning about my misfortune. I just don't have the time. Nor do I have the time to write as much as I would like. I'm also going to admit that although I like to think of myself as a good writer, I have been challenged to come up with story ideas that are funny, enlightening and entertaining, which, if you remember, is the goal behind this blog.

Nuff said. Any-who, I am starting to get used to my new schedule and hope to be reporting in more often in the near future.

Now, in the thick of all this, I keep reminding myself to be thankful for what I have and to appreciate the little things. Like the fact that I took a walk yesterday in sandals. Yes, my feet are finally free from woolly socks and big boots. I'm soooooo thankful!

I also have reminded myself that when the going gets tough, the tough play. Play is the ultimate stress reducer, so I have been hitting the golf ball (it doesn't cost much to go to the driving range) I signed up for horse riding lessons (I'm bartering with the barn owner), and I have added a few games of pool to my crowded schedule each week, just because I truly love the sport.

I hope if you are under stress you will take a few moments to be thankful, to play, and, because laughter is the best medicine, continue reading.

I spent the day yesterday on a bird watching expidetion. It was my first, and I was amazed to find that bird watching is such a social sport! We were out in the middle of no where, miles from a main road, in a field on top of a bluff,near a great lake, and there was a major party going on. Dozens of people with lawn chairs, coolers and big binoculars were sitting around chatting. We settled in among the crowd and waited. Every now and then someone would point up and start yelling and "the bird guide guy" would take a peek through his binoculars and announce the birds name, rank and serial number. He would then give coordinates for spotting the bird, just in case you were bird viewing challenged and could not spot the literally tiny spot in the sky.

This went on for hours, and we did see a few big birds, however I swear the largest flying thing I saw was the big bumble bee that flew in the car window when we were leaving the bird viewing area. Of course, when it flew in the window I did not really see it, I just saw something big coming at me out of the corner of my eye. I screamed. I think that must be a defense mechanism, because honestly, I did not mean too, it just came out. I must have thought, way back in my unconscious reptilian brain, that a cobra or a scorpion or some other deadly thing was coming at me. I just saw movement and screamed. The driver of the car was so startled that she screamed, and swerved, which caused me to scream again.

Then, the driver looked to see what I was screaming about and she let out a world class shriek when she saw the giant mutant bumble bee flying around my arm, and by then I figured out what had flown in the window so I screamed again, again by accident, really, I know a scream is not going to chase off a giant mutant bumble bee. Meanwhile I had tried to hop over the gear shift. Which caused the driver to swerve even more which caused us both to start screaming and shrieking again.

In the back seat, things were lively too as the passengers back there started yelling at us for screaming and shrieking. They were oblivious to the fact that we were under attach by a winged 14 pound aberration of nature. About that time the humongous flying devil flew back out the window and I started yelling "roll up the windows" and "did it fly in back there?", meanwhile the driver was trying to get us back on the road and the two people in the back seat were still trying to figure out what had happened. It was exciting- really- we could not stop laughing so the driver had to pull over while we regained our composure, meanwhile the back seat drivers were still wondering what the heck happened.

I'm thankful for laughter. Hope you have a good week, Meandering

Friends, Faith and Facebook

2009-04-06T06:52:00.008-10:00

One of my friends e-mailed me recently. "You have to join Facebook" was the message. I shot back- "Really? Do I really have to do this?"
"Yes" came the reply, "just go do it".

Well, OK I thought, because this friend has never steered me wrong, so I joined facebook. Much to my dismay, I found some people I knew there, and got caught up on what was happening in their lives. I also started getting messages from people I didn't know, but what the heck, you can never have to many friends.

So I hooked up with the guy from Wales that shares my last name, he was gathering people that share our name, and, it turns out, he has quite the sense of humor. I hooked up with "shared name people" from here to the edges of the known world. I figure we may be faintly related by name but we are definitely related by species. After all, we are all human, and in our brief notes back and forth, we are all sharing not only a name, but the things that make us human. All one, all the same somehow.

I also hooked up with the guy from Italy that is interested in Tibet, and things Tibetan. Then I hooked him up with my friend Chophel, the East LA kid turned Magna Cum Laude, turned Tibetan Buddhist Monk. Now the guy from Italy, and all my other new friends are enjoying Chophel's updates from his trip to the monastery in India.

See how Facebook works? It's like a giant cocktail party in cyberspace, and small talk rules as you work the room, making contacts and sharing contacts and learning about people.

I also, one day, got a "friends request" from a long lost friend. I had not talked with this friend since we graduated from the university, we had lost track rather quickly and I had not thought about her in many moons. We quickly got caught up on the where are you, what are you doing kind of information that is so interesting. I was happy to hear about her successful business, marriage, three children and her positive attitude about life that was a cornerstone of our friendship many years earlier.

When you run into someone at a cocktail party that you really connect with, the small talk slips away before long and you get to the questions that tickle at the back of our minds, those that we normally only speak of with close friends. Eventually, you find yourself standing in a corner with an empty cocktail glass after the party has wound down, contemplating some big question with your new found friend. Somehow it's reaffirming to know that a total stranger shares the same ideas that you have, and it's comforting if they can help refine the picture in your mind by giving up some insight that was obvious to them, but somehow had eluded you until this very moment in cocktail party history.

It didn't take my long lost friend and I very long to get to the nitty gritty. What is the nature of faith? What do you believe when you think of the almighty? Is a fortunate incident luck or is it divine intervention?

Albert Einstein said "God does not play dice with the universe."
Stephen Hawking said "Not only does God play dice with the universe, he cheats."
Two of the biggest brains ever born and they can't agree. Where does that leave us normal folk when we are pondering the big questions? Is it possible to know the answer to something like this?

My long lost friend related a incident of very good fortune involving a broken down car on the highway, a roving car full of unsavory guys, and a couple stopping to offer assistance- they just happened to be going my friends way, and just in the nick of time swept, her out of harms reach and right to the door of her destination. Her thought? "It wasn't luck."

My reply was the story of how I found my best pet. I wanted a pet, but was getting ready to make a move across the country. I was in conflict about the move, it would be difficult, but I thought it was the right thing to do. I admit I bargained with God. "I'm going to do what I think is right but you damn well better send me a cat to keep me company in my new life." was what I told God.

Two days after I arrived at my destination, I parked the car in a driveway and opened the door. A kitten jumped in my car and right into my lap. I don't know to this day how I did not run that kitten over when I pulled in the driveway. I thought it must belong to the people in the house, so I took it inside. It was not their cat. They lived in the middle of no where so it could not be the neighbors cat. It was so young it still had it's kitten teeth, and it turned out to be a Norwegian Forest cat, the breed at the top of my list for next time I got a cat. ( By the way, no one knew my top cat preference but me). I named him Fe, which is Spanish for faith. That cat is the most loving and loyal animal I have ever had, and that is saying a lot because I have had dogs that would follow me to hell and back, and cats that glued themselves to me when I walked in the door of the house, and had to be peeled away before I could walk out the door. My thought? It wasn't luck.

I bet everyone has a story like that, something that happened that can't really be explained, but can't be dismissed either. Everyone has a story that illuminates the question we ponder- is it luck or divine intervention? I don't know the answer for you, but I do for me. I'm with Einstein, God does not play dice with the universe, if it appears that she does, it's just because we don't understand the patterns of the universe.

What do you think? Take a moment and share your story in the comment section, I will publish all of them.

Peace, Meandering.

Size Really Does Matter!

2009-03-29T10:45:00.003-10:00

Now, regardless of where your mind went, what you thought of when you saw the title for this newest post, what I was referring to is food portion sizes.

I started an experiment some months ago, to really pay attention to the size portions I was eating. I was curious about this because I see so many clients who have weight concerns. So I decided to check the portion sizes of everything I ate. My goal was not to loose weight, but to find out how we can be tricked in to eating way to much at one sitting.

The result of this experiment was that I lost 10 pounds. I also became very aware of what others were eating, I found myself staring at other diners when I ate out, watching with fascination as they loaded up on huge mounds of food. I wondered if they knew that a plate the size of a hub cap covered with food was enough to feed a family of 13.

I really did not change what I was eating, just how much. It's tricky, because when you check things like those little serving bags of chips you get with a sandwich when you order out, you find that the tiny bag has two servings in it. Look at a mounds bar and you find it's not one, but two servings. A serving of cereal is 1/4 to 1/2 of a cup, depending on the brand. Put it in a bowl and 1/4 of a cup of cereal looks like just enough to feed one mouse. A serving of cheese is just a couple of ounces, which again, looks like enough to feed a mouse.

It reminds me that some theories on how to eat right would say that we are born to eat a hand full of food at a setting, and some would say that eating less calories extends your life. Now I can definitely hold a pie in one hand, but I don't think that is what they meant.

I found that eating one person portions satisfied my hunger, but it returned sooner than I expected and I added a few meals a day to my regular 4 meal schedule. I still lost weight. Maybe this meandering will come in handy for someone out there. I know that people tend to start thinking about loosing weight in the spring, which is a good time to do it because you really don't need that winter fat to keep you warm anymore. Add that to the fact that the dreaded bathing suit weather is just around the corner and you get a big handful of motivation to go with you little hand fulls of food.

So now I'm wondering, who came up with the big gulp? Who invented the double cheese burger with bacon? Who decided that plates at a restaurant should be the size of a 50 gallon barrel top? And how did we all get tricked into thinking that is how we should eat?

It brings to mind a dear friend, who had traveled the world as the wife of a Ambassador of a large county. She was in the US after many years away, and commented on how easy it was to find food here. Any time of day or night she mused, all you have to do is hit the nearest quick stop and load up. She thought 24 hour diners were amazing and the selection at the grocery store was mind boggling, all of which we Americans take for granted. To her, it was easy to see why the obesity rates are so high here. She assured me that the whole world was not like that.

Thinking about loosing weight? Next time you look at your full plate, imagine you are a mouse, and eat what you need to feel full, because I can assure you, size matters.

Early Spring Morning

2009-03-22T04:37:00.004-10:00

Tiny snow flakes falling,
maybe it's an illusion.
Robins hop about shivering,
spring flower buds wear white crowns.
Nothing lasts forever, thank heavens!

He Said That?!

2009-03-22T04:32:00.002-10:00

That was stupid and thoughtless and I'm sure none of us would ever say anything like that.
I have a sister with developmental disabilities and I'm sure she can kick Obama's ass in a bowling match. I'm not upset though, I mean, when is that last time the Special Olympics had any amount of media coverage? I'll take it, thank you.

Painting a Life

2009-03-16T02:19:00.002-10:00

I was working on a painting over the weekend. It's a landscape of a tropical island with turquoise waters, a little boat beached as if someone just landed, and palm trees. The palm trees are vexing me. I just can't seem to get them right, although I have worked them over and worked them over, changing techniques, colors, stroke patterns, all to no avail. Yes, they are looking better, but still not right. Meanwhile I'm happy as a clam with the beach and the water and the vibrant blue sky.

I got to meandering about how creating a painting is like creating a life.

First, I picture what I want to appear. Then, I start the process by asking what do I need to make this happen? Do I have the right colors on my pallet? Do I have the right brushes? Is my canvas big enough? Is my vision clear enough that I can see the finished painting? Where will I find the time to work on this?

Then, I pick a starting point and work on one area at a time, just to get some background color on the blank canvas. As the painting progresses, I find myself working primarily on one area at a time, while making slight adjustments to the rest of the paining as I go along. Right now I think the sky is fantastic, the gently rocking sea is beautiful, the multi-hued sand of the beach is stunning, but those darn palm trees leave a lot to be desired.

Each time I start working on the painting, I spend a few moments examining my previous work. I look at each area of the canvas and ask myself, what does it need? Does it need any changes in relationship to the progress I've made in other areas of the painting?

Like life, this painting has to be balanced. Like life, sometimes there is an area that needs a little more work than the others. Maybe you have your own personal palm trees. Maybe your palm trees are your personal relationships that are rocky. Maybe your palm trees are your financial situation, or the job you don't care for. Maybe your palm trees are your health that is suffering from your bad habits. We all have our palm trees. We all try to balance our lives in a constant stream of tiny adjustments of this and that. We all have areas of our life that we are just in love with, and areas that need more color, more balance, more style.

In painting I work on the whole painting at once, but focus on one area at a time. It's like juggling. I got the water just right, but the sky needed more light. I got the sky just right but the water needed more motion. I got the water just right but the beach needed more color... and those palm trees, they need a lot of work.

My painting evolves each time I work on it. Each time I look at it I see something new, something different about it. Each time I view my painting I ask myself if this is exactly what I wanted or are there areas that need more work? There are almost always areas that need more work.

Today, as you view the canvas of your life, I wish you a insightful eye to see the delicate colors of your painting. Give thanks for the areas that are really quite perfect, and be honest with your self about the areas that are not. If areas of your painting need more work, I wish you a steady hand with your brush as you make the adjustments that will turn the problem areas of your painting into the brilliant, balanced landscape you picture in your mind.

Labels, Labels, everywhere....

2009-03-16T02:12:00.002-10:00

I finally finished the labels for all these posts I've posted in the past year. Now you can choose a topic and go right to the posts that pertain. It's great when you are sending you friends, neighbors, co-workers, relatives and loved ones to this site to take a look, at some interesting thing you saw here. Someday when you have nothing to do, take a look at my "favorites" label.

I Dig The Huffington Post

2009-03-12T02:49:00.005-10:00

Do You read Huffington Post? You know I had my cable cut the year I wrote my first book. Not being a great TV fan anyway, ( OK, except for Extreme Homes on HGTV, old movies on TNT, and The Weather Channel), I didn't miss it. So I never bothered to have it hooked back up when I was finished with the book.

I'm unplugged and proud of it. You might try it sometime. Just turn the TV off for a month. Then, if you really want to turn it back on, go ahead. After a month without it you might realize how much you don't miss it.

Even someone who doesn't fall for prime time needs a little news now and then and I get mine from Huffington Post. They have interesting opinions from people who would not get published by main stream papers- like Deepak Chopra on the health care crisis.

They have the news you get anywhere, plus the news that gets censored everywhere. You might find a different twist on current events in the pages of Huffington Post.

Speaking of censored, have you heard about the contaminated flu shots? I thought not. How about one peep on the situation in China and her captive Tibet on the 50th anniversary of the Chinese Invasion and the Dalai Lama's flight for his life to India? Nothing? Not a word about the thousands of troops stationed around the remaining monasteries? Hum, that's strange. News like that should make the papers...

They also have really cool stuff like this link to Neil Youngs new video:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-young/huffpost-video-premiere-n_b_173714.html

Did you know Neil has a car that gets 100 miles a gallon? Did you know it's a 50's caddy that probably weighs as much as a steam engine? (Why doesn't everyone have cars that get 100 mpg? Well, let's see, why would not benefit from cars that got 100 mpg?)

While you are there, check out the link to the late night roundup, the best jokes from the late shows presented for all of us unplugged people, and the link to Comedy Central, home of the best political commentators in recent years. And we thought the name meant it was a comedy channel. Thank goodness for that link, which gave me the Colbert Report, one of those TV gems that I had been missing with out even knowing it.

I have an Idea...

2009-03-04T03:39:00.004-10:00

I saw an article recently that was describing a recent poll that found only about 40% of Americans live in the area that they really want to live in. ONLY 40% of people live where they want to! This I find appalling. And considering I'm one of the 60% who do not live where they want to, it's even worse.

I won't go through the whole long story , suffice to say I moved to a place that does not suite me so well, thinking it would be a short stay. I'm still thinking it will be a short stay, but in the meantime, it's a challenge. It turns out, I'm not alone. 60% of people, either by choice or unfortunate incident- or sheer luck of the birth, are sweltering in the Florida heat when they would be happier in the cool rocky mountains, are shoveling snow when they would rather be sweeping sand, are crowded by trees when they would rather be in the wide open desert, or maybe they are choked by the activity in a large city, when they would be happier in a small town, or they are dying of boredom in a small town when they would flourish in the big city.

No wonder then, that we have so much crime, so much violence, so much escapist activity going on here. No wonder there are so many people finding relief through drugs, alcohol, tobacco and TV.

I have an idea, I think it might help. Right now the government wants to throw some money at all our problems. Right now a lot of people are out of work. I think they should give relocation relief money to anyone who applies.

Let each person decide where they want to live based on their own criteria for what makes them happy, rather then where they can get a job, or where their family settled 3 generations ago, or where they went to college and never had the means to move away from. Let each person decide where they want to live, and help them move there before we start throwing money at work programs. Once everyone shuffles around to their ideal location, the face of the country is going to look much different. Some places may gain a lot of population, some may loose. Once we see the results of this stirring of the melting pot, we can decide where to use the relief money to create more jobs, based on the new demographics.

I suggest this because if we just start creating jobs with out asking people where they want to live, we are going to end up with a lot of people moving to get employment, and possibly a lot of people moving to places they would not be happy. Ultimately, that is going to add to our demise as a nation. I just think we should do it the other way around, let people decide where they want to live, then make work for them. The happiness this creates could reverberate through generations.

I wonder, if we all lived in the area we think we would be most comfortable in, what would our culture look like. Would some of our problems go away? Would we be less inclined to indulge in unhappy behavior like addictions? I think so. Now, don't get me wrong, some people will just take their problems along with them, and some people will never be happy, no matter where they are. I do think though, that waking up, looking out the window and seeing landscape you love, or a town that fits you goes a long way in making a person feel good about themselves, and their life. And I do think, as a nation, and for the mental health and happiness of individuals, that is just what we need right now. A lot of people waking up feeling good about themselves, going about their new jobs in a environment that makes them feel buoyant every time they look out the window or step out the door.

Labels, Labels, everywhere...

2009-02-27T05:24:00.002-10:00

I know you are not going to believe this but I am still working on putting labels on all these posts I've written. I have another 50 to go. It's taking a long time because I sometimes have to go back and read the posts in order to decide what the most appropriate labels would be. In fact, I have had to read most of them, and you know what? I think most of them are pretty well written. Some of them are funny. Some of them are what the experts would call "thought provoking."
Not bad for an amateur.

I think I need to add another label option- favorites.

Thanks for being so patient, new stuff coming soon!

Check This Out:

2009-02-23T04:33:00.004-10:00

I was searching sites of interesting things to do in the southwest, for my cousins who will be visiting from Britain this summer. I thought I would clue them in on some of America's greatest assets- our roadside wonders. There is nothing like a trip on route 66 to make you appreciate how big and beautiful this country is. Here's the song, with some great footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9OsmSoO8b0&feature=related

and here is the link to one of my favorite sights along Route 66:
www.meteorcrater.com/

Labels

2009-02-17T03:28:00.002-10:00

This week I am dedicating my blog time to getting all these posts labeled so that you can search for amusing, enlightening reading material by subject. At a few over a hundred posts, this might take me some time. Meanwhile, have you noticed? How light it is outside in the evening? How long the days are becoming? Is the dark winter of '08-'09 finally over? Let's hope so.

Hello, Hello, Hello

2009-02-16T03:45:00.001-10:00

Remember? Floyd?The Wall? Hello, Hello, Hello...
Is there anybody out there-
Comment if you can hear me...

Mix and Match Romantic Poem Maker

2009-02-12T04:50:00.006-10:00

Today, I'm going to help you impress your loved one for Valentine's day with out spending a bundle. What could be more romantic than poetry? What could be more impressive than a poem you wrote yourself? Not a writer you say? Well, that is why I invented this handy mix and match poetry writer just for you.

It's pretty self explanatory, however, this is the main idea- pick a line from each section and put them all together. Sign your name, and hand to loved one; or memorize and recite at just the right moment. Not sure when the right moment is? Well, heck, I can't do everything for you- you are just going to have to play it by ear!

Part One: Pick a Title-
Personally I love that famous first line from Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that goes like this:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I think it would make a fine title.
Now, everyone knows that line, and there is a reason you only know that line. Elizabeth's poem really goes downhill from there. I could not make sense of it even when I tried to think like a Victorian, so I recommend you just steal the first line.
You could also use " All the reasons","My ode to you" or "Two hearts now one".

Part Two: Pick your next line or two from these variations-
But how my love, could I count them all? They are far to many.
To count them all would take the time it took to carve the Grand Canyon.
But how can I? For before I finished my bones would be dust.
With everything I am, and everything I hope for.
With heart, soul and intention.
1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8.. ( you get the idea, carry on as long as you like)

Part Three: Elaborate using a few of the following-
More numerous than the stars in the sky, or the grains of sand on all the beaches in this world.
As many as all of the creatures that inhabit the ocean.
Like the number of waves that have ever touched land.
As the number of leaves on every tree in the great forests of the world.
To count them all would take all the time that the earth has circled the sun.
With my mind and my body.
With joy and affection.
With a passion unknown until now.
With joy at the prospect of our future.
Wouldn't it be great if we had a date?
I could go on counting until hell freezes over, but I would rather kiss.
Tell me when to stop.

Now wrap it up with one of these:
With out end, as light speeds forever across the open reaches of space.
As all the minutes of time that have passed, I count, waiting to see you again.
Like the number of hairs on your hairy little body. (This is the poem-for-a-cat option.)
With fire and passion that will never wain.
With undying love and affection.
I'll pick you up at 7, don't be late!
What do you say?
Last but not least is Elizabeth's last line of her famous first line poem:
I shall love thee better after death.(I think she must have believed in the after life or reincarnation or one of those other wacky Victorian themes).

Sign your name, and you are good to go! No need to thank me, I'm always asking myself how I can help others. I'm happy to do it. I hope you get a lot of mileage out of your poem-
Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day First Aid

2009-02-10T03:44:00.007-10:00

It's possible that you are one of those people who is still dateless for Valentine's Day, and oddly filled with hope that someone besides your cat is going to appear between now and Saturday to snuggle with you on that special day.

Perhaps you are in a fine, loving, committed relationship and are wishing to receive something extra special from your loved one on Valentine's day.

Maybe your significant relationship has diverted to the twisted rapids of poor communication and hurt feelings, and you just don't know what to do, and you need help.

It's possible that you have a friend or loved one who is lonely and you have been searching for a blind date for them that would turn out to be Mr. or Mrs. right.

What ever the case, I thought I would give you this Image of Saint Valentine so you could, if you feel inclined, offer up a quick and heartfelt prayer to the patron saint of Valentine's Day. He's rumored to be very helpful when it comes to relationship concerns.

I'll Have A...

2009-02-08T04:27:00.003-10:00

I got this cute, charming and relevant work of art in an e-mail recently. Normally I resist passing on cute junk mail, but this one I just had to send to a few choice friends, and I like it so much I have to share it with you as well. I would say this ladies order would be especially appropriate, and a good idea, if you were having your coffee while you read the news paper.

It's times like these we can take comfort from the fact that the only constant is change. I hope you have a week full of joy!

A Horse In The Living Room

2009-02-03T03:27:00.008-10:00

So gather round kids and let me tell you a tale of a mind that went away.

Honestly, I have been making a real effort to do my mindless meditation on a regular basis. By mindless I don't mean out of your mind, or with out mindful-ness, or with out attention even, I mean to still your mind until it feels like a feather has captured your every thought and floated skyward with them, ascending to the stars and the silence of space. Then you seem mindless. For a minute. Or two.

I am still trying to get the hang of sitting still and quiet for 15 or 20 minutes. Ask my kindergarten teacher, she will tell you I just don't sit still very well. She used to tell me that It seemed that I "must have a horde of jumping beans in my pants".

I decided to help myself keep my mind still, and by association, my body, by using a cd of shamanic drumming as a prop for my meditation attempts. This cd is about 25 minutes long. Shamanic drumming is done in a tempo and frequency that assists your mind to enter the meditative state. Maybe that is cheating when it comes to meditation practice, but what can I say, I'm just trying to over come the jumping beans in my pants. Maybe some day I won't need a crutch.

The drumming varies a little through out the course of the 25 minutes I spent trying to keep my mind fully focused on the drums and only the drums. Every time a thought about life, work, the weather, home, food, grasshoppers, or anything else came into focus I said "Woa Nelly! Get your mind right back to the drumming!" There were actually long moments when I just stayed with the drums. I found the 25 minutes just breezing by like a Harley on a sunny spring morning.

And guess what folks- nobody noticed that I wasn't working for 25 minutes. No one called to find out why I was missing. No one sent a search and rescue party. The earth did not stand still because I carved 25 minutes out of my busy day to try find a little nothingness. I'm sure we all scurry around like ants from a anthill that has been breached because we think we must. If we don't we won't do enough, get enough, be enough, we just won't fit in and someone is going to notice and trouble will ensue and there will be hell to pay. Now I'm pretty sure that is not the case. We just mistakenly think it is.

So I carved out 25 minutes a few days in a row, and I sat and focused on the drumming. Each time I did, it seemed that the 25 minutes went by faster than it had the time before. I found myself better able to follow the drum beats, with out constantly reminding myself that that was what I was supposed to be doing. I was managing to keep my breathing long, deep, rhythmical and even. Oh, don't get me wrong, my mind was still flopping around like a fish on the end of a line, but it was flopping less each time.

Then miraculously, at the very end of one of these meditation/shamanic drumming breaks from the world, my mind stopped. I don't know how long it was like that, because I wasn't thinking about it. But I could feel the still. And then I saw myself sitting in the chair, and a crack started on the top of my head and ran down the middle of my body. A crack like you see on thin ice over a pond. The crack didn't make any noise, it just crept down the middle of my body, then the two halves of my dissected self fell away and beams of white and golden light came spilling out of my inside. Then I heard a horse neighing right next to my right ear.

Then I was back in the chair listening to the drums and wondering what the heck just happened, and of course you can't be mindless when you are trying to figure out how a horse got into your living room, so that was the end of my meditation for the day.

Coffee in Paradise

2009-01-27T04:34:00.005-10:00

It’s push comes to shove time, many of us are having to decide what we really need to shop for and what we can to without. In an attempt to stave off financial ruin, I have whittled my grocery list way down. I used to think I spent a lot on groceries, but it turns out my spending is average for the size of my family. I’m convinced my family is not really average and that I can bring my grocery bill down. It’s just one of the ways I’m choosing to economize in these interesting times.

I can’t find it in myself to give up my whole bean coffee, roasted to perfection by some corporate megalomaniac, I’m sure, but all the same I adore it. It’s worth waking up for. I can’t go with out my morning companion, and cheaper imitations just won’t do. They are to acidic, to light, to green, to pale, to mass produced, canned and vacuum sealed. They have no real personality; they just masquerade as having great depth. Their charm is gone the moment you get a whiff of their scent, like a guy wearing cheap cologne on a first date.

So in an attempt to economize, I have taken to actually measuring my beans to make each perfect cup o’ joe. I’m measuring the water too, so no left over, unused, unwanted, cold growing, stale cups of coffee get washed down the kitchen sink.

Into the grinder I carefully placed one and one half tablespoons of beans per cup o’joe. I ground the beans fine and dumped them into the French press coffee pot ( the only way to go if you really love the taste of coffee- no paper filter to soak up the delicate oils infused with essence of coffee tree, bloom and growth ).

One measured cup of steaming hot water for each cup of coffee followed.

I don’t know about you but I was fascinated to find that my coffee “cup” holds about two cups of coffee. I measured my china from the 30’s and 40’s and guess what? A cup held a cup. I wondered when we became such gluttons. Or were there copious cups all along, they just were not included with a set of delicate china? Did big mugs become fashionable in the 50’s? I had to know, it’s just me so I went on-line (don’t you love the internet?) and found this:

Archaeologists found mugs carved from bones dating to the Stone Age. The first coffee shop appeared in 1475 in Constantinople. The first coffee mugs were made out of wood during that time. In 1748, Britain banned coffee and all merchandise associated with it, including mugs. This led to a shortage of mugs, and the black market prices for mugs rose. DAMN! I sure am glad that I do not live in Britain in 1748!

Fascinating- but let us get back to the story-

I wrapped the coffee pot in kitchen towels to keep the heat in and let it set the required 4 minutes. Wa-la I mused as I poured the perfect cup of coffee. Steam rose to delight my nose as I lifted the mug and took a first sip.

Instantaneously it seemed that I had entered a worm hole and was projected back in time to a warm September afternoon. The sky was cloudless. Shade dappled the table I sat at, with tiny flutters of shadow in the warm breeze. The sun, just past mid point in the sky reflected a billion diamond like wave caps off the distant ocean, laid out before me with no end in sight. From my seat at the top of the island, I could see coast line curve for many miles before it wandered around the island, the ocean surrounding it like a square dancers skirt in full twirl. The dust had settled on the dirt road, the last car passed half an hour ago and the only sounds were the call of birds I could not identify in the distance, as they meandered through the coffee plantation, and the low hum of the coffee roaster in the plantation’s thatched roof “factory and retail shop” down the walk to my right. The flagstone patio was empty; presumably the tourists were off pursuing more aquatic interests in the heat of the day.

The cup of coffee in front of me was hot, and made the air seem cool, a respite from the humid warmth of the big island air. The coffee was dark and rich, tasting like once ancient volcanic lava now weatherized to a soft black nutrient rich soil, and sweet dreams of paradise and sea turtles and palm trees and orchid leis.

A moment later I was back in the kitchen, - Wow! That is one good cup of coffee. I'm making it just like that from now on. The unexpected mini vacation-in-my-mind just the icing on the cake of a great economical cup 'o joe.

It's Only Rock and Roll

2009-01-21T13:19:00.007-10:00

I managed to catch a bit of the inauguration speech on TV yesterday, and then I came home and got on line to read the rest. There was one thing in particular that President Obama ( doesn't that sound good?) said that really struck me, and got me to meandering. He said that 60 years ago his relative (did he say dad or granddad?) would not have been served in some restaurants in this country.

How much the face of America has changed in just one generation. It's amazing really. I had not thought about it, I mean, as far as I can tell we are all one big family. President Obama's remark made me think of all the un-sung heroes of the civil rights movement and I pictured all the missing ( ie: disappeared while working for the civil rights movement, presumably buried somewhere in the deep south) and forgotten civil rights workers, lined up in heaven watching Obama take his oath.

It also occurred to me that the baby boomers always said they were going to change the world- "peace and brotherhood, man" and this moment in history clearly confirms that they were right. I mean, 60 years!It seems like a long time, but honestly, in the history of the world, it's a really, really, short time. From "you can't eat here" to "please be our president". And they made it happen, those baby boomers, while literally stoned out of their minds a large percentage of the time. Amazing.

I was thinking about the beginning of peaceful race relations in this country and I'm no historian, but it came to mind that rock and roll had a hand in all this change. Back in the early days of rock and roll (not really early, that would be the late 20's and early 30's when rock and roll was a infant) like about the time rock and roll became a young adult, the 50's.

This country was still really segregated, but artists like Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins and Elvis were playing some really hot tunes and no one seemed to care if the band was white boys or black men, as long as they rocked. Anglo kids were going to the other side of town to hear these legends and in the process, finding out the other side of town was not that different. Meanwhile the African American teens were having to put up with this invasion, made some reconnaissance missions of their own and came up with the same conclusion.

I'm sure there was a lot more to it than that, but you get it. It was the music that gave them a bridge to cross. And they did. And look what happened.

Then in the 60's it continued with more music, less inhibitions and a philosophy that loved everyone. I recently saw an interview with Deepak Chopra and Robert Therman and Deepak was saying - everyone wonders where the 60's went, well it's right here in front of you, we are the 60's, we haven't gone anywhere, we just look different now. Now we are expanding our minds in a different way, with similar results. Rock on Deepak.

By the 70's the freaks were fully indoctrinated to the idea that it didn't matter what you looked like or where you came from. If you wanted to party, then party it was, turn up the music and the peace and brotherhood vibe resonated even stronger. Well, like I said, I'm no historian, but it looks like the boomers did change the world, in their own unique way.

Right now it's easy to look around and see lots of things about this country that need changing. There are plenty of things wrong. But you know, Obama's remark made me realize that there are a lot of things right as well, and maybe we are all just so used to living in the land of the free that sometimes we take it for granted. I'm thankful I caught a bit of that speech, it really gave me something to think about.

Peace Man.

I'm Hopeful, Are You?

2009-01-18T06:48:00.004-10:00

Well, Obama is not much to look at, but I think he's the best chance to see something positive happen in government that we have had in a really long time. After all, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp and U2 are all singing at the inauguration concert, political references don't get much better than that, I'm taking it as a really good sign.

Like a Flea on a Coyote's Butt.

2009-01-15T05:08:00.006-10:00

For the new year one of my goals is to meditate on a regular basis. I decided to do this because lord knows I could use a little relaxation in my life. I also recently read a few articles about the effect meditation has on your immune system and your health in general. Turns out meditation is really good for your physical, as well as your mental health. Increased immune activity is seen with as little as ten minutes of meditation a day! I'm also interested in trying this because of all the stuff you hear about how meditation expands your consciousness and "plugs you into the field". What field you ask? The morphic field, the zone, the string theory field, the web of universal energy, that from which all things come.

Sounds cool, doesn't it? To be one with the very particles (or waves, depending on who is watching) that make up all.

I'm told that to enter the field you must first enter the silence and still your mind. So that is the bottom line, stilling the mind and seeing what is on the other side of all this chatter. I'm thinking it's gonna look like an endless field of white sparkle, with flashes of color here and there.

So I've started meditating each day. I decided to start small because I sit still like a flea on a coyotes butt. But I figure if I can sit still for ten minutes, maybe eventually I can get my thoughts to sit still too. Then we would be in harmony, me and my sitting still body and no thoughts mind. We could just experience the sparkly field. Or nothingness. Or what ever- I don't really know because I've not been there yet.

I did some reading about different meditation techniques and decided to go the simple (kinda zen) way, to just sit and breathe. This is harder than it sounds. Most of us just sprint through life, never even realizing we are breathing. The body is so well designed, so automatic, you don't have to think to breathe, so why would you? Right? The idea is to slow your breath to about 6 breaths a minute. Apparently this is the optimal rate to cause your brain to switch gears and shift down to theta waves, which are like a minor ripple on the pond of your mind. Meanwhile you sit very still and don't think about anything. That is harder than it sounds too. I can fidget with the best of them, and I do.

The first time I tried meditating, my mind was like a kite flying on the beach. My thoughts would hold steady, steady on the breath, in-out, in-out, then suddenly my kite was diving and fluttering and threatening to break away. Past, present, future, all came at once. Thoughts of this that and the other, and of course all I was trying to think of was the now. Ever have that happen? You know, when you try not to think about something? It just keeps popping up, like those scary jack-in -the-boxes adults love to torment kids with.

As soon as I would feel the tug of the kite, which was not always immediately, I would reel the string back in until the kite was flying steady again, breathe one, two, three. Then I would start fidgeting, trying to get more comfortable in the chair. Or I would hear something and my attention would go there. Really, most of the session my mind was everywhere but on my breath and I think my body was trying to help my mind resist the halter because I became aware of every little bit of tension in my body. I would relax one part, so I didn't feel it any more and another would tighten up. Then I would start fidgeting again.

The good news is the ten minutes went by like two and I found the timer going off and my body so relaxed I could have slid right out of the seat. Guess that is why people typically meditate by sitting on the floor, that way, when they get all relaxed and noodle-e, they won't have to worry about falling out of a chair and hurting themselves.

Each time I've sat with my timer set for ten minutes, it's been the same story. I can see why people sign up to join group meditations. I think I would be embarrassed by all my fidgeting around while everyone else is sitting as still as the grave. I would have to, at least outwardly, settle down faster.

Today As I started my 15 minutes, (yes, the ten seems so short, no time at all really, so I have upped the ante, and challenged myself to sit for 15 minutes), it went something like this-

Breathe one, breathe two, breathe three,
My toe is scrunched. Ouch! My toe, I have to just wiggle it around a little...
oh, yeah
breathe four, breathe five, breathe six,
why is my shoulder so tight? I have to move my arm, relax, relax, darn it my elbow is tight too..
oh yeah
breathe seven, breathe eight, What was that noise? breathe nine, breathe ten, I think there is a draft aimed right at my butt, I need to scooch this chair around..
breathe eleven, breathe twelve, ouch! Very funny cat, that is my leg you are poking.
breathe thirteen, breathe fourteen, breathe fifteen, How am I going to write about meditating in my blog when I can hardly sit still for a moment?...Breathe sixteen, breathe seventeen,...watch the fire, that might help...breathe eighteen...

You get the idea, I was averaging about two uninterrupted breaths and then it was fidget, fidget and more fidgeting. Thoughts up, up, and away. I was trying not to think and I thought of everything from work to my third grade teacher Mrs. Gadhopper who wore a color coordinated silk flower pinned to her sweater everyday of class. I think I see a pattern here. The old internal struggle between the ego, who likes to be the boss and does not want to be bigger than the very body I inhabit, and the non-ego, whatever you choose to call it, the part that wants to meander through the endless field of light that is the source of all.

It went on like that for a while, but I'm no quitter, so I kept right on, noticing the thoughts and then getting back to the business at hand- breathing. Then, about breath 45 I noticed a shift. I was just breathing, and at the end of the out breath I felt a little nothing. It felt kind of big. It was just a moment really. Hardly there at all. But I noticed it and then I got all excited and blew it. What was that? Was that it? Did I just have a moment of nothing? Is that what all the fuss is about? What was that? How long was I out? By the time I got myself calmed down and back on track the timer was going off.

It only lasted a moment, but it felt like a really long moment, it felt expansive and bright. So I'm re-committing to sit, to see if I can find that nothing again, and maybe even find it on a regular basis. I want to meander in the field of light and see what it does for my overall health and well being. I will report back on this mission on a regular basis. Over and out, Meandering.

For My Sister Who Just Had A Birthday

2009-01-08T12:35:00.008-10:00

I know you don't like to carry on about your birthday and all, so I thought I would just post a few photos for you. If anyone out there reading this actually took these photos, I confess, I did just nab them off different sites, and I would be happy to give you credit for these works if you send me your name. They are great photos, I wish I had taken them.

Giraffa cameleopardalis
The giraffe is the tallest mammal on earth. Giraffes are also among the few mammals that can't swim. Their natural habitat is the African Savanna, a relatively open, grassy plain with few trees and shrubs.

Am I Dreaming?

2009-01-08T12:17:00.004-10:00

I woke this morning, sun streaming into the room through the huge window beside my bed. I threw back the covers and stood to look out the window. This is what I saw:

What a beautiful way to start the day I thought as I absorbed this incredible sight before me. Then, my mind stopped for just a second, and started again. Wait a minute I thought- I'm not awake yet. This is a dream. I am dreaming. What a beautiful dream to start the day with. Then I woke up.

A New Year Wish for You

2008-12-31T05:19:00.008-10:00

I was thinking I might write something inspirational about the new year, about leaving the old behind because focusing on the past is a waste of time, and about being more present in the present because focusing on the unknown future is also a waste of time.

Now, notice I did not say planning for the future is a waste of time, but focusing on the unknown future is a waste of time, because when we focus on the future, usually that means we are worrying about it. Planning for the future, on the other hand is what this message is all about.

Each of us has an opportunity every day to make ourselves, and our lives anew. For the new year, I like to clean out the old ( I made a trip to the thrift store this last week, the car full of boxes of unused clothes, dusty books, and brick-brack that has lost it’s meaning), and make room for the new. I also like to think about how I can improve myself, with the thought in mind that if I can improve on me, then everything around me will get caught up in that new and improved “vibe”, and my life will change for the better. I think I could improve on me by spending a little more time exercising, and making a commitment to meditate 10 minutes ( or more) each day. These two changes are simple and very do-able. I've already started.

That is something that I think we all may be thinking about this new year- changing our lives for the better. It’s been a tough year for a lot of people, and ignoring that fact is like tip toeing around the elephant in the room. We can’t change what has happened to the economy, the housing market, stocks and our savings. We can’t get back the lost jobs, and we can’t ignore the fact that it’s been a challenging year. We probably all know someone who has been affected by the events in the past year.

So for the new year, I hope that we can all let go of the past, look to the future and know that change is inevitable, and that change, although challenging and even frightening at times, means that there is the possibility for something new, unexpected and really good to happen.

While I was pondering this new year message, This e-mail came from James Ray international, a motivation organization. I think it outlines some great steps for anyone thinking about how to improve their lives for the New Year. I wanted to share it with you. I pondered each step outlined by Mr. Ray, thinking about how it related to me, my life as it has been and how a change, based on some of these suggestions could effect my life in the future. I think it's really helpful, and I hope you to do.

I'm wishing you a happy, healthy and prosperous new year, full of life affirming change that takes you to the place in your life that you really want to be! Peace, -Meandering

James Arthur Ray
President/CEO
James Ray International

Ten Tips for Thriving in This Economic Winter

Many of you have read and commented on our recent conversation about how it's a season to sow, how there's so much fear in our world right now and how it's related to some of the universal laws that modern society has forgotten.

Well, you asked for some quick, easy-to-apply tips on how to thrive in this economic winter and on how to apply the knowledge you learned during our conversation... So here you go!

Clearly define what inspires you.
There's a big difference between taking action out of inspiration versus desperation. Use this season as an opportunity to hibernate into the recesses of your own mind and define what you choose to create in your next spring.
Control your focus.
Energy flows where attention goes. Are you focusing on lack or opportunity?
Feed your mind.
What's your constant mental diet? Do you spend hours in front of the scare news or are you reading good books, attending more positive seminars, watching uplifting DVDs and listening to powerful CDs?
Strengthen your body.
Your physical health and vitality have a tremendous impact on your performance as well as your mental and emotional fitness. Exercise releases stress as well as strengthen your body and mind.
Inventory your friends.
Doom and gloom attracts more doom and gloom. Jettison those "energy vampires" around you and surround yourself with opportunity seekers.
Quiet your mind.
Take time to meditate daily and to slow down if only for a few minutes. Ten to fifteen minutes of meditation will relieve hours of stress and increase creativity and resourcefulness.
Rid your life of escapist activities.
Overindulgence in TV, sleep and alcohol only accelerate the problems you're attempting to avoid.
Make a daily gratitude list.
Focusing on all the good, gifts and God in your life puts you in the right line of thought, feeling and their subsequent actions, which will attract and create more good, gifts and God.
Change your attitude.
Realize that everything that's happened in your life thus far is here to serve you, teach you and help you grow. Find the lessons in your past results, forgive yourself for anything you could have done better and apply the lesson to move forward and create a better future.
Get resourceful.
For the next three days, go to a place where you can have uninterrupted time... Come up with 20 new ideas to grow your income, create new results and improve your life. You cannot leave your spot until you have twenty. And no editing! All ideas are good ideas. Do this for three successive days with 20 new ideas each day.

Now take your list of 60 unique ideas and pick the three to five most powerful and leveraged ones to put into action. Pick these three to five based on: ease of implementation, rate of return and speed of return.

And so during this winter season, remember: It's not about resources... there are plenty of them. It's about resourcefulness. Get resourceful and get busy.

To your continued wealth and happiness,

James Arthur Ray
President/CEO
James Ray International

2008-12-24T04:07:00.006-10:00

One of my regular readers sent me this account of her chance encounter with abject terror- it's a warning really, to all of us, that Christmas shopping can be damaging to your mental health and a trip to the toy store can, at times, lead to irreversible psychological and emotional damage. Thank You Jane for sharing this!

Ah yes- the Christmas season is upon us and so I

forced myself to go shopping (which I truly hate).

First stop-one of those very popular everything stores.

Having really only 1 young person to shop for I decided to

hit the toy isle first and get that chore out of the way.

I mindlessly wandered up and down the isles looking at all

of the "stuff" they didn't have when I was a kid. Transformers,

those ugly Brat dolls, kids learning computers, all kinds of jewelry

making kits(cool) and than the Barbies-Oh my God! What the heck

is it? The Birds Barbie! Have you seen it? Do you remember when

you were finally old enough to watch that movie for the first time?

Who the heck thought a woman being pecked by birds was a good idea for a doll? I can remember cowering on the couch with my siblings-big pillows on our laps to hide in- watching that movie when I was young-maybe around 8 or 9- and it scared the crap out of me! Yep, that's something I want to remember with a special collector doll. It totally freaked me out and I just wanted to run out of the store screaming!!!

Oh- wait- I'm all grown up now and the birds don't really do that-YET!

For more on this "collectible" Barbie go to http://www.barbiecollector.com/

Don't say I didn't warn you-it's eerie!

While you are on the Barbie website check out the mean witch from the

Wizard of OZ- just goes to show-every one can be beautiful-if you are Barbie.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Have you ever seen anything so frightening? Thank you Jane. Now I'm going to have nightmares too.

Happy Holidays, Meandering

Woo Hoo!

2008-12-22T13:13:00.002-10:00

We had one extra minute of daylight today!
Woo Hoo- we are on the flip side baby, spinning back to the sun and longer days! Woo Hoo! Sunlight rules!

Meander with Me a While, and Leave Your Good Ideas in the Comment Section.

2008-12-21T14:54:00.004-10:00

Amidst all this holiday fa-la-la-ing, I’ve been meandering around the current issue of putting people back to work. I think Obama and Joe have some good ideas, and, as a patriotic and concerned citizen I have a few more ideas for them that they can have- no charge.

First, lets make it a rule that if your corporate headquarters is in the USofA, your call center must be as well. Now I think that would put a lot of people to work, and you and I would have the customer service advantage of actually being able to understand the English that our call center representative is using to talk to us a mile a minute. Now, I know regional accents can be a bit confusing at times but hey- I would much rather try to decipher a deep south “can I help you” than a English as a second language learned in a 6 week course ‘can I help you”. I have more patience when I know the call center is supporting the economy of our great nation, and I always love finding out the person is somewhere across the country and asking how the weather is there, and where is a good place to eat if I ever happen to be in their town.

While we are at it, making rules that is- lets say that if your corporate phone menu has more than two selections you must have operators answering the incoming calls and directing people to the correct extension. This would make all our lives much easier and probably save millions of dollars in lost work time as we all know we are making those calls that take 17 different menu selections and 54 minutes to complete on work time.

Why don’t we outlaw those noisy gas guzzling riding mowers, leaf blowers and weed whackers? Make yard work a teen age occupation once again. We would save gas, reduce noise pollution, and get teenagers off their lazy butts and away from the computer long enough to make a little cash for that next game they want. In the process they might loose a few pounds and teen obesity would be reduced as well as health care costs, as many overweight teens become overweight adults with diabetes and heart disease which the cost of medicating put a drain on our health care system. What if someone –like an elderly person on a fixed income- can’t afford to pay a teen? Well, put those welfare recipients, the ones who can’t get a job because they don’t have skills, to work doing yard work for those on a fixed income. Anyone can learn how to mow a yard or wack a weed. Make it mandatory for any able bodied person who is now collecting welfare.

While we are on the subject of welfare- why not make being a stay at home parent an occupation paid for by the government? That’s what welfare is you say? Well, let’s change it a bit- lets say one parent can stay home and get a salary, which is fixed- regardless of the number of children in the family. That might just be incentive for people to stop having so many kids they can’t take care of. Think about it- You only get so much a year. If you only have one kid, there will be a lot more to spend on the really important things- like booze, cigarettes, tattoos and those really fine rims for your shag mobile. Then, make counseling mandatory for any parent in the program, that would put a lot of people to work doing the counseling ( not to mention doing the accounting and paperwork for the program) and the parents would have an opportunity to learn to parent. We could also give them job training starting when ever they want, or if they don’t want- when the child is 16. That would give them two years to learn a skill and get a job before the gravy train stops running.

This program would also be an advantage for those single parent families where the parent is barely making enough to cover child care so they can go to work. Let them get paid to stay at home and be a parent to their child. Give the low pay- hundred hour a week job to someone who does not have a child at home that they are trying very hard to raise right.

If we can spend billions putting our troops overseas, why can’t we spend some money funding after school care centers in every neighborhood in the US? That would put a lot of people to work, taking care of all those kids who live in homes where both parents work. The cost could be subsidized, parents who could pay, and make it very reasonably priced, something could. Those who can’t- don’t.

Speaking of our troops- why don’t we bring them home and put them along our boarders where they belong? Now, I know, there is not much for them to do along the boarders, but they could be developing new green technology, helping in poor neighborhoods- kinda like a peace corps. This would give the military a new meaning, defending America and strengthening our country at the same time it did wonders for boarder town economies. Now don’t get me wrong- I do think they could still do their military exercises and be prepared for what ever it is they prepare for.

I do love the space program, but at this point, I think it’s time to cut a lot of the funding and get all those NASA eggheads into the high schools to develop world class science programs for our young people. I figure if they can put a man on the moon they can probably figure out a way to make science attractive to teenagers and before long the USofA would be tops again in science and technology training. The NASA eggheads would design the programs, and train many more science teachers to do the teaching. We could give schools incentives to spend as much on their science programs as they do on their sports programs. While we are at it, let’s get new built in the USA computers into every school and the IT instructors to go with them.

Why don’t we subsidize salaries for people who work with the elderly, the disabled and kids? Where would we get the money? Why don’t we cut all those tax breaks to big corporations who really should be paying the taxes because they are making all that money! Make jobs that require you to take care of another human important, and make them pay well. We would have more people going into the fields and eventually, enough workers to really fill the needs of our most vulnerable populations. The fact that jobs in these professions are low pay, high turnover is a disgrace to our nation.

Now, at this point you are probably thinking- boy that Meandering sure has some good solid ideas for putting people to work. We should vote for her next time. Now, stay with me because I’m gonna get a little out there on you, but I think, when I’m finished you will still be saying “good idea!” I have also been pondering how to make jobs and improve the health of our population at the same time. This is a little harder to do than just create jobs- however, I think it’s important because not only are a lot of people out of work, our great country can boast the poorest health and the most spent on health care of any developed nation. We really have to turn this around.

How about we learn something from China, where it has been scientifically proven that a population that does Tai Chi on a regular basis is healthier and spends less on health care. They actually have schools to train Tai Chi instructors, and then they place them in neighborhoods to lead regular exercise for the population. It’s considered a great job, and the exercise classes are so popular, there are millions of people doing Tai Chi everyday. I think we should do the same thing.

A scientific study on meditation done in Washington DC showed that crime rates went down in the DC area when they had round the clock meditation practitioners sending out “the vibe” – no, I’m not kidding. We could make meditation a good paying job and set up centers in all the big cities. Keep the vibe going 24/7 and reduce crime rates while we created a lot of jobs.

And last but not least- It’s also been scientifically proven that grain fed beef ( what you typically buy and eat) has way more Omega 6 ( the bad kind) fatty acids than Omega 3 ( the good kind) fatty acids, and this translates to- eating omega 6 beef throws your omega fatty acid balance way off and causes your cholesterol to go way up and your body to be in a state of inflammation all the time which can lead to diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and other serious health problems. However- cattle that eat grass have lots more omega 3’s than omega 6-es, just as the lord intended, and eating that kind of beef is not a health hazard. Now, most people will not give up the beef, but we could bring back free range cattle, and cowboys/cowgirls. Make cattle herding a great paying job, and require the beef industry to set the cattle free. Make it illegal to lot feed, and grain fatten beef, and get rid of the outdated and polluting methods of raising beef that we have now.

Now, I know this is a lot to digest all at once, and there is a lot to consider when you go about makin’ rules and cutting funding and adding funding and using public money and shuttling dollars from big business to care for the disabled. Once you’ve had a time to ponder all this, why don’t you leave a comment with your idea of how to improve the job situation in this country. Once all the suggestions are in, I will send this to the Obama-Biden transition team so they can ponder it too. Oh, yes, they will read it, they owe me one, I’m holding a “health care reform community discussion” for them in my town.

Once you are done putting in your two cents worth, get back to the fa-la-la-ing, ‘tis the season.

Get Your Christmas On

2008-12-14T07:53:00.004-10:00

It’s time my friends, to nuzzle down into the comfort of holiday traditions.
We’ve got holidays galore this time of year, all you have to do is select your favorite and jump right in to the merry making.

It’s the dark time of the year, but the solstice, that pagan celebration of the renewal of the sun, is just weeks away.

For you science fans- The Earth's axis of rotation makes an angle of about 23.44° called the "obliquity of the ecliptic" (good name for a jazz band). As a consequence, for half the year the northern hemisphere tips to the Sun, with the maximum around June 21st, the longest day of the year, while for the other half year the northern hemisphere tips away from the sun, with the maximum around December 21st, the shortest day of the year. The two moments when the inclination of Earth's rotational axis has maximum effect are the solstices.

The longest night of the year gives way to the earth tipping back to the warmth and light of summer, and that is the best reason to celebrate as far as I can tell.

However, you might be thinking that Christmas is what makes this time of year special, a babe born on a cold winter night, a babe huddled in a manger with animals who spoke. Given gifts by three wise men who, wisely, brought essential oils of frankincense, and myrrh. Christians celebrate this miraculous birth of the symbol of their religion and the savior of so many souls.

More for you science fans- Actually, experts think Jesus was born in July, not December, and that the church moved his birthday to coincide with the solstice celebrations, hoping to distract the pagans and win them over. According to the scientific information above, in the southern hemisphere, in July, it would have been winter and cold as it gets in the desert. Meanwhile, Frankincense and Myrrh oils are both high is sesquiterpenes, chemicals that awaken the emotional centers of the brain, and increase immune system function-good idea for a baby born in a barn in the winter!

Maybe Christmas is special to you because you just love the folk tale of a fat guy in a red suit who trains reindeer to fly- (in Siberia it’s thought that a Shaman can turn into a flying reindeer to journey to the spirit world- think there is some connection?) and brings toys to all the good girls and boys. Maybe the attraction is everything that goes with the folk tale- decorations, lights, trees, tinsel, music, parties. Or maybe the attraction is the candy, cookies, fudge, pies, fruit cakes, strudel, eggnog, and other seasonal ways to add weight. Maybe the rampant commercialism that marks the season in an over developed country like ours is right up your alley. What ever the draw, the season is here.

Let us not forget that not every one in the world is either pagan or Christian. There are other holidays we can choose from and acknowledge at this time of year, such as the festival of lights known as Hanukkah, central to the Jewish faith, and Kwanzaa, the celebration of African American history and culture. There is also Boxing Day - celebrated in countries once ruled by Britain. The roots of this holiday go back to the Middle Ages, when, on the day after Christmas, members of the merchant class would take boxes, fill them with food and fruits, and give them to servants, trades people and the less fortunate. Servants would be given a day off to celebrate after presumably working 24/7 for the past month to prepare for Christmas in the master’s house.

It seems there is a holiday for everyone, and all you have to do is get in the mood.

Now my scientific survey of random shoppers indicates there are a few souls out there that just haven’t found the Christmas spirit yet. ( translation- nasty bugger of an old lady cussing under her breath at the check out counter a few days ago telling me about “the damn season anyway- buy, buy, buy, that’s all people thinks about these days.”)

So, if you have worries that are making it hard to be in the “festival zone” for the holidays, if your troubles are overwhelming- if you have to much stress at work/home/school/with relatives/finances/kids/pets/that damn car/ what ever- let me help you with this guide to getting your Christmas on.

There are numerous ways to find your Christmas spirit, if it happens to be missing. Let’s look at a few of them-

What says holiday like an evening cuddled up in front of the TV watching Bing and Danny get the girls? Full of memorable music, and one of my favorite choreographed scenes – (Bing and Danny changing clothes after the “sisters” show, while they have a little heart to heart talk. I wonder how many times they went through that complicated routine before it was looking like they didn’t have to think about it?), White Christmas is a classic, along with Love Actually, Christmas Vacation, Scrooged, and - insert your favorite holiday movie title here. There are so many fine movies and TV specials to choose from- who can resist a re-run of A Charlie Brown Christmas (originally released Dec. 9th, 1965!) , or The Grinch Who Stole Christmas or - insert the name of your favorite holiday special here- . So gather up the snacks, preferably holiday-ish ones, a blank-ee, some DVD’s and hit the couch for some holiday down time with the TV.

The Holiday season would just not be complete with out the holiday music that engulfs us from early November right through the New Year. I don’t mind, I mean, quit complaining and lend your voice to the merriment and get into the music! Sing at the top of your lungs, all those songs you remember from high school choir. Hum along with the ones you don’t know- and get up and dance when the moment permits- like in the grocery store when you hear “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” start blaring from the store wide speakers. Nothing will elevate your mood, (nothing legal anyway), and put you in the spirit, like a bit of song and dance, and hey, it’s good exercise too!

Decorations are everywhere. In fact, I think the stores just run in with a paint brush after Halloween and paint all those pumpkins white and try to pass them off as snowmen. To get in a holiday mood, get ye a thermos of hot chocolate and pile in the car to cruse the ‘hood and take in all the decorations. I took a walk last night and sure enough, once around the block and an eye full of brightly lit Santas, snowmen, candy canes and holly wreaths left me feeling like I should turn on the tree lights and flick the switch for my own display of little twinklies on the porch. I passed many homes with multiple trees viewed through windows and wondered where they got enough spirit to decorate not one, but two trees! If your town has a major lights display, and the traffic is not too horrendous (our town does and the traffic is) you can cruse that rather than the neighborhood, that way, you are not likely to be taken for a criminal “casing the joint” to look for piles of presents to make your holiday bright.

What better way to get in the mood for a holiday than to cook up the delights of the season. Notice I say cook up, not eat up. This, my friends, is because it is better to give than receive, better to bake and give away than bake and eat. Unless of course you really want to be two sizes larger by March. So get out your favorite holiday goodie recipes and make a bunch of sweet stuff to pass off on your friends. Personally, I say to heck with the cookies, if we are going to make sweet stuff, lets cut out the white flour and add more sugar, so this year I’m making candy. And, in case that alone doesn’t give me that warm fuzzy holiday season feeling I decided to make rum balls and bourbon pralines, so I have to have a couple of bottles of booze in the house for the candy making. Now most of you have seen that recipe for fruit cake where the cook drinks the brandy and throws the egg beater out the window. That is where I got the idea for the boozy candy.

While the goodies are cooking, get out the check book and write a little something to your favorite charity. It doesn’t have to be a large sum, just a little something. Nothing says holiday mood like remembering those that are less fortunate than our selves. While you are at it, write out a holiday card to someone who is probably not going to get a card from anyone else. I bet if you look through your date book, address book or e-mail file you can zero in on someone whose holiday would be a lot brighter if just one card landed in their mailbox. If you still have something to give, that won’t put your own finances in a bind, head out to the mall and find the giving tree. Pick a card off the tree and go to it. This may be one of the most holiday mood manifesting rituals ever invented by humans. Giving a bunch of holiday joy to some child you don’t even know, can elevate your mood and affect their life deeply, in ways you will never even know. What could be more holiday-ee?

So go now, get your Christmas on- and have a happy holiday, which ever holiday you choose to celebrate!

Train Your Mind Change Your Brain

2008-12-07T12:42:00.004-10:00

Here is the link to the Mind and Life Institute. The institute sponsors meetings each year with The Dalai Lama and the worlds top scientists. In the following post, I mention the book that was written about the 2004 meeting, Train Your Mind Change Your Brain.

http://www.mindandlife.org/

Your Brain in a Nutshell

2008-12-07T12:05:00.005-10:00

On Tuesday November 18th I was musing on the idea of being able to catch non-productive or unhealthy thoughts as they arise and realize them for what they are and let them go. How do we do this is the question I posed. Well, I’ve been doing a little research on that very topic so I can enlighten you while you waste your boss’s time reading blogs and having that extra cup of coffee before you really get to work.

I picked up this fascinating book called “Train Your Mind Change Your Brain” by Sharon Begley (with a foreword by His Holiness The Dalai Lama). This book is touted as a “groundbreaking collaboration between neuroscience and Buddhism”. Before I go any further I should warn you that I think physics textbooks are entertaining. I also think scientific experiments are engaging. I love to learn how people learn about all kinds of interesting things.

I’m about half way through the book now, and it’s all about the ways that the brain can grow and change, even after your body is fully grown. It’s called brain plasticity, and it’s all the rage among neuroscientists, even though just a few years ago the concept of brain plasticity was laughed right out of all the best scientific journals. This is a good example of how narrow minded science can be, the people who are supposed to be discovering new things often don’t even want to talk about new things!

Previously it was thought that you are born with a bunch of brain cells, you grow a bunch more when you are a baby learning all kinds of new things, you start to loose brain cells when you become an adolescent (maybe they are transformed into excess hormones), and this loss continues through young adulthood (accelerated greatly by your choice of recreational chemicals), and speeds up as you age until you eventually die with a shriveled up brain the size of a walnut.

Now however, it has been proven that this is not true! No, science has traveled into the unknown to prove that you only loose all those brain cells if you don’t take care of them, nourish them and invite them to grow.

Now I’m not going to tell you the whole story, read the book if you want that, but I will tell you there are dozens of experiments detailed so the reader sees the progression of one theory to the next and the amazing discoveries that first led researchers to imagine the brain was actually adjusting its cells, functions and usage, based on the persons activities.

I will throw this little bit of information out at you: voluntary exercise on a regular basis makes your brain grow. Bad news for couch potatoes I know. And I say voluntary because the experiment looked at brains of mice who exercised for fun (turns out mice love to run on those little wheels you see in gerbil cages), and brains of mice who were forced to exercise ( picture a white coated lab tech holding a mouse at gun point and forcing it to lift weights) actually, that is not how they did it, I won’t go into the details, but bottom line, the voluntary mice grew to be much smarter.

Now skip ahead to the part on applications for humans and we find that people with obsessive compulsive disorders can be trained to watch their thoughts as the compulsions come and rationalize what these thoughts mean, and how they arise from a chemical imbalance rather than being an intrinsic part of the person and sure enough, after they practice for a while, the obsessive behavior patterns lessen and disappear.

So dear readers, this takes us right back where we started. When you are in a situation that causes thoughts of anger or anxiety to arise, if you try to look at the thoughts and analyze them before you react, your brain will actually learn from what you just did, add more brain function resources to repeating this task in the future, and make it easier for you to do this again.

See? You are not alone! Your brain is helping you! You can learn to think before you react. You can become the type of person who is able to react with compassion rather than anger. You can learn to put that wave of anxiety to bed and think calm healing thoughts even when the going is rough.

Now, I’m sure as I get further into that book I will learn lots of tid-bits about how the process is actually done, but for now, I will just share how I think it might be done.

Next time someone you know acts like an ass and you start to get mad- catch the mad feeling. Stop for a moment and ask yourself what am I feeling? Acknowledge your feelings, then ask yourself if you can imagine any reason that person might be acting like such an ass.

Maybe they had a worse day then the one you are having. Maybe someone they know died, or left them, or is in the hospital, or is missing. Maybe they got fired, divorced or a speeding ticket on the way to work. Maybe they are hungry, hung over or really mentally unstable. Maybe they are all kinds of bad things you can imagine.

Now, this does not excuse them, but it does give you an opportunity to say to yourself- I’m glad I’m not like that. I’m glad I don’t have any of those horrible imagined problems they have. I’m gonna shine that on. I’m not taking the bait. I feel sorry for that ass. They must be having way bigger problems than I have. (if nothing else they have a big problem because they are such an ass no one likes them), Than you can ignore their assy-ness, or ask them if they are OK, or maybe even ask if here is some way you can help them because they are obviously having a bad day.

The same steps can be used for anxiety. When you feel it coming on – Like the Obsessive Compulsion disorder patients,( which, by the way, OCD is an anxiety problem,) you can say to your self- I’m feeling anxiety. This situation is a real ass, but it won’t help for me to be an ass back. Let me just calm down. This situation will soon change. (here’s where that Buddhist concept of impermanence comes in real handy), If I just remain calm and take steps to peacefully resolve this situation things are going to change. My anxiety does not change any thing, things just change.

Now, according to this research I’ve reviewed, if you just keep practicing this over and over it will become easier. From the looks of the news headlines, you may be getting a lot of practice, and this skill is going to become very valuable in the coming months.

Holiday Survival Tips

2008-11-26T12:31:00.002-10:00

One of my friends admitted to me that she wasn’t looking forward to the holidays, specifically, because of personality conflicts among extended family members.

Well, you and everybody else!

Yes. It’s that time again when we gather with relatives, just as we have gathered for millennium, and complain behind backs about weird odors, artificial body parts, strange habits, and obnoxious behavior- kind of a real life version of the holiday classic “Christmas Vacation”. (I can’t help it, I laugh so hard I think I’m gonna pee every time I see the scene where the squirrel comes flying out of the Christmas tree and attaches to Chevy Chase’s back- thus, the movie is a holiday classic!)

Why, oh why, do we continue to reenact this strange and painful behavior? It’s kind of like the lemmings rushing off the cliff face to death in the sea because that’s the way they have always done it! For more on the lemmings-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWuiGWkd7mM

This informative look at darling rodents with brains approximately the size of peas will entertain, inform and gasp- reflect! If you have a soft spot for furry little creatures, I strongly caution you- the film captures the result of this mindless lemming behavior, with footage of numerous little wet, lifeless lemming bodies adrift in the ocean. Not pretty. Not pretty at all.

I highly advise you spend the holiday doing what ever it is single people who live far away from family do- that is, what ever they please.

However, if you are one of those people who will be excommunicated from the family if you don’t cheerfully participate in the holiday, then read on, this is for you.

Yes. It’s time to gather round the table with a group of people that you wish you didn’t know, but you are chained to by genetics or marriage. Time to put on a big smile and eat the green bean casserole, the burned biscuits and the woefully undercooked turkey ( But it’s been in the oven for hours! It can’t be raw!), followed by a big slice of Aunt Abby’s devil-may-care-dieter’s-delight-vanilla-green tea-fondue-crisp-peanut butter-grape pie.

So, I decided to do you a big favor and just pass along a few tips for a peaceful holiday with the family.

No matter how bad it gets, do not drink copious amounts of alcohol – it’s not going to make things better, and God knows when you accidentally vomit on Uncle Chester the whole family is going to get a lot louder. Not only that, But if you are too drunk to drive they are gonna arm wrestle the keys away from you, make you sleep on the couch, and then you are going to have to face them all again in the morning. So be smart. Stay close to sober.
Smile and nod when spoken to, If you have nothing to say, keep a plate of appetizers in your lap and each time someone speaks to you expecting a response, shove something like peanut butter anchovy spread on rye cracker in your mouth, gesture wildly with your hand that your mouth is full and smile some more.
Cruse antique shops until you see one of those long ear horns that you always see in movies, purchase it, and take it to the holiday dinner with you. Explain to all in a loud voice that- you’ve developed a case of tinnitus, stumping your normally brilliant doctors. No cure is evident and you can’t hear a blasted thing, however they can yell into “this here brass horn” to speak with you. When ever any one does yell into the horn, politely yell back as if you can’t tell how loud you are talking. Pretty soon everyone will just smile and nod at you and pretty much leave you alone. This is a fantastic way to avoid hearing all the gory intimate details of your cousin’s private life, unless of course your cousin is determined to talk about her STD even if she has to yell.
Approach the eating as if you are on a important diet- you might want to amaze everyone with the fact that you are a straight A student in your on-line astronaut training program ( yes, aunt Jenny, it’s fully certified and recognized), and in the near future you will have to have a pre-flight physical assessment. The requirement is 10 pounds under what you weigh, ( what ever your weight may be) and you are determined to be on the first manned flight to Uranus. Take only one small spoon of each dish, thus avoiding hurting the cooks feelings with out having to suffer through actually eating their food. You can play it up by bemoaning the fact that you just can’t eat more of their wonderful cooking, you will just have to pine over those candied sweet potatoes with juju beans and marshmallow fennel sauce until next year.
When confronted with the inevitable inquires into the state of your job, quickly glance to the left and right with narrowed eyes, grab your inquisitor by the shoulder and yank them close, lower you voice and say ”Honestly Auntie Em, I can’t talk about it. We just got a big contract with Homeland security, but it’s very high security clearance and I just can not disclose anything”. Then wink, nod yes, and change the subject. Now don’t get all crazy with this one, if you want to say CIA or FBI instead, make sure it’s plausible. If you are a shoe sales person or a waste removal technician, Homeland security is a better bet, they have people everywhere. If you are with a high tech firm, or travel a lot for work, than yes, CIA or FBI might fly.
When you are asked the inevitable questions about your significant other (or your lack there of) just refer to # 5 and add, I met someone really nice through our contract with homeland security, but honestly, they are very high security clearance, I just can not talk about them at all. Then smile, wink, nod yes and change the subject.
When asked the inevitable question about when you are going to settle down and have kids, refer to #5, and add- “the world is so unstable right now, ( if you can muster up a teary far away look in your eyes, it’s helpful at this point), so threatening, I just don’t think it’s the right time. Besides, my therapist says I’m to narcissistic to raise children and I pay him enough, he ought to know. I am working through this in therapy and I just have to wait until all my issues are resolved. It hurts to talk about this you know, I do so love children.”
Now, to avoid after dinner conversation and stupid games, you can start the evening off by offering to mix those after dinner drinks. Add more than the normal allotment of alcohol, and if you are lucky the combination of extra booze and all that food will put everyone over 40 into a stupor in no time. Then you can hang out and basically spend the evening alone.
If you just can’t stand the thought of a day with the relatives, you can arrive with a dish that lacks one ingredient. Proclaim “Oh God, I forgot to pick up the garnish for this casserole- let me just run down to the quick mart and get some pistachio brittle to go on top of it, I will be right back.” ( The key to this is, of course, not naming a garnish that could possibly already be in the house. Keep it exotic or you are trapped! Also, you must make it a point to say – “oh, by the way, Mom, did you try to call me earlier? My cell phone battery is dead and I can’t find my charger- I will get a new one next week”.) Leave the house and don’t look back. Go to the local subway shop, enjoy a turkey sub. Head over to your favorite hang out and have a drink, watch the game or go shopping, what ever- see, the day is yours now. Don’t return to the house until you are sure that the dinner is over, drinks are done, and all the relatives are gone. Then, stumble in with a dazed and confused look on your face. Ask what day it is, what time it is and “ how long was I gone?.” Then explain you were driving up the road, saw a large object hovering over the intersection and just as you got to it a bright light seemed to explode from under it and you don’t remember anything else until you just walked in the door.

OK folks, that is all the holiday survival tips I have time for today, I have to get busy and make the pumpkin pie, it’s my turn this year.

Gaden Shartse World Tour - part one

2008-11-18T13:30:00.005-10:00

I just spent several hours getting warmed up to blog. I did this by exercising my talent for stringing words together by creating several entertaining articles for a web site that hires ghost writers, talent unseen, untested, and unknown, to write for them. Today I captivated my audience with tales of my adventures surfing the big waves on the North Shore. For those of you who spend way to much time in front of a computer or otherwise encapsulated in a sedentary indoors life style, the North Shore is the north shore, literally, of Oahu, Hawaii.

Yes, this is where the big waves break, and the little surfers get broken. Of course I used my considerable experience with the art of surfing to compile a pile of highly suspect, but passable to the un-initiated, yarns of surf-dome adventure under the moniker Big Bill “Flipflop” Kakaman-o-tikibarkanni.

Now that my blogging butt is well settled into the chair, I’ve had my ration of 14 cups of coffee and my finger muscles are warmed up and ready for some serious typing, I thought I would write a little about my latest adventures in international cooperation and understanding.

As you know, I recently had the pleasure of spending a little time with “my Monks”, the Monks of Gaden Shartse Monastery. These Monks travel the world as ambassadors of the dharma, bringing Buddhist teachings to everyone they come in contact with. Many of the people involved with the success of the Monks tour are dyed in the wool Buddhist practitioners. Others, like myself are on the fringe, still grasping for the light of understanding from any bulb they come in contact with. It is really amazing to see these dharma spreaders in action, and even more amazing to have the opportunity to spend time with them along the path they travel.

I think the thing that stands out most in my mind is how everyone they meet is all over them like ducks on a June bug. I mean, people just want to be near them, to talk with them, to have a photo with them, to exchange smiles with them. Even the most introverted individual seems to bloom in their presence. Every where we went, and I do mean we, as I followed them around pretty much full time for nine days, they had lines of people waiting to speak with them after each event.

Everyone had questions, from “Do you wear sandals even in the winter? And “does your shaved head get cold a lot?” to “Can you, in three minutes or less, explain the nature of existence and the teachings of the Buddha?” No matter what the questions, the Monks always had a thoughtful answer. Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that they all are extremely intelligent and have many years of schooling. We actually had the honor of a couple valedictorians and a summa cum laude ( what is that? Latin for “guy who gets all A’s”? ) on the tour. Each Monk was also a master of a particular specialty, like chant master and ritual master. If the Monks were a poker hand we would have been in the big money. The monastery honors us by sending only it’s brightest scholars so that we will get the best answers to our probing questions, like – what can we do to handle our anger or disappointments? - a question that I noticed was asked over and over.

I guess us westerners have more than our fill of anger and disappointment. I have to wonder though, is it because of the way we look at life? I wonder, have we become spoiled by our capitalistic life styles? Have we been nurtured beyond a healthy understanding that sometimes bad things do happen? Are we all Polly Annas? Do we become angry and disappointed because we expect everything to be prefect for us in our own perfect time?

Here’s an example- while I was going through my 327 page check list of things to have for the Monks stay, I noticed I didn’t have enough bottled water. I panicked! Madre de Dios! How could I possibly ask them to drink our dirty American fluorinated, chlorinated tap water? Then it struck me, as if a bolt of lightening in the darkness tapped right on the top of my head- what am I, crazy? My tap water is cleaner than most of the world’s water supply, and, although I pass when ever possible on ingesting chlorine, we probably were not going to die of dysentery or typhoid if I had to make the Starbucks with some tap water.

See what I mean? It’s really our perception of the situation that gives it meaning, not the situation itself. Our reaction to any situation depends entirely on our perception of what is happening. If we could analyze our perception of a situation for possible misunderstanding before we panic and get angry or disappointed, maybe we could save ourselves from a lot of anger and disappointment.

Anyway, that’s what I got from listening to the Monks answer that question over and over and over… now of course, the question is how do we manage to watch our thoughts, and analyze them for misunderstanding, before we react? Well, I guess that is the tricky part.

More on this topic soon…

For more on the Gaden Shartse Tour, check their web site, the link is on the right hand menu.

PS - Summa Cum Laude means- highest with honor or praise.

How I Accidentally Ended Up Leading The Presidential Motorcade Not Once, But Twice In This Lifetime- So far!

2008-10-30T12:51:00.006-10:00

Well, it's finally here, after 8 long years of hell under the current administration, we once more get to choose between the lesser of two evils. I'm definitly going to get out and vote, and I hope you do too. To celebrate the season I've finally written the account, for your enjoyment, of my unprecedented two time brush with destiny.

I know, it's hard to believe, but honestly, it happened to me.

The first time I meandered into the presidential motorcade was way back when, when I was a student in Marietta, Georgia. One day I was minding my own business, just meandering home from classes along a route I took every day. I was driving along listening to some tunes when I became aware that something was not quite right.

I looked to the left, and I looked to the right and what did I see? Nothing. I mean no one. I mean no cars. On the normally clogged with traffic expressway, I was totally alone. I was pondering the meaning of this. Had I been transported through some worm hole to an alternate universe where traffic jams did not exist? Was it much later ( or much earlier?) than I thought and possibly I had missed the traffic entirely? Had I fallen asleep at the wheel and I was now dreaming of a life where I, and I alone, owned the road? Had the bomb dropped and somehow it missed me and everyone else was vaporized, cars and all? Had I somehow driven right into The Twilight Zone?

I came around a curve in the road and was somewhat relieved to see people standing at the corner as I approached the traffic light. But wait! Something was still not quite right. The people had guns! What the heck! And there were police cars and guys with FBI vests and what the heck had I stumbled upon? Was it a SWAT event in progress? ( and yes, believe it or not, I have also driven right into the middle of a SWAT event! Just lucky I guess.)

I wanted to just put the pedal to the metal and high tail it right outta there but the light happened to turn red and I figured with all those cops and guns and cop cars it would be a bad and immature choice to go blasting through a red light so I geared down and stopped. Right at the white line. Full stop, no rolling. Perfectly legal.

I was still pondering the whole situation when a lady, obviously employed by the Georgia State Cops, ( I'm smart, I could tell right away by the uniform, bullet proof vest and that funny brown hat, not to mention the big old shot gun she was toting), came running up to the car screaming and gesturing in a wild manner. I realized she was probably not going to shoot because there were to many witnesses, so I turned the music down and rolled the window down.

" Can I help you?", I asked.
"What are you doing here?", she screamed.
"Um, driving home from school?" I asked.
"How did you get through the road block?", she was still screaming, (very excitable for a cop I thought).
"Um, what road block?", I asked.

Then she went on gesturing wildly and telling me the whole road system for miles around was blocked off for the presidential motorcade, which, apparently was due to arrive at that very corner in 3.7 Milli-seconds.

"Um, I never saw a road block?", I asked while I was thinking - what kind of dinky little road block could they have set up, if I didn't even see it while I apparently drove right through it!

At this question she started gesturing in an even more wildly agitated way and asked me where I got on the road. So I told her the entrance ramp I had taken onto the expressway and she started hollering into her walkie-talkie and I guessed, from the conversation, that the cops, the FBI and probably the CIA as well had made a little boo-boo. Their impenetrable net was hanging wide open and I was the little fishy that got through and swam right up in their faces. Good thing I wasn't some wild eyed, voice hearing, crazy militia type with a beef against society as a whole and the president in particular.

I did my best to radiate love and good will and all that crap while I was sweating bullets wondering if I was gonna be dragged from the car, cuffed and held for questioning. I was ready to pledge my allegiance to the flag, swear under oath I had voted for this president and beg for mercy.

I didn't have to do any of the above because my calm loving good-will to all vibe was obvious even to the wildly gesturing cop lady and she told me to turn left and do it quick. WOW! Permission to run the red light!

I put it in gear, hit the metal and swung around the corner just in time to see the motorcade fly by in my rear view mirror.

Well, I thought that was a once in a life time incident, but what the heck do I know?

Many years pass- moons wax and wane, seasons change following seasons that change, trees bud and go dormant, clock hands spin relentlessly. Presidents come and go.

I'm meandering home from the pool hall in my beat up Chevy ( Honest officer, I'm a patriot! I'm driving American made!) and I hear a funny noise. Not a funny Ha Ha noise, but a funny- oh no! That doesn't sound good noise. So I pull over and inspect the car and I find a flat tire! Well, no wonder the road felt a little bumpy.

So I'm standing on the side of the road trying to guess whether I have a spare tire and a jack, and looking for a pick up truck with a good looking brawny type guy to drive up so I can flag down some assistance, when I notice there is not another car on the road. How odd, I thought. No traffic. (I didn't get the hint right away). I figure I'm on my own so I walk around the back of the car and before I can pop the trunk a big black car pulls up on the shoulder of the road and stops really close to my car. I'm suspicious immediately. I ask myself to quickly review the possible weapons I have in the car, like a road map, several empty to go coffee cups, an extra pair of socks, a sweater and a pen. Damn! Where's the base ball bat when you need it?

The big black car vomits two big guys in identical suits. Now I'm really suspicious because I'm thinking - when was the last time your road side assistance came in the form of a couple of guys in tailor made suits, white starched shirts, Italian loafers and aviator sunglasses? Never- Right? So I start backing away and glancing around looking for the traffic that should have been around, but was not.

"Can I help You?", I ask.
" What are you doing parked here?" One says.
" I'm not parked here, I have a flat tire?" I ask as I wonder what wall street firm this brilliant guy works for.

They take a moment to ponder this and then say, " The presidential motorcade is on the way, you have to move this car".
I just laugh.
"Take a look, do you think it's going to move before I change the tire?"

So they ask me a few more questions like where have you been and where are you going while they look at the flat as a pancake tire. I give them permission to look in the car and they glance in the windows and announce they have to get this car out of here.
" Do you have a spare?" they finally get around to asking.
"Damn I hope so?" I ask as I circle around to open the trunk, which when I do, causes them to jump back gasping and fondling their holsters. Of course, in the trunk lies my big black pool cue case which I guess to a FBI indoctrinated mind looks just like a bazooka case. They get all fidgety as I explain it's just my pool cue case. It's obvious they are now on orange alert and are eying me trying to figure out if I'm wired to detonate the pool cue case from a remote location.

" Don't touch it", they yell as I start to lift it off the trunk floor which of course is the hatch to get to the spare tire and jack. I drop the case and they move in, quick to get between me and the threatening pool cue case. Now I want to laugh again but realize that might not be wise, so I give them permission to open the case. Which they do and are satisfied to see that indeed, it's a pool cue case.

By now they are at ease and start glancing at their identical watches and again start talking about getting this car out of here.

I stand along side the road, watching for the coming motorcade while these two guys in suits perform like a pit crew at the Indy 500. I have to say that FBI academy must have a real good course in changing tires because once they decided to take that action, that old tire was off and the spare on in no time. Taking their suit jackets off took longer than changing the tire.

Once they were done with the tire they instructed me to "haul ass to the nearest intersection and get off this street". I thanked them and did as instructed, watching in my rear view mirror, and again, as I turned I saw the presidential motorcade flash by in my rear view mirror. I was only moments ahead of them and thus, technically, leading the presidential motorcade for the second time in this life time- so far.

The Monks Are Coming- Part Two

2008-10-15T02:08:00.005-10:00

Yes, It's true I have been very busy with school ( it's getting easier, grading the second paper went much faster than the first), and putting the tour stop together for "My Monks". I like to call them that, my Monks, but really they are the Monks of Gaden Shartse Norling College Buddhist Monastic University.

I met them a little over 10 years ago when I saw an ad in a paper, it said - Wanted- office space for Buddhist healings. Host 8 Monks for one week in October.

Well, I had a large office with multiple treatment rooms, so how could I resist? I answered the ad, was interviewed by the local tour stop director, and got the gig. A few weeks later there were Monks and people and bells ringing and feathers floating and incense burning and a whole bunch a goings on in the office, and I was a little intimidated, but totally fascinated by those Monks!

On that tour there were several very elderly Monks who had tales of Tibet before China. There were several young Monks who were enjoying the freedom and abundance of American culture for the first time- they had a lot of questions- and there were all the wonderful people I met who were assisting the Monks in their journey of fund raising for the Monastery that houses not only the Monks, but many children who escape from China/Tibet and have no one in India but the Monks.

The first time I met "my Monks", I really knew nothing about Buddhism, but hey, I'm the curious sort, so I thought it would be a great learning experiance, and it was. Since that first meeting I have learned a lot more about the belief system that is the heart of Tibet. I am not a Buddhist, but I have to say they sure do have some really great ideas about how to look at life, and live life.

Now that I know more about Buddhism, I appreciate the Monks journey even more. They always remind me that nothing lasts forever. Nothing. Change is inevitable. If you know this, and accept it, then you can be much more at ease with all the changes that swirl around you in real life. By not clinging to things, you are less upset when things change, which they always do.

They also remind me that we create a lot of our own suffering or sadness in the world by our attitudes or mental states. Often when we are upset, we could choose to look at the upsetting situation differently, and if we did that, we would not be so upset. It's really entirely up to us how we view things and sometimes our view is the problem.

In Buddhism, every life is important, even the lowly bug. They teach compassion for all beings, no matter how small. If you can look at another- even in times of conflict- and see them as a being just struggling to find their way in this world, trying to do their best ( which in your opinion may be pretty bad) , then maybe you can find a gem of forgiveness or understanding in your heart and give it to them. If you can do this, it makes you a better person and the world a more peaceful place.

Tibetan Buddhism is very different from Zen Buddhism or other types of Buddhism, ( no, it's not all the same although the underlying principles are) , Tibetan Buddhism has many aspects of the original religion of Tibet which was called Bon. In Bon, there were many spirits or Gods, and magic was common. Tibetan Buddhism has a number of deities and they can be brought into your presence by complicated rituals. This reminds me that there really is still magic in the world.

So, the tour is off to a good start, I've booked them for performances almost every evening they are here, and healings most of the days, and time to rest as well, because last time they visited we had them so fully booked they were tired by the end of their stay. This time, I think they may need time to meditate and I know me and my friends, we need time to just sit with the Monks, get our questions answered and baske in that healing Monk energy.

Is It October Already?

2008-10-11T03:05:00.005-10:00

Yes, I think it is. I can look out the window and see the leaves falling, the sky a cool blue and the sun light filtering in at a different angle than it did a month ago. I am turning on exterior lights at the office, as the night comes earlier, sometimes before I am done with work. The stores are full of Halloween treats and my porch is filling up with wood pellets for the stove. It must be fall.

It seems like just a week ago it was August.

The fall always makes me feel a little sad, because I hate to see the summer go. I don't enjoy winter much and I miss the daylight. I'm thankful we are already half way to the suns turning back point, the winter solstice, which happens right around the 20th of December. From that day on, the sun comes and stays a bit longer each day. I'm definitely a sun worshiper, and if there is such a thing as past lives, I'm sure I was involved in some sun worshiping society.

Researchers will tell you it's just science, biochemistry really, that the sun being absorbed through our skin causes a cascade of chemical reactions which make us feel good, sleep well, and be happy. I can see their point, I'm sure biochemistry is involved. I think though, it's more than that. I think we may be a species that seeks the light, in what ever form we find it. I think maybe when we see the sun in the sky, it reminds us, at some deep level that the light is within us, shines on us, makes us warm. Sunlight, to me, just seems cheery, it brightens the day and the corners of one's mind. It reveals clearly what lies about us. Because of it, we can see.

Because I'm admitting to myself fall is here, I'm accepting it, what choice do I have? The world keeps spinning- right? So I'm looking forward to putting up my Christmas lights. A primitive ritual to help ward off the long dark nights of winter. I love to see houses all lit up, entire neighborhoods a twinkle, as we hold off the darkness for another winter, and create a reminder that the sun will return. Somehow, it makes the winter seem warmer.

Casserole Ladies

2008-09-27T03:06:00.004-10:00

My good friend passed away at the age of 88. She told me she was ready to go, had lived a good long life and now, just wanted to get on with it. She was ready to go home. My friend knew in her heart that she was going somewhere better and would be reunited with her loved ones, where she would wait with them, preparing to welcome those she had left behind. My friend was a woman of faith.

My friends passing sparked a scandal. She was a very active member of the community for all of her life, and gossip has it that the church auxiliary, the VFW auxiliary and the volunteer fireman's auxiliary are fighting over who gets the honor of feeding the crowd of people expected at the funeral. Meanwhile, the town had to call an emergency board meeting to approve funds for a county sheriff to direct traffic on Main street during the calling hours because of the expected influx of visitors to a one stoplight town. The final estimate was somewhere near 8,397 callers and just as many flowers. My friend was well known and loved in her community.

Casserole ladies have started arriving by the droves as we sort through boxes of photos, discuss which dress she looked best in, and pass a box of tissues. I have to ask myself – Am I living a life that will bring droves of casserole ladies to my doorstep after I pass? I hope so.

My friend believed in the Bible, she asked me if I had read it, I think she was surprised when I said yes, I had, twice. She said I should read the Bible more, there is lots of good stuff in there. Then she said she figured I was doing pretty good for someone who had only read the Bible twice. So Hey, I got that going for me.

101 Posts

2008-09-14T05:34:00.001-10:00

Today I hit a milestone. Well, didn't exactly hit it- hey, what does that mean anyway, hit a milestone? It's more like I arrived at it as I posted my 101st article to my blog. For me, that is a lot of writing and a lot of great practice for my future best sellers. Thanks for reading. - Meandering

Runaway Buckboard!

2008-09-14T05:30:00.002-10:00

The buck board had been piled high with supplies when I left the town a few hours (or was it a few life times?) ago. The sun was shining, birds singing. The horses sauntered along, the rhythmic clip clop of their hooves causing the relaxing alpha waves to enter my brain. I was awake, aware, but very relaxed as we sailed along across the expansive dry open desert. A luminous turquoise sky above stretched from one horizon to the other, suggesting the immensity of the ball of dirt, hurtling through space, that we call a planet. Wide open was what came to my mind, that feeling of growth and possibility and freedom - wide open.

I can’t say I know what spooked those horses, but spooked they became. One moment we were sailing like a boat on a calm lake and the next we were rough shot right out of a cannon and hurtling forward at a speed that felt like something Einstein imagined. I was holding the reigns as best I could, as I struggled to stay in the seat. I was sliding back and forth and bouncing up and down so fast I wasn’t sure what was up and what was down. I held those reigns but just, I certainly wasn’t in control of the wagon. The bushes and rock formations seemed to speed by, it was as if we were still and the world was moving way to fast. I guess a jolt of adrenalin will do that to you, change your perspective and maybe switch things around in your head.

I glanced over my shoulder and saw the load on the back of the wagon begin to topple. No wonder, we were plummeting down a narrow lane, bouncing every time we hit a rock or stand of sage brush. With every bounce, the wagon gave a shudder that became a bone rattling jolt, then, sighed like a forty year veteran of door to door sales. At any moment I expected to see nails start rocketing out of the wood rails of the buck board, shooting up like popcorn popping in a pan with no lid. At any moment I expected the wagon to wrench apart, boards screaming, nails popping, splinters flying, just like a big whaler on the open ocean caught in a category 4 hurricane.

As the load teetered on the edge and then fell, I saw my things flying off into the dirt, bouncing, and bouncing again, and rolling away. The dust was so thick and I was going so fast that I could just make out the shapes of my things, just for a moment, as they bounced away behind me, left on the trail for some future passer-by to pick up. My half finished children’s book, my illustrations for another book, my paintings of vacation spots I have loved. My yoga workout and my bike rides, my hours of reading mystery novels. My time to write interesting, entertaining, enlightening articles for the loyal readers of my blog. All, all, bouncing behind me down the lane.

Honestly my dear readers, I’m sure things are going to calm down here soon, I will get used to the new job, it will get easier and less time consuming as I go along, and soon, very soon, I’m sure I will have my life reigned back in to a meandering pace and I will re-claim my time to write.

The Monks Are Coming!

2008-09-09T14:08:00.010-10:00

I'm still getting acclimated to my role as professor for a class of 46 university students. The class is going great, I'm still adjusting to the early mornings and to the technology- ie:the software used for all homework and grading. It may take me the rest of the week to get that down, I went to a class today for all us new instructors, and the IT classrooms system was down ( WHAT?!, you gotta be kidding!) so we really could not get into the program to look at it or ask questions. I said heck with that and came home, booted up and got to it. It's a little tricky but I'm getting the hang of it and it's a good thing because there are 46 papers sitting there waiting for me to grade!

Meanwhile, I've done a bunch of meandering but have not captured it on paper as of right now. So I thought you might like to take a look at a few photos from the last "monks tour". The Monks (Gaden Shartse) will be visiting us again this fall and I am just starting to get the tour stop put together. As we go along I will share photos and news with you, meanwhile I hope you enjoy these.

For more information, look to the side bar on the right for a link to the official tour website.

Spinning

2008-09-01T04:43:00.005-10:00

I’ve been percolating for a few days on this idea of change. Why are most humans so uncomfortable with change? One of my friends recently told me she did wash, not because she was out of clean clothes, but because she was out of her favorite clean clothes. See what I mean? We like to get cozy with certain things, places and patterns in our lives and just stay there. Like our favorite clothes, our patterns are our comfort. That is, until our patterns become a rut. That, how ever is a whole ‘nother matter and I’m just contemplating the why of change in the here and now. (Remember, I’m really practicing being rather than doing, and being means just being here and now).

So I watched a good movie a few nights ago, Martian Child. I got it because that handsome guy John Chusak is in it and I figured even if the movie was a bomb the scenery would be great , and the movie was actually good and John was looking great. He’s aging with style and I’m looking forward to the release of the movie he wrote and produced called War Inc., due out in October. Originally scheduled for release last spring, now it won’t be out ‘till after the elections- geeze, wonder why? Dan Ackroyd will be in it as well, it’s a follow up to the movie Grosse Pointe Blank that they did together way back when, so that right there makes it worth seeing.

Any-hoo, in Martian Child John’s character makes a long speech about how weird this whole life is, we are spinning on a planet ( 700 to 1000 miles an hour depending on if you are at the equator or the poles), around a spinning star ( the sun spins at a speed of 4,400 miles an hour) in the spinning arm of galaxy ( our galaxy spins at 140 miles a second) that’s spinning across the universe ( at 190 miles a second), meanwhile every atom in our body is spinning and I said Eureka! That is it!

Maybe we all cling to our favorite clothes because we are so tiny, little, small. We are to small to actually see and feel all this enormous movement that is going on all around us but maybe at some instinctual level we know, we can feel, our DNA twirl, our atoms spinning, our earth revolving around the sun which spins in a solar system, spinning in a galaxy that spins out across the never ending void of the universe.

Just look around you, every moment is change and every season is change. Just sit in the yard and watch the lawn grow, the flowers bloom and die. Or drive around your favorite town. Homes go up, buildings come down, business opens and another closes. Look at your photo album, you once looked like that, every day you changed a little, now you look like this. It can’t be stopped.

You are constantly changing, as your cells die and new ones are replacing them. You think you have the same body your whole life, but really, all your cells are replaced many times over your life so even your same body is an illusion. No wonder we are grasping for a little stability!

We are so little, tiny, small that we can’t feel the earth spinning, but maybe we know. Maybe somehow we do feel all this never ending motion that makes up our very being and our whole incredibly humongous environment. Maybe at some level all that large moving stuff makes us feel like an ant holding onto the branch of a tree in the fall wind. Holding on for dear life as everything swirls on around, holding on just trying to remain with feet planted .

Maybe we are just craving some small spot of stillness. A place of no movement. A place to hold on. Maybe our favorite clothes, the painting that has hung on that wall in that house for 30 years, the favorite recliner tattered and worn, the familiar grocery store with every item exactly where we expect it to be helps us to forget for a moment that we, just like everything else in existence are spinning. Maybe we can’t help this clinging, maybe we think if we let go of our familiar, our routine our same whatever- maybe we think we are going to spin right off into space.

And even though a favorite shirt lasts maybe 8 or 10 years, and that is an amazing infinitesimal amount of time when it comes to the span of time in space, maybe because we are so small, just having that same thing, place, person or routine for ten years makes us confident, gives us stillness and a thread of consistency to hang on to. Maybe it makes us feel like we are moving in the stillness rather than still in the movingness. Maybe it gives us a feeling of rest.

Maybe we are resistant to change because if we can just hold a few things still in our tiny lives, we can feel like we are bigger than we are. We can feel like we are in control. Then maybe our intuitive understanding of the vastness and the speed of it all won’t be quite so scary.

Where Have I Been?

2008-08-28T09:19:00.003-10:00

Did I tell Ya'll I just got a job teaching a holistic health class at a major University?
Yep, Imagine that.

Any hoo- I let them talk me into it at the last moment and classes started this week. I'm still trying to find my e-mail address and set up my program to communicate with students. Nothing is done on paper these days! I also have a smart room, which is really cool because you know I love that technological stuff.

Today I managed to get into the system with my new ID, got the room powered up and was all ready to show the class how to find Linus Pauling ( 2 time Nobel prize winning chemist who studied vitamin C and concluded it could kill cancer cells- ever hear of him? No, neither has anyone else... ) and the projector would not project! I changed settings and messed with buttons and finally picked up the Bat phone- Yes, IT has an emergency line much like Bat Man had. The bat phones are located in each smart room in case people like me can't get the projector to project.

I dialed the emergency extension which took me right to that super smart girl in IT. I explained that the projector would not project. She said "is the projector button on?"
Well of course, I'm not a total idiot I thought. "Yes".
"Is the source button turned to PC?" She asked "Yes " again.
"Is the cabinet open?"she asked.
"What cabinet?" I replied.
"The one the projector is in at the back of the room."

OK, maybe I am an idiot. Thank God I was early and the whole class did not see that.

Any-hoo, I have a few days off over this long weekend and plan to get something new posted here for you real soon!

Summer

2008-08-17T01:57:00.004-10:00

Gulls swirl high then hang in the air,
suspended for a moment on the air currents.

Wind streaming inland cools,
basking adventurers on beach towels and blankets,
becoming one with the sun and the sand.

Waves crashing at the rocks of a huge inland ocean
lull the lizard-like people out of their daily thoughts and into a rhythmic vacation trance state.
All is forgotten.

That Stephen King Feeling

2008-08-13T02:02:00.005-10:00

I've adopted bike riding as my sport for this summer. I found a nice old fashioned, nothing fancy bike with shiny chrome fenders and I started peddling. I think I might be naturally nosy, because I am enjoying riding around the town I live in, snooping into other peoples lives. I mean, driving in a car you really don't notice a lot of what is happening in your neighborhood, but on a bike, well that is a whole 'nother story.

I live in a town that has a lot of homes, in fact, most of them, built in the 1800's, including my own, built in 1895. All the main neighborhoods are that old, occasionally I go off into a side road neighborhood and they may be late blooming developments from the 40' and 50's, nothing more recent. Among the older homes are scattered homes from the 20's, a large sprinkling of craftsman style cottages and other past years infill building.

I frequently also ride through the main cemetery. Many of the headstones are worn smooth they are so old, and I have found birth dates back to the early 1700's. Anyway, I lose track of time and distance when I'm riding around engrossed in the neighborhoods.

Oh, number 26 has a big cat on the porch! That old junker in the backyard of 365 is gone..., I see "miss circa 1808" is getting a new coat of paint, I can't believe how much junk is in the back yard of that blue house. I wonder why it looks like no one lives in that place, and why hasn't the car at # 1902 moved in two weeks? I start to make up stories to go with the houses. Old Aunt Mildred lives here and does not want to open her curtains ever because she is afraid of the aliens living next door. Sometimes I just get a feeling from the house, I mean, you can kind of tell if a home is happy or not just by looking at it, right?

Example- Picture the home in Leave It To Beaver, or My Three Sons- got it? OK, now picture the home in Alfred Hitchcock's ground breaking classic movie Psycho. See what I mean? Ya kinda get a feel for what's going on inside. Any hoo, I don't have a run away imagination or anything like that, but I have to tell you, almost all the homes in my town look like the one in Psycho, only nicer. Some of them even have paint to rival San Francisco's famous painted ladies, but still, they are those kind of psycho style houses.

So maybe that explains what happened the other day, maybe at the heart of the matter is my life long fear of that movie Psycho, honestly, I still can't take a shower with out getting nervous.

But, as I was saying I was riding around town, being nosy and looking at all the houses and gardens and all and I had the feeling that something was watching me back. I was in the neighborhood with the three huge homes built by the first doctor who lived in town. He built a huge home on the top of the only hill in town, then, he built two homes for his two daughters, one on each side of his own. Guess he wanted them to settle nearby.

I got the feeling that those eyebrow trimmed windows were raised at me, and those houses were whispering back and forth about me. I wondered at the fact that most of the homes in this town are older than anyone who lives here. Really, it's their town. We humans are just passing through. We are temporary maintenance persons for the lumbering hulk of these Victorian and Gothic revival beauties; we are not that important except in our role to make sure they survive another generation. Then I got that creepy Stephen King kind of feeling. What if they were watching? What if they didn't like me snooping around all the time? What if...

Adventures in Ghostwriting

2008-08-10T09:12:00.003-10:00

Well, here I am again at the weekend and wondering where that whole week went. Actually, I'm wondering where that whole month of July went, last thing I remember I was laying in the sun and saying thanks for the long fourth of July weekend. Maybe it has something to do with my new job.

I'm a ghost writer now. It's kind of like being a ghost rider but instead of the cool bike I have a ergonomically correct desk chair. Still, I'm using my extraordinary talents to fight the menace of blank internet websites, and so far, I'm kicking butt with over 90% of my articles accepted for publishing.

Yes, it looks like I did not do a whole lotta writing in the past month, but the truth is I wrote one hundred and seven articles in the month of July. My one hundred and seven articles were posted on various web sites and under various names. Some of them were bought with a contract that said someone else was going to claim they wrote it and I could not ever tell anyone otherwise. Notice how, right now, I'm not naming any names? That's because I respect and honor my contracts.

Some of my articles were posted under nome de plumes. This is cool, because remember back in April? I wrote that whole article on getting a fine nome de plume? (April 16th, a Wednesday) Well, now I have a few of them. I'm Gretta Buttinski, Juan A. Bee, Leslie from Camden, and Drinkin A. Cuppajoe, among others. I've been so many different people in the last month I'm starting to feel like I have multiple personalities.

I've written dozens of 125 word blog posts, 250 word product reviews, 300 word articles, 400 word articles and the dreaded 700 word articles in which I must use the key word "guano" at least 3 times but not more than 5 times and the key phrase "guano maneuvers" at least 4 times and not more than 7 times and I must provide an attention grabbing headline of not more than 65 characters which uses the key term once and ends in the word "sparkling". I must have no more and no less than 6 paragraphs and each paragraph must have at least 40 words. Oh, and please be positive, no references to drugs or alcohol and for heavens sake, don't try to be funny, if we wanted humor we would ask for a funny 700 word article about guano maneuvers.

In the time it took to write the 700 word directions, they could have written the article themselves and saved a few bucks! But hey, then I wouldn't be working as a ghost writer.

I've written reviews on washers, dryers and lawnmowers. I've reviewed dance classes, moving companies, drum lessons, craft classes and emergency room visits. I've given advice to guys wanting to get their old girlfriends back, girls wanting to know how to deal with a cheating spouse, people wanting to get a cheap flight to South Africa, people wanting to know how to pick a hair style that fits their face, and parents wanting to know how to take a family of 6 to Six Flags with out breaking the bank.

I've given instructions for taming fly-away hair, making gift boxes, decorating the front stoop, giving a tea party and keeping the babysitter, once you find one that is really good. I have advised the love lorn and encouraged the backsliding bible thumper. One of my favorite how-to articles was about how to be safe on the open ocean in a 40 foot sailboat, and what to do if you get close to a storm you can't outrun. ( Secure everything, put on your pfd's -personal flotation devices, set off the homing beacon, close the hatches and call the Coast Guard, Dummies!).

So, as you can see, my many life experiences are coming in pretty handy now that I am a ghost writer.

Hey, and the pay isn't bad, considering I am working in my pj's only three feet from the coffee pot and three feet from the refrigerator and I don't have to listen to some idiot called a supervisor and I don't have to commute. I can work when I want and choose my jobs from a daily list of literally thousands of jobs. I can work for a couple hours, go for a bike ride, then work for another couple hours- no one cares! The only down side I can see is that my bloggers butt is sore and my mousers shoulder is acting up, otherwise it's not a bad gig. If my coffee pot and refrigerator were located on a beach in the south pacific, I would say it's perfect!

So, listen, I'm definitly thinking about you, my readers and I am working to submit at least two fresh posts to my blog each week, so check back later, I will have something new for you.

Happy Birthday To You!

2008-08-06T03:20:00.002-10:00

Today is my sister Jane's birthday. I'm not going to embarrass her by posting some funny photo or telling you how old she is. That's my gift to her this year, nice aren't I?

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Jane, Happy Birthday to you!

Public Service Announcement

2008-08-06T02:49:00.003-10:00

I heard about a program recently that helps reduce the cost of groceries. I actually read about this program in a major women's magazine, in an article about a family trying to get out of debt. I thought, hey, almost anyone would like to reduce their grocery bill, and especially now, with the economy so shaky.

So I looked up angel food ministries on line and found that it is much like the Share program that is run by Catholic charities, only angel food is Baptist sponsored. These programs are basically food buying co-ops. Anyone can join, regardless of income. In fact, they encourage people to join even if they are not having trouble making the grocery bill, because the more buyers they have, the more affordable it becomes for those who need it the most.

The program runs like this- you sign up for a package of food ahead of time, and pay ahead of time, once a month. When the pick up day arrives, you go to the central location with a few boxes or bags and get the food. You save a lot! There is a menu for the month that you can look at to decide if you want to purchase that month or not. The menu will have a variety of meat, vegetables and what ever else they have, this month "angel food" had dessert items and eggs as well as enough food to feed a family of four for at least half a month, all for 30.00

If you are a meat eater, this is such a good deal I don't see how you could not join in and shop through a co-op. I think it's a nice thing to do as well, because your buying power helps lower the cost for people who really can't afford groceries. It's a win/win! You get to help out the less fortunate and save some money yourself!

To find locations in your area search at
www.angelfoodministries.com
and
www.sharewi.org
which has a search other states function.

Please pass this information on to everyone you know, they might not need it, but I bet they know someone who does. You can pass it on easily by clicking on the envelope at the end of the post and entering an address.

Thanks, Meandering

PS I'm actually making money as a ghost writer now! Imagine that.

Creativity Calls

2008-07-30T07:33:00.001-10:00

What is it about being human that makes us want to create beautiful things?
Is it something to do with being human? Does the birds nest, beautiful in construction and lined with soft things to protect, count as a work of art even though it is a necessary part of the bird’s life? Is the bird also an artist?

Do we create just to express ourselves? Do we create to please our own eyes? Or is creation more of an expression of something larger? Is the creation of art an attempt by humans to mimic the gods, who created that amazing work of art known as humans?

I’m meandering on about all this because I was just wondering…why do we create?

You see, my sister spends a good part of her weekend in the garage studio where she makes stained glass. She has yet to find a market for her beautiful art (Don’t give up! Keep looking! You are a great artist!), but she creates anyway. Another friend spends hours beading jewelry that never has sold. She gives her art away as gifts. I know another person, a very talented musician who creates beautiful music, just for fun. I know people who paint landscapes, knit, sew quilts, build birdhouses, draw animals, sing in choir, make clothes, turn wood into bowls and on and on. I know lots of people who can’t help creating!

I’m spending a lot of time working on illustrations for a kids book I wrote that will probably never see the light of day. That just got me wondering- Why do we do it?

I met an artist recently who has spent 30something years creating a collection of photographs depicting life in the ever changing city he resides in. On a TV interview he gave for a local program he said he” had never sold a piece of his art”. I almost thought he was bragging, then I thought- it’s just to darn bad.

I mean, with all this creation flowing out of us, shouldn’t we be able to make a living with art?

If there is anyone reading this that thinks making money for art is demeaning or somehow corrupts the art, well we just have to agree to disagree. I can’t think of anything that makes more sense than for people to be able to make a living doing the thing that just naturally flows from them. What could be better than to make your living making beautiful things that enhance the beauty and energy of the world? Humanity has created a world where we must strive to make money so that we can purchase the things we need, no changing that I guess. So why don’t we create a world were the things we need are the things of beauty that, as humans, we can’t seem to stop creating?

I don’t know, I’m just meandering. Hey, I have an idea, why don’t you post a comment telling everyone what you love to create and why you think you are compelled to do it?
If you make money with your art, tell us that too. Maybe together we can figure this out!

Challenged to Do Nothing

2008-07-27T11:46:00.003-10:00

Ok, it's the end of the weekend and I have to share with you what I spent the weekend doing. Nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, but no work. Now, If you have been reading like a regular you know I spent July 4th weekend sitting and trying to reclaiming my own rhythm. This weekend I tried another experiment. What if I did just nothing all weekend? How would it feel? Could I do it? Would the world end if I didn't get anything done? Would my job suffer if I didn't do any work?

This experiment turned out to be much more difficult than I thought it would be. For those of you who know me, you know I have been self employed for what, almost 20 years? Yes, just about that and during that time I have spent at least a few hours almost every weekend doing something work related. I know, it's really sick, but I'm just trying to get over this illness now. It's hard for me not to think about the files that should be notated, the deposits to make out, the advertising to renew, the up coming challenges of business in today's economy. It's difficult for me to set it all aside and just have a weekend. But hey, I'm determined and you know, when I get something in my head I'm going for it.

Any-hoo, I didn't do diddley squat this weekend. I "frittered" away my time, but I had to really concentrate to accomplish that. I had to be ever vigilant because my natural instinct is to do. I'm just learning to be.

I sat in the sun and listened to Eric Clapton, increasing my tan lines. I went to a classic boat show with a friend and her two adorable boys. I sat reading a novel. I played with the computer, searching things like crop circles and stone rings in Miami and ancient maps that show the new world, made before the new world was discovered. I got on youtube and watched Chris Griscom and Marianne Williamson.

I played with the cats. I experimented with some line drawings for a kids book I'm working on. I rode my bike, a new distance record for me, really it's not that far, just a few miles but farther than I had been riding! I polished my toe nails and went to margaritaville. I sat and watched the cats sleep. I sat and watched the clouds roll by. I sat and watched the breeze flutter the leaves of my grape vines. I sat.

I didn't do a darn thing that was work related all weekend. Hurray! I did it! It was a challenge, my mind kept going to what "needed to be done" and I kept saying "not right now, I'm doing nothing". I had to keep reminding myself that I was suppose to be a slacker all weekend. That it was OK to be lazy, after all, it was the weekend. In our culture, the weekend is time off, right?

I hope you had a weekend full of a whole lotta nothing. The world will not stop spinning if I take time to just relax and make some time for me. Thank Heavens! Same for you.

Just Say No to Prescription Drugs

2008-07-22T00:42:00.003-10:00

Last night I spent some time looking at a popular women's magazine. I like to take a look through one now and then, examining the ads to see what people are falling for, um, I mean consuming. It keeps me up to date on what my clients may be eating, drinking, buying and following as part of current popular culture.I also peruse a few other magazines on a regular basis, for the same reason. I want to know what my clients are thinking about.

This magazine had a full page ad on the dangers of teen agers taking prescription drugs for the purpose of getting high. The ad states that 19% of teens have abused prescription drugs to get high. Under the statistic screaming headline it says: Talk to your kids about how dangerous it can be.

The magazine is full of colorful two page layout highly attractive ads for prescription drugs. It has ads for all kinds of ailments and the drugs that are going to save you from these ailments. It has all kinds of photos of people looking all happy because their doctor prescribed some pills for them. This magazine touts the advantages of popping pills. Many of the ads use scare tactics. If you don't take this, you might die from this! In fact, you might be dieing right now! Go ask you doctor for this drug!

33% of those ads are for prescription drugs specifically for kids.

How crazy is that? Am I the only one confused by this? Does this magazine have a split personality? Is the average consumer that stupid? How do we expect kids to stay off drugs if we start giving them daily medications when they are just little kids?

Why are drug companies allowed to advertise like that? How much would consumers save on prescription drugs if the drug companies did not spend billions on advertising and you heard about drugs that you really did need only by speaking with your doctor?

Crispy, Golden, Waffle, Waffle.

2008-07-19T10:03:00.001-10:00

I picked up this magazine called Tricycle. It bills itself as an independent voice of Buddhism, and contains articles from many different Buddhist views. Yes, they got all kinda’ different Buddhists out there, Japanese, Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, Korean, and western, and a few more I’m sure I’ve forgotten to mention or am unaware of, they all got a similar but different take on Buddhism. Then, within each of these different cultural ideas of Buddhism, there are different lineages and teachers and sects and whatnot. It’s a mess really, but what philosophy isn’t?

Yes, I did say philosophy. Buddhism, I’m told, is not a religion, it’s a philosophy. Interesting, I think, considering the expert I heard saying that was the Dalai Lama who is the spiritual leader of one lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, and in his linage there are many, many gods and goddesses and all kinda’ religious looking ceremonies and rituals.

I think the philosophy is interesting and in a nut shell I think it says this- slow down and pay attention to what the heck you are doing. Don’t hurt others. Respect all life, even a lowly bug. If you have an opportunity to be of service to others, do so. Don’t spend too much time wallowing in past memories or creating future fantasies because when you do, you are missing what is happening right now, and now is really all there is.

I can appreciate all that, so I occasionally pick up some Buddhist philosophy to read.

All that fine bit of meandering takes us right back to Tricycle, the magazine. Which illustrates that life is a circle. Which brings to mind Rob Schneider’s performance as the Asian Minister in the movie “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” Did you see it? He was too funny! Everything is a circle you know…

In Tricycle I was reading this guys account of meal time at the monastery he stays at for retreats. They don’t talk during meals. They are supposed to be contemplating the food. They are supposed to become aware of eating. They are to notice the taste and texture of the food, and to appreciate where it comes from. I guess the idea is if you are talking or reading or watching TV while you eat, you are not going to be as aware of what you are doing. Ultimately, they meditate on where the food comes from and give thanks to the whole process.

I thought that sounded pretty righteous so I tried it. I had a nice big waffle on a plate and it was covered with butter and real maple syrup and as I dug in I started thinking about the origin of this waffle.

I pictured the ground and the seed, the sun and the rain, the clouds and the wind. I pictured the nutrients in the soil and the growth of the plant which became the grain that was harvested. I pictured the harvest, the people working in the field and the people driving the trucks, the people milling the grain and bagging the flour, the people working at the plant where the flour was packaged with other ingredients to be organic waffle mix.

I pictured the people loading the packages onto trucks and shipping it to another place where it was repackaged and shipped again and the people who received it in the warehouse and moved it to pallets to be loaded onto trucks to go to stores. I pictured the people who drove the trucks and the people who unloaded the trucks and the receiving clerk in the store warehouse and the people in the store who placed the bag on the shelf.

Then I saw myself picking up the bag and going through check out and loading the car and unloading the car and mixing up the waffle mix with an egg and oil and oh yes, the egg and the oil came from someplace as well and I had to go back and imagine all that too.

By the time I was done with breakfast I was exhausted! I felt like I had traveled a million miles! How do these people in retreat do this visualization at every meal? Isn’t it kind of like watching a TV program while you eat? You are the director and the star and you give out the Oscar to the food for nourishing your body and give thanks to everyone in the cast and crew and all your family and support systems and all that. It’s like one long Academy Awards thank you speech!

I thought the idea here was to still our minds and be totally aware of where we really are right now, and what we are doing right now. Instead, my mind was off gallivanting across time and space tracking the waffle’s epic journey from grain seed to my mouth!

I decided in the future to just pay attention to the yummy waffle on my plate, and how it tastes. My mantra will be something like this: waffle, waffle I love waffles, crispy, golden, waffle, waffle.

I Have a Confession to Make...

2008-07-15T03:10:00.006-10:00

I always thought Jimmie was a better guitar player than Stevie.

Stevie had something special though, that really attracted people to him, maybe it was that hang dog look he had, or his crinkled nose, maybe it was his showmanship. And yes, of course it was his playing, and yes he was fantastic. I adored him. From the first time I saw him play at 25 cent tequila night at that place out near the lake, (what the heck was the name of that place?) to his regular Tuesday night at Steamboat on 6th street, I was in the crowd almost every week. I met him a few times and he was a little shy I thought, but always nice.

Honestly though,I always thought Jimmie was a better player, and I still do.

Here's a photo of Jimmie and Lou Ann Barton from 1984- All photos, by the way are from the book "Picture The Blues", a collection of photographs taken at Antone's, in Austin Texas. This one, it seems was taken by Susan Antone.

I saw Jimmie and Lou Ann Sunday night and I have to tell you, they looked great and sounded even better. Some things just age well, and they have.

And honestly, I think Jimmie is still the best guitar player on the planet.

Now here is a photo I've always thought was one of the best I've ever seen of those Vaughan brothers

Now in Texas they say Bob Wills is still the king, but I bet these boys would be known as the princes.

Go Green Fashionably

2008-07-13T10:52:00.004-10:00

OK, I've got the answer girls, to how you can "go green" and still look good. I mean, have you gotten on the bring-your-own-bag band wagon yet? I'm just laughing because I think I was bringing my own bag back in what- the 1970's? Remember when you bought health food in a church basement from a born again co-op because that is the only place you could get it? Remember when you had to make your own yogurt because stores didn't sell it? Remember when you had to grow your own sprouts because stores didn't sell them?

Way back then folks, you didn't just bring the bag to carry your purchases out of the store, no, you had to bring bags to put you bulk items in, because nothing was packaged! Now days we have packaged, pressed, remilled, frozen microwaveable health food! Isn't it amazing! Remember when- oh, never mind, you get my drift.

Any hoo- now days it's become fashionable to be green and of course corporations immediately thought of a way to make money off the whole trend. Why not sell re-usable grocery bags with our nifty logo on them? Yes, let's make people pay to advertise for us. Let's make people pay so that we can save money on the cost of bags. Let's make people pay to be green! So every store you can imagine, from Walgreen Drugs to Pier One Imports- one of the least green stores on the planet and one that nobody buys groceries in- has a re-usable grocery bag with their logo on it.

Now I don't know about you, but I'm not walking around with a bag that advertises for a drug store. A health food store, yes, if the bag is nice looking but a drug store? Wal-mart? Pier One Imports? NO. Definitely not. Am I going to carry a bag from a big grocery chain that does not have a good selection of organic and whole foods? NO. Am I going to carry a bag from a health food store that is a supplement pill pusher and way over charges for the food they do carry? NO.

And, last but not least, am I going to carry a re-usable shopping bag that clashes with my outfit? NO.

So, what's a girl to do? Well girls, let me tell you, you all know I'm a purse hound. Well, if you didn't know before, you do now. I can do without the 300 pairs of shoes, but I have shelf after shelf of vintage purses. I am constantly scanning the thrift and consignment stores for nice vintage purses. Recently I came upon a winning idea- a really large beach bag style purse from the mid-eighties. It's black leather with a nice dark brown linen lining and has bronze metallic tassels. It's as large as a big shopping bag!

So you see where I'm going with this right? That bag takes the place of two of those unsightly Wal-mart bags and looks great with any outfit. So next chance you get, hop on down to the thrift store and I'm wishing you lots of luck finding a perfect humongous vintage purse so you can grocery shop, be green, and look great at the same time!

Kathi sent me this a while back, isn't it great?

2008-07-13T10:37:00.003-10:00

If you don't know, it's Stevie Ray Vaughan, circa 1985 and is that Albert Collins? yes, I think it is.
I happened to have this photo out because I was at a blues festival last night and met a Stevie Ray fan. Any Fan of Stevie's is a friend of mine and I thought I would scan this photo in and send it to my new friend. Then I thought, why not share it with everyone?

Last night I saw the Fabulous Thunderbirds, who, I hate to say, are just not fabulous anymore. They were good, but not Fabulous. Sorry Kim. I'm still Fabulous and danced all night, just like I did when I used to go see the really Fab T-birds way back when in Austin. Tonight Jimmie Vaughan and Lou Ann Barton are headlining, I'll let ya know how it goes. Party On.

Prolific Writer Stalls

2008-07-13T10:24:00.002-10:00

You may have noticed that in the past month I have posted less than usual. You may be thinking I'm running out of fresh ideas. My bubble of creativity has burst. I'm a 7 month old washed up has-been.

You would be absolutely wrong!

The fact is, I now have a part-time job writing. Yes, I'm getting paid to write, and the time I spend on that job is taking away some of the time I had previously spent writing for this blog. I am what you would call a free lance writer, ghost writing for other people's blogs and web sites. Now, the pay isn't much but the job certainly is giving me some practice in writing about subjects that I know nothing about. Just like a real writer! It's also challenging me to write faster, and stay with in the guidelines for the articles I'm submitting.

So, let this be a warning to you all-so called "expert advice" on the net is not necessarily written by experts- it could be written by someone like me! Testimonials could be faked, written by people who never in their life went to that school, but happen to have extraordinary imaginations. Reviews of products and services could be written by someone who never has taken a salsa lesson but can pick up a phone and ask how much it would cost to do so, all the while sitting in front of a computer in jammies and slippers.

Exactly what I'm talkin' 'bout

2008-07-08T03:32:00.002-10:00

I found this little nugget in the Time magazine, the article was about positive changes we make while trying to conserve fuel.

Four day work weeks- apparently Brevard community college in Florida went to a 4 day week last summer session and saved $268,000 in energy costs. The unexpected benefits were the ones I'm interested in- sick leave fell 50% and turnover among the 1,500 staff members dropped 44%.

The conclusion: People are happier and healthier when they have more time off. Didn't I just say that in my last post?

Since we shun vacation time in this country, maybe we should all get on a plan to save energy by making 4 day work weeks mandatory. Make a 4 day school week mandatory as well. Give everyone a 3 day weekend every week. I bet we would see a lot more far reaching positive changes if we did that.

How could it possibly hurt? I mean, we are all working our butts off now and look at the state of the economy. I don't think we could do much damage by working smarter rather than harder and saving a whole lotta energy while we did. Imagine the savings of every company in the US saving $268,000 in energy every quarter!

By the way, the article says some of the other benefits are: bike sales are up and that is good news for our fat butts, and some manufacturing that was over seas is shifting home and that's good for our skinny wallets. Less driving means less wear and tear on the roads, fewer traffic deaths and less pollution. More cop shops are putting officers on the feet beat rather than letting them cruise around from donut shop to donut shop in big old hopped up cop cars, that's good for neighborhoods.

Being vs. Doing

2008-07-07T02:53:00.003-10:00

Hope ya'll had a nice long weekend, July 4th and all. Isn't it nice that we get a few of those long weekends during the year? I mean, nice of the government to give us an OK to take a day off, since we, as a country work longer hours and take less time of than almost any one else. Did you know that some countries actually require employers to give five weeks of vacation time a year? Makes the long weekend seem a little puny doesn't it? Then of course there is the thing about us being lucky to get a week or two off and the fact that many of us have jobs that do not provide any time off for vacations.

But hey, I was glad for a few days off, I've been way to rushed lately and I decided to slow things down a bit. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, or if it's because we are quickly approaching 2012, the year the Mayan calendar says the big bang is going to happen again, and we will be right in the middle of it. They described a period of time leading up to 2012 as a time of great activity, a quickening of time. Hum, I do think quantum physics describes a phenomenon where time is indeed speeding up. What ever the cause, I just think I'm moving to fast. Trying to get to much done in too little time. So I took a breather.

For the entire weekend I held a moratorium on multi-tasking. I did just one thing at a time. That right there will slow you down. I did not write, work or watch Movies. I did read, but I had to, I'm addicted to books. I tried to focus on what I was doing, and just what I was doing, thinking of nothing else as I did some yard work and rode my bike. I was really getting mellow, that slow going one-thing-at-a-time pace. I took it a step farther and laid in the sun for a hour. Yes. Just laid there. I did not do anything but lay there listening to a CD. OK, I admit, I did roll over now and then and I did go get a glass of ice tea, but otherwise. Nada. Nothing.

I just wanted to spend some time being, rather than doing. I sat on the porch and watched the cats watch the birds. I made some meals and actually sat down to eat. I wandered up the river to the boat docks and watched the boats go by. I went to bed late and slept late. I was asking my self, if I lived by my own internal rhythm, what would it be?

We start off as babies, in that rhythm. Then someone decides we should be on a schedule and before you know it there is bottle time and nap time and we graduate to play date time and t-ball time and then it's time to get up and get on the bus for 13 years and don't forget time to do homework and time to go to ball practice and time for band. Then it's time to graduate and time to go to work and you are on your bosses time schedule for the next 30 years, or time to go to college for another 4,6 or 8 years of it's time to get up and go to class and time to take a test and time to study.

When the heck are we supposed to have time just to be us? When do we get to just be, rather than do, do, do? I think it's getting worse, because I talk with a lot of people in a lot of different jobs and life situations and none of them seem to have time to do anything. They are just to busy to squeeze in a sneeze. They are so busy rushing from one task to the next, they can't turn around. I have to ask myself, is some of this busy-ness manufactured just to keep them from slowing down enough to realize they never really get a vacation?

So I challenged myself to spend the long weekend being rather than doing. I just be-d.
I took my time and tried to be mindful of each thing that I did, paying attention to what I was (not what I was doing, but what I was) at that moment. I got relaxed. I slowed down. I saw the breeze rustling the tree leaves about and noticed the sunlight glinting off the rocks in the driveway. I watched the butterfly bouncing from flower to flower. I was finding my rhythm. My rhythm was a lot slower than the rate I normally travel. My rhythm is more like coconut fronds blowing in a slow south pacific breeze, more like the rate of erosion of the Grand Canyon. I really could be happy living life at a much slower pace. Maybe we all could.

I decided that I would benefit from a few changes in my busy life. I decided to continue with a partial moratorium on multi-tasking. I will only multi-task when it's necessary for work, rather than doing it all the time. I have the time to do most tasks individually, independently and with my full attention. I decided I will schedule some time each day just to sit for 30 minutes, being, not doing, because it really is OK to spend a few minutes a day just being. Just being and being aware that you are just being. I do have the time for this. I decided I will reserve my weekends as often as possible, just to be. I do not have to schedule things when I'm not involved with work tasks. I do not have to fill my free time with things to do. I can leave it empty and just see what my being becomes.

My challenge for you, if you wish to accept, is to spend just two days being and find your own rhythm. Just sit and watch your mind run in circles until it's exhausted and sits down. Sleep as long as you like and lay in bed stretching before you get up. Linger over your breakfast, with a nothing-to-do attitude. Just take your own sweet time about everything you do all weekend. Then ask yourself, what is my rhythm? What is my own time?

Marshall Tucker, Pooped Shrimp, and a Lot of Fine Wine.

2008-06-29T08:17:00.003-10:00

I recently attended our local food festival. There is no doubt this town loves to eat, we have very high obesity rates here. People try to blame it on the winter weather but I know that’s just a load of crap. Come on people, just say no to eating like hogs and leave the weather out of it. These festivals are springing up all over the country, apparently we are not really obese enough as a nation, we have to add some more food. The object of the festival is to stand out in the sun, drink beer and wine, rub elbows with lots of strangers and eat, eat, eat.

I’ve been to such events in the past, and I hadn’t planned on attending this year, until I saw the entertainment line up- 37 vineyards represented in the wine tent and The Marshall Tucker Band headlining the stage events.

I called a friend and suggested we slide on down to catch Marshall Tucker, and try our luck at finding a local wine we had not already discovered. She agreed that after thirty years it might be interesting to see what Marshall Tucker was up to these days, and she enthusiastically agreed that the local vineyards could benefit from our expert opinions on their products.

We got there, found parking (Thank You God!) and found the event three times larger than it had been the last year. Besides twice as many food booths, a whole new section had been added. Vendors. Tents of hats and clothes and sunglasses and jewelry. Apparently when you are over eating and guzzling beer in the hot sun, you want to look good. It was a food festival for heaven’s sake, do we always have to be multi tasking? Do we have to shop too? Can’t we just eat?

We made our way to the wine tent and dug in because of course, we have our priorities straight. The lines were long, but a little polite elbowing and pushing and we managed to circle a few times drinking 237 thimble size samples of wine. We were soon one sheet short of three sheets to the wind. We tried white wines and red wines, sweet wines and dry wines, and even wines made of strange things like honey and raspberries. We finally made a landing at one winery that had some really fine semi-sweet whites and a few sweet grapy reds. We shelled out the big bucks for a couple of glasses of our favorites and wandered over to the food alley.

The food alley was packed. I mean sardine like packed. I was shocked, it was already after eight and nobody in this town eats after six, so I figured we were a shoe in for a short wait in any line we liked. But no-the whole town was on a carbohydrate bender. I searched high and low for any food that I could get in the next five minutes, (the wine made me hungry!) and finally settled on Polish food, which I guess, has a terrible reputation, because there was no line! It suited me just fine, I love good kraut and they had some tasty potato and egg pierogies that were not only vegetarian, but one of the few foods in sight that was not deep fried or barbecued black.

Meanwhile my friend, determined to get something called popped shrimp, (or was it pooped shrimp?) was being crushed in the swell of humanity floundering around in front of the shrimp booth. Apparently those shrimp are a popular item because there was a near riot when one of the booth’s employees hung a sign saying “sorry, no more popped (or was it pooped?) shrimp”. The Outrage! My poor friend and her 534 good friends in line had to settle for something a little more tame, just plain shrimp.

While my friend was still in line, still waiting for a few crumbs of what ever they had left, I began to take a closer survey of our surroundings. The wine tent stood where it had for the last few years, the food alley looked the same, only longer. I realized the main stage was not in sight. What the heck! Then I noticed the normal every- year-in- the- same- place line of porta potties was missing as well. Something was just not right here. This called for some investigation. I looked at the guy standing to my right in the crowd, shrimp in one hand, beer in the other, quickly alternating left, right, left, right, left right to his mouth. Sauce dribbled down his chin. I asked what the hell they did with the stage. He nodded up the street and continued his wolfing and guzzling.

My friend finally made her way back through the crowd. She looked like she had been front and center stage at a Van Halen concert. Believe me, I know, I’ve been there. Her hair was a mess, her clothing rumpled, her sunglasses crooked, her face flushed from the lack of oxygen. She was hunched over her little boat of shrimp, just trying to get someplace with enough elbow room to get shrimp from boat to mouth. Luckily she had left her wine glass with me when she entered the fray, I stood on the sidelines and managed not to spill a drop in spite of the pushing and shoving going on around me.

While she consumed her catch, I watched the crowd. I immediately noticed the lack of lipstick. At first I thought it was a fluke, maybe everyone had eaten so much their lips were faded. Then I looked closer, no, no that wasn’t it. Some of these ladies had no lipstick on, but many of them had lipstick the color of their lips. I was standing there wondering if I stood out like a lighthouse on a foggy coast, me with my bright red lipstick. Even the hookers were not wearing colorful lipstick. They were, however, wearing some really bright shoes, short skirts and miniaturized shirts. I came to the conclusion that this lack of lip color must be some odd cultural phenomena that I was uniquely unaware of.

Fed and watered, my friend informed me it was time to take our rightful place at the stage so we wandered through the crowd in the general direction of the afore nodded to new stage location. I informed my friend that the porta potties were missing. This brought an unexpected yelp of dismay and a string of cussing. Apparently she was in need. We agreed they had to be there somewhere, and began to diligently search in every nook and cranny of the crowded street. We tried the side streets, we tried behind the trucks, we tried behind the stage- oh! We found the stage! We wandered to and fro in vain and finally agreed, the porta potties were missing. Now normally, this would not have been a dire emergency, however, after consuming about a gallon of wine each, nature was calling.

We figured an emergency like this required expert help so we finally found a group of police officers standing around, hand on belts, scanning the crowd looking for purse snatchers, staggering drunks and all sorts of seedy characters. I approached and got their attention by yelling “I need help” in a high, off key, whiny, legs crossed voice. They snapped to attention, hands grabbing nightsticks and guns and handcuffs. “The porta potties, I yelled, someone has stolen the porta potties!”

Honestly, I was relieved by their bewildered looks. I knew if there had been a porta potty heist, they would have been informed already. They looked at each other, bewilderment turning to grins. I was visibly shaken and they seemed to find that funny, as they all, in perfect synchronization, pointed down the one street, off to the side, we had not checked. Right there, not a block where we all stood, was a row of porta potties so long it seemed to disappear into the night.

For the first time that evening, lady luck was with us. There were no lines. We finished our business and headed back to the stage area, threading ourselves through the crowd as far as we could go. It appeared that the food booths must have closed because every one of the estimated thirty thousand in the crowd was now right in front of the stage. Mt friend, who is on the short side, had a brilliant idea and suggested we go stand behind the lighting platform. There was a wide swath of open pavement there because the platform stood at about the height of the normal adult human.

Which I am. Which she is not. She was just the right height to stand tall and look under the platform which gave her a full, un-obscured view of the stage. About that time the band came on and I thought, what the heck, if I remember correctly, I’m gonna be dancing anyway. And dance I did. Those Marshall Tucker boys, even at their advanced ages, still had what it takes to get the crowd moving. They played a few old favorites, then they got down to some really fine jammin’.

They were tight, tuned and on the spot fantastic. If you get a chance to go see them this summer, go.

If you are old enough to remember when they were famous you will remember the pied piper flute playing that winds its way through many of their tunes and has the ability to take your mind away. My friend and I both fondly remembered times long ago, LP’s spinning, kicking back, sparking the LC, ( as I’m told is the current vernacular) and wasting away the afternoon listening to those Gainesville guys.

At one point I noticed a woman dancing in the crowd, tie died T-shirt, gray hair, granny glasses and Birkenstocks. She had to be 70. She had that far away look in her eyes of someone who never quit sparking the LC. She probably listened to them before they were famous. I watched a small group of hip-hopping gang bangers come up behind her and start dancing around, making fun of her. But ya know, it wasn’t long before they were caught up by the pied piper and in stead of making fun, they were just dancing away down the same path as that old woman.

The pied piper isn’t picky though; anyone with an open ear can hear the path and follow it off. The kids had to be all of 15 to 17 years old, and I bet they had never even heard of The Marshall Tucker Band before. I bet they didn’t know the band was named after a high school gym teacher the band members all disliked, although they might have appreciated that. I’m pretty sure they would have appreciated all the sparkin’ the LC that has occurred everywhere the pied piper has played.

That was my favorite scene from the whole day. I stood and watched as really good music made a bridge between two worlds.

The band quit way too early, on account of the town having a curfew for loud music. I was appalled that the curfew would apply to an event like this. Apparently it’s OK to be a glutton, drink in the streets, and shop ‘till you drop, but none of this dancing and listening to a loud band past 10 pm. We headed off to find our obscure parking spot as the crowd headed back to the food booths for one last piece of this or serving of that. The ice cream, donut, cupcake and pie booths were swamped. No wonder we have such high rates of obesity.

My Meandering Tale of My Love Affair With Pool

2008-06-26T04:16:00.001-10:00

I remember the first time I became aware of the sport of billiards. I was captivated from the start. I was only a child, in grade school. Our math teacher entertained us with a movie about geometry. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck played pool on a big green table. The commentator explained angles and fractions and all kinds of mathematical relationships illustrated by the loveable cartoon character’s billiard shots. There was something special about the way those beautiful colored balls could be sent spinning around from one rail to another and actually land where they were supposed to. It seemed like magic! I never forgot it.

My Love affair with billiards sprouted when I was a teenager. My best friend’s dad had an eight foot table in the play room. He and his sons would piddle around with the game. I suppose it was a male bonding thing. Meanwhile my friend, the only daughter, was excluded because they said, “pool is for men”. Of course this attitude just made us more curious about the game and we took any opportunity to mess around with the “men’s game” when no one was looking. We carefully replaced the sticks, chalk, and balls when we were done so her dad didn’t think we had become too masculine for his tastes.

When I went off to college, half way across the country, my friend went with me, just so she could escape from home. We got an apartment just blocks from the college and I spent all my time there, rather than in the dorm. Being recently freed from the yoke of parental supervision, we did what any other almost legal young’ins would do, and took to hanging out at the local honky-tonk. It was cool, dark, had cold beer, and a few pool tables.

It was there we met a bunch of brothers, recently released from the army and pretty darn good at the game of pool. I learned that the army will teach you how to play pool, because every rec center has tables. I quickly caught on to the basics- how to hold the stick and make a few balls. The bar, and then with the brothers tutorage, the pool halls became my home away from home. They were a haven from the heat of the southwest back when air conditioning was a luxury that none of us could afford.

Over the years we all drifted our separate ways, but my way always seemed to be in the direction of another pool table. When I moved another half way across the country to go to another college, I found pool had become something I could always count on. It filled the space between classes and gave me an opportunity to focus on something besides books. I also found practicing the sport to be relaxing, so it gave me a break from the stress of graduate school. There was a pool hall just moments from campus where I led an alternative life away from my classmates. None of them played and that really didn’t matter, pool, after all, is the perfect solitary sport. Even when you are playing against others, you are really playing yourself. The competition is between your last best game, and your current game.

I graduated and moved again and for a time, gave up playing. Most pool players will tell you there have been spaces in their lives when they didn’t play. Sometimes spaces of years. Life happens, and jobs, kids, family stuff can tend to cut into your time for sports. Some players just get fed up with it and have to take time off. I’ve never met anyone who said they never went back to it. I found myself living in an area where there were no pool halls, and the bars were just crowded, dark and unfriendly. I took a few years off.

My next move, as luck would have it, took me straight into the arms of the most pool friendly community I had ever known. I could not have imagined it when I moved again half way across the country. I found myself a nice little apartment just a block from a library (I always look at proximity to libraries when I rent), and it turned out, just a mile from a pool hall. I got busy building my new life and found again, that pool was my close companion. I had moved to a town where I did not know a soul, I started filling my lonely time with racks of balls. I had a new home away from home, and an old love to focus on in that stressful time of starting my business.

Around that time I met two people who would change my view of pool forever. The first was a handsome pool player with a very serious game. I started hanging out watching my sweetie play and I was amazed at the depth of his game. I hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface of playing pool. I spent hours watching “money games’, and afterwards would ask “How did you do this shot?” or “Why did you make this shot?” or “Why didn’t you make this shot?”- a really important question in the real game of pool.

I also met a woman who was to become a good friend, a professional player and director of one of the leagues in town. It turned out the town was a breeding ground for female professionals and had leagues playing almost every night of the week. She encouraged me to sign up to play in a league and even hooked me up with a team willing to take on a beginner. I’m forever grateful for her kindness, and the kindness of my first team mates who encouraged me and taught me and put up with me when it was apparent I was way “out of my league’.

My first season was a complete disaster. First I showed up for league only to find it was a 9-ball league! I had never played 9-ball, didn’t even know the rules, and was certain that it took a lot more skill than 8-ball. I was so nervous I couldn’t hit a ball, and when I did hit a ball, they never went where I intended. I took a severe beating every time I played and pretty soon I was sure I couldn’t play. I was ecstatic when the season was over because although I was a terrible shot, I definitely am not a quitter and I hung in there for the entire embarrassing 16 weeks. I went home, hid my cue in the back of the closet and vowed not to show my face in a pool hall for at least a few months.

My vow didn’t stick and I was soon up early every morning to take advantage of the opening silence of the average pool hall. By then, another venue had opened just blocks from my apartment and I went every morning to practice. I was soon joined by a group of retired gentlemen who met there for coffee each morning and then wiled away their hours betting small change on a variety of pool games I had never heard of. Again, the kindness of the pool community drew me back in as the “old Guys” gave me tips on my stance, stroke and aiming techniques.

The more I learned, the more I realized I didn’t know anything and that I needed the help of a professional. I decided to get serious and made the call. The call to the guy who was teaching the female professionals in town. I set up a time to go hit some balls with him and talk about what I didn’t know. I think his first reaction to my demonstration of my abilities was “Holy Mother of God, what am I going to do with this one’, only I’m not sure because he was muttering in Spanish which, at the time, was still a foreign language to me.

After thoroughly assessing my lack of ability, he agreed to take me on as a student- with four conditions. I had to pay for a month up front, two lessons a week. I had to show up for the lessons, no misses. I had to be willing to let go of everything I thought I knew about pool, ( hey, I read Carlos Castanda, I was sure I had hit pool consciousness pay dirt here), and last but not least, I had to practice. He assured me he would know if I had not, and I knew he was telling the truth.

Agreements made, he gave me my first practice drill. Hit the ball down the rail, on each side of the table, as many times as it took to make the pocket 100 times. Sounds simple, is incredibly hard for a beginner, and makes a good bar bet, ( “bet ya can’t make this shot 3 times in a row”) because you just can’t do it if you don’t stroke straight. After a few gazillion rail shots, I was feeling like the little kid in that Karate Kid movie. When would I ever see how this seemingly mindless task was going to make me a player?

Again, I had met someone who changed my view of pool forever. I remained steadfast in my practice, up to 30 hours a week at one point, and I fell even more in love with the game. My teacher became my friend, and we remain close to this day. He challenged me to be the very best that I could be. Over the course of six years, he patiently set up thousands of shots for me, and coached me in all things pool, and a few things about life in general as well. He never wavered in his faith that I could be a great player, and his faith helped me achieve more than I thought I could.

My teacher had advised me not to play, just practice for a year. This I did, and at the end of the year one of my coffee club friends set me up with an all female 8-ball bar league team that was looking for another player. I figured I was ready to get back in the game. The team took me in like a long lost sister. I started loosing my competition jitters and started making a lot of friends. I was winning enough to make me feel like I belonged on a league and having a great time to boot.

Over the next few years our team roster changed a bit and we worked our way up the roster to become one of the top teams on the league. Meanwhile our venues seemed to be working their way down the list from friendly bar to hole in the wall in dangerous neighborhood. My last season on the league we played a team housed in a notorious biker bar, and although the team was nice enough, the guys riding bikes through the bar and the questionable activities in the restrooms became too distracting and I bailed out.

By that time, I was already playing on several “big table” leagues as well, in the much safer pool halls.

Now you might find this confusing, since pool halls tend to have a bad connotation, but honestly, in my opinion, most of the trouble in pool halls comes from people who don’t really play pool. The guys out on a Friday to hit a few balls and get stinking drunk are a problem, and they aren’t players. I’ve heard rumors as well, about late night big money games becoming something like an incident from a crime novel but I’ve never seen it myself. Overall, pool halls are safe family fun, and on league night, usually no problem. OK, I did see one good fight one night at league, but that’s one fight out of hundreds of nights of play, and I have to say, the guy deserved it!

At that point I was playing on two all female teams (including the infamous “Ball Busters”) and subbing on another, I was deeply entrenched in the pool hall scene. It was time to start playing tournaments. I started playing mixed tournaments and always ended up going home early. I was learning my game though, how to “not react” to a bad shot, how to remain calm when I was down a few games, how to remain focused between sets, how to be a kind winner and a gracious loser.

I was also making new friends, as some of the tournament players were not on leagues. I met one of my closest friends at a tournament. I showed up early to practice, I’m a slow starter, I need to warm up for a while before I play. In walks a woman I had never seen before, I was the only other woman in the hall so she sauntered over and asked if she could hit a few balls with me. I was impressed with her skills and we had a lot in common, both from the northeast originally, both with fancy degrees, and both with a Wiley dry sense of humor. By the end of the day I had asked her to join one of the all girl teams I was on. We’ve been close ever since.

The first woman’s tournament I played, I actually won. After a grueling 10 hours in the losers’ bracket of a ladies B-player 9-ball tournament, I double dipped the defending champion and walked away with the cash. Well, actually, I didn’t walk away with the cash, I donated it back to the pool organization that sponsored the tournament. I did however walk away with the official bracket sheet with my name in the top dog spot. It was worth every minute of that long day.

I was getting comfortable with competing (vs. playing) pool, and somebody noticed. I got a call from the top ladies team in town, would I like to audition for a spot. Now, usually a team forms based on friendship as much as skill. This team, however, was bound for glory and they knew it. They had a history of graduating professional players. They were looking for skill first, steady nerves second, and hopefully, friendship would follow. I got the spot, and friendship did follow. These ladies were not only some of the best players in town, but some of the nicest as well.

I was in over my head again, and I knew it. Apparently they didn’t though, and I started practicing with one of those girls (who took me under her wing- thank you!), and my game took off again. I was the weakest player on the team, but their strength pulled me forward. They advised but never criticized, they laughed at my mistakes but never unkindly. They, like my teacher, challenged me to be better than I was. Playing with these ladies really helped me to develop the confidence to start playing in the Hunter’s tournaments, part of the pro-qualifying circuit, which they all played, and where I would meet my team mates as competitors over and over.

At the end of that season, I went to Las Vegas for the first time to play in the Billiards Congress of America National 8-ball Championship. I went with one of only five ladies teams in the country powerful enough to be ranked masters. Now, I have to tell you I was still the weakest link, and because the competition was so close, I never did play in that tournament. My team played beautifully, only losing one match, and I was proud to be there with them. I went back the next year, as a sub for another team and I played every match. Both times, I was happy to be there. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be a serious player and be in the middle of a huge tournament like that. It’s heaven.

That season was the end of a long run for the ladies team, they decided (maybe?) to quit while they were ahead and we scattered to other teams. I think that may have been the first year I put together my own team.

Some teams are formed just for power, team captains invite only the strongest players. I wanted a team that was strong, but fun as well. I knew a lot of players by that time, and being pretty easy to talk to, I had a good idea of who was happy with their current team and who might be interested in switching to a new ream for the next season. I started looking for great players who were fun to be around and had winning attitudes. Of course I went to players from past teams first, and hooked up with a few great players who would remain with the team through all its incarnations.

Over the years I made a few mistakes, but when I did I made sure to change the roster before the next season. I actively recruited players during the summer break. Twice I got to the start of the season with out enough players and ended up inviting a player I hardly knew to join us, that was always risky, sometimes it worked great and that guy became one of our best and most reliable players. Sometimes it didn’t work and the person dropped out or was not asked to play again.

Occasionally I tried to steal players from other teams. I’m so darn cute and persuasive, it usually worked. I got some of our best players that way, including one really fine player who put up with me begging him every time I saw him for several months before he finally agreed to play with us. He got to the point were every time I walked up to him he rolled his eyes and tried to walk away, but I persisted and finally found a few things we had in common to build a friendship on- science, music, humor-and eventually won him over.

I think I spent five years as team captain. As a team we grew into a winning one, taking first place in our league the last two years we played together. As friends, we grew as well and I came to love everyone on that team. As team mates you support, encourage and depend on each other. We shared our lives tales, our happiness and our woes at least once a week for years. I rarely saw my teammates out side of the pool hall, none of them had ever been to my home, but I could not have been closer to them. They were my family and I think most people who play on leagues would say the same thing, their team is like family.

I’m coming to the end of this great meandering tale now, I made another cross country move and for the second time I ended up in a place with just a few pool halls, none of them friendly to ladies. I’ve decided to take a little time off, learn to write, paint a few landscapes, stuff like that. My pool cue case sits in the corner in the living room, I see it every day. I know playing pool is like riding a bike, once you know how, you never forget. I know my love affair with pool is not over, I’m just on hiatus. Some things in your life are sure. The sun is going to rise, taxes will be due, death is going to knock at your door, and for me, pool is always going to be there, to keep me company, to amuse me, to challenge me, and to lead me to great friends.

My Best Guess as to the Essence of Pool

2008-06-22T09:35:00.003-10:00

Adoring public waits patiently- that should be the headline for this post. I know you have waited almost a week to see the details of my sordid life among the hustlers and sharks of the pool hall world. I’m going to make this a two part post, the first part about the essence of the game, is here. The second part, a closer look at my personal journey with the game will post in the near future.

I’m sure you have anticipated a story full of the slow drift of smoke from a cigarette laid on the edge of a pool table, the sound of a rack of pool balls breaking, crisply snapped, the slow nodding of players down the hall who also heard the snap of the rack breaking, even though they were not listening. They couldn’t help it, it’s instinctual at this point, they hear it and nod because they know it was a good break just from the sound.

You are expecting the background hum of some old juke box that plays incessantly even though no one is really listening, the smell of fried food and beer and cigars. The distant crackle of conversation and the sound of cars racing or commentary on sports from the big TV’s above the bar, an occasional burst of laughter at some joke shared by the old timers and career drinkers gathered there.

You are probably anticipating the story of games gone bad, of fights, gambling and guns. You may wonder what the heck this lady was doing, drifting through days with out the sun, nights with out moon, the glare of fluorescents above the pool tables lighting her way.

I must have walked through those doors hundreds of thousands of times. Doesn’t matter which hall, the doors are all the same, a small tunnel taking you from sunlight to darkness, keeping the cool in and the hot out, closing off the world. I guess I always entered head bowed, because I remember the carpets, the tile, the floor, the look and smell of the entry way of the halls. Leaving the outside world behind, zeroing in on the objective for the day, be it practice, play, or competition. Maybe it’s just a game, but I don’t know too many people that play it just for fun.

That may be one of the things you are not anticipating, the many distinctions in pool. You may be picturing Paul Newman as the young hustler, Jackie Gleason the seasoned player, head on like rams locked in battle. Possibly you have been in a pool hall, maybe a Saturday night when the crowd is there, full of young guys playing hustler and young girls watching from high stool perches, their long legs and high heels holding on for dear life.

There is a good possibility you have never seen anyone practice, never seen a real match played. As usual, life is not like the movies.

I did see a match one time that reminded me of the movies, a seasoned older player and a young cocky player locked in some kind of combatant dance. I didn’t think it was just about pool. The young man was losing, but not by much so he kept betting, waiting for his comeback that never came. He bet away his rent, his food, his gas, he had nothing but anger and resentment by the time his opponent figured he had done enough damage and called it quits. Both of them were the kind of players you think my stories will be full of, one who loves to see others squirm, the other one, can’t help it, self esteem so bad they want to squirm.

You also may expect the hapless character, running into bad luck, like the guy I know who won big at a match in Vegas and was greeted in the parking lot when he left by a man with a gun, expecting the winnings to be returned.

You might expect stories of bad guys and I could give you that too, only the worst guys I met were not in the pool halls, but in the bars I played in while I was on the bar table leagues. Not the players mind you, the guys in the bar. Like the notorious biker gang members who decided to have a big meeting in their hang out which was one bar in our league.

It happened to be the night we played. We were an all girl team. The set up wasn’t nice.
The pack of big guys in matching leather vests obviously worked up about something. The constant stream of skinny, hollowed eyed girls back and forth to the rest room to “powder” their noses. These were distracting, but not as much as the interruption that came when one of the bad guys, I’m guessing pretty liquored up, drove his bike through the bar and a small skirmish erupted. The headline in the paper the next day- Early Morning Raid-Gang Members Arrested After Body Found Behind Bar.

Maybe you think that is too dark, to unsettling and would rather hear about the colorful cast of characters that inhabit any pool hall.

The hustlers groping for a money game, the disabled guys who can’t work because of their backs, who by some miracle, can lean over a pool table all day, The groups of retired guys visiting, joking and shedding the day by playing a game of golf on the pool table. The road players, stumbling in and innocently missing balls as they watch the play around them, and the young guys with cheap cues playing alone, vows to be a player whispered, grips to tight, and strokes that wobble.

You might even hear of the lone female player, off in a corner paying no attention to all of these characters, just setting up shots and hitting them over and over and over. You might hear of the old timers telling tales of past conquests, like my dear friend Louie who, years ago, beat Minnesota Fats so bad he felt obligated to send him back to his hotel in a limo. Apparently Minnesota Fats was the gentleman he was rumored to be, posing graciously with my friend after the match so a photo could be taken of Louie and the great man he beat.

Maybe you have watched pool on TV and expect stories of incredible shots and winning games. I have those too, like the time my friend and I were annoyed by some drunks playing at the table next to us. My friend chose a moment when they were gathered around their pitcher of beer and expertly launched a “bad” shot across the table which resulted in the cue ball flying off the table right into the pitcher of beer, soaking all the drunks. My friends shot was so “bad”, even the drunks could not imagine he had done it intentionally.

Or the last time I practiced 9-ball and ran a rack without really knowing it, honestly, I was in the zone just focused on each shot, not thinking about the rest of the game. Several bystanders came up to comment on my perfect game, and I’m sure they were confused when I said “I ran the table? That is great, really, I wasn’t paying attention”.

I’m sure you will like this tale, the one about the macho guy on the opposing team making snide remarks about having to play a “bunch of girls”, his nasty attitude directed at his first opponent. He complained about the non-regulation house cue ball making it clear that if he lost, it was because of that cue ball. The little blond lady, his opponent, smiling sweetly as she pulled a regulation cue ball out of her case. ( his fist missed clue) Smiling sweetly as she put her custom cue sticks together. ( his second missed clue) Smiling sweetly and assuring him that what ever made him happy and allowed him to play his best was OK with her.

The rest of us “bunch of girls” gathered together snickering, (his third missed clue) as he got ready to break the rack and play one of the states top female players, who, apparently he did not recognize. He broke, made one ball and missed. She ran the table to win, he sat watching with mouth hanging open. I think she may have made some comment to him about him being right, “that cue ball sure did work good”. He drank and drank through the match as he was beat five times by five girls. No doubt he used his drinking as an excuse for losing when the topic came up in the future. That ladies team played national competition at the masters level at the end of that season.

Maybe you would like the story of the 9-ball player who, after two quick lessons in straight pool strategy and breaking, played a total of 20 straight pool games in her life, sixteen of them to take second place in a straight pool league that had never before had a female player, and probably never will again.

Yes, it’s true there are lots of wild stories to be had, lots of stereotypes to find comfort in. I think those movie images of the pool hall have forgotten to convey a bigger story of pool. Maybe those Hollywood types don’t know the story of the similarities with life that the game of pool brings to mind.

In pool, having a vision of where you are going is everything. You map the game out from the beginning, and have a plan B and maybe even a plan C in case of unexpected challenges. Players are constantly competing, not just with their opponent, but with them selves. They develop the mind set that makes them strive to be better everyday, every time they play.

No body likes to be a loser, but in pool, you learn to take the loss and find something in it that you can use to be better next time. You learn to win and to lose gracefully. Sometimes, you play safe, a strategy that allows your opponent to make the next move, while you wait for a better opportunity. How many times in life have you wished you had done nothing just then? Pool teaches you patience, perseverance, and dedication, because you really can’t be very good at it without those attributes.

Pool can be seen as a microcosm, imitating life. You have your good and bad days, you meet people you love and others you could do without, you have distractions and disasters along side smooth waters and great joy. You are constantly learning, going from infancy to maturity in the game. You are constantly confronted with opportunities to find out who you really are, and to demonstrate who you really are.

That may not be the stuff great movies are made of, but it is the stuff great lives are made of. Some of the nicest, most successful people I’ve ever met, I met there, in the pool halls, among the hustlers, sharks, and characters; among the trick shots, great runs, and legendary games; among the losers and winners of the great game of pool.

Epic Journey Saga Takes Years To Write.

2008-06-15T12:22:00.003-10:00

Another week goes by and I find myself again all wrapped up in what I thought would be a simple post. I was inspired this week by a flitter of e-mails back and forth between myself and one of my dear friends. My friend became my friend while we were playing pool in leagues. Some of my very best friends are people I met in the pool halls where I spent a good deal of a certain ten years of my life.

My friend and I were communicating back and forth about the challenges of family, and the balance necessary for a life well lived. My friend had some really wise words for me and it got me thinking about the relationships I built across many a nine foot table. I decided it was time to tell the story of my adventures in 9-ball and pool halls, and the story of these people I hold so close to my heart.

I began writing and found myself re-living a long journey. A journey that is so much a part of who I am, that it has to be told as a long story of meandering through lessons that apply not only to pool, but to life. Ive been working on it for hours now, and I can see it's going to take a while longer. Meanwhile, I'm getting bloggers butt and typers elbow, so I don't think I will finish today.

I hope your week gets off to a great start, and if you check back later in the week I think you will find an epic journey story that is worth the time it takes to read.

Thanks for reading and hey, enjoy today!

My Own Good Advice For Writers Part 5

2008-06-11T07:26:00.001-10:00

My last post has now been edited, and corrections made. The aftermath of the big yard sale was a whirl wind of catching up on my usual weekend chores, getting ready for the week ahead, and trying to find just a smidgen of down time in which to lie on the couch like a beached whale and maybe read a book or watch a good movie. Sunday went by so fast I hardly knew it had arrived.

Through out that whole day I percolated on my after-the-yard-sale article. I danced to and fro with it, waltzing with words, kicking up my heels with concepts and generally flouncing around with various funny thoughts about the whole affair.

I just couldn’t seem to nail it down, and I really didn’t feel like writing it just yet. Now, I’ve been one of those artistically inclined individuals my whole life, and as a teenager I tested the waters of “artistic temper -mentality” – there were times I just was not in the mood to get the creative juices to gush. It gave me an aura of artistic regality, but it just didn’t lend its self to being a really great artist. There were too many reasons to say I’m not in the mood. I finally gave it up, and for years now I’ve been a “just do it” kinda gal.

If it’s on the schedule, I finish the project. So by Monday I was gnawing at the bit to get my percolating into a post and publish it for my loyal readers. I’m really working on my ability to write on demand and produce enough really good articles to fill a spot in a weekly publication, you know, so when the New York Times comes a calling I can say yes to a hefty contract for a weekly column. Then I can take my lap top, fly to Tahiti and work.

Any Hoo- I glued my butt to the chair Monday morning with a time frame of about a hour. My day job was waiting and I just knew if I didn’t get that post posted, I would be thinking about it the whole afternoon. I “Just did it”, and finished up 15 minutes before I was due at my day job. I really didn’t have much time to do any editing. I did run the spell check. Feeling like a pro- I sauntered off to work, knowing my mind was free from worry. I made my self imposed deadline; I was on my way to being a productive member of the authors’ society.

Not long after, the article and its contents started scratching at my mind. OH! I realized I had forgotten to say something important. Then my mind started scratching faster, like a dog with fleas. Should have added this to that paragraph? Did I intersperse past tense with present tense? (a common mistake for me) Did I tell the entire tale in first person or did my voice waver from paragraph to paragraph, first person to observer? Did I miss a comma? Did the spell check say yes to putt when I meant put? Did I mistakenly conjugate my adjectives?

Pretty soon my mind had scratched itself into a frenzy and I was dancing around with my article while I was trying to do my day job. This is very distracting. I kept praying to the Patron Saint of Writers that no one from The New Yorker was checking out my sub-par post. I was wishing my regular readers would be so busy at work they did not even three minutes of their boss’s time to check out my latest post. I couldn’t wait to get back to the computer and fix my common mistakes, left hanging for the entire world to see because I wanted to fulfill my obligation as a serious series writer and post on a regular basis!

So my own good advice for writers is this- Always polish before you publish. Otherwise you might end up like yours truly, with a mind scratching and dancing and percolating all over the place, while your half baked post is fluttering in the breeze for all to see like a pair of underwear on a clothes line.

My Big Fat Yard Sale

2008-06-09T11:25:00.003-10:00

Well it was a fine weekend for my largest in the universe yard sale. I’m really trying to simplify my life, and that was the first step. See my post dated Friday May 2nd 2008 for details on how I decided what to part with.

Now some people think a yard sale is a way to make easy money, but I have to say it was a lot of work.

First I had the weeks of looking at every one of the 18,000 items that I own, and trying to decipher what was what, where it came from and pondering what the heck I was doing with it. Honestly, I think some alien force was making items manifest out of dust bunnies and planting them in my home.

Then there were the days of categorizing items and placing them in boxes- the vintage clothes I no longer wear box, the long ignored Christmas decorations box, the odd remnants of some long forgotten lifestyle box, the overdue to be retired books box, the interesting but never used kitchen gadget box, the forgotten media box, and on and on.

Then I went through the whole -how do you price these things?- dilemma, with great advice from my sister, whose mother-in-law is a yard sale professional – mark everything with a price that is more than you want- then make a deal with shoppers. If you have something you want a good price for, mark the tag with the name Betty, and when people ask to pay less for the item, just tell them “ Oh, I can’t change the price, that belongs to Betty, she’s not here right now”.

The night before the big event, signs were made complete with big smiley faces and slogans such as- “find what you want! Right here, right now!” And “No Junk! Just great Stuff!” And “Slow down you maniac! The speed limit is 35mph and you are about to whiz past the world’s greatest yard sale with out taking the time to rubber neck!”

The most agonizing work was preformed the morning of the event- that would be the work it takes to get butt out of bed at the crack of dawn. Yes, there is no such thing as sleeping in when you are having a yard sale. Urban myths have long flourished which lead people to believe the early bird gets the worm. Early bird yard sale shoppers are legendary in themselves. Who among us has not heard the story about early bird shoppers showing up at 5 am and expecting to look through your yard sale items while they are still sitting in your living room?

I set the alarm for 6 am, and was enveloped in setting up shelves and carrying things out by 6:30. By the way, the shelves and tables needed for a large yard sale are a bit of work in themselves. If I had enough shelf space to put everything in its place, I might not be having a yard sale to begin with! I had to improvise with milk crates and lumber and what not.

Now I was getting down with the really heavy work, lugging boxes from the attic upstairs, to the yard down stairs. I had packed light, but honestly, how light can a 36 volume set of books be? How light can a box of LP’s be? (If you don’t know what I’m referring to, better find out, my inside sources tell me they are on the way back in. Imagine a hard, thin, black, burnt pancake emitting squealing sounds as it goes round and round on a carousel). How light can a built-to-last dresser be? And hey, even if the boxes are light, 3476 trips up and down the stairs is a lot of work!

I was exhausted before the sale even began!

By 7:30 the signs were up, the yard was full of artfully displayed intriguing items, I had a cup of coffee in my hand and was sitting in a lawn chair just waiting for the action to begin. Now, I have to tell you, I live on a very busy street. Night, day, summer, winter, mid-week, weekend, doesn’t matter, it’s almost always busy. It had been busy since 6 AM, and I was pleasantly surprised that no early birds had stopped and tried to run off with the proverbial worm before I was set up. Now I was willing the masses to come.

It didn’t take long for the crowds to arrive. I think some of them, being polite and not wanting to disturb, had parked up the street and been watching with binoculars. As soon as they saw my ass hit the chair, they descended like a cloud of locusts. There was pushing and shoving and elbows flying. Offers were shouted and the bargaining began.

Customer-“What will you take for this pristine art deco wine cooler?”
Me-“Does it have a tag on it?”
Customer-“Yes”
Me smirking -“ I will take thirty dollars over the marked price.”
Confused customer- “What? I will pay the marked price, not a penny more!”
Me smirking more- “All righty then.”

Customer- “Nice purse.”
Me- “Thank you, it’s a 1940’s wool covered box purse with lapis inlay on the clasp.”
Customer- “and this one?”
Me- “ Mid 1950’s alligator skin Kelly purse made in Florida and complete with complementary rain bonnet in original gift packaging.”
Customer- “ I will give you a dollar for both of them”.
Me grabbing said purses from said customers hands- “ Honey, the dollar store is across town. Just take a left out of my driveway and cross the bridge, you can’t miss it.”

Now don't get the wrong idea, I'm not a yard sale elitist. There were shelves full of 50 cent items. I had a slew of 1 dollar items. I had hundreds of items in the 3 to 5 dollar range. I know people stop at yard sales to find a deal, and by golly, I want them to find a deal and go home happy! I did have a few choice vintage items nestled among the junk-em, I mean- less costly items, and I was not going to take a dollar for two vintage purses! Folks, offer me a dollar for a 3 dollar item, I might say yes. Offer me a dollar for two 20 dollar items and I'm definitely saying no.

That’s pretty much how it went for the first 4 hours. About the time I needed a potty break so bad I was contemplating the lilac bushes along the side of the house, where I figured I could pee and watch the hordes at the same time, a friend of mine showed up and offered to set her butt in a lawn chair and give me a break.

Thank Heavens! I’m telling you folks, this yard sale stuff is serious business. You can not just up and walk away from your goods, any more than a major player in the arms race can walk away from a United Nations Inquiry. There is no time for breaks. You have to be on your game the whole time or some nice little granny is libel to take off with your antique candle sticks and leave a one dollar bill in their place.

Now I have to tell you the other urban legend about yard sales. “All the good stuff is gone early”. Hogwash! Misinformation if I ever heard it! It’s just not so! I had so much stuff out in my yard that if a constant procession of lose-fisted obsessive shoppers came by for three days in a row, I would still have plenty of good stuff for them to choose from!

Alas, as we all know, urban legends are bigger than life, and harder to kill than a cockroach. Just ask anyone in New York City about "the alligator in the sewer that comes up through your toilet and drags you into the plumbing" story, they will swear it is so, they know someone, who knows someone , who knew someone, who is now missing.

By one o'clock in the afternoon the flood had dried up and the yard sale became a dry cracked lake bed. I sat for another hour, reading a book and watching the traffic go by. I tried re-arranging items to make the display look bigger. I tried moving choice items closer to the road. I tried projecting an urgent need to stop into the minds of each driver coming along. I tried disguising my self as a yard sale shopper and pantomimed my joy at an amazing find, thinking this might overcome the urban myth.

But alas, it was not to be. They yard sale had come to a screeching halt. It was time for the next phase of real work to begin- the pack up. I had already scripted my early withdrawal contingency plan. If I had anything left over that was not vintage, it was going into the trunk of the car and straight to the local thrift store. I stuck to my plan like a duck on a June bug. I didn’t even look as I boxed everything up and set it in the car. By this time it was about 110 out and I was sweating a river. I decided it was a good thing the sale had ended, I was beat.

Like I said, this easy money is a lot of work, and I was not the only one working that day. I pulled up to the thrift store drop off door and there was a line of post-lawn-sale people de-cluttering their lives. The chatter among them was something about how many people stopped, what part of town the sale was in, and the odd balls who were looking for specific items like an easy bake oven light bulb, size 23 purple crushed velvet dress pants, a turquoise toaster oven and old fishing hooks.

While I waited in line I managed to sell a few items to people who, unlike myself, were not able to un-clutter with out instantly cluttering right back up. I then dumped the goods and made my way home. I counted the money, smiled and thought of all the open space in my house. I swear, it felt expansive and I felt lighter. I was on my way to a clutter free life.

PS Today I found this interesting related article in Time magazine. Some guy named Dave is challenging people to de-clutter until they have just 100 personal items. Seems this movement is catching on, I’m not the only one looking to simplify my life and become a more conscious consumer. You can check out his website at www.guynameddave.com

Sudden Spike in Popularity Mystifies Writer

2008-06-08T04:53:00.005-10:00

Thank You all you new fans who stopped by to read my post and check out my profile in the last week.

It is so much fun to check the counter and see that it's really starting to count! It's exciting to know that my writing is attracting people. Maybe when I grow up I really will be a writer. Yeah, yeah, I'm a writer now, but I mean one who makes I living writing, or at least a secondary, "multiple streams of income" kinda income from writing.

I mean, here it is 5 months after my first post, and in the last week I've had more new readers than in the previous 4 months and 29 days. I've been averaging 20 new readers a month, I've had five times that in the last week!

For those of you who have not blogged- when you read my posts you don't register on the counter, because you are assumed to be a previous reader. When you read my profile you are counted, assuming you are a new reader, smitten with my writing and checking out this fabulous author's profile.

All I can figure is it has to do with the last post and SATC fever. I wrote something that someone enjoyed reading and wanted to share with friends. They may have clicked on the little envelope and sent it to all their SATC fan friends. They must have been so charmed that they had to look and see who wrote this witty and articulate accounting of the SATC movie. They viewed my profile.

So, Thank You.

I'm working on the next post, I have a few ideas swirling around up in the ol' noggin', I hope by the end of today they will solidify into something worth posting for my growing and greatly appreciated audience!

I admit it- I got Carried away over the weekend.

2008-06-05T03:27:00.000-10:00

Yes, I made my small contribution to the 55.6 million opening weekend of Sex And The City. Sorry Indy, but you had a good week or two as top dog, now move it on over for the girls in Jimmy Choos.

Honestly, I couldn’t help myself any more than the salmons of Capistrano can help flocking together and heading south. (While we are talking movies, tell me which one I just referenced and I will put your name up in lights!) Now maybe I should explain, because if you happen to be a regular reader, by now you know that I don’t watch TV. Movies, yes. TV, no. Except when someone recommends a good series and I can find it on DVD’s. Which is exactly how I got the SATC fever.

A trusted friend told me I would find it funny, so I sought it out at the library. I didn’t start with season one, I couldn’t find it. I started, I think with season two. It was colorful, somewhat entertaining, and then I saw the scene where Miranda takes a seat at a bar next to a nice looking guy and they strike up a conversation. They have mutual interests, he has manners, he is single, they have a few laughs.

Miranda is just thinking that this guy is pretty nice and maybe there is a chance they could get to know each other better, maybe all the good guys are not gay or married, and he excuses himself to go to the loo. He stands up and he is the height of the bar stool. No I kid you not, the guy was about 4 foot 6. I laughed so hard I thought my brains were going to fall out. I was hooked. Obviously this was a show that any girl could relate to, and have a good time doing it. I watched every episode of every season.

Now, if you have plans to go see this little gem, and I hope you do, don’t read any farther! I’m not kidding. Just stop right now and get your butt back to work. Don’t continue! I’m about to spill the beans about Big, the girls, the guys, the shoes, the purses and the whole rest of this fashion laced fairy tale.

I don’t go to the movies much, so maybe my impression of it is a little askew, but I don’t remember the last time the theatre was so full. Just about every seat was taken. That makes the movie more fun in my opinion. With a full theatre you can feel the movie in magnified terms.

For example, when Steve admitted his infidelity to Miranda, there was a collective gasp the size of a mushroom cloud. You could feel it! I didn’t have to see everyone else to know that their mouths were hanging open too. This, to me, was the biggest shocker of the movie. I mean, my God, everybody likes Steve, we all trusted him, he had wormed his way into our hearts with his patience, understanding and stupid jokes. He was the least likely to break his vows! How could he!

I was not at all surprised when Big left Carrie standing at the alter with just her bridesmaids and designer gown, It did not surprise me to learn Charlotte was “preggies” even though we all knew a long time ago she couldn’t conceive and she and that cue ball headed Jewish hot house she’s married to already had adopted. I was not surprised when Sam called it quits with her arm candy- although I was a bit shocked that she would end up a dog owner. But my God, Steve’s confession came out of left field and the whole audience was shocked.

(by the way, what is with these tiny dogs? Is everyone in NYC enthralled with dogs the size of armadillos? Couldn’t Charlotte trade those three tiny fur balls in for one long legged champion and have a better daily run and less combing to boot? I mean, now that they have two kids, won’t she be to busy to groom three dust mops?)

Carries little Eiffel tower purse was the best supporting fashion and probably should have been the star. The wedding gown was given the spotlight but I really was not that impressed with it. Sam’s “going to Mexico with the girls” outfit was more noteworthy. As for the purse Carrie gave her assistant? I loved it. I usually prefer more geometric and simplistic purse designs, but hey, it was beautiful, wasn’t it?

And the blue shoes, who were cast as Cinderella’s slippers? Yes, I loved them, just my color, however I don’t think I would ever cram my big feet into something like that. Did you see the heals on those babies? Yikes!

Speaking of Cinderella, yes, we all know Sex and The City is a fairy tale, with a little day time soap thrown in. The glamour, the guys, the money, the fashion, the happy endings. Fairy tales are supposed to help us figure ourselves out. They teach us something about our psyche. They bring the big issues into focus.

Yes, we know it’s a fairy tale, a wonderful one. And, just like a fairy tale should, watching the movie caused a big truth lurking under my unconscious mind to surface. Something I would not have accessed with out help from this fairly tale movie. I finally realized the truth. Sometimes it’s hard to face the truth, and even harder to admit it to someone else. Right now I’m going to reveal the truth to you, and in doing so, I hope to unleash the healing.

The truth is: I don’t care what they say about Carrie’s fashion sense, to me, it’s immature. Yes, I said it. Carrie’s outfits are not good fashion, they are an attempt to look fashionable and they fall short. The one with the real fashion sense is Miranda.

OK, it’s out in the open now. I feel better. Now, maybe you could use a dose of unconscious stirring and revealing yourself, if so, hop on down to the matinee and see the movie. Even if you were not a regular fan, you are going to enjoy the images. I guarantee you will see something revealing.

Tickle Tickle

2008-06-01T05:05:00.001-10:00

I lay my head back against the lava rock and stared up at the sky. The humidity in the air dulled the blue a bit, but it still was the color you would expect from a tropical sky, blue enough to swim in. A few small clouds floated by and I followed their movement as they brushed up against the tops of rugged mountains flanked by a heavy cloak of their own clouds, much denser and almost a silver gray. The Mountains bore the dense tropical foliage you would expect in a remote corner of paradise.

Between myself and the mountains lay acres of uninhabited rough land covered with lava slides. One would think nothing grew on this lunar inspired landscape, but upon closer examination it is revealed that something is growing. Apparently the lava is fertile soil for a plant with roots like talons that can dig into the hard lava ground and become footing for a single stalk which proudly carries one perfect orchid bloom. The entire landscape is dotted with these tough little orchids, like a bag of cotton balls spilled out over a black counter top.

Closer to my resting place, palm trees grew in profusion. The soil here was not the solid lava rock, but, because the location was just a coconuts throw from the magnificently powerful waves of hundreds of miles of open ocean, the ground was covered with a fine black sand, pulverized lava rock, which apparently is the perfect growing medium for coconut palms. The trees were grouped along the coast in twos and threes, like sentries on watch for invaders off the water. As I lay there I tried to imagine how long it took for the waves to turn orchard supporting lava rocks into palm growing sand.

As I contemplated the immeasurable time it would take to turn rocks to sand I became aware of a tickle at my toes. It came and went like the rhythm of the waves I could hear behind me, crashing against the shelf of lava between my resting spot and the ocean. It was a small tickle, first around big toe, then at my ankle. Like a tiny feather brushing by me on the wind.

I lifted my hand from the cool water of my resting place and wiped the sweat from my face. I was up to my neck in a tidal pool, full of the ocean left by the last high tide. My spot was the size of a large claw footed bathtub and sand lined the bottom to create a comfortable cushion between my behind and the lava rocks. The water was warmer than that which pounded against the rock ledge, warmed by the morning sun to the temperature of the air around me. Warm as it was, it still cooled me, washing away the sweat from my hike to the remote beach.

The tickle came again, around my small toe now and along the outer edge of my foot. I opened one eye and cast about in the water, wondering where the feather had come from. To my surprise I caught a glimpse of movement. Darting around my foot, a little yellow streak in the shadows. A wiggle of my toes and the yellow streak darted back and forth. Toes still, like a lily pad on a pond brought the yellow streak back to my foot, tickle tickle.

I looked closer, this time both eyes searching and I found the yellow streak surrounded by black, a tiny arrow streaking around in my tropical tub. I was not the only traveler seeking respite from the high sun in the cool of this tidal pool. A tiny fish, no more than two inches long shared my bath. My movement had brought the tiny fish to a standstill, fins in slow rippling motion, holding my little companion in the shadow of a tiny overhang on the edge of our lava rock tub.

I said a little prayer for the tiny fish, that it be lifted from this tide pool with the first high tide of the night. That it sail on the waves back to the ocean, into the cool deep of its home. I lay my head back on the lava rock and closed my eyes relaxing back into the waves, the salt water, the humid air, the lava. I could hear the palm fronds in the breeze. Stillness came. Tickle tickle.

I Used a Bad Word.

2008-05-29T02:07:00.005-10:00

I think I must be turning into a writer or something. I think this because long after I posted my last post, it kept scratching at my brain. Not the whole thing really, just one word, The last word. It kept popping into my head like a skinny little meerkat popping up out of its hole to check for invaders.

Before to long I realized I had used a bad word. No, not a cuss word, but a bad word. No, not inherently bad, not a word that started fighting in grade school, robbing in high school and killing in college and is now doing a life sentence in San Quentin, no, not a bad seed word. Just a bad choice of the last -stepping- off -into- the- void word. Meaning not the best word to end the post with. The last word echoes in the readers brain, and is the last impression fused to the readers tender mind.

I did not go back immediately and change the word, I was kind of busy and I still hadn't decided what to change the word to. There were so many choices. A bevy of words presented themselves to my brain and said " will I do?". Most were rejected after a quick look, some made it to a first then second audition.

I still hadn't decided what the new star of the last line of my last post would be when I made a huge mistake. I picked up the new Dean Koontz novel. I settled into the couch and started reading and the horror overtook me within moments. Dean is a master of the good word. No, I don't mean the Bible, I mean the bestest word for the moment in any narrative. He is an artist, painting grand swaths of color, texture and feeling into each sentence. His descriptions are indescribable. You don't have to read the whole book to be entertained, although it would be a mistake not to. You really just have to start reading the book and you will find each sentence a joy, a masterpiece, an example of perfect word choice.

I went to bed after Odd Thomas and the girl sprinted themselves out of harms way for the first time. I say the first time because being a Dean Koontz fan I know that this is just the first brush with- well, I can't tell you who, and just the first of many times in the story that our hero, Odd, will sprint out of danger. Now the girl is with , well I can't say who she is with while Odd is, oh I can't tell you that either.

Even as I slept the word came back to taunt me. Bad word, bad word, bad choice of word. I saw 3 story brick letters in my dreams, lined up to spell out the many good words available to fill the ending word spot in my post. I was not disturbed by this dream, just fascinated with all the words I could choose. Upon awaking I went directly to the computer, right to this blog and inserted my new word into the starring role in my last post, the ending word.

Now my mind is resting easier, good word in place. I must be turning into a writer or something.

Cup O’ Joe

2008-05-28T04:41:00.004-10:00

I woke this morning thinking, as most mornings I do, of a cup ‘o Joe.

Wait-Why do they call it a cup of Joe? And who is they?
Well, I found a few theories on the origin of the popular moniker for coffee.

In 1914 the secretary of the US Navy admiral Josephus Joe Daniels abolished the officers wine mess, from that time on the strongest and apparently therefore the drink of choice was coffee. It was dubbed a cup of Joe. By 1931 the slang was popular enough to be included in the reserve officer’s manual.

Some people think that the slang is derived from the fact that coffee was a common man’s drink, and Joe was the name for the common man. I also found this interesting suggestion and wondered if it could be true - The old 16th century Scottish word joe, which translates to joy, is the explanation behind this name for coffee.

And, since we are learning about slang for coffee- here’s another popular one: Java became a popular name for coffee in the 19th century because the island of Java was at that time the major source of the world’s coffee.

Personally, every time I hear coffee termed Joe my mind envisions a tall, cool gumshoe straight from the 40’s. His face reflects his weariness; his posture is slightly slumped as if he is bone tired. His clothes are wrinkled, suit with a skinny tie anchored to the ground by a scuffed pair of shoes caked with dust. Even the black Fedora on his head looks like it could use a rest as he pulls it off and gives it a shake, dust filtering up into the pink cast of early morning light. He sets the hat on the counter. His chiseled face is covered with a days stubble because he’s been hunting clues not sleeping, eating or shaving. Even in his weariness there is a strength that could be trusted. He was definitely a man who could get the job done. He leans over the counter in a dim greasy spoon, motioning with a hand for the waitress to bring him a cup o’ joe as he lights his cigarette with a strike anywhere match.

Now back to the story-
I was waking from the nothingness of my solid sleep. As my eyes opened, there was a vision of my favorite cup filled to the brim with steaming coffee floating in front of my eyes, like the proverbial oasis in the desert, so real I could almost reach out and grab the mug from the sky.

That type of vision can motivate me to hop from under the cozy covers, even on a cold day. I’m picky about my Joe, like most people I have my own personal recipe for making the perfect cup. It involves a French press coffee maker, a coffee grinder, some really dark oily beans and half and half not milk- thank you, but honestly, the beans are definitely the key to a good cup of coffee.

Coffee belongs to the botanical family Rubiaceae, which has some 500 genera and over 6,000 species. Most are tropical trees and shrubs which grow in the lower storey of forests. Other members of the family include the gardenias and plants which yield quinine and other useful substances, but Coffea is by far the most important member of the family economically.

According to legend, human cultivation of coffee began after goats in Ethiopia were seen becoming frisky after eating the leaves and fruits of the coffee tree.

The first written record of coffee, made from roasted coffee beans, comes from Arabian scholars who wrote that it was useful in prolonging their working hours. The Arab innovation of making a brew from roasted beans, spread first among the Egyptians and Turks and later on found its way around the world.

Coffea Arabica is the one I like. It is indigenous to Ethiopia and Yemen. It is believed to be the first species of coffee to be cultivated, being grown in southwest Arabia for well over 1,000 years. Coffea Arabica is considered to produce better coffee than the other major commercially grown coffee species -- Coffea canephora (robusta).

Robusta is a species of coffee which has its origins in western Africa. It once was grown mostly in Africa and Brazil. In recent years Vietnam, has become the world's single largest exporter. Approximately one third of the coffee produced in the world is Robusta.

Robusta is easier to care for than the other major species of coffee, Arabica , and because of this it is cheaper to produce. Since Arabica beans are considered superior, Robusta is usually limited to lower grade coffee blends.

C8H10N4O2. That is the formula for caffeine. I just love chemistry, don’t you?

Caffeine is a bitter white crystalline xanthine alkaloid that acts as a psychoactive stimulant drug and a mild diuretic (speeds up urine production) in humans and other animals. Caffeine was discovered by a German chemist, Friedrich Ferdinand Runge, in 1819. Caffeine is also called guaranine when found in guarana, mateine when found in mate, and theine when found in tea; all of these names are synonyms for the same chemical compound.

Robusta, at 1.7-4.0% caffeine, has about twice as much caffeine as Arabica with 0.8-1.4%.

Does that surprise you? I just said my favorite coffee has less caffeine, and, because I like the really dark roast, it has even less caffeine. Recall that age old adage – the greener the bean the more the caffeine? No? Well that is how it goes and the fact is you can practically roast the caffeine right out of the beans. My French roast has less caffeine than a cup of Folger’s.

You are probably thinking “Good God Almighty! Why would she like coffee with less caffeine?”

Because it’s not about the buzz. It’s about the flavor, the warmth, the smell. It’s about my favorite mug snug in my hands and taking a few minutes to let myself wake up before I fling myself into the day. Honestly folks, why would I need a bunch of caffeine after I just slept all night? Now, ask me about my one cup in the afternoon, and that might be about caffeine, but the morning, the morning is about flavor, savor and time.

The gumshoe surveys his surroundings. Nothing to make him nervous, just a few people waking in the early morning light of the diner. He eyes each one as if to find the meaning of their lives hidden in the wrinkles of their faces. He sees no malice, no suspicion, no flickering glances that might reflect someone looking for him. The waitress returns with his cup o’ joe and he settles his mind into contemplating the events of the last few nights and his expectations for the day. Somewhere in his mind he knew he would find the key to unlocking this puzzle, somewhere in his mind he had yet to access. Now, at this moment, the puzzle pieces still lay jumbled. Mismatched notches, colors colliding, outside edges missing. It didn’t make sense, and that he finds disturbing.

His long arms reach with strangely graceful hands for the creamer in a little pot on a bed of ice in a bowl not two feet away. He pours a small trickle of white, it disappears into the night black of his cup o’ joe, turning it into the dark brown color of sand on some exotic beach half a world away. With a glance around the room again he lifts his spoon and, feeling comfortable with his surroundings, he puts his full attention on the stirring of the coffee, mixing the cream in slowly, contemplatively, round and round. As he does, like a kaleidoscope, the pieces of the puzzle move round and round in his mind.

I found this interesting: The average Arabica plant is a large bush with dark-green oval leaves. It is genetically different from other coffee species, having four sets of chromosomes rather than two. C. arabica is a tetraploid (44 chromosomes) and is self-pollinating.C. canephora ( robusta) is diploid and self-sterile, producing many different forms and varieties in the wild.

It takes seven to nine pounds of cherry to make one pound of roasted coffee. Thus 100 pounds of cherry will yield about 12 pounds of roasted coffee.

The first sip from the heavy white mug warms his body as if a campfire had been lit on the counter in front of him. He savors the warmth, his mind starts to defrost as he awakens the lingering memory of his night spent crouching in the bushes outside the bleak apartment building. The next sip follows, gliding smoothly into his body as his mind recalls every shadow, every sound. The palm fronds crossing the walk, shadows in the moonlight, the hushed roar of the nearby beach, the scent of gardenias and salt. The sound of footsteps echoing to his hiding place, his brief sight of shoes, first the red patent leather high heels of the dame and later, much later the well heeled boots of a heavy man transversing the same route.

He sips again and recalls the urgent knocking on the door of the second floor apartment. His line of sight was obscured, but the timing was right and no other steps had fallen on his ears in the meantime. The boots must have stood for a while, searching? Remembering? His mind replays the muffled thump, the strangled gasp, recalls the sight of the blood.

Many social aspects of coffee can be seen in the modern-day lifestyle. The United States is the largest market for coffee, followed by Germany and Japan. The Nordic countries consume the most coffee per capita, with Finland typically occupying the top spot with a per-capita consumption in excess of 10 kg per year, closely followed by Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

A woman's late-night invitation to a man for a cup of coffee (typically after a date) has become code for an invitation to sex. This convention has become the subject of a great deal of comedy, and the treatments given to it in Seinfeld (in the words of George Costanza: "'Coffee' doesn't mean coffee! 'Coffee' means sex!")

The light in the diner changes as the sun begins to rise. The gumshoe continues to contemplate the meaning of the recalled clues as he savors the warm cup o’ Joe. The taste of the brew seems to strengthen his resolve. The kaleidoscope of fragmented puzzle pieces swirls around and the disjointed parts begin to fall into place. He feels himself snap to attention, like a bird dog pointing, as the final clue fits and the picture is visible. He picks up the cup and swallows the last drops of warm, bitter nectar as his mind swallows the truth.

He reaches with long fingers into his pants pocket and extracts a dollar. Laying it on the counter he picks up his hat and swings himself off the stool. As he turns he again takes in every face around him, still searching for a glint of recognition. None comes. He knows where the trail points; he knows where he has to go. He walks across the diner as if led by an invisible thread, out the heavy door, bells jangling, out to the sidewalk already warm from the morning sun. It was going to be another hot day, sweat breaking under his collar as he turns east with confident steps, heading toward the answer.

It's grown into a Octopus!

2008-05-26T05:14:00.003-10:00

I'm working on the next post, which I thought would be a simple article, relatively easy to spit out. However, it's grown into a octopus, tentacles wrapped around me. I'm splashing and flaying around, trying to calm the beast and slip out of it's suction cup arms, but I just have not yet found firm ground for my feet or the proper leverage to wiggle free of the beast.

It started with a simple idea, then grew into pages of meanderings, researched facts and dubious legends. Like any noteworthy monster, it's bigger than life. I'm struggling to keep my head above water as I whack the beast down to a reasonable article size.

Check back in a few days and ( I hope) you will find me triumphantly standing with the beasts head on a platter.

I Don't Have The Answer.

2008-05-22T15:48:00.004-10:00

Did you ever feel like you were having trouble staying focused? I mean on life?

Being the highly educated type person that I am, I remember being at say, year six, of my continuing education process and walking into class asking where am I? What quarter is this and which class am I in now? What book am I supposed to be reading and when the heck is that lab midterm test?

What? It was yesterday morning? Yesterday? The day I skipped class to have breakfast with my friend Laura because it was her birthday and she had no one to go with because everyone else was in the lab class? Oh God! And I never did get along with the lab instructor, do you think if I cry and make up a story about "female problems" he will fall for it? (he did).

Did you ever feel that way about life? Sometimes I find myself just tooling along doing a comfortable cruising speed, thinking I'm seeing all the signs, following the mapped out route, taking the planned turns, not missing my exits and everything is kosher and wham! Out of no where a cruiser is on my tail with lights flashing. Maybe I wasn't focused enough.

How the heck are we supposed to navigate this life with so much going on? You almost have to ignore a large part of it just to tend to the basics - work, pay the bills, do laundry often enough to have a good supply of clean underwear and all that. Add a few moments of personal time here and there and you are about maxed out. How can we stay focused on the necessities and still have the attention to notice the flowers blooming, the beautiful sunset, the bird nesting in the tree right above our head?

I don't have the answer, it's just a question.

As a writer sometimes I must focus on the tools of my craft, get serious and edit. It's so much easier to let the words spill out than it is to clean up the overflow. Yesterday morning, however, I did just that. I got focused and looked at my last article with an editor's eye. I knew it could be better, flow smoother and sound more balanced. I chipped away a little here, added a little there. I tweaked a bit, exchanging one word for another. It's hardly noticeable when you re-read the finished product, but it does make a big difference.

Now if I could just edit my life, chip away a little of the "not so important" stuff to make room for a little of the "more important" stuff. If I could tweak it a bit, keeping the main structure and meaning, but leave it more balanced and flowing smoother. If I could just focus a little more on the underlying story, the main point, and shed some of the trappings that come from living in a world where we are so influenced by society that is constantly moving faster and wanting more, would I find a richer story of my life?

I don't have the answer, it's just a question.

Stars Dancing on Water

2008-05-18T11:51:00.003-10:00

Today I spent some time cleaning out a closet. I am planning the biggest yard sale in the universe and I figured that closet held about a gazillion things that would make some yard shopper really happy and make me a bunch of loot to boot!

While I was rummaging around in that closet looking for discardable treasure I happened upon a box of papers. There were newspaper clippings of interest-
Berlin Wall Falls! (now that is exciting!)
White Buffalo Born! (Praise the Great Spirit)
Visit The Real Hotel California! (It’s in Todos Santos and Don Henley was part owner).
Retired Nomads Parked in Paradise! (Bisbee Arizona’s own time warp- a campground where you can stay in the retro luxury of a 1950’s travel trailer decorated in vintage fabulous style! How Cute is that?!).

I also found all kinds of cards sent to me from a whole bunch of you, from as far back as 1979, I found photos also, but don’t worry, I won’t post them.

When I dug a little farther I came up with some writing I did many years ago. I found this one piece that I think is rather nice, so I’m going to share it with you. I remember the day well, I took a break from Atlanta,the big city I was going to school in, and drove a few hours north to the mountains to sit by a lake. Being the serious, dedicated student that I was, I also took my books. I sat by the lake, books cracked, sun warm, sky blue above and pine trees on the breeze. I watched the sunshine reflecting off the ripples created by the breeze across the lake. Then I got all creative and wrote this:

The stars fell right out of the sky, and landed in the lake. They are hiding from the sun, but I can see them, like a huge swarm of fire flies dancing. They gather around my toes on the wake of the water. They fall from my fingertips, white light dropping back into the lake. They stick to my hair until I shake my head and they are flung away, now shooting stars. Stars riding, like tiny bright surfers, disappearing into the crest of the wave as it meets shore. They are dancing now, dancing just for me and I watch, mesmerized by their beauty, their light, their easy motion on the water.

My brain starts to melt into deep relaxation and my eye lids become heavy. My body becomes light, and the wind blows through me. I float like a feather on the wind. I float up, into a cloudless sky to a place where everything I dream is real, where my thoughts are heard and my feelings known. My hand touches my heart and it touches me back. The trees sing to me and I know where I come from, where I am and where I belong.

As the day lengthens, the sunlight softens and the stars in the lake flash with a different rhythm. I am awakened from my aware slumber, changed forever.

Your Comments Count!

2008-05-16T02:07:00.003-10:00

I just love getting comments from ya'll, each comment is like a small gift especially for me, that I can share with all my friends. Thank You for taking the time and effort to read and write to me, I know it's a busy life out there.

Special thanks to JC in SC who guessed correctly that the mystery photo was taken at the Grand Canyon. She may have had a slight advantage, as she is my sister and knows how much I love the Grand Canyon! I have no problem with the winner having a slight advantage, after all, she's my sister and I'm queen of the blog!

The Elephant Tamer

2008-05-14T03:13:00.001-10:00

I’m comfortable in the ring, intent on just being there, relaxed. With a thundering run that shakes the ground the lumbering beast appears. The whole floor shakes as the beast comes close, with a leap he lands right next to me in the ring. He circles, circles, circles about. I turn and twist, keeping the beast in front of me. I remember all the times I have seen the elephant tamer gently nudging the great beast into submission.

There is no way to rush a beast of this nature, you must await the beasts’ own time. And time it takes, as the beast circles and sniffs and hops about. He comes close and sniffs at my ear, barely missing landing his great paw on my face. He comes around the other side, leans in and places a slimy tongue across my face and my lips are covered with his saliva. He enjoys this and I twist about, trying to protect life and limb as I wipe his spit away with the back of my hand. The beast sniffs about and circles more, stepping over me as if I’m a crack on the sidewalk.

Whip you ask, why don’t I use a whip? Well, you wouldn’t know that with a beast of this nature, a whip does no good. No, a short stick works best. I can tap at the beast and slowly, gently direct him to the place I want him, a tap on the leg, a tap on his side, a tap on his rear. One tap at a time. I wait until he is close to the position I want him in. It takes some time as he has to plod about, sniffing my hair and clothes. He stretches a few times, great tail in the air, big body arched, long legs splayed in front and behind. At one point he drops like a rock, and rolls onto his back, huge paws flailing about in the air. He rolls, side to side for a few minutes and rights himself. This I know to be a sign that the beast is about to settle down.

I carefully give him a nudge on a back leg, moving him along to a position closer to where I want him. The trainer in me is on full alert as I know, one nudge to soon, to hard or in the wrong place will send the beast into another frenzied dance in circles and we would have to start all over again. I nudge, nudge, nudge the beast slowly in a circle and then a tap behind the leg and he starts to lower him self to the ground. A tap on the other leg brings him a bit closer and a tap on his side and he rolls over, onto his side, his great head just an inch from mine. He is not quite settled in as he must stretch his great paws and grab my hair, tousling it into a rats nest of tangles, this I have learned is a sure sign of affection from the beast.

He seems calm and just wiggles about for a few more minutes, actually wedging himself against my shoulder, his nose just inches from my ear. For a moment there is silence, then a great rumble erupts from the throat of the beast as he starts to serenade me with a purr.

Only an elephant tamer knows. Knows how to settle a great beast, one who can not be intimidated, nor threatened. One who cannot be beat into submission. An elephant tamer works with the natural instinct of the beast, and a lot of patience, as they gently nudge the elephant to do as they wish. The use a stick, and tap a signal on the elephant to indicate what they wish the elephant to do, a tap on the leg they wish the elephant to raise, a tap on the shoulder when they wish the elephant to kneel down, a tap on the side they wish the elephant to turn to. Only the elephant can decide if the wish will come true.

What's in a Profile? #2

2008-05-13T03:08:00.002-10:00

I finally did it folks, I wrote my brief but revealing profile.

I figured if people are reading my posts, they already know quite a bit about me, so I didn't want to go overboard. I still think it's not about me, it's about the stories. I do understand though, I mean, I always read the author profiles on the back flap of the dustcover of every book I read. I never know what interesting fact I may find or what I may have in common with the author. Sometimes there is a clue as to where the story comes from. Sometimes there is a little known very personal fact, like a nickname.

Ghost Readers

2008-05-13T02:40:00.002-10:00

Hello all you wild eyed adoring fans.
Every one of you. Literally.
Really, I'm beginning to think nobody is reading my blog. Or maybe no one has any idea where and what that photo is. Maybe no one has the time for such nonsense in a world that moves at the speed of cell phone and internet transactions.

Maybe I did not offer enough incentive to entice you to guess the location of the object in that photo. I'm gonna leave it for a few more days before I tell you the truth about that photo, which, hint hint, was taken somewhere that everyone in the USofA should have gone at one time or another. So far I have received nada in the way of speculation from my adoring fans. Maybe you will be the first?

Contest

2008-05-10T02:05:00.003-10:00

I have to tell you I just have not had time to clatter away at the keys this week. My sister, bless her little heart, fell off her bike and broke her ankle a week ago and I'm spending as much time as I can keeping her company because she is not feeling to well and can't get around much.

We have started a Uno championship tournament and it's not looking good for yours truly. My sister is the luckiest card player in the known universe. I've takin' to calling her sharkie. I think as soon as her leg is healed and she can walk, I'm packing us both off for a trip to Vegas. I'm sure she would strip every bit of gold off that glittering city of sin. She would need no help from me, I would just go along to help her tote her moneybags through the airport when she returns.

Our games usually start pretty friendly, but end up with me flinging curses around while she does the happy dance again.
You have to admire her style, it's not easy to do the happy dance with a 14 pound cast covering 8 pounds of screws and metal plates hanging around your ankle.

This weekend ( I'm writing this on Wednesday and using the new blogger feature to post into the future, you will see it Saturday! Cool!) we plan on playing another 3227 rounds of Uno, as well as watching a couple of long, dramatic, engaging films. My sister gets sucked right into a good drama, so I figure to take her mind off her wheelchair deformed butt by screening a few of my favorite dramatic movies that she has never viewed. I picked "Out of Africa" and "Legends of the Fall". Both are sweeping sagas with lots of drama, a few tears, some adventure and a couple cute guys. I also picked up "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", in case we need some comic relief after watching Brad Pitt morph into a crazed pirate. (please, Hollywood, we don't ever want to see Brad with a beard again!)

Meanwhile, I wanted to give you something fun to do for a few days 'till I can get back to posting more often. I have this wonderful photo of- I can't tell you where- and I thought wouldn't it be fun to have a contest?

So here is the photo:

Now, who can tell me what and where this is? I will give you a hint- it's not some isolated outpost in the middle of no where.
The first comment posted with the correct answer will get...a....um...lots of praise?
Your name in lights? Officially recognized? A round of applause?

Keep in mind I have to moderate the comments and post them so it might be a few days before you see your name in lights. Thanks for playing! This is gonna be fun! Talk soon, Meandering

Pope Benedict XVI US Tour ‘08

2008-05-04T06:12:00.004-10:00

The t-shirt would be a little lame, right? I mean, the back would say this:

Pope Benedict XVI US Tour ‘08
“Blessing the US!”
Washington, DC
New York, NY

Not much of a tour, only two stops, but I guess that is what made it so special. I was thrilled to have gotten a ticket to a historic religious event like this. And I’m not even Catholic. As I told you in an earlier post, I was riding shotgun for my devout catholic friend who wanted a companion for the long trip. I owed her, and I’ll admit, in this instance I was glad I owed her and happy to pay up.

I could give you a blow by blow of the whole event, the drive to New York, the kindness of the Church group who allowed us to enter their parish lottery for tickets and then took us into their hearts and onto their bus. The drive down the Hudson, with the steely grey skies and a cold wind blowing us along.

My discomfort with seeing New York City again, I know that many people consider it a tourist destination, a thrilling fun place to visit and apparently a lot of people consider it a great place to live and work, but I have to admit I don’t care for NYC. I hadn’t been there in about 15 years and I could have spent the rest of my life with out going again. I don’t know, it’s just to grey, to dirty, to cement and steel, to crowded, to noisy and yes, I know about central park but besides that, I don’t see enough nature to keep a June bug alive. It’s just too manmade for me. I don’t like that caged in feeling I get when there are buildings towering all around me. I want to see the sky above, the horizon in the distance and the earth under my feet, so NYC and me, we just don’t fit.

I could go on and on about the amazing choreography of the support staff who parked 800 buses and got 57,000 people through security in the blink of an eye. I was having trouble telling the FBI guys in their conservative suits from the Catholic guys dressed for Mass with the Pope. The NYC cops were short. Yes, I said short. I’ve never seen so many short cops in my life. Maybe it’s a process of evolution; these homeboys growing up in crowded city conditions are naturally starting to grow smaller.

They were all very nice, just small. I was especially happy with the one who promised not to remove us from the event if we crashed the men’s room because honestly, the ladies room line was around the stadium. I saw one of the shorty cops in our section of the stadium, who had never taken his eyes off the crowd during the whole event, pull his crucifix out of his shirt and cross himself as the Pope concluded Mass. I suspect he was thrilled to be making overtime protecting the head of his Church, I just wish he could have participated in the Mass as well.

I could also go on and on about the number of people, the amazing diversity of ages and nationality, the large group of novice priests in baseball caps (so cute!), the occasional Nun in habit surrounded by little girls with starry eyes asking questions, ( that’s cute too!). The Monks in robes, the Knights of Columbus in full regalia (Stunning!), all the Bishops and Cardinals in tall hats and flowing robes, the elderly dressed in their Sunday best, the families of faithful, the crowds of security people, the reporters and cameras and all of our NYC hosts, the staff at the stadium.

I could go on about the pre- Pope show with Harry Connick Jr. which was a real treat and by then the cold winds were letting up and the clouds were beginning to slide away so the whole event was becoming much more comfortable. My hands were thawing out.

Finally the time for mass arrived and the bells called the faithful to service. The ritual of the Catholic Mass is a beautiful thing to see and even more so when attended by a horde of Bishops and Cardinals and 57,000 people. The Pope made his way around the stadium in the “pope-mobile” and the teenager behind me told his grandma he wanted to get a truck just like that to tour around town in.

When the Pope finally stepped onto the stage and the cameras focused on him, his image filled the big screens and I got a warm fuzzy feeling. I can’t explain it, I just did. Like I was looking at my best friends favorite Grandpa. I raised my white scarf ( handed to me at the gate courtesy of the church) and waved like crazy, welcoming the Pope. It didn’t take long for the crowd to become still, after all, I imagine a large number of people in the crowd had gone to Catholic schools, had been disciplined by the Nuns and knew when it was time to settle down.

The Mass started and I kept half an eye on my devout Catholic friend because I knew that the mass progressed in a predictable fashion and there were times to stand and times to sit and times to bow your head. I was taking my cues from my friend and wondering if God was keeping score, how many missed masses could I make up by attending one mass with the Pope? I figured conservatively that if I were catholic, I would have missed 2600 masses so far in my life. Could I trade, say, half of those in by attending this one?

I was contemplating this question, observing the crowd at their mass when suddenly it came to the part in the mass where the priest calls out and the congregation answers back and 57,000 voices rose together like a flock of doves above the stadium and as one voice answered the call of their faith. I was stunned with the beauty of it. It was enormous.

It was like the entire stadium full of people became one being and the rise and fall of the mass was the heartbeat and breath of this giant. The call of the Priest became the foghorn and the mass the lighthouse in the fog. The huge crowd moved as one being, eyes closed, just listening and responding as it was guided home. Every move of the mass was echoed by 57,000 beings moving as one being sewn together from 57,000 threads, stand up, sit down, bow head. It was the same, always, in every church everywhere and everyone moved with certainty. The consistency a solid rock foundation, they were held comfortably in the arms of the ritual they knew without doubt.

I stood aside as 57,000 people were given the sacrament by hundreds of priests. I looked around and saw 57,000 people in blissful contemplation of the most holy of their rituals. The “vibe” was almost visible and I think, just maybe, that the stadium seen from outside would have had a sheen to it. As the mass ended I took up my white scarf again, and with everyone else bid Pope Benedict XVI goodbye.

It was incredible to see, I mean, who would have thought 57,000 people anywhere, anytime, for any reason, could move in perfect synchronicity? But it did happen, I saw it. I heard it. I felt a sudden renewal in my faith in faith.

I think for most people, faith is like a red line on a thermometer, moving up and down in the seasons of their life. If we look at faith as the thread that sews the garment of our life together, we realize the consistency of the stitches to be what makes the garment stronger. As we learn to sew with faith and our stitches become more uniform, no longer tiny and tight in some places, long and loose in others, but consistently even, always in faith, sewn with care, the garment of our life becomes stronger. No longer is our garment easily torn apart by the hands of fate.

For me, that is the message of the Mass, always the same, everywhere, through time, never changing, consistently calling to the faithful to remain so.

Signs of Spring

2008-05-02T03:16:00.002-10:00

I saw the first signs of spring yesterday. They were all over town, on every corner, signs that said yard sale and garage sale and estate sale. Signs that appeared to have grown and bloomed overnight in profusion. Big signs and little signs, hand made signs and store bought signs, in a rainbow of colors.

Yes, it’s definitely spring and time to shake out the closets and unclog the garage and rid your self of all that winter gain. I’m jumping on the bandwagon and planning my own yard sale.

I don’t know how all this stuff gets in my house, it seems to grow of its own accord and spread like some all climate ivy. One day my closets are empty and the next they are overgrown. When I moved into my 1900 square foot house it was so empty, with my 600 square foot apartment furnishings. Now it looks like I have lived here for 300 years and developed some obsessive packratting skills.

I’m going to start with the clothes closet. One of my friends said to me one time “ You have a lot of clothes, you know?” Really? I do? Doesn’t everyone use one entire spare bedroom for a closet? Doesn’t everyone have 3 dressers, 2 wardrobes, 5 closets (2 just for coats), dozens of shoe boxes and a shelf unit designed specifically for purses? Doesn’t everyone get calls from major motion picture studios asking to borrow when they are out fitting 3000 extras?

I’m determined to trim down, remove the excess and get all Zen with my wardrobe. I’m tossing anything that is not a perfect fit, does not wash easily, and isn’t museum quality vintage. I’m tossing all artificial fabrics and anything made in china, even if I did buy it secondhand. By the way, if you buy vintage or consignment, most of your choices have nothing to do with China.

When I’m done with the clothes closets I’m moving onto the Christmas decorations. I’m culling it to the ones that fit on the tree, and again, vintage. Last year I tried to save trees by buying vintage Christmas cards at an antique fair. Watch the envelope size if you try this, one style I bought was such a cute but odd size I had to put them in new envelopes to get them past the post office inspectors. I’m going to go natural with my holiday decorations from now on and stick to pine cones, pop corn strings, cranberries, greenery and hot house poinsettias. None of which will be sitting in my attic come July.

Then on to the book shelves, which, over the years and numerous moves are already less crowded then in my past. I still think I can do away with some of the books I’ve collected since my last move, like the one on making candles (to complicated, messy and time consuming) or the one on quilting (already used it once and remember how), or the pile of novels that I bought for next to nothing and already enjoyed ( I seldom read a novel twice). I have very few books that would be hard or impossible to find again if I really wanted to re-read them.

Next I will delve into the linen closet because I’ve finally come to understand the universal truth that the curtains from one home never fit the windows of the next home. Hopefully this realization is fully rooted and has grown to the point that when I move again I will be smart enough to leave the 3 tons of curtains from my current abode right where they belong- hanging in the windows. I’ve also come to realize that no matter how cold it is outside, nobody really needs 14 blankets, three sleeping bags and 2 comforters.

I think I’m gonna have the grand daddy of all yard sales!

Now I come to the perilous part of the unloading- the kitchen. I admit I’m an addict. I can’t pass a cute vintage dish or kitchen utensil with out cooing to it. My cupboards are so full they are pulling away from the walls. I have enough place settings to supply the Waldorf Astoria during wedding season. It’s funny really, because my table only seats 4. I have dishes from the 1800’s to the 1960’s. I have every color of the rainbow and some. I could open a vintage dish store to rival patterns.com. I have enough vintage covered casserole dishes to supply an Amish barn raising party. And I seldom cook. I have no defense, just a newly conceived offense- if it’s replaceable, get rid of it. I’m sure someone else would love to attend a potluck with one of those vintage casseroles, and I hope they stop to shop at my humongous yard sale.

After I recover from skinning my kitchen I’m heading with gusto onto the big ticket items. Every yard sale has to have big ticket items to attract a crowd. Last time I had a sale I dragged half my furniture out to the yard and put “sold” signs on every piece just to attract attention. This time, if I drag it out, it really is for sale. I’m thinking things like my bar stools, which have been floundering around since my last move because this house has no bar, and my telescope that has not left it’s box in a few years. I have more chairs than asses in my house so I think a few of those could go. Things like that, handy when you need them, but honestly, how often do you need them?

So, my battle plan is drawn, a date circled on the calendar and numerous prayers for good weather already offered. I hope this helps cure my compulsion to fill my space with stuff. After all, it’s a lot of work to carry all that stuff out to the yard, set up a nice looking sale and sit in a yard chair all day making small talk and change. In this area, yard sales start at the crack of dawn and traditionally last just one day- after all, Sunday is for church, not shopping. When the last sale is done, and the crowds have dispersed, I’m committed to loading every last item off the yard directly into the car for a short ride to the local thrift store. Then I’m gonna count the loot and breath in my new found wide open spaces.

Eat Pray Love

2008-04-26T06:00:00.002-10:00

One of my friends gave me a book to read this week. This is the same friend that sometimes brings me margarita glasses or bottles of wine or yoga DVD's. She's also been known to motivate me into exercising, and she's the only other person on the planet who can get anywhere near my one-woman cat, so she's his sitter. As you can see, she's a valuable friend. She's a gem, and she brought me a gem of a book. It was so good I just have to tell you all to go get it and read it. I loved every bit of it. From the cover art to the last goodbye, this book is fantastic.

The book entitled Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is a series of articles about a year in her life when she stepped back and said “who am I”, and the path she took to discover the answer. Ms. Gilbert, as it turns out, was already a professional writer, and that may explain why the book was so well written. Her style of writing has depth and humor rolled into one. When I grow up, I want to write like she does. In fact, I wish I had written this book.

During her year of living discoverously, she traveled to three areas of the globe that held some sort of fascination for her and along the way she met many a strange and wise character. She learned to listen with her heart as well as her ears, and write from her being as well as her mind.

I can’t tell you too much, or it would ruin your read, but I will tell you that she threw herself whole heartedly into three very foreign landscapes and came out looking like a local. She did, in fact, learn who she really was at the time and developed a path to continue to lead her to who she was going to be in the future. She became, I think, very flexible.

There were many times during my read that I would say to myself, that was fantastic, I should put that in my blog, there were just so many really cool concepts to ponder. I guess my favorite, and the one I will share with you is this:

On page 95 she says “The Bhagavad Gita – the ancient Indian Yogic text- says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly then to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection”.

I definitely have that living imperfectly concept down. Living imperfectly is a constant companion on my path. We hold hands while we walk. We are great friends. You could say we are peas in a pod. Add to that the fact that I have never been attracted to imitation anything, except of course when it comes to acrylic nails, and although I often find bits and pieces of others that I admire and wish to emulate, like for instance Tony Robbins in his live with passion frenzy or this writer, Elizabeth Gilbert with her humorous insightful style of writing, I think I’m safe in saying my life’s goal has never been to imitate anyone.

I’m an imperfect original and apparently I’m walking an imperfectly authentic path. According to the Bhagavad Gita, I’m doing great!

Mass at Yankee Stadium with Pope Benedict XVI

2008-04-22T04:35:00.002-10:00

I'm still percolating on my article about meandering to NYC to see the Pope. It was really amazing, I can tell you that. Check back soon for the truth, the whole truth, and nothin' but the truth.

Three Days of Peace and Music

2008-04-22T04:14:00.005-10:00

while I was meandering to NYC to see the Pope, I figured why not take a side trip and make another pilgrimage to another inspirational spot? The site of Woodstock is now a performing arts center with lots of parking, restrooms, and a visitors center. It's still a beautiful natural amphitheater surrounded by farmland and woods, and I swear it still carries "the vibe" of August 1969 when 3 days of peace and music birthed a new nation.

When The World Becomes to Large

2008-04-22T04:10:00.001-10:00

It seems to me, that as our global world becomes smaller, our personal worlds become larger. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe not.

Remember way back when you had to go to the library to look up things or, if you were really lucky, you had a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica (first printing- 1768 in Scotland) at your house? Now all you have to do is sit at the computer and click away.

Remember when mass communication was unheard of? No, well, neither does anyone else. Newspapers (first printed, Germany, late 1400’s-first weekly, Britain 1622) have been around for a long time, but it wasn’t that long ago that newspapers were the only source of mass communication and a large part of the humanity couldn’t read! News got around by word of mouth. The first newspapers were only printed when something “news worthy” occurred.

It also wasn’t that long ago that a person’s interest in the world was pretty much limited to their home town, and possibly an occasional rumor of what was happening in the world outside that town. Top speed for a buckboard and horses is approximately 30 mph- try traveling around the world like that. It was a very large world, while personal worlds were relatively small.

Time moved slower it seemed.

Quantum physics discoveries seem to imply that as the universe expands, time is indeed speeding up, but I was unable to find a definite article on this topic.

Telephones were the next invention that made the world smaller. No longer did you have to wait weeks or months to get a letter from a relative or friend to find out the latest happenings out side of your town.

Then came radio, (first broadcasts to public, early 1920’s) and families gathered together to hear from the world. Before that, printed news traveled slowly. Suddenly news traveled at the speed of radio waves (The speed of a radio wave radiated into free space by a transmitting antenna is equal to the speed of light - 186,000 miles per second).

Television wasn’t far behind (first commercial broadcast July 1st, 1941) and now you could see what was going on as well as hear it. The world was as small as it could get- or so they thought.

Now it’s even smaller, because we have the ability to go out and get the information we want, our knowledge is not limited to what is delivered to us by newspapers or TV. Want to know what’s going on in Tibet (oh, excuse me, the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China) right now? Just get on line and search.

This onslaught of information is enough to crush anyone, but especially those born back when news was something you got at the picnic after church and it consisted of what was happening in your town of 300.

Back then you only had to worry about the three cows farmer Bill lost last week, or the fact that the town mill may close and leave people out of work. Now multiply that amount of worry by about a gazillion as you watch Buddhist Monks killed in Burma, children starving in Africa, floods in Germany, drought in Australia and that’s not even mentioning what’s going on in your own country, state and community. At one time it was a privilege of the educated to stay informed of global events, now maybe it’s not.

Now days you may not know your neighbors, but you can know what is going on around the globe. You probably don’t know the manager of the store you shop in (because the tiny corner grocery store is gone and you now have to drive to the big chain store to shop), but you feel like you know the cast of the latest successful TV show.

The global community has replaced the home town and that is pretty cool, unless you happen to be a 70 year old who feels the world has out grown you. It’s difficult for the young to keep up, how do we expect the elderly to cope?

We can’t really, and they often don’t. Their way of life has passed and they are lost, wondering what happened to family dinners, evenings on the porch and living in a neighborhood where you know the people next door, the banker, the grocer, the cop and the guy who filled the gas tank on your car.

How do you cope when your town has grown so large it’s hard to find your way around even on a good day? How do you keep your family together when the average person now changes jobs every ten years, and often with geographic change as well? How do you cope with 55 mph speed limits, ATM’s, E- tickets , automated customer service lines with menus having 20 options that lead to menus with 20 more options, and self serve everything? Now add in the general anxiety caused by ageing and you have way to much stress for one person. The world has changed, it’s become to large!

And all that modern, time saving, world uniting, robotic stuff looked so inviting back at the 1962 Worlds Fair hosted by Seattle. The Fair used the theme “The 21st Century” and a tag line of. ‘Better Living Through Science” to entice people with visions of a leisurely future in a global community enhanced by automation. Maybe no thought was given to the possibility that the science would run amok and leave the very people who nurtured it lying in its dust.

Off To See The Pope

2008-04-18T10:39:00.005-10:00

In some blessed event apparently reigned over by numerous saints, I ended up with a ticket to see His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in NYC this weekend.

Really, it was like winning the lotto. My devote catholic friend, who went to see His Holiness The Dalia Lama with me and made me swear to be her road trip buddy if The Pope ever came to the US, managed to get our names into a lottery for tickets in a parish just outside of the city.

Now here's where the blessed event reigned over by numerous saints comes in - somehow, out of all those hundreds of names, both our names were pulled! We both received letters saying our tickets were being held for us in the parking lot of a mall north of NYC where we would board the bus with a few hundred other devout catholics to drive into NYC to see the POPE! Then, heaven rain down on us, we found out Harry Connick Junior is among the warm up entertainment for His Holiness!

Now I don't know about you, but I was not about to turn my back on this nudge from the universe, even though I'm not Catholic. I mean, it's a miracle I got a ticket, I think I better go. Besides, I did promise my devout catholic friend some back up for just such an event, and I just Love Harry Connick Junior.

So I'm off to see the Pope and I will let ya know how it goes.

Nom de Plume

2008-04-16T03:05:00.003-10:00

I was thinking maybe I should have a Nom de plume. Nom de plume has nothing at all to do with bird feathers although that is what it brings to mind when I hear the phrase. Nom is the word for “name”, de translates as “of”, and plum is literally “pen”. Name of Pen. Nom de plume is the fancy French pen name for a pen name. Many writers have used Nom de plumes over the years, and maybe it’s one of those things ya just gotta have to be a writer.

Nome de plumes have been used for protecting a writers’ identity when they wanted to say something but were embarrassed to have it credited to them. So far I haven’t posted anything I might be embarrassed by, but who knows, at some point I might want to blather on about my years as an Osmond Brothers fan and maybe associating that with my given name, Meandering, would have long lasting repercussions.

Writers in Victorian times used Nome de plumes to fool the public into reading things written by – GASP!- females! Case in point: Emily Bronte writing as Ellis Bell and Karen Blixen publishing “Out of Africa” under the name Isak Dinesen.

Funny isn’t it? I mean, in those days you were not considered a well rounded female unless you had self published, to the delight of your proud father and joyous family members, at least a small volume of prose or a skillfully executed short novel just for fun (as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, oh, and by the way, her name was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin), however public publishing was for men only.

In this day and age I don’t think I have to masquerade as a man, but at times I am amazed by the archaic attitudes still entrenched in some peoples tiny brains.

Some writers use nom de plumes because their names were too strange for public consumption, like Theodore Geisel, who wrote as Dr. Seuss,( oh yes doc, that's better, more normal sounding) Charles Lutwidge Dodgson better known as Lewis Caroll , Chloe Anthony Wofford, writer Toni Morrison, and my personal favorite - Mark Twain who was actually Samuel Langhome Clemens, and used Sieur Louis de Conte as his nom de plume for his nom de plume.

Another good example of this use of nom de plumes is Western novelist Pearl Gray who dropped his first name and changed the spelling of his last name to become Zane Grey, because he believed that his real name did not suit the Western genre. Smart move Pearl. And what the heck were Pearl’s parents thinking anyway, when they named him Pearl? It’s not like they were contemporaries of Frank Zappa!

Some writers used nom de plumes to make them sound more educated, like they might actually know what they were writing about, or possibly to entice the upper class into reading a contemporaries works. Maybe this is why Mary Westmacott became Dame Agatha Clarissa Mary Christie.

So, how could I come by a really fine nom de plume?

I went looking for ideas and found this: Japanese poets who write haiku often use a haiga or penname. The famous haiku poet Matsuo Bashō had used fifteen different haiga before he became fond of a banana plant (bashō) that had been given to him by a disciple and started using it as his penname at the age of 38.

WHAT? I swear, that is so Zen!

Well, OK, I have a nice philodendron bipinnatifidum I’m fond of, maybe I could use that for my nom de plume. I could change it a tad to be Phillis Dendron Bipinnatifi’dum. How’s that sound?

OH MY! Maybe I’ve just stumbled onto the secret of getting published! Maybe I would not have received those three rejection letters this week if, when I submitted my stories to magazines, I had used the appropriate nom de plume! I should resubmit my article to “Better Homes and Gardens” with my new nom de plume – Phillis Dendron Bipinnatifi’dum! It So Fits!

I could write for Cigar Aficionado as Charles Hector Anthony Hubert Esq.! I could publish snooty travel memoirs as Royal Dame Mary Martha Prudence Windsor!

I could keep my real name, Meandering, just for use in my blog, among friends, so to speak. After all, if I do blather on about some really embarrassing incident in the novel of my life, there is a good chance some of you would turn up as the other main characters, right? And ya’ll wouldn’t be laughing me out of blogdom, because you were involved too! So for now I’ll just sign off- Meandering

PS My research for this article turned up this little nugget- Anne Rice was born Howard Allen O'Brien- I’m just not going for it though, I met Anne Rice once and I’m pretty sure her parents did not name her Howard.

Cyberspace Is So Flexible

2008-04-16T02:19:00.003-10:00

I do love this internet, and I will tell you why- it's so flexible, so expansive and so convenient. I can do research for my articles with a click, and I can go shopping with a click as well. It's so easy!

It opens up so many possibilities for people it's really amazing. I mean you can plan your dream vacation and buy tickets, make reservations and do research on your destination. Want to find some all natural remedy to improve your health? Want to learn what essential oils can do for you? Just look it up! You will find pages and pages of information.

Looking for something special to purchase? Like maybe a book that would be really enlightening but you have checked with the library and they don't have it? Remember when you had to go to the bookstore, put in a special order and sometimes wait months to get the book? Well, no more! Now just log on and click away.

Looking for someone special? I do know people who have met and married (happily) people they found on line.

It's just amazing how handy cyberspace and this whole internet thingie can be. Especially if you live in a rural area, it allows you to become more integrated into the larger world, and gives you more options. For instance, if you live in an area with no health food stores, you can get many of the products you are looking for on line.

The fact that it is easily accessible and interactive makes it a really valuable tool for artists and writers, like myself.

You know, years ago the art of publishing was something that the average (average but probably somewhat financially well off)person had available to them. Many young men and women published volumes of poetry, verse or short stories printed by what we would call vanity publishers.

In a society (Victorian) where swooning was cherished and emotional sentiment a sign of intelligence, it was considered part of reaching maturity to enlighten your family and friends with your most intimate laments on the affairs of your heart and inner mind.

When that sensitive time had passed, vanity publishing became blasé, and writers had to struggle to get someone to look at their work. They couldn't get published unless they knew someone. It's still like that today, many of the publishers will not even look at your work unless you have been published before. It's what you call a "catch 22". How do you get published the first time if they won't look at your work unless you have already been published? How the heck do they ever find new talent? Is the literary world stagnant?

Not on line it isn't, anyone can be published. Anyone can post artwork. Any one can find a forum to express their creativity.

Now, you may not have tried this yet, but here is your chance. If you have always wanted to publish something, like a poem or a short story, send it to me. I will publish it for you. If you really enjoy seeing your name in print, you may want to consider blogging, but, just to get you started, send me your work. I don't care if you have never been published. I don't care if you don't have an agent. I don't care if your mom wears army boots. I will publish your work, right here!

For My Cousin, Richard

2008-04-12T09:17:00.007-10:00

Hey, look, I found this cool image of Mr. Cooper, your guru and noted radio personality. I was listening to his show last night and you know, I think you are right- the guy is brilliant.
I don't know what your stock holders would think if they knew your guiding light was the billion dollar baby man, probably the same thing the board thinks when you are setting at the head of a big conference table, you roll up your sleeves to get down to the business of business, and they see all those tattoos. But hey, considering our genetics,the proper response is "who cares", right? You still rock cousin!
http://nightswithalicecooper.com/
888-99-Alice

When is a short guy tall?

2008-04-12T05:38:00.004-10:00

Now I never would have thought I would fall for a really short guy, I mean, I've dated plenty of guys that were just the same height as I, but never one who was shorter. I'm not prejudice against short guys, it's just that although I may be taller than a lot of girls, I'm not taller than a lot of guys. I've never met many guys shorter than I.

Any-hoo, I am totally in love with a short guy. I can't help it. He's so handsome, he's so smart, he's affectionate to me and only me because he's also loyal. He's a one woman man. We just adore each other.

Then I got to thinking he actually is a very tall guy, because, at 17 inches he is tall for a cat. He's apparently a Norwegian Forest cat, or kin to, and they are known for their intelligence, long muscular legs, and amazing climbing ability.

So really, I've fallen for a tall guy because a short guy is tall when he's tall for his species even if his species is short. Right?

Just What I Needed

2008-04-12T03:44:00.004-10:00

Ah the universe - an amazing, responsive, pliable, stretchy, fibrous coat of energy that surrounds each of us with infinite possibility. I've heard it responds to our every thought.

I was thinking about my plot for a horror story (see last post) when I was called to speak to college students at a large university. The topic was alternative health care and it was encouraging to hear these youngsters talking about Barbara Brennan, (search amazon "Hands of Light") Reiki, Aromatherapy, chakras and all that. A fair share of them said they learned it from their mothers, the other half said they were from, or had lived in, California.

They all were pretty clear on the fact that the food should be natural, pharmaceutical drugs were not good and alternative healing is cool. Whew- maybe there is hope for us after all.

My Plot For a Horror Story

2008-04-06T04:50:00.003-10:00

I drifted into the movie rental store yesterday. This is not something I do very often, as my local library carries a wide selection of slightly outdated but still excellent films. I ended up being a bit disappointed in the amount of horror and violence apparent in the selections available on the perimeter of the movie rental store. It has been a while since I rented and something seems to have changed. What happened to romantic comedy, family films, heroic adventure and film noir intrigue? Now we have guts, violence, guts, sex, and more guts.

There were way to many people on DVD covers screaming in anguish, cowering in fear and running for their lives. There were hideous monsters, horrible machines of torture and unidentified slimy things. There was way to much blood and random body parts being served up for our entertainment. I felt like I had to cross myself and next time I go in that store I’m wearing a garlic necklace. Who the heck is renting all this stuff and where are their parents while they are watching it? Who the heck is making all this stuff and how could they make a living like this and frankly, why would they want to? Haven’t they heard about that quantum theory that goes like this: You are what you eat- oh, wait , wrong one- this is it- Your life becomes like that which you focus your attention on.

After a close to complete circuit around the store I had zeroed in on two possible films for my evenings entertainment. There were a few others I thought might be good, and I made a mental note to check the library for them. Then I got to the A’s (I started with the Z’s) and my choice was clear. I ditched the romantic comedy starring nobody we know and the adventure starring nobody we know either.

I rented American Gangster, purely for aesthetic reasons, I mean Russell Crowe of course. Not that Denzel Washington is anyone to sneeze at, he was looking very fine too.

The story is a true one, about the corruption that comes with drugs and big money. The US military was flying heroin in from Asia during the Vietnam War. Yes, the US military! They stashed it in coffins along with our fallen soldiers, and you can’t tell me the brass didn’t know. The cops were protecting the drug kings, and in doing so earning their big money payola. People were dying right and left from these drugs but that didn’t seem to matter. Oh, except of course to the one good cop and his newly formed DEA buddies.

It just illustrates how large organizations can become involved in corruption, how the people who are suppose to be protecting you are not always doing that, what some people will do to protect their ass- ets, and how expendable people can be when there is a product like drugs that can make big money for some unsavory types.

I recommend the film, a little violent but very well done and full of aesthetic value.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on my own plot for a horror story. A what if, if you will. It’s been rolling around in my meandering mind for a few weeks now, growing and changing. Now, anyone who knows Stephen King is welcome to pass this on to him, I don’t care if he steals my idea and makes it a best seller because it sure would be nice to see the story in print.

The story goes like this:
What if there was, say, a country full of abundance, a population full of bliss who could afford many luxuries? What if they all seemed happily occupied by their jobs, homes, electronic gadgets. What if all looked normal on the surface but something was terribly wrong? Part of the horror is in the realization that what looks normal may not be. Like Invasion of The Body Snatchers- nobody was really sure who was real and who was a monster! The setting for the story is rather normal feeling. Just homes in a town in a state in a country where the “everyday normal” stuff is happening. It all looks so serene.

What if at a very young age, all the people were injected with something that they were told would keep them healthy, but in reality, made them start to get sick? What if their bodies were having bad reactions to the injections, but the reactions didn’t show up right away in most people, so there was no way to know? What if parents were told this was the way to protect their kids, and the “Evil Empire” made the stuff by the bazillions of doses so there was plenty to go around and people had money so they didn’t mind paying to protect their kids, in fact, they were happy to do it. The parents had no idea what was in the injections.

What if when the people got sick, they were convinced that another injection or pill or potion would make them well, so that’s what they did. There were all kinds of drugs available, always a new remedy to give the ever increasing sick population. People were eating multiple pills, multiple times a day, and were all happy because they thought it would keep them young, alive, well. Meanwhile the “Evil Empire” was making huge fortunes off the drugs sold to the happy population.

What if the people were being exploited and didn’t even know it? What if they were fooled into thinking everything was normal? Like in Soylent Green! Remember that movie? Soylent Green, which was set in 1999 by the way, depicted a society where nothing was as it seemed and people were a commodity. What they were eating was in fact, each other – Oh the horror!

What if, in my horror story, the whole happy-go-lucky population was being farmed? The Evil Empire has turned the whole society into a farm full of people they could make sick. The people who were being farmed and made ill, would pay to get something that was supposed to make them well. The people spent their whole lives toiling away in their abundant society just so they could pay to be well. They spent alarming amounts of time in the horror of illness, disease and symptoms created in their bodies intentionally by the “Evil Empire”- Oh the horror!

What if the body farm includes a prison with out a cell? A prison of trip after trip to small cubicle offices where “smart guys” poke and prod with instruments and then give the people pills to take, pills that get rid of one symptom but cause another, which necessitates another trip to the cubicle?

What if some other unsavory types, like food producers, wanted a piece of the action, and teamed up with the “Evil Empire”? What if they introduced the prosperous population to all kind of designer foods that were really sweet, bright colored, full of chemicals, foods that looked and tasted good? BUT- what if all that food did was increase the chance that the population was going to get sick and need more drugs from the big drug kingpin- I mean- “Evil Empire”?

What if the population became suspicious and insisted on someone to oversee the safety of the drugs and food? They design a regulatory body to ease their minds and protect them from harm. What if the population doesn’t know that the regulatory body is on the take! Gasp – oh the horror! The regulatory body is protecting the Evil Empire and in doing so, they get their payola! They make huge amounts of money! They become rich and powerful!

I know, it all sounds far fetched, but doesn’t it make a good horror story?

Think of the horror as parents watch their children become introverted and silent after an injection, the horror of having a child born with no arms-just hands stuck to shoulders, waving in the breeze like five fingered wings, after the parent took a drug to stop the nausea of pregnancy. Think of the children being drugged as young as a few years old, and the horror of the parents when they find the number one side effect of this drug they have given their child is, in fact, suicide. Think of the horror of the parents when they find that a drug they gave their child so he could breathe better had turned his bones into spongy soft sticks that break all the time.

Think of the horror of masses of people with hearts that don’t work right, extreme body fat, blood sugar problems, breathing problems, sleep problems, attention problems, arthritis, pain, pain and more pain! They are trapped into being dependent on the “Evil Empire” and they don’t even know it! Think of the horror of a population of people getting old, but they can not die because the “Evil Empire” keeps feeding them stuff to keep them alive- but not well. As long as they are alive and sick, they are cash cows for the “Evil Empire”.

Most horror stories have an underdog- so in my story that would be the few people who figured the whole scheme out and refused to take part. They didn’t get the injections, they didn’t go to the cubicles, they didn’t take the pills, and they didn’t eat the foods that were enhanced. They, of course, were shunned and lived as outcasts on the edge of society. The “Evil Empire” said they were crazy, and most of the population believed it. They would pass their truth on to those who might listen, but few listened. They had to be careful what they did and said so the regulatory body would not hunt them down and stone them to death or shoot them in the head, which is what happened to the people in that other movie based on a true story, “The Constant Gardener”.

My God! I have an imagination don’t I? Scary isn’t it?

Three in One Post

2008-04-03T04:26:00.002-10:00

Well, it’s been a very busy week and I’ve had numerous ideas for posts flitting through my mind and no time to stop and pitter pat on the keyboard. Now here I am, on Thursday morning feeling like I haven’t earned my keep, haven’t provided enough entertainment for my blog readers this week, and I know ya’ll are missing me because you have said you do when I don’t post on a regular basis.

So a smattering of ideas for posts have come in the past week and of course I’ve kept notes. I noticed the article on the internet a few days ago, John Cusack has a stalker! OH MY GOD! Well, can you blame her? I mean he is without a doubt the handsome-ist movie actor. Oh, and did you see him in “Identity”? No more mister nice guy and what a shocker of an ending. I can’t say, in case you didn’t see it.

Anyway, poor John, he has some crazy girl following him everywhere he goes. He had to get a restraining order, and now she’s violating it. It must be creepy to have to wonder if “she’s out there” every time you leave the house. He’s gotta be wondering if she adores Mark David Chapman too. If you don’t recognize the name search John Lennon + NYC + assassination.

Meanwhile the lady has to be really nutty, I mean she apparently throws bags of rocks over his fence that contain love letters and screw drivers ( hint, hint) and the last time she was arrested ( for what it does not say) she gave Mr. Cusack’s address as her home address. Now that’s a novel way to impress a guy and get him to notice you. You can get a print out of your arrest record and show it to him, “see Honey, how much I love you, we belong together, it says so right here!”

Meanwhile it’s rumored she also has a stalking relationship with Tom Cruise. Now I know she’s crazy. I say “honey, wake up and smell the coffee”. I mean, have you ever, has anyone ever, seen so much as one photo of cutie pie John Cusack with a girl? Yes, on movie posters maybe, because he’s one of those romantic hero types but honestly, in any other photo has he ever been captured in the presence of a girl? I think not, and what is it about that guy friend who always ends up in his movies as his sidekick? He’s cute too if ya know what I mean.

Crazy stalking girl- Get a Life, Move on, he’s not for you.

Then we have idea # 2 from this week:

I happened to see a couple of kids outside the library this week. They were young teens, both very stylish. One boy, one girl. They were obviously together, but not together because although they were throwing sideways glances at each other, and standing close enough that they occasionally touched shoulders and giggled a bit, they were not together because each one had a phone in hand, screen flipped up and they were intent on typing.

Interesting way to “court”. Be in presence physically, but keep your eyes on the screen and talk to someone else. I don’t know, it seems to me like the divorce rate will go up when this wave starts to marry. Either that, or stock in companies that produce gadgets that allow us to not be with the person we are with will go up. What’s gonna happen to these poor kids when they have to talk about job choices, where to live or the baby?

Are they going to have sex while they IM or watch TV? WHAT? People already do?

Madre De Dios! Am I that old? I’m starting to think the world has gone crazy, so I must be old, that’s a sure sign, right? What happened to talking to the person you are dating? Giving your attention fully and gazing in sublime pools of honeysuckle water eyes? Holding hands instead of mini computers? Actually talking with the person you are standing in front of? All I can say is Bless the Beasts and Children.

Idea # 3 for this week:
I was watching an old video tape of Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman. Remember her? And the 3,456, 347, 678 little girls named Michaela spawned during the mid-eighties?

I always watched that show. That was back when I still watched TV. No, I don’t watch TV anymore, I had my cable unplugged in 2000, when I was writing my first book and I never had it plugged back in.

If I want to stare at the tube I do what I was doing last night, watch a videotape or DVD of a movie or TV program. I never have to watch a commercial, I have no idea what the idols are doing and I’ve never seen a celebrity dancer. I don’t think I’m missing much. If I hear rumors about a great series, I can always watch it on DVD later and do it in my own time, not once a week at the networks time.

Any-hoo, I was reminded of how peaceful the fictional Colorado Springs of Dr. Quinn’s time was. How much the towns folk cared for each other, and the allowances small town folk have to make for each other. I mean, if you live in a small town, you are pretty much stuck with every one else there, like it or not. You can’t just blend into the crowd in a small town, you have to deal with your neighbors on a regular basis, like it or not. Maybe you learn to ignore. Maybe you learn to accept. Maybe you learn to support. Maybe you learn to ride a horse and get the hell ‘outta Dodge, I mean, Colorado Springs.

I had a little trip down memory lane because the tape I was watching had the commercials on it as well as the program and the news breaks were from a station in Austin. So the tape has to be pre-1986. It was Christmas time, judging from the holiday ads. It was cold, the storm center was flashing a tape of letters across the bottom of the screen. A freeze warning for Central Texas. Gadzooks! That is cold for Austin.

Dominos Pizza was spending billions on their holiday advertising campaign and those old phones with a portable hand set, remember them? The ones that had a recharge base with an answering machine (and everything!) right there in it? They were a hot Christmas item.

Someday archeologists will just watch old commercials rather than have to get all dirty digging up ruins.

OK, Idea # 4- well, that one is so good it needs a post all its own. The weekend is coming. My taxes are done. Check back next week. Peace, Meandering

Not China Made

2008-03-30T13:16:00.003-10:00

Hey, I just found this great site that has lists companies and sites that feature products Made in the US. http://notchinamade.net/ Check it out, I added an active link down there, yes, down on the right hand side of the screen, yes go a little further down to my "meander over here a while" section which contains links to sites.