Hidden In France

The happy label.

How about some fearless interiors with colorful upholstery via living.com to illustrate my present mood?

I had such a great week. I was just in a good mood for no good reason at all. Having my life back is one awesomely good feeling!

And just as i write this I'm afraid to jinx it. Happiness can be a fleeting feeling.  Or so i have managed to convince myself. Because feeling happy these day is not as fleeting a feeling as it used to be.

Maybe i'm getting the hang of this mood thing?  

 

Yippeeee!

This morning I drove my youngest to his first day at a new school. Then I took a 45 minutes brisk walk around the school's pretty residential neighborhood. 45 minutes later i got back to my car and there were quite a few mothers still at the gate wringing their hands or walking in small circles looking lost.  

But not I ! And I would be lying to you if I said I was thinking about my child even once during my walk. After three months of summer vacation I feel I earned a little freedom don't you think? The air was cool, the streets empty and I was feeling ridiculously happy about the changing leaves, the pretty houses and all the gorgeous, luxurious, uninterrupted writing ahead!

 In a few hours my husband will be flying  home from New York and I can finally take a breath because hats off to you single parents, this is a hard, hard job to be everything to everyone at all time. 

 I am back at the keyboard baby.  I am BACK! Yippeee!

The day i became American

I could not post yesterday due to a ruptured ovarian cyst.  Have you ever gotten one of those? They're heaps of fun.  

But I wanted to tell you about the day I truly became American.  I guess in a sense we all were American that day.  This is the most amazing footage of that day.  Amazing and so awful.  This summer I was in New york and had dinner with friends who were there that day, who lived the incomprehension, breathed in the dust, felt the shatter.  This Youtube compilation of amateur videos is as close to feeling the horror as you'll ever experience.

felt love

How adorable is this? It truly puts a smile on my face.   These felt islands were created by Israeli born artist Etsy Gertzman who now lives in The Netherlands.  Here is the website and the Flikr page. Some of it is for sale on Etsy here: Pipapiep.

 

   

 
 

Literary life, interrupted

I am counting the days, counting! until a certain much lusted-after day, circled in red and decorated with hearts, namely september 13th, FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL bitcheees!!!!! 

Because since mid june I have surrendered all hope and aspiration for a literary life.  I gave all of my time, all my energy and all of myself away to my kids and husband all summer long. I did this gladly--at first, say the first week and a half. Also there was no point in resisting, what with traveling for my husband's work, the rock band practices at my house, and the pool parties at my house, and the kids whose mothers have nine to five jobs desperate for baby sitting at my house, always at my house.  

Because I try to live in Gratitude (yeah, something new i'm trying out) I remind myself that I should be nothing but thankful to have the kind of life that allows for über motherhood and über housewife-hood.  It doesn't help that i'm reading your blogs and all of you seem so nostalic, not wanting the summer to end, teary- eyed over the kids resuming school. Unlike you, I seem to be the kind of mother who prefers her kids incarcerated from 8 am to 3 pm.  

The house all to myself... ahhh, chills of pleasure down my spine. 6 hours of writing a day.. sigh.. now that's the kind of Gratitude i'm talking about. 

Fun with Scissors

Wanna see new pictures of my house?  When I came back from New York my house felt cluttered to death.  I needed air and space, I removed everything and sat with black walls and empty shelves for a few days.  Still it wasn't enough.  I HAD to get rid of that clunker of a couch. That was the problem. I bought a simple ikea couch with clean lines and no Shabby Chicness to it whatsoever.  

But I soon discovered why they say that nature hates a vacuum, at least my nature.  It quickly went from this clutter:

To this one:

I grabbed my scissors and used paper to do a mosaic inside the bookshelf.  (Seen everywhere I know, it took a while for me to do it.  Note that the paper was probably bought two years ago for this exact purpose.)

 

Emboldened by my newfound scissors capability, i went a little butterfly crazy. I present you the wall-o-butterflies:

Weeee....!

  I guess I traded one clutter for another, Shabby Chic for Anthropologie.  But I like the results, at least for now.

What else I hadn't shown you?

The new shelf in the kitchen

  And stripes everywhere.  The table top is a oilcloth from Target I stapled to the wood of the table, and the curtain I painted with acrylic stripes over canvas, because I'm stubborn and I'm slowly but surely trying to get the look of my favorite kitchen. Voilà what i've been up to.  

Clooney and I, as kids.

 

I would not have given him the time of day.  

Ahem... Actually, maybe I would have:

 

It would have been 'Clooney and the Clown' 

This was my favorite shirt. Paired with the turtleneck it seemed like a good idea at the time (and to my defense, those were the seventies. Look, George is wearing a turtleneck too.)

For the record, that haircut ruined my life. I was 11 and my hair was my only exterior sign of femininity. Idiots asked of I was a boy or a girl.  I haven't dared cut my hair since. And look at those chicklet teeth :)

When I first started blogging there was a fun meme going around where bloggers posted pictures of themselves as kids.  Now that i've shown you my worst, who wants to play?  You post a picture of yourself as a kid on your blog (and tell us a bit about you then) and tag new bloggers. I tag:

Passage Paradis

Visual Vamp

Red Thread

Sparky Fizz

Feng Shui by Fishgirl

Eat, Pray, Yawn?

I went to see the movie with a sarcasm filled heart.  A woman who doesn't know who she is, how to love or how to feel spends 6 months discovering herself in glamour filled destinations? And i'm, like, girlfriend, those are not real problems.

And then they bring on the plate of spaghettis and I start drooling. Yep, I started drooling long before Javier Bardem literally and figuratively came into the picture.

Eat Pray Love is a movie without the traditional Hollywood requirements of a terribly bad guy (the bad-er the bad guy the higher the stakes) and roller coaster, nail-biting story arc.  It is a slow story. Were it not for the book being a huge success and for Julia's green light, the movie would not have been made in a million year. It's a boring story frankly.  But I found myself smiling when Julia Roberts smiled, and crying when she (or pretty much any of the characters) cried. What more do you want from a movie, really?

Maybe a story does not need to be pushing extremes in order to be touching. In fact, this story,(and let me copiously quote myself here) of  'A woman who doesn't know who she is, how to love and how to feel spends 6 months discovering herself" reminds me of another story, one I wrote, as a matter of fact.  One I'm trying to get published.

As I was writing the novel, I was interested in changes that don't come through gigantic breakthroughs, but thanks to life's almost imperceptible lessons, all of which my character resists.  I was interested in this because it felt real to me. Perceptions of the world, perception of the self are old habits that take a lifetime to ingrain in the subconscious and change is excruciatingly slow.  In Eat, Pray, Love, the main character is open to change and actively seeks it.  In my book my main character is not and does not, which I think is even closer to how real life works.

What I personally retained from Eat Pray Love, are three things: 

1- You must smile with the liver (it's hard to do but I totally get it.) 

2-I think women are hungry for stories that cling to the way real life takes place. It is not boring because real life, (when it happens to you,) is not boring.  Small things of real life, a child's fever, the beak up of a marriage, a move, not fitting in your jeans, a fall out with a friend, aging, are earth shattering in fact. 

3- Javier Bardem is a total hottie.

early bird

Just came across the work of an artist who goes by the name Mincing Mockingbird.  It's really lovely so I thought I'd share. 

 

The funny things these days is that I find myself blogging... in my head!  As i take my daily butt-reducing walks, and fueled as i am by my morning double esspresso without which there is no walk, no writing, and no day to speak of, i am full of clever ideas about what to blog about.  Entire posts are redacted in cerebrum and I can't wait to get home to type it all up.

 

But then I arrive home and life assails me and i go a quoi bon. The need to express myself to communicate has passed.  It feels quite futile suddenly.  I'm only writing this today because my kids had friends over for a sleep over so I can't go on my walk.

 

So here is the choice ladies:  the butt or the blog?  Maybe i could find a way to do both at once.  I could then put that skill in a bottle and get rich.

 

NouilleYork (as we say in French)

The internet is working at last! I was starting to feel panicky and had to eat a lot of coffee eclairs to cope. I found amazing ones at Patisserie Claude.

Because I live in L.A. very little walking is asked of me, so the 106 degree heat only offends me briefly as I step from my air-conditioned car into the air-conditioned mall.  But here in New York City, the words walking and heat recover all their meaning. I'm full of energy first thing in the morning but by noon it feels as though my soles are stuck to giant wads of bubble gum which I have to drag up with every new step. 

But today, the heat broke! Or at least that's what everyone in the streets and the subways of New York is calling the sudden drop in temperature.  And a good thing too as I has I was starting to wonder how I was going to peel my melted body off the sidewalk. 

The big excitement this week was that my 18 year old was accepted into an internship at Amnesty International.  I could not be more proud.  I'm all in favor of his fighting for Human Rights, I just hope he doesn't learn too much about his own, because in a few weeks i'm counting on him waking up at 6 a.m. in order to be at school at 7. (after having served me breakfast in bed, hehe.)

Now I must be off to visit yet another skateboarding shop with my 11 year old.  I've learned everything I needed to learn about skateboarding on this trip, namely that i have no intention of buying him one. Also, I'm going to get myself a smallish éclair to celebrate the return of my internet connection.

Postcard from New York

No pictures because my camera is too heavy for my smallish-newish purse, sorry.

So I'm in Manhattan again, happy as a clam.  We're staying on Bleecker Street in an apartment, yes on Bleecker! My younger one is at camp, my older one (18 in a few days) has little use for me, and my husband is working around the clock on a production. Happy i'm telling ya.

Watching people in the street I get the impression that i'm not the only one who feels privileged to be be in New York City.  Everywhere is a palpable sense of giddiness, of excitement. Isn't this the city where anything can happen?  And if not here, then where?  In New York as in Paris, the possibility of a chance encounter hangs in every gaze exchange. People dress accordingly.  As my husband pointed out, in Los Angeles there is the Right way to dress and the Wrong way, and i think that's pretty true of most of the country. In New York, everything goes.  And when you get to look exactly like yourself, you look better, more interesting, more alive. The result is so interesting that you could sit on a bench for hours just watching people and you would be perfectly entertained.

Nowhere I've ever been do older people look more stylish and full or life than here.  They have stars in their eyes, they are not bored with the city and never will be.  I see them and make a secret wish to be just like them one day: old, stylish, happy in and in New York (I'm of course speaking of those with money, i know this is crass, but fantasies usually are.)

I'm flabbergasted by the number of French people in the streets of NY.  The French might hate america (or so i'm told, usually by Americans,) but they sure as hell love Manhattan. It's an uncomfortable number of French people for me, as I prefer to be the rarity than the norm.  Apparently, France was not hit by the recession, because the French are here to shop. Mostly they're here for the sales, and Broadway in August is one massive sale.  The French must have a sixth sense, like those baby turtles that scramble awkwardly toward the ocean, they are single-minded and decisive, and when they get what they want, ahhh... climax! 

I thought it must be funny for French people to see huge "SALE" signs displayed everywhere, because in French it means 'dirty'.  Just a thought.

Speaking of dirt: everything in New York is dirty and/or fabulous.  The juxtaposition of piles of trash and models in high heels would never happen in Paris. Paris hides its trash with the greatest of care. New York loves to joyously hang its trash for all to see.  It piles up over the course of the day in gigantic mounds, platic bags, crates etc. in front of stores and apartment buildings.  In the morning, everything is just washed fresh, hosed down by the myriads of men in wife beaters who come in and out of doors and trap doors, gates and manholes and whose life purpose it seems is to act as trash Facilitators. 'i'm wOrking here." they seem to say, but you can tell they too rather be here than anywhere else.

I'm off to buy a bit of foie gras at Chelsea's market. It being impossible to find (illegal I think) in LA, i better gorge myself before i get home.

david lachapelle's vixens

Thank you Isabelle for the link to David Lachapelle's insane website .  You can lose yourself in it for sure. Click on 'celebrities' and watch your preoccupations (and your day) shrink to nothing.  

In the end, the simple portraits, as opposed to the epic scenes, are those I loved best. 

 

  

  

     

I wonder if David Lachapelle could make me look this good.  Also, does he make house calls?

Holy giggles!

I'm not clear on the source, but this was sent to my (Jewish) husband by his (jewish) lawyer today.

"In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22.  The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as informative:

 Dear Dr. Laura:

 Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law.  I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can.  When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of debate.

 I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

 1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations.  A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians.  Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

  2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7.  In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

 3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in  her period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24.  The problem is how do I tell?  I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

  4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9.  The problem is my neighbors.  They claim the odor is not pleasing to them.  Should I smite them?

  5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath.  Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death.  Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

 6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality.  I don't agree.  Can you settle this?  Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

  7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight.  I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

  8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27.  How should they die?

  9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

 10. My uncle has a farm.  He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend).  He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot.  Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

  I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I'm confident you can help.

  Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

  Your adoring fan,

 James M. Kauffman,

  Ed.D. Professor Emeritus,

  Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education

  University  of Virginia

 

 PS (It would be a damn shame if we couldn't own a Canadian)"

kitchen of the future

3 meals a day all summer,visitors galore, kids materializing at the house at all hour, usually hungry. Summer and vacations are not synonymous for us professional housewives.  I need to get myself one of those: (via web urbanist)

a stroll around Flikr

Why travel when I could be comfortable at home seeing the world through the lense of your cameras?

Greece by Nivea.

 Romania in the winter by zio. paperino

 

Somewhere where cherry trees blossom by Mirror Lake

Somewhere in Egypt by Nivea

 Pink deux chevaux by Neil Sandbach

Too Much Information (gross post)

Where have I been?  Well you're asking the wrong person.  I'll tell you when my spinning head is screwed back on. I was everywhere it seems, like a blur, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York State, planes, trains and automobiles, and a whole lot of Universities.  Our family has survived the epic college tour of 2010 and i'm thinking of having t-shirts printed out to celebrate.

We lived out of the content of three suitcases for ten days and it took the five days since we got back to make a dent in their festering content.  Three boys and one girl and ten days of accumulated stinky laundry tightly trapped in suitcases, the odor jumping at my throat like a sick jack in the box every time I zipped the suitcases open to add a bra or a pair of socks.

I can travel and I can relax but never those two at the same time, which means I saw those beautiful places and idyllic looking ivy league campuses through the bias of feet, gum and bowel discontent, my bowel soon becoming the increasing focus of my preoccupations to the exclusion of most everything else. I'm still trying to get over the trip.  Last night I had what i would call a post traumatic dream:  I was sitting on a high tech toilet with a computer screen attached that calibrated the size of my poops. 

I'll try to post some pictures (NO... NOT OF MY POOPS, OF COURSE!) in the next few days.

When you're happy and you know it

Thanks to all of you who have been leaving lovely comments lately.  For some reason they all landed in my spam folder.  I thought you were mad at me, so I was mad right back at you... I'm done with this bud-shit blogging, I said.

 

So it was a little bit embarrassing when I opened my spam folder and found all your sweet comments all tucked in and begging to be published.  It was like Christmas in June. You were not mad and it was only a silly misunderstanding, hehe...

 

 One of the hidden-then-found comments allowed me to discover artist Bridget Coux, who lives in France and paints the most precious little oil paintings.  You can buy Bridget's paintings here.  I want to own them all.  I'm particularly smitten by her use of black.

 

Bridget has a whole series of birdies eating French pastries on Flikr here.

Meanwhile, I've replaced my hour or so of commenting on your blogs with exercise.  I hope you're not mad that our relationship is turning into a one way street.  I'm exercising everyday and I feel so good about it and because of it. I've lost some weight, not much but that's because I'm gaining muscles, right?

 

Things are good here.  Very good.  Or maybe exercising is helping my mood.  It's a bizarre feeling to wake up in the middle of the night, and finding nothing to be anxious about (believe me i try). Of course there is guilt: my entire persona being defined around the guidelines of neurosis, self-doubt, struggle and confusion, I feel i should apologize for being happy.  And a nagging thought: Am i still likable when things are going my way for once?

Oh screw it...

When you're happy and you know it clap your hands!

CLAP! CLAP!

Emily Chalmers' place

I've had this page of A Beautiful Living open on my desktop for days.  This is the london loft of stylist Emily Chalmers and her husband featured in Marie Claire Maison.  I love everything about her apartment, ,not surprising since she is the woman behind one of my favorite books:  Flea market style.  Here are Emily Chalmer's website,and online shop.  I love her use of brown and wood, somehow with her it becomes romantic rather than earthy.  She can even make a peau de vache on concrete feel romantic.

 

  

 

Addicted to Rice

Rice Denmark is such a lovely company. They do things right and they do the right thing in their approach to business.   The fall catalog 'cool and cosy', which i discovered today thanks to hiccupingss, is as wonderful as ever.  I wish someone could open a rice store here in LA, so I could be closer to their products on a daily basis. Maybe I'm the one who should volunteer to do it, after all, am i not Rice's number one fan here.

 

 

 

  

 

Color, scandinavian style

I had to take a little stroll through blog land to cool off.  I feel let bitchy now.

Via Sunrise Hossegor  via fryodesign, via hus and hem

 

 

  
 

Such a bitch

Hello blog world.  I've been in the real world a little too much lately.  I've been neglecting my imaginary life.  

Right now I'm revved up because my 11 year old came back from a party with a bruise on his nose and another one on his spine the size of a hand.  I am furious.  Oh it was so much fun mom, my kid said, the Go Karts' belts were all loose and not working and they didn't even make you wear a helmet! But worse was how the mother who took him and ten other boys there thought (or acted, out of fear of being sued by me perhaps?) as though this was funny. laugh it off. take no responsibility. he will live.  let boys be boys. don't be such a pussy.

I was not smiling.  It's only funny until someone's child gets a broken neck or a concussion I told her. There was nothing i could do, she answered with flawless logic, even my own daughter was hurt.  How about not letting the kids get into the go-karts, I suggested.

I'm such a bitch, really.

Saying without saying, you know what i'm saying.

Oh yeah blogging for me is technically about lack of censorship.  But why is it then that my blog is so remote from my real life?  For example for reason of privacy I made the decision early on not to write about my family in any meaningful way, whereas in real life that's pretty much all i'm concerned with, and all i want to talk about.  

And why is it that when there either really good news, really bad news, really important news in my life I am not able to share it here? Today would be an example of that which cannot be told. Schucks.

It's saying stuff without really saying it, this blogging thing.  It's smoke and mirrors.  Multiple personality meets graphomania.

But you and I, we'll always have pictures.  Nadia of La Porte Rouge (who knows my addiction to hot pink and doesn't mind indulging it) sent me a link to Design Sponge today featuring this WowSome house:

 
 

 

 

Yum.  This was sweet and refreshing like a raspberry sorbet! 

Many more pictures of the house of Kirsten Voortman and her cute doggy on Design Sponge.

The cutest girl's dresses ever

Honestly, these dresses have got to be the most visually exciting thing I have encountered in a long time.  They are one of a kind and made with patches of vintage fabric by Mirjam of Kinchimama. You can purchase them here and on etsy.  Pictures borrowed from Etsy.

 

 

  

  

If you want to see more, Mirjam's house was featured here. I'm signing off for the week-end.  Enjoy the beautiful spring time wherever you are in the world (except you guys on austalia's side of the world where it must be fall by now I guess.. what am i saying.. whatever... Hugs.)

I have a personal trainer? Moi?

Well gals, I was Personally Trained yesterday. 

Or what is it you call it when you pay someone to make you run frantically on a a treadmill, lift 15lbs dumbells while stepping on and off a super high workout bench,when you give money to someone to make you sweat beads of fat from every pore, to make you curse, to make you spit blood..?  

I had told her I believed myself to be untrainable, but it became apparent within seconds that I was in fact begging to be bossed around.  I gave it my all as i became uncharateristically obedient.  I lifted when she said lift, jumped when she said jump, and higher, and HIGHER, and I ran when she said run. And when she said pay, i paid.  Then I thanked her profusely.

Today, predictably, i can barely lift my arms and I walk in a grotesque shuffling manner.  Yes i am in pain.  Me, in pain, from exercising. But i love it. I loved the hard work and I loved when she told me I could do it in such a supportive, confident tone. What a refreshing break from the sound of my own defeated voice.  And she was right.  I could absolutely do it.  And today I absolutely walk as though there is something stuck in my rear end. 

I was going to post pretty pictures i just found.  Adorable little dresses. But i'll save them for later.  Who would want their creations associated with that last sentence?

Canelés are the new macarons

Mover over macarons ladurée.  Get out of the way Magnolia cupcakes.   I'm making a prediction that Canelés de Bordeaux are soon to become the new sexy things to eat.  

 

I had canelés once in my life.  ONCE.  The experience was unforgettable.  Caramelly and crunchy on the outside, incomparably bouncy and goey and doughy on the inside, with a hint of rum... heaven of the mouth...drool...

 

And now, slowly but surely, Canelés are making timid debuts on American soil.  Mark my word, soon we will all be obsessed.  They are as close as San Francisco.  Do any of you know a place to get them in L.A?

 

These pictures are screen grabs from the Chow video of the canelés being made in the San Francisco Boulette's Larder.  This restaurant/ bakery makes them using the traditional method, over a few days and using copper molds.  They only make twelve a days.  You read correctly: twelve! And they are tiny. Here is the video, wear a bib while watching, seriously.

An Indian Summer

Put on your sunglasses, because i don't have liability insurance for burnt retinas.  An Indian Summer is a fabulous blog I used to read all the time, and then somehow lost track of.  But today i did a little visit, much cheaper than a round trip ticket to India, and I came back just as inspired.  COLOR!  Warm, rich, incandescent, over the top, joyous COLOR! Why are we so shy about color in our culture? 

 

 

    

all images via An Indian Summer, so give the blog a visit for picture credits. (the first few are from Elle decor India)

The best shape of my life

Today I did something very unplanned and uncharacteristic:  I hired a personal trainer!  I can't believe I'm writing those words.  A p.. a p-p-p personal trainer?  me!? Do you know what I think of women who have personal trainers?  Those affluent dilettantes, those vain, insipid, insecure.... well whatever, i am now one of them.

It was very spur of the moment.  I was at the gym, moping terribly.  I had driven there and wanted to turn right back home.  I was discouraged.. and they had a deal... and, and... and there was a smoking hot black young personal trainer who.. that... but I did not chose him, no.  I did not think my husband would think it very nice of me if I did.  Instead I hired this darling 20 year old girl with a great laugh and energy.

She asked me what my goals were.  I said I was weak and flabby and lazy and I wanted to turn things around and be in the Best Shape of my Life by the time I turned 45.

So basically, you have 24 hours, i told her.

Happy things

It's SO springtime.  75 degrees ya'all. Roses in full bloom (i should take pictures), I exercised every day this week!  I'm trying to do healthy things for myself.  I'm trying --really hard-- to get back to healthy and happy.  Happy is my natural state, I've decided.  No sense letting  things over which i have no control, such as the oil spill catastrophe, the insanity in Arizona,  or my son's grade in math get the best out of me

.... oooo moan...... just mentioning this and i feel the corner of my mouth droop.  But I musn't.  Happy, springy, happy!!!!

     

Pretty birds, make me happy.  Especially the kind that doesn't steal all the grass seeds.  Oh, and a close look reveals blue elephants thrown in the mix.  Blue elephants make me happy, always.

rie larsen
 
 
A rose-painted floor and see-through chairs, definitely make me happy. Via ada and darcy. 

and this little marvel of poetic stitching from 39 squares .  How adorable.  Happy weekend to all of you.

Hate on Facebook

Did you hear?  Did you read?  Chilling. There is a facebook page for people who pray for the death of my darling President, so far counting over a million members?  The Huffington Post has an an article about it today.  

I'm not too good at praying, it scares me, somehow. Nevertheless, I have a quasi-superstitious belief in the power of prayer, and this is WAY too much people-power at work.

I'm not even going to start pondering about the macabre irony of praying for someone's death,  but I am going to encourage anyone who will listen to join this facebook group, which calls for the removal of the hate-filled Facebook group.

But even if the facebook page is removed, those people will still be praying away, right?  What we need is a Pray for Obama page.  Is there one yet?  The man needs it. It might cancel the other one out.

And here:  found this on a comment to Huffington post and thought it was cool:

 

The six-foot flame dancing on top of my head

After my time of the month (which is turning more and more into a bimonthly time of the month) I take iron for anemia, and excedrin for headaches.  The combo gives me night-time heartburns.  Ulcer! I think. But ulcer for what?  Ulcer because I am frantic and not accomplishing enough? Or worse yet: I could be the first person ever to develop an ulcer caused by a lack of entitlement to an ulcer.  THOSE ARE NOT REAL PROBLEMS, I tell myself, so shut your trap and relax. 

My husband is much sweeter about it.  He holds me in his arms, even in the middle of the night when he feels me toss and turn and tells me. Relaax... everything is Okayyy, everything is Gooood.  Once he tells me this i feel better, because i believe him more than i believe the voices in my head. 

But I don't want to mess with his sleep, so most nights are crippled with dread and powerless and feeling every ounce of the weight of that powerlessness.  I do crazy things at night, such as walking into my teenage son's room and feeling for his body in bed because I did not hear him come home. When I realize he is home, I get the most beathtaking sense of relief, because the possibility of having lost him suddenly seemed so possible. Everything terrible seems more likely at night. Have you been there? in the dark, at night, freaking out?

Last night, it was three in the morning and I woke up in dread and fright, sweaty, anguished, panicked and with heartburn flare ups so bad you'd think I'd had a nightcap of equal parts of draino and 409. I searched far and wide for reasons I should feel this way.  Money?  Schools? Health? Turning 45 in a week? Career? World Hunger? Those few books on end of the world i've been reading? I tip toed to my computer and started reading the blog of Zen Buddhist Priest Karen maezen Miller.

And I suddenly saw things for that they were:  There are no reasons for my dread.  Sure I can squint and look and give you a thousand reasons for it, but the reason for my dread is that there is a six-foot flame dancing on top of my head. 

Here is a quote from the book hand wash cold. by Karen maezen Miller: 

"We might be drawn to meditation because we want more out of life and ourselves. We might want to be more centered, for example. More peaceful. More focused. More balanced. More patient. More mellow. More wise. More like my ex-boyfriend who liked to meditate.

These may be all the reasons we are drawn to meditation, but they are not the reasons we meditate. We meditate because there is a six-foot flame dancing on top of our heads. It has made us mighty uncomfortable for quite some time up there. We try to pretend otherwise, but have you noticed? We have a fire on our heads! It keeps crossing the containment lines! The temperature shoots up and we prance about, panicked, frantic, holding our breath lest we stoke the inferno, but it rages anyway. About the time our eyebrows singe, we might heed the call of rescue."

So here is what i did last night: I wrapped myself in a blanket, sat on the couch in the dark, and started breathing, slowly in and out of my nose, counting my breaths.