somepinkflowers

i'm home, dear...

so sorry
about my old florida
being a some*what problem child
this fine election week ...

i am afraid this is what happens
when a certain type of governor
attemps to suppress voter turn out ...

still,
all in all,

oh happy day!!

what i wore to the oscars last night

I am nothing if not Fashionable over here in my north Florida home minutes from the sea.

After much FB chat yesterday concerning what I should wear to the Academy Awards last night, I fell into my old stand by...

Yes, as always, when in a pinch, I decided on Craft Casual for my Oscar watching attire.

After only 2 crochet lessons under my belt, I decided I was ready to take off on my own armed with Chain, Double Crochet and Shell Stitch.

Welcome to Miss Striped Afghan!

"...And who are you wearing? " Tim Gunn asks, leaning in for a closer look at the striped afghan placed seductively in my lap. I am sitting on the floor crocheting in front of my TV. It was so thoughtful of Tim to pop in.

"Well, Tim, I am wearing a silky soft bamboo blend by Caron in shades of ocean spray, dark driftwood and stormy blue," I answer breathlessly, holding my matching green~metalic Boye crochet hook, 5.50mm, delicately in my right hand.

My right leg slides out coyly from underneath the draped Project~in~Progress.

"I am so happy to be here!" I tell Tim honestly, reaching for another skein of green sheen.

{{  I think Angelina Jolie got that leg idea from me, but I could be wrong... }}

clearly i am no sydney bristow

In the whole wide world that was Charles De Gaulle Airport my plane was the only one not à l'heure so I had tons of time to sit and think.

Maybe it started with reading Ian Fleming or being a child of the cold war but somewhere with the passing years International Travel became the stuff of my dreams.

I bet you are the same way.
In your dreams.

It looks so simple in the movies and on TV.

This one hops on a plane here, plops on a red to-die-for wig and then hops off the plane over here.

Before you can grab a slice of this, she has landed!

In one episode missy cutie-pie-spy landed in Budapest but the view was of this.

Only other wannabe spies or well-seasoned International Travelers would have noticed the difference. Dark, moody cities located on dark, moody rivers tend to look the same to many folks.

Me? How did I figure out the slip of a geography mistake? Prague is not in Hungary, after all...

Well, maybe someone told me as I am more the well-seasoned, wannabe spy than the International Traveler.

Still. Even I know all cities are not the same in the dark.

Which brings me back to Paris.
Where I had the time of my life.
But then I could barely make it home.

"Why is my plane the only one 3+ hours late?" I politely asked the fashionably-dressed and multilingual AirFrance attendant.

"Ooh-la-la, somepinkflowers, " she answered sweetly, eyeing the way I had cavalierly tied my neck*scarf, "it is in the name of safety."

OK.
She did not say ooh-la-la but I had waited my entire French vacation for somebody to say ooh-la-la and they never did.

It was my only disappointment, truly, until the airport delay. The delay in the name of safety and how can one argue with THAT?

I am using my poetic license here  with the ooh-la-la at the risk of seeming stereotypical.

I mean it in only the best way.
If I could pull off ooh-la-la I would use it all the time.
Wouldn't you?

From the very youngest age we are influenced amazingly so by books and movies. Deep inside our bones we are colored in a certain way to make us long for a thing, or remember a thing. Maybe more than we know.

We are colored and then it bubbles up unexpectedly.

For me it is difficult to walk along the Seine and hear a whaling police horn without smiling and thinking of Peter Sellers.

In the time of someone's personal crisis, when the police must be called, I am thinking happy thoughts from silly movies.

Good grief!

That just bubbled up from my bones. I cannot be held responsible.

Thank goodness jet lag is not correctly presented in fiction or on the screen.

Thank goodness no one explains the side-effects of being jammed up-close-and-personal with an airplane full of sneezing strangers for 8 hours.

Thank goodness or we might not even leave the house.

Some where high over the Atlantic Ocean my ears filled up with the sea where it rolls around even now inside my head and drips from my red nose.

Here I sit, at home, feasting on this and baby aspirins for I am fighting a cold.

Ahhhhh.
But---------->it is a French cold!

Ooh-la-la!

home from the war on the 5:00 news

When I first heard that my nephew-in-law, Captain Walter Lewis , was coming home from Iraq for two weeks of R & R, I was so thrilled for my niece Lauren and their baby Brayden. WL left for his tour of duty not long after his son turned one. WL had now been away for about 9 months  and he was coming home to see a completely different baby boy.

We were all a bit different, too, in our own way, different from missing WL and praying for his safe return, different because time passing changes 100 little things. 

Lauren now wears braces on her teeth and bravery in her heart. His son Brayden now walks and talks that insistent way that babies do when trying to make us understand them.  When asked about his daddy, he would heartbreakingly say, "da-da gone bye-bye." We would all get misty eyed every time that happened. Baby Brayden did not know what was going on but could feel the excitement.

As the final countdown days began before WL's return, we all  gathered at my sister's house. Lauren and the baby flew in from Texas as the family reunion would be near the Entire Extended Family. No one would be left out on hugging this soldiers neck, no one.  Grandparents would be here for the big visit. A brother and his family were also flying in. Four generations  would be represented. A lot of love would be shining around this family over the next 2 weeks.

The countdown proved to be somewhat difficult near the end because we did not know exactly when WL was flying in from Atlanta. He had to fly from Baghdad to Kuwait and the rest we did not know. This was the military after all and involved some secrecy for safety sake. There were also some briefing sessions as prep work for returning a soldier to family. A soldier plucked up from months of war and placed back state-side for a family celebration needs all the help he came get. He needs some transition time and useful tips. This is not just walking from one room in a house into another room. WL would be stepping into our Florida life straight from Baghdad war.

For 2 or 3 days we were on stand-by here, waiting for the exact flight number.  We did not want to leave the house and miss the call from WL telling Lauren when he would be arriving in Jacksonville. We hung out, ate my brother-in-law's fine cooking and played with the baby.

Lauren decided we should all travel to the airport together to meet the plane if we could. We spent some quality time making signs to carry. My mom and dad did a bit of coloring for the occasion. My young niece is quite the budding artist decorating edges in true creative fashion with bits of pink and green. Good girl!

Everyone wanted in on the sign making action. We wanted WL to see how happy we were to see him. Like he would not know from the crowd, from the look at us all!

When the day arrived we all got up at the crack of before dawn and drove north to the Jacksonville airport. There were so many planes coming in from Atlanta, we were not positive which flight WL would be on but our soldier was not stepping off any plane and walking into an airport without faces he knew beaming at him. He would be welcomed with hugs and kisses and a plethora of  "Thank you, dear Jesus."

Not  everyone could be at the airport to meet WL, but we did take over own section at JAX. The way we came in carrying signs and cameras other people we passed thought maybe a rock star or a football hero was about to arrive.

Strangers starting asking, "Who are you here for? Is it some one famous?"

"Yes, it is someone very important!' I answered, "It is my nephew home from the war."

People we did not even know started to gather. WL's sister had made this huge sign covered with family photos and when we taped it to a pole near the arrival gate, more folks came over. We were drawing a crowd and that was good because we still had a long time to wait. It gave us a new place to park  our excitement, or better yet, a place to stir it up.

Oh, this part is so cool.  Lauren had called the Channel 4 news desk. She turned this family welcoming home party into a Real News Event. I don't know exactly everything she said but she was full of Positive Excitement and Talking Points and Sound Bites. She mentioned the baby who had not seen his father in months, she mentioned the tons of signs and one thing led to another. Did I mention she is a clever charmer!

So Channel 4 sent over an outgoing reporter and a friendly camera man to help us give WL something to think about forever, a gift of we-are-so-glad-you-are-home. This was something right up his alley so we knew he would be pleased.

Maybe it was a slow news day. I do not know. I was so proud of Lauren for pulling it all together. Debs, my sister kept saying, "She is just like her auntie somepinkflowers! This is like something she would do."

[I was beside myself with pride at the comparison. I really was, but yes, it had my stamp all over it. What else can I say? beam, beam...]

So the News Guy put a mike on Lauren in order to pick up any true love conversation. People were being interviewed and taped all around us as we waited. We were all over the place chasing the baby and hugging each other. More folks we did not know came over to see why Channel 4 was there. One thing led to another.

When we were making these signs we all envisioned ourselves jumping up and down waving a sign as WL walked down the corridor  from the plane. Like a scene from a movie. The truth is, we were all carrying cameras to record the moment and tissue to wipe the tears. I started handing out signs to nearby strangers who had gotten caught up in the flurry of excitement, they wanted a piece of the action.

Every one of these friendly people said they knew someone off at war. One caring women said she was "proud to hold the sign for any American soldier." 

I know it may sound lame but everyone seemed to want to show support.  It was as if by showing support for this soldier, our WL,  they were sending a message to all soldiers, "Forget the politics of the situation! We support you all and are thankful."

And so that is how it happened.

One older couple I had never seen before even used a cell phone to call their friends. "Yeah, we are busy over here welcoming home a soldier," the older man, who had been off to war himself years and years ago, said. "Can you wait awhile? We don't want to leave until he gets here."

His wife, also holding a sign, said, "I know a thing or two about waiting at home for your husband to return from war."

Later that night on the 5:00 news our family was the news teaser that ran the full hour. Every ten minutes or so there was video and voice-over about our Walter Lewis and his family. We were the human interest story discussed at the anchor desk and that was great for us because that meant all the grandparents who stayed home could watch in on TV.  Oh, happy day!

Lauren was radiant with happiness, WL was handsome and earnest in his interview for the media. He told the reporter how hard is was to be away from his young son. I cannot talk about the rest as I will cry now. If at some point I can find a way to upload it here I will give it a try. In the Channel 4 news segment you can see our family openly weeping with joy and babbling with thanksgiving. I love our open-hearted family and how it brings good people together.

Thank God for the strangers carrying our signs!

They were beaming and articulate and waving the signs for the camera. Strangers stood up proud and tall and talked about our family's love for our soldier. We have no idea who these thoughtful folks are now but we had waited  and waited together for so long and visited the way you do here in the south. There they were, our spillover family for a moment in time, on the 5:00 news with us. I am amazed.

They have an airport story to tell and will add their prayers to ours every time they think about what happened that day. I love that kind of random sharing of  happiness.

By some unspoken wisdom we all stood back so that there could be a husband and wife reunion. We  breathed a sigh of relief as if we passed WL's family, his wife and child, back over to his care. We had done  our part, our supportive roles in the production of True Love Reunited. There was a sweet family reunion, touching father-son moments. 

Let me just say it was wonderful. I took more photos that you would believe. Looking at them now I am amazed to see the raw feelings of happiness on our faces. My sister's face was full of grace as she hugged her young grand-daughter in sublime joy. I can not show you here how my family looked. It was too personal and so strong. Let me just say that tears of joy were flowing, noses were red from wiping and bodies were smashed in enveloping hugs of love.

Yes, we were all spectacularly blurry with joy.

We had so much love left over we shared it with another soldier who had no one waiting. His family was still in route to the airport so we just swooped him right into ours as we always have room for one more.

After the News Team interviewed WL we all took off to do another thing we all do so well. We filled up the cars and drove over to a restaurant to eat where another brother was waiting.

This would be  followed by 2 whirlwind weeks of R&R  for our WL and his family. He would have a chance to catch his breath, to hug his family, to eat real eggs, to sit in the Florida sunshine and to thank God.

Our soldier had returned to us the same loving man who left,  though touched deeply by the horrors of war he had witnessed.

With his R & R now over, he will be going back to Iraq. That is the hardest part for everyone. He leaves tomorrow and we are feeling that clock ticking, too.

Then we will start our counting all over again until his tour is over sometime next year.  I am not sure when WL will be home but we will be here supporting him completely in every way we can. We will send him Thanksgiving cards, Christmas cards, Valentine cards and encouraging letters in between. We will send prayers, love and any kind of yummy food we can.

When WL comes home next time we will most likely all be there  with our signs, our cameras, our hearts full of joy.

And then we will go out to eat.

sandra lee

If you find yourself in need of a good laugh, I suggest you turn on your TV, pop over to The Food Network and watch  Semi-Homemade Cooking by Sandra Lee.  Funnier than The Comedy Channel, this 'chef' does the most amazing things with food!

Sandra Lee's  specialty is "Super, super simple cooking with 70% premade-30% fresh." What this means is she buys prepackage mixes and stirs in a few fresh items to make a delicious (?) meal.

Sandra Lee is The Queen of Cool Whip, The Princess of Puff Pastry. If it comes in a can or bottle, is boxed or frozen, Sandra Lee can turn it into...well, something else.

"What is wrong with that, somepinkflowers?" you are saying. "Don't we all need cooking shortcuts, what with all the multitasking we are required to do these days?"

Yes, yes, yes, I would shout! I think her cooking concept is somewhat valid. My life runs smoother when my pantry is full of useful jars of capers and versatile packages of sun-dried tomatoes sitting there at the ready. Sandra Lee has taken it to a different level.

Each Semi-Homemade Cooking show has a theme like Ocean Breezes, Casino Night, or Happy Harley Day. Sandra redecorates her kitchen, with each show, to match the theme. She calls this 'her kitchenscape.' She redecorates her dinning table using different dishes, with each show, to match the theme. This becomes 'her tablescape.' Sandra even dresses in colors to match the themes. To get into the swing of things, I like to call her matchy-matchy dressing 'a personscape.'

The KitchenAid mixer on her counter top even changes color from show to show, from theme to theme. Who knew they came in so many colors? I want one in every color, too! Or maybe just in pink.

Sandra's  Ocean Breezes theme called for blue sea things everywhere. I love the ocean and most things blue but Sandra Lee is nothing if not excessive. There were blue curtains at the window, a blue mixer on the counter top and here is her blue tablescape center piece with the blue glitter covered seahorses.

With the Casino Night theme there were poker chips and playing cards hanging from the chandelier. Every thing that could be covered in hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades was. Happy Harley Day called for an all black theme. That Sandra is so creative.

One time she demonstrated how to turn a white rose blue. Just in case you ever need to know how to do that. Actually, I like my white roses to stay white, my pink roses to stay pink. And so on. But that is just me.

The first time I tuned in I watched in disbelief as Sandra scooped out the insides of a store bought apple pie and layered this crumbled up, gooey mess between two pieces of baked puff pastry. Next she plopped Cool Whip on the top and called this mess an 'Apple Napoleon.' She suggested saving any left over apple pie crust to sprinkle later on ice cream. I am NOT making this up.

Maybe Sandra Lee is related to Sara Lee and they are in cahoots together on this apple pie creation. That is all I can figure out.

"Your guest will think you have worked all day on this dessert!," Sandra says as she makes a face into the camera to show how much fun it will be to fool your friends with the scooped out insides of a store bought apple pie. Who is she kidding?

My friends would say, "Hey, somepinkflowers! What is this thing with the scooped out insides of a store bought apple pie?"

That is what my friends would say.

I would love for Sandra Lee to invited me over and served that scooped out insides of a store bought apple pie dessert thing to me. I would say, "Whoa, girlfriend! As much money as you are making on these cookbooks using Cool Whip and puff pastry, can't you do better than this?"

That is what I would say.

The truth is, I tape all her shows and watch them sometimes 2 or 3 at  a time instead of watching a movie. Watching Semi-Homemade Cooking by Sandra Lee is like driving very slowly through a super, super tacky trailer park so that you don't miss seeing all the unbelieveable things there are to see in a super, super tacky trailer park.

I live in Florida. I KNOW what a person can see in a super, super tacky trailer park. Somethings are so awful to look at, you cannot believe what you are seeing. And, therein is the true entertainment value of Semi-Homemade Cooking by Sandra Lee. I can not wait to see what Sandra Lee is going to do next.

I ADORE how bad she is. I do.

william hurt

I feel his whisper-light kiss on my feverish forehead, I hear his recognizable voice through my pillow-hidden ear and and I know what this means. William Hurt is still here.

"You just need to get out of this bed," William urges, taking my hand and pulling me gently upright. He shoves a cup of hot Earl Grey into my seemingly distant hand. My hand sits there in another country. My head moves in slo-mo and I wait patiently for it to catch up with the rest of my body.

"I know you, and you haven't eaten properly, have you?" William continues and begins to lure me up and away from the bed. "You'll feel better once you've showered and washed your hair."

To me William is always Ned Racine from Body Heat, not Rochester from Jane Eyre, or Luis Alberto Molina from Kiss of the Spider Woman. He is certainly never Tuck. When Ned walks through the glass doors for Kathleen Turner, that pretty much did it for me. William will always be my favorite sleazy Florida lawyer. And I know several.

"What is your motto, somepinkflowers?," asks William who is so insistent sometimes. "What are you always telling me? Act as if? That's right, isn't it? Act As If. Do it now, please. Act as if you are at the top of your game. Act as if you are in the pink. Just do it. For me."

That William! I could never deny him a thing. The first time we met was in Barnes & Noble. He placed his usual black coffee order with Joanne, the cafe manager, who leaned over and whispered to William politely so others could not hear, "Has anyone every told you that you look just like William Hurt?"   

So charming is William that he leaned back over and whispered to her, "Yes, I get that all the time." That was the moment I knew I loved him.

William was in town making a Hallmark movie, The Flamingo Rising, and one thing lead to another and that is how he came into my life. Sort of.

Only not this morning. Here is how William Hurt came into my life this morning: Drugs. My friend, over the counter, Benadryl.

If you look at that Earl Grey tea bag closely, you'll notice it says Decaffeinated. I am allergic to caffeine. I cannot even eat coffee ice cream without flying high from the caffeine for days. Same with chocolate. Meds like Benadryl really do a number on me. I am speedy and slow-motion at the same time. Not a pretty sight.

Having the last laugh on This Cold, last night around midnight I threw caution out the window and swallowed a Benadryl. I can breath this morning but William Hurt danced around my dreams all night long. We seemed to be in some sort of altered state. William Hurt hallucinations are not so bad.

At one point we were paddling matching green kayaks down the St. Johns River. Very pleasant, actually.

It could have been way worse.

I could have been sharing the night with dear old John Hurt.

o.j. simpson

What were you thinking? A book? A movie?

If I did it?

Oh, right... 

You are a sociopath.

What were you thinking?

...Never mind.

joan cusack

In the comedy Friends with Money Jennifer Aniston's lead character plays The Loser. Like that would ever happen. ((OK, maybe with Brad but, honestly, I think she is better off without him.)) In the movie Jennifer's sisters are played by Catherine Keener, Frances McDormand and Joan Cusack. What family of sisters could be better? If my parents had produced six girl children rather than the two, I would have been quite content with these women for sisters.

I am a big, big fan of Joan Cusack. Even in her most polished role she regularly plays a bit of a kooky character. She always seem sort of bumbly-stumbly, tall, thin, animated and fun. I like it when she shares movies with her real life brother John as in High Fidelity, Say Anything and Grosse Pointe Blank. I love their shared quirkiness. I would select John for the brother role in my imaginary family. I never had a brother but I think John Cusack would have been an extremely cool one. And he is so good-looking. I think that being good-looking would be a useful trait in a brother.

Lately I have been charmingly captured by Joan as she stars in her own TV show called Joan Cusack's Local Flavor. In this production for the Travel Channel Joan travels around the world, meets smiling chefs in interesting decorated, small family-owned restaurants and she cooks with them. Then she sits down to an attractively set dining table and chats them up while eating the most amazingly delicious looking food. Somehow it even looks like it smells good.

In between all of the food adventure where Joan plays her goofy self and dead-pans the camera, she walks around the neighborhood and plays tourist. She talks slowly in English and waves her hands around and I think how enjoyable it would be to travel through Europe with Joan and whoever she has doing her ironing and her hair.

While I might enjoy having Joan as a sibling, what I am actually pining for here is her job. Joan travels, walks, cooks, talks and eats. Then she gets paid for doing it. Talk about your dream job! Last week she went to Athens, Greece, cooked up some souvlakia and had time left over to have leather sandals custom-made by a local poet-celebrity. I am not making this up. How does she find these people?

At one point in a local food market, her own young son wanders into camera view and Joan, screwing up her face endearingly with a tilt of her head and sporting incredulously wide-eyes, says, "Wow, look! How did my own son happen to just show up here in Greece?"  Sure, it sounds a bit hokey now but I love Joan Cusack and believe only the best about her.

Last night Joan was in Paris, France, so you can imagine my excitement. Parisian cuisine has been on my mine for sometime now after dreaming in French several days ago ((See November 4th posting.)) She visited the Poilane Bakery where she kneaded bread dough and plopped it around. Cooks are always asking her if she wants to try to make something and, surprise, surprise, she says, "Sure...Why not?" with a shrug of her bony shoulders.

See, that is why I believe I'd like to travel with Joan Cusack. She seems like she would be up for a bit of craziness. "Hey, Joan, want to run naked down the Champs-Elysee and stop for some hot chocolate?" I'd ask. ((Not that I'd actually run naked down the Champs-Elysee but, as it is always so crowded, who would notice?))

You just know Joan would say, "Sure...Why not?"

oh, brother

I love television. 

I just found out last Sunday on the TV show Brothers & Sisters that Ally McBeal's (Calistra  Flockart's) mother is The Flying Nun (Sally Field) and her father is Sheriff Jimmy Brock (Tom Skerritt) from Picket Fences . (What happened to Sheriff Jimmy Brock's other wife, Jill, and all those children?) Who knew? But it gets even better. Ally's sister is Brenda (Rachel Griffiths)--Nate's wife--from Six Feet Under! Did you know that?

This is my kind of interesting family as The Possibly (!) Evil Person, Ally's uncle, is Arvin Sloan (Ron Rifkin) from Alias and The Mystery Woman is Nancy (Patricia Wettig) from thirysomething! Just maybe Nancy had a relationship with Sheriff Jimmy Brock while he was married to The Flying Nun. Can you believe it! I had no idea they even knew each other. I am so out of the loop.

My head swims with possiblities.

Will Rambaldi become an issue? Is Jennifer Garner somehow related to Ally McBeal, maybe a cousin? If Jennifer shows up in a later episode, I hope she wears that red wig. Would that make Lena Olin Ally's aunt-once-removed? Maybe Lena will show up with a much, much younger lover. You know she could pull it off. I definately think they should get Vonda Shepard to spice up the Brothers & Sisters soundtrack. Does that mean The Flying Nun has Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford)for a son-in-law?

It is such a small world.

little houses

Somepinkflowers to my friend Carolyn for mailing me the ad for Weeds that appeared recently in Rolling Stone Magazine.  Peel up the edge stamped 'inhale here' and the inside statement suggests: "Catch the buzz!"

The fragrance curling out from under that flap smells amazingly reminiscent of the smoke that curled out from underneath my college roommate's bedroom door back in 1970. How odd! What are the chances?

I confess to being a Weeds junkie. This Showtime original series starring Mary-Louise Parker and Elizabeth Perkins is addicting. Parker plays Nancy Botwin, a mother of two, whose husband dies suddenly early on in the series, and she is left to provide for her family. We all know how difficult is can be to find the perfect job which not only fits your lifestyle but also pays enough to cover health insurance. Plus, Nancy has to pay health insurance for the housekeeper--who does precious little--and the upkeep on that pool can't come cheap. I'm betting she uses a pool service.

Even though the show is well into the second season, not much brain power is needed to catch up on the plot.

I'm not really sure if the show is award-winner material or not, but it never fails to give me a 27-minute hit of laughter. The brightest star of Weeds, and what makes this show shine, shine, shine, is the nostalgic-but-contemporary soundtrack mix.

Everywhere I go I hear folks humming the theme song, Little Houses. During the first season it was Malvina Reynolds we heard singing the show's theme song. This season you never know who will be singing the intro. Elvis Costello and Engelbert Humperdick are just two of the featured theme-song singers. I'm hooked.

Last Wednesday in the ladies room at the library, one young mother from story-time was singing Little Houses to her baby as she changed his diapers. In soundtrack land, what goes around, comes around and around and around. Or something.

The music used throughout each entire episode is stellar. Some groups like Of Montreal and The Be Good Tanyas were new to me. Now I'm using Weeds to help me expand my musical horizons.  You just cannot stay stuck in the 60s forever. An A+ to the person selecting the music for Weeds as it is really the music that is giving us all One Big Contact High.

Only problem now, Carolyn, is that my undercover narc - neighbor has been following me around since I picked up my mail. I had to give him your address.

Just kidding.