Braveheart-does-the-Maghreb

Joy and Rapture!

2012-01-11T13:50:00.001-08:00

Home to the U.S. and not-dead, always good. I have NEWS. I AM GOING TO BE A GRANDMOTHER! We shopped for the layette in Paris to get him off to a good start.

Ciao

Last day (this trip) in Paris

2012-01-10T03:08:00.000-08:00

The Adorable Husband is taking Sarah to the Catacombes. Q is to the library to work, one last day to get her hands on the ancient manuscript. I am contemplating one more lunch at Cafe' de la Paix - foie gras and excellent wine...

Last day here...

2012-01-10T01:11:00.001-08:00

WE are swimming in baby clothes and happiness here. Go over and read what Elle wrote - brilliant.

tasks...

2012-01-09T01:11:00.000-08:00

The Adorable Husband out from 2200 to 0200 hours Saturday night to watch American football in the old Latin Quarter: check
Romantic dinner with Adorable Husband: check
Romantic interludeS with Adorable Husband: check
Shopping with Q: today
Step- daughter to Versailles: check
museums: check
dinner at Moroccan restaurant: check times two
dinner at very very French restaurant: tonight
Purchase gifts for those left at home: today

So far, so good!

the woes of no sleep..

2012-01-02T02:53:00.000-08:00

Argh. I'm awake at 0400hrs but the good news is, this will help me with the time change. We leave for Paris at 1600hrs this afternoon! Q and A will fly in from St. Petersburg the morning of 4th January, then eleven days of French fun.

I'm determined to get over on Haussman to the shop that carries the lovely handkerchiefs, and the new shop I discovered in November last that sells the brilliant parasoles, and the aromatic tea shop that hand mixes the Chai tea for me. Lots to do.

The children are going to do the museums, and Versailles with the Adorable Husband. My plan is to walk, drink, shop, eat, and have some romantic time with my love. A good plan yes?

Ciao!

and we are off!

2012-01-01T07:28:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all! Off to Paris anon with The Adorable Husband, and step-daughter, Sarah. Q and A are flying into Paris from St. Petersburg the day after we arrive. Eleven days in Paris when people I love - difficult to find a better way to begin a new year!

Back to Paris

2011-11-08T00:49:00.000-08:00

Managed to get attacked last night by a West African taxi driver, in Paris. He blooded my hand quite well. The French police are buying the version it was an "accident" and will not pursue. I notified the Embassy because I feel responsible to prevent him doing this again; he ran away. I must now get an arm full of shots and worry about HIV contamination. Not a great night.

and we are off again

2011-11-06T23:04:00.000-08:00

A future Oxford scholar getting the right attitude.

Oxford was lovely, more later. We toured the library and I was shocked by the changes - they have plugs, computers, and are switching to the DDS! Shocking!

To London this morning, a bit of shopping and tea at Harrod's; then back to Paris on the Chunnel.

Ciao

Boom!

2011-11-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

All over England apparently....

and continuing our tour of the Continent and Britain...

2011-11-04T07:43:00.000-07:00

We are at the Old Parsonage Hotel in Oxford and it is so brilliant! Tiny, tiny, hotel with a great bar, ok the Macallan's is only 10-years-0ld but THEY HAVE IT. Rolled in off the train around noon, after big hugs with Billy the owner of the B&B in Bath, with whom we are now life long friends. Had a lovely lunch downstairs while they were readying the room; upstairs for a cuppa in a small (it is after all England) but very well appointed room with included WIFI so you know we are happy.

STAY TUNED!

2011-11-03T11:47:00.000-07:00

I was in Texas, then I was in Paris (thank the Gods), then I was in Britain (thank you Kali) - first to London, then Bath (oh the food, the whiskey, the people, the tales), and tomorrow - Oxford! Too busy at present to write about adventures as I am having them - but stay tuned!

Ciao!

yum!

2011-10-31T09:01:00.000-07:00

Dinner

The greatest chocolate shop in Paris...

2011-10-30T10:10:00.001-07:00

Everything you see, except for the Baby, is made of chocolate!

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Paris in October

2011-10-26T23:19:00.001-07:00

Just a few photographs from about town for you. The chaps with the spears sticking through them are all about town. We can't figure it out - what do you think. Here are some young chaps who used them for hanging their hats!

And just what room would you decorate around that chair?

And yes that's how we do window/doors in Paris!

Paris

2011-10-24T09:41:00.001-07:00

Two Paris beauties!

One of those "what were they thinking?

2011-09-09T10:23:00.000-07:00

And then you laugh! Please provide your own captions.

How fortunate are we?

2011-08-12T05:32:00.000-07:00

Please watch this

Whatever you can...

2011-08-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

I know it is easy to have 'aid fatigue', but if you have been watching the news, reading the paper - you know how desperate matters are for the people, the children and mothers in particular, of Somalia. I know times are economically a bit techy in the West of late, but we are not dying, our children are not dying - by the hundreds, by the thousand. I urge you to find it in your heart and pocket to donate whatever you can - these are my go to people for desperate situations around the world.

I am someone's mother; thank you from me and someone else's mother.

Year of the Redhead aye? Huzzah!

2011-08-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

As any Redhead will tell you (natural or adopted) we love the attention. Thank you Ian.

HUZZAH!

2011-08-02T04:54:00.000-07:00

Helen Mirren Has 'Body Of The Year' At 66: Actress Tops L.A. Fitness Poll

What do David Beckham and Helen Mirren have in common? Aside from being two famous Brits, they also have the most desirable bodies. That's right, 66-year-old Dame Helen Mirren has the hottest bod in Hollywood.

The Oscar-winning actress was named “Body of the Year" by 2,000 people who were apart of a L.A. Fitness survey. She beat model Elle MacPherson, who came in a not-even-close second place, singer Nicole Scherzinger, Kelly Brook, who came in third, and even Jennifer Lopez, who came in fourth place. The Dame even bested Pippa Middleton, Kate Middleton's little sister, who came in eighth place with only four percent of the vote.

Mirren’s win should came as no surprise to people who have seen pictures of the Dame topless in New York Magazine. Looks like Mirren's proving that age is certainly nothing but a number.

As for the hottest male bodies? Well, soccer stud David Beckham came out on top, putting him ahead of actors Daniel Craig and Johnny Depp in second and third place respectively.

Helen Mirren is currently set to film the controversial Phil Spector biopic, starring Al Pacino as the famed music producer. The actress will play Spector's defence attorney Linda Kenney Baden.

I love this century!

Brilliant

2011-07-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

Off tomorrow to the MFAH to view the Titian exhibit. I'm taking my stepdaughter, and her friend Gabe. The three of us went together to see the Impressionists exhibit when it was in town; and it was so much fun. They are both very knowledgeable about art, and take such joy in the pieces. It is a pleasure to be able to view the works with them.

I have no idea WHY,

2011-07-26T12:42:00.000-07:00

but someone has created a fake Facebook account in my name, with much of my personal data. I was notified yesterday by a friend who is a geek and has a kick-ass supply of computer/software toys. She has deactivated the account but was unable to delete it. I have only the ONE Facebook page. My list of "friends" is relatively small, so I am not going to erase my authentic Facebook page. That said, should anyone see a page similar to mine but with some rather risque photographs, and comments I would never make - please let me know.

Do let me tell you to tighten your security/privacy settings. This person routed the data through several IP addresses - INCLUDING MY OWN. A bit like having someone look up your skirt - but not in a good way!

Huzzah!

2011-07-21T04:14:00.000-07:00

That's Waldo hiding under my skirt, and keeping my seat warm while I make some tea!

And back to Texas and the adorable husband!

Where once I am unpacked, and have satisfied the adorable husband (clear your minds!) by going to see the doctor about the rather near-death respiratory infection that has been going on now for just three days.. all will be well. My lungs feel like a docking station for all new arrivals of pulmonary destruction devices (it's national security, ha!)

I shall recount for you my many adventures over the past weeks. Until then - go out and some you wan

I

Huzzah!

2011-07-19T06:39:00.000-07:00

Go to my Facebook page and see the gorgeous photographs of the children's Switzerland trip. Brilliant!

and now...

2011-07-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

Massachusetts! but first Newark... really? apparently you just can't get there from here, so ...Newark.

Ciao

2011-07-14T18:54:00.000-07:00

How much do I love THIS?!!!

Helen Mirren shows woaca, and any age - how it's done! Love it!

Hard choices..

2011-07-13T04:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had to make the choice between the Prayers and Ritual Dance at the Verizon Center, or the lunch for sponsors with the promised appearance of HIs Holiness. Argh... At the lunch I was regretting my choice, and then - the Universe does that thing it does and an old/new friend appeared. A lovely woman to whom I felt an immediate bond. I love it when that happens! She is from Philadelphia - where my children went to school (at Penn), A is now attending medical school there, and they have their house there because they love the city....Her husband attended Penn for medical school! She has four gorgeous children, and a grandchild, but looks like she's just getting started! She is one of those 'glow-y people', those who simply glow with good will and beauty. I'm looking forward to getting to know her much better over the next few days. What a grand gift.

From WEDDING

Later that day.... Our Katie is in town, doing her save the world through politics thing, and was sweet enough to make time to see me. I did a little bit wicked thing..... I played matchmaker between our Katie and my new best buddy Zach (the wonderful young man who works downstairs at the only good restaurant in this very mediocre hotel that has a very accommodating and kindly staff). We had a brilliant time. I'd been up since 0530 hrs, hit the gym, did the studying, and then the l o n g luncheon, so I was dragging a bit, until I was infected by their youthful and passionate energies. Zach led us from one great restaurant to another (they were all booked up, so REALLY good restaurants!); until he finally (bless his heart) found us a place that was just right - excellent food and wonderful service in a totally lovely atmosphere, SEI. It was a very lively dinner with Katie and I regaling Zach with stories of Morocco, and him telling us some of his stories.

From our time in Fez

Once we made it back to my hotel, and I sent them down to the Metro, I came upstairs washed my face and collapsed!!! I fear my nightly telephone call with the adorable husband was barely coherent. But a great day! What a lucky girl am I, aye?

And now I am 'up and moving', had my tea, and must get dressed and off to Prayers at the Verizon Center. Today is the first day of the Empowerment so it's really an exciting time.

Ciao.

Dalai Lama audio and video | The Office of His Holiness The Dalai Lama

2011-07-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

Dalai Lama audio and video | The Office of His Holiness The Dalai Lama

I'm a little late with this, but I've been studying so much...

2011-07-12T03:01:00.000-07:00

This is an article regarding Texas education (which if you did not know affects the entire usa! When they approve the contents of textbooks, they go out all over the country...) There are quotes from my brilliant cousin-in-law Casey McCreary!

July 9, 2011
School Counselors Fear They Will Bear Burden of Budget Cuts and New Exams
By MORGAN SMITH
In the fall, the anticipated consequences of a $4 billion reduction in state financing to school districts will begin to become apparent to Texas students and their parents: fewer teachers, bigger classes and sparse extracurricular programs.

For some, though, the most drastic change will come in the spring, when the state’s approximately 350,000 new ninth graders will be the first to take the end-of-course exams that are part of the new standardized testing system known as Staar, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.

The new assessment program, which is so complex that the superintendent of the Perrin-Whitt school district nicknamed it the Franken-Staar, was established during the 2009 legislative session. Some educators welcome the program, a significant overhaul of the current system, but others view it with trepidation.

Outside the classroom, the burden of rolling out the new exams will fall primarily on counselors, who help students meet graduation requirements, and on curriculum specialists, who make sure what students are being taught matches with what they are being tested on. Some districts also employ testing coordinators, who handle scheduling and the actual administration of the exams.

But predicting reduced state aid, many districts have already eliminated many nonclassroom positions for the coming school year. That means remaining employees will have far more responsibilities, a particular concern for school counselors, who have long worked to define their role as separate from that of testing coordinators.

“With finances like they are, there’s not going to be extra people to help,” said Sherry Sunderman, the coordinator of guidance and counseling at Conroe Independent School District in Montgomery County, north of Houston.

Many counselors worry they will be given more duties on the testing side and that instead of advising students, their jobs will become “more clerical,” said Sylvia Lopez, the director of Dallas I.S.D.’s counseling services. Resources traditionally devoted to counseling students on career and college plans may now be used to explain and administer the new testing system, which includes complicated new graduation requirements.

Counselors “are going to have to be really monitoring students’ graduation programs to make sure they are taking the right courses and passing the right exams,” said Casey McCreary, an assistant executive director at the Texas Association of School Administrators who advises districts on accountability issues.

Students adjusting to the new exams face a “triple jeopardy,” Ms. McCreary said. With Staar, high school students will have to perform better on harder tests and take more of them. Under the current system, standardized tests do not count toward final grades, and students must pass four exit-level exams to graduate. Now, for the first time, students will have to achieve a cumulative score across 12 end-of-course exams to graduate. And their scores on the exams will count toward 15 percent of their final grade, with the option to retake the exam three times if they do not pass.

That could have students playing a game of risk with their scores — opting not to retake one test with the hope of scoring higher on a future one. Setting up a process to guide students through these decisions, one that involves parents and a “team effort” between curriculum specialists and counselors, is crucial in preparing for the new tests, said Sara McAndrew, the executive director of curriculum and instruction at Northside I.S.D., the state’s fourth-largest district, in San Antonio.

As the new school year draws closer, Ms. McAndrew said, schools are still missing details about how the rollout will work. Though the Texas Education Agency will unveil sample questions in August, it will not publicly release full-length primary test forms until 2014. “We are still a little in the dark about exactly what these tests are going to look like,” she said.

Ms. Lopez said she also has questions about the new system, like “who is going to keep track of the kids and where they are and how many exams they’ve taken.”

But she said that she expected growing pains. “Anytime there is a change like this, there is going to be a struggle,” Ms. Lopez said. “There is always a transitional period. Staar is going to be a lot more rigorous, but hopefully this will help our kids.”

msmith@texastribune.org

sigh

2011-07-11T03:28:00.000-07:00

After making the long trip from Texas to be here just for the weekend, to lend his support and see His Holiness - the adorable husband has returned home to Houston. I requested housekeeping NOT change my bed linens so I can sleep on 'his' side of the bed that still smells like him. Yes, I am silly in love with my husband! How cool is that?

Another inspiring Teaching yesterday. The crowds are growing. The adorable husband, as he always does, found me a GREAT restaurant, steps from the Verizon Centre - Clyde's. They have FANTASTIC crab cakes, and a brilliant staff - lovely and very friendly. I crawled there through the oppressive heat after the Teaching, desperately hopeful that they were open on Sunday. They were! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Two of the waitresses are particularly lovely (photos coming). I shall be 'appearing' there all week! :-)

Afterwards. the crowds had thinned out, a bit, at the Tibetan street market, and I found some great shirts for the children; as well as such a cute bag for my Sarah. Q and A have their happiness - those two are climbing in Switzerland this week!

Breakfast has arrived. Time to get to it - the gym, prayers, Teaching; and there is what should be a interesting talk tonight I want to attend. On the first night's teaching (various teachers from around the country, and the world, on various topics of interest) they had 900 seats, and 3000 PEOPLE showed up. How brilliant is that?!!!!! So, they are now holding all teachings at the Verizon Center in order to accommodate everyone. I love it. You would not believe the energy in that place.

I don't know if I am becoming any 'wiser', but I feel an amazing happiness, peace, and such compassion for everyone (yes, everyone...)

Ciao.

First Day of Teaching of the Kalachakra

2011-07-10T04:11:00.000-07:00

We had the first Teaching yesterday. I think the adorable husband (who came all the way up from Texas just for the weekend, to see what it was all about, and support me) was suitably impressed, and then we had a lovely evening together. I am going to do my prayers this morning as he sleeps, so I can stay here and have breakfast with him. Then he will leave for the airport, and I shall go to the afternoon teaching. They have begun the Mandala - oooooooooooooooooh so beyond beautiful. I am surprised they have shown it on the screen, as technically those taking the vows are not to supposed to see it until the Day of the Empowerment - technology I suppose. I told the adorable husband about all the years of study and preparation the chaps who create it must undergo - they are practically sacred themselves.

His Holiness's address on World Peace went well, though it did not receive the attention the Casey Anthony trial did!! He looks good, still a little stiff after sitting for long teaching, but moving about well. Yesterday as He was leaving, someone shouted out from up in the stands, "We love you Your Holiness!", and he threw us some kisses. The bloody house came down! It was grand.

I apologize for my crappy photographs and films, but my great little digital camera takes NOW to die - well, I do suppose it was not by choice aye? I have my iTouch, and will do my best with that, and post things from the Kalachakra website.

Kalachakra 2011 - July 9 Peace Event

2011-07-09T04:37:00.000-07:00

Kalachakra 2011 - July 9 Peace Event

GO JETER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hoo-rah!

2011-07-09T04:09:00.000-07:00

JULY 8, 2011, 8:00 PM
Some 3,000 Hit Quirks

By JORGE CASTILLO
As much as the Derek Jeter’s pursuit toward 3,000 hits has been chronicled around the clock, the moment he finally does reach the milestone — in the age of high definition and smartphones — will be even more inescapable.

The question of when has been discussed thoroughly. Just three hits away, it will likely come this weekend at Yankee Stadium against the Rays. But how it will finally happen is anyone’s guess.

Jeter will become the 28th player in history to accomplish the feat. The first 27 have done so in various ways and circumstances.

Craig Biggio, the last to reach the sacred number in 2007, was thrown out trying to stretch number 3,000 into a double. Wade Boggs’s 3,000th hit was a home run — unconventional for a player who had only 118 homers and two double-digit home-run seasons in an 18-year career.

Pete Rose did what Pete Rose seemed to always do: singled for his 3,000th against the Montreal Expos in 1978. Rose finished his career with the most hits in history, 4,256 — 3,215 of which were singles, also the most in history.

Paul Molitor went a more strenuous route to reach the plateau in 1995: he tripled. Molitor remains the only member to leg out a three-bagger for number 3,000.

In his final season, Rod Carew reached the milestone against the Twins the same day Tom Seaver won his 300th game against the Yankees on Aug. 4, 1985.

Seven years later, George Brett entered his day four shy of the mark and managed to double and single three times in his first four at-bats to reach the mark against the Angels — with Carew in the opposing dugout as the Angels’ batting coach.

Not all went as planned, however: Brett was picked off of first while talking to Angels first baseman Gary Gaetti, who Brett reportedly said had asked if his family was in attendance to witness the landmark hit.

Then there’s Roberto Clemente. He doubled for his 3,000th hit in his final regular-season at-bat of 1972, a night after a controversial error ruling took away what would have been number 3,000. The hit would turn out to be the regular season at-bat of his career; he would die in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve of that year.

Dalai Lama audio and video | The Office of His Holiness The Dalai Lama

2011-07-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

Dalai Lama audio and video | The Office of His Holiness The Dalai Lama

hope...

2011-07-02T07:04:00.000-07:00

Our neighborhood, and my little house

The challenge for the 'new Morocco'
By Elise Labott, CNN

Moroccans on Friday approved a referendum on constitutional reforms by more than 98%, the country's interior minister said. Morocco's King Mohammed VI has promised that these reforms will usher in an era of greater freedoms.
I just returned from Morocco, where there is some reason to be hopeful that amid the uncertain course of the Arab Spring, there may be some blossoms of progress.
While I was in Morocco, King Mohammed VI unveiled the new constitution, developed in coordination with a variety of political parties and civil society groups.
The new, elected government that will result from this constitution will be accountable to parliament, have an independent judiciary and provide equal rights for women and minorities.
Now some might call that move a model for how to modernize and hold onto power.
While Syria's Bashar al-Assad and Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh have responded to calls for regime change with military force, King Mohammed has stayed in place by offering to surrender some of his powers - answering his country's reform movement with promises that he will shift from an almost absolute to a constitutional monarchy. He has certainly gone further than King Abdullah of Jordan in offering political reform.
Morocco's King Mohammed VI has fashioned himself a reformer and modern monarch since taking office in 1999, promoting women's rights, easing up on human rights abuses and even investigating abuses during the reign of his father, King Hassan.
But genuine reform has been slow. The country is rife with corruption; there are still political prisoners and freedom of the press does not include criticism of the monarchy.
Inspired by their brothers and sisters in Egypt and Tunisia, young activists organized on Facebook to give the monarchy the push it needed to speed the pace of reform. Tens of thousands Moroccans with the February 20 movement, named after the first big day of protests, have taken to the streets.
They are happy for the king to reign, but not to rule.
They want a system like Britain or Sweden, where the monarchy plays an important symbolic role, but does not meddle in the affairs of state. These hopeful young Moroccans want jobs and an end to corruption its members say stems from a network of royal cronies.
In March, the King answered their calls in a speech promising substantial reform, which resulted in the constitution being put to a vote. February 20's answer to the King: Cosmetic touches won't cut it.
Indeed King Mohammed retains key powers. He remains the head of the military and Morocco's highest religious authority. He also presides over various committees and councils which suggest that he will still play a large role in ruling the country.
Most of Morocco's political parties say this is okay – for now. It's important, many politicians told me, for Morocco to remain stable as it moves on a more democratic path.
Many believe that the new constitution is a good first step and, while not perfect, supporting its passage will give the king the confidence to continue with greater reforms.
And a large number of Moroccans believe the challenge for Morocco is not how good or bad the constitution is, but rather now it is implemented. It will fall upon Moroccans to consolidate these new responsibilities and deliver on the demands for change.
The stakes could not be higher.
A moderate Islamic country, Morocco has had its fair share of terrorist attacks, most recently a bomb at a Marrakech café which killed 17 at the hands of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
While mainstream Islamic parties like the Justice and Development party hope to move the country toward a Turkish model, which marries Islam and democracy, the country's banned Justice and Charity Islamist movement favor a more extremist brand of Islam and are moving into poor Moroccan neighborhoods to spread their vision.
With an intense campaign for the referendum's passage by the government, political parties and on radio and television, almost to the exclusion of room for serious debate about its merits, it is a near forgone conclusion it will be adopted.
Whether the new constitution can satisfy the demands of the people and at the same time maintain the popularity of the king is an open question. If not, February 20 says it's ready. Its mantra is "Mamfankich." Translation: "We will never give up."

With so much bad news out there, this brought a smile to my face...

2011-06-22T06:44:00.001-07:00

June 21, 2011
After 3,000, Even Dirt Will Sell
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit will be a cause for celebration, marketing and — not least of all — digging up dirt.

After the game, a groundskeeper will tote a shovel and bucket onto the field to scoop five gallons of dirt from the batter’s box and shortstop’s patch. In baseball’s version of preserving the chain of evidence, the bucket will be sealed with tape and verified as the dirt beneath Jeter’s feet with tamper-proof holograms.

“It will be scooped in our presence,” said Cosmo Lubrano, an authenticator for Major League Baseball who would prove the dirt’s veracity if the 3,000th hit occurs at Yankee Stadium as he follows a bucket-carrying groundskeeper, probably Dan Cunningham. “We’re there as a witness.”

The dirt — from Yankee Stadium if all goes perfectly, but from some ballpark, perhaps Citi Field July 1 to 3 — will find its way into a vast and lucrative universe of celebrity memorabilia and collectibles, much of it orchestrated by a company named Steiner Sports. Tablespoonfuls of the dirt will be poured into capsules to dangle on key chains; ladled into disks to be framed with photographs of the hit (in what is called a dirt collage); and glued into the interlocking NY carved into commemorative bats.

“That bucket of dirt will go a long way,” said Brandon Steiner, the chairman of Steiner Sports, who has a memorabilia partnership with the Yankees and a marketing deal with Jeter.

The selling of Jeter’s historic hit — he is six short of 3,000 as he waits to heal from a calf strain — actually has its own campaign name: “DJ 3K,” and a logo that will appear on much of the merchandise capitalizing on his achievement. It is quite a list: T-shirts, caps, jerseys, bobbleheads, decals, cellphone skins, wall murals, patches, bats, balls, license plates and necklaces made by two dozen M.L.B. licensees.

Modell’s, the venerable New York sports goods chain, is not going to miss out. The chain’s Times Square location will stay open past its midnight or 1 a.m. closing time as long as fans keep shopping on the day or night of the accomplishment.

”We’re locked and loaded,” said Mitchell Modell, the chief executive of Modell’s.

The ingenious and sometimes crass rush to cash in on sports achievements is hardly new, whether it focuses on championship teams or great players. Each new chapter, however, adds some new flourish in the grab for nostalgia dollars, whether in the form of a new product or a different commercial approach.

The so-called “hot market” for Jeter’s 3,000th hit — the player’s equivalent of a World Series championship — will test his sky-high popularity during a season in which he is batting .260.

“I’ve been here for 13 years,” said Howard Smith, the senior vice president for licensing of Major League Baseball. “And other than the home run race in 1998, this is the most significant business we’ve done for a hot market for a player.”

Warehouses of some of the biggest licensees, like Majestic and New Era, which are accustomed to supplying stores with World Series merchandise, are ready to deliver their Jeter material to retailers. Modell’s distribution center in the Bronx is preparing to ship to its 94 New York and New Jersey stores.

“Between the New York market and how revered Jeter is, it’s going to be a huge event,” said Michael Johnson, a spokesman for Majestic, which is producing an array of jerseys and T-shirts.

And already, John Killen, the president of Wincraft, one of the 24 licensees, said he has booked substantial business for his Jeter flags, lanyards, pennants, travel mugs, pins and magnets.

“Short of someone of Jeter’s caliber retiring, you won’t get an event bigger than this,” he said.

And, Jeter will get a cut of some of it. For all the licensed products sold by the likes of Rawlings, Nike, Majestic, Louisville Slugger, Fathead and New Era, he will share royalties with M.L.B. and the players’ union; he will also share in the sale of products sold under his deal with Steiner Sports. Already, he has designated proceeds from the sale of a silicone bracelet to benefit his Turn 2 Foundation.

Everything Jeter touches or wears as he pursues his 3,000th hit carries value. So will the bases he steps on. In deciding what to provide for sale, Jeter controls his cleats, wristbands, bats and batting gloves. The Yankees control what they provide to him, like his uniform, warm-up jackets, and caps, as well as the dirt, the bases and the pitching rubber.

And Steiner, through his deals with the Yankees and Jeter, can sell whatever he gets.

Jeter will probably ask to keep things — perhaps the most valuable items like the 3,000th hit ball — for himself.

“When the time comes,” said the Yankees’ president, Randy Levine, “we’ll sit down with Derek and his representatives and reach a mutual accommodation that’s good for everybody.”

Steiner said that he has already collected the jersey, batting gloves and cleats Jeter wore when he got his 2,994th hit on June 13; Steiner expects to get those items, and his cap, for every hit through 3,000. The dirt and bases (which could be switched every inning) will be added to the bounty only for hit No. 3,000.

Jeter is not likely to provide an extra bonanza by changing into a new game-perspired jersey every inning.

“That wouldn’t be Jeter-like,” Steiner said. “He’d never wear 10 jerseys in a game. Maybe two.”

Steiner also plans to sell the official lineup card, and replicas of it, and package fans’ ticket stubs into collectibles. He also hopes to develop photographs of the hit at Yankee Stadium to sell before fans leave.

“This won’t be the circus coming to town,” Steiner said.

Smith, the M.L.B. executive, said Jeter approached the marketing with some trepidation, fearing that it might seem all too much. Smith said that during a recent meeting with Jeter and his agent, Casey Close, “I explained how appropriate it was for us to market these products. And Derek is like, ’I don’t want to take the limelight’; he felt weird about it. I said, ’It’s appropriate to be recognized; you’re a generational athlete.’ “

Jeter’s return is scheduled for June 29, when the Yankees play the second game of a three-game series against the Milwaukee Brewers at home, followed by trips to Flushing and Cleveland, before returning home to play Tampa Bay ahead of the All-Star Game.

“We have to be ready,” said Lubrano, the Yankee Stadium authenticator. “He could go 5 for 5.”

How is this possible in the 21st Century?

2011-06-16T05:49:00.000-07:00

ELEANOR HALL: Afghanistan has topped the list in a poll of the most dangerous countries in the world for women.

The international legal aid centre TrustLaw surveyed more than 200 gender experts.

And the South Asia director of Human Rights Watch says she was surprised by the appearance of India high on the list as Sarah Dingle reports

SARAH DINGLE: No nation would want to be top of this list.

The TrustLaw poll found that Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world but some of the lowest opportunities for women to access education or healthcare.

One judge said the lack of hope that the situation would improve meant Afghan women faced an even worse situation than women in other troubled nations.

Linda Bartolomei is from the Centre for Refugee Research at the University of New South Wales.

LINDA BARTOLOMEI: Women from Afghanistan along with their families have been fleeing as refugees very topically to Australia for many years. So tragically I am not particularly surprised.

SARAH DINGLE: Ms Bartolomei says she's worked with female Afghan refugees in Australia and overseas.

Recently she visited a large community of Afghan refugee women in New Delhi, India, a country which also features on the list for its rates of human trafficking and female infanticide.

LINDA BARTOLOMEI: The stories they shared of rape and sexual abuse in Afghanistan, of the denial of women's rights were really quite horrifying.

SARAH DINGLE: Coming in a close second to Afghanistan is the Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC.

TrustLaw's 213 gender experts including aid workers, health professionals and journalists, said the ranking was mainly due to staggering levels of sexual violence in the country's east.

Last month one of the authors of a study into this issue found that on average four women were raped in the DRC every five minutes.

Linda Bartolomei says these numbers are horrifying.

LINDA BARTOLOMEI: We worked in a refugee camp in Africa where there are a number of women from Congo.

And I do now remember being deeply moved by an account of a woman who was parenting not only her own large numbers of children but also the child of one of her daughters which was a child of rape in Congo.

And in discussion with that family I came to learn that this was actually something that was very common.

SARAH DINGLE: Pakistan and India were ranked the third and fourth most dangerous countries in the world for women respectively.

The South Asia director of Human Rights Watch Meenakshi Ganguly says at first she was taken aback

MEENAKSHI GANGULY: They were looking at women at risk which is just survival risk. Now as soon as you consider survival you will look at South Asia and you realise that the child, the girl child is at risk every stage of her life because she is just not as valued as her brother is.

SARAH DINGLE: Meenakshi Ganguly says there's also been a recent spate of honour killings against women in India as arranged marriages become less common.

MEENAKSHI GANGULY: The truth is that as India advances and as women step out they do find their own partners and those partners are not often popular with their relatives. And in an effort to dissuade them there have been attacks on both women and men who have married out of choice.

This is a new phenomenon. This is sort of almost like the cost of progress.

SARAH DINGLE: She says globally attitudes towards women have to improve. But also people who violate the law have to be seen to be brought to justice.

ELEANOR HALL: Sarah Dingle reporting.

How hot is it in Texas?

2011-06-11T05:59:00.000-07:00

being a parent is tough, anyway you come at it.

2011-06-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

Warnings and tips for stepparents

(CNN) -- I marvel at how many people live in blended families and how well they seem to manage.

Forty percent of Americans have at least one steprelative in their family, either a stepparent, a stepsibling or half sibling, or a stepchild, according to the Pew Research Center.

My husband grew up in a blended family, with steps and fulls and halfs. He had a very close relationship with his late stepfather and even has a friendly relationship with an ex-stepmother.

We have a big trip planned this summer with the all the siblings, three full and three steps. Sometimes I feel like an anomaly. I live in, and grew up in, a nuclear family. My husband and I have been married for 13 years. My parents have been married for more than 50.

Stepparenting includes emotional minefields

Knowing how hard parenting is in a traditional family, I couldn't help but wonder what additional issues stepparents face along the way? And how do they manage to forge meaningful relationships with their stepchildren? I decided to interview some stepparents to find out.

I found that the parents willing to share had many similar insights, even if they may have used their words cautiously. I also spoke with some experts on the subject.

The biggest challenge to the majority of the stepparents I interviewed was the ambiguity about their role in terms of discipline.

Vicki Peet, stepmother of two, described a "feeling of uncertainty" in dealing with her stepdaughters, particularly in challenging situations.

The plight of stepmoms on Mother's Day

Dave Larmore, a stepfather to two boys, noted that "trying to figure out where out where you fit in, in terms of discipline, is the hardest part."

Matt Olmstead, stepfather of three, agreed that "the hardest part is discipline." In his case, his stepchildren have a very active and devoted father, so he said, in terms of discipline, he "wants to be respectful of that other parent."

Mark Haffenreffer, stepfather of two, also told me that the hardest part for him was, "learning to discipline in a way that was acceptable to everybody."

Stepparents have "a lot of responsibility but none of the authority," says Jenna Korf, a stepparenting coach and writer for the website, NoOnesTheBitch.com, which is devoted to stepparenting with the focus on the stepmom/ biological mom relationship. She added that, "a great deal of the challenge and stress that is experienced in blended families is due to the dynamic between families."

Psychologist Dr. Sally Howard of South Pasadena, California, is a stepparent and a psychologist who leads workshops on stepparenting.

"Very often, the stepparent feels like an outsider to the position of the biological parent, who is the insider with the child," she said.

Peet shared a similar sentiment, saying that she sometimes felt it was "three and one," (her husband and his two kids -- and then her.) Even now that Peet has two kids with her husband, she added, "sometimes, I still feel separate, that it is the three of us (she and her two kids) and her husband and his children.

Howard describes stepparenting as a multistaged process. In the beginning, there is "a fantasy stage where the new couple dreams of a new and unified family," she said. "The kids often dream of getting the old family back together."

Stage two, she said, "is often one of culture shock" as "there are two distinct family systems and cultures being lived in a very intimate space." She recommends "maintaining a sense of curiosity, and attempting to put words to feelings instead of going into blame." She also added, "patience is important."

The following stages involve experimentation and "trying things that are different, and using understanding to create a stepfamily culture."

The honeymoon stage arrives "when there is more intimacy, authenticity and spouses have a team problem solving ability. There is a new sense of "this is the way we do things." She added that the entire process can take four to seven years.

Howard said she has found stepparenting to be "humbling."

"I grew up in a stepfamily. Both my husband and I are mental health providers. I imagined stepparenting would be smoother for us than it was," she said.

So patience and self-compassion seem to be important elements in this multifaceted process, but what other nuggets of wisdom could be learned from these modern families? What one piece of advice would these stepparents pass on to new stepparents, especially in light that all of them seemed to have forged loving, meaningful relationships with their stepchildren?

I found it interesting how many of them said the same thing: "Let your stepchildren come to you," Peet said. Korf's statement mirrored that, "let [the relationship] evolve naturally."

Larmore advised: "Don't be too heavy handed, and take (your stepchildren) on their own terms."

Haffenreffer agreed, "Don't be overly zealous, let them come to you."

Olmstead said, "Don't overthink it."

Tiffany Payne, stepmother of one, added, "Keep your focus on what's best for the child, and don't let the grown-up nonsense get in the way."

Dawn Olmstead, who has one stepdaughter, said, "Think of yourself as a champion. You're not there to replace anyone, but to champion their feelings, and sense of security."

Korf suggested that stepparents seek community. "Support is out there. It is not always easy to find, but it is there, and people who are not stepparents are not really going to understand."

"Becoming a Stepfamily" by Patricia Papernow has been an invaluable resource to Howard and her patients.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/06/07/step.parenting.basics/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

This is a move toward democracy?

2011-05-31T07:54:00.000-07:00

Egyptian general admits 'virginity checks' conducted on protesters

Cairo (CNN) -- A senior Egyptian general admits that "virginity checks" were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring, the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities.

The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report, published weeks after the March 9 protest. It claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.

At that time, Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had been arrested but denied allegations of torture or "virginity tests."

But now a senior general who asked not to be identified said the virginity tests were conducted and defended the practice.

"The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine," the general said. "These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs)."

The general said the virginity checks were done so that the women wouldn't later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities.

"We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place," the general said. "None of them were (virgins)."

This demonstration occurred nearly a month after Egypt's longtime President Hosni Mubarak stepped down amid a wave of popular and mostly peaceful unrest aimed at his ouster and the institution of democratic reforms.

Afterward, Egypt's military -- which had largely stayed on the sidelines of the revolution -- officially took control of the nation's political apparatus as well, until an agreed-upon constitution and elections.

Mubarak denies ordering shootings

The March 9 protest occurred in Tahrir Square, which became famous over 18 historic and sometimes bloody days and nights of protests that led to Mubarak's resignation.

But unlike in those previous demonstrations, the Egyptian military targeted the protesters. Soldiers dragged dozens of demonstrators from the square and through the gates of the landmark Egyptian Museum.

Salwa Hosseini, a 20-year-old hairdresser and one of the women named in the Amnesty report, described to CNN how uniformed soldiers tied her up on the museum's grounds, forced her to the ground and slapped her, then shocked her with a stun gun while calling her a prostitute.

"They wanted to teach us a lesson," Hosseini said soon after the Amnesty report came out. "They wanted to make us feel that we do not have dignity."

The treatment got worse, Hosseini said, when she and the 16 other female prisoners were taken to a military detention center in Heikstep.

There, she said, she and several of other female detainees were subjected to a "virginity test."

"We did not agree for a male doctor to perform the test," she said. But Hosseini said her captors forced her to comply by threatening her with more stun-gun shocks.

"I was going through a nervous breakdown at that moment," she recalled. "There was no one standing during the test, except for a woman and the male doctor. But several soldiers were standing behind us watching the backside of the bed. I think they had them standing there as witnesses."

The senior Egyptian general said the 149 people detained after the March 9 protest were subsequently tried in military courts, and most have been sentenced to a year in prison.

Authorities later revoked those sentences "when we discovered that some of the detainees had university degrees, so we decided to give them a second chance," he said.

The senior general reaffirmed that the military council was determined to make Egypt's democratic transition a success.

"The date for handover to a civil government can't come soon enough for the ruling military council," he said. "The army can't wait to return to its barracks and do what it does best -- protect the nation's borders."

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/05/30/egypt.virginity.tests/index.html?hpt=T2

The Big Apple

2011-02-15T04:33:00.000-08:00

Quick overview - details to follow: we arrived at noon on Saturday, had lunch at The National, located in the Benjamin Hotel across from the Waldorf. We've eaten here before, and were pleased to see that they have renovated but retained the good service and excellent food we remembered. We settled ourselves into our suite and I ran out of juice and fell over into bed.

On Sunday the adorable husband attended a matinee of The Whipping Man. He could not say enough good things about how very excellent it was. I spent the day recuperating.

The children arrived Monday morning and we had great fun visiting and catching up with their lives. Q had a couple of doctor appointments about her ankle, injured in her training for the marathon, and we took the cutie son-in-law with us to Tiffany's to have them attach my new charm that arrived with the roses, new smaller Kindle with 3G, two adorable antique valentines that the adorable husband found in a shop when we were in Bastrop apparently, and some fun pajamas from the Pajama Game. The gents took off for an invigorating walk down 5th Avenue to the restaurant over near NYU while I finished up, returned to the hotel and made reservations.

It warmed up yesterday but has taken a delightful drop into the 30's this morning. We are off to see Wicked tonight.

I hope you had a warm and loving Valentine's Day!

and we're off again!

2011-02-11T05:16:00.000-08:00

The house is all tidy (I hate coming home to a dirty house), the laundry is done, I'm still coughing but MUCH less, off to have my hair made straight and shiny this morning, then packing for a VERY early flight to NYC! It appears I won't die - always a good thing aye? Valentine Day gifts all wrapped; I just need to pick up some cards. Q has a long running vendetta against Valentine's Day, so hers are "not-Valentine's Day" gifts.

I had the dirge for my garden yesterday. Houston has been lying to me for the past two years about having any REAL cold weather and finally when they do I'm laid up with the 'death-flu'. Argh! The cold snap killed everything but my asparagus fern and tough little Russian Ivy. Alas. Alas. Big trip to the garden store when we return, BIG trip. These are good problems to have...

I'm so happy to be feeling better! Excellent timing as well I must say. I will keep you up to date as to how NYC fares and our adventures there.

Ciao.

hmmm....

2011-02-10T05:27:00.000-08:00

Making a plan is the best way to see the gods laugh!

not dead yet

2011-02-08T06:42:00.000-08:00

I continue to breathe, but still with a distinctive rattle! I'm going to try to get out of bed today, for a bit, for the first time since our return from Lost Pines. I still have to fill you in on the rest of that fun trip!

I MUST be well by Saturday - BIG, EXCITING, TRIP TO NYC! I have the Ballet, the theatre, dinner, walking, shopping with the adorable husband, and visiting with Q! YIkes! Even if I have to be propped up with those long sticks they use to hold the olives in Martinis I will be upright - or with a bottle of 18-year-old-MacLeod's in my pocket aye?

And NOW the adorable husband texted this morning, he is "stuffy"; brave love that he is, he is most likely deathly ill!

What a predicament! Could be worse, can always be worse....

ug and ow!

2011-02-01T04:56:00.000-08:00

The photographs from the Lost Pines trip are over on my Facebook Page.

I apparently picked up the one and only DEADLY germ at Lost Pines and am very close to death again! Crickey, it's turning into a theme. And I have so much to do... I may not be able to avoid the doctor on this one as the adorable husband looks very panicked.

If I don't die (just kidding), I'll be back soon.

Ciao!

somewhere in Texas...

2011-01-28T07:18:00.000-08:00

We are having a long weekend (arrived last evening) at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort in Bastrop, Texas. So far, so lovely. We woke this morning to find these long horned steers outside our windows! We will be staying through Sunday, and I hope to get some horseback riding in while the adorable husband hits golf balls.

My wonderful brother and sister-in-law are here with us until tomorrow, which makes it even better as we love them very much and enjoy their company - always good. They live nearby on their ranch in Evant and have of late had a slew of visitors, so this is a much needed get-away for them.

We are leaving now to go ‘antiquing’ – a passion of theirs, and something we can enjoy until lunch ☺.

Updates to follow…

Ciao

goes bump in the night...

2010-12-16T13:35:00.000-08:00

Top Ten Most Mad Scientist

Do you have any to add to the list?

Time is not linear.

2010-12-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning I sat down with a walking, talking, breathing fragment of my past from forty years ago. As he so beautifully put it, “It was like looking over a chasm of forty years, and you stood on the other side. In a breath’s time, the chasm disappeared as though it never existed.”
As I say often, and you will hear again, I’m an incredibly lucky woman. To have such a precious opportunity to revisit myself from forty years ago as seen though the eyes of someone who only saw the best in that young girl was like taking a trip in Doctor Who’s Tardis.

After the greeting hug, the years fell away, and standing in front of me was that dashing young pilot who showed me devotion, passion, and romance in its best form, when we were both so very young. As he spoke, I looked into those sapphire blue eyes, that are wiser now, but still fathomless – I remembered the Old English definition of fathom: “ something that embraces; hence, a unit of measurement based on the span of the outstretched arms.” How very appropriate.

We spoke of his life now, my life now. There was a cursory, due to time restraints, trip back to our lives from then to now. We found we have evolved to many of the same interests and views. We have both known death and danger, we have both known love, we both are blessed with children, and we have both evolved into better versions of ourselves.

We spoke quietly of events shared only between us. There was the, I knew it was coming, reference to the time I wrecked his snazzy Thunderbird…. The time he sent me roses because “it’s Thursday”… sigh, so romantic.

It was an all too short, but precious comma in the ongoing sentence of our relationship. I don’t believe the Universe does anything by accident. I’m sure there’s a reason it was a good idea to made the seed of the avocado that size, and our finding each other again after all this time also has reason and purpose.

I left that meeting feeling younger, prettier, and more at peace than when I arrived. I am very grateful he came into my life forty years ago, and very pleased he has returned to me.

Find someone today and show them the meaning, in the Old English, of fathm.

Ciao

I'm pissed!

2010-11-22T05:58:00.000-08:00

Watching yet another program on the news about the excessive intrusion of the TSA pat downs and the unknown amount of radiation being pumped out of the scanners (a worry for those like me who already glow in the dark from medical scans) – not to mention those images can be stored for someone’s private collection, and no one is monitoring the pat downs – that anyone who objects gets thrown off the plane and hit with an $11,000.00 fine is continuing to shock me that this is taking place in the U.S. Where is the ACLU?

If I want a pat down, I have to tell you I prefer the adorable husband to someone at TSA who has no training and unlimited power to determine my fate. I do think it important that the public - that's us, send letters to the head of TSA, and comment on articles like Saturday's CNN link. The pat downs and excessive radiation has kept not one dangerous person off an airplane.

PROFILING does! Why oh why have the authorities not simply gone to Israel and ask for assistance? When was the last time a terrorist blew up a plane from Israel aye?

I lived in Morocco for two years - trust me, they profile and NO Muslim woman checks her own headscarf as CAIR is saying they should be allowed to do in the U.S.

The lines move quickly at Ben Gurion Airport, and there was no intrusive scan or pat down that in America has always been reserved for the police when they have a valid reason to believe a suspect is armed with a gun!!

The man who had his urostomy bag ripped off and urine dripped all down his clothes with no apology or assistance from the T.S.A. agent who caused the problem, is not going to make you safer. This occurred after the agent ignored the man, who was trying repeatedly to tell the T.S.A. officer about the bag. The T.S.A. guy had no idea what it was. All -ostomy patients face this difficulty. How can these people be considered trained to deal with the public when such a glaring error is exposed? What about a woman who has had breast surgery for cancer or any other reason, or someone who has to wear a catheter?

His is not the only case by far, as well as the inappropriate touching, and lurid comments reported. Until a public outcry they were patting down children under 12 years of age! Again, the last time a tike blew up a plane?

A little boy who had his shirt removed. The woman who had to remove her artificial breast (after going through breast cancer!).

PROFILING!! And Intel from the agencies trained to get it is the only effective measure. Again, why are we not seeking assistance and training from the one country with the best record? Israel!

And I don’t know about you, but I’m mildly pissed that the pilots are getting a pass. So, we have forgotten that there was a plane brought down by a pilot in the name of Allah? So we just are supposed to give that a pass but pat down Grandmother. And yes I take it personally.

I became tired of nit picking with the agents who wanted to throw out my $220.00 jar of La Mer and give me back the 99 cent bottle of hand wash! I now triple bag everything, put it in my checked bags and hope for the best. I also pay extra for non-stop flights.

There is no logic here people, and little to no protection for the public! When tall, redheaded, sixty-year-old white women began blowing up airplanes I will cease to complain. Until that time let me encourage you to write comments on the articles posted in the newspapers online, and join the Internet outrage until the policies are changed. Send a letter to the T.S.A. and your senators and representatives – no matter their party affliation!

Just an aside: I do love that Mama Bush, when ask about Palin said that she was “very beautiful” and “should stay in Alaska”. Yeah! I love Mama Bush.

Only a bit of insanity...

2010-11-19T07:58:00.000-08:00

I have to say I feel very special. Apparently my last post, the meltdown in Carmel, had quite an impact on my friends and family. I’m fine now – all right I’m exhausted but I’m fine. I’m back to my optimistic, if exhausted, self.

The Carmel Bust remains a bust, albeit we had a grand time when we went down into the city, filled with charming shops and fairy tale cottages. We made the requisite walk on the beach, which was both beautiful and romantic. The Carmel Valley Ranch was a huge disappointment. Had we been expecting what it was – more a campground/golfer retreat, it would have been fine. We would have gone somewhere else. However the website (and the price!) advertised it as a luxury resort. We don’t ask for a lot on vacation, we ‘re good at entertaining ourselves, but we are very big on room service as I like to get up early to work and the adorable husband likes to have the unusual chance to sleep in, it puts us on a different timetable than the average restaurant. When making the reservations, the adorable husband specifically asked about room service, and was assured they had a full menu – not at all, not even anything worth taking the time to bother, nowhere to walk but to their restaurant which was also not so great and had only set hours. Ug. And for me the chance (as in NYC or Paris) to take off out the door and be able to walk is a treat, as Houston has no sidewalks even when the horrid weather permits one to venture out without dying of the humidity and heat. But at this place there was nowhere to walk but the golf course…

As to the meltdown – that was mine alone. It ‘s all a time issue. This is my first novel and I’m treading unknown ground. I attended Surrey two years ago to learn something about the business side of writing, and did so; but this year I was there to break into the published ranks. So…. When some agent assumes your book that they are very interested in, is finished…. You don’t contradict them do you?

The problem is that when I began the manuscript it was one story, but involved into another with a running side plot! Once I honed down the first three chapters for submission I found the main story line. Which means that now I am removing huge chunks from the manuscript (thankfully enough for two more books, one of a completely different genre) and rewriting like mad to connect the dots of what is left, and to create the end – which is thankfully in my head, but not yet on paper. My biggest fear right now is that one of the agents that I sent a submission is going to ask to see the rest of the manuscript! Therefore I feel like I have to get it done NOW.

I find it a never-ending source of personal amusement that after careful study of the religions of the world I chose Buddhism, and Mahayana at that – which is inherently about moderation – the Middle Path. Moderation is NOT something I have ever been good at; it is the mountaintop for me, the end of the marathon. Hence I have been at the laptop almost every waking moment and have put all kinds of pressure on myself – certainly no one else is doing so as I have unconditional support from the adorable husband, and the rest of my family.

Last night I had the most wonderful and funny talk with the adorable husband. With the abating of the migraines due in some mysterious and unknown medical reason to the Red Bull consumption, I am left with only two physical problems. I have chronic fatigue for some unknown reason, and I will say publically for the first time – some form of PTSD – consequently I have chronic nightmares (the wake you up screaming and crying kind), and nights concurrently with only three hours of sleep. Which yes, could explain the problem I have with fatigue; albeit I think that also has to do with my problem with moderation. I will get up and go and go until I fall over, as I have always done. Really sometimes I think there was a mistake with the IQ score! Along with the problem with moderation, I’m also really, really, bad at asking for help. Really bad. Really.

Back to the talk last night – due to my complete attention to the manuscript, attentions to the adorable husband, which are normally at the tear your clothes off stage, have dropped off dramatically. The conclusion we came to, this is the funny part, is that unlike most people – when the wife withholds frequent passionate kissing sessions, it’s because she thinks the husband will take that as a signal that sex is on yes? In our household, it’s because the wife, who is exhausted, knows once she starts kissing on the adorable husband SHE will be the one to insist on it leading to sex! So how do you like them apples?

I think it a good thing if at the age of sixty if you can still be amused by your own behavioral quirks. So there you have it. Problem with moderation, adorable and supportive husband, loving and concerned family, fans insisting you ‘write something on your blog’, and a sex drive that rivals the twenty-something set. Not a bad situation is it?

And before the suggestions pour in, I have a doctor on the case of the fatigue, and I’m pretty sure that my diet has been poor to crappy, and I’m taking steps today to change that. The treadmill in my office now, assures regular exercise I’m happy to say – that and the new series of Dr Who that I only allow myself to watch while on the treadmill. At the suggestion of the adorable husband, and the insistence of my child, I am going to call the local Veterans’ Hospital and ask for a referral to someone who has experience in the area I need addressed.

So for those who love me, I’m fine – just the normal insanity, and for those who enjoy reading me – THANK YOU, and as soon as I get this bloody manuscript finished I will be here daily. Until then I shall do my best to get some deep and meaningful or at least amusing post up more frequently.

2010-11-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

As anyone who reads my Blog knows, I am annoyingly optimistic...

BUT I am in the depths of angst right now - an uncomfortable but not unknown geography to me. I have convinced myself (and yes as the adorable husband in all goodness and love keeps saying, "it's only been ONE week.") that no one will publish my book, that I can't write, that I should stick to articles and be glad people give me money for them, that I have no expertise about anything worth writing about, that the agents who asked to see my first three chapters were only being nice, or were charmed by my admittedly adorable self... and the list is longer. A pond, no a lake, no a fucking sea of self pity!

I, who have so very much to be grateful for, should be ashamed of myself, and I am. Last night after we were shown to our suite/apartment at the Carmel Valley Ranch, I burst into tears and nothing the adorable husband said could comfort me or make me stop -and he did try everything.
I felt terrible and guilty (another very rare emotion for me) - the adorable husband works so hard, and looks after everyone, especially me, and here I am on the vacation he wanted (he didn't want to go to a city or out of the U.S.) being a pissy, horrid, ungrateful, person. Which of course, made me cry harder. Because he did ask me, and I said this would be fine. I was lying, but that's what you do sometimes when you love someone. But you DON'T then act a total twit and make them feel terrible for doing what you said was perfectly fine - you don't unless you are a horrid selfish person.

I don't like it here. I don't like paying an exorbitant amount of money to stay somewhere that is not as nice as my own house! They lied on the web site (Carmel Valley Ranch). This place, which was advertised as renovated, is old (the chair in the bedroom has a stain! of what is the worry). The room service menu is limited, very limited, and we are big room service people on vacation. The television has no movie channel, no pay-for movie channel - which is the only TV I watch. How can you run a resort and not have pay-for movies and a spa that only does "plain" manicures - which meant that I had to rip the lovely gel covering off my nails last night (after the crying jag, I guess I thought I deserved the pain) which was applied in NYC and I just loved. I had not found anyone nearby in Houston who does the gel manicure (it's new) and I did not even consider that I would not be able to have it done at a place that is advertised as posh (and cost it) as this one! I mean it's a resort-spa! Would you not think that would mean they would do all sorts of wonderful 'spa stuff'? If I had I would have made the time in Houston to have the gel applied. So now I have serviceable once more, but quite unattractive set of nails... See what I mean, a real twit I am!

The adorable husband is sleeping in, as I also kept him up all night with nightmares (not an unusual occurrence but don't you think I could have abstained after making him so distraught earlier?). I shall be amazed if I'm still married when this vacation is over. I wouldn't marry me.

So there you have it - the confession of an absolute twit and horrid, selfish person. Now you know the truth, or at least the truth right now. Sigh.

Epilogue: What a lucky girl am I. So... this morning, moments after I finished constructing my hair shirt and was buttoning it up, the adorable husband made his appearance. He assured me all was forgiven, he loves me, and isn't going to trade me in for a better model. He also pointed out to me, and rightly so, as I had come to the same conclusion during my morning meditations, that we all have some nasty tapes from our childhood that play in our heads in times of stress - it does not make them true. And I, because I spent quite a bit of time with the monks exorcising my demons from the past, I did not recognize them for what they were yesterday. I, you see, have never failed at anything I really wanted to do - that makes failure more terrifying not less - and I really very much want to be an "author" not just a writer. So you mix all that up in a bag and throw in a disappointment like the Carmel Valley Ranch (which by the by the adorable husband says he does not like it either, they misrepresented it in their website and on the telephone with him. So we are leaving. We are going to see Carmel today and have lunch. He will play a round of golf tomorrow, to justify lugging his clubs all the way here, and we will go home. Like I said, what a lucky girl am I. I love my husband.

2010-11-06T01:31:00.000-07:00

We are off for a week at the Carmel Resort and spa for a week. It looks really lovely, and quiet, and remote, and quiet, and really quite lovely (sigh) - a city girl at heart apparently.

You will find me up early mornings working on the manuscript while the adorable husband sleeps in - and well deserved it is too.

He's bringing his golf clubs, so I may be working afternoons as well!

Ciao

OMG!

2010-11-02T07:41:00.000-07:00

Go see "RED"! NOW! It's brilliant. Dame Helen Mirren with automatic weapons. I wish I had written the screenplay; better yet I wish they had let me come and play too. I can only imagine how much fun they had making this movie. It's brilliant I tell you - go! The 50+ crowd is taking over you young whippersnappers so watch out! :-)

News!

2010-10-26T05:51:00.000-07:00

I am returned from the Surrey International Writer’s conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. Once again I feel it was time and money well spent. I learned so much. My brain feels a size too big for my skull. I hope I can retain at least the majority of what I learned.

If you are a beginning writer, or someone who wants to get started but needs the nuts and bolts (me two years ago at my first conference), or a writer who has something to sell – I highly recommend this particular conference.

I attended the Master’s Classes on Thursday, then every class I could work in for the following three days. I’m exhausted! There is no end to topics, no matter what you need, they will have it there.

Now, for my big news – several things actually.

If you recall two years ago, I went on and on about how brilliant I think Hallie Ephron to be, that opinion has not changed. What a good teacher. She is a writer of mystery (has a book out that will be a movie – Never Tell a Lie – I’ve just downloaded it to my Kindle). This year I was able to have a couple of ‘real person’ conversations with her, and drinks after one of our long days. May I tell you she is as lovely up close and personal as she is behind a podium? I know, I know, I’m gushing; well, I do that! I also had my appointment with her for my Blue Pencil session (where an author gives you an opinion and advice on your writing); that was very exciting.

Next – not one, not two, but THREE agents want me to send them the first three chapters of my book! Ahhhhhhhhhh! All that means is that they will read it, hopefully. They may one or all think it’s crap and that’s the end, or… one or all may love it and offer me a deal! It’s terrifying.

I am spending the rest of this week polishing those chapters one more time before sending them out so I’ll take any good wishes, hopes, crossed fingers, whatever you’re offering.

It was lovely and cool in Vancouver the few times I was able to venture out of the hotel. I was unable to visit Nobody Important and her wonderful Scientist Guy this year as I was rushing in and out of town. Back in Houston it’s still bloody summer! At least it is out of the nineties – so that’s something eh? The adorable husband, in spite of his black thumb, did very well with not killing my garden, everything looks quite well.

We are off to Carmel in a couple of weeks and that will be fun I’m sure. Meanwhile I am at the keyboard and my favourite holiday, Samhain, is coming up soon. I must get my spider up!

I shall do my best to be here more and not ignore my blog as I have of late. I owe “Powder Room Graffiti” several articles as well – as I said, I’ll be here at my keyboard!

Ciao!

and I am...

2010-10-16T02:29:00.000-07:00

writing, and writing, and writing.... three more days to go... writing...

A real artistic legend leaves us

2010-10-12T05:08:00.000-07:00

Joan Sutherland is dead at age 83 years. My first reaction I must admit, is "she was 83?!". For me and millions of other opera lovers she will be forever young and fixed on the stage, taking us with her on a musical journey of extraordinary beauty. I am an opera lover. I say it with no apology. She was one of the greats and the world is less without her in it.

October 11, 2010
Joan Sutherland, Flawless Soprano, Is Dead at 83
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Joan Sutherland, one of the most acclaimed sopranos of the 20th century, a singer of such power and range that she was crowned “La Stupenda,” died on Sunday at her home in Switzerland, near Montreux. She was 83.

Her death was confirmed by her close friend the mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne.

It was Italy’s notoriously picky critics who dubbed the Australian-born Ms. Sutherland the Stupendous One after her Italian debut, in Venice in 1960. And for 40 years the name endured with opera lovers around the world. Her 1961 debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” generated so much excitement that standees began lining up at 7:30 that morning. Her singing of the Mad Scene drew a thunderous 12-minute ovation.

Ms. Sutherland’s singing was founded on astonishing technique. Her voice was evenly produced throughout an enormous range, from a low G to effortless flights above high C. She could spin lyrical phrases with elegant legato, subtle colorings and expressive nuances. Her sound was warm, vibrant and resonant, without any forcing. Indeed, her voice was so naturally large that at the start of her career Ms. Sutherland seemed destined to become a Wagnerian dramatic soprano.

Following her first professional performances, in 1948, during a decade of steady growth and intensive training, Ms. Sutherland developed incomparable facility for fast runs, elaborate roulades and impeccable trills. She did not compromise the passagework, as many do, by glossing over scurrying runs, but sang almost every note fully.

Her abilities led Richard Bonynge, the Sydney-born conductor and vocal coach whom she married in 1954, to persuade her early on to explore the early-19th-century Italian opera of the bel canto school. She became a major force in its revitalization.

Bel canto (which translates as “beautiful song” or “beautiful singing”) denotes an approach to singing exemplified by evenness through the range and great agility. The term also refers to the early-19th-century Italian operas steeped in bel canto style. Outside of Italy, the repertory had languished for decades when Maria Callas appeared in the early 1950s and demonstrated that operas like “Lucia di Lammermoor” and Bellini’s “Norma” were not just showcases for coloratura virtuosity but musically elegant and dramatically gripping works as well.

Even as a young man, Mr. Bonynge had uncommon knowledge of bel canto repertory and style. Ms. Sutherland and Mr. Bonynge, who is four years younger than she, met in Sydney at a youth concert and became casual friends. They were reacquainted later in London, where Ms. Sutherland settled with her mother in 1951 to attend the Royal College of Music. There Mr. Bonynge became the major influence on her development.

Ms. Sutherland used to say she thought of herself and her husband as a duo and that she didn’t talk of her career, “but of ours.”

In a 1961 profile in The New York Times Magazine she said she initially had “a big rather wild voice” that was not heavy enough for Wagner, although she did not realize this until she heard “Wagner sung as it should be.”

“Richard had decided — long before I agreed with him — that I was a coloratura,” she said.

“We fought like cats and dogs over it,” she said, adding, “It took Richard three years to convince me.”

In her repertory choices Ms. Sutherland ranged widely during the 1950s, singing lighter lyric Mozart roles like the Countess in “Le Nozze di Figaro” and heavier Verdi roles like Amelia in “Un Ballo in Maschera.” Even then, astute listeners realized that she was en route to becoming something extraordinary.

In a glowing and perceptive review of her performance as Desdemona in Verdi’s “Otello” at Covent Garden in London in late 1957, the critic Andrew Porter, writing in The Financial Times, commended her for not “sacrificing purity to power.” This is “not her way,” Mr. Porter wrote, “and five years on we shall bless her for her not endeavoring now to be ‘exciting’ but, instead, lyrical and beautiful.”

She became an international sensation after her career-defining performance in the title role of “Lucia di Lammermoor” at Covent Garden — its first presentation there since 1925 — which opened on Feb. 17, 1959. The production was directed by Franco Zeffirelli and conducted by the Italian maestro Tullio Serafin, a longtime Callas colleague, who elicited from the 32-year-old soprano a vocally resplendent and dramatically affecting portrayal of the trusting, unstable young bride of Lammermoor.

Mr. Porter, reviewing the performance in The Financial Times, wrote that the brilliance of Ms. Sutherland’s singing was to be expected by this point. The surprise, he explained, was the new dramatic presence she brought to bear.

“The traces of self-consciousness, of awkwardness on the stage, had disappeared; and at the same time she sang more freely, more powerfully, more intensely — and also more bewitchingly — than ever before.”

This triumph was followed in 1960 by landmark portrayals in neglected bel canto operas by Bellini: Elvira in “I Puritani” at the Glyndebourne Festival (the first presentation in England since 1887) and “La Sonnambula” at Covent Garden (the company’s first production in half a century).

Ms. Sutherland’s American debut came in November 1960 in the title role of Handel’s “Alcina” at the Dallas Opera, the first American production of this now-popular work. Her distinguished Decca recording of “Lucia di Lammermoor,” with an exceptional cast conducted by John Pritchard, was released in 1961, the year of her enormously anticipated Metropolitan Opera debut in that same work, on Nov. 26.

At Ms. Sutherland’s first appearance, before she had sung a note, there was an enthusiastic ovation. Following the first half of Lucia’s Mad Scene in the final act, which culminated in a glorious high E-flat, the ovation lasted almost 5 minutes. When she finished the scene and her crazed, dying Lucia collapsed to the stage floor, the ovation lasted 12 minutes.

Reviewing the performance in The New York Times, Harold C. Schonberg wrote that other sopranos might have more power or a sweeter tone, but “there is none around who has the combination of technique, vocal security, clarity and finesse that Miss Sutherland can summon.”

Even for some admirers, though, there were limitations to her artistry. Her diction was often indistinct. After receiving steady criticism for this shortcoming, Ms. Sutherland worked to correct it, and sang with crisper enunciation in the 1970s.

She was also sometimes criticized for delivering dramatically bland performances. At 5-foot-9, she was a large woman, with long arms and large hands, and a long, wide face. As her renown increased, she insisted that designers create costumes for her that compensated for her figure, which, as she admitted self-deprecatingly in countless interviews, was somewhat flat in the bust but wide in the rib cage. Certain dresses could make her look like “a large column walking about the stage,” she wrote in “The Autobiography of Joan Sutherland: A Prima Donna’s Progress” (1997).

Paradoxically, Mr. Bonynge contributed to the sometimes dramatically uninvolved quality of her performances. By the mid-1960s he was her conductor of choice, often part of the deal when she signed a contract. Trained as a pianist and vocal coach, he essentially taught himself conducting. Even after extended experience, he was not the maestro opera fans turned to for arresting performances of Verdi’s “Traviata.” But he thoroughly understood the bel canto style and was attuned to every component of his wife’s voice.

Yet if urging her to be sensible added to her longevity, it sometimes resulted in her playing it safe. Other conductors prodded Ms. Sutherland to sing with greater intensity: for example, Georg Solti, in an acclaimed 1967 recording of Verdi’s Requiem with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Chorus, and Zubin Mehta, who enticed Ms. Sutherland into recording the title role in Puccini’s “Turandot,” which she never sang onstage, for a 1972 recording. Both of these projects featured the tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who would become an ideal partner for Ms. Sutherland in the bel canto repertory. Ms. Sutherland’s fiery Turandot suggests she had dramatic abilities that were never tapped.

Joan Alston Sutherland was born on Nov. 7, 1926, in Sydney, where the family lived in a modest house overlooking the harbor. The family garden and the rich array of wildflowers on the hillside near the beach inspired her lifelong love of gardening.

Her mother, Muriel Sutherland, was a fine mezzo-soprano who had studied with Mathilde Marchesi, the teacher of the Australian soprano Nellie Melba. Though too shy for the stage, Ms. Sutherland’s mother did vocal exercises every day and was her daughter’s principal teacher throughout her adolescence.

Ms. Sutherland’s father, William, a Scottish-born tailor, had been married before. His first wife died during the influenza epidemic after World War I, leaving him with three daughters and a son. Ms. Sutherland was the only child of his second marriage. He died on the day of Ms. Sutherland’s sixth birthday. He had just given her a new bathing suit and she wanted to try it out. Though feeling unwell, he climbed down to the beach with her and, upon returning, collapsed in his wife’s arms. Joan, along with her youngest half-sister and their mother, moved into the home of an aunt and uncle, who had sufficient room and a big garden in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra.

Although Ms. Sutherland’s mother soon recognized her daughter’s gifts, she pegged her as a mezzo-soprano. At 16, facing the reality of having to support herself, Ms. Sutherland completed a secretarial course and took office jobs, while keeping up her vocal studies. She began lessons in Sydney with Aida Dickens, who convinced her that she was a soprano, very likely a dramatic soprano. Ms. Sutherland began singing oratorios and radio broadcasts and made a notable debut in 1947 as Purcell’s Dido in Sydney.

In 1951, with prize money from winning a prestigious vocal competition, she and her mother moved to London, where Ms. Sutherland enrolled at the opera school of the Royal College of Music. The next year, after three previous unsuccessful auditions, she was accepted into the Royal Opera at Covent Garden and made her debut as the First Lady in Mozart’s “Zauberflöte.”

In the company’s landmark 1952 production of Bellini’s “Norma,” starring Maria Callas, Ms. Sutherland sang the small role of Clotilde, Norma’s confidante. “Now look after your voice,” Callas advised her at the time, adding, “We’re going to hear great things of you.”

“I lusted to sing Norma after being in those performances with Callas,” Ms. Sutherland said in a 1998 New York Times interview. “But I knew that I could not sing it the way she did. It was 10 years before I sang the role. During that time I studied it, sang bits of it, and worked with Richard. But I had to evolve my own way to sing it, and I would have wrecked my voice to ribbons had I tried to sing it like her.”

In 1955 she created the lead role of Jenifer in Michael Tippett’s “Midsummer Marriage.”

During this period Ms. Sutherland gave birth to her only child, Adam, who survives her, along with two grandchildren and Mr. Bonynge, her husband of 56 years.

Immediately after her breakthrough performances as Lucia in 1959, Ms. Sutherland underwent sinus surgery to correct persistent problems with nasal passages that were chronically prone to becoming clogged. Though it was a risky operation for a singer, it was deemed successful.

In the early 1960s, using a home in southern Switzerland as a base, Ms. Sutherland made the rounds, singing in international opera houses and forming a close association with the Met, where she ultimately sang 223 performances. These included an acclaimed new production of “Norma” in 1970 with Ms. Horne in her Met debut, singing Adalgisa; Mr. Bonynge conducted. There was also a hugely popular 1972 production of Donizetti’s “Fille du Régiment,” with Pavarotti singing the role of Tonio.

Though never a compelling actress, Ms. Sutherland exuded vocal charisma, a good substitute for dramatic intensity. In the comic role of Marie in “La Fille du Régiment,” she conveyed endearingly awkward girlishness as the orphaned tomboy raised by an army regiment, proudly marching in place in her uniform while tossing off the vocal flourishes.

Ms. Sutherland was plain-spoken and down to earth, someone who enjoyed needlepoint and playing with her grandchildren. Though she knew who she was, she was quick to poke fun at her prima donna persona.

“I love all those demented old dames of the old operas,” she said in a 1961 Times profile. “All right, so they’re loony. The music’s wonderful.”

Queen Elizabeth II made Ms. Sutherland a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1978. Her bluntness sometimes caused her trouble. In 1994, addressing a luncheon organized by a group in favor of retaining the monarchy in Australia, she complained of having to be interviewed by a foreign-born clerk when applying to renew her passport, “a Chinese or an Indian — I’m not particularly racist — but find it ludicrous, when I’ve had a passport for 40 years.” Her remarks were widely reported, and she later apologized.

In retirement she mostly lived quietly at home but was persuaded to sit on juries of vocal competitions and, less often, to present master classes. In 2004 she received a Kennedy Center Honor for outstanding achievement throughout her career. In 2008, while gardening at her home in Switzerland, she fell and broke both legs, which led to a lengthy hospital stay.

Other sopranos may have been more musically probing and dramatically vivid. But few were such glorious vocalists. After hearing her New York debut in “Beatrice di Tenda” at Town Hall, the renowned Brazilian soprano Bidú Sayão, herself beloved for the sheer beauty of her voice, said, “If there is perfection in singing, this is it.”

The adventure continues..

2010-10-07T07:38:00.000-07:00

What a brilliant time I am having in New York with my child. On Wednesday we did a hard-core walk about and shopping in the city and rewarded ourselves with a late lunch at Grenouille. It’s like eating inside a jewel box. Apparently it is “the place to go to see old money in New York”. I can believe it; I saw more Chanel suits than on a rack in Paris!

The service was impeccable! Just enough attention but not so much you can’t enjoy your meal. They treated us like we had been coming there for years, and the food! Oh boy the food was luscious! We both had the calf’s liver and it was done with sweet onions and spinach – perfectly cooked. I had the green pea soup, which was made with real crème and so rich it could have paid for the meal. Q had terrine de campagne, equally good. For desert I had, yes you guessed it – 18-year-old McAllan’s, and Q had melt in your mouth chocolate mouse’ and café’.

The portions were just right, European and just right. We were satiated but still able to walk back to the hotel.

Yesterday Q was off to teach and try to enlighten the youth of America, and I worked in the hotel room, taking a long walk about the downtown in the afternoon.

Last night we went to the New York City Ballet at Koch Theatre at the Lincoln Center and it was SPECTACULAR! We both have husbands who will take us to the opera but draw the line at the ballet, so they were happy we were there as well. The adorable husband, the go to guy for tickets, got us front row center orchestra seats, and I mean front row! We were right behind the conductor, like sitting behind home plate at a Yankees game!

The first act was “The Magic Flute” and was well done, big cuteness factor when they brought out all the future company (ages 8 to 10 years) to join in the fun. The second and third act was quite well done, but the pie’ce de re’sistance was the fourth and last act.

We were on our feet and shouting Brava! The chap was quite good, very athletic and engaging. The featured ballerina, Sara Mearns, was brilliant! It’s very difficult to be sensuous when you are a ballerina, most of them have no hips and no breasts, and their attention is not on the audience but the movement. This young woman took our breath away, not only was she technically on point but she was delightful to watch. We could not take our eyes off her. She flirted with the audience and then followed a beguiling look with a round of perfect pirouettes that covered the entire stage! It was the perfect ending to a wonderful show.

After managing to snag a taxi, no mean feat after a major event, we came back to the hotel and had drinks down in the piano bar. We decided dinner would be room service, where we could dress down and watch “Robin Hood” with Russell Crowe – so not worth the time to watch! They mangled history, the legend, and the characters and gave you nothing to replace it with as believable or just plain old entertaining. Awful, awful, movie. Dinner however was yummy, quick to the room, and fun to eat in pajamas!

Today Q is off to run Central Park while I work on my book, then are going walk about and have tea at Alice’s Tea Cup, Chapter Three.

After this trip I shan’t be able to eat for a week!

Ciao!

The Big Apple

2010-10-05T02:47:00.000-07:00

Hello New York City! Yesterday proved a lucky day all ‘round. First I got an Exit seat on the aisle, for free, with an empty seat beside me on the non-stop flight from Houston to JFK. Granted the plane was a crop duster and normally I don’t care for the smaller jets but this one was quite satisfactory. The flight attendants, for a change, were friendly and helpful.

I arrive in NYC where it is drizzling and cool – some of my favorite weather conditions. I pulled in at the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue (quickly becoming an old friend) and asked to upgrade to a small suite since our Katie may be able to come over from Boston to visit us for a day, and that would give us room for her to stay overnight.

“I’m sorry Mrs. H but all our suites are booked up,” said the lovely young woman at check-in.

“Oh that’s fine then, no worries. I’m sure the ‘superior room’ I have booked will be fine.”

“Now wait just a moment and let me see if we have one of our ‘boudoir rooms’ available, it’s a bit more room and has a large bathroom.”

She found me the room AT NO EXTRA CHARGE. And here is where the luck continues, the room number is 1313! 13 is one of my lucky numbers! The room is lovely. A large bedroom, an equally sized boudoir room with two extra closets and a dressing table, and the bathroom is almost as big as the dressing room!

I was starved, having been up since three a.m. and having nothing but Red Bull and water with a small latte. I rang Q but she was still knee deep in students who desperately needed her help apparently. I ordered a Cobb salad from room service and I swear it was here before I finished unpacking! And it was delicious, as well as so huge that when Q did arrive, she had the rest of it for her dinner! She arrived after six, starving and exhausted. She had been having office hours all afternoon with her students who are apparently in need of quite a bit of help.

Housekeeping arrived with my supply of extra pillows and a refrigerator and I was set.

We divested ourselves of clothing, washed up and watched “Iron Man 2” which was as advertized – explosions and broad humor, just the thing for a nighttime story.

Today is workday, find the great French restaurant for lunch day after the gym, and get a manicure day. We shall see what else falls out and I will get some photographs for you!

Ciao!

sigh

2010-10-02T05:31:00.000-07:00

Just checking in to say, 'I'm not dead.' Writing is LONELY work. Writing a book once you have done the story part is work-work. Especially if the book began life as a simple romantic tale and turned into a blow 'em up with hot sex and tortured love!

Thanks to the adorable husband, who put in more time than I can tell you, reading through the rough draft and giving me his perspective (he is a very good editor) I have an idea of just how much work there is to do! Backstory! Backstory is tough. I mean you have to tell the reader who this person who has entered the story is, but not too much, and not too early; but if you wait too long they are confused and won't care about the character.

"Show, don't tell!" Arghhh. You must make your characters engage in actions that demonstrate to the reader their personalities; you can't just say she was sexy but prissy, tough but delicate, sad but optimistic - that would be too easy aye?

So that's where I am - at my keyboard, with occasional breaks on the treadmill and for laundry!

I am off to New York City on Monday for a week with my daughter! Huzzah! I shall still be at my keyboard, but in the Waldorf Astoria hotel and with long walks about the city! We are also going to the ballet, and thanks to the adorable husband, he's the 'go-to tickets guy', we have brilliant seats. I also intend to make use of my child's most excellent brain power if she has the time.

After that I have one more week at home before the Surrey conference and my deadline! whimper....

Ciao.

Every which way but a book review…apparently on hold for now.

2010-09-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

As I’m’ about to weigh in on both the “Quran burning” and the mosque to be built near the 9/11 site. Like any question of politics and religion (inextricable linked throughout history by the by) it is not black and white, no easy answers, unlike many on CNN and FOX (I watch them both along with the BBC) would have us believe.

According to CNN we should be tolerant of a mosque which is a slap in the face to all who died on 9/11 and the country which bore the blow. I have lived in Africa and spent more time in the Middle East than I would like really and I can tell you both sides of the story from at least one view. America actually had a lot of cache before the younger Bush years. Schwarzenegger of all people, and Stallone, were big heroes. After the invasion (no matter what political spin you put on it) of Iraq that all changed.

While I was two years in Morocco (as moderate a Muslim country as you will find outside Turkey) we read constant praise of Osama bin Laden and criticism of the U.S. in the local Arabic press. Make no mistake that America is vilified in the press of all Islamic countries.

And when did we in the West allow ourselves to become victim to the religious winds of Islam? A cartoon is printed and someone’s life is in danger? Actually more than one individual was targeted? A fatwa is issued when a man writes a book that the religious leader of Iran finds offensive. And a kook, for that is all he is, a publicity seeking kook, says he will burn the Quran and we fear for the lives of American soldiers?! Excuse me?!

I think we should verbally attack this chap and his idea but blood? When did that become all right? If some Imam burned the Bible, mercy knows plenty of American flags have gone up in flame, there would outrage but I don’t think anyone would die – or if some did it would be isolated incidents, as after 9/11.

I’m all for religious tolerance, especially being a believer of a minority religion in this country I appreciate America’s tolerance of my beliefs. I can find Buddhists Temples and learning centres all over the U.S. I find it offensive to think, as an American and a Buddhist, that I should be tolerant of Islam but not expect that religion to respect my country or my religion? How does that work?

I find it repugnant that America should be held hostage to any percentage (“oh it’s just the small percentage of radicals” – really? You should travel more…) of the Muslim world, including those who live in the West. I do think more Americans should read the Quran and the history of Islam before spouting off that it is a religion “of peace”. Really?

Why don’t we have the same outrage, the same news coverage regarding the three American hikers (stupid, not dangerous) that Iran has held prisoner for the past year?

Understand that I was among those who have lived out in the world that is not America and was somewhat put off by the reaction of the country that acted like they were the first and only to ever be the victim of terrorists. That being said, I find now the country seems to be too far on the other side of the pendulum where they allow the U.S. to be the whipping boy for the Muslim world.

No, the U.S. (and those allies who went along for the ride – Tony Blair!) should not have invaded Iraq after 9/11. As the intelligence told them at the time – that bastard, and he was, Sadamn Hussein, had nothing to do with it. He and bin Laden had been enemies forever. Bin Laden saw Hussein as an traitor to Islam, as an nonbeliever, he would not have allied with him for a cup of tea much less a plan to attack the U.S. Afghanistan was the appropriate target but for personal reasons that had nothing to do with 9/11 Bush the younger wanted a piece of Hussein and unfortunately at that time, he had the American military to use to throw his punches.

Does the degradation of the American flag by Muslims, or the holding of the three hikers in Iran cause Muslim deaths at the hands of American civilians? No, not really. And that is as it should be when a religion feels put upon, grab a reporter, or a lawyer - not a gun.

I have so longed to be a fundamentalist, of any religion or body politic. How much easier would that make one’s life?! No questions, just follow the leader. Your chaps are always, always, right and everyone else is wrong – every single time! How restful would that be? NO gray areas, no questions to ponder, no problems because both sides have a point….. ahhh… but nooooo I had to question, and then choose a spiritual path that is the most trouble on the planet as far as I can see it. NO resting on one’s spiritual laurels, no last minute reprieve for past bad deeds, you must make the choice for or against Enlightenment every single moment. Groan.

On a lighter note – I got a Blackberry this week. Too much fun! Even if I should run out of charge on my Kindle while out in the world, I have much entertainment to hand with my Blackberry and its endless “apps”. I’m still trying to get the sounds right at this point, but I did manage to send some emails, as well as photographs taken with the mobile and then sent along. Ta da!

I have been writing, and editing, and reading what I have written. I fear my blog has taken the hit in no input. I am going to put the 1001 Book reviews on hold rather than do a shoddy job of it. I will write when I can.

Would you like to read some titbits of said book? Just ask…

My favourite holiday, All Hallows Eve, Samhein, Halloween – is coming up and I am so ready this year! I have TWO MUMMIES! They are so cool, and a huge spider, and all my regular décor. I shall take loads of photographs for you once all is in place. 1 October is not too soon is it? No! ☺

I have much travel coming up. I’m off to New York City for a week of fun and work with Q. We are going to stay at the Waldorf, and go to the ballet! My daughter the professor (see mother beaming!!!!!!!!!) I am so looking forward to spending time with her. What a magnificent person she has become. I have so much admiration for her.

Then I am off to Vancouver/Surrey for a week, a week after coming back home. I’m very excited about the conference, and I’m going in a day early for three Master’s Classes!

Then – in November I’m off with the adorable husband to some posh resort spot in Carmel. A week of lying about, room service, scenic drives, hiking, and …ahem personal adoration and attention.

I’m planning on a trip to Paris then in December or early January – so frequent miles for me eh?

As always I will fill you in and take photographs aplenty. Back to work now.

Ciao!

as you may have noticed...

2010-09-12T05:03:00.000-07:00

Late again this week I fear. Nasty stomach virus of some sort. I"m going to try and sleep it off today and post anon. I have the review ready, only needs editing.

Ciao

Running a bit late and on fewer bananas than usual…

2010-09-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupe’ry

Lifespan: b. 1900 (France), d. 1944 (In the air)
First Published: 1943
First Published by: Reynal & Hitchcock (New York)
Original Title: Le Petit Prince

I remember when I read this as a child, and then I remembered when I read it to my child. A dear friend of mine gave it to her for her birthday. It is a wondrous story and if you have not read it, oh you should!

“Set in the heart of the Sahara, the tale unfolds after Saint-Exupe’ry’s pilot-narrator finds himself stranded with a “broken” engine, facing the prospect of “life or death”. The very largest question of all lies at the heart of the tale: one’s life and how one spends it.”

It is a tale of the inner child told in the form of the little prince, who asks his adult mentor so many questions. “The dialogue between narrator and child is a form of self address.”

It is also a tale about rediscovering one’s imagination. In this way the child teaches the adult. “The child tutors the adult in the sacred art of wondering. Written during the final year of his life, Saint-Exupe’ry’s The Little Prince reads as a manifesto on how the adult life can and should be lived.”

It seems the appropriate book to review at the end of this long, long week. I spent this week dealing with our ex-wife, the final remains and ruins of the adorable husband’s hope for the ideal marriage (in the form of the final moving out of and selling the house) and family that never came to pass, a cranky step-child, and the Texas heat! It has been a long week!

On the other hand – I accomplished all the organizing to get back in gear on my book, put in play all the reservations for the writer’s conference in Surrey in October, took delivery of my posh new treadmill, and did some serious online shopping, and had a wonderful long conversation with my exceptionally wonderful daughter.

Ciao!

A book and other thoughts....

2010-08-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

I’m going to review George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four today but first – a few things that have caught my attention this week.

Right along the theme of today’s book review is this article. One of the most potent insights of Orwell’s book is the observation of the power of the past, the power of our history, or our perception of it, on our present. We have all heard “It’s the victors who write the history”, or some variation of it. As a society we must also take note of those who would re-write history for their own purpose in the present. Mr. Beck is not the only person to be attempting this feat at present, and it has been done in the past (the place of the cultures of natives in America, Australia, Tibet, and other countries have been rewritten more than once to justify a political agenda), but he is the most effective at present.

Another item that caught my attention this week is the trial of Roger Clemens. He lied to Congress. Excuse me? He lied to Congress? Check me on this if I am incorrect but are not those the very people who lie on an almost daily basis, both small and beyond belief, to the public who elected them? I have two questions: should we really be that put out when someone lies to them? And is this trial really worth the millions of dollars it is going to cost the taxpayers? Are there not more important matters that should have the attention of this elected body and more profitable arenas for this money? Mr. Clemens inflicted an unknown amount of damage on his own body while giving baseball fans a great show. I’m a baseball fan. I’m just not that upset. We are going to nail Mr. Clemens but allow those who were smarter or slipperier (Mark McGuire) to get away with the same offense? Nonsense I say.

Finally, I found this adorable and encouraging piece. I mean if this many men actually admit to it, I think that means many more are engaging in the practice aye? I think it’s grand myself.

Now to this week’s selection – Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four has not only held up through time but is as applicable today, if not more so, than when it was written.

Lifespan: b.1903 (India), d. 1950 (England)
First Published: 1949
First Published by: Secker & Warburg (London)
Given Name: Eric Arthur Blair

The book is written as “a beautifully crafted warning against the dangers of a totalitarian society. Winston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling party in London whose every move is monitored by telescreens. Everywhere Winston goes, the party’s omniscient leader, Big Brother, watches him. …thinking rebellious thoughts is illegal. Winston, who works at the Ministry of Truth (Harry Potter anyone?) altering historical records …is frustrated and oppressed by the prohibitions on free thought, sex, and individuality. He illegally purchases a diary to record his thoughts and spends his evenings wandering the poor areas where the “porles” live, relatively free from monitoring. Winston starts an illicit affair with Julia, …they are caught by a party spy, and in Room 101, Winston is forced to confront his worst fear. Giving up his love for Julia in terror, Winston is released, his spirit broken and his acceptance of the party complete."

When the book was written in 1949 the nuclear age was only beginning and television was too expensive to be yet mainstreamed. “This is an important novel not only for its stark warning against abusive authority….but also for its insights into the power of manipulating language, history, and the psychology of fear and control.”

I remember reading this book for school when I was in my young teen years, and it terrified me then – I find it more frightening now with what I have seen of the world. I believe all told I have read it through three times and bits of it here and there through the years. I highly recommend this book as a read, and if you have read it once, do so again in the light of present day.

Friday Book Review

2010-08-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

Lifespan: b. 1881 (England), d. 1975 (U.S.)
First Published: 1934
First Published by: H. Jenkins (London)
Full Name: Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

“I just sit at a typewriter and curse a bit.” Wodehouse, 1956

I am a fan. I think you either are or you are not, there is no middle ground here. You will not find a great plot, nor great comic lines, or interesting characterizations. You will find “the world that he created, an everlasting midsummer England untouched by either of the world wars, peopled with characters endowed with the psychology of a prepubescent”.

The writing of Wodehouse is the sheer wonder of his prose. He brings you into his world and you are laughing at you know not what exactly. “His ability to weave from nothing a supremely comic metaphor or simile is still unmatched in the novel form. He is most famous for the Jeeves and Wooster series.”

“The stories seem to turn upon Jeeves’ dislike of Wooster’s clothing or music. Wooster always seems to get mistakenly engaged to someone frighteningly serious and intelligent, whereupon he is then victim to the violent suitor whose place he has usurped. All such events will be set in train by the unpleasant combination of purple socks and red cummerbund, or ownership of a stolen cow creamer. Floating serenely on the surface of all this silliness, though, is Wodehouse’s utterly inimitable prose.”

I recommend you give him a try and see if it is for you.

Friday Book Review!

2010-08-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Lifespan: b. 1920 (Russia), d. 1992 (U.S.)
First Published: 1950
First Published by: Gnome Press (New York)
Original Language: English

I agree with the reviewer here that this is “one of the most important works of science fiction in the history of the genre.”

Asimov blends together in his collection of short stories that make up the complete novel, the science of robots and the philosophy of man, as well as the conflict that arises when science and man meet in conflict.

A reporter putting together a profile of the robotic scientist Dr. Susan Calvin who works for the large corporation that manufactures the robots writes the stories. The stories are a collection of interviews.

“In I, Robot Asimov coined the term ‘robotics’ and set out the principles of robot behaviour we know as the Three Laws of Robotics, followed by science-fiction writers ever since. The three rules read: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm; 2) A robot must obey orders given by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”

In the interviews Dr. Calvin reflects on the evolution of robots, and as well the lack of understanding of the majority of humankind about what they have created. “Each story illuminates a problem encountered when a robot interprets the three fundamental laws, and something goes awry.”

Even though this was written when the computer age and software was in its infancy, the laws have never been changed, and Asimov shows an uncanny foresight into the future. His views of the possible conflict between man and machine are insightful and current as of today.

As a hardcore (E.E. Doc Smith) science fiction fan, I think this is a book not to be missed. The fact that the ‘three laws” have maintained their integrity through the decades shows that no one has come up with anything better. If you missed it, read it now by all means.

Playing catch up!

2010-08-10T03:55:00.000-07:00

6 August 2010

Book Review Friday!

Another one of my personal favourites: The Once and Future King by T.H. White.

Lifespan: b. 1915 (India), d. 1964 (Greece)
First Published: 1958
First Published by: Collins (London)
Full Name: Terence Hanbury White

“White’s complex and often brilliant retelling of the Arthurian legends was written over a twenty-year period as a sequence of four novels and first published as a single volume in 1958.”

I shall not here digress into the various saccharine Disney versions of this work. You are on your own there.

The Once and Future King was based on Thomas Malory’s ambitious prose romance of the Arthurian court, Le Morte d’Arthur, written in the fifteenth century. White does not update the story, but he is always conscious of the parallels that can be made between the brutality of the dying Middle Ages and the rise of fascism in his lifetime. In the course of the four published novels, Arthur grows from a gangly, nervous youth (“the Wart”) into a vigorous military leader. He is eventually forced to emulate the actions of the Naxi-esque Celtic forces assembled by his nemesis, Mordred, in an attempt to try to preserve the innocence of England. The result id disastrous and, as he rides out to meet his death, Arthur concludes that only without nations can humankind be happy. There are some magnificent set pieces, notably when the Wart, transformed into a perch by Merlin, is nearly eaten by the pike, Mr. P., who warns him that the only reality is that of power.

The Once and Future King is a messy sequence of novels that is not always properly integrated, as the author acknowledged. Still, it is a powerful, disturbing work about the evil that men can do and the desperate struggle for values in a hostile world. “

All quotes in my reviews are from 1001 Books You must read Before you Die. For this particular text I took the quote almost intact as I thought the author said it much better than I could.

This is one of my all time favourite legends, books, dreams, warnings, particulates of my personal philosophy, etc. If you have not read this book, this is truly one that as thinking human I think you must read.

30 July 2010

Book Review Friday!

Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper.

Lifespan: b. 1789 (U.S.) d. 1851
First Published: 1826
First Published by: J. Miller (London)
Full Title: Last of the Mohicans, a Narrative of 1757

This was for me one of those pivotal books we all have in our youth. I remember well being taken away by Cooper to the old west, the thrill of battle (the massacre at Fort William Henry during the French and Indian War), and the possibility of beings so different from me described in the characters of the two Delaware Native Americans, Chingachgook and his son Uncas. The forbidden possibility of a romance between the genteel Cora (who has in the book a black mother; scandalous in my world at that time); and the deep friendship between the scout Hawkeye and the two Indians brought up possibilites I had never entertained.

I do remember being rather disappointed that the two women spent much of the novel being captured, rescued, or escorted to safety. I wanted them to pick up a gun or spear and help out!

I had met Hawkeye earlier in Cooper’s The Pioneers (1823) as frontiersman Natty Bompo. Cooper was “the first internationally renowned American novelist. He creates a template for much American popular fiction, particularly the Western.”

Cooper’s racial politics are conservative; thought the novel raises the possibility oif interracial romance and a child of mixed heritage. He does not follow thorugh as he kills off the two young lovers before they can consummate the relationship.

“Cooper laments the destruction of the wilderness, and of the Native Americans who inhabit it, but all are shown to succumb inevitably to progress, typical of the ideology of the nineteenth-century America.”

If you somehow missed Cooper’s vision of the Old West I highly recommend both Last of the Mohicans and The Pioneers.

argh

2010-08-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

When something is working very well why change it and screw it up? Argh! Picasa added some FUBAR update and now I can't get my photographs to upload. The Internet connection here is very slow but I will figure it all out and post photographs soon; meanwhile most of them are making it to Facebook sans captions.

We are off to the 51/2 hour rafting trip today through white water. Huzzah! We shall then drive to Calgary, drop off the car, and hopefully a good night's rest. Then back to Texas on Saturday. I imagine I won't be posting until Sunday, but I shall catch you up then, hopefully with illustrations, shall I?

He’s a cheeky horse named Dandy…

2010-08-05T10:27:00.000-07:00

2 August 2010

These were the first words I heard at the stable after we arrived from the Fairmount hotel in Whistler. And then our notably cheery guide Sarah pointed me out and called me over. He was indeed a cheeky horse, like riding a 1600-pound toddler, but we came to an understanding and he was a fine ride. The rest of my family and the other tourists saddled up and our two guides led us out across the field of blooming seed potatoes toward the mountains. It was a grand ride with just enough steep hills, hairy turns, and great views at the top to make it fun. As it turns out S. mounts a horse and becomes the young Elizabeth Taylor in “National Velvet”! She has an enviable seat and rides like she was born on a horse.

There was a lovely lady named Loraine in our group and we discovered that the guide Sarah is her daughter, and there is a story there – Sarah came out to Whistler to train for the Olympics – snowboarding was her sport, and she broke her back. She has been in Vancouver the past year and a half, only recently returning to Whistler, at which point coming over the mountain and looking down she said to herself, “Why did I leave?” She is very happy once again and now leading the trail rides and training in dressage. She is one of those people who you can only look upon with admiration and wonder how you would have done faced with such challenges.

Dandy, even when he was being good was ready to be back at the barn and spent half the ride down the mountain nipping at Lucky’s butt (Magnus was riding Lucky) who was very placid about the intrusion – made you think it wasn’t the first time. Later down the trail, given any chance he would break ahead in the line, and one of the four Russians had not secured his cash – it went flying out of his pocket and down the line, fortunately we were out of the mountains by this time and riding across a field so it didn’t spook any of the horses. As he dismounted and ran back to secure his cash, Dandy, very smoothly I thought, slid himself right into his slot scaring the Russian who was now riding in front of us as Dandy nicked the butt of his horse who did not take it well and kicked back to nail Dandy in the right shoulder. I was sure this was not the first time as Dandy simply and very smoothly maneuvered himself to avoid the blow. I fear I was more amused than annoyed and that did not sit well with the frightened young man on the now skittish horse. We also had along one of those Americans that no doubt inspired the phrase and book, “The Ugly American”.

Our driver from and back to the hotel was a lovely young man named Roberts from Australia who informed me that none of the British ski resorts could run without Aussie staff. Apparently they set aside a certain number of slots for Aussies from the beginning of planning. So there U.K.!

I had a lovely and delicious Afternoon Tea for one in our lovely room as himself entertained the teenagers – there are many advantages to being the wicked stepmother.

Leers and cheers: on my shopping trip to tourists-r-us in Whistler Village to pick up a couple of shirts for my missing child who was somewhere underwater in the Caribbean I noticed myself keeping count of the leers – I think that must be an age thing as I cannot remember doing that when I was younger. I was simply happy they were there to be counted!

In a shop where I found a talking shirt (which normally I abhor) for the adorable husband that I could not resist (“Old guys rule” in a discreet circle on the left side of the front, and “aged well” (on the back). The young woman checking my ID said, “You are sixty?”

“Yes.”

“You look fantastic.” What does that mean when you are 60? You look good to have lasted this long? With me it’s not the years, it’s the mileage – which I realize every time after a hard climb or a day with a cheeky horse named Dandy!

As I exited the shopping I came upon the village Firehouse, Police Station, municipal building, and a nice shiny fire engine sitting outside. I love fire trucks and engines and am very fond of firemen. As I was getting my shot a young man who should never wear a shirt, I mean really – even to a formal affair he should just wear the jacket. His chest was an advertisement for trips to the gym and his abdominal muscles reminded me of that waterfall we saw on the train ride…”May I help you?”

Once I could get my voice to work, my mouth went dry for a moment there …. “Oh no thank you. I’m just getting a photograph of your fire engine.”

“You like fire trucks?”

“Yes, I always have.”

“Well you know firemen have a real fondness for redheads.” Cocky young thing he was.

“That’s nice. I have to go. My husband is waiting for me.” I was, as Magnus pointed out upon hearing the story – flustered! Um hmmm..

There was a Farmer’s Market with much fresh produce and many local products lining the walk next to the Fairmount, and a wonderful children’s play area. I managed to get a couple of great shots of future risk takers in the making.

A wonderful day.

Ciao

1 August 2010

2010-08-03T05:48:00.000-07:00

It is not at all that yesterday went badly, but that it was quite different than expected.

We boarded the train in Vancouver expecting an observation car and private seating as described in the brochure. The train was quite lovely enough with big picture windows and comfortable chairs, but not private and not second story. The scenery was brilliant and unending. The service was good but, oh my, we did wish the attendants would stay off the mike, do a bit less talking, and simply let us enjoy the ride.

Whistler is brilliant. The hotel is very comfy and lovely, with a magnificent view of the mountains and the shoppes below.

Zip line called due to lightning, storms, and fire!

We settled into our rooms and I decided that I would let the rest of the family go zip lining without me as I have done it before and I was lagging a bit. I wanted to be up for the half-day horse ride and picnic today. I have been so lucky so far as the Red Bull has held the migraines at bay. The adorable husband has been a hound in pursuit when it comes to keeping me supplied.

About an hour later I got a call from the adorable husband – the three of them were stuck in Whistler underneath a shelter, in the rain, which was pouring down to such an extent they could not move. (I later learned that Whistler had not had rain for 29 days! Quite a dangerous hot spell this time of year, and explanation enough as to why the lightning was able to ignite such a large fire).

Apparently my family had barely started into the valley when the thunder and lightening (which I saw strike the mountain top) began and then the guide pointed to a reddish glow in the sky on another ridgeline and said, “Lightening fire.” At that point smoke began rolling down into the valley. The um…zip lining was canceled.

After the children were fed and put abed we had wicked deserts in our room and watched Travolta in “From Paris with Love”.

This morning we are off for a half-day horseback ride and picnic. I forecast much brilliant scenery.
Ciao

Stanley Park/ West End

2010-07-31T06:02:00.001-07:00

Stanley Park/West End

Yesterday we toured Robson Street, the big Vancouver shopping district where everything was 50 – 70% off! Verrrryy difficult time for a Scot who sees nothing she wants or needs… argh.

We were then led by our fearless leader into the West End, another area of downtown, and near-downtown, areas to be tarted up. The streets are lovely and the small neighbourhood shops welcoming, but the seriously ugly apartment buildings dwarfing the Edwardians that are left are horrid. We made a pleasant café and snack stop, and then headed for Stanley Park.

We passed a couple of the huge residential skyscrapers on the way into the park, and it appeared as though there were a bicycle on almost every balcony!

The Aquarium was quite a disappointment and very overpriced – don’t go there.

Stanley Park is brilliant. We had to make a choice as we had limited time, so we chose the sea walk that circles the park at five to six miles distance. It was wonderful. We had cool sea breeze to our right almost the entire way, along with surly bikers to our left. There were many squishy sightings, along with geese, and one seagull having himself a feast – first on a crab he captured, and then a small fish.

After completing the round we fell upon The Fish House in Stanley Park like starving pilgrims. My knees almost kissed the hand of our very helpful and efficient waitress when she brought round the Macallan’s! We found out from her why liquor is so expensive here – the very high tax; and there is a Canadian pour (one ounce), and the American pour is two. According to her, many Canadians make a liquor/wine run to Seattle fairly often. And I had to explain to the American teenagers that it is normal to receive water without ice, anywhere outside America.

We are off this morning to catch the train to Whistler, and an afternoon of zip lining!

Ciao

And then...

2010-07-30T08:49:00.000-07:00

Seaplane Ride

Yesterday we were up at an easy time to be down at the dock at 0930 for our Whale Watching boat ride. We signed our forms, saying if we died it was our own damn fault, and were fitted with what are NOT wet suits, not the suits you wear for white water, but a red, cushy jumpsuit, with zippers and Velcro – a kind of bumper suit with a hood and tie down. Once everyone was zippered in – now you know of course mine was tied about my waist until we got out of harbour and hit some real water and a breeze – the very informative and chatty young woman (who when queried, said yes the tourists count had been down in June (it was cold and rainy, and they DIDN’T call me!?) but now in July it was picked up to normal and August was booked well – so the economy does not seem to be hitting them hard which is good to hear.

I would have assumed that mostly they get Americans up here, but the day before when I went walkabout I heard German, Dutch, Israeli, French, Tagalog, Japanese, Chinese, and English (the original :-). She confirmed that observation and said they really get a lot of Germans and Dutch. I told her it has been my observation in my travels that EVERYONE gets a lot of Germans, but I was surprised about the Dutch – they don’t get enough water at home? I think the common denominator is that Canada is so stunningly beautiful, and the people are so lovely. I will say overall as a tourist’s destination, the residents here are more kindly disposed toward the tourists than many places I have visited.

The whale-watching ride was brilliant in as far as the “boat ride” part of it! Wheel! The boat is an overgrown dinghy that seats 14 – 16, and hits the water hard once they crank up those two HUGE motors on the back. I have many times explained to the husband that the reason I don’t listen to those safety lectures when flying over water is that if you hit the water after falling from 35, 000 feet, the water is like concrete, and you are not walking away from that so you may as well listen to your IPod. Yesterday he acknowledge the truth of it after the front of the boat (and you KNOW that’s where I jumped in, and he followed, the sweet man) slammed down on the water, bounced us up out of the seat, and slammed us hard back into the seat, our teeth became one with the jaw, and our backs said, “What ARE you doing?”

We first spotted some Harbour Seals who apparently to survive the verrrrryyy chilly water here, spend a lot of time on the rocks. One of the babies showed off his swimming skills for us and we remarked on the very effective camouflage of their fur.

Next we came upon a young Grey Whale, most likely a teenager, (groan) like I don’t have enough teenagers on this trip. He was feeding in quite close to the shore in about twenty or thirty feet of water, diving deep to feed, then surfacing with a spray, and rolling through the water like a huge spotted serpent as he made for the bottom again.

British Columbia has over 300 species of breeding birds – more than any province in Canada. Seabirds constitute only three percent of the world’s bird species, although two thirds of the planet is covered by water. They are more numerous in polar than in tropical waters, and much more diverse in the southern hemisphere than in the northern. Typically they feed either on small fishes or on small organisms called zooplankton, and lay eggs that have been an important source of food for coastal people around the world for thousands of years.

Heading further out we came upon seagulls, cormorants, puffin (unusual according to our driver), and some chap who had feathers on his upper bill to aid in hunting and is called a rhino- (didn’t catch the last part) in a great flock in what I can only assume is a great place for lunch. Noisy, they were very noisy.

Some more fast travel punctuated by jaw breaking bounces, brought us in sight of a Minke whale, who the driver says is a favourite prey of the Japanese hunters. He showed us one breach and left.

We passed behind a huge shipping tanker, the China Seas, and found out just how high we could bounce crossing his wake! It was too much fun, like a water roller coaster.

Now to backtrack just a bit to morning where the adorable husband, recovered but for a sore throat and a voice that sounded like Darth Vader, drank two full liters of water rather than eat as he was afraid he might have another “incident” in the boat if he had any food in his stomach. Just about the time we exited the harbour the water made its way through his system and he “needed to go to the toilet”, by the time we had gone full out, he was “in pain”, as we pulled into the inlet where we saw the Blue Heron, he was moaning every time we hit a swell. The ride back was excruciating for him and he gingerly made his way out of the boat only saying, “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, it doesn’t help.” He walked from the boat, up the hill (!) to the office where the toilet was located, like a man on his last legs making his way to his final resting place. He swears ten people got off the next boat that was prepared to go out when they saw him heading to the toilet, deciding that if that was the result of the ride, it was simply too frightening.

Once the adorable husband made his way from the toilet and out of the jumpsuit, we walked back to the hotel for our bags. We headed back toward the harbour, stopping at the Shoppe for ice crème for S., an assortment of foods for Magnus and the adorable husband, and a luscious latte’ with Red Bull on the side for me. We were entertained by a creative chap on the corner playing the fiddle dressed in full Darth Vader attire and posing for photographs by passing tourists.

Thus fortified we made our way to the Seaplane Terminal, only to find the flight was on hold due to fog. Fog? In Victoria one would assume they would have fog quite often and would therefore be set up with instrumentation to fly through it, but apparently not. Not to fear as all went well. We were taken on a very comfortable forty-minute shuttle ride to Pat’s Bay to take a seaplane out of there. The ride over was grand with the water spread out underneath us, and watching the boats – lots of boats.

The ride included a complementary shuttle ride to the hotel where we re-registered and I collapsed on the VERY COMFORTABLE bed after unpacking and settling us in for another stay.

The adorable husband took the children out for a requested Japanese meal while I stayed in with room service, which was up to the best standards of the Fairmont.

Today we are off to Stanley Park to walk the five-mile sea walk around the park, and see what we can see.

Ciao

AND THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES...

2010-07-29T06:35:00.000-07:00

Walkabout

CANADIAN ADVENTURE: DAY THREE

Oof!

Hard to beat this scene campers – I’m sitting in front of the Empress Hotel in Victoria, Canada with a breeze blowing that’s cool enough I needed to put on my jacket. The sun is shining through a cloudless, stunning blue sky with mountains in the distance and the tiny harbour spread out in front of me. Yes, time for lunch. You’re absolutely correct. In we go then…

Sitting on the “Veranda” of the Empress after taking a call from the adorable husband who apparently did not drown at sea but bloody well near died, throwing up everything in his system poor love - three times! He has a problem with motion, but wears some electric shock device (yikes) that normally serves him well (he did fine on the ferry ride) but apparently the fishing boat went out, hit some swells, came to a dead stop to ride and await the fish coming in and he could not take it. After arriving back on dry land he recovered quickly and is abed. All of which works out very well as I had decided to take the day “off” for writing and a visit to the museum - alone. I love those people but I can’t tell you what a relief it is to walk for a bit at my normal stride (which passes them by at a goodly clip).

I am awaiting my MacAllan 18 and will visit with you for a bit shall I?

All right then, day three: we had a very pleasant trip to the Ferry and a grand ride over (see photographs). What a brilliant view! We sat in the SeaWest lounge, in the soft chairs, with a can’t-beat-it-view, and the adorable husband and I speculated on what it must have been like to be an explorer in the days before the coming of the engine.

Arriving at Butchart Gardens (again, see photographs) we talked about how built up the place is from the Ferry all the way in, and as it turns out right on into Victoria. The Gardens were spectacular but with apologies to the gardeners I fear that the children and I found the Rose carousel to be our most favorite spot! We had a grand ride, which the adorable husband with his motion problem, had to sit out.

Then it was off to Victoria and our hotel, which is quite serviceable, with wireless (huzzah), but I fear with horrid beds! This morning we felt like we had slept on rocks.

Our High Tea at the Empress was brilliant for me, and the adorable husband enjoyed it, but I fear that the two younger members of our party were “not amused”. Apparently American teenagers are immune to the charms of High Tea no matter the inducement. S. came round and I think enjoyed herself, but Magnus refused to be pleased and had to be taken to the sandwich Shoppe afterwards for “real food”. It did make me once again grateful to Q for not only being the Universe’s best-behaved teenager but the most well mannered one as well. I thought to myself to write her a note straight away saying so.

The adorable husband and the children were off for the aborted fishing trip early this morning and I went walkabout (yes, you knew it was coming – see photographs). I am going to enjoy my whiskey, have a bracing lunch, then take myself over to the Royal BC Museum for a bit before returning to the hotel, as I know the adorable husband is getting some much needed and deserved sleep.

I find Victoria awash in tourists, but he adorable husband who is a better judge of these things (being I tend toward thinking that if I can see anyone else on the sidewalk it is crowded) says he thinks it is lighter than normal.

The Empress remains a grand old lady but is showing her age a bit in that the fare is mediocre but then I came for the lovely view, tea, and the spectacular whiskey yes? Indeed.

On Thursday it's whale watching and the seaplane ride back to Vancouver!

Ciao

...and while we are in Canada

2010-07-29T06:25:00.001-07:00

Franklin search vessel found in Arctic

Wed Jul 28, 8:50 PM
By Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

Arctic archaeologists have found the ship that forged the final link in the Northwest Passage and was lost in the search for the Franklin expedition.

The HMS Investigator, abandoned in the ice in 1853, is in shallow water in Mercy Bay along the northern coast of Banks Island in Canada's Western Arctic.

"The ship is standing upright in very good condition," Marc-Andre Bernier, Parks Canada's head of underwater archaeology, said Wednesday. "It's standing in about 11 metres of water.

"This is definitely of the utmost importance. This is the ship that sailed the last leg of the Northwest Passage."

On shore, not far from the wreck, are what scientists believe are the graves of three British sailors.

The disappearance of the Franklin expedition — considered the British admiralty's state of the art — provoked widespread public concern. Numerous British and American ships set sail in an attempt to find the HMS Erebus and the Terror, the vessels commanded by Sir John Franklin in his doomed search for the Northwest Passage in 1845.

None ever has.

Although some remains of the crew have been found, along with ghastly evidence of cannibalism among its starving crew, the fate of the Franklin expedition remains one of the Arctic's enduring mysteries and a recurring motif in Canadian song and story.

The search for Franklin and his men, however, contributed greatly to the understanding of the Arctic waters that Canada was eventually to claim as her own.

The Investigator made two voyages to try to solve the mystery. Its second, in 1850, was captained by Robert McClure. He sailed the Investigator around Cape Horn, up the west coast of North America to the Beaufort Sea and into the strait that now bears his name. He soon realized he was in the final leg of the Passage, but before he could return, the ship was blocked by pack ice and forced to overwinter in Prince of Wales Strait along the east coast of Banks Island.

The following summer, McClure tried again to sail to the end of the Passage, but was again blocked by ice. He steered the ship and crew into a large bay on the island's north coast he called the Bay of Mercy.

McClure and his men spent a total of three years trying to escape their icy dry dock, living on ship's stores and whatever they could harvest from the land. Finally, in the summer of 1853, they were rescued by the HMS Resolute.

The Investigator was abandoned. It was last seen, still stuck in the ice, in 1854.

"This is actually a human history," said Bernier. "Not only a history of the Passage, but the history of a crew of 60 men who had to overwinter three times in the Arctic, not knowing if they were going to survive."

The Parks Canada team arrived at Mercy Bay on July 22. Three days later, the ice on the bay cleared enough that researchers were able to deploy side-scanning sonar from a small inflatable boat over the site where they believed the wooden ship had eventually sunk.

Within 15 minutes, the Investigator was found.

"The ship had not moved too much from where it was abandoned," said Bernier.

The masts and rigging have long been sheared off by ice and weather. But the icy waters have preserved the vessel in remarkably good condition.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice is at the site and sailed overtop the sunken ship Tuesday night.

"It's incredible," he said from Mercy Bay. "You're actually able to peer down into the water and see not only the outline of the ship, but actually the individual timbers.

"To actually be on a Zodiac and look down into the water and see not just the outline of the ship but actually the ship itself and the timbers and all of the woodwork in immaculate detail was an indescribable experience.

"This ship has not been seen for 156 years. It's an incredible sight and it's a privilege to be here."

Prentice said the discovery by Canadian researchers emphasizes the fact that the Passage is a Canadian waterway, integral to Canada's history.

"It's an important find in that regard," he said.

"This vessel has been discovered here immediately adjacent to a Canadian national park. It's obviously an element of Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic."

As well as the ship, archaeologists have been uncovering a trove of artifacts on land left behind by the stranded sailors, who unloaded everything that was usable and portable before abandoning the Investigator.

The graves of three sailors thought to have died of scurvy have been marked off and will be left undisturbed, said Bernier.

The Investigator is also considered to be a significant part of aboriginal history. For years after the ship was abandoned, Inuvialuit hunters scavenged the site for valuable and rare bits of metal and wood.Even the nails were pulled out of one of the boats left behind.

Canadian Adventure: Day two

2010-07-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

Canadian Adventure: Day Two

Last night I was pooped from the day of fun and only jotted down my notes. Here are the photographs of the great day we had yesterday. We are off early this morning to rent a car, (after repacking, and downsizing to accommodate he weight restrictions of the seaplane on the return, more on that later), take the ferry to Victoria, visit Butchart Gardens, and have high tea at the Empress hotel! Once we are settled in I shall return and fill you in on the details of yesterday's fun, for now we are off!

Ciao

FYI: D. has requested to be known henceforth as Magnus

2010-07-26T06:57:00.001-07:00

Day One Canadian Adventure

Click on the photograph and it will take you to the album.

Day One - We left Houston, Texas usa Sunday morning at 0930 hours Texas time on Continental Airlines bound for Vancouver, where we landed after a long but uneventful flight. The one outstanding event that we are slowly running into the ground is teasing our daughter S. who was a bit tired when she got in the taxi in Houston and said, “Are you looking for the can opener? You need a can opener. Oh good there is one, you found it”

During this bit of rambling verbosity, I was looking for the beverage holder in the taxi to put the adorable husband’s coffee
in for stability. We have all been teasing her about that one; she is taking it in stride and with much good humor.

Arriving in Vancouver we walked outside into a COOL breeze and I requested to stay until November! A lovely ride through the city took us to The Fairmount Hotel Vancouver – another grand old lady with a huge old copper roof. But really people I have one word for elegant OLD hotels – VENT, a vent in the bathroom please! One prefers to maintain a certain mystery in a marriage and…

Our room was not yet ready as we had arrived 1300 hours Vancouver time so the Concierge directed us to the Cactus Club Café as we had two starving teenagers on our hands, as well as two hungry adults who don’t eat that crap they serve on the airplanes now and have the audacity to call food.

It was brilliant! The food was splendid. A word must be said about the staff as it was so very obvious to each of the four of us – a bevy of beauties who were tending bar to waiting tables were uniformly stunningly attractive. My youngest daughter and I managed to spy out the only three male waiters who held their own in the “oh my god look at that guy” department. We have no idea… Some Canadian hiring policy? The natural tendency of the people toward attractive genes? A weeding out of the less attractive? If so how do you not get sued?

The other outstanding characteristic of the restaurant was the bathroom! Now you know how I love a lovely toilet, this was ultra modern – all chrome and glass and smoky mirrors. The stalls were huge and upon closing the door and sitting myself in the proper place to conduct that business for which I had come – I looked up into a telly placed right inside the door at eye level, and playing the Food channel! Surreal! What a hoot.

After getting back to the hotel and into our rooms, the children both collapsed into a nap and I did my unpacking thing while the adorable husband found a nearby shop and brought back “sundries”.

At five (remember we are running two hours ahead time wise and I woke at – 0430hours. I’m just saying… We walked over to the “Bard on the Beach” playhouse. There was a huge crowd dressed in various stages of apparel, and some obvious tourists, as well as locals.

It was a very well done production that we all thoroughly enjoyed. We were drooping badly for the last act but that was the time difference and flight, not the entertainment. I can’t recommend this company highly enough if you are here. “Much Ado about Nothing” is one of my favourite Shakespearean plays. I’ve seen it performed many times in London and other places and this compared very favorably.

Our favourites were the actor who so brilliantly played Benedict, and the actress who played Beatrice. Kudos!

As we stumbled out of the theatre we were so NOT looking forward to the 45-minute walk back to the hotel but the booking agent had told the adorable husband he would find no taxis in the area… After just missing one, by the skin of our teeth, to people in front of us, we did nonetheless manage to flag one down before we had gone very far at all. Whoo! We came home to the very, very comfortable hotel and fell into our beds! Albeit the adorable husband was snacking, and continuing to read up on our next adventure day, and there was much giggling coming from the adjoining children’s room I must say! I read about three pages in my book and rolled over to dreamland.

Today we are off to Granville Island, perhaps Stanley Park, and lunch with my friend “Nobody Important” and her scientist guy. I am looking forward to introducing them to the new members of my family.

Speaking of the rest of my family, Q is off in the wilds of the Caribbean somewhere scuba diving with her husband for a week. Yep, my daughter the jock! And her grandparents are making their way back across country west to east after coming out to get their lovely boat, on which we had SO many wonderful days and weeks (sigh) tarted up and on sale. Golden Dawn you are a grand lady and we will miss you.

I must dress now and get my son awake as he and I are going up to the gym. He is getting in shape for football season, and I'm just trying to stay in shape!

Ciao and more adventures anon!

It's Friday, and that means books...

2010-07-23T03:56:00.000-07:00

On this week’s Friday Book Review we have Sir Walter Scott and his works Ivanhoe and The Monastery.

“Ivanhoe details the political and cultural enmity between the subjugated Saxons and their Norman-French overlords during the reign of Richard the Lionheart in the twelfth century. Wilfred of Ivanhoe, a brave Saxon knight, returns from the crusades to assist King Richard in recovering his throne from this usurping brother Prince John.”

The three central confrontations are: “the tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, the siege of Torquilstone Castle, and the rescuing of the heroine Rebecca from Templestowe, the seat of the Knights templar.”

The gothic romance finds its way woven between the action scenes, and is every bit as epic, and chivalry is admired above all.

In his tale Scott subtly critiques warfare through the spectrum of his own sight and opinions of the time. The book “pioneered the genre of the historical novel, the literary form most often used to express it.”

This is a delightful read and I do recommend it. It was eons ago I admit when I read Scott’s novels but I do believe they would hold up today in the atmosphere of Twilight and Prince of Persia.

Ivanhoe
Lifespan: b. 1771 (Scotland), d. 1832
First Published: 1820
First Published by: A. Constable & Co. (Edinburgh)
Full Title: Ivanhoe; or, the Jew and his Daughter

The Monastery

Lifespan: b. 1771 (Scotland), d. 1832
First Published: 1820
First Published by: A. Constable & Co. (Edinburgh)
Original language: English

“Set in the lawless terrain of the Scottish Borders between the years 1550 and 1575, The Monastery records the fate of the isolated Catholic monastery of Kennaquhair as it comes into conflict with the competing doctrines of radical Protestant Reform.

The ruins of Melrose Abbey fired the imagination of Scott, which was close to his home at Abbotsford. He could see there a testament “to the religious and political struggles of Scotland’s past”.

In the book he plays out the ideological conflicts “in the narrative through a range of intense relationships: between the Catholic Sub-Prior Eustace and his one-time school friend the Protestant preacher Henry Warden, between a lover and his beloved, between one brother and the next.”

His sympathies are expressed firmly on the side of Protestant views. “Scott’s decidedly gothic penchant in The Monastery for terror, supernatural suspense, and muted forms of anti-Catholicism is carefully counterbalanced by the comic elements generated through the linguistic idiosyncrasies of Sir Piercie Shafton” (and copied by politicians since!).

“Scott’s romance is at once an account of his native Scottish past, and an anticipation of a national, political, and religious future.” He continues these themes in his sequel The Abbot.

I read Scott when I was an impressionable teenager and remember well being caught up in his passions of the tale. I recommend both these reads.

THIS THAT AND THE OTHER

2010-07-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

Forgive my lapse in writing – it seems I’m always at the keyboard what with articles for Power Room, the blog book review, and my new deadline of September for the novel and a non-fiction entry for the Surrey Writer’s Conference in October. I learned so much there in 2007, so I’m very excited about returning.

All this marital bliss (and it is!) has gotten in the way of my novel so I have set the conference in October as my deadline to have a manuscript ready to shop around, as well as entering a non-fiction entry for an award that will look good on my resume'.

We are off to Canada for two weeks come this weekend with both my teenage stepchildren; fortunately I adore them and they think I'm "pretty cool". I'm lucky that way with children...

Q has turned into a bloody jock! She just returned from hiking the Wonderland Trail around Rainier (nine days on her own; walked herself out of a white out with a map and a compass!) where she earned the title "BADASS" from the Park Rangers; and is off this weekend for scuba diving in the Caribbean. Who knew?!

All here is about the upcoming trip – getting medications, and Red Bull (which has had an amazing positive effect on my migraines! The adorable husband/doctor thinks it is the Taurine…) Making certain everyone has passports, trousers, shoes, and knickers! I have to get my hair done and my legs waxed before we go! Priorities my dears!

The adorable husband has done a magnificent job of planning everything – there will be whale watching, flying in the seaplane, taking the ferry, deep sea fishing (yes, I will be home writing that day), horseback riding, zip lining, seeing parks, taking the train... You get the idea.

We will be visiting Banff National Park, along with a kick ass train ride taking us west to east; as well as zip lining and a nice long horseback ride with picnic. I intend to blog my way across Canada so prepare yourselves. The adorable husband has done all the planning, and calling, and paying - and a fine job he has done I must say. I am in charge of being adorable, easy to get along with, and taking movies and photographs, along with keeping a journal by blogging. So everyone has a job.

I am in the process today of typing up the Friday Book Review for the next four Fridays so that I don’t need to haul that huge book along with me!

Ciao!

Book Friday

2010-07-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

It’s Book Friday and today we have Frankenstein! Ta da!
Lifespan: b. 1797 (England), d. 1851
First Published: 1818
First Published by: Lackington et al. (London)
Full Title: Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus

I can only assume you have seen one of the many movies and/or read the book (please tell me you have seen Young Frankenstein! If not, go get it now! And you have something to do for the weekend…) The classic version is James Whale’s 1931 movie if you have not seen that – another must-do for your list.

Written by the daughter of the radical feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, the author married poet Percy Bysshe Shelly in 1816. Now this was before the book was published, so as to whether or not he had any input is not know to this reviewer.

Her mother died when the author was ten months old, so that influence is again unknown, as she certainly would, I think, have been driven to read her mother’s work in order to come to know her in some sense.

If you were hiding in a hole during your pre-university education and did not read the book, I highly recommend you do so; even if you did, a re-read is nothing but enjoyment.

“At the centre of the story is the idea that our understanding of science can be developed and controlled, to the point that the tendency of Nature toward dissolution can be arrested; the impossibility of this desire is at the centre of its “horror”.

The subtitle of the novel, The Modern Prometheus, makes clear the connection with Greek mythology, but it is evident that Frankenstein is a novel that looks forward as well as back. The Swiss scientist and philosopher, Frankenstein, is inspired by occult philosophy to create a human-like figure, and give it life. The idea of reanimation is at the heart of much modern horror…”

We see in this novel and in much modern literature the attempt to postpone death and the decline of vigour. It is a recurring theme.

Shelley’s book is worth reading for many reasons but the main points that keep it fresh and applicable to today’s society is the “effortless prose, grotesque imagery, and surreal imagination” that Shelly put to paper. I highly recommend this read.

I have finished Appetite for Life: the autobiography of Julia Child by Noel Fitch and I again, highly recommend this read. What a life this woman had; there is so much in addition to the books and television shows she wrote and preformed that most of us are unaware of in any sense. If you are like me and have never read nor seen them, I think we should. I can tell you I know what Q is receiving for her next gift! It is a story of two lives, her and her adorable Paul, well lived. She is an inspiration to all of us out of our thirties and looking to accomplish great deeds still. It is a story of a woman driven to accomplish a work of great impact and exactitude but also a great love story, as well as the webs of friendship and family that she and her Paul wove about themselves. The story of how they survived the McCarthy purge and the removal of taste from the America table is one worth telling.

We are getting packed, and ready for our two-week sojourn to Canada. It will be quite a trip and I shall give you daily updates as to our progress through Canada west to east.

I’m also busy at work on a submission for the Surrey Writer’s conference in October, which explains my absence from daily posts on my blog. I’m very excited about returning this year as I learned so much when I was there in 2007.

Ciao!

It’s Book Review Friday, and here we go!

2010-07-09T10:56:00.000-07:00

Up this week: Chaireas and Kallirhoe by Chariton.

Lifespan: b.c. 1st century BCE (Greece), d.c. 1st century
First published: 1750
Language of First Publication: Latin
Original Title: Peri Chairean kai Kallirhoen

The dates claimed for the origin of this classical novel vary from 50 BCE to 200 BCE. This is the story of “the lives of two young lovers from Syracuse” and takes place during the time of the flowering and withering of the Persian Empire.

The author, Chariton, acting as narrator tells us he is secretary “to a rhetor ((in ancient Greece and Rome) a teacher of rhetoric,
an orator) of Aphrodisias”.

Here are the highpoints - Chaireas and Kallirhoe, our hero and heroine, have fallen in love at first sighting, and are allowed by their families to marry, but (here comes the kicker) “jealous former suitors of the girl destroy Chaireas’ trust in his wife” (foreshadows of Othello).

Chaireas gets angry, kicks her in the stomach, thinks he’s killed her and she is buried in the family tomb.

Apparently the rich family tomb, as no sooner is she settled in than the grave robbers show up, find her alive, and of course sell her to a chap named Dionysos who lives on the coast of Ionia.

He, duh, falls in love with Kallirhoe, who is of course pregnant with the child of Chaireas – didn’t you just see that coming?

Kallirhoe, tasty but devious dish that she is, marries Dionysos but doesn’t tell him the father of the child is other than his own virile self.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, or empire if you must, Chaireas finds out from the grave robbers (and just what was he doing hanging about with grave robbers?) that his wife lives – da da de da!

The two meet again in Persia after the requisite long trying search and journey, there’s a big trial as to just who gets to be “the husband” to our luscious but devious Kallirhoe. Chaireas proves he is a right proper hero type by going out and killing off several hundred Persians, and apparently that’s good enough for Kallirhoe as she leaves the child with Dionysos and sails off into the sunset with Chaireas.

Demented, all of them, if you ask me. I have not actually read this one and I can’t say that I really care to take the time to do so. You make your own choice on this one.

I finished Patterson’s Storm Prey and I can’t really recommend it either – moves very slowly and plods until you are really quite glad when it’s all done. I’ve begun Appetite for Life, The Biography of Julia Child by Noel Fitch and even though I’m not usually one for biographies I’m excited about this one and it’s made a good start. Gideon’s Spies is quite good, almost done there and I recommend it, as well as Lions of Medina – both being what they are – military histories.

998 to go! Let me know what you are reading.

THIS is the good news?

2010-07-09T05:19:00.000-07:00

Posted on the Park site for the Wonderland Trail that Q is treking this week. She will make it; I may not!

Carry an ice axe even if you think you will not need it. It can snow any day of the year. Paradise Visitor Center recorded a world record 1122 in (2850cm) snowfall in 1972.

flood damage in 2006
most years the snow holds during June and early July.
snow crossing at Panhandle can be trouble
be prepared for cold and wind
you need good knees. Expect a cumulative 23,000ft (7000m) of elevation gain
bring a rope to hang your food
mud, rain, sun and snow is a typical day
in May and June: fallen trees across trails, washed-out bridges, and long stretches of snow-covered trail where route finding will be difficult (NPS)
some sections have poor water supply late season
trails around Sunrise and Reflection Lakes confusing
about 5000 hikers a year complete the whole circuit compared with 20,000 who try to climb it. Circuit hikers are the more exclusive breed.
it's worth bringing GPS, compass and even altimeter

Two days ago she had to break trail through a whiteout to the Ranger Station! The bottom fell out of my stomach three days ago and I am perfecting hand wringing.

TODAY

2010-07-07T23:15:00.001-07:00

my new article on pornography is on Powder Room Graffiti. Please go over read and comment. Thank you.

Brilliant

2010-07-07T02:43:00.000-07:00

Go READ THIS now! Brilliant. OMG we need to start a movement for a call for the movie! WHy did I not know this? Shocking!

Go forth read and comment! Please.

2010-07-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

I have a new article on Powder Room Graffiti tomorrow.

Ciao

7 July - actually not! Perhaps anon? I will let you know....

"1001 Books to read before You Die" Friday!

2010-07-02T03:40:00.000-07:00

2 down/ 999 to go!

This week’s book review comes to you from the sick bed (sigh, hack, cough, sneeze) of your blogger. The one cold virus (vicious bugger) that finds me once a year (after what I am sure is a long and arduous search), lands in my nasal passage and then quickly, like the villain it is, makes its way into my pulmonary system where it resides while I hack, cough, run a fever, and am generally miserable to be around. Fortunately, it is only that – a nasty cold that prefers my pulmonary system to my nasal cavity and will be beaten down within a week or so by the barrage of prescription aerosol inhalants, antibiotics, and luscious, yummy, happy, narcotic cough syrup which makes me a bit loopy, some happy, and very chatty – so not all bad eh?

This week’s selection is Metamorphoses by Ovid

Lifespan: b.43 BCE (Italy), d.17 CI
First Published: 1488, by Antonius Nebrissensis
First Composed: Between c. 2-8
Original Language: Latin

This is another volume that I believe the majority of us encountered at some time during our school years. It is some “two hundred and fifty stories” composed into one continuous narrative. It is “a mythological history of the world, beginning with creation and ending with the foundation of Rome and the apotheosis of Julius Caesar.

The theme running through the stories is the constant questioning of the existing traditions and power structure of the times: Arachne challenges the goddess Athene to a tapestry-making contest; Phaethon insists on taking the reins of the sun chariot from his father; Daphne escapes from Apollo’s clutches by praying to a river god, who changes her into a tree.

Ovid uses “a comic, deflating way, reminiscent of mock-epic” to relate the tales. An excellent example is the story of Perseus who “kills his enemies by turning them to stone with the head of the Medusa which he carries in a bag, it is not the heroic that we see, but the use of a disproportionate force not unlike employing nuclear weapons in a bar brawl.”

The Metamorphoses' incorporation of dialogue within a narrative, along with its wit, playfulness, and sheer sense of fun, exemplifies much of what we associate with the present day novel.

Ovid’s work has had an impact on a string of notable novelists since its inception and continues to do so.

My recommendation is much like that for Aesop’s Fables - if for some reason you never read it, do so now. If you have children, of any ages about the place, it makes for excellent nighttime stories.

On my own table, Storm Prey has picked up the pace a bit, but I’m unimpressed. Meanwhile Appetite For Life, The Biography of Julia Child by Noel Riley Fitch has arrived from Amazon and I’m looking forward to beginning it as soon as I finish off Storm Prey.

Last week I Beatrice gave us all a referral to what she is reading and looking forward to next. I invite you all to do the same if you are so inclined.

Ciao and happy reading.

Who needs Kevlar when you have a DoubleD?

2010-06-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

I must share with you an article in my latest issue of SWAT magazine, written by Scott Reitz.

Apparently he received a call from a reporter regarding an incident that took place in Los Angeles where a young woman was shot through the right arm and the velocity carried the bullet into her chest. Her surgeon said, “ I saw the CT scan. The bullet fragments were millimeters from her heart and her vital organs. Had she not had the implants, she might not be alive today.”

The young reporter, Ching-Ching Ni, apparently took this to the, well I wouldn’t say the next level, but rather somewhere in a world of logic – apart.

Her questions to Scott Reitz reflected a preformed idea she apparently did not wish to let go of in the face of any fact or reason. Listen to this:

“So Mr. Reitz,” she asked, “would you say that women should get breast implants to save their lives in the event of a shooting?”

He explained the unlikely events of caliber, velocity, and aspect angle of introduction of the wound that would have to take place to make that a “yes”.

“So you’re saying it could save someone’s life?”

“Under ideal conditions, yes.”

“So would you recommend that all women get breast augmentation?”

“Yes, but not necessarily for that reason.”

“What do you mean?”

“Forget it.”

Does it matter that the breast is filled with saline solution?”

“I really don’t think most men care about that one way or another.”

“Why?”

“Forget it.”

“Well, would the saline solution stop a bullet?”

“It could, but the damage would be a crying shame.”

“What do you mean?”

“Forget it.”

“Do you think that this situation is more unique to L.A. than the rest of the country?”

“Well, if it’s frontal ballistic protection you’re talking about, then I guess L.A. has everyone else in the world beat, hands down, no questions asked!”

He went further to explain to the woman that if breasts implants were truly a foolproof protection against getting fatally wounded, he would get a set himself. He went on to explain to her to make the protection worthwhile one would need the implants back and front, above and below the waist….

I swear to you this is a real article in the August 2010 issue of SWAT magazine and the young woman’s article did run: “Scarred but grateful to be alive, L.A. Times, 25 February 2010.

You just have to wonder what goes on in the brains of some people…

2010-06-28T04:12:00.001-07:00

New article on Powder Room Graffiti! I'm fairly sure this one will be controversial so please go over and add your opinion and support! Thank you.

Ciao

The FRIDAY book review

2010-06-25T04:02:00.001-07:00

A new feature here on Braveheart… I am inspired by two events: the movie Julie/Julia – which I highly recommend, where a young woman cooks her way through the Julia Child cookbook. Is there nothing Meryl Streep cannot do? And the purchase of 1001 Books YOU MUST READ BEFORE YOU DIE.

I intend to make my way through the book, commenting on each selection. Obviously there are 1001. There are 52 weeks in a year, with each having only one Friday, so the project will most likely have a span of at least two to eight years. Stay tuned…

I am a veracious reader and fortunate to be a rather fast one. I am, as was coined by a writer on Power Room Graffiti this week, “a literary whore”. I will read anything if it can hold my interest. I will be honest and tell you when I have not read an entire tome or not at all and am merely reviewing the review which I can see happening in the case of anything listed written by James Joyce. I read Ulysses and that was it for Joyce and me. I am on firmer ground with the old dead Russian writers as I think I read all of Tolstoy and Chekhov.

I am not firm on the format yet. I may well review more than one book at a time and throw in whatever I am reading on the side. I tend to read three to five books at a time, jumping from one to the other until done and then incorporating new books into my flow. I like to have one non-fiction, one murder (preferably serial, argh), one science-fiction (military over fantasy), and a really, really, good spy thriller (hard to find). I’m not much of a romance girl but I will read an occasional Sandra Brown or Christine Freehan – both consistent writers of
“whoo, hand me my fan” hot love scenes. I recommend them both if you like that sort of thing (she said ahem….)

So we shall see and let it evolve as I go shall we? Suggestions welcome!

First up: Aesop’s Fables by Aesopus
I believe we all had to work our way through this at sometime during school years eh?

“Aesop, according to legend, was a tongue-tied slave living on the Greek island of Samos, who miraculously received the power of speech, and subsequently won his freedom, only to be thrown to his death by the citizens of Delphi for insulting their oracle. (tough crowd) Aesop’s Fables is in reality a body of work from a huge variety of sources. Among the earliest recorded narratives, these stories have become embedded in the Western psyche…”

Included are the best known, “The Hare and the Tortoise”, “The Boy who cried Wolf”, “Jupiter and the Frogs”, where “the frogs ask Jupiter for a king. Not content with the king he sends them at first, an easy-going log, they ask for a more powerful ruler, only to be sent a water-snake, who kills them off one by one.” And bada bing, “careful what you wish for” enters the vernacular of the masses.

The Fables have been translated into languages around the world and many other bodies of work have evolved from the stories – The romance of Reynard the Fox, and Kafka’s The Metamorphosis would not have come to fruition without this background of literature. “There would be no Just So Stories by Kipling, and Orwell would never have written Nineteen Eighty-Four.”

When people talk about the fact there are no “new” ideas in literature, plays, or the movies – this tome comes to mind.

Lifespan: b.c.620 BCE (Greece), d. 560 BCE
First Edition: 4 BCE, compiled by rhetorician
First Published: c.1475 (L. Symoneli & other, Paris)
Original Title: Fabulae Aesopi

If you got through school without reading it, I do recommend it; or if you have children about the place, it is a great entertainer while teaching life lessons.

The adorable husband is a big reader as well, he tends more toward biographies so I shall try to include his reviews on whatever he’s reading.

On my reading table at present; after reading everything John Ringo has written by himself; I am now reading everything he has written in collaboration. He is a military science fiction writer of the first order. I have already finished all the series: Troy Rising, Paladin of Shadows, The Legacy of the Aldenata, The Last Centurion, and Ghost ( the adorable husband’s favourite as it made me randy as a goat in heat – go figure).

I have the same two words for John Ringo that I have for the military/spy fiction writer Vince Flynn – write faster. I recommend everything Flynn has written and read them in order, more fun that way. He creates a main character it is impossible not to root for and his cast of supporting characters is very strong. He lays out a believable plot line in the political climate of today’s world with just enough unbelievable heroics to leave you cheering.

I’m also reading Storm Prey by John Sandford – the king of serial killer thrillers. This one is off to a bit of a slow start, I’ll let you know.

And Gideon’s Spies by Gordon Thomas – “the secret history of the Mossad”. It is really fascinating I must say. Also in the non-fiction arena I am started on Lions of Medina by Doyle D. Glass – “The Marines of Charlie Company and their Brotherhood of Valour”. I’m just opening this one up..

On the non-fiction front I think everyone should know something about economics even if it is the most nebulous of subjects, and the best book I can recommend for the novice is The Mystery of Capital by Hernando De Soto (Published in 2000, still valid). I will tell you truthfully that I had to read through it twice, but I think I got it and it is mind blowing. I found it right after it came out in hardback, and have loaned it out and recommended it ad nauseam. Read it.

Remaining in the non-fiction vein, I recommend as well The End of Poverty by Jeffrey D. Sachs – another mind bender/opener to the economy of the world; included in this tome is what we might do to change it for the better.

Also The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman gives a look at the global economy and what that means for all of us on a daily going-about-our-lives basis.

These three can all be found in paperback now I’m sure.

Now I must give my little lecture (you just knew one was coming didn’t you?) that every thing we read, be it modern or ancient, was written by a person, in a particular political, cultural, religious, and economic atmosphere – that affects what people write about and how they write it. WE are all influenced by our upbringing, our education, and the lives we live; so as we read we inject our own opinions as well. I try to remember where the words came from and when, and keep my own mind open for new ideas. I’m just saying…

I'm just saying...

2010-06-24T06:06:00.000-07:00

What’s in a word?

I had begun this post some time back as the policy of vocabulary change of the current White House administration concerns me. After the fiasco with McCrystal yesterday I am pissed.

I get it. I get it. It was stupid to allow the reporter access. But it was a special ops solider, a general with more on the ground combat time than any other current serving general, who committed a stupid political move. He is not a political man, he is a solider. He is not a stupid man, he came out of the field to attend the War College and get his advanced university degrees. But he is not a political animal – obviously.

Bringing him back to Washington like a recalcitrant schoolboy did not sit right with me – you do not treat such a warrior in such a manner. Call him to task for the dumb interview, have him apologise, and let him get back to work. I realize Obama, who is falling out of favour with this voter, had to look all in-charge but if he could have put his bloody testosterone on hold and looked at the greater good he would have accepted an apology. He ended the career of a great soldier who has sacrificed much for his country and risked his life more times than I can count. “Allowing him to resign” is the bloody same as firing him.

My feeling about the crap for brains and shit for judgement reporter shall go unmentioned.

Is no one reading his or her history? Shiva! This region has been ungovernable, undefeatable (is that a word?), and unmanageable for more years going back further in time than the written word. I think the Taliban is one of the worse regimes since my guy Genghis Khan, who came through the region, but unless we colonize Afghanistan we are never going to be able to govern it nor set up a democratic government that puts the people first. This will not happen until more people in the country want it than are too afraid to die for it. Democracy cannot be imposed, it can only be won.

I said the same thing about Iraq – if we are going, throw away the pretence, colonize the place, get it in order, then stay and run it or pull out all together and leave them to it.

President Karzai – what an idiot and why are we supporting him? Karzai controls a one km area around Kabul, or rather the western forces in country control a one km area, and that’s it. That’s it. You understand that? He has no control over the rest of the country, and like all Afghanistan politicians I have ever known, he is on the take from anyone willing to pay out.

Petraeus is an army wiener, he was in charge of Iraq and look how well that went - all I have to say on that.

The White House policy on nuclear weapons and changing the vocabulary of the War on Terror….taking out “Islamic Jihad”, “Islamic extremism” and substituting less onerous terms borders on the absurd if it was not so inherently dangerous.

Calling it something different will not make it go away; it will not protect citizens of America, Israel (who I don’t see rewording anything), France, Britain, Morocco, or any other nation. Words are important, they give an issue weight. You want to change the wording on something, how about changing the wording on the “War on Drugs”? There’s a bureaucracy that has outgrown it’s purpose, and the DEA can now only exist as an entity if there is a “WAR on Drugs” – not a lot of incentive to end off eh?

Hoover began the trend with his “First War on Crime” back in the day of Dillinger, to use an issue to build a bureaucratic empire and finance it with taxpayer dollars.

Yes, I expect a great deal of disagreement with these views, so knock yourself out. I’m still pissed.

Ciao.

New Article!

2010-06-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

On Power Room Graffiti

Please go read and comment. Thank you! Photographs of the trip tomorrow!

Ciao

Trips, travails, and triumphs…

2010-06-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

Once again the adorable husband and I tread into the wondrous land of vacation. Once again there are stories of wonder and angst.

This trip BEGAN with the angst! In the ‘isn’t that wonderful but what about ME?’ category: our lovely housekeeper Jamie had a healthy beautiful baby boy three days before we were to leave. She had assured me she had someone to fill in for her, but all week and no one showed up to clean and I began to fear for the lives of all my plants and my garden as her fill-in was scheduled to take care of my dears while we were gone. I began to come up with Plan B. That resolved nicely when I called her on Friday and she assured me that her husband would be driving her niece over to look after the plants while we are away. Whew, one down.

We departed for the airport on Saturday morning with great anticipation. I love San Francisco and I love the idea of having the adorable husband all to myself for a week. He is excited to be away from the stresses and time clock of work for a week. We arrived the airport, put in the time one must to pass security and wait… Once on the plane the adorable husband who is a window sitter; I am an aisle sitter by virtue of my legs and frequent bathroom sojourns, both to empty my bladder of the large amounts of water I try to consume on the flight, and the chance to circulate some blood through my legs! I have compromised the past year or so and sat in the middle as the adorable husband lets me lie all over him and use him like a big cushion, and he entertains me toward the end of the flight when I get antsy and ready to ‘be there!’.

On this flight, he had been chivalrous and put me in the aisle seat, which in turn landed him in the middle for as he said, “I always sleep away the flight anyway.” Well not this one! Oh we had one of those, thank the gods seldom, but nonetheless regularly occurring horrid seatmates.

In the beginning it did not appear so, as he appeared to me a nice young man, and crawled into the window seat with good grace. The moment he was seated the adorable husband turned his face to me and mouthed, “B.O.!” The young man stank of unwashed flesh and during the entire four hour flight he fidgeted in odd ways, coughed (without covering), and passed wind shears of foul smelling flatus so potent that I had to get out of my seat on several occasions and run for relief at the rear of the aircraft.

Arriving in San Francisco and being thrilled to be off the airplane we were downhearted to find the temperature was almost 90 degrees! One of the main reasons we came here was to escape Houston’s heat. And not everything is air conditioned here; it’s like the old days in London when it just never got that hot for that long…

Our next unpleasant surprise came when the adorable husband called the manager of the condominium we had rented. This is our first time trying this instead of a hotel, but it looked really great over the Internet. We had already had one bad episode when the manager charged us the rather large fee twice once he had the credit card data. He did however correct that ‘error’.

Instead of saying he would meet us at the apartment and show us about, as we expected, as he had said he would, he directed us to a petrol station in a dodgy part of town to meet him and pick up the keys, after that we were on our own.

Our one piece of luck so far, as there are truly only five taxis in all of San Francisco, is that we had lucked out with Ricardo – a lovely young man who was both helpful and efficient.

We stepped inside the apartment and the adorable husband asked me to get his computer and set up the wireless so he could find a hotel. I did go ahead and unpack, thinking like the Hotel Dieu (see Paris trip 2009) we could make it work out. He found a couple of hotels around Union Square and I suggested we go for lunch first as we were both hungry and tired, not a good time to make a decision.

We walked over to 685 Market Street (one of my favourite little squares in The City as it has Merrell, Bvlgari, Tiffany’s, Saks, etc. all in a contained area) and went to the top of Macy’s which houses the best Cheesecake Factory restaurant I know; Q and I used to eat here often when out shopping. Did I mention there is a bookstore near by?

Lunch was relaxing, delicious, and informative. When Joel queried the bartender (while waiting for our table we were lucky enough to snag two stools) about local hotel and restaurant data, he recommend the Prescott Hotel over on Post street which apparently also houses a brilliant restaurant. Loaded with data, relaxed with 18-year-old Macallan and a Moscow Mule, we made our way to the Prescott where Lydia, the adorable and informative clerk/concierge not only quoted us a price for a room or suite, but took us on a tour of the hotel before we said, “Oh my yes, give us the suite please, now.”

We returned to the mistake at 118 O’Farrell, # 315 (and yes, consider this a warning; the website is www.come2sf.com - don’t), REPACKED our bags and after tucking the key under the door and kissing our $1800.00 goodbye – we happily and with great relief, took a taxi to the Prescott where we are so very happily ensconced in our little suite.

Part II later today as we are off now to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge!

Scratch your head over this...

2010-06-05T03:35:00.001-07:00

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Nothing
06.05.2007 DISCOVERY Magazine
There's more there than you think.
by LeeAundra Temescu
1 There is vastly more nothing than something. Roughly 74 percent of the universe is “nothing,” or what physicists call dark energy; 22 percent is dark matter, particles we cannot see. Only 4 percent is baryonic matter, the stuff we call something.
2 And even something is mostly nothing. Atoms overwhelmingly consist of empty space. Matter’s solidity is an illusion caused by the electric fields created by subatomic particles.
3 There is more and more nothing every second. In 1998 astronomers measuring the expansion of the universe determined that dark energy is pushing apart the universe at an ever-accelerating speed. The discovery of nothing—and its ability to influence the fate of the cosmos—is considered the most important astronomical finding of the past decade.
4 But even nothing has a weight. The energy in dark matter is equivalent to a tiny mass; there is about one pound of dark energy in a cube of empty space 250,000 miles on each side.
5 In space, no one can hear you scream: Sound, a mechanical wave, cannot travel through a vacuum. Without matter to vibrate through, there is only silence.
6 So what if Kramer falls in a forest? Luckily, electromagnetic waves, including light and radio waves, need no medium to travel through, letting TV stations broadcast endless reruns of Seinfeld, the show about nothing.
7 Light can travel through a vacuum, but there is nothing to refract it. Alas for extraterrestrial romantics, stars do not twinkle in outer space.
8 Black holes are not holes or voids; they are the exact opposite of nothing, being the densest concentration of mass known in the universe.
9 “Zero” was first seen in cuneiform tablets written around 300 B.C. by Babylonians who used it as a placeholder (to distinguish 36 from 306 or 360, for example). The concept of zero in its mathematical sense was developed in India in the fifth century.
10 Any number divided by zero is . . . nothing, not even zero. The equation is mathematically impossible.
11 It is said that Abdülhamid II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1900s, had censors expunge references to H2O from chemistry books because he was sure it stood for “Hamid the Second is nothing.”
12 Medieval art was mostly flat and two-dimensional until the 15th century, when the Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi conceived of the vanishing point, the place where parallel lines converge into nothingness. This allowed for the development of perspective in art.
13 Aristotle once wrote, “Nature abhors a vacuum,” and so did he. His complete rejection of vacuums and voids and his subsequent influence on centuries of learning prevented the adoption of the concept of zero in the Western world until around the 13th century, when Italian bankers found it to be extraordinarily useful in financial transactions.
14 Vacuums do not suck things. They create spaces into which the surrounding atmosphere pushes matter.
15 Creatio ex nihilo, the belief that the world was created out of nothing, is one of the most common themes in ancient myths and religions.
16 Current theories suggest that the universe was created out of a state of vacuum energy, that is, nothing.
17 But to a physicist there is no such thing as nothing. Empty space is instead filled with pairs of particles and antiparticles, called virtual particles, that quickly form and then, in accordance with the law of energy conservation, annihilate each other in about 10-25 second.
18 So Aristotle was right all along.
19 These virtual particles popping in and out of existence create energy. In fact, according to quantum mechanics, the energy contained in all the power plants and nuclear weapons in the world doesn’t equal the theoretical energy contained in the empty spaces between these words.
20 In other words, nothing could be the key to the theory of everything.

nice visit

2010-05-27T14:07:00.000-07:00

Here is where I was able to run for the few days in Philadelphia - brilliant! While it is true I have a blister on my right heel to show for overdoing it, it was so worth it! The temperature in the sixties and a great trail run beside a river - hard to beat in my book.

MY lovely daughter and I had a nice visit. I stayed at Spruce Hill Manor, and it was most pleasant. Janet, the owner was gracious and went out of her way to make it an enjoyable stay. The location could not be better, as it is easy walking distance to my daughter and her husband's home.

Q had a meeting in NYC with her advisor at NYU so we took the opportunity to make a day of it in the city. But oh my gods the train fares were more than twice my airfare from Houston to Philadelphia! Why can't America run a dependable, affordable rail system? I don't understand that.

As Q is the 'food person' in the family, we had some yummy meals. One of the most outstanding was at a small Italian restaurant in NYC called LUPA at 170 Thompson Street. The appetizer, an assortment of delectably prepared vegetables, left me what I thought was too full for my entre’ - until I tasted the most decadent pasta I have ever had! It was just al dente with cheese, olive oil, and garlic but oh my! What they did to it I don't know, but the last time I made those sounds was after a particularly ecstatic lovemaking session with the adorable husband! So when you are in NYC next- GO, by all means!

new ARTICLE

2010-05-21T04:21:00.001-07:00

You can find my new article here. Please go over read, and comment. Thank you!

Ciao

anticipation....

2010-05-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

I'm having an article published on "Powder Room Graffiti" anon! I will set up the link here, please go and read, and comment if you would, as they give me money and I prefer they think I am bloody brilliant :-)

Ciao

The Garden Part III

2010-05-14T09:21:00.001-07:00

My magical ball for the garden; because you can never have too much magic in your life.

I placed her next to the bamboo tree as it is very good luck; and a good spot for our frequent visitor, the bluejay, to drink from her nectar cup.

My Garden Faerie. Isn't she lovely? AND she has RED HAIR!

As I ordered her on line I had no idea she would be as lovely or as large as she is; I"m very pleased.

This day the Houston heat and humidity have me hiding indoors and the adorable husband came home from a day of work and night on call at the hospital to plant (after asking just how I want it done; and requesting I rein in my OED) my elephant ears plant for me - talk about having magic in your life!

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-08T17:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother’s Day to all of us fortunate enough to have that role.

I don’t think it is age or years that give us the wisdom to be grateful, but our experiences and how we react to them. His Holiness the Dali Lama said the coolest thing when a reporter asked him if he thought the invasion of Tibet by the Chinese was karma for some past evil act. He said, “Sometimes stuff just happens. It is how we respond to those circumstances that forms our karma.”

I have the joy of being someone’s mother. I know that not every mother and daughter have the sort of loving relationship we do. I am grateful for that relationship every day, and we both work to make it so. To have had her as a child, to watch her grow into a compassionate, curious, involved, brilliant young woman is a journey I would have paid any price to be on.

She is a steadfast and loyal friend, a faithful partner, and bloody hilarious. She is a respectful, loving, and kind daughter. We argue, but never for long. We get on each other’s nerves, but it can be solved with an afternoon away. We disagree, but always agree the other might be right. We love each other. She knows I always have her back, and I know she has mine. She cooks for me, and I buy things for her she thinks are extravagant. I clean for her, she reminds me to not take the world so seriously. She thinks I am “cool”, I think she is perfect. We laugh, a lot.

Years ago as she was preparing to leave home for university I began a letter of gratitude to her. While she was in school I updated it and re-sent it every year. Now I update it and send it on Mother’s Day. Here follows part of that continuing missive:

Dearest,

I am grateful that:

You have an amazing work ethic

You love animals

You are the most forgiving person I know - without being a doormat.

You like museums

You like science fiction

You are physically affectionate

You laugh easily and often

You liked London, but you love Venice

You know that listening to a friend who needs you is more important than cleaning your room

You never give up.

You can say, “I am sorry” when it is needed

You don’t watch television

You love music and art.

You know evil exist

You know goodness exist

You know that you do not always have to agree with someone to love them.

You understand quality is superior to quantity - in all things, shoes to friends.

You decided to allow me to be your mother this time around

You have borne the difficulties in your life with great dignity

You like Eddie Izzard and Monty Python

You have forgiven me my many mistakes in parenting

You decided to learn to play the clarinet when you were nine.

You decided to learn to play the violin when you were seventeen.

You make such good choices for your friends and have chosen a good man for your husband.

You are curious.

You think learning is an adventure.

You want to contribute to the well being of the Universe.

You are tall.

You like flowers.

You do not have my kinky, frizzy hair.

You love to read.

You find my foibles amusing rather than distressing

You can appreciate Beauty without being seduced by it.

You can tell a good wine from a mediocre one

You love me even when I am wrong.

You love me even when you are wrong.

You are funny.

You know and appreciate the taste of excellent whiskey

You know even though things can always get worse, things can always get better.

You continue to persevere on your journey to your doctorate with persistence and great joy.

You have become an athlete! In addition to my being happy about the positive contribution this will have for you physically and mentally, both now and in your future; it relieves me from those last lingering threads of guilt I had about spending time away from you to train and climb mountains when you were a teenager. Perhaps in some way I set an example…

You have the slim and gorgeous ankles and neck of an Audrey Hepburn - that I always wanted.

You have excellent posture.

You wear quality undergarments.

You are taking the time to plan adventures for your life (adventure takes planning!) and execute them.

You have done such a fine job of making a place for yourself socially as an independent woman, and as part of a couple.

You make me feel appreciated.

In this past year you have begun to speak to me as both your mother and your friend. We have passed another landmark in the evolving mother-daughter relationship.

For the past twenty-six-plus years you have given me joy and laughter. I gave you life, but in many ways – you saved mine.

Thank you. I love you with all my heart. You are the best part of me.

Mom

The Garden Part II

2010-05-05T13:16:00.000-07:00

Click on the photograph to take you to the latest views of the garden!

Ciao

Happy Birthday to my Baby today!

2010-05-04T05:06:00.001-07:00

I am normally forbidden from posting photographs of my daughter - she has a right to her privacy but these are on Facebook of her in her friend's wedding, so I'm taking a liberty because she looks so ravishing and she is MINE. And today is the celebration of her birth, and I was most certainly there! Happy Day my Dearest!
(just look at that wonderful posture!)

Is America next?

2010-05-02T07:31:00.000-07:00

Is America next? THIS above graph is terrifying

April 30, 2010

In and Out of Each Other’s European Wallets
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
Despite the best efforts of the International Monetary Fund, the financial crisis in Europe seems full of suspense. Will Germany and the European Union actually cough up the money to help bail out Greece, which is on the edge of a financial meltdown? Will the contagion spread to other vulnerable countries, like Portugal and Spain?
But like some mystery novels where the ending is telegraphed in the opening pages, the denouement will probably be unsurprising. For all the handwringing, the reality is that the Germans, the French and the rest of Europe have little choice. In the decade since the introduction of the euro, the economies on the continent have become increasingly interwoven. With cross-border banking and borrowing, many countries on the periphery of Europe owe vast sums to one another, as well as to richer neighbors like Germany and France.
Like the alliances that drew one country after another into World War I, a default by a single nation would send other countries tumbling. If that message was lost on anyone, there was a reminder last Tuesday when Standard & Poor’s downgrade of Spanish and Portuguese debt hammered stock markets everywhere, including in the United States.
The first domino is Greece. It owes nearly $10 billion to Portuguese banks, and with Portugal already falling two notches in S. & P.’s ratings and facing higher borrowing costs, a default by Greece would be a staggering blow. Portugal, in turn, owes $86 billion to banks in Spain; Spain’s debt was downgraded one notch last week.
The numbers quickly mount. Ireland is heavily indebted to Germany and Britain. The exposure of German banks to Spanish debt totals $238 billion, according to the Bank for International Settlements, while French banks hold another $220 billion. And Italy, whose finances are perennially shaky, is owed $31 billion by Spain and owes France $511 billion, or nearly 20 percent of the French gross domestic product.
“This is not a bailout of Greece,” said Eric Fine, who manages Van Eck G-175 Strategies, a hedge fund specializing in currencies and emerging market debt. “This is a bailout of the euro system.”
Solutions are also not easily forthcoming. “In the end, we’re all saying we don’t know how to deal with it,” said Dirk Hoffmann-Becking, a bank analyst with Alliance Bernstein in London. “We don’t know how the channels work, or where the problems will pop up next.”

These problems in Europe and Britain are already affecting the economy of the United States and the economic problems here in turn affect the rest of the world due to the size of our economy. I think that President Obama and his assistants need to rethink some of their policies and their emphasis on big government, and take a look at what is happening in real time.

Big socialist governments don't work. We have seen that time and again, this is not news. Capitalism, for all its faults and messiness, much like democracy, works – laboriously, but it is better than any alternative – other than the best form of government, proved historically to be a benevolent monarchy - but that doesn't work because of inbreeding, political revolts, and some other messy problems you can't assure the country of a line of smart and benevolent leaders - that leaves us with democracy.

I’m not saying I have the answers. I’m just saying that I have begun to worry that the U.S. President thinks he does. Now I know it takes a certain amount of megalomania to even contemplate running for that office, but come on.

There was no one more anxious to see George Bush out of the White House and away from International Policy making than myself, but I am not happy with what I have seen from the Obama administration so far. One difficulty is that I always prefer a different party in the majority in the Congress than is occupying the White House. That provides some balance.

I believe that history has proven there is some sort of spatial anomaly that surrounds Washington D.C. (could be in Downing Street and other areas as well) that infuses the occupants of the area with a god-complex that leads them to confuse their judgment and opinions with hard fact and not-to-be-contested or questioned decisions. This can be unfortunate.

As citizens it is our duty to use our votes to remind them of these facts and opinions.

And boy was that one muddy but exciting Kentucky Derby or what?!

Ciao

and they're off!

2010-05-01T04:41:00.000-07:00

It's Derby day! Where's your hat?