joan of arc heard them
voices deep inside her head
& so she saved france
~~~~~~~~~~
~~~for more delicious haiku my heart
with
recuerda mi corazon,
please, pop in over here~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
{{ recently finished reading this book
and enjoyed it tremendously... who knew? }}
Some of my favorite things in the whole wide world have a bit of Shakespeare in them.
I took these photos of Shakespeare and Company, a most interesting bookshop in Paris, for you last year and then I plum forgot about them.
This happens to me all the time.
I am someplace fascinating take shots of things I want to share with you. All the while I am shooting away I am writing my blog posting in my noggin.
Then I come home carrying 10,000 images effortlessly across the border.
Then I upload for days to beat the band.
One thing leads to another. In my head I have already written a posting about this and that so I must feel my Job Is Done.
But life goes on. I forget to share. Pardonnez-moi, svp !
Before you know it, I end up somewhere else, filling up Yet Another memory chip.
I don't want you to think I have a TON of cash & can travel anywhere I do please. That is NOT the case for if this were the case I would not be sitting at home this afternoon writing this for you.
Oh, no, Buster Brown! Most likely I would be over here instead.
Anyway, I normally travel in May when airplane tickets are less expensive. I leave on a weekday and stay over a Saturday--preferable 2 Saturdays, sometimes 3--and I hop on one foot under a full moon. Magic stuff like that. Anything to save a euro.
Forget about flying in June or July unless you have won the lottery, I say. Or unless you are a movie star or a rock legion. So far I am neither. So far.
Plus, I am a Big Fan of American Express Reward Points and Frequent Flyer Points. I hope you are making the most of these useful systems.
So. Here you go.
This is my favorite book store in all the world , thus far.
I only get here about one afternoon every 5 years or so but the great thing is the place seldom changes. You just make yourself right at home, like you never even left.
On a good~weather day you can just linger outside and peek around.
You never know who might show up.
Worn suitcases filled casually with obsure books steal my swooning heart.
Three guards with healthy biceps are standing nearby so don't get any ideas about scampering off with the bound treasures.
Make you way inside and prepare to stay awhile, is all I can say.
I am not the first to discover this place.
All the best people hang out here.
And they have been for a long, long time.
Years and years ago writers would come here.
Some authors would come here, read from their latest book and then would spend the night there in the dusty stacks.
Every time I wander in here I hope to see a famous writer sleeping here but that never happens these days. I suspect famous writers now use their American Express Reward Points to stay somewhere more private up the street.
But still. It is nice to know writers are welcomed to sit a while & visit.
A healthy children's department waits upstairs, if you are so inclined.
Last week I saw a charming movie which reminded me of this special Paris bookstore and of all the important writers who have traveled to Paris to write.
Thank goodness they did.
I hope to see you here some time. Maybe in May 2015. Or May 2020. You never know.
Whilst photo~capturing the artistically~worn patterned floor I noticed someone wearing my shoes and wearing my jeans was standing by the door.
Maybe you remember the day last summer when my Sketchbook came walking up my front steps.
I was so excited to be part of this Project.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think some day I would be sharing my Sketchbook with friends in Seattle.
Jenny made it possible for Stephanie and me to plop down in her city for a few days to Sketchbook~look and city~explore.
When I sent my Sketchbook off to the Brooklyn Art Library in January I was one worried mother.
Would my art~baby make it there and tour the country with all the others without ending up in Timbuktu?
The Sketchbook folks are so organized and they think to do everything under the sun.
When I walked into the space I simply want to explore each shelf looking for treasures which, I must say, were sitting every where waiting to be discovered.
Here is Jenny's Sketchbook where she plots her next fanciful tin piece.
Her brain never stops, I can tell you that. Thank goodness.
Here is clever Stephanie's last page where after teasing your eye she offers up Moo Cards in a helpful manner so as you can easily locate her blog out there in the ever~expanding internet.
{{ I took two cards, missy. Hope that was OK. }}
Every cover was such a treat!
The runners would bring you what you wanted after you checked it out with your official library card.
Truly we were not to remove the Sketchbooks from the space as each one had its own worried mother some place out there in the world.
Still, many of us ended up outside in the clear Seattle air. We were all so eager and polite and happy to be art*appreciating there together.
Life being different, I might be sitting there now drinking it all in.
Here Stephanie enjoys visiting with her baby on the left whilst I visit with the art~baby belonging to Parabolic Muse.
I have not yet met Chris in person but I have held her baby carefully with eager and heartfelt awe.
After you looking at one Sketchbook you could return it and check out another...if you did not mind all the other excited people in line...who were so happy to share, too.
Everything moved along swimmingly with smiles and high energy all around.
Next we located the Sketchbook belonging to Ms. OceanDreamer, the Whimsical Bohemian.
Lisa included helpful Moo cards, also.
{{ I took two cards, missy. Hope that was OK. }}
I touched each colorful page carefully with tenderness and pleasure.
"Your momma sends her sweet love!," I whispered to each art*baby I touched, knowing it was true.
Sometimes I would check out a book randomly as I love how the world gives us what we need when we do this, don't you?
Which is how I discovered this interesting and oh~so charming work. The universe randomly put her in my hands.
We were not served up wine and cheese but little blue stickers instead which made us feel special.
I was a Participating Artist. Oh happy day! You can go look, too!
When it came time to say good-by to my Sketchbook I felt like one proud mom.
Every time my Sketchbook~baby is checked out I receive a little email telling me hello, there and that things are going well. How lovely to think it is traveling the USA in the company of my friend's Sketchbooks!
Plus, I just might see my lamb~covered babe over here later this summer in Winter Park, Florida.
We will just see how the world turns.
Oh, see! The light is red. The bridge is up! We cannot go.
Look! Oh, look!
See the big boat. The big boat is slow.
Look at the old house. We will look and wait.
Wait and wait.
Look! Oh, look! There is no snow!
Shhhhh...
This is the bed where the oysters sleep!
See the cars wait. See the man wait.
The cars and the man are happy there is no snow.
See the girl in the little boat. She is happy there is no snow.
Look! Oh, look!
Here comes the big boat. Here comes the big, slow boat.
The big, slow boat is happy. The oysters are sleeping in a clean bed.
The big, slow boat is happy there is no snow.
Look! Oh, look!
See the houses and trees and birds.
The houses and trees and birds are happy there is no snow.
Hello, big, slow boat!
Look and see! The light is green.We can go.
Goodbye big, slow boat. See you next time!
spike-the-cat
gave up his last life in my arms this morning
which was a majorly sad event, to say the least.
spike, who died of old age--
about 88 in human years--
was one of the finest cats
I ever did know in my entire life.
spike was attentive, shy and hardworking.
He was unconditionally loved
and will be greatly missed.
I feel quite certain spike-the-cat will fit right in
up there in Cat Heaven.
He has most-likely found his own comfortable place to sit by now.
♥♥♥
Whilst trying to decide what to do with my Day Off, it came to me. Mostly I do the same thing every time...
If the sun is shining in the spring I almost always try to head over here for an hour or two. Visiting the beach helps me recharge my internal solar batteries. The energy returns. I come along home and weed the south pasture or completely clean~up the family motor~pool.
If it is rainy out and I cannot beach~play or garden~work then I plop down in front of my computer and pop in to visit you.
Hope you do not mind that your are my rainy~day~friend.
Sometimes you are my late~night~and~I~cannot~sleep~friend. How nice of you to be so handy, night and day!
Either way, visiting you helps me recharge my internal creative batteries. The inspiration returns. I come along back to reality and draw the flowers growing in the south pasture and then completely clean~up the family compound in a creative fashion, arranging linens by hue.
Bouncing around Bloglandia with my Earl Grey on an overcast day this week I visited here and read the best poem! I was gently reminded it was National Poetry Month. However did I forget?
If Earth Day should be Every Day, then Poetry Month should be Every Month.
I feel certain you will agree.
This is the book I brought home from the library to help me celebrate Poetry Month.
Of all the poets in the world I do wonder if you know of the story of William Carlos Williams.
Here is a short poem he wrote in 1934. I hope you like it as much as I do.
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the iceboxand which
you were probably
saving
for breakfastForgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Whilst trying to decide what to do with my Day Off today, it came to me.
I should share a poem or two with you. And so I did.
I meant to share the Early Grey and the chocolate yummies, too, but there is a Tornado Warning in effect.
I did not want you to come out and get caught in the storm.
Maybe next time.
When someone gave my grandmother a bushel of peas the women in our family would gather on her wide, front porch and get busy.
In those days folks were always giving their friends field peas and sweet corn by the bushel if they had been up to Georgia.
You never did come back from Georgia with out bushel baskets of whatever was in season. That would have been a wasteful journey.
Plus, everybody shared everything back then. Especially fresh vegetables. And fruit.
Everybody shared the process of growing and preparing; everybody shared the enjoyment of eating and fellowship.
All the women--grandmother, aunts and so on--sat on the porch in the blue shade, each with their own big bowl of un-shelled peas and we went to town on them.
A folded~down~around~the~edges brown bag would hold the unwanted stems and useless parts. At the time we did not know we were recycling.
Conversation and process went as smooth as molasses on the warm day that it was.
My grandmother sat in her white wicker rocker with an apron spread across her lap. Adults comfied down into padded rocking chairs.
Adults talked. Older kids like me listened.
The quieter we were the more we learned.
I loved it when I was the only youngster sitting there shelling peas.
Less distraction.
"Big ears!" my grandmother would warn, looking at me, if the talk swayed toward Adult Conversation.
"Ping, ping," went the peas into my metal bowl as I strained to be invisible, as I strained to hear the forbidden Adult Conversation.
This was play to me, shelling peas.
Quiet process, making progress, seeing results.
I was lost in the movement and sound of it all.
Skinny, tanned legs covered with mosquito bites and bicycle~mishap scars held up my own small pea bowl.
Sometimes a neighbor would drop in and without missing a beat she would take up a bowl and start shelling peas, too.
{{ The rhythm of it must not be lost on you! }}
"Did you hear..." Mrs. P would start in and then be politely interrupted.
"Big ears!" my grandmother would warn, looking at me and suddenly the conversation would turn to playing canasta or a new recipe for making pimento~cheese spread.
Some such bland topic.
Who was newly poor or now pregnant would fade away into nothingness.
But I knew if I sat still long enough I would be forgotten.
News is news after all and can only be held back for so long.
I made my fingers soft and slow dropping the peas closer to the bottom of the bowl to silence them.
Bees would fly, legs fat with yellow pollen, from blossom to blossom on the bougainvillea that grew beside my grandmother's front steps.
Ping, ping went the peas into the bowl and I would bide my time.
Ping, ping.
Conversation would take a lazy turn.
I would nibble on a raw pea. Popping it between my teeth, hoping there was no teeny worm sleeping inside.
Strangely sweet and nut~like. Nothing squishy. Thank goodness.
Even now as I type this sentence I can feel the hard pea smoothness on my tongue. I can feel the concrete coolness on the back of my now not~so~skinny legs.
I learned more about women and Life than you could shake a stick at, there on my grandmother's front porch shelling peas.
Adult Conversation swam around me in the humid Florida air.
Peas got shelled. I got educated.
Mesmerized by voices, bees and rocking~chair song I was transported.
I do not remember where I went. A lazy back and forth in time and space.
The feel, texture and sound of shelling peas resonates inside me still, making me who I am today.
When I am lost in quiet process, making progress, seeing results I am transported.
I am lost in deep play.
Deep listening with Big ears! I discover who I am, see where I want to go.
"To see the world!" my mom would answer when asked why she joined the Navy.
It was after the beginning of World War II and my grandfather had no sons to send off to war. My mom as eldest daughter jumped on the war as a way to make her father proud. Deep in her heart she knew the military was a ticket out of her small, southern hometown. At least for a hiatus.
I do not blame her one little bit. Not one iota.
{{ My mother did not pose for that first sculpture. At least, I do not think so. }}
At first my mom was sent to a basic training camp about one hour from her home. I can only imagine her heavy disappointment mixed lightly with relief.
Finally she was sent to New York City for advanced training and that was all it took. She enjoyed so many new sights and adventures. She missed her home and family but loved the adventure.
This love of looking at new places must have gotten into her bones and settled in.
A few years later she passed that love for travel on to me and my bones.
I have it in my bones to go see new places.
In the spring of 2008 I plopped down with my bones in Barcelona for two weeks. I did not know one single soul there but I had the best time!
I saw old things and new things. I saw tall things and wide things. Barcelona is one of my most favorite cities in the whole wide world.
After Venice. After Paris.
If you should ever find yourself in Barcelona with an extra day and you have already been here, you might enjoy Sitges.
I understand Sitges supports a film festival and TONS of other special events but when I took the slow bus to this Mediterranean town the weather was drizzly and the streets were rather quiet.
This suited me greatly.
I was able to slip into nearly empty museums and surreptitiously knock off a few forbidden photos before getting caught.
Eventually I will go down this way--->shaking my head in amazing disbelief, saying, "What? What? No cameras? Really? Are you serious?"
Click, click, click.
If I ever go missing, look for me behind bars, camera-less, pouting.
In every language I learn: "...But I am using no flash!"
Every docent dressed head-to-toe in black and every guard uniformed in blue I have ever met is wise to my sneaky camera ways. Clearly I am fooling no one with my wide-eyed disbelief.
And, yet, still I try.
Click, click, click.
I cannot help myself.
My bones are filled with travel genes and in my blood swims the juice required to go look at One More New Thing.
Are you this way, too? Filled with longing to see a different landscape, a different way of eating and shopping and looking at everyday things.
One time I was hooked on the adrenaline produced by running. No longer the case over here in my neck of the woods.
These days all I need to do is visit over here. My heart beats faster. My imagination races. The world is mine.
If I hold my passport to my ear I hear her gently whisper, "Please, fill up my empty pages with entry stamps."
"OK," I answer helplessly holding my breath. I count my vacation days.
"OK, I will."
Do you know of the author Bill Bryson? He writes of travel far and wide.
If I die and come back as something other than a caterpillar or owl or something like that then I am planning on being a travel writer.
We will see.
I was rereading this the other night, for if I am not traveling, I am reading about travel or I am planning a travel adventure or reading about the travel adventure of someone else and so on.
Travel is in my bones, thanks to my mother.
I want to see different things.
The following is what Bill wrote about arriving in a new place.
{{ I can call him Bill for even thought we have never met, through his works he has taken me to Copenhagen and Stockholm and so forth. Well, you get the picture. }}
Here is one paragraph from age 106. Three sentence, if you have the time.
"Is there anything, apart from a really good chocolate cream pie
and receiving a large unexpected check in the mail,
to beat finding yourself at large in a foreign city on a fair spring evening,
pausing to gaze in shop windows or at some church..
or lovely square or tranquil stretch of quayside,
hesitating at street corners to decide
whether that cheerful and homey restaurant
you will remember fondly for
years
is likely to lie down this street or that one?
This is how I feel in my heart, too, Bill. To look down a corner in a foreign place and wonder about it.
And then to tromp off with wild abandon and secure faith in knowing something grand may be discovered and remembered fondly for years.
I thank Bill for writing this long sentence and for putting his feelings down on paper.
Mostly I thank Bill for letting me know that I am not the only one that feels this way about discovering a new place.
I just love it, too.
The world is dripping with awe and inspiration. I do not want to miss a thing.
You have heard me say that 1000 times by now but what you may not know is that I do not want YOU to miss a thing either.
When I visit your blog and you are in Paris or Rome or some such place, I am beside myself with pleasure!
Even if it is some place in Washington state or Colorado or Texas, I am thrilled.
"To see the world!" I answer when asked where I want to go next.
Thanks, Bill! You and this one are standing behind me, encouraging me up and on.
Thank goodness I don't need to join the Navy. I am not certain they would take me in at this late date.
{{ I did not pose for that last sculpture. At least, I do not think so. }}
Dear Alan,
You don't know me but I am head~over~heels crazy about your writing.
I feel certain you most-likely do well at your other job as a physicist, too, but I hardly ever delve deeply into THAT subject, what with all the other things I have going on.
You will not be getting valentines from me over the things you do in the physics department.
Just so you will know.
But I do read your books. I have read this and this.
I like your style and your word choice. You have a way with adjectives and adverbs; you make them your own. Your plot development swims along with strong strokes, too.
Man. I would so love to audit your creative writing class.
And look at you! Doing wonderful things in the humanitarian department.
You are just shining all over the place!
Oh, did I tell you? This book is waiting patiently in the tall stack beside my bed, next in line to be cracked open like the good egg I am certain it to be.
At night as I finish up this fun one, your book calls out, "Hey, over there, somepinkflowers! Get a move on with that ruffle piece! You know you want me more than that girly one."
And I do.
Still, the book that holds my heart, the one I read over and over again, the little volume that travels with me here and there is this one.
Even the name has power over me: Einstein's Dreams.
How could anyone even pretend to know the dreams that waltzed around inside Einstein's brainy head and, yet, Alan, you wrote this amazing tale full of prose and possibility and I do savor every single word.
I can just picture Einstein sitting there at his desk, dreaming up these distant lands where Time moves to its own beat, doing a quick-step here, a jive-hop there, a hip-rolling mambo in-between.
14 April 1905
'Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.
For the most part, people do not know they will live their lives over. Traders do not know they will make the same bargain again and again...Parents treasure the first laugh from their child as if they will not hear it again.'
I know you wrote this book just for me as often I grump and complain about how Time moves too quickly one second, then too slowly the next. You must think I am never satisfied.
Your worlds are at once melancholy and up~lifting. You are one clever man.
You show me Time unfolding in several different fashions and then say, "OK, missy, you like this one here better than that one you are living?"
Look again, you nudge.
Alan, thank you ever~so for your romanticized physics demonstrating there is really no other acceptable way for Time to get on down the road.
14 May 1905
'There is a place where time stands still. Raindrop hang motionless in air. Pendulums of clocks float mid~swing. ..The aromas of dates, mangoes, coriander, cumin are suspended in space.
As a traveler approaches this place from any direction, he moves more and more slowly. His heartbeats grow farther part...For this is the center of time.'
Does this world look more attractive than the one I have now? I think not.
So. Which world won my heart, Alan? Which world made me fall in love with your book?
Which world calls out my name so strongly I can hear it even when your book is sitting on my front porch swing taking in the cardinal's song while I am not? Which world?
The one where people live forever? The one where time is not 'a quantity but a quality'? The world in which folks live just one day where the earth is slowed down so that 'one complete revolution occupies a whole human lifetime'?
Nope. No. Nada.
My favorite world, of all those you created here in this book for me, the one which has haunted me from the first reading, is this one:
15 May 1905
'Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images.
A child at the seashore, spellbound by her first glimpse of the ocean. A woman standing on a balcony at dawn, her hair down, her loose sleeping silks, her bare feet, her lips...A man sitting in his study, holding the photograph of a woman, a pained look on his face...A great field, lined with cedar and spruce...An oval window looking out on fields of hay.'
A world of images where each person's mind and heart fills in the rest of the story.
A place where I can write my own world and you can write your own world and we are both spot~on.
This is the one. My favorite.
Really, Alan, thank you so much for taking the time to organize Time so nicely for me.
You have actually helped me free up some time. Now I can just play on the beach. Or make cup~cakes. Or slip away into a book for an escape from real time.
Thanks ever~so.
Your friend for ever and one day,
somepinkflowers
I am so easy.
When people I like, read books I like, it makes me happy.
Like the Hostess~with~the~Mostest at some fine book party, I want MY friends--such as here and here --to fall in love with My book.
"Don't you simply LOVE the way the author describes the dark chocolates in detail?" I might suggest, hoping against hope, that my friends will love what I love. "How about the degree that moodiness becomes personified? Isn't that just so clever?"
You would think from the way I carry on that the author was my sister or maybe that I'm her publicist.
If only.
It isn't that at all.
I have no pride of ownership. I am not related to to any writer still living.
I just love it when books and people are attracted to each other and become fast friends. In my heart I can see them smiling at each other and shaking hands, my people and my books.
"How do you do?" they are so polite, my people and my books.
"Why, I could not be better!" they all answer pleasantly.
And then there is the travel.
I am not telling you anything new here. You know how a good story well told can take you out of yourself and plop you down into a time and country not your own.
Thank goodness and isn't that just pure magic!
When someone I know and admire says, " somepinkflowers, have you read this yet?" that puts me in heaven, too, because I know I am going some place special.
I am being tempted along to a new discovery and there just is not enough time in the day to read all the books, to take all the journeys.
But I do try.
Is it that way with you, too? Are you a matchmaker of books to people? Do you loan books or present them, one to the other?
"Oh, I have so been wanting you two to meet!"
Years ago when I started reading this writer I was possessed by the idea of going here.
And so I did.
I surreptitiously looked over my shoulder for this one at every Underground station, every museum, but nothing.
Well, maybe next time...
Once I read this book by this talented and amazingly prolific author, I dreamed for years and years of riding this.
Finally I realized I did not want to go there NOW in modern time, I wanted to be on that train Back Then, during the time of the story. Well, obviously THAT was not going to happen so I have learned to make a few adjustments along the way.
While I cannot yet travel in time, I can travel by train and I adore doing so even if I never do meet up with this charming, Belgian sleuth.
(Some day maybe I will run into this writer as we both negotiate our carry~ons down the aisle on our way from here to there.)
I am always up for a grand travel adventure but, honestly, I do not need anyone to be murdered in order to have a good tale to tell.
I have no misconception about playing detective on a train with one corpse and 12 overly~dressed, secret~hiding people sporting strange accents.
I mean really!
While I do enjoy an exciting adventure in a book, I am more than happy to paddle around my own neighborhood and enjoy sublime calmness day~to~day.
Some days I want nothing more than a peaceful pond and a clear blue sky.
Some days I want flowers and butterflies and stillness.
Some days, like this day, I needed to be alone with my thoughts and memories.
I took this book to read in the Florida sun.
I am so easy.
I do not want to miss a thing. I want to read all the good books in the world and share them with friends. I want to travel every where and taste the best jams and cheeses and wines and then bring tasty~treats back home for my friends.
But some days I want to close my book and roll over onto my tummy and look deeply into the things nearby.
I want to see the world in the smallest of bitty~bits.
But, still, even then, I want to share that teeny miraculous world with people I like.
Like you.
What if birds sing because they are happy?
What do you think? Do birds feel joy?
Scientist know that birds sing sometimes because they are looking for a temporary hot date for Saturday night.
A few sing because they are ready to make a commitment for a life~time.
Birds also sing to let other birds know where the good stuff is.
"Seed, seed," the ever~present cardinals in my backyard cheep. "Get your bird seed over here, everybody. Plenty for all. Fly on over."
But I am asking what do you think about this---> What if birds sing because they are happy?
"That somepinkflowers! " you are thinking. Does she not have enough to do down there in Florida with hurricanes coming at her left and right?
One, two, three BAM! Or, one, two, three almost BAM! Some hurricanes barely sliding by to the left, some to the right.
Suffice to say, I am a busy bee but my brain races and I do wonder about such things as the happiness of flying, chirping things.
This book came across the desk in my direction last week at The Library. Two-hundred thirty six pages about why birds sing. At first I thought the book was someone's dissertation topic. Maybe it was a publish or perish piece.
Rothenberg is a professor here after all so it would be understandable.
I checked out Why Birds Sing for several shallow reasons, including these two--->
I have been told not judge a book by its cover but slap an attractive drawing of a bird on the cover and I'll check it out ever time. Every. Time.
Anyway, after I got the book home I notice 4 pages of Suggested Reading, 12 pages of Chapter Notes, 2 pages of Illustration Credits (!), 8 pages of Index and 7 pages marked CD Listening Guide which included credits like this---> Recorded live at the Tampere College of Arts, Finland, October 2003.
Also, sprinkled throughout the discourse are line-drawing and charts with captions like this ----->
See what I mean about dissertation topic?
Still, there was that attractive drawing of a bird on the cover.
So my question to your remains---> What if birds sing because they are happy?
Well, I would be happy if they did. :-)
I am an unlikely candidate for such philosophical questions and, yet, I do wonder about such things.
I do know this. Artists often create because it makes them happy.
Some artists I know will travel great distances in order to gather around a table to create.
Under the tutelage of a talented one , several did write and paint and cut and paste and fold and tape to create.
A person could write a book about how all this writing and painting and cutting and, well, you get the idea, could make certain artists happy.
As if in a meditative state these certain artists created. To the mantra of 'please pass the scissors' they did art all the day long.
And, at the end of their time together, these artist stacked their folded booklets, lined them up between flip~flopped feet and photographed the results.
With energy and amazement for what they had accomplished, their collective hearts did fly.
Each page different but holding images shared from one's distant past or another wished~for future.
"Here take this idea, this schemata, and make it your own," we said to each other. " I gift it to you, my art. I insist upon it."
And in the end, pleased beyond imagination, with surroundings in complete disarray, these certain artists were happy. Yes, they were.
I should know because, like a bird singing her happy song, I relinquish my little booklet here for your perusal.
No Chapter Notes, Index or Suggested Reading will follow. Just this---> myriad thanks to my generous, artistic friends who helped me sing with joy, helped me fly home with my creative souvenir.
I am beside myself with good fortune. I am one happy bird singing.
Slowly I opened the narrow door to the small, secret room and peeked inside. It was dark within. A strangely shaped room without windows.
Overhead the air-conditioner droned on and on in this impossible heat.
How many times had I walking past this plain green door thinking that it lead to the broom closet? Even a neat and tidy library such as this one needs a proper place to prop a broom.
But no.
This was no ordinary broom closet.
This, my friends, was the small, secret room that very few folks talk about and even fewer have ever entered. It was the small, secret room located behind the library's 24-hour book drop slot.
Maybe you have wondered about this mystery your entire life. Where does your library book go when you slide it down the shoot? Are little elves with white-gloved hands waiting to catch each volume? Is each book gently placed into a down-filled basket until properly checked in and shelved again?
HA! Do you really think I am going to tell you secret library tricks of the trade?
Only those with Special Library Card Magic can stand to know the whole truth.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness in the small, secret room, I began to make out the shape of a single book. One thin book waiting there all alone for me, waiting for my hands to pluck it up and take in back into the light.
As I stooped and picked up the glowing book, it seemed to pulsate in my hands and, then, out tumbled a few magic cards featuring beautifully dressed woman and mysteriously dressed magicians.
The cards had fallen out of a secret pocket, hidden deep within the book.
Suddenly the small, secret room started spinning. I was covered by a blanket of fog. As I looked down at my hands, they became more child-like. I realized I was traveling back in time.
I found myself standing on a thick, burgundy carpeted stairway and around me on tall, papered walls there were many, many posters of Houdini. Each one featured the King of Magic doing one of his world-famous magic tricks.
Tall, brightly-colored posters of floating woman and intricately knotted ropes surrounded me as I climbed the stairs. I saw everything with such detail: the flying doves, the top hat with flowers, a huge tank filled with water. And still I climbed on until, back in real time, the book dropped from my hands and landed with a thud, bringing me rubber-band-like back home to the small, secret room behind the book-drop.
I knew imediately this was no dream, no magic trick.
Clearly, I could only do one thing.
Quickly I grabbed up the book and checked it out. I took it straight away with me to see my mother.
"Look at this!" I pointed out the magic cards as I plopped the book on her lap. "I have seen many visions such as these before! But where?"
My mom, who had never even seen the book, turned to the bibliography. "Look!" she exclaimed and pointed to a name, as if to explained it all.
The name you ask? The name my mother pointed out there in the bibliography?
And while this name will mean nothing to you, it was the name of my mother's first cousin. I knew this name well for Milbourne Christopher had been on The Johnny Carson Show.
My mother's first cousin was a magician himself and had lived years and years ago in a huge house in Baltimore where, it turns out, original Houdini magic posters lined the stairways. A house where, as I soon discovered, my mother and father took me only once before my sweet sister was even born so I must have been only 4 years old at the time.
"Look!" my mother said, "The books by your first cousin once-removed were used as reference for this book!"
"Well, I'll be! " I said.
"Well, I'll be!" my mother said.
And, then we had some Earl Grey Tea.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All the illustrations shown here came from the book Hocus Pocus by Paul Kieve who is in no way related to anyone I know. If Mr. Kieve finds this posting I hope he will leave me a message or drop in for some Earl Grey tea with me and my mom. I think that would be nice, don't you?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When walking through a darken room you should take the utmost care or you might trip on one of these. If you do trip and land on your right knee it might look like this the next day.
Still, that might not be too bad if you just camp out like this for a few days. Kick back and read this and then you might be OK. Maybe.
Whatever you do, if your knee feels a bit wonky after four days, do not go here and do not get on this. OK, if you do, only do it for 1000 meters or so. Do not try to beat your personal best time. Do not go for another 1000 meters and then another 1000 meters.
Listen.
Just because you can do something does not mean you should. That is all I am saying. Learn to take it easy. Learn to sit back and chill and watch movies like this.
What happens if you do go to the gym and go a bit over board? Well, you might need one of these. And maybe one of these, too. You might find out you have torn this. When you do this, make no mistake, it feels like this. There is very little you can do about it except to schedule this.
Man.
I have learned my lesson. The next time I trip and take a tumble, I am staying here and eating vast amounts of these, which is pretty much all I am good for until I have this next week and can start this, which will take place here.
Go figure.
In the mean time, I will be hanging out eating these from here where they have graphic designers to make sweet, juicy art like in the sweet, juicy ad above.
When all this is over I might just go back to this. But you know me, I don't want to miss a thing. We will see.
I don't want to put the blame on anyone here, or maybe I should say, anything here, but the moon the other night really had me going.
Circadian rhythms maybe, but a full moon--always and without fail--gives me insomnia. I don't know why. Maybe I am some sort of vegetarian weregirl who would rather dance under the light of the moon than feed under it.
Add a lunar eclipse, like we had on Wednesday night, and my brain goes haywire. All day long I feel it coming.
I could not wait for the sky to become dark. Once I became a little grumpy when I thought a cloud cover was going to hide my much anticipated lunar eclipse viewing.
What kind of person gets mad at clouds? You would think I had nothing better to do with my time.
Anyway, I kept boring and bossing every one in my neighborhood, "You have to watch the lunar eclipse tonight. It starts around 8:45. You gotta watch it."
"What are you talking about, somepinkflowers?" neighbor Dave asked curmudgeonly. "There really is nothing much to see in a lunar eclipse. It is like watching paint dry," he went on, making every effort to rain on my parade.
That Dave! If he only knew how much pleasure I have had watching paint dry he would never had made that comparison.
Paint a wall pink and then watch the sun shine in through the window on it. The color will change, not dramatically like a sunset or a sun rise, but it will first turn glowy and warm. Then as the sun moves away from the window a cooler, dusty pink will appear by the time the wall is dry to the touch.
I am not making this stuff up.
"somepinkflowers, there is a lunar eclipse tonight," emails ever-so-thoughtful friend Caroline. "You don't want to miss it!" she writes. Clearly Caroline has watched some paint dry in her lifetime and found it satisfying.
Thank God there are so many different kinds of people in the world, is all I can say.
So the full moon started things off for me in the insomnia department. Plus, I was scheduled for a 'dental procedure' on Thursday. Yuck!
This particular 'dental procedure' was going to require drugs, a driver and over 2 hours in the chair in a medicinal smelling beige room. Make no mistake. This would not be the best room for watching paint dry. Or for doing much of anything else.
Did I mention the drugs? A 'dental procedure' requiring drugs will be no walk in the park, no kiss in the dark. You can bet on that.
So Wednesday night, after watching the shadow of the earth creep across the face of the moon, after trying to pretend there was no 'dental procedure' waiting for me the next day, after all that, I gave in to my sleepless night and picked up this book: Astonish Yourself 101; Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life by Roger-Pol Droit. [ I am crazy about his name!]
I love this book. Oh, I know I say that all the time about books but I do love this one. I would enjoy having lunch with Mr. Droit someday. I have such questions for this Frenchman who writes of his book, 'The idea is to provoke tiny moments of awareness. '
And so Mr. Droit does this, giving 101 exercises for being in the now, for being in the moment in the most brilliant fashion. The chapter titles alone are worth the price of the book.
My favorite experiment is #16 entitled, Dream of all the places in the world. [ Duration: 20-30 minutes. Props: none. Effect: Joyous. ]
'You are tired of being where you are. The place is limited, repetitive; it holds no more interest for you, let alone surprise...Just think of all the infinite variety of places that exist, near or far, at this moment.
Famous sites: the Piazza San Marco in Venice, the ramparts of Jerusalem, the entrance to Central park off Fifth Avenue...the Colosseum in Rome, the Champs-Elysees...Beverly Hills, Red Square....an endless, infinitely extendable list of styles, squares, buildings, cafes, statues, panoramic view of every kind...
There is more. Think also, until dizziness sets in, of the infinite multiplicity of humbler places. Anonymous, unpresuming spaces: backyards, little squares, impasses...In the humidity of the tropics, the dryness of the deserts...With palm trees or birch, cacti or ancient pines, white sand, red rocks, mud...the pure whiteness of the wave against the deep ocean blue.
And then there is the inexhaustible list of what people are doing, what everybody is doing, at this instant, in all the places of the world: making love, crying with pleasure or pain, eating...cooking, reading, singing.
You can bathe in this multiplicity, be carried away by this infinity of alternatives. The place you are in isn't simply one spot within an infinity of others. It contains all the others. And it's all entirely within your head. Permanently available. To one and all.'
Isn't that truly amazing?
I love reading these words but I enjoy more the actual doing of the exercise.
Yesterday, Thursday, after hardly any sleep the night before, I went for my 'dental procedure.' I sat for over 2 hours in the chair in a medicinal smelling beige room but I wasn't there at all.
I went instead to the Colosseum in Rome, the Champs-Elysees...to Beverly Hills, and to Red Square. I visited a few anonymous, unpresuming spaces, too. I saw people everywhere doing all the mundane things they have to do and a few of the wonderful things they desire to do. 
Finally I ended up watching myself in that chair in the beige room. The color turned out to be more of a pale, pale pink after all.
It wasn't so bad, my 'dental procedure.' Today friends tell me to credit the drugs that required a driver but I like to think it was the after-effects of the lunar eclipse.
Three teeth on the top were missing and her brown hair, begging for attention, hung low in her eyes. Not a good look for most people but when you are only six years old and your eyes are wide, shiny and blue you can get away with such things as missing teeth and unkempt hair.
You can even get away with being loud in the library.
Under her arms she carried several large picture books each marked with 'E' for easy reading.
"I am ready to check out," little Lucy announced to her waiting grandmother, to me behind the counter and to everyone else in the library. The empty space where her teeth had once been now seemed to amplify her sweet voice. "I have all my Christmas books."
"Christmas books?" her granny asked with loving surprise as she helped ease the books onto the check-out counter. "Christmas is long gone, Lucy. Don't you want Valentine books instead?"
"Well," explained wise and charming Lucy, "Christmas will come again and Valentine's Day is almost the same as Christmas."
Indeed.
Religious and political reasons aside, aren't most holidays celebratory times to share with family and friends. A time to decorate the house, cook something special and let folks know you like them?
Around here I take down the Christmas green and segue the Christmas red into Valentine's Day red. Up go the miniature reindeer and non-frosty snowmen into the attic. Out come the heart-shaped cookie-cutters and the pink water glasses.
I cannot help myself. During this time of the year my name should be somepinkhearts.
Lucy and I are on the same page. Christmas and Valentine's Day are seasons of joy and love, both filled with yummy chocolate and special cards for friends.
There are very few things I enjoy more that a homemade greeting card. Made for me, sent to me. Me, me, me. Someone took time to create for me!
One thing I do enjoy more than a handmade greeting card is a handmade greeting card that comes tucked in a package with the most perfect book in the world.
Fortunately for me, folks know that I love books and I love, love, love to travel so when a friend saw this book she thought of me. Not a Christmas present, not a birthday gift, not even for Valentine's Day.
"somepinkflowers," the beautiful, beribboned card explained, "I saw this and thought of you!"
501 Must-Visit Destinations the title read. 501 Must-Visit Destinations!
Well, naturally Karen would think of me! I am the original Travel Slut of the World. But you know what they say. They say, "Takes one to know one!" and they are usually right.
I have been known to carry my passport even when I
dash out to pick up the mail. Delta and Air France
both email me sometimes twice a day. I can live out of one carry-on suitcase for practically 3 months providing I have a small sink in my
hotel room.
501 Must-Visit Destinations! Must-Visit! Why, I have no choice!
I had to check to see if the authors had dedicated the book to me. (NOTE: They had not. Clearly an oversight on their part or perhaps some sort of printing error. Who is to say? Maybe the omission will be corrected in future editions. One can only hope.)
Printed inside on the cover pages, front carried over to back, are the places I Must Visit. Starting with the Aachen Cathedral, Germany and continuing through The Entire Alphabet ending with the Zuma Market, Madagascar. No place of import is left out.
A listing of 501 places and each one has a small box for me to check off the places after I have visited. A teeny square box for a tick mark that says, "Well, yes, I have been to Krakow, Poland, now what?"
I know you guys and what you are thinking, "somepinkflowers you had better start packing this very minute! Get a move on girlfriend!"
I can hear you all the way over here. Across the states and the mountains and the oceans I can hear you.
But wait!
Do you see all those bits of chartreuse colored paper sticking out of the book? They have meaning. I put them there not Karen.
The slips poking out the side of the book mark places already on my To Do List. Page 502 features the Montserrat National Park in Spain. Why, if life deals me a good hand, I might be able to check that little box this year.
And, wouldn't it be wonderful if I could meet you over at Maryam's new place in Marrakesh, a city listed on page 62? You know you want to go there, too.
What is this? On page 162 . 'Autumn Colours of New England.'
Hummm...that can only mean one thing...
Still you are wondering, can somepinkflowers see them all? Does she think she is Santa or The Tooth Fairy flying at warp speed? No.
Go back up and look at all the slips peaking out of the top of the book. See those?
Those are the places I Have Already Visited. Some of my teeny square boxes have check marks! Oh, happy day!
Thank goodness I have been traveling my entire life and I am not a late travel-bloomer. In fact, I might visit some of these Must-Visits 2 times.
Well, why not?
Thanks, Karen, for giving me the world of possibilities, for giving me 501 Must-Visit dreams waiting in a nautilus shell.
May all your days be Christmas and Valentine's Day with trips to New York and Cortona and 499 other wonderful places. I hope we both end up in the same place at the same time soon.
On Tuesday I tucked My Cough & Cold gingerly into the passenger seat of my jeep and we motored on out to Staff Development Day at at World Golf Village. This place isn't only about golf in case you are wondering.
Here I am with about one month under my belt at my new position with the library and already I am off to be conferenced and work-shopped.
Yes, conferences differ from subject matter to subject matter. Other than that, conferences are rather the same.
A few conferences I have attended over the years:
I have learned that most conferences follow basically the same format.
Usually there is a Guest Speaker who identifies Past Accomplishments. Conference attendees are built up to feel great about themselves and to be proud to be doing whatever it is they do.
I like this feeling of espirit de corps, this feeling of being useful and of making a difference.
Then, after The Break another Guest Speaker takes you from the present on and outward to The Future where New Plans are sometimes revealed, where New Goals are stated.
This is the place where folks are cheered on and encouraged to feel that they can do whatever is needed. I like this part, too, most of the time.
The challenge with ever dwindling funds or profits, depending on the agency or company, always seems to be to Do More With Less. Do more, quicker, faster, better with less money.
I never like that part. You do the math. After a while there will just be one person doing everything haphazardly for about a dollar.
My Library Staff Development Day pretty much followed the same conference format. I gave such a sigh of relief when no one mentioned doing more with less. Thank goodness. I don't want anyone to learn to do without me...yet.
We had a great local author talk to us about the history of our library system. To some that may not sound very entertaining but, here in St. Augustine, Florida, we do have some history.
From the beginning of time people have needed to share information about one thing or the other. With the development of alphabets and the printed word, knowledge sharing became so much easier for everyone involved.
A person no longer needed to be right there by the campfire listening to the troubadour, so to speak.
Dean Larry Dennis from Florida State University's College of Information talked to us about The Keys to The Future. He power-pointed an equilateral triangle demonstrating the 3 areas supporting our future:
Maybe you have seen this triangle before as it is rather popular and trendy.
If information is indeed power, the future seems a bit daunting. Even sucking on my Hall's Defense Vitamin C Supplement Cough Drops I can see which way the wind blows.
Information is increasing in quantity so rapidly new terms have to be invented to explain how to measure it all.
The world is multi-tasking and continuously connected. Now we have phones that take photos and baby buggies with global positioning devices. What is next?
The most important part of the equation in MY personal future is the people side.
As much as I want to do it all, I know I cannot. As much as I want to see every thing and be everywhere, I know I cannot. Yes, I want to make all my holiday presents and travel to see snow and stir up 1000 different Christmas cookies in my kitchen, I know I cannot.
So here I am, plugged-in and connected like most folks I know and I have found my ways to manage.
Somehow, by the magic of technology and the happenstance of serendipity, I have made friends with others living far, far away.
They nudge me with ideas and encouragement. Their creativity floors me sometime and I think to myself, "Well, somepinkflowers, maybe you aren't doing this, but you know someone who is. Maybe you aren't doing that, but you chat with others who do and you enjoy that sideways participation."
Using information and technology has helped me connect with other artists and writers who are doing powerful things, each in their own way.
The brown package that came my way this week, the one that is pictured in the first photograph, came to me from dear Constance.
She filled it with books for a much-needed escape and a sweet, pink-flowered box containing a delicate, hand-crafted, pink-flowered maiden. She tucked in some yummy cookie-treats and a holiday card featuring a santa-gator floating in the river. She selected the perfect froggy to guard over the treasure as it traveled its miles and miles to me.
Trust me. I am so appreciative and deserving as I sit still here and carefully tend My Hopefully Disappearing Cough & Cold.
In a world where information is measured by exabytes, I am comforted by the thoughtfulness of one person at a time. I have hope for the future where, here and there, talented people, one by one, take time to make things by hand.
Thank you all for being the strong side of my pyramid, the people side---one posting, one comment, one email at a time. Thanks.
Dear Kathy,
You do not know me and, as a matter of fact, I do not really know you.
What I do know is that in 1997 you gave this book to Frank.
It is a wonderful book by the way and I do not know what you paid for it but I am sure it was worth every penny!
Those folks over at Phaiden were on to something by arranging the art in this 515 page book in alphabetically order. I do not know about you but I am Up To Here with learning about art in a chronological order! What came first: the chicken, the egg or the drawing of one or the other? And, does it matter? I think not.
Yes, I understand that life comes at us in a chronological manner but that concept is so 1990s! The advantages to ABC order far outweigh any other method, if you depend on the kindness of spell check the way I do.
Plus, some times I get confused...
Manet? Monet? Rosselli? Rossetti? You get my drift. I know who is who but often I am thinking about Other Things and multi-tasking. Do I have fresh portabellas or should I go to the market?
I am just saying...
Sometimes when I am trying to find my way through art history I feel the need to go all the way back to Bellini when actually I want to rush straight to Chagall. Do you know what I mean? Does that happen to you? Just so much knowledge clogging up the old recall system.
Sometimes all those art history slides come tumbling through my memory bank when all I want is a simple Kandinsky. You know. Something to clear the palate after a yummy Botticelli.
Anyway, Kathy, I do not know for sure why you gave this book to Frank.
Maybe Frank was your boss and it was Christmas and you HAD to buy him Some Little Thing, not too personal, not too expensive. You wanted the gift to show how worldly you were or how much you appreciated The Good Things In Life. You did have your Masters Degree, after all, and you were up for Grander Things than this job had offered thus far.
Maybe you wanted a raise, NEEDED a raise, and you thought this was so perfect a present Frank would feel obligated.
If I am correct here, I hope it worked. I would think this thick but easily managed book of art would be just the ticket.
If my employee gave me this I would think, "What a nice thing! Give that smart, hard worker a raise!"
That is what I would think. Good for you!
But maybe it backfired on you. You did after all give Frank a Matisse. If he was your boss he might have thought you over spent.
Or, maybe Frank was the young kid down the street who walked your dog while you traveled.
Maybe you were just back from Paris, the Musee d'Osay and Pissarro. You brought Frank this book as a token of thanks for walking your old English sheepdog, Hoover. Frank even bathed Hoover and clipped his toenails because he was just that Kind Of A Kid.
Maybe this Frank was a budding artist on his way to college and you wanted to steer him in The Right Direction. If he was some young impressionable artist-type who fed, watered and walked your pet while you traveled to Florence to view The Death of Adonis in the Gallery degli Uffizi maybe you gave him the gift of inspiration. Good for you! 
Maybe this Frank is somewhere right this moment working on his own exhibit using the blues of David Hockney, the blues of his longing for you the older woman just Out Of Reach.
Maybe he will send you an invitation to opening night and, if you go, you can kiss his freshly shaved face while he offers you a 10% discount on the $25,000 painting he named in your honor, Kathy and Her Dog.
Or, maybe Frank was your lover and one Sunday afternoon while the sun shined and your heart sang he took to see the Seurat exhibit at The Art Institute of Chicago. This Frank knew everything there was to know about everything.
Or so you thought at the time, you Sort Of Thought.
You both viewed the painting's proper ladies wearing long skirts with bustles. There they were carrying umbrellas against shade and not the rain. You, there with this Frank, wearing your heart on your sleeve looking at the dots of pure color while some little dot of doubt was blossoming in the shadow of All This Joy.
This Frank was after all 30 years older and you were No Spring Chicken. You bought this Frank an art book so he could remember you all the rest of his life. You wrote the date there on the first page in case his memory was not so good as he aged. You wrote it in pencil in case it needed to be erased. Good for you!
So, Kathy, now you are wondering how this book came to be in my possession. You are wondering if I know your Frank.
Well, your Frank--the boss you admired or the youth you inspired or the lover you would never forget--this Frank, no longer needed the book you gave him.
Do not take in personally but Frank or his wife or his boyfriend or his daughter gave it to the second-hand book store near my house.
I bought it for 75 cents.
You do the math, over 500 photos of the best art in the whole wide world and I paid 75 cents.
Verroccio, De Kooning, Mucha. They are all mine.
I thank you for giving this book to Frank. I feel certain he loved it too when it was his as some pages are folded back gingerly with care. I bet he smiled when he remembered that you gave it to him. The boss, the boy, the lover.
I thank Frank, too.
What ever he did, wrong or right, this book would not be mine now without the two of you. He inspired you in some fashion and you thanked him with all the best. You could not have done more. All the photographs here came from the book you gave your Frank.
Know this, Kathy. I think of you both sometimes when I look through The Art Book. What a great gift you gave to Frank in 1997!
Now it is mine. I love it. Thank you ever so much!
Sincerely,
somepinkflowers
Mushrooming out of control the tiny bump on my mother's neck took on a life of its own. It never became any larger than the tip of my pinky finger but it came unexpected and uninvited out of nowhere. Our entire family wanted that bump to be gone, to leave town, to get out of Dodge. We wanted it to be history. Here one day, gone the next. That is what we wanted.
Things on your skin that change suddenly are never an indication of something good. Things on your skin never turn into a gold star that means you have won a special prize like a trip to Hawaii or a Waring blender. Things growing on your skin come at you with a big warning, "Hey, you better keep your eye on this!"
With the exception for one or two body parts, most things on our person should pretty much stay the same size after puberty. Hair, fingernails, teeth...things like that come and go with no surprise. Bumps, lumps, moles...things like that need watching. We are taught to be vigilant.
My mom is 84 years old and her body parts, like the contents in a Cheeze-It box, have shifted during shipping. She is still the same person inside, only things on the outside have moved south. We see that all the time here in Florida. Older folk from up north move down here and then once they are here, their own bodies keep sliding south down to their ankles. We all have to soldier on and learn to live with that skin migration.
This bump on my mother's neck was different. It was growing to beat the band. Phone calls were made, doctors were consulted, tests were conducted and the results were in. The unwanted and still growing bump had to come off.
Because life is never easy, and who are we to complain anyway, our family all joined hands, jumped into the medical system together and held on for the rocky ride. It is nice to have a hand to squeeze when the going gets tough.
I try not to be too picky about food but let me say this and then move on: hospital food is not so great anywhere. I gave it my best shot. I kept having elementary school cafeteria flashbacks. Everything in the hospital cafe looked like Jello and mac & cheese to me. All the veggies come out of a can. I just couldn't eat it. I munched on crumbling protein bars from the bottom of my backpack.
Time moved on, as it has a habit of doing. In the hospital all days are the Sameday.
My sister came in between work and home and helped with moral support and family consultation. My mother's youngest sister Julia dropped by. Cousins visited and friends. We had the luxury of a private room and used it like a parlor. My mother's pastor lead us in prayer.
When the surgeon, a man I have known and respected for many years, explained the risks of the operation to me and my mom. I lost it. I held on long enough for the doctor to hug our necks, my neck which was worried and tired, my mom's neck with the not-so-nice bump. I held on long enough for my mom to have medication and fall asleep. I held on long enough to make my way to the hospital cafe.
I ordered a large plate of crinkle cut French fries and added a ton of catsup from 10,000 individual packets. I poured on the salt. Bring me all the bad.
I sat in the corner with my back to the world and ate. Some fries were still soft in the middle and mashy. Some fries were crispy and crunchy. I sat in the corner and cleaned my plate. I sucked the salt from my fingers. Nothing ever tasted so good as those French fries. I could not remember the last time I had consumed guilt-free French fries.
After that I did all the things I had to do and time moved on.
Our surgeon said the operation could either take 10 minutes OR 2 hours...depending. We all prayed for the 10 minute simple operation which would leave my mother more her self. She was determined to do whatever it took to fight this little bump.
"Why, I do not even feel sick!," she must has said 100 times.
So we prayed and I watched my daddy do his cross-word puzzle in the surgical waiting room. He was so upset.
"Why are we here? Where is your mother?" he kept asking through his Alzheimer's confusion. "I am so damn tired of sitting here. When are we going home?"
A young mother with a small, toothless baby sat in the waiting room with us. Her husband was waiting nearer to their other child, 18 months old, as he waited his turn in the operating room. Her son was waiting near my mother somewhere back there in the OR. Side by-side they waited, separated by a curtain, never meeting, never knowing how our families comforted each other.
One young baby-boy, one aging great-grandmother sharing the same surgeon. This is the way of the world. Families holding on tight, praying and riding the medical system as doctors and nurses do their best. Out comes good news, bad news, luck of the draw.
The young family had their good news and left the hospital. Add the ages of the young parents and their two boys and the total did not equal my age, much less my mom's, and time moved on.
I have never seen a grin so wide, so glowing and so welcome as the one gleaming smile across our surgeons face as he poked his head out of the OR after only 10 minutes. He could not wait to tell us the good news of my mother's bump. Turns out it was a cyst-bump, not a cancer-bump.
We are clueless as to what is what and how is how but my mom's bump was not what we had been lead to believe by the pathology report. A mistake, divine intervention, whatever. I will gladly take it all. Here is what it is really: a reprieve. And we will take that, too.
The end of that day, yesterday, was long in arriving. When I finally got home late last night I was starving. I made French toast with two eggs, nutmeg, and three fat slices of oatmeal bread. I stacked the toast on my favorite platter and covered the entire warm mountain with Aunt Jemima Original Syrup. **America's favorite syrup!** I sat on the floor in front of the television and cleaned my plate. I ate every bite of French toast. I sucked the syrup off my fingers. Nothing ever tasted so good as that French toast. I could not remember the last time I had consumed guilt-free French toast.
Body still wired, heart still pumping with happy tiredness. Adrenaline still serging through my body in fight or flight mode, I could not rest. I tried everything and could not sleep.
I pulled out my favorite bed-side book and slowly, carefully turned the pages. All the photos in this posting are from the book, The French-Inspired Home by Kaari Meng. She is the owner of French General a wonderful store that sells vintage notions and kits to make French-like lovelies. I have ordered the most amazing little treasures from this store and when Meng's book came out in 2006, I ordered a copy from Barnes & Noble and never even asked the price. I knew I had to own it.
I am not going to try to sell the book to you here but I do love it. This volume of design ideas is charming in that rustic French, attention-to-detail manner. 
It soothes me on nights when I cannot sleep and do not want a late-night dose of a bestseller. Some books stir me up and I read on and on into the night. This one calms me down with photo after photo of vintage this and that. This book rocks me gently. I fall into a restful asleep with lavender dreams.
Plus, when I think of my sweet French comforts this week, the ones that carried me over the rough places, this tasty French-inspired design goodie was the only one I have consumed calorie-free, the only one I can enjoy over and over again. Amen.
I know what you are saying.
"Oh, no! somepinkflowers has been sucked into the vortex of commercialism!" you shout, one hand clamped over your wide opened mouth as you shake your head in disbelief. Eyes round with horror you reach around with the other hand for a chair so you can plop down and recover from the shock of it all.
"Can you believe she reads Harry Potter?" you incredulously ask one another. "How can that be? Has all this travel gone to her head? Too much jet-lag for our poor flower?"
Well...Come on...I am not the only one out here buying these books. Ten gazzillion people cannot all be wrong, can they? Maybe half could be. I don't know.
When book #1, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, came out I was the public relations coordinator for the local Barnes & Noble bookstore. You might say the book and the ancillary responsibilities of promoting it locally were carefully placed on my plate. You might say that and you would be correct.
If you think the only reason I have read every Harry Potter book published to date and have seen every Harry Potter film thus far released is because it is my job, you would be wrong.
For one thing, I no longer work at B&N. For another thing, I love getting caught up in the epic and its fantastic locations. I do not collect HP trading cards or HP posters or HP dolls or any of those things. I just want to believe, for a narrow slice of time here and there, in the magic of Harry Potter. Mostly I want to cheer for Good over Evil.
Get out of here with any debate over whether Harry Potter is fine literature or not. Just go ahead and leave the room OR stay here and leave a comment. Whatever. But stick with me if you want to know what I think, what I know about me. As John Lennon wrote, "I like to write about me, because I know about me."
So here is what I know about me and Harry Potter. I enjoy going along for the ride.
I wanted to resist from the very start but somewhere along the way I just threw myself wholeheartedly into the embrace of the entire wildly, wonderful, wizard-filled world.
Did you read CS Lewis ? Roald Dahl? Did you read Peter Pan or A Wrinkle inTime? I wonder if these classics were considered fine literature in their day. I am just saying...
Last night was the Release Party for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I went to my old workplace and joined the crazy party. I have no idea who these people are in these snapshots but each and every one DID sign a release form, so here they are. Be nice because everyone is someone's child!
Not that I know first hand but I imagine this party was rather like being at a Star Trek convention.
I did my normal go-with-the-flow thing. I came home with a bit of HP swag: eyeglasses that glow in the dark, a Hogwarts key chain decorated with a garnet & gold tassel, a handful of rub-on tattoos and, naturally, my Very Own Copy of the final Harry Potter book with its own 40% off discount sticker.
I haven't cracked the book open yet. You will find no **spoilers** here. I cannot tell you who dies or if the butler did it. Later today after my chores are completed, I'll make a cup of tea and curl up somewhere and read. I will start the thing.
I am not expecting fine literature but I do expect adventure and escape with some young people who can do amazing things with a wand and a few magic spells. I have known these kids for about 10 years now, have watched them grow up [!]. They seem like nice kids as far as wizards go. I have come to care about them and hope no harm slithers over their way.
We shall see.
If I could have my way, I would walk up a long, dark, cold stone staircase that twists and turns as I climb higher and higher, I would walk past wide, gold-framed portraits of old people that call me by name, and I would curl up in a warm bed there in a drafty old castle perched high on a cliff overlooking a rocky coast somewhere in jolly, but often times mysterious, ole England.
That is where I would chose to read this book if I could.
Wouldn't that be something!
Sometimes I am the girly-girl and sometimes I am the nature-girl. But, and maybe you did not know this, sometimes I am the loving-mysteries-and-thrillers-with-intrigue-and-espionage girl. I cannot help myself. I even have an on-going love affair with time-travel. I want dark, rich chocolate one minute and then huge, salty pretzels the next. Don't we all, really? Think how boring to be girly-girl or nature-girl ALL THE TIME.
Years and years ago when everyone was so taken with James Bond and his 007-ness, I was all about Ian Fleming, Bond's creator. Bond was handsome, debonair and stylish but he was also, well, not a real person. Ian Fleming was my hero as he was the one that thought everything up. 
He wrote such spy tales that you knew he must have lived through some of these adventures himself.
I had no idea what Fleming looked like while I was reading his works. I knew he was clever, inventive and had the power to create secret spy magic on a blank page. Fleming was the one who thought of shaken, not stirred. Fleming gave us the spy as bon vivant. He was the one who created the sexy women with the suggestive names and the evil enemies with the weird habits. Bond was simply along for the ride.
I was reading these adventures not at the time they were written during those early duck-and-cover years but a few years later. Florida was just THIS FAR from Castro's political actions which, in a heart beat, could have been the end of my young life as I knew it. 
In my home state we could feel the chill of the cold war a few miles off our sandy beaches. Later I surfed and danced to rock & roll while hidden powers decided the possibility of WW III. Life is not without nuance.
Around the same time I was reading You Only Live Twice and The Man With The Golden Glove, I was also watching movies like Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory and Young Frankenstein. What did the Bond books have in common with these films? Not much. Other than both promoted the willing suspension of disbelief, nothing really.
[Remember, after all, Fleming also gave us Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Talk about a man with vision!
]
Here is the thing. While Ian Fleming was my hero author, Gene Wilder was my hero comedian. Where Fleming wrote about sexy spies, Wilder brought zany characters to life. [Did I just use the word zany? Why, yes, I think I did!] Maybe Fleming was good-looking. I did not know it the time. Wilder certainly was not a handsome, debonair and stylish leading man TYPE. These seemed to be little mystery and intrigue surrounding this quirky, wild-haired actor.
When Wilder fell in love with Gilda Radner I was personally pleased. They were both so clever and talented. I had visions of them having a crazy, tender, ZANY marriage. I would just look at them, see how happy and touchy-feely they were with each other, and I knew they must be laughing all the time. Even after the discovery of Radner's ovarian cancer, there was an air of hopeful funniness about the couple. If laughter is indeed the best medicine, then Radner should have survived this terrible disease with flying colors while wearing her Rosanna Rosannadanna hair-do.
But life, being what it is, did not have a happy ending for this couple. Wilder was left holding his grace and sadness all alone.
My French Whore, Wilder's most resent production, is a charming spy story which features Peachy as the coward-hero and grace as the unspoken character. Not Grace a person, but grace the quality.
No shaken, not stirred drinks in this narrow novella of war-time espionage. I knew from beginning pages that here was a story that would not have the sweetest of endings. [Spoiler here; sorry, but it must be said---->] The sun will not go down with the lovers holding hands, walking off into the sunset. C'est la vie.
That Gene Wilder! In My French Whore he shows us the beauty of the bittersweet. He makes my heart WANT to melt with sorrow. Even though I was holding out for the happy ending, even though I knew this spy was no 007 with a high-tech Aston Martin, I wanted things to end well for every one. And it does, in its own way.
Ian Fleming created his spy all worldly and well-dressed. Gene Wilder stirred his up after another fashion.
I hope you will enjoy Wilder's low-tech hero, charming and quick on his feet with opportunity.
Plus, the cover is this lovely shade of faded blue.
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