The Beauty of the Broken Cup

I write in a very small room that I believe was destined to be a storage closet. At the last minute, I asked the builder to put a window in the room and also a phone line...just in case I needed an office....that was a few years before I started writing and when I did begin working....this little room with its natural light, the huge oak tree outside of the window and the tight womb-like surrounding was the perfect place to work.

~

All writers have quirks about their work spaces. Some need silence, other need the bare bones of an almost empty place...and some of us......write in clutter...with objects that remind us of events and memories and things we feel are important.

~

I'm a clutter writer..... my little room holds everything from my writing fish (an old happy red fish named Faulkner) to a bottle of home made "medicine" ...a concoction my grandmother taught me how to make to cure anything....(it's about 90% whiskey...so what you can't cure....you're likely to forget after a couple of glasses).

~

One of my treasures that sits next to my screen....is my "broken cup."

~

Hub turns wood as a hobby to relieve stress...and one day I sat down with him and a request...I had read a story in a Buddhist book about the Japanese tea ceremony. Tea cups are prized for their plain lines and spiritual qualities they inherit with time and use. If a treasured cup is broken, it is not thrown away......the crack is sometimes filled with gold....and the cup is brought back into the ceremony after it is mended.

~

The lesson: the cup although broken now returns more beautiful......tragedy adding a new dimension...a new texture to the cup.

~

When hub handed me the cup...I was delighted....he allowed the wood to crack...he filled it with turquoise....and then I noticed he added something I had not asked for...the carvings in the wood ....which looked like twine had been wound around the cup.

~

It's the twine that makes me ponder...for I am already a believer that tragedy and misfortune also carries opportunity.......... when I'm stuck with words or a story or feel font pressure...I look at the cup....and wonder what holds my life together?

~

Like you....I've been broken ....and unlike this cup....in more than one place.....but even when I rise to the challenge and fill disappointment with opportunity and new resolve .......what ultimately holds me together? Family? Love? Friends? Inner Resolve? Tough genetics?

~

I have my guesses....I have preferences for what I believe and hope holds me together....but on a day to day basis....what keeps everything in alignment?.....what keeps me moving forward....despite the cracks?

~

It is a very good cup.....it gives me much to think about.....what is the twine of my life?....what is the twine of your life? Is it there everyday in some form or another? Or only there when the cracks appear?

~~~

I saw this quote the other day....and just laughed....feels like my philosophy of life....

"Do everything. One thing may turn out right."

... H.Bogart

Of course.....Not everything turns out right.....some things are just wrong.

It's Spring in the South...But We're Paying for It....

Hey there's nothing like a southern thunderstorm to announce the arrival of spring. And last night we had a good one.....even our deaf dog was hiding and our other dog looked like he just swallowed EX-LAX.

~

At one point the whole house pinged from hail that bounced off windows...cars....decks and lawn furniture. I love these storms....even though they scare me. I sat outside under our covered deck and felt what a southern sky can do. The lightening was so intense....the sky turned blue then white....wow.

~

Since I was a little kid....I always thought if you faced a storm outside you would be safe....sort of like David meeting Goliath.....till this day....I'm outside checking the sky when the tornado sirens blow....or I sit on the porch facing down the thunder. It feels better than being all confined and huddled around your emergency radio.

Science Project Hail

This is my front doormat. It looks like someone carefully placed Hail of various sizes for display.

Ooooh I like this one......lightening causing weirdness in my camera lens.

~~~~~~~~

This is cool....I'm a hottie from the South (but you all knew that already!)

Life is funny....literally....."Shoes/Mister Pissed" from another blog.....left me a comment telling me he did a post on me....I thought he meant he responded to my comment in his comments.....

This afternoon I visited his blog and fell right out of my chair.....

http://misterpissed.blogspot.com/2007/03/women-are-falling-for-me-left-and-right.html


So see what happens when you start blogging.... you fall left and right for strange men...and don't even know it!!

~~~

Three Reasons to Have a Pomegranate Martini....

It's almost midnight and I've decided that Thursday evening....I'm not only going to take hub out to dinner I'm going to make sure wherever we go that they serve pomegranate martinis. I admit.... I had a taste for one all day.

~~

To further my resolve to go out this evening.....I decided I should find three reasons for celebrating.

~~

Here they are:

~~

1) My NPR Essay.

~~

2) My daughter called me from Puerto Rico. She's safe and having a blast with friends on Spring Break. They flew Jet Blue and because of the recent bad service headlines..... decided to a take some books along just in case they had significant delays.

~~

She read a book on how to play black jack. They stopped at a little casino somewhere on the island and she won 100.00! I am thrilled not only because she has extra spending money but because at the rate she's signed on the dotted line for student loans this years.....she's going to need a second source of income.

~~

3) It looks like I'm going to spend some time traveling this summer.....a couple times in New York....Slovenia......and maybe a quick trip up to Iowa or Nebraska!....the glamour but my youngest son is thinking about college....and the midwest corn kernels in his blood must be calling his name because he'd like to investigate those places....but actually I wouldn't mind a trip like that.....I always found serenity and peace in the monotony of rows of green corn....blue skies and white clouds.....

~~~~

Gina's Three Happy Recommendations.....

Thanks for the many emails I received....obviously I need to chuck my job in the bookstore, forget writing and become a sex consultant and book reviewer. (Why does that sound so appealing?) ....Hey......Dr. Ruth IS getting very very old.........

Many people asked me about my favorite books .....well... I have lots of favorites....and what I recommend to customers is based on what they're looking for....but there is a great series which could fit most tastes...from mild to wild....and one great tell-all reference book.

The "Super" series by Tracy Cox is wonderful. Tracy is gorgeous UK woman that moved to Australia and was an associate editor for Cosmo down under. She's back in London now with a handful of new books and a website which promotes her own line of toys. I like the way she writes about sex...it's funny...practical....and she's not afraid to talk about emotions... surprise... surprise...people have them when they touch each other intimately. Contrary to what the porn industry and hookup culture would lead you to believe.....there's a good possibility when you kiss someone regularly.... the ol' heart may beat harder and wilder at the thought of those lips.

The series starts softly with Superflirt...which concentrates on body language and seduction. It's anchored by SuperSex. I read Supersex at the bookstore. I left the break room with flaming red cheeks. Thank God my logic circuits were still intact because I wanted to bring down a man.....any man....right there in the bookstore aisle. So here's a warning...read this book near someone appropriate ( or maybe inappropriate....if you're looking to jump start something).

Supersex contains my favorite sensual/sexual picture . A beautiful black and white photograph with a woman touching....okay....grabbing at a man's underwear.....wow.

The newest book in the series in Superhotsex. I haven't finished it...but like it. It's not a book to start out with....but a book you may want to end with...since it discusses threesomes, girl-on-girl...and the beginnings of BDSM. Some people get nervous looking or thinking about these more advanced play levels...but the important thing to remember is ...you don't have to do them in real life...but you can fantasize about them.....which might make your traditional play more exciting. (Am I beginning to sound like Dr. Ruth?....I think I just shrunk a couple of inches.)

If you're practical and want to hide only one sex book under your bed....then hands down (or hands on)....it's....The Guide to Getting It On. At close to 900 pages....it's a mini-encylopedia. In fact, that's the only negative about the book.....it's overwhelming. So consider reading it in installments....or by topic.

As for the Kama Sutra.....I'll leave that for another day....its a remarkable book with a remarkable history .....and....I think I may need to do more research on it...yes....more research on the Kama Sutra sounds good to me.

Remember if your a tad shy about talking to a bookseller.....you can buy sex books online from traditional bookstores like Barnes or Amazon. They arrive in a plain brown box.....not even your postman will know.

~~~~

Sex in the Bookstore.....the End of My Day.

The After-Church crowd has arrived. It will be non-stop busyness until I leave in a couple of hours.

I race up to the cashier stand to leave a book for a customer and find Claire managing a cash register. Customers usually come in waves to purchase books....and this must be a dip. I pick up a Cosmo and wave it at her. "Have your read this......10 new all time incredible sex secrets....right here Claire....waiting for you on your lunch break." I wink at her and smile. She laughs and shakes her head at me. "How about 10 tricks for hot hot sex??" courtesy of Men's Health. (Men's magazines are more inclined to use the word HOT...whereas women's magazine are more prone to SECRETS.) She shakes her head again and waves me off....I return to info chuckling.

Popular magazines always have a feature article or two on sex each month. The real kicker is....they find at least 10-20 sex secrets a month. That's a lot of sex secrets. You have to wonder if there's some conspiracy to hide sex information....since there are so many secrets....and who....who is storing all these secrets? Is there some underground vault in Nevada where sex secrets are hidden and doled out per month? Is there some secret society, much like something from out of the Da Vinci Code, which hides and protects sex secrets and carefully releases a few every month? By my rough calculations.....20 sex secrets a month x12 months....means magazines "discover" at least 240 sex secrets per year....and since I feel as a bookseller and a woman it's my duty to stay a breast of this information.......it means I've been exposed to over 1200 sex secrets since I've worked at the book store! Factor in all the Kama Sutras, sex tips, sex books, sex manuals I've shelved....I should be a sex expert!!

In fact, sometimes I think I am. Many times when I work, my book selling partner may be a guy....so women...who are looking for sex anthologies, sex information, or relationship books often seek me out. I have recommendations in sex anthologies ....and I've read the Mars/Venus thing... Why Men love Bitches....and He's Not Into You books too.....and I can do a fair job of recommending books based on your level of experience and where you want to advance to in your sex life. I think part of my comfort with sex comes from my nursing background...especially since I worked in cardiac nursing... before a patient could be discharged we had to address sex issues, activities levels, and exertion levels....we also had to remind certain heart patients to limit their sexual experiences to their wives post-heart attack.

I also think I'm just one of those people....who is comfortable with sex. In college, I choose to teach basic contraception as my senior nursing project. Planned Parenthood loaned me their little black suitcase....which contained condoms, IUD's, birth control pills, etc. I taught impromptu classes in our dorm...opening my little suitcase of contraceptive wonders....and explaining how to use them......I felt like I was providing a service to my fellow dormies......and it wasn't uncommon for someone to come to my room privately to ask me a question.

Unfortunately, my sex education days were limited. A Resident Advisor of the dorm...called the nursing department chair....to inform her I was teaching contraception....(a no-no for a Catholic university)....and I was asked to return the "suitcase." I did....but I asked Planned Parenthood for a few supplies and till I graduated.....I kept a little stash of items....in case someone needed them.

As I said, women usually come up to me in the bookstore.....but on a rare occasion a man might ask for help....usually it's because his wife/lover/girlfriend has sent him to the store for a specific title which he's suppose to retrieve and bring home. A few months ago.....a very handsome man came up to me and asked me for a copy of "The Secret Garden." The Secret Garden is an old classic children's book....I checked the computer to see how many copies we had....and then led him to the children's department. When I handed him the book, he looked horrified.

"Isn't this the book you want?"

"I don't think so."

I look at him. He looks at me. Then it hits me.

"OHHHHHHHHHHHHH.........you mean MY Secret Garden."

"Do I?"

"Yes you do....."

I lead him to the sexuality section...take The Secret Garden out of his hands and replace it with a copy of My Secret Garden....the classic erotic fantasy book written in the 1970's. Apparently, a ground breaker in female sexual fantasy at the time...it's now considered tame by Internet standards.

"I think this is it." He grins.

"Have fun."

I watch him walk off and sigh.....hey...this is a great job.......sending off a tall, dark handsome man with a sex book and a smile........

Someone is going to be very very happy tonight.

~~~

My Life as a Bookseller....part 4

"You're an idiot, is there anyone else around who might be competent?"

I'm holding the phone to my ear. I can feel my heart hammering. It's amazing how in a few seconds, the shot-in-the-dark insult, can affect your heart so quickly.

I have three choices at this point: fight (nasty comment back), flight(hang up) or savoir-faire.

"I'm the only person at Information right now so it appears you'll have to take my word on this."


The phone clicks.

He was looking for Quick Claim Deed Forms. We don't carry them. Had he been a decent guy, I would have given him an online suggestion. But he wasn't a nice guy; so he'd have to figure this out for himself.

Although I've been in retail for 5 years now, I'm impressed how an insult affects me. I feel like I'm punctured......and now all the negatives of my past week....swarm around this wound....like hornets round a can of soda in summer. Mis-communication with someone, self-doubt, a small hurt....they all play ring-a-round-the-Rosy over the wound.

The next two customers receive extraordinary service. I practically carry them to the check-out counter..... but the insult still sticks....as if it has it's own length-of-stay criteria....no matter what I try to do to forget it.

"Do you ever feel bad for a long time after a customer insults you?" Claire nods. She's an extraordinarily calm and self-assured young woman and I'm a surprised insults stick to her too. She identifies with the punctured-feeling. Kathy does too. I actually feel a little better knowing other people feel the whiplash from insults. I wonder if customers who lash out ever release how this stuff sticks....and perhaps it sticks more because we are strangers.....if I was arguing with a family member or friend...we would kiss and make-up and he/she would say......"Of course you're not an idiot".....but there's no reaffirmation with a stranger, no one who comes and places a band-aid over the wound.

It's break time and time for spiritual medicine. I head towards Self-Improvement and grab one of my favorite books..."How to be Happy, dammit." It's a little Buddhist-positive thinking-affirmation-new age-philosophy-type book. I'm so fond of this book...it makes me chuckle...just to hold it.

It's a book with a history....and you gotta love a book with a personal history.... A couple years ago when I was in Minnesota, I had this really bad day. I remember it so well.....an uber pile-up of misery...as if the universe was playing mad scientist and said...."Let's experiment....how much can she take?"

I had a friend, who was having emotional problems, she started screaming at me in the middle of a restaurant when I suggested she needed professional help. I left. On my way back to the hotel, I escaped a major car crash on the icy freeway by literally a few inches. Safe in my room, I opened my laptop and found an extremely painful email. I staggered to the chair and fell into it.

"Ouch." I had sat on a plastic bag with this book and a trinket I bought for my daughter. I opened the book and read for hours....just kept turning the pages over and over again.....almost afraid to look up and away from the book.......until I could fall asleep. Sometimes the key to surviving emotional trauma....is the blessing of sleep.

" Lesson #24....When you become calm and serene on the inside, the world becomes more calm and serene on the outside. Your enemies=your teachers. Your failure=your wisdom. Your undesired endings=your desirable beginnings....." and so on and so on.

As break time ends..... I see a red Cosmo book on sex positions laying on the table across from me. I open and study and laugh and think.....there are way toooo many positions in this book where you have to be up-side down.

Back at information, the Sunday Transvestite passes the counter. A 6'4" man/woman with a long frosted wig, arched eyebrows so high and perfect it looks like she used a jar lid to trace the shape, black skirt, black suit jacket, fluffy white blouse.....good heels......and god love her/him.....46 DDDDDD implants/or bra? Oh honey, I think....you could be such a good looking man/woman if you kept it down to a D or DD........because really DDDDDD is just way too much....even for a bookstore.




(Bookseller names/fiction...Booksellers/real)

My LIfe as a Bookseller.....Part 2

It's 9 am and the manager unlocks the door. Already the chess guys (a couple of guys with boards and clocks) and newspaper people (people who run in to buy the New York Times) are waiting and looking at their watches.

I find Martha Stewart's newest household hint bible out of place and hidden on a lower shelf. I guess everyone has their weak spots....guys hide Playboys....and professional women (?) secretly scan Martha's hints?

I like to take a random peek inside books as I take them back to their proper places. So I flip the bible open and find this helpful suggestion for hospitable living,

" I like to keep a basket of slippers by the door for guests."

This stops me in the aisle. I read it again. There's even a picture of slippers in a wicker basket. Now this is why you gotta love working in a bookstore. Did I know it's in supreme good taste to have slippers in a basket for my guests? Obviously, I have missed some kind of boat, a slipper boat, a look-at-how-cool-I -am-boat.

And what kind of slippers would I buy for my guests? Terry cloth ones with an embroidered logo like you would see in a fine hotel? Dark felt ones that shout...Gina is so classy she's making you wear Millionaire-type togs? Listen..... if I ever had a basket of slippers for my guests....I would fill it with furry Elmos, huge Bart Simpson heads and of course the traditional lion, tiger and kitten heads. At least this way, slipper-picking would be like a personality test for your guest....a tall handsome man choosing kitten head slippers could mean....I'm good looking but warm and loving, I'm gay, or my mommy would never buy me these when I was little.

The phones start ringing and the first person is looking for "The Secret." Yes, this new Oprah mentioned book is hot on the sales list and long gone from our bookstore. I feel a tiny ittty bitty urgent to be snotty and say something like "Well we don't have the book, but I'll tell you what the secret is.....drink raw eggs in a cup of coffee twice a day.....or never waste your money on books trying to tell you secrets." But I'm nice...it's too early...to be mentally snotty.....and I need to save my energy for the rest of the day.

Mental snottiness is an art. When you first start in retail....you actually care and hurt every time a customer treats you poorly. But with time, you learn to protect yourself from unreasonable, silly, obnoxious people by telling the customer off mentally....while you smile sweetly. At first, just like a child learning to read, new people in retail might move their lips. They're youngsters and still learning. But pros like us....who have been in retail for at least three years....can smile and say to you....."Oh let me see what I can do for you".....while we are mentally saying....."YOU big ugly jerk....you festering pustule of a human being.....you ......." Well you get my drift.

Just last week, I was in a store and complaining about something when I RECOGNIZED the smile I was GETTING. Hmmmm.....I had to do a quick assessment to see if I was being a jerk.

A nice soccer-looking mom comes up to the information desk with a scribbled note in hand. "I'm looking for......Thighs on Fire." I don't even raise an eyebrow. Sounds like a sexuality book....I'm way cool with that...and type it in.....in a business-like manner.

"Did you mean....Set his thighs on fire: 86 red hot lessons?" I look up from the computer and the woman has turned white. OOOPs.....she mustn't have the right title.

"Okay....let me help you find the right book." Her embarrassment is so palpable I want to pat her hand and say honey its alright....it's between you and me."

"Tell me more about the book you're looking for........" Through a jumble of clues....I finally get the right book....Edie: Girl on Fire.....the story of one of Andy Warhol's cosmopolitan friends that died at age 28 from a fast life. The woman is relieved.

A customer asks me a question about a magazine and I head for the stacks. While looking for this particular mag, a woman sitting on the bench with a cup of tea in her hand starts complaining.

"This tea has been too hot to drink for ten minutes."

I am stunned by what a pure idiot she is....and what does she expect me to do about it? Take the lid off off her cup and blow on her tea?

For this....I should get a medal in customer service.....I smile ...the SMILE.....and calmly and sweetly say......."Perhaps an ice cube from the cafe might help?"

Where is the president of my chain bookstore when I should be given an award for restraint...because really I should of grabbed a magazine and smacked this woman over the head.

~~~~~

I'm Going to ...Slovenia ....Really!

I'm going to Slovenia in June.

I'm going to pause here for a few seconds....so you can finish laughing...and then say...."What...is there such a place?" Those of you who are compulsive may feel the need to dash to Google....so go ahead. I'll still be here when you return.

Talk about life turning on an innocent email. That's exactly what happened....I opened an email from a former Professor who teaches at a local university. He teaches at an MFA writing program in the northeast during the summer. Apparently, the grad school writing class had a few open spaces after the students had registered and he was sending out feelers to some former students whom he thought might qualify.

When I read the program was in Slovenia....I just laughed. Slovenia?...."Where the hell is that?" Google said it was tightly sandwiched between Italy, Austria, and some other new Slav nations and pronounced it legitimate, quaint, interesting, picturesque and peaceful. Me go to a peaceful pretty country instead of one that required knowledge of AK47s? The concept of traveling someplace safe and secure was mind-boggling.

In a rather spooky coincidence, a couple weeks ago, I remember sitting in my reading chair late at one night. I was thinking about how much more work I had to do on the Africa book....when this very interesting thought arrived....isn't it time... Gina..... you went someplace pretty? Isn't it time you considered going someplace where an overactive adrenalin pump and a freshly updated will weren't the prerequisites?

Africa slapped me around. I know I have an edge now....I know I have limitations. I had to learn how to receive in the Sahara....me the tough woman on the block who carries her own 50 lb mulch bag, cuts down a tree, and goes for lessons on how to fire a semi-automatic rifle. I had to depend on someone to be my guardian angel to keep me going...."Gina ...get up, get your backpack and get in the car." " Yes Diana." "Which car?"

So here comes Slovenia....Slovenia.....A country whose name you can't say without laughing.....a country who has a writing program in the Alps in a beautiful lodge on a lake...where the only tough circumstance you have to face outdoors is fending off mosquitoes which take a little blood and don't insert deadly diseases as a thank you gift.

This is almost as terrifying as crossing the Sahara desert .....comfort, beauty, intellectual conversations, good food, reasonable temperatures, a soft bed........

Oh My God what have I gotten myself into?

~~

The Art of Liberation Courtesy of Africa

Liberation

Tanya Hollifield

I never intend to buy art. It seems to find me. There's this mutual nod of recognition. Hello art, you belong in my house. Hello Gina, you need to take me home. There's no waffling, no angst, no indecision....and thank God overpriced art never talks to me.

Last week I was invited to read an essay on our local NPR station. They have a story hour once a month and selected one of my small humor pieces to be included in the show. They now tape the show from a local restaurant/cafe so there's comfortable background noise and laughter--hopefully in appropriate places. The old brick walls of the cafe are covered with paintings, wall art, photos.

I walked in the door, headed to the bar and stopped midway. I looked at "Liberation," she looked at me. Hello art, Hello Gina. Amen.

What stunned me about this piece (acrylic on muslin) is that it mimicked the exact pose I took when I stood on the rocks of the Djado plateau overlooking the Sahara desert. I stood naked with my hands raised to the desert, she stands naked with her hands raised to the viewer. My pictures were taken in silhouette from behind, her picture is open to those who would look her in the eye. Sometimes when I pass by her in her temporary lodging in the front room, I believe she is my brave twin... facing life, with openness and honesty, takes more guts, I believe, than crossing the Sahara desert.

I believe this mutual recognition of art and soul has its origins somewhere deep in the psyche. I don't think it's an accident I found her and it's certainly not an accident that she's home with me.
Every time I pass her, I'm going to remember the courage and toughness it took to cross Africa.

Every time I pass her, she's going to remind me of the courage and toughness it takes to live an authentic life.
~
Hello art. Hello Gina. Amen.

~~~

I Don't Know How Old I Am.......

They say blogs become confessional. So why fight it? On this cold winter night here in the south...I'm ready to confess.

I can't remember how old I am, I often forget how old my children are...and I haven't a clue how old the pets are or how many years I've been married. I'm an intelligent, fiesty, interesting woman...but it appears I have a genetic break in some DNA sequence that creates age amnesia.

A couple days ago, I went to the doctor because I mangled my shoulder. Not being a patient person, I didn't wait for the men folks and cut down a tree limb which was too big and too ambitious for a pole saw. The handsome doctor looked at me ( I was not wearing lipstick) and asked "How old are you?" I knitted my brow. "How old does the chart say I am?" He read off a number. "Well, I could be. " He gave me a funny look and probably thought I had damaged more than my shoulder in the Gina-versus-the-tree saga.

This age-amnesia also applies to my children. When they were little, I could report their age to the exact year and month. Now they are all "teenagers"....although my daughter reminds me she is legally drinking. It seems when they grew into adult-type bodies, my brain could no longer distinguish the difference between 15 and 16 and simply gave up. They will probably turn 30 someday and I'll still tell people I have three teens.

And the pets? Who knows how long I've been battling dog hair.... Dog #1 is the oldest animal, followed by Cat, followed by Deaf Dog. When I call the vet, I first call my husband. He is quite annoying and will say things like..." We got Mike (Dog #1) right after the championship basketball game when the Chicago Bulls played the Indiana Pacers because you named him after Micheal Jordan because the Bulls won... which makes him...... (Wait one second while I ask him......) .....he says, "Mike will be 10 years old this May." I am quite sure this is why I married the man... his Mensa-certified brain remembers exactly this type of stuff.

My husband is sometimes alarmed that I don't remember how many years we've been married. He is not exactly a celebratory person so anniversaries can come and go without a lot of hoopla...but when I ask him in complete honesty to tell me how many years we have been married.....HE knits his brows at ME. I suppose this works to his advantage because I would never remember if it's a paper year or a china year or crystal year.. ......all presents are, therefore, appropropriate.

Sometimes when people ask how old I am....and they notice me struggling...trying to come up with a number....they assume I'm coy...or trying to hack off a few years as woman are wont to do....

So I quite struggling...I often ask them, "How old do you think I am?" I have found this much more interesting than providing them a number. And I have found the spectrum of numbers refreshing..... one day I'm 40....the next day I could be 45.....I accept all reasonable numbers.

And who's to say I'm not that age? If I'm working at the bookstore and a 20 year old guy thinks I'm 40....maybe I am.....because it fits his image of what a 40 year old woman should be.....same with a woman who guesses close to my chronological age.....she somehow has pegged me as her contemporary and ...it's important that I am the age she ascribes to me...because she's trying to establish a common bond or background.

I once met an interesting woman who changed my perspective on age. I was taking a yoga class.. I assumed ...AT MOST....the woman was 45. After class one day, for some reason, she confessed that she was actually 56 years old. My mouth fell open. She looked at me and said ...."This is exactly why I don't tell people how old I am." If I tell people I'm 56 and going off to hike solo in the mountains, they begin a litany of warnings. AT YOUR AGE, should you be hiking alone? Should you be going off to do this or that AT YOUR AGE?......So she quit telling people her real age. She takes care of herself....and lives a life which is in tune with her mental and physical age rather than the number on her birth certificate.

I can agree with that....I like that.....live the age you feel...or the age someone thinks you are....especially if you can't really remember how old you are anyway.....

~~~

Why is Rachael Ray in my Kitchen at 1am?

It's late, I need a snack....I've been thinking and reading.....and the night owl wiring is fully activated. So I pull some crackers out of the cabinet, grab some cheese, turn and almost scream. Rachel Ray is staring at me...from both cracker boxes. A double-barrel shot gun effect. I rummage around in the cabinet and find a different type of cracker and ahhh! she's there too...on the front, back, side....and even the top flap of the box....Were the marketing folks so fearful I wouldn't notice her huge picture on the front and back of the box that they had to make sure there wasn't a surface on the box that didn't have a little reminder that RACHEL RAY was being featured?

Why is this woman on every box of crackers I own? Who invited her into my house? Especially late at night when her Cheshire cat smile is so disturbing....imagine if I had a couple glasses of wine before I saw her.

Even though I don't cook, I'm not totally out of the cooking world. I know she's on the Food Network....so??? What am I missing? Apparently a lot...



Time magazine listed her as one of the 100 most influential people of 2006 on the same page as Pope Benedict, Al Gore, Arianna Huffington and Condoleeza Rice. At least I could see her paired with Condoleeza ....since we talking Rice .....but really she's in the same category as the Pope?

The Time magazine article stated that she "radically changed the way America cooks dinner." Really? How come I'm still cooking a spaghetti dinner by boiling water, throwing pasta in, and then adding sauce? Did I miss something?

I checked her website but I guess you have to be a Ray fan to get it. She has t-shirts labeled "Yum-O " and "Got EVOO." (If you're out of the loop like I am, that translates into extra virgin olive oil.) She sells music Cds... (Rachel Ray picked ten songs for a road trip and songs for Christmas which you obviously play while baking her cookies.) And like Oprah, her website tackles tough women's' issues....her feature this week? Talking about a "woman's worse nightmare".......abuse? poverty? ......no.....cellulite. Really. Cellulite.

Apparently there are some folks who actually don't like her. There's a blog called --the Rachel Ray Sucks Community---and apparently according to an article I read...Anthony Bourdain, another TV chef, called her "a bobble head." Well bobble she may....but she's certainly the Queen of Crackers.

My solution to Rachel Ray's reign of terror on my boxes? I emptied all my crackers into a big ol' plastic bag and threw the boxes away. Better to face naked crackers in plastic than Rachel Ray at 1am in your kitchen.

One of 2000 Bloggers

Well....ain't life interesting...sometimes when you least expect it...like on a quiet Saturday night.

I was working on my children's book (the one I submitted to the publisher for consideration a couple weeks ago) and was researching the mosque in Agadez, Niger. It's an amazing building.... a tall reddish-orange mud tower with dark wooden logs sticking out of it at crazy angles....it looks like a giant came along and stuck dark toothpicks into an ant hill. It's old (16th century) and beautiful (despite my description) and I just couldn't focus on it...so I started wandering around and reading blogs....I checked on the 2000 Blogger project and found I was on it!!

The 2000 Blogger project is a brilliant idea (You think I'm prejudiced because I'm in it?) by Tino Buntic. Out of 55 million blogs he decided to showcase 2000 blogs....gathered blog pictures, names, and linked us all together on one big "poster." It's really cool.... you can go down the rows and click on faces and enter blog worlds you would never discover on your own. The first blog I hit was totally in French....but looked hilarious...I'm going back to that one although this time with a French-English dictionary on my desk.


I wanted to see who my neighbors were on the poster....after all we might be linked together for eternity..in cyberspace.....on one side I have the blog "Good Brownie" written by Mat Brown out of Indiana (that's the picture he's using for his profile.) Since I'm from Chicago, and we're Midwesterners... you think we'd be good neighbors....but Mat had an entry that turned my heart cold...GO COLTS.....well of course, he's from Indiana....but everyone knows..its DAH BEARS for the Super Bowl. He might be a nice guy, if Chicago wins, I'm sure we'll get along.

My other neighbor is another guy with a blog entitled "Harmonious Josh." He states he "finds new ways to fail every day." Josh is an artist and I copied one of his more unusual pieces--skull flower-- here. He says he's a school photographer and I noticed in his profile pic he's wearing a baseball cap with a skull and bones on it....I would too if I had to take pictures of squirming kids for a living...then you could threaten them and tell them they'll all be walking the plank if they don't sit still.....lol.


So now that you're all excited.....about the living wall of bloggers...here's the addy:

http://www.trade-pals.com/2000-bloggers.asp

I'm 6 rows up from the bottom..... have fun.....

but don't blame me if you don't get your work done!