I can explain....

KISS from a stranger

2006-10-23T13:20:00.000Z

While I have read a trio of books by writers on writing this past month while soaking in the tub a couple times a week, ( the only place I aalow myself to induldge myself lately), trying to keep at least my head in the game. One reminded me to basically --- Keep it simple stupid.

“How about if you concentrate
on simply putting one word
after the next until you finish your story.”

Janet Evanovich ~ How I Write

Yep, that about sums it up. Thanks for the smack to the back of my head Ms. Evanovich, point very much taken.

*sigh*

The weekend's food recap will be posted soon along with an interesting recent developement.

If it’s Monday …

2006-10-16T14:04:00.000Z

It must be food! (Thanks to everyone for NOT pointing out that last Monday’s food pics were a bit on the, erm, lite? side. Long story short – no comment.)

So I tried something a little different this past week, I planned a bit ahead in the meals department. I normally do, but this time I took it one step further and did some of the cooking and prep work ahead of time on Friday.

It worked out pretty well, allowing me more time to be relaxed in the short space that is our weekends.

And a beautiful weekend it was, frosty nights and fairly warm, very sunny days, just the way I like them.

Saturday morning Hubster arrived after stopping downtown to pick up bagels for our breakfast. He and I had ours toasted with my homemade roasted garlic hummus, Swiss, tomatoes, arugala and red onion. Boy Wonder had both of his toasted, one with cream cheese blended with chopped jalapenos and black olives and the other with just the chopped black olives and jalapenos, tomatoes and Swiss.

Boy Wonder worked until nine PM so Hubster and I had a late lunch. Me; leftover carrot, potato, ginger cream soup and Hubster had some skinless chicken thighs that I grilled and seasoned along with the boneless chicken breasts I grilled for the chicken pot pie. They are seasoned quite simply with a drizzle of olive oil, kosher salt, cracked pepper and curry powder. Simple and tasty.

I usually load up the whole grill to have it on hand in the fridge for snacks, sandwiches and to put on salads.

After we were shocked by the appearance of Charlie Parker who had been MIA for three weeks, (he ate and then slept for three hours!) we had chicken potpie when Boy Wonder returned from work and watched the movie, Thank You for Smoking, terribly politically incorrect and VERY funny.

I start by following the recipe in the Betty Crocker cookbook and tweak it to my liking. My mother always added a small jar of pimentos so I added some chopped bits of the yellow, red and orange peepers I had roasted as well as some roasted garlic. Because what doesn’t taste better with roasted garlic? I made BW his own smaller pie because he likes his with broccoli and chicken only and the Hubster and I had the traditional, carrots and baby peas in ours.

We skipped dessert because it was so late and we were so full but that turned out okay as we had Saturday’s dessert for Sunday breakfast! I had made a bread and butter pudding on Friday from a recipe that I got from, The Take Home Chef, ‘s website.

It was made using croissants, which I bought from Dunkin Donuts, and I tweaked the custard by adding cinnamon, nutmeg and orange extract. I also used dried cranberries instead of raisins. I knew as I was following his recipe that there was way too much custard in comparison to the bread and ended up with baking a dish of plain custard in the oven alongside the bread pudding --- but who’s going cry over extra custard? Um, NOT me.

The bread pudding was topped with a rich brandy sauce to which I added fresh ground nutmeg and it tasted quite like this elusive sauce my Great grandmother use to serve on her apple dumplings. Thanks Grandma Nelson!

This bread pudding should come with a health warning. (Or as William H. Macy would prefer; a skull and crossbones! See that movie.) It uses nine whole eggs and nine additional egg yolks along with 3 cups of heavy cream and three cups of whole milk.

The brandy sauce only used four egg yolks.

But just in case we were not taxing our arteries and heart enough, I cooked up a pound of bacon to go with it!

To counter the effects of breakfast, at least psychologically, BW and I had salads with feta, and tuna. Hubster ran efficiently on nothing but bread pudding until dinnertime.

Dinner was the New England Pot-Roast I made on Friday and it hit all the right comfort zones on the way down. Betty Crocker got that one right and needs no further tweaking at all. If you haven’t made a pot-roast which includes rubbing the roast with an entire jar of good horseradish after browning it and before roasting --- you must try it.

After dinner we watched some television and found the most amazing thing by accident. On HBO they were broadcasting a boxing match that had been fought earlier in the day in Manchester England. Joe Calzaghe vs. Sakio Bika.

I haven’t had this much fun watching boxing in forever. We were shouting, laughing and the twelve rounds just flew by.

Calzaghe is a ballsy, showman with hands like lightning. As BW says, American boxing right now is like watching junior high kids slow dance. Lots of hugging and rocking that never leads anywhere. Bika was a bit of a dirty fighter but it just added to the excitement and Calzaghe took it in stride and adjusted his fight instead of going for the sympathy and whining we often see.

Calzaghe has been fighting for nine years and at 35, holds a record of 42 wins, (31 by KO) no losses and the World Super Middleweight Championship Belt.

He is looking to fight Bernard Hopkins who is currently retired but considering fighting again. He said he would gladly travel to the states for the fight and we would gladly cheer him on. BW and I will be following closely and if that fight happens we are so there!

2006 Dawn Marie Kelly all rights reserved

Is her head supposed to spin around like that?

2006-10-06T14:14:00.001Z

Packing up a house that you’ve lived in for eleven years, really makes you confront all manner of demons.

Especially if you spent some of those years going through the break-up of a marriage, a divorce, re-finding yourself, a new partner and marriage.

It’s too late for me but might I suggest for anyone else out there who might do this sort of thing at a later date, do not do this without the aid of a trained professional!

I know I tend to exaggerate on occasion. Right. Fine. At every opportunity, but I am dead on serious with this bit of advice, trust me.

Sixty-four years from now when I leave this earth, the Boy Wonder will need the help of an exorcist to go through all my crap because I am NEVER moving again.

Another observation.

Over these last six years since the Hubster arrived we have rented dumpsters/skips at least four times and filled them to capacity and had them hauled away.

The amount of crap that I am hauling to the dump during this process is astounding. Add to that the bags of clothes I’ve donated and the bins of stuff going into a yard sale and I have only one thought --- why the fuck do we have so much stuff?

I am now convinced that attics, garages and basements are the devils work. You don’t have to actually deal with anything. Just shove it into a box and put it aside to be promptly forgotten.

On a sunny note, I found an Amazon Rewards Certificate for $25 that hasn’t expired yet.

Yay for me!

And just so you know that I haven’t completely lost touch with the outside world --- Damn, this whole Foley fiasco is pissing me right the hell off!

2006 ~ Dawn Marie Kelly~ all rights reserved

Sawdust, cooking, sex and dancing in the dark

2006-10-02T15:13:00.000Z

We are all so painfully aware of the constant whinging I do about the stress of this relocation business, but please also understand that I fully get that I put the stress on myself.

Hi, I’m Dawn and I have totally surrendered my power over to the situational black comedy that is my life. Now where are the damn donuts?

While awaiting delivery of said, (evil but delicious) donuts let’s go over a couple of my latest self-crazy observations shall we?

Oh please, stop rolling your eyes; you know you enjoy every bloody minute of the irrational chaos I create for myself. If for no other reason, it makes you feel better about yourself. And I’m okay with that, we all have our special gifts and this one is mine, so relax and enjoy the show.

And have a donut, that way you can at least smugly say that you are saving me from my inner obese self.

As if it hasn’t been hard enough these past two years with The Hubster living and working in NY six days a week and trying to fit in all our intimacy and coupling in a brief 38 hours --- eight to ten of those spent sleeping, now we have all this, packing, tossing, painting, sanding, windows out, windows in, shutters on, flowers out, flowers in, business on top of it.

So with all we are doing to prepare to put the house on market, that pretty much gives us two hours on Saturday night for dinner and, erm, um, stuff and two hours Sunday morning over bagels, coffee and e-mail, to confirm our couple ness.

My awkward contribution revolves around food and making sure the house is spotless and ready for the next step of the teardown, rebuild assault project on the list.

Yes, I fully get how idiotic it is to clean on Friday before the assault and then spend Monday cleaning the remains of the assault’s mess, but I digress as this is supposed to be about the mess I create in between.

So there I am doing my best impression of the perfect wife while I have The Hubster in audience; cooking, bringing tea and snacks, cooking, folding laundry, cooking and cleaning the kitchen every two minutes because of All THE BLOODY COOKING! All while wearing some flattering outfit for Hubster’s benefit and trying not to cover it in food and sludge.

When we finally sit down to dinner on Saturday night I am ready to talk about all those things that have been ruminating inside my blonde head all week and are now ready to be released with the help of the requisite bottle of red wine.

I am sure it would be better served if they didn’t all run together in a hyper escalated blur, but there you have it and major props to The Hubster for at least trying to keep up.

But in the middle of the madness sometimes for no apparent reason like this week, we end up dancing and I cannot for the life of me allow myself to be led. So again, major props go to The Hubster for allowing me to lead, (I know no real dancing with stars dances) and again, for at least trying to keep up.

And woman friends, let it be said --- Never underestimate the worth of a man who finds your silliness as equally as attractive as the rest of you. It the most liberating thing I know.

Since cooking really is the most Zen-full thing I do, as it only comes out right if I completely surrender myself over to it, kind of like sex, I’ve decided that I will share the weekend’s efforts --- the cooking, not the sex you pervs! --- with you all on Mondays.

And since this just came to me today – starting next week, I’ll include pictures.

Saturday’s dinner was clam sauce over pasta --- simple, yet incredibly yummy and satisfying.

Sunday morning, bagels brought in and piled with my homemade roasted garlic hummus, red onion, arugula, tomatoes and Swiss cheese.

All day Saturday and night, I had 5 lbs of sweet onions caramelizing in the crock-pot and made a batch of French Onion soup for lunch on Sunday. I did cheat and have The Hubster bring in a bakery loaf of rye to float on top of the soup and beneath the bubbling Swiss cheese. Still --- Very yum!

Of course, sometimes, like this weekend, I run out of steam, call a pass and order in Sunday night.

It had been a while since we had ordered in from our fab fave Thai place and somewhere between the steamed dumplings and red curry I let the guilt of not cooking slip away.

Happy Monday everyone!

2006 Dawn Marie Kelly all rights reserved

Photo Credits go to The Boy Wonder this week!

Sometimes the Mourning Comes before the Death

2006-09-28T22:24:00.000Z

Is it me, or is the world more loony tunes than usual lately?

What happened in Colorado yesterday gets scarier the more the facts emerge and then today in Florida, more madness and a gunman still on the loose.

Then there’s good old Keene.

I’ve have become even more loathe to venture outside my own doors. I only go out maybe twice a week to run a couple errands and I try to be sure to write them all down and organize the trip for maximum efficiency and least amount of travel.

Seriously, this town has become a nightmare to be out and about in so I stay home.

When I first moved to Keene it was undergoing a makeover on its main street. They added a tree lined center meridian, wide sidewalks and renovated and celebrated the old brick storefronts. They lowered rents in order to attract privately owned clothing boutiques, coffee houses and the like. Restaurants could get permits to have small tables outside.

New annual events were nurtured to bring families down at every chance. The art on main festival, Pumpkin Fest, First Night and music festival as well as the tree lighting ceremony every year the day after Thanksgiving. They renovated the old Colonial Theatre and have a full roster of events to choose from starting in September through April.

It was lovely and focused and flourishing. Until the last four years. Somehow, the good old boys on the council lost their focus and added the Home Depot, Target, Price Chopper, Olive Garden, Longhorn Steak House, Chili’s, Party Palace, Michael’s Crafts, Pier One, Bed, Bath and Beyond and the Border’s Book Store.

The Pumpkin and music fest live on and the shows at the Colonial haven’t changed in three years.

While they had us distracted with all that hoopla in the middle of the wetlands that is just beyond my neighborhood, they were moving in three new corporations on the outskirts of town just to the north.

The traffic in town has exploded and people are angry. It seems everyone driving in this town are pissed off and hold a grudge against everyone else. I try to time my trips for just after everyone gets to work and school and before people start taking lunch breaks.

How sad is that?

No one knows anyone anymore but more disturbingly; nobody seems to want to know anybody anymore.

I use to describe Keene as a small city that feels like a town. Now, it just feels like a small city. It’s lost its community and become a cold place.

Maybe in time the neighborhoods will develop their own little communities the way big cities do, but for now, all sense of community is gone and I am very saddened by it.

Saddened to know that what I will miss most about Keene when I move to NY had already left before me.

The good news?

There’s a community in NY who can’t wait for us to get there. Talk of shared trails for ATV’s, snowmobiles and horses, bartering for goods and services has already begun and we aren’t even there yet.

Yep, this move has got me tied up in knots of stress that sometimes stills my waters but I feel the winds of change and it’s very refreshing.

Of course, making sure the liqueur cabinet is well stocked at all times helps too.

2006 Dawn Marie Kelly all rights reserved

Bath Re-do-Doo

Guess who’s back, back again …

2006-09-24T12:59:00.000Z

ANGEL’S BACK! Tell your friends.

Okay, so I truly wish I could tell you all, (all three of you), that I was off on an opulent and grand adventure that was not to be missed. If that were true, I probably wouldn’t have been able to not blog about it.

Or perhaps I took a planned sabbatical that I forgot to tell you all about and then while being so incredibly engrossed in said sabbatical that I completely stopped reading all blogs in general, let alone actually write in my own, BUT, alas as I bring a very lengthy and somehow worthy run-on sentence to a close, that is unfortunately, not the case.

If I then told you that I have spent this last six weeks vacillating between packing, paint ready-ing, panicking and rocking back and forth naked in a corner whilst sucking my thumb, would you believe me?

Well, good on you. You know me all too well then.

Anyway, that being said, I am back.

Keep your browsers tuned to this same bat station as I have a gagillion things that have been eating at my tiny blonde brain and giving my dark roots a massive headache.

It is in fact, good to be Queen.

Chipmunks & Groundhogs & Possums -- Oh MY!

2006-08-09T15:41:00.001Z

Thanks, comes in many forms, other than the obvious word or words of course.

Sometimes you go about doing the things you do without any thought of getting a thanks, take Charlie for instance. Charlie Parker, a stray cat who came around singing at night about two months ago.

I named him Charlie Parker because he is surprisingly similar to a cat that went missing on us two years ago this month, Miles Davis. (Beginning to sense a theme here?) Miles came to us as a stray as well. When I was still occupying a cubicle at the Insurance Agency, he turned up outside the building, a gangly teenager, on a Friday afternoon.

He spent the day sleeping in the accountant’s area and we had nearly convinced the owner that we should keep him to help with the mice issue in the basement where the long-term file storage was kept.

Yes, archaic sounding I know, and we all hated going down there, flashlights in hand to pull old files, trying not to notice the scurrying sounds in the corners of the dirt floors.

Oh yeah, I miss that place --- like a pair of jeans that are two sizes too small on a fully booked, cross-Atlantic plane ride. Not that I really know how that feels or anything.

Miles finally woke up from sleeping off the trauma of his being lost in the big world, stretched, yawned and proceeded to walk the length of the entire first floor and into the owner’s office. And shat on one of the files he had piled on his floor.

So there was now NO chance that he had a place to call home at the agency, mice or no mice. “Come five o’clock that cat is back on the street if he’s still in this building!”

It’s a small agency with fewer than 20 people in the building and while everyone was concerned, no one was willing to take him home. Including myself who already had two cats and two dogs.

As it got closer to five and I thought about him being back out on his own with all the traffic on that road, I gave in and called home.

“ Is this where I’m supposed to talk you out of it like when you called about Stinker?” (Way too long a story that!), asked the Hubster.

“Good try, but no, I won’t be able to sleep if I know he’s on the streets alone.”

So home he came.

I named him Miles Davis because he had a surly attitude and a soul patch of grey fur under his chin. It suited him.

When Charlie started coming round he shocked us all with how much he looked like Miles, in coloring as well as having a big head, minus the soul patch and what seem like chubby cheeks. If cats can indeed have such things, as chubby cheeks.

I of course added Charlie to the list of critters that get fed on my front stoop in the evenings.

You know, the skunks, possums and the occasional raccoon.

What?

You don’t feed the critters around your place?

Yeah, my neighbors think I’m whacked as well, so don’t tell them about Varmint Poo Tang, the ground hog that’s been living in the back gardens since last summer.

They all have their place. Mr Poo Tang eats the weeds around the crab apple tree. The chipmunk that lives under the garden shed cleans up the seed the birds spill onto the back deck from the feeder and the skunks; well they are the cutest, most polite little guests of all.

So now Charlie shows up every night between 7:30 and 9 PM depending on his mood and the weather and sits at the front door until I feed him.

I talk to him through the window while I get his food scooped and when I open the door he greets me with squinty eyes and a hiss while leaning in to stick his nose in the food scoop as I pour into the dish.

Then I talk to him a little more while he eats and he returns with low growls in my general direction.

I do wish I could get close enough to stroke his fur or at least apply some flea and tick juice to his back but he’s having none of it so I make do with talking to him in soothing tones and hope that I will eventually where him down. Hell, I have even resorted to petting Ozzy, Lucy and Ichy in front of him so he can see that they survive it.

Then again, I have no way of knowing just how long he’s been out there on his own or where he was previous to that. For now our relationship remains highly dysfunctional and reminds me of my stepfather at the dinner table. That tells you so much about me …

I’ve told Charlie that he doesn’t have to like me but he might want to pretend to tolerate me long enough to relocate to NY with us and become head barn cat as the other three cats are lazy, indoor sloths.

Over the weeks our doomed relationship has remained stagnant as I do my best to gain the affections of this bad boy. Oh, except for the time I so stupidly came at his head with my hand from above while he had his head down eating, thinking I could sneak a scratch in and was promptly rewarded with a scratch of my own.

He’s like a boyfriend I had in my 20s. Not very predictable, worries me when he doesn’t show up some nights and then doesn’t return the love when he is around.

Or does he?

The last time I went away for the weekend, there was no one to feed him for two nights. When I got back Sunday night, I opened the door to put food out and found this.

Oh Charlie. You love me; you really, really love me!

Eat your heart out Sally Field.

2006 ~ Dawn Marie Kelly~ All Rights Reserved

Passion of the Vice

2006-07-31T14:37:00.000Z

When is an apology not good enough?

I guess the answer to that is subjective.

I am having a hard time swallowing Mel Gibson’s apology for the mess he found himself in this past weekend.

The vat of shit he landed in was deep, wide and provided by no one other than himself.

• Driving drunk at an excessive speed, putting himself and anyone else in his path at great risk.
• Spouting a tirade of anti-Semitic declarations.
• Sexually demeaning name-calling of female officers and declaring he would f*** a deputy who was doing his job.
• And that ever-classic move of believing that who he is and his money are above the law and saying so. Out. Loud.

You can read all about it here.

We all battle our own inner demons that are implanted in us when we are children. ALL of us and those of you out there, who believe that you have none, are kidding no one but your selves. You’ve got them and they are affecting you and everyone around you, probably more so than those of us that introduce our demons readily to anyone close to us.

How can that be? Well, when we are honest and open about our demons then we give those close to us the opportunity to realize that maybe it really is us and not them. Not a built in excuse for either side mind you, but another angle at which to look at and work through a situation.

Hi, I’m Dawn and this is my dysfunction/demon.

I may still, from time to time, like to think that I can dress my dysfunction up in pretty clothes and disguise it or shove it into a closet and pretend it doesn’t exist but that usually results in some horribly gone wrong event where my dysfunction throws a demonic temper tantrum and will not be denied.

How big that tantrum is depends on how much is being pushed down and unacknowledged.

Of course when I fall in my shit, it doesn’t make the news. Thank goddess for small favors.

Should we blame Mel’s mess on the alcohol?

No. Full stop.

Alcohol doesn’t turn people into different people. It releases the binds that keep our inner censors in check.

Unless we believe that some other entity was in fact speaking through Mel, (call in the exorcist!), the awful things that came out of his mouth were indeed his alone.

Somewhere deep down where he kept them shoved and hidden they survived and bided their time waiting for a chance to rush to the surface and be known.

That chance came in the form of too may drinks.

So all that apology means to me is that he’s sorry that we caught a glimpse into how he really feels about certain things and people.

For me, everything he says he is and believes in, in his sober state, will be discredited.

Russell Crowe is an ass. But I’ll give him this, he’s an ass right in our face and we are not surprised by it in the least.

Embrace your inner ass Mel, your glass house has been shattered.

2006 ~ Dawn Marie Kelly ~ all rights reserved

Tomorrow People --- How Long Will We Last?

2006-07-21T13:55:00.000Z

Past or future?

It comes down to which is more important.

That’s the question and the answer is unquestionably --- FUTURE!

The past is, of course, important, but insignificantly so compared to the future.

We need to know our past, own it, learn from it and then move away from it towards the future. With the faith and confidence that what we learned from the past will make the future different, better.

People invest in things called futures, on Wall Street--- there is not one thing you can invest in called, pasts, on Wall Street. The brains doesn’t even know how to wrap itself around that concept.

What are we investing in?

That 13.2 acres on Sinsabaugh Road is our future. We need to own it and I’m not talking about owning on paper and with money, loans etc... I mean in our hearts and souls.

We are being wishy washy and not taking control.
The universe can NOT read and fulfill wishy washy pictures. It needs clear, concise pictures in which to work with.

My point and yes I actually have one, shock-horror, is this:

The Hoosier— is my past. I no longer need it. It was bought with dreams and expectations put upon it that never quite blossomed. They had to do with my past life and a much younger Derek. That time is past and I don’t need a reminder of what didn’t happen.

When I picture making Christmas cookies, breads and all with our grandchildren I see a long ,rustic table covered in flour and too many bowls and utensils. I see that table being accessed on all sides by whomever wants to join in for a minute or the duration. Those watching and those participating.

An open welcoming expanse that is attacked with joy and without boundaries.

The Hoosier is a finite space. A private niche who’s time is past. It contains more bad karma than good and I want to let that go.

There must be so much more around here that we should do the same with.

One can’t move forward while still having one foot chained to the unfulfilled past.

I want to move forward.

Will you come with me?

Yes, bazillions of insects and all.

ZIGGY MARLEY
Tomorrow People

Tomorrow people, where is your past?
Tomorrow people, how long will you last?
Tomorrow people, where is your past?
Tomorrow people, how long will you last?

Today you say you deyah
Tomorrow you say you're gone
But you're gone so long
If there is no love in your heart - so sorry
Then there is no hope for you - true, true

Tomorrow people, where is your past?
Tomorrow people, how long will you last?
Tomorrow people, where is your past?
Tomorrow people, how long will you last?

So you're in the air
But you still don't have a thing to spare
You're flying high
While we're on the low o-o-oh

Tomorrow people, where is your past?
Tomorrow people, how long will you last? Tell me now
Tomorrow people, where is your past? No where
Tomorrow people, how long will you last? Ten years!

Stop tellin' me the same story
Today you say you deyah
Tomorrow you say you're gone and you're not coming back
If there is no love in your heart oh now
There will never be hope for you

Tomorrow people, where is your past?
Tomorrow people, how long will you last? Ten years!
Tomorrow people, where is your past?
Tomorrow people, tomorrow people, come on
Tomorrow people, tomorrow people, come on
Tomorrow people, tomorrow people, no soon come
Tomorrow people, tomorrow people, soon come
Tomorrow people, tomorrow people, today is here

If you don't know your past, you don't know your future
Everyone
Don't know your past, don't know your future everyman
Don't know your past, don't know your future, come on
Don't know your past, don't know your future

How many nations
How many people did that one catch
How many nations did that one catch
Don't know past, don't know your future
Don't know past, don't know your future

Alone again, naturally.

2006-07-13T23:08:00.000Z

I am tired. Bone tired. The kind of tired where there is no amount of sleep that takes the edge off, tired.

We have been moving towards this move, (see, tired), for so long that I can’t really believe it’s all happening. Seemingly fast and of it’s own accord. Or maybe not, since if it were, I probably wouldn’t be so bloody … wait for it … TIRED.

Let’s go back to The Hubster’s hiatus. No really, can we? This Sunday he headed back to NY after we had spent four whole weeks together. Mind you most of it was covered in sweat and dirt and mulch and then there were the times we were doing massive amounts of garden work. (See what I just did there? How I slyly made a reference to what you were thinking was yard work and then made it all seem … seemly and dirty and then I confused you and threw in garden work and now you don’t know where the garden work ends and the sex begins. Yes, sex. We are married after all.) That night after he left I didn’t sleep very well at all.

Took me forever to fall asleep and then I had a series of nightmares with one of them ending when I woke myself up yelling for the Boy Wonder to dial 911. Thank goodness he never heard me. I haven’t remembered a dream in months let alone had any nightmares. Although, if I had really needed BW to dial 911, I wouldn’t have fared very well I guess. Small blessing that every time I woke and I reached for Ozzy’s furriness, he was there every time. First time he’d slept on the bed since Hubster arrived home.

What a four weeks it was. Despite all the hard work we managed to do the little things that we miss out on during the other 11 months a year. Go out for coffee in the morning and plan the day, break for lunch together and then after getting things and ourselves cleaned up every night, we’d sit down to a fabulous meal and a good bottle of wine. Most every lunch and dinner was had on the back deck and conversation lasted into the night until the bugs braved past the Tiki torches and drove us inside.

Yup, it’s been a long two years of this married but alone 6 days a week, eleven months a year. Good thing I’m nearly 45 because at 25 this would have worked for about 23 seconds.

So we are more than ready for the move and when an offer was accepted on the acreage we’ve been dreaming about for the last six months I was elated. For two minutes. Then I went directly forward to the next six things that could go terribly wrong. Why? Because I am special that way. Deal with it, I have to.

I’m looking at another sleepless night tonight. Tomorrow I head to NY and meet with the bank that’s going to process the land loan and then later that afternoon we are having the closing on our home equity loan to cover the %25 down required for the land loan. Then we will be paying two mortgages between now and when we sell the house.

I need to get my hands on a Timber Frame builder as soon as the loans are both all set. See, we are going to live in the second story apartment I’ve designed while we take our time building the farmhouse up on the hill and we can get started right in with the horses, chickens, sheep and beef. I have absolutely no idea how long the process of getting the two story post and beam barn built and we can move in will take.

The good news? We can live in the crew house between the time the house sells and we can move into the barn. If living with two camera guys, the three of us, our four cats and one dog is good news.

I need to take another little nap.

2006 Dawn Marie Kelly ~ all rights reserved

Part 2 - I may be blonde but I'm not all together ... er, all together

2006-06-22T20:18:00.000Z

Okay, so where were we when we were so rudely interrupted by an onslaught of gardening and at last count – 14 yards of mulch being moved around our gardens, front, side and back.

Did you know knees sweat? I didn’t either, but they apparently do.

So yeah, I shoplifted. No one caught me, no one inquired where these things were coming from at home and eventually the guilt got to be too much and it just wasn’t fun any more. So I stopped.

The only reason I started in the first place was because a friend dared me to. I didn’t have the now famous, “Winona Ryder”, syndrome of taking things and mass denial when caught. Wouldn’t you have more respect for her if she had just stood up and admitted she had some psychological flaw that she just couldn’t help herself, but she’s sorry and is seeking help? I would have.

Here’s the thing though. Without help or incarceration she will be out there still unable to stop herself from doing it. However, no young girls will be missing and turn up dead and buried in Winona’s back garden.

Which brings us to Marc Dutroux, a 47-year-old Belgian pedophile. I’m using him only so we don’t forget that this is not a problem that is ours alone here in the States.

In 1989 Dutoux was convicted of raping and abusing five young girls and was sentenced to 13 years but was released in 1992 on good behavior.

Um, well yeah, because there are NO young girls to abuse in prison for him to pray on.

Oy. Who makes these decisions?

Shortly after his release, young girls began to disappear from nearby neighborhoods where Dutroux owned houses.

In August of 1996 two girls, ages 12 and 14 were found alive in the basement dungeun of on of Dutroux’s houses. They had both been raped repeatedly. One of the girls had been held for 80 days while the other had been there for 6 days and they were the lucky ones.

They found the bodies of two eight year olds buried in the back garden of one house and the bodies of two more girls ages, 17 and 19, buried in the back garden of another house.
The older girls were repeatedly raped and beaten before they were drugged and buried alive.

Vanity Fair published an interview with actress Teri Hatcher in their April 2006 issue. She had recently published her first book, Burnt Toast, and in it revealed that she had been repeatedly molested by a trusted uncle from the age of five, until she was around eight or nine. She never told anyone until she heard about a 14 year old who put a gun to her head in 2002 and left behind a note identifying the same man as her molester.

If not for Teri’s testimony the man would still be free and would have happily moved on to his next young victim.

Recently, Mark Hayward published an article in the Manchester, NH, Union Leader about the studies that have been done to assess the risk of sex offenders repeating their crimes. He found that the studies that have been done often contradict each other in their findings.

In the article, New Hampshire State Representative, David Welch, is quoted as saying,
“… about one in 30 sex offenders are predators that society has to be very concerned about.”

Well, if we do the math with the previously cited 563,000 registered sex offenders, that works out to be 18,767 highly dangerous known sex offenders out on our streets. Divided by 50 states, that’s 375 per state in the union. In our towns. Your neighborhoods.

Are you scared for your children yet?

Well then, did you know that a judge in Lincoln, Nebraska, just last month, chose to sentence a convicted sex offender to probation instead of jail time because the man was 5-foot-one?

10 years probation instead of 10 years behind bars because the man is short and the judge thought he’d be at risk from the larger inmates.

Hold up. Didn’t this man use his size to dominate, terrify and violate his young victims?

Yeah. I thought so.

So that judge decided that this man’s welfare and risk of bodily harm in prison was more important that the risk of the young girls he preys on and their bodily harm and – tad da -- he is on the streets, free.

Are you more than pissed off yet?

I am. So forgive me if I think we have better things to be fighting for in this country other than banning gay marriage and petitioning for the removal of harmless Macy’s window displays that are supporting the tolerance of gays in our society.

Gay couples who are working for a living and paying taxes just like you and me. Gay couples who are willing to adopt the cast off children of our society and raise them in loving, safe, albeit differing environments than you may know as, “normal”.

©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.

Once upon some Moo-Doo

2006-06-15T21:18:00.000Z

I know, this was supposed to be the follow up to last weeks post.

Just when I thought I had my thoughts in a row, enter The Hubster with breaking news from the BBC website about a Marc Dutroux from Belgium. And that just complicated everything. I now have several back articles that I am researching and re-approaching this second installment.

So when you’ve reached your personal level of repulsion about what people on this earth are capable of, enter Marc Dutroux.

Meanwhile, The Hubster is home for only four short weeks and we are going at full speed trying to get all of the, “House for Sale”, preparations done and dusted.

We started outside. The front garden had become overgrown and crowded over the past couple years and needed to be beat back into shape. Except that at the end of the day, I was the one who felt like I had been beaten.

Hubster dug and pulled out sections of the front hedges with his beastly truck so we can add fence section to open the front of the house to the street and up the curb appeal. I weeded and thinned until I could no longer put my fingers together and pull any more.

We dug up and moved a couple monster sized hostas and a six-foot high cherry shrub thingy and relocated them into the back garden along with the hedges we pulled from the front.

There is still more work to be done, but wow are we impressed with ourselves so far.

And no, that is not a circus tent in the front garden. That’s the world’s largest sun hat that the Hubster bought his little Angel who is prone to having bits surgically removed due to the sun’s toll.

One last note – The Boy Wonder will be starting a strength training/resistance class for janitors next week, it fills up quickly, so sign up now!

©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.

I may be blonde but I'm not all together ... er, all together

2006-06-09T14:30:00.000Z

While I am the first person to yell, “Blonde!” in self-defense, (yes, even I have my dirty little secrets) I have to claim mass, (MA) confusion on what follows.

The good news – the Senate actually rejected Bush’s proposal of a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriages.

The bad news – they voted it down by a final tally of 49-48.

Not all that comforting is it? If you want to see how they voted, click here.

More good news – the Boston Macy’s store located at Downtown crossing dedicated a window display in support of the Boston’s Pride chapter and Boston Pride 2006. It was designed in collaboration with the Boston Pride Committee.

More bad news – After much harassment from the anti-gay organization, Article 8, Macy’s decided to pull the mannequins from the display.

Not good enough and on Article 8’s website the group says, “Your voices are starting to be heard loud and clear," the group’s website states, "and Macy’s is starting to back down. But they still don’t get it on their public support of a week of rather raunchy homosexual activity.”

Where are the gay groups rising up against the raunchy heterosexual activity that happens daily at organized sports events, construction sites and in every bar, restaurant, pub where heterosexual, (not to mention homophobic) males have consumed more than 2.5 alcoholic beverages?

I can only speak from my own experience, but I have been fair game for wolf cries and obscenities veiled as come on lines since I was 14.
Where were/are the activists rushing to save me from depravity?

Mind you, I have NEVER had a, or a group of, lesbians cat call at me or try recruiting me on a public or private level.

If I find myself in the unthinkable position of testifying against a man who raped me, I will actually find myself defending myself. Yes, the rape victim must first prove her own innocence before the predator is put in a position to be held accountable.

Back to that window display, depraved isn’t it? Just look at those two male mannequins just standing there, not touching, not in any sexually orientated activity of ANY kind.

Back to the activists, where are they in our malls? Why are they not protecting us from the likes of Fredrick’s of Hollywood and Victoria’s not so Secret?

Seriously though, why are they not protecting us from the likes of, Jerry Buck Inman, the confessed, Bikini Killer, of Tiffany Marie Sours?

Inman is one of 563,000 registered sex offenders living in the United States. Do not even try to tell me that every single one of them is not a repeat offender, (Not to mention we don’t have numbers for the un-registered offenders.) for example; I’m no angel and dabbled in shoplifting in my early teens.

Did I stop at my first dibble? Uhh, no. Did I stop at my second, third, forth? Uhh, no. Because. I. Was. Not. Caught.

Huh. Let us stop and pause, and pick up next week, because, I think, therefore we are.

©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.

Part Deux - If I'm Letting Go ~ Why Are my Knuckles White?

2006-06-01T13:01:00.000Z

Mama told me when I was young
Come sit beside me, my only son
And listen closely to what I say.
And if you do this
It will help you some sunny day.

When we hug, my head rests on his chest. We stand and chat and I have to look up at him. It wasn’t that long ago that it was the other way round.

Gone are the days when he would creep after me through the house as I buzzed about doing my chores. When he would rush up to me and hug my leg as hard as he could and while looking up at me towering above, announce passionately, “ I love mum mum,” while grinning so broad his face looked in danger of splitting in two.

He has a profound fear of spiders. When he was somewhere between two and three he began waking nearly nightly screaming about spiders. Going to bed became difficult until I started spraying the room with spider killer. It was actually an all-natural citrus oil air freshening mist but it sure enough did the trick and everyone got back to his or her regular sleep patterns.

Take your time... don’t live too fast,
Troubles will come and they will pass.
Go find a woman and you’ll find love,
And don’t forget son,
There is someone up above.

We haven’t had an impromptu dance party in the living room for a couple years now. There’s nothing like slam dancing with a kid.

He asked for money towards a paintball gun this past March for his birthday. Prior to that, the only gun thingy he has ever had is a super soaker. Mind you, that didn’t stop him from turning sticks, Legos and anything else linier into a weapon. I have to confess, the boy is a remarkable shot and plans are being made for a trip to the shooting range to try his hand at skeet shooting.

And be a simple kind of man.
Be something you love and understand.
Be a simple kind of man.
Wont you do this for me son,
If you can?

Prom has past and this Saturday it’s his SAT’s. He has not done any special preparation for the event at all. Nor have I pushed him; he aced the PSAT’s when he took them this autumn. He’s smart without trying and has the even more rare gifts of common sense and a conscience to go with it.

Next week he’s taking my beloved new Beetle into his auto tech class and will be replacing the timing belt, serpentine belt, water pump and coolant. A job that would cost me $1200 at the dealership is costing me $160 for parts.

Forget your lust for the rich mans gold
All that you need is in your soul,
And you can do this if you try.
All that I want for you my son,
Is to be satisfied.

I am more than proud of the man he’s becoming. He has a plan and it includes becoming an auto tech and learning custom fabrication. Someday he wants to own his own shop and be his own boss. I have no doubt he’ll do just that.

I never gave ultimatums, always choices with clear consequences. The choices were always his to make. It’s remarkable how a kid will make the right choices when the power is given to them. No was never an answer that wasn’t followed with an explanation. It still isn’t.

I have been letting him go since the day he was born. Feeding him the tools and the knowledge he needs to be able to walk into the world on his own and listen to the voice inside his head when he needs to. That voice isn’t mine, it’s his own and it tells him his truths.

Boy, don’t you worry... you’ll find yourself.
Follow you heart and nothing else.
And you can do this if you try.
All I want for you my son,

Is to be satisfied.*

Dedicated to the one and only, Boy Wonder, my greatest work, my biggest joy and my free-est bird.

* Lyrics – Lynyrd Skynyrd, Simple Man.

©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.

Confessions on a Blog Floor

2006-05-25T13:29:00.000Z

Part Deux --White Knuckles et el, will be along soon -- till then enjoy this little outburst from this morning.

Okay, I have a confession to make. I’m not even sure why I’m coming clean on this; maybe Madonna’s Confessions tour has inspired me. Or, maybe not.

And on a side note; could someone please ask that woman to eat a little more and exercise a little less? Honestly, she’s starting to look a bit scary up close (in person sans airbrushing) without the benefits of ANY body fat what so ever. Ripped is one thing, stripped is quite another.

Back to me, although the two are related and yes I am stalling.

I”VE STARTED EXERCISING!

There I’ve said it and I won’t apoligise for it. No, not at all. It had to be done I tell you. Had to. After the whole nearly killing Bill Murray by inducing an erupting hernia while holding only half my body ton-age something had to give, besides his hernia.

Nothing like a near death experience, even if, in this case, causing someone else’s, to get one’s arse in gear, as we say.

I’ll wait a moment while you all collect yourselves, as I know this all comes as a bit of a shock considering my stand on exercise and/or lack thereof.

It happened in the midst of all the rain we had been having recently and since I had no voices telling me to build an ark, I started walking. Four and a half miles a day rain or shine. The dog started out all excited and quickly became confused during one particularly drenching walk. He kept stopping and looking at me as if to say, “Okay, you’ve made your point. Although I have no idea what that point is, can we stop this madness now?”

Huh, what does he know? He’s a DOG.

I’m sure it has something to do with all these upcoming changes happening in my life right now. All for the good, but all rushing at me at once and knocking me a bit off kilter. Okay, more off kilter than normal. Okay, I am nowhere near normal on a good day, but that’s not the point. The point is, I feel better for it and that’s a pretty good side effect as far as side effect go. If you ever listened to the side effects at the end of any pharmaceutical advert, you know what I mean.

Another lovely side effect, I’m getting my curves back. Instead of being one large round curve, I’m getting a waist and looking less like a candidate for The Biggest Loser. Which is good news because watching me kill those judges on that show on national television, while entertaining, would’ve been troublesome for the family.

Anywho, I’ve got to go for my walk, lots to do today as I’m getting ready to head to Tempe, AZ for OCC’s big hoohaa there this weekend.

I will leave you with a couple of pics from Saturday night, The Boy Wonder’s Prom.

How incredibly cute are they?!

Crawling Out From Under

2006-05-19T16:51:00.000Z

I have been completely unfocused now for going on two plus weeks. I have put it off on the weather, (over 11 days of rain), hormones, (well, everyone else does), allergies, (there is pollen blowing about when it’s not raining), but never really putting my finger on the real trouble.

I cry at the drop of a hat. Okay not really but I found myself walking past a possum dead in the road yesterday, along with two dead baby possums and I burst into tears.

I watched an older movie on one of the movie channels titled, “The Power of One” and bawled my way through it.

Maybe trouble isn’t the right word and I don’t know what is, but I think its finally hitting me.

May is a tricky time of year for me. Mother’s Day is followed closely by my mother’s birth date, May 16. Then you can segue on to mid June, when my mother died.

But that’s not everything.

Saturday is the Boy Wonder’s prom. Followed closely by his graduating from high school. If you all remember, it’s really his junior year but he chose to graduate early a few months back.

But wait, there’s more.

The Hubster ia about to go through some changes with his job. It is all for the best, onwards and upwards as they say, but a transition nonetheless.

Let’s also take into account that we are in the process of a ton of work on this house to get it ready to sell in the quickest time possible. While we are also fervently seeking out that acreage to buy where we will all resettle and build into our futures. A future made of organically raised beef, lamb, milk, eggs, chickens, herbs, berries and veggies. Horses of our own, boarded horses and leased horses. In a new state, where new friends are to be found and made and new local publications will be wooed to feature my writing.

It all sounds lovely and exciting doesn’t it?

So why am I so out of sorts?

Well, let’s call this Post One of a series called, “If Change is Good, Why am I So Damn Scared?”

Tune in for Post Two – “If I’m Letting go, Why Are My Knuckles White?”

Another Mother's Day

2006-05-11T22:43:00.000Z

This is actually a post from back in January and no less appropriate for the upcoming holiday.

My mother has a way of never leaving me. Not that I want her to.

Bits and pieces of her find their way into my life when I least expect it, but need it most. Even if I don’t know it yet or at the time, it always comes clear.

We have a new grocery store here in Keene. A Price Chopper. Those of you in NY know them well as they originated there. They have made their way into NH and my backyard. Within a mile and a half of it, literally.

The Boy Wonder applied and is working there, knowing he can transfer to one of the 3 locations near where we are moving to in NY.

So of course I had to check it out.

Me and 25,842 other people during the first week it was open. You would think we didn’t have another two major grocery stores to choose from in town. Maybe they were running some great specials that I was blissfully unaware of as I shop only the outside walls of the store.

I start in the organic produce section. I then head into the natural foods section before hitting the natural and organic meats section. Pick up a couple things from diary and I’m done.åç

Today though I was a first time visitor at their deli counter thanks to The Boy Wonder. His dinner request was for hot sub sandwiches. Crusty baguette, bacon, fried Genoa salami, roast beef, capicola, roast turkey, red onion, hamburger pickles, tomatoes and Irish Swiss baked in the oven. I’m getting hungry again just writing about it.

That sandwich was slamming delicious!

So there I was at the deli counter and as they are slicing up the roast beef I start checking out the salami choices and there it is. The Tobin’s First Prize logo was screaming at me from inside the case on the liverwurst, bologna and salami.

Tobin’s First Prize products originated from the Tobin’s meat packing plant that was located on Exchange Street just off Exit 5 of Interstate 90 in Albany. It’s where my mother worked while we lived in Albany, until I was nine. They are now produced and distributed by John Morrell.

But they have kept the same logo and packaging on the products and when I saw them a smile followed by a slight wince emitted from me.

Funny how a big old slab of liverwurst brings my mother back to life but it does.

I don’t believe I ever stepped foot in the plant but I remember vividly what the parking lot and the big white building looked like and the logo on the tower that you could see from the interstate going north.

I also remember this one girlfriend she had from there that had red hair, smoked, dressed in bright prints and dated a gangster. I think her name was Denise?

A day when the two of them spent the whole afternoon painting the ceilings in the dining room and living room and enough time went by that a little blonde girl playing quietly on her own staying out the way was blessed with them being themselves and given a window into the lives of women without the usual boundaries by which they’re tied.

I’d like to think that day played a small but important part in what makes me the woman I am.

Then there was a story that has become infamous over the years for me.

A Christmas party prank gone horribly wrong which involved an air hose, some poor mans buttock and too much alcohol. You do the math.

The last couple days have been an ongoing dialogue with The Boy Wonder about where he’s going and how he is in control of what does and doesn’t happen for him. We’re coming to the end of the semester and he’s in full excuse mode and defense. (I'm the innocent bystander, Somehow I got stuck, Between the rock and the hard place, And I'm down on my luck)

On my way to Price Chopper I had time to think as the guy in front of me forgot he was in his truck and was basically strolling to the plaza with his cigarette, reading his newspaper and darning a pair of socks.

I got to thinking about what I want for him in his life and it’s really quite simple and here is how the thought process went.

**Disclaimer~ those prone to motion sickness should take the necessary precautions or at the very least, remain seated and have a paper bag handy.**

As I was pulling out of the driveway the Santana/Steven Tyler song came on and it made me angry. It’s not the song. The song, Just Feel Better, is hauntingly lovely and what is it about Steven Tyler when he is doing the belting bits in any of his songs I uncontrollably sing along at the top of my voice.

Every time.

Hearing Mr Tyler sing is like smashing into a fresh bruise for me at the moment because it makes me think of J Frey and that makes me want to smash J Frey into a million little pieces if for no reason than there will be truth in the title of that book.

In that book J Frey goes on and on about a guest speaker who he refers to as an aging rock star who is clean and making a comeback and seems to go out of his way NOT to identify but sounded all the world to me that he was describing Mr Tyler.

J Frey goes on about how angry this speaker is making him, that this person is lying and no one could survive the amounts of drugs and alcohol they were saying they would ingest in a 24-hour period. And I am trying not to be upset as I love Mr Tyler but not in that---they have to pull me off his leg kinda way and then isn’t it ironic that we find out thanks to this article in The Smoking Gun, that J Frey himself is the liar.

How bloody hypocritical is he.

So yeah, I’m still bitter as J Frey became yet another person who chose to lie to me after I became emotionally invested in him.

Which got me to thinking about The Boy Wonder and how I want him to be his own best friend and know that he can do whatever it is he sets out to do. No one can stop him but himself.

Here I am, 45, finally investing enough in myself to pursue the one thing I always wanted to do---write. Send little bits of myself out into the world through my own distinct voice.

I’m not looking to win any prizes---won’t turn any down---not looking to be famous and not looking to be like anyone else, just me.

Apparently my voice is very different and not everyone wants to listen and I’m okay with that.

My humour class assignments have developed a pattern in what the teacher has to say and none of it is about a lack of humour, he tells me I’m very funny, it’s about the mechanics of my writing; switching tenses and POV----and that thing that’s gotten me pulled aside my whole schooling life.

“It seems like you didn’t follow the directive, but this is really good and I had to give you the A.”

A writing mentor recently told me that, “You’re humour and voice may be too intelligent for most average Americans to follow.”

I’m okay with that because I’m 45 now and at 12, 14, 18 and 21 no one put it to me in that way so that I could see that I shouldn’t stop and this time I won’t.

I want The Boy Wonder to know he shouldn’t stop.

I wish my mother hadn’t died before she finally did the one thing that was inside her, but she didn’t and I’ll never know what it was. I don’t know that she did either.
And that’s when I pulled into the parking space at Price Chopper and two minutes later there was my Mother visiting me in the form of Tobin’s First Prize, Mother Goose Liverwurst.

She’s given me more advice in the years since her death than she ever did when she was alive.

I guess that’s because those boundaries that use to keep her tied, no longer apply.

Isn’t it ironic.

Just Feel Better

She said, I feel stranded
And I can't tell anymore
If I'm coming or I'm going
It's not how I planned it
I've got a key to the door
But it just won't open

And I know, I know, I know
Part of me says let it go
That life happens for a reason
I don't, I don't, I don't
Cause it never worked before
But this time, this time
I'm gonna try anything to just feel better

Tell me what to do
You know I can't see through
The haze around me
And I'll do anything to just feel better
I can't find my way
God I need a change
And I'll do anything to just feel better
Any little thing to just feel better

She said I need you to hold me
I'm a little far from the shore
And I'm afraid of sinking
You're the only one who knows me
And who doesn't ignore,
That my soul is weeping

I know, I know, I know
Part of me says let it go
Everything must have its season
Around, around it goes
Everyday's the one before
But this time, this time,
I'm gonna try anything to just feel better

Tell me what to do
You know I can't see through
The haze around me
And I'll do anything to just feel better
I can't find my way
God I need a change
And I'll do anything to just feel better
Any little thing to just feel better

I'm tired of holding on
To all the things I oughta leave behind
It's really getting old and
I think I need a little help this time

I'm gonna try anything to just feel better
Tell me what to do
You know I can't see through
The haze around me
And I'll do anything to just feel better
I can't find my way
God I need a change
And I'll do anything to just feel better
Any little thing to just feel better

Dedicated to all the Mother's who made us possible.
2006 - Dawn M Kelly - all rights reserved

Criminals Need More Rights ... & Lefts

2006-05-05T00:41:00.000Z

Maybe I’m different – wait – I AM different, but let’s plow ahead anyway.

A couple weeks ago I was having a conversation with The Hubster and I don’t remember, which is often the case, how we got to here but it went a little like this:

Me: “They should collect and file everyone’s DNA at birth. That way when a child goes missing, they already have it handy. Or, when someone is found dead, they are easily and quickly identified.”

Hubster: Attempts to get a word in… unsuccessfully.

Me: “Better still, sex offenders will already be data based for earlier pegging and criminals of all sorts can be identified and picked up quite early on.” Gathers momentum in that way only a great idea born of red wine can do.

Hubster: Recognizes said momentum and realizes that this is a one sided conversation as only The Hubster can do.

Me: “Do you suppose people will be all – ‘Oh, no, we have our privacy rights.’ And all, “Too Big Brother for us!’

Hubster: “Ahh”

Me: “We get blood typed at birth, why not DNA typed as well?”

Hubster: “Ummm”

Me: “It would be to the advantage of all really.”

Hubster: “ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz …”

Me: “People would probably be all, ‘Too Minority Report for us.” Shame really.

So imagine my surprise to see an article in the New York Times today; New York Pushes for DNA In Crimes Big And Small, (why is for lowercase but in is upper case?) by Diane Cardwell.

New York is trying to get a proposal passed into law that anyone convicted of felonies and misdemeanors will have their DNA collected.

What gets me is that there are actually people who are fighting against making this happen. Why?

For all of our forward technology and thinking how is it that we can still be so bass ackwards on this sort of thing? Why is the burden of proof still on the victims?

Seems to me we’d have a lot fewer people cluttering up our jails and being executed for crimes they never committed and more actual criminals taking up the space. That would be a good thing right?

After I became a parent and realized that even though I had been raised in a most inappropriate manner I could use that knowledge to become a good parent with a very large amount of commitment and work, I had an epiphany of sorts.

Wouldn’t it be great if they could do some sort of test at birth that would determine who would be a good parent and who wouldn’t, and you could just sterilize the bad ones right then?

I still think it’s a good idea.

My oldest brother and his wife decided not to have any kids because they felt the world was not a hopeful place. At the time, my other brother who was 13 said, “But Richard & Louise are smart people. If all the smart people do this, then in a hundred years the entire planet will be populated by idiots!”

Maybe this bit from the NYT’s article supports that theory:

“Expanding the law to include those convicted of misdemeanors, said Stephen Saloom, policy director at the Innocence Project, which supports DNA sampling of convicted felons, ‘is an inefficient use of resources, increases the risk of wrongful prosecution and conviction of innocent people whose DNA might end up at a crime scene and further strains a forensics community that is already complaining of a lack of qualified and trained analysts to work in their labs.’ ”

Wouldn’t the answer to that be … good old fashioned recruiting for the field and incentives for kids to pursue this line of work rather than not collecting DNA?

Thank goodness there’s still a good amount of smart people out there that are over ruled by their raging hormones.

Oy.

©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.

Close Encounters of the Gilda Kind

2006-04-28T00:58:00.000Z

There are people in this world and then there are people in this world.

You know, the kind that you are drawn to and just being around them makes you happy and comfortable. The ones that the sun shines a little bit brighter on and some of that special something spills over onto you if you’re lucky enough to be around them.

I had the immense pleasure this week to bask in the light of one such person.

Mr. Bill Murray. Yeah, that Bill Murray, an original Saturday Night Live cast member and star of way too many movies to count.

While my little sisters were raised on Sesame
Street and Mister Rogers, I was being raised on Saturday Night Live and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, which thankfully saved me from the likes of The Donny and Marie Show. Am I the only one who didn’t buy into Donny being a little bit rock and roll?

I am not a big, “OOOOooo, gotta have my picture taken or have an autograph from every famous person, kind of gal. In fact, I pretty much see them as regular folk, its just a lot more people know their names and faces. They are doing a job, same as you and me.

I won’t bore you with the long list of celebrities that I have met, or seen because that is just what I think it is – boring.

I’ll just run by the most recent. The Hubster and I were having a weekend of coupling in NYC at the beginning of April and as we are walking across 14th street heading east to First Ave. to Luzzos for dinner, when a woman coming towards me is looking frustrated as she closes her mobile phone and shoves it into her purse. I’m looking at her and my brain is saying, “Huh, she looks like Susan Sarandon.” She picked her head up and we locked eyes and it was indeed Ms. Sarandon. She got this panicked look on her face as she realized I recognized her. Probably because she was alone and there were a bizzilion people on the streets that day because it was a perfect spring day in the city. I just nodded and smiled and kept on walking and after we had past her I told The Hubster about it.

I mean, I enjoy the woman’s work and I think she’s got chutzpah to stand up and speak out about her beliefs in a country that prefers to keep its head up its arse, but I felt no need to make a scene and pose for pictures.

In fact The Hubster’s job puts him in a position to meet and work with famous folk all the time. His list of the famous he’s worked with over the past 15 years would make your jaw drop. If not for The Hubster, I would not have met Bill Murray.

If truth were told, I actually jumped at the chance to ask Mr. Murray about one of my biggest heroes, Gilda Radner. Not that I’m not a fan of his, I am, but Gilda, I loved everything about her. Her unconventional beauty, energy, vulnerability and passion for life, at least that’s how I perceived her. My lunch table in high school was very popular because I would do impressions of Gilda’s characters from SNL. Lisa Lupner, (especially while eating soup), Roseanne Rosanna-Danna and Emily Litella.

So when Hubster was home last weekend and mentioned that Mr. Murray was going to be at OCC, (Orange County Choppers), on Monday and Tuesday I dropped everything and made tracks to NY.

Life is a funny thing and sometimes when you have one goal you are pleasantly surprised by the gifts you receive along the journey. Such was the case with my quest about Ms. Radner and my encounter with Mr. Murray.

I arrived at OCC on Monday afternoon and planted myself in The Hubster’s audio cave and busied myself finishing the plans for our barn with second story living accommodations. (Can the whole relocation to NY thingy be over already?) Mr. Murray and the guys were hashing out plans for the Caddyshack charity bike and it was late in the day before I got my first glimpse of Mr. Murray.

What I saw surprised me. My first impression was that he looks exactly as he does on film. But after a while I realized that I was wrong, he looks better than he does on film. I was also taken by his manner. He is a laid back, easygoing guy who is more than comfortable in his own skin and I am now becoming very intrigued.

I expected, (my bad), a manic comedian who was on for the camera and people. No. Not. At. All. His wit is quick, natural and flows from him, it is who he is. His manner is steady, sure and warm. By Tuesday afternoon I wanted to know him. Not for who he is, but for what he’s like.

Two o’clock-ish, I was afforded a chance to meet him. The Hubster asked if I could have a picture with him and out I came. It happened so fast I didn’t have time to get nervous until I was standing next to him. He pulled me in and put his arm around me, turned to me and looking into my eyes said, “Hi, I’m Bill.” To which I replied, “Hi, I’m Dawn.” And you can tell by my face in this picture, I was officially smitten and quite by surprise.

What happened next was Mr. Murray’s suggestion and while I was in fear of being the woman who caused Mr. Murray the need for hernia surgery, I was hopeful that Sr. was bearing the brunt of my, erm, um, extra weight. I have not read any reports of Mr. Murray's hospitalization, so I think I can stop worrying.

Pictures taken, I seized my chance and asked Mr. Murray if I could ask him a question while nudging him away from everyone. “You just did,” he replied, “ask another.”

“It’s kind of a loaded question I think, like, ‘Does my butt look big in these jeans?’” And I saw a brief flicker of worry cross his face, “Was Ms. Radner as lovely, vulnerable and wonderful as she seemed?”

The worry faded as the question registered and his eyes lit up as he confirmed what I thought I knew about her.

Content in that knowledge, I swallowed back my emotion and thanked him for that, extended my hand and told him, “It was nice to meet you.” He again looked me in the eyes and said, “It was a pleasure meeting you too Dawn.”

He had me at, “Hi, I’m Bill.” but he earned my total respect after calling me by name as we parted.

As I drove home I replayed what he said about Gilda again in my head and the tears that ran down my cheeks were bitter but also sweet, thanks to Bill.

I was always a fan of his work and after my encounter this week I became a fan of man as well.

You would too if you looked into those eyes.

Dedicated to all of us who are ballerinas in our heads. RIP Gilda you are loved and missed.

Dawn Marie Kelly 2006 ~ all rights reserved

My Season of Discontent

2006-04-12T13:50:00.000Z

I’ve been having nightmares for about a week now. The first night was the worst, involving a series of dreams that involved much maiming and dismemberment to all that I love. The Hubster, Boy Wonder, my car, myself and, (still trying to figure this one out), Mick Jagger who was also my father.

Let’s not get all sidetracked analyzing why Mick was playing the role of my father and focus on the whys and wherefores of the nightmares, shall we?

I can count on this season of nightmares right alongside spring and allergies because it’s tax time.

There, I’ve said it. Out. Loud.

Tax time.

Every year it’s the same routine. I procrastinate my way from January first, dilly-dallying my way through February, March and into April and then the nightmares begin.

I’ve had my tax software since Christmas. There it is, sitting on my desk. I can’t even bring myself to load the bloody disk onto my laptop.

That’s right, I do our taxes. It’s like the only computer game/gambling I indulge in. I think I should state that I have always received a refund. I read up on the current new tax laws every year to make sure I am taking all the breaks we are entitled to.

Seriously.

Back in the early 90’s I bought a book by some financial wizard and found out that there’s a little known tax form known as “X”. Form X allows you to file for tax breaks up to three years previous that you didn’t file for. I did and ended up getting a check for just over $800. I’d say the $25 investment in that book was well worth it.

The year I found myself, not quite yet divorced, I had Boy Wonder’s father being ever so thoughtful about doing “our” taxes, I knew something was up, as he never took on any financial work willingly, so I hopped on the Internet to investigate. There I found that, even though we were still married, I could file single as Head of Household if he had not lived with us for at least six months. He hadn’t and I did.

Let’s just say that there is justice if you are willing to look for it yourself. That refund assured that I could pay the mortgage for another six months and filled the oil tank twice.

So then, you are asking, “Why the nightmares if you always come out on top?”

Good question. Really, really, good question.

Because I always wait to the absolute last minute to do our taxes and that leaves me no room for error in case the unthinkable were to happen. Of course, the fact that all my receipts are in assorted little bins and boxes spread throughout the house tends to add to the anxiety levels as well.

I don’t start out that unorganized. Indeed, at the beginning of every New Year I make a trip to Staples and acquire a truckload of supplies resulting in shiny new files and folders all neatly labeled with the help of my P-Touch. There is talk of master excel spreadsheets and monthly totals.

Which makes perfect sense because it’s the first step in the tax preparation avoidance process.

I am completely anal about the filing system until somewhere between June and July. By then the tax refund has come and been spent and the cycle of madness can begin anew.

I should be ashamed of this unbroken cycle of madness and I would be if not for one thing. The yearly licensing of the dog. Oddly enough, I can’t manage to do that on time either.

It’s not even difficult. You go into the town hall offices, hand over a check for $15 with proof of rabies shot and they hand you a little metal tag to put on their collar. They even send you a post card reminder 2 weeks before the deadline.

It would be easy except that the deadline for dog license renewal is April 15.

How am I supposed to remember to renew the dog license when I am in full tax prep avoidance mode? Exactly, I don’t remember to renew the dog license.

Until the police department sends out their threatening letters in June because my dog is now apparently a fugitive and has a warrant out for his arrest.

So I ashamedly march myself into the town hall offices and hand over my check which now includes a ten dollar late filing charge and apoligise for my transgressions and have them remove Zack’s name from their list of fugitives.

That shame leads to a period of self pity and apathy where my paperwork begins piling up on the corner of my desk until I shove it into a box when it gets too high and that box gets shoved under my desk when it gets full. Another pile of paperwork begins forming on the corner of my desk … you see where this is going?

I am determined to break this cycle of madness. Yesterday I went to the vet and obtained a copy of Zack’s rabies certificate. (Because the original is in one of the 4 boxes of un-filed paperwork.) I am headed out to the town hall offices this morning to hand over my $15 check and get the new tag for his collar.

That would indeed seem promising if not for one thing:

I am doing it to avoid pulling out the four assorted boxes of un-filed paperwork and begin sorting through them!

But hey, I have to start somewhere don’t I?

Dedicated to all my fellow procrastinators doing their taxes instead of playing this weekend.
©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.

Eeps, Peeps and Fuzzy Sheeps

2006-04-04T15:12:00.000Z

I am currently reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. It's making me think. A lot. The piece I'm writing at the moment is requiring more time than my weekly post allows so the following piece I'm posting here is actually my 31 March article for The Daily Irish News. Enjoy!

With the onset of spring and the approaching Easter Holiday I am assaulted by the disturbing image of sheep at every turn.

What’s so disturbing about sheep you ask?

Oh I know, they have this warm, cuddly, innocent and count me you’ll fall asleep image that we’ve been fed, but they have a darker side and I have seen it.

February 2005 I spent the entire month in one of my favorite places on this earth, Ireland. I spent the first three weeks there on my own for a kind of kick-start sabbatical of writing. On the flight over I was excited, I’d never been away on my own for longer than a couple days since college. I can never manage to sleep on the overnight flight so by the time I land at Shannon airport at 6:30 GMT I have been awake for about 24 hours.

Let’s do the math: I woke at 5 AM EST 31 January to get The Boy Wonder up and off to school, I then pack my bags (one giant and one medium case, my laptop bag, camera case and on flight tote bag), shower and drive the three and a half hours to The Hubster in NY and then he drove me on the 2-hour trip into JFK to catch the flight. Plane departed at 7PM EST.

When I landed at Shannon Airport it was still dark there. I picked up my rental car (after a helpful stranger I approached in the deserted lot—what was I thinking he could been a serial rapist/murderer—helped me find the dang car) and with map in hand started my four-hour drive down to Ring in County Waterford.

This would be my first time driving on the wrong side of the road on the right hand side of the car and I choose to take The Vee through the Knockmealdown Mountains because I had been that way before 2 years earlier, Hubster driving, and it would be familiar.

The Vee is named such because that’s exactly what it looks like on the map, a series of “v’s”. And it is by far the most narrow of all the narrow roads I’ve ever encountered in Ireland---I’m sure there are narrower still, I just haven’t met them.

However, before I would get to the Vee, I would miss my turning on each of the 2,468 roundabouts on the N24 between Limerick and Cahir.

I felt better after the sun came up and I could see more than just what the headlamps were illuminating. That was until it got to be time for the school age kids to start making their way to school and I swear they could smell my nervousness and were silently mocking me.

Sleep deprived is not too strong a description for what I was beginning to be.

I was so pleased when the familiar sight of Cahir Castle came into view and I excitedly waved and yelled, “I’ve missed you!”, as I made the turn onto the R669 and headed south towards the Vee.

The R669 is familiar and mostly deserted and I start to feel all proud of myself, driving on the left side of the road and from the right hand side of the car, and that should have been my clue that something lie ahead. I come around one particularly tight inside-out curve and have to jam on my brakes to avoid hitting a sheep.

Oh yeah, there are herds of them all through the mountains and they just wander around eating and occasionally they conspire to send sleep deprived tourists, driving on the wrong side of the road on the right hand side of the car for the first time, careening off the sides of mountains.

When I say wander around, I mean just that, there are no fencings to contain them. They have various day-glow paints; pink, blue or green, sprayed on their bottoms and on my previous trip thought that’s how the farmers told their herds apart. Now I have a new theory.

I think this is where the proverbial black sheep all end up and they have formed their own gangs. That’s right, those painted bottoms are sporting their gang colours!

He had me good too. There was no way around him. To my right I looked down the side of a shear drop and to the left was a vertical incline up the mountainside. So there I sat, the sheep and I, face to face.

The Hubster had spent two weeks coaching and quizzing me in preparation of my driving in Ireland but this was a situation that was overlooked in my training.

If I could put words to the look that sheep gave me it would be something akin to, “For F-sake! Get the bloody hell off my mountain you wanker or I’ll cut you.”

After a couple minutes, that seemed more like hours, I decided I needed to take control. The Hubster and Boy Wonder would be most disappointed that I got killed right off my very first day and all. So I made my move.

I rolled down the window and put on my very best dagger eyes as the Boy Wonder calls them and said loud and clear, “Look here you, I’m Whitey Bulger’s niece and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll be moving out of my way. See?” (Who did I think I was, Jimmy Cagney?)

Luckily the sheep must have also heard the rumored sightings of Boston’s most notorious mob fugitive living a secluded life in Ireland because he slowly started walking up the mountain. But he never took his eyes off me.

Uh-huh, sheep may look all warm and cuddly but they can also be pure evil. I saw it that day and since there were no other witness’ it’s my word against the sheep and who are you going to believe?

Right, the poor, innocent, fuzzy, little sheep that I almost turned into Shepard’s Pie on an inside out curve on a mountainside.

Fine, but don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Of course, I'm not sure if it's more dangerous to write about the Catholic Church, The Priory of Sion, Opus Dei, Whitey Bulger or The Secret Society of Rouge Sheep ... I'm just saying.

©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.

Shortlisted at Last

2006-03-28T22:00:00.000Z

There was an interesting piece in the March 2006 issue of Vanity Fair. It seems that the 31-year-old screenwriter, Zach Helm, transformed his career after he wrote up a manifesto for himself. I wish I could share this professional life-altering document with you but only excerpts have been released here and there.

Of course I am sure that at some later date we will have the opportunity to read the complete work, for $24.99, but wait there’s more ~ for an additional $14.99 you can buy the companion workbook to put down the bones of your own manifesto.

It’s not as if Mr. Helm wasn’t making a comfortable living in L.A., quite the contrary. He had established himself a reputation as a professional writer and had a steady build of work from 1997 on, but no one could see his work. He decided he was done with cleaning up other people’s scripts and giving up creative control or participation in his work’s development.

Well, it seems to be working a treat, there are multiple irons in the fire:

Stranger Than Fiction, with Dustin Hoffman and Will Ferrel
Mr. Magorium’s Emporium, with Natalie Portman
Thomas Johnson, a TV pilot
Good Canary, a play going to Off Broadway
And yet another film, The Disassociate

So, did Mr. Helm find the magic bullet with his manifesto? Yes and no. He declared exactly what his intentions, wants and needs are, and what he is no longer willing to do because it didn’t fulfill him. Bravo Mr. Helm. Bravo. Seriously.

I am a firm believer in expressing your needs to the universe and having the universe serve it up. Anyone can do this. There are only two rules to this: one is to be very clear in expressing those needs. It seems the universe needs succinct communication, “Just the facts Jack, we don’t need your stinking back-story.”, and second you must declare them aloud or at least write them down in black and white.

And lets get a couple things straight first ~ No, the universe does not fulfill your mean spirited requests. There is Karma to take care of that so toss your vendetta list. Also, please don’t confuse this with getting three wishes for letting the genie out of the lamp either. Seems the universe expects you to do your part and isn’t going to just deposit millions into your bank account or fill your in-box with offers from perfect, willing specimens of your preferred sexual type. And if you go that route first you are just prolonging your agony, but that’s okay. It means that universe is available to take my requests.

Would that make it easier; to think of it like calling in your song request to your favorite radio station? In the age of iPods, does that analogy even work?

(Okay, now my dark roots are beginning to ache.)

I had already been thinking of much the same thing before I read the piece in VF about Zach Helm’s manifesto. I had decided that I wanted my obituary short-listed.

Let me explain; one of my favorite sections in The New York Times is the obituary section. While everyday does not hold something fascinating, I actually have a file of clips just for obits that catch my eye.

Maybe that seems strange but I’m not the only one who is fascinated by them. Marilyn Johnson has recently had her book, The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs and the Perverse Pleasure of Obituaries, published by HarperCollins.

In the Times review of her book the last paragraph reads, “For Ms. Johnson, we are now ‘living in the Golden Age of the Obituary’: after earlier lulls in which the obituary desk was literally something of a dead beat, we have entered an age of ‘expansion, innovation, entertainment and world-class one-ups-manship’ in obituary writing.”

And apparently Ms. Johnson found differences in the style with which obits are written in The United States and across the pond in The United Kingdom.

“A great British obit doesn’t read like a prosaic resume. It’s an opinionated gem of a biography, informed by all kinds of history, high and low, including gossip. … In contrast to the obits written by Jim Nicholson, (an American Obit writer) - who said his ‘loyalty was to the family’ of the deceased and who tried hard to identify with his subjects – the quintessential British obit, in Mr. Johnson’s words, ‘doesn’t pull any punches in consideration of the dead’.”

Can you imagine? The local obit writer calls on family, friends and neighbors of the recently departed and puts all the juicy details in the paper. No more hiding behind the public persona. Mr. Lion’s Club president’s philanthropy as well as his philandering right there for all to see. Years of rumors making the rounds at the pub about good old Mitch Wexler and his fondness for wearing women’s knickers finally confirmed. Talk about your poetic justice, which sounds worth the price of a subscription to The Independent to me!

So you see where I am going with this?

I want my obit to be full of the life I have led. I want girls and young women to read it and be inspired. Not because I changed the world or even a few minds but because I never stopped believing that I could.

I want them to see that I was NOT, a victim of, or a survivor of, but a person who thrived despite childhood sexual abuse. That I learned to define myself by my actions and not the actions of others and a healthy sense of humour and the ability to laugh at yourself can save your life.

They will read that I kept a promise to my mother and finally learned to play the drums in my 40’s and continued to do so into my golden years and was known to join local bands to accompany them for a song or two. Especially after a couple pints of Guinness at her favorite pubs in her adopted country of Ireland.

That I left behind a healthy and happy eighty-one year old son, (grandchildren/great-grandchildren if he chooses to procreate) and a husband who still asserts that I was the greatest love and friend of his life after 70 + years of marriage.

They will read that my part-time neighborhood where we had a flat along Bleecker Street in Manhattan, my favorite writing escape, will miss my presence, generosity, wit and laughter in the restaurants, shops and cafes.

They will be intrigued that, during a time of financial struggle, I developed a moist, delicious, high protein/high fiber bread recipe intended to help pay the bills. The universe having other plans righted our position financially and I later turned that recipe over to struggling & battered women who used it to turn theirs and that of their children’s lives around.

And that I was found in our beloved country estate in Ulster County, with a good glass of robust red wine, The New York Times opened to a glowing review of my latest novel and a bar of partially eaten 90% dark chocolate was on my bedside table next to me where I was found to have died in my sleep with that mischievous grin I was known for, serenely planted on my now still face.

They will be amused to know that my family and friends, per my request, will gather for a weekend of great food, music, libations and celebration, culminating in a grand display of fireworks, in which my ashes are packed, over Shawangunk Ridge.

So if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of living left to do.

Dedicated to yours truly for finally giving myself “permission.”

©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.

It nevers rains in California

2006-03-23T17:29:00.000Z

I am refusing to be a tourist in So Cal with every fiber of my being. But why?

The Hubster asked me Wednesday night if I had been taking lots of pictures and I have not. Unless you count the ones for insurance purposes that I took when the back passenger tire on T’s car decided to spontaneously melt away.

On Thursday, T and I drove down into Malibu to have lunch on the point outside at Geoffrey’s, (pronounced JAWF-frees if you please). It was gloriously sunny and we enjoyed the three-hour window where the skies were crisp and blue over the Pacific waters. I didn’t even mind that Carmen Electric was ruining my view. The woman is tiny but somehow still manages to suck up a lot of space.

I shifted in my seat to alter the view, but when I looked a little too my right a certain aging rock star thought I was lusting after him so I turned behind me to wave my empty martini glass at our waiter, Ernesto, (the second Ernesto in as many days), the ancient soap diva sitting there thought I was toasting her and excitedly raised her glass and reached into her purse for an ever-ready glossy to sign, and I wondered whether it was getting hot or was I having a seizure brought on by the constant noise of construction vehicles backing up below us. I escaped to the ladies loo, nearly being smacked by a gesticulating 50 something actress who was doing her best to convince the producer she was meeting with that with just the right lighting and soft lens she could indeed pass for 30-ish and no, I wasn’t buying it either.

You know… maybe if the rich and infamous spent less time getting in the way of us lesser beings, they’d have more patience for the paparazzi. Hey. I’m just saying.

Which takes us back to New York. When I perambulate the streets of New York City I shoot so many pictures that as I view them later, on my computer, I wonder what possessed me. I believe its love. I take pictures of New York in the same manner I took pictures of my tiny to grown son and now take pictures of my cats.

As if their every stirring is monumental and priceless.

I am smitten with New York from the grimy sidewalks on up to the old water tanks that are still sprinkled on top of the older buildings in the skyline. We don’t choose whom we fall in love with and apparently this applies to locations as well.

I had a conversation with a friend of my host’s on Friday morning – Yes, St Patrick’s Day and we were in a pub – why I would not care to ever live in California. She looked at me in a perplexed manner while I tried to explain that it wasn’t any one thing, it just doesn’t appeal to me, at all. “But what have you got back on the East Coast that’s so much better?” She asked still struggling to understand the apparent incomprehensible notion of anyone not loving California as she does.

I didn’t have an answer for her. Not an answer wrapped up in nice succinct verbiage that she could make sense of. Try though I did, now at her house where our little group of happy revelers had moved on to and where her husband had been preparing our evening feast of Corned Beef, cabbage and all sorts.

Still I did not have an answer that was clearer than, “It just doesn’t appeal or speak to me in any way.” Or I think that’s what I said as the pub’s Guinness’ had given way to vodka when we arrived at her house. And that’s all I’m saying.

I’d like to tell you that we finally resolved the issue but alas, I can’t. Perhaps somewhere over the course of the evening we may have, but in the light of a sober Saturday afternoon, we couldn’t remember and it no longer seemed quite so important. All that mattered was that we could make each other laugh easily and that was more than enough of a common ground.

Despite my non-swaying stance on not living in California I was made an honorary member of the gated community they call home and I fly back east knowing that I look forward to future visits with a group of folk that became very fast friends indeed.

Dedicated to T, NJ & S who are no more desperate than I am ~ I tip my drink in your general direction! Please girls, keep in touch.

©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.

They are out there ~ or maybe just I am...

2006-03-14T14:02:00.000Z

While I am running in circles and screaming "FIRE" in a crowded movie theatre while getting ready to fly to the west coast I will leave you with this interesting photo that I took while in our room at the Chelsea Savoy.

I was taking the pic because that room up there above the beam is the window to the room I stayed in last time.

BUT ~~~ tell me what you see in this pic.

I like to think it's Sid Vicous prepping for the Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

''I miss the Sex Pistols. I miss the lot of you,'' he said. ''But if anybody thinks it's a jolly good wheeze, it's not. It's hard work.''

John Lydon ~10March2006~ on Steve Jones' "Jonesy's Jukebox"

Can you hear me now?

2006-03-08T14:47:00.001Z

One thing that is glaringly apparent when I roam from My Wasp-y Old-New England Township is the amazing range of faces that adorn this planet.

My references here all come from magazines and TV and they are skewed at best. It is whatever hyped form of beauty that is currently being pushed down our gullets.

As we walked through the streets of NYC I was given a broader perspective. It was a veritable cornucopia of all that beauty can be.

I walked for three blocks focusing on nothing but everyone’s faces coming towards me. (Thanks go out to The Hubster for leading me and keeping me from crashing.) Each face so different in structure, features and colouring and each one held a strength and quiet beauty.

Young, old and everything in-between, I wished I had a camera inside my eyes so that I could snap each face that I looked into.

I keep my media horizons, mind and perspective current by subscribing to the electronic version of The New York Times. A breath of much needed fresh air considering I actually live a near hermit like existence in NH, rarely venturing outside my home more than twice a week and only for needed errands and supplies.

That’ll change as the weather warms, but even my walks take me in a loop around my rural end of the city opposite the hustle and flow of Main Street, which is no longer than one NYC block at best and a Tour de Boring at worst.

This is an insular place with lofty ideals and a city council of old self-importance that marks it’s territory in pissing matches while losing sight of what could be changes for the better.

Take our cell phone tower for instance. It’s there in the distance above town, shooting up from the highest hill sprouting those ridiculous fake evergreen branches that draw more attention than hide anything. For the last 7 years they have voted down any plan that would add another 10 feet in height to that pole that would allow all major cell phone carriers coverage up into this area.

There are tiny little Podunk villages all around Keene that have access to any and all cell phone carriers, but not us, no, that extra 10 feet which is nearly indiscernible from most perspectives has been deemed unsightly. So Keene remains a black hole of non-coverage.

Keene does however hold the Guinness Book Record for “Most Lit Jack O Lanterns in One Place” for 14 years running, so we do have that going for us.

I look forward to moving on from this place as each time I come back it feels like there’s a little less air available to breathe and my mind feels constricted.

Mind you, when we settle on our parcel of land in Orange/Ulster County, we will be building the picture of a proper mini-farm/estate, complete with horses, sheep, chickens and walking beef. There is nothing like the taste of organically raised, chicken, eggs, lamb, beef and veggies.

A beef for wine exchange has already been broached with a local winery and I look forward to bartering/exchanges with other local merchants and producers.

While that doesn’t sound anymore cosmopolitan then the life I now lead the Hubster and I also came to another realization while in NYC this past weekend; there is a loft purchase in our future and much more time to be spent in a city we love a little more with each successive visit.

Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too? Or in fact, your cell phone and use it too.

I mean besides the windbags who are running this town.

©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.

Times and Times Again

2006-03-07T11:55:00.000Z

While I am catching up with my writing and waiting for a couple pics to be sent from the Hubster (two cameras and one long weekend) I will leave you with this pic of Princess and her billboard that was taken Sunday morning.

Don't they look incredibly cute together?

Check back laters and I will have a proper post up ~~~ till then.............

It is the End of the World as we Know it

2006-03-02T12:26:00.000Z

The dog that lives in my house has reached that very special time in his life where he is driving me out of my mind.

I say the dog because he is not my dog; he belongs to the Boy Wonder. Although you would never know it because I am the one who makes sure he has food and water and is still breathing.

The situation evolved over the course of a separation, a divorce, his father’s relocating out of state and the Boy Wonder’s coming of age; getting his driver’s license and a part time job. Throw in school, his night class and do the math. He’s not home long enough to really look after his dog.

The Hubster is of course still off in NY working and living six days a week so that leaves me.

So it’s nobody’s fault and just the situation as it is.

That being said, Zack, the dog, is 10 years old and these days is driving me to within inches of committing doggy homicide. It’s coming down to me or him and you can place your bets firmly on me.

The last six months I have been taking small but determined steps towards what I want to be and what I want to do in this next chapter of my journey. The Boy Wonder is graduating from High School and I need to move on too so I don’t become a crazy cat lady or something.

***It takes more than 3 cats to qualify, yes?***

Writing is where I’m going and since starting I just can’t imagine stopping. There are so many stories inside me, characters who are all talking at once and then there’s me in the background nattering on about all the ideas that keep popping up and the dog is staring at me from his bed in the kitchen.

Shouldn’t be a big deal right? Except when he stares at you he does it with every single fiber of his being. I kid you not, look at the picture.

Even through the sliders his powers are strong.

Now add whining and incontinence. Oh yeah, Zack now wears diapers. The vet says that they usually only see this in spayed, older females.

I always knew there was something lacking in Zack’s maleness. He once had to be treated for a urinary tract infection, which he acquired by humping the neighbor dogs ear during their play dates. Yeah, she wasn’t impressed either and stopped taking his calls.

So Zack now has to wear this diaper wrap for male dogs, which is more than humiliating enough, but I have to line them with a maxi pad so he doesn’t wet through it. If he had any male pride at all it disappeared the first time the diaper was put on him.

And he did use to soak through it every night until he started taking these huge pills three times a day, which I wrap, in soy nut butter to get him to swallow them. They were to hopefully stop the incontinence problem but Zack is so special that the pills only stem the flow enough that the maxi pads contain it. (For those who have to know he sports the Tan Pawprint wrap.)

So why am I still complaining?

Because today Zack has become Chicken Little and is quite sure the sky is falling and the world, as he knows it at least, is coming to an end.

What is actually happening is that the sun is shining brightly enough that the snow and ice is melting from the roof of the house and is sliding off in bits every ¼ hour or so. When that happens, diaper doggy leaps up and runs blindly across the kitchen and stands and stares at me.

I try to ignore him but his eyes are literally burning holes into the side of my head and there it is again.

Resentment and guilt for feeling resentful of a damn dog and there goes my creative life force seeping onto the floor and here comes the part of me that wishes I could make him disappear.

I know what you’re thinking:

He’s just a dog.

He’s a great dog.

You should be thankful for such a dog.

What kind of a person wants to make dogs disappear?

ME! The one trying so hard to reclaim that part of me that had to be stuffed down and buried away these past 13 years. If it comes down to my sanity or Zack’s, I will selfishly choose mine.

All I can say is thank goddess for laptops, wireless connections, iTunes, Madonna, noise canceling headphones and bedroom doors, which can close.

Chicken Little lives to see another day.

Little Boy Lost

2006-02-28T12:21:00.000Z

This article was actually my post in The Daily Irish News last Friday. The situation is still haunting me so I'm choosing to also post it here.

I have started to write this piece about 100 times over the course of the past 7 days. These are the first actual words I’ve been able to type, so here goes.

I don’t read my local newspaper, if you can even call it a newspaper, it doesn’t warrant the cost. Local news is mostly full of old men’s club guff and the world news is virtually non-existent. So I usually get wind of anything out of the ordinary locally from my gossipy neighbor, my son or I get belted with it in the face by the TV news.

Last Thursday morning I got belted and it stung, a lot. They ran a very brief report on a drive-by shooting in Marlow, a town just north of Keene. Mind you this is still Keene, NH and while Manchester & Nashua have gang related things of this nature we do not.

Seems someone fired four shots from a moving car at a house. It was early evening and there were three people at home at the time. Two of the four bullets entered the house. One made it across the house and came to rest in the side of the fridge and another was found in the bedpost of one of the beds.

Thankfully no one was hurt.

The news brief stated that they had someone in custody. That was all. No name, no age, nothing but I already knew who it was.

I kept within earshot of the TV all day but each time the information they gave was the same and so I waited.

My son came home and we did our usual routine. He brings in the mail and we go through it and talk about his day. Sometimes I start the conversation, mostly I do actually, but today he led with; “Pat sealed his fate.”

Sometimes I hate being right and this was one of them.

Pat is a friend of The Boy Wonder and has been for the past two years. This is a kid who has spent a lot of time in my house and with the one thing that keeps me tethered to this earth, my son. He is also the first of my son’s friends that I wanted to not be his friend.

Pat is a year older though you wouldn’t know it to look at him. He’s about 5’4” and weighs maybe 90 pounds wet. He had jet-black hair cut asymmetrically that came down in shards across the right side of his face. I say had because he recently shaved his head. He would usually be wearing red or green plaid skinny pants that had an abundance of zippers; buckles and hardware that served no real purpose, funky short military style plaid jackets, black tee shirts and his arms were weighted down with leather straps full of metal studs.

But that isn’t what worried me. I loved his style - it suited him completely. I admired that he had such a great sense of himself and the balls to embrace it here in this little Podunk town full of old New England wasps.
What bothered me was a couple of the other kids that Pat sometimes hung with. Kids The Boy Wonder wanted no part of because they were in your face trouble. I also knew that Pat did drugs and drank when he was with these other kids. I know it’s what kids do, but not my kid for as long as I can help it.

I didn’t stop The Boy Wonder from hanging with Pat because he separated himself from Pat when the other kids were involved and Pat was okay with that. He would come in and out of lives and he was a good normal kid when he was here. It was like he wanted the normalcy. The Boy Wonder said Pat would really talk to him during those times and that’s why The Boy Wonder let him in and out.

Those times when he was hanging with his other friends he would end up getting caught and in trouble of some sort. There were a couple of school expulsions in the spring last year.

Pat isn’t a bad kid. When you look into his eyes, there is mischief but not evil intent. That’s why I let him in and out.

Pat hasn’t been around since sometime this past summer.

Back in October, he was arrested. He was driving his friends around and they were shooting BB’s out the windows at cars and buildings. He eventually lost his license due to repeated vehicular violations.

He hasn’t been around since then and The Boy Wonder hasn’t spoken about him but last Thursday I still knew it was Pat.

They announced in school that a senior had been arrested in connection with the shooting on Thursday. They didn’t give a name but The Boy Wonder knew it was Pat. A couple quick phone calls confirmed it for him.

I asked where Pat would’ve gotten a handgun. The Boy Wonder said when Pat wanted something he’d do whatever he had to in order to get it. Scary.

Scarier still, he had brought the gun to school with him. That’s how they finally caught him. Kids finally stepped forward and started talking. Meanwhile he was in school with a handgun for how long?

By Friday they had more details on the news and there was Pat’s mug shot and name on the screen even though he’s only 17 his prior arrests have stripped him of his minor rights and protections. He still doesn’t look evil. He looks lost. I wish I could say he looked scared but he didn’t. Just lost. They had narrowed the motive down to three choices; grudge against the current residents, grudge against the former residents or random incident.

The Boy Wonder has his money on random. “It’s how he does things like this Mom. Randomly.”

And he’s right. Pat would be going a long in a “normal” phase and suddenly he would snap and go all self-destructive and angry.

What surprised me in all of this was how angry I became. Not at Pat. I want 5 minutes with his mother. His mother, the lawyer, who got him off easy in prior instances. Who manipulated the school to drop the expulsions and take him back. Put him back into the same school as my son and he was carrying a handgun instead of books.

His mother who ignored his ever-increasing cries for help and attention and put band-aids on his gaping wounds and shoved him back out the door and pretended that everything was okay.

I had tried to get close to him when he was around and while he was never rude or disrespectful he kept his distance and me out.

I still don’t believe that he’s a bad kid. I think that this is just another symptom of whatever is eating this kid from the inside out and that makes me sad all over again.

But it also makes me so very thankful that I stay up in The Boy Wonder’s business and still supply the boundaries in which he moves. Those boundaries are as wide as the trust and communication is between us. There are plenty of years ahead of him that he’ll have to rely on his own senses. For now it’s still my job.

©2006 Dawn Marie Kelly, all rights reserved.

I know my posts have been a bit darker and bleak lately and frankly, it's getting tiresome for me too. Let's all look forward to a more Angel-esque post for Thursday!

Generational Bridges Gapped

2006-02-22T23:08:00.000Z

When I was 14 I accompanied my mother to a funeral for a relative I had never met. My mother was newly single and not ready to brave an event like that alone so she asked me to go along.

The funeral home was in an old part of the city and was once a Victorian home. I remember the high ceilings, huge expanses of gorgeous woodwork and moldings and how each corridor and room was more gracious than the next. The lighting was dim and the streetlights cast a glow outside the seven-foot tall windows.

The gathering room was crowded and smelled of too many differing perfumes and colognes and I remember I could feel the nervousness radiating from my mother and thinking about how hard this obligation was for her at this time of her life.

My mother made me get rid of the ever present stick of Juicy Fruit gum that I was chewing but that was okay because the taste was gone about 2 minutes after the chewing began anyway.

She introduced me to distant family and friends as we made our way to the viewing room. Once there we took our place in line and waited our turn. With each passing moment my mother was getting more and more tense as we drew closer to the casket and her ancient great aunty and so I did what I still do today when someone is stressed and I want to help. I insist on trying to make them laugh.

There were just three people in front of us and I leaned into my mother’s ear and said, “You will introduce me to him before I pretend to cry over his body won’t you?” My poor mother was horrified but could not hold back the laughter. And my mother’s laughter was legendarily loud and raucous.

She squeezed my hand to within an inch of it’s life as she introduced me to her now scowling ancient aunty and recent widow, and explained that the laughter came from my reminding her about; and she launched into an old family story that aunty was privy to as well. Aunty’s scowl turned into a melancholy smile and proceeded to tell my mother how blessed she was to have such a comfort as myself at times like these.

Disaster averted and I would be allowed to live another day. Or at the very least, a lecture of extraordinary proportions all the way home had been avoided.

My mother was not far from laughter the rest of the night and I remember thinking that that was how all these people should see her, glowing and radiant, not meek and beaten.

It’s how I remember her still.

Princess Dreams

2006-02-20T22:54:00.000Z

Whenever the situation warranted she’d slip away to her dreaming place. The older she became, the more the situation warranted.

Being a princess isn’t all glitz and glamour. There are obligations a princess is born to fulfill.

But what good is it being a princess if your life isn’t yours to control?

That’s why she had created her dreaming place. It was hers alone. She could do as she pleased. Or not. She wasn’t the princess, just a young girl. Here that young girl’s life did not include certain obligations.

The dreaming always got her through. Made things bearable as she waited for yet another obligation to end.

“You alright princess?”

Called back to reality, she opened her eyes as he removed himself from her. “Yes daddy.”

“That’s my good little princess.”

She smiled sweetly as her stomach turned against the stench of stale beer on his breath.

She returned to her dreams as he returned to her mother’s bed.

WORDS ~ what are they good for?

2006-02-16T02:40:00.000Z

Words can empower us, explain things and free our minds of years of pent up pains.

Words can also threaten, belittle, instill and impose fear into the hearts and minds of others.

Over all these years of developing and using the spoken and written word, still, we mere mortals underestimate the effect it can have on the people we are speaking/writing to under the guise of communication.

Considering that words can lift a person’s spirits or cut them to the quick, we throw them around, words that is, willy nilly, happily reveling in the sound of our own voices.

Concentrating on our next verbal strike and score without paying mind to whether the last verbal onslaught has furthered understanding or confusion, built a bridge or blew one up.

I have learned that asking questions in differing ways can result in differing results.

For instance, with my son, I learned a long time ago that asking, “How was school today?” gets me an answer of, “Fine.” However, if I asked, “What was the funniest part of your day today?” got me what can lead to a 40 minute animated discussion of all sorts with him.

Mind you, he’s now 16 and with each new growth and change, you have to change the questions up.

Now a question like, “What or who pissed you off at school today?” produces that same animated discussion period.

Can you also see how changing, “What were you thinking?” to, “Can you explain to me why you thought that was okay?” or, “How can you…” to “Why do you…” might actually elicit an explanation from someone rather than a defensive counter attack?

So that although at the end of the day you may still disagree, you may also have a greater understanding and appreciation for why and how someone thinks and believes what they do.

Here’s something to think about, eliminate the word, but, from your conversations.

Why?

As soon as you use it, you disqualify everything that you just said before it.

It has a totally different effect when you put a period where the, but, would be and start a new sentence.

As an example;

“You did a really great job of clearing up the garage, but couldn’t you also tidy up the recycling area?”

Becomes;

“You did a really great job clearing up the garage. Could you also tidy up the recycling area?”

See the difference?

Of course in order to do so requires some thought and effort on the part of the speaker. It forces you to stop think and take a breath.

Ah, that is a problem isn’t it?

We have grown use to projectile vomiting our opinions and thoughts out there before someone else has a chance to speak, stepping on someone else’s words, becoming loud and abusive as if having the last word, makes us somehow right and, mistakenly, more important.

Easier to lash out at what seems like someone’s attack of you rather than take the time to question whether or not that was indeed what it was in the first place.

Otherwise you wouldn’t have enough time to turn around and verbally bitch slap the next person in line.

To hell with understanding and respect for a differing point of view, it’s all about I’m right, you’re wrong, making points and keeping score.

We cover aggression and ignorance with, “I tell it like it is, if you can’t handle that…” and other such crap.

Physical bullies have evolved into verbal bullies.

Bullies all the same.

Wild Thing

2006-02-13T21:58:00.000Z

Sometimes the people who shape our lives do so without meaning to and sometimes without us even realizing it.

I had just such a revelation this past weekend. It happened somewhere between the lobsters and the lamb chops and I don’t recall how I happened upon her. She was all of a sudden in the middle of our dinner.

Aunt Boo. She was one of my father’s aunts so that made her a great aunt to me. I honestly only remember being around her a couple of times but she apparently left quite an impression on my 5 or 6 year old little brain.

I should also add that being 5 or 6; my memory might be mixed with my imagination of that time. I spent so much time in my head, which was usually a lot safer than what was going on around me. Not that anyone noticed. I was a quiet, adorable little piece of blonde fluff with enormous, blinking blue eyes that was easily and often overlooked.

Quiet yes, but I was always paying attention. That in itself taught me a valuable lesson that carries over today. There are worse things than being an overlooked piece of blonde fluff. This fluff has been privy to things that would’ve otherwise gotten me swept from the room if I was thought to have half a brain behind these big blue eyes.

I guess it’s a part of the process of getting older all these revelations I seem to have regarding my mother. Oh yes, this is also tied to her. Maybe because I feel robbed of what our relationship could’ve grown into that I dissect the hell out of the one we had up until she died.

I’m not entirely sure but somewhere between knowing that my mother and I are more different than the same Aunt Boo came bursting into the room.

My most vivid memory of her is just that. Aunt Boo, bursting into that apartment on the second floor of the duplex on Central Avenue in Albany, NY.

The duplex was a white building that my father’s parents and his grandmother lived in at the time, 1966-ish.

I didn’t always like my time spent there. Always felt dumped off rather than dropped but I have lots of memories anyway. Of the ally that ran down the side from front to back and the metal gates you had to go through on the way to the back yard. The parking lot beyond the fenced in yard that seemed to go on forever, honestly, that lot is a black hole in my memory. The wonderful smell of Grandma Nelson’s chicken and biscuits cooking in the kitchen, filling the house. The porch that you went out of a French door off a funny little side room adjacent to the living room so like the one my oldest brother called his bedroom off the living room in our duplex.

I spent one whole afternoon singing: I’m Henry the Eighth, by Herman’s Hermits, in rocking chairs on that porch with my cousin Jenny from Long Island till the entire city was ready to throw us both over the side.

But back to Aunt Boo who had short-cropped hair which was blondish, there was not an ounce of fat on her slim frame, a trait she shared with her mother, my great grandma Nelson. Wiry, spunky and a party ready to happen she was. I was immediately drawn to her like a moth to a flame. From afar, but drawn.

She wasn’t loud but when she was talking the whole world listened and watched as she punctuated everything with sweeping gestures. She smoked and in my head those cigarettes became cigars and Aunt Boo became Annie Oakley or Bonnie Parker. She was pure magic. She didn’t have a man she was attached to and somehow my very immature little girl head knew she didn’t need one. She was complete all on her own. She wore dresses that neither flattered nor detracted from her and yet I knew she turned heads regardless. She had an energy that was palatable and when she left the room was somehow colder and less bright.

I have no idea what ever became of her.

But there she was on Saturday night somewhere between the lamb chops and the lobster of the Hubster’s and my Valentine’s dinner that I had prepared.

And as she bubbled out of me I realized that although she played a brief moment or two in the life of a 5 or 6-year-old little blonde piece of fluff, she left an indelible imprint behind those blinking blue eyes.

The awareness that a woman is more than the sum of the men in her life or the food and people that she nurtures. She is a force all her own and one to be reckoned with.

The wild woman in me raises a glass to the wild woman in you and reminds you to embrace her. The world is waiting.

Conspiratorial Lies

2006-02-08T11:22:00.000Z

This didn't get posted yesterday as Blogger was apparently doing some maintinance which caused my page to be buggy most of the day. Thanks to all who came faithfully looking for a post.

This is actually reworked from a piece of an early post ~ trying something diff, let me know what you think.

In a world gone fitness crazy I have been left behind. To be truthful, it’s more that I’ve taken the liberty of sitting out. In fact there’s a bit of a joke in my family that I indeed believe sitting is a sport and if it ever becomes an Olympic event there is a gold medal with my name on it.

Oh that was then and this is now. I have reached that special time in my life where I have acquired grace, wisdom and a fat arse. So I have been forced to join the fitness quest in order that I may still enjoy my sitting. Having to wedge one’s fat bottom into the seat diminishes some of the joy of the sport. As does that popping noise when extracting your bottom from said seat.

Not so bad though if you consider that taking up some sort of fitness routine usually requires the accumulation of the paraphernalia associated with the activity. Which requires shopping so how awful can this fitness thing be?

So I begin by trying to figure out what kind of exercise is right for me. I make the mistake of asking a couple people their opinions and they strongly suggested running. They way they went on about it I thought it was going to be a religious experience with harps, flowers and fluffy clouds.

I’m sold. I go out buy a pair of running shoes that cost as much as a good used car, but it’s worth it, I’m talking change of my life here and I look so damn cute in them. I then buy up every pink and purple bit of spandex running apparel I can find. Of course you can’t run without the proper jog-bra and sweat-wicking panties too. Who knew that there are special socks just for running?

I’m a firm believer that you can’t get the job done right without the appropriate tools and so buying all this stuff was only going to lead to my shining success. In fact I am sure that I will be running marathons along side Diddy and Oprah very soon.

I am off and running.

And sweating. And wheezing and it’s not invigorating, exhilarating or any of that line of crap they sold me.

They Lied.

Still, I’m confused and convinced that there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I’m not doing it right.

Come on. It’s running. I’ve been capable of doing it since I was two. Albeit out of practice, but still.

Maybe I didn’t do it long enough. Two excruciating weeks later, it still sucks.

So I go out to see how other people do it. They’re not hard to find.

I study their form. Technique. Start noting what brand shoes they are wearing, their gear. Camel pack or water bottle? With a partner or without?

That must be it. A rookie mistake. I bought the wrong stuff. So I go and buy more stuff. All the stuff I can find.

Two more weeks of pain while I try out all the new stuff in every imaginable combination to find the magic formula and still no harps, flowers or fluffy clouds.

What am I missing?!?

Then it hits me. Square in the face. Not mine, THEIRS!

I stopped looking down at all that running paraphernalia and looked up at their faces.

They looked as miserable as I felt. All of them. Not a one had a smile, a look of inner peace or joy. They all looked like someone just stole their cookies and punched them in the gut.

They lied.

It’s just another bloody conspiracy like marriage and babies. People get suckered into it and instead of admitting how miserable it’s making them they try to take you down too.

Well I’m having none of it. I will be dropping all that running gear into the goodwill bin on my way to buy me some yoga stuff, organic cotton yoga wear, a mat……

Hello, hello.......is there anybody IN there. Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at home?

2006-02-02T13:39:00.000Z

The rodent lied. Spring is coming early the birdies tell me so.

Okay so I know I’m in a funk, but where is everyone else? I’m not just referring to my commenters—though I do miss you all and have begun showering regularly in an attempt to woo you back but the lurkers as well. (That includes you brother dearest—where are you?)

The blogging world seems to hold tumbleweeds and white noise lately. Is everyone okay? Should I be concerned? Should I take off my clothes?

Good goddess I’m resorting to threats of the most inhumane kind!

I feel like there is a big party going on somewhere like the, Bloggers Banquet and Ball, Pia would like to throw someday. Did my invite get lost in the blogosphere? Is MQ in LA pitching up a storm? Teri might have made the Poker finals without telling me, I know the Diva’s, (still awaiting my goodie bag), are tasteful bag high in fashion week, Tanisha has left the building and Neil is still on his quest for love, sex and boobies. (Not necessarily in order of importance.) Mrs M is busy inducing labor, QoS has more important things to attend to like whoohas and flappy boy bits and Ruben is allowed to come and go as he pleases—he’s earned it dammit! And Dan, I would give Dan 3 weeks in Ireland if I could, there’s no better place to hibernate IMHO.

And then there’s me---in a funk, (established), cracking under the pressure of several writing commitments that I know are good for me and coming to terms with my newly diagnosed chubby virus. (Pop 2 cupcakes and call me in the morning.)

So now what?

It would not be very practical for me to go and actually check up on all of you.

Here are just a few of the places I would have to travel to:

• Parma, Italy
• Barcelona, Spain
• Reston, VA
• Albany, NY
• St Louis, MO
• Oklahoma City, OK
• London, England
• Springfield, MA
• Ft Lauderdale, FL
• LA, CA
• Atlanta, GA
• Valencia, CA
• Stockton, CA
• San Antonio, TX
• Seoul, Korea
• Boston, MA
• Modesto, CA –(where’s Scott Peterson being held?)

Travelocity does not have the capacity on their site to sort out that many connecting flights. Do they?

Okay, so you get the idea.

Hello?

Can you hear me now?!

"And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
you shout and no one seems to hear
and if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon" ~ Pink Floyd

Ms. Hyde and this matter of chub

2006-01-31T15:18:00.000Z

According to a new study, whose results were released recently, I may not be chubby because I can’t manage to exercise regularly. Nope I may be chubby simply because I have a virus.

Good news that!

So like my beloved New Beetle, Princess, I too am, “Round for a Reason.”

Perhaps I have been lack in the vacuuming department also due to a yet to be unidentified virus! All that dust and fur flying about it’s not unreasonable to think.

Can a laundry virus be far off? Surely not.

I have long suspected that there are any number of viruses and plagues lurking in the hampers of The Hubster and Boy Wonder. I am more than willing to donate some of their dirties in the name of science and better health.

Until the study is commissioned and completed I will be cutting the laundry days in half per week in an effort to save myself.

Mother’s Day hint~~~ start shopping for Haz-Mat suits now for best colour and size selection.

Other health related good news; I may be days away from finally becoming one of the thousand points of light and moving amoung the kinder and gentler folk of the planet.

And no, I didn’t vote for him even with the catchy, warm fuzzy spin and apparently it was lost on W as well.

It seems the only thing capable of kicking my ass on this planet might become a thing of the past. Or at the very least - have less of a strangle hold on me.

Hormones. The hairy scary ones that take over and possess me a couple days a month and the lesser ones that dominate me for 14 days and that leaves me with about a week and a half of normalcy but after you subtract 5 days spent apologising and doing damage control leaves me with 4-5 days of non-homicidal tendencies.

Times 12 equals 48-60 days a year that I can be trusted not to fly into a rage over something as harmless as a light bulb burning out or finding I forgot to pick up bread when I did the grocery shopping.

See, this is why I laugh when the OBGYN starts in with perimenopausal this and that when I mention my hormonal angst. I have been this way since I got my first period when I was nine.

By age thirteen I was looking forward to menopause and researching hysterectomies.

I’m not going to go into it right now but just take a moment and really dissect the word hysterectomy. Grrrrr.

12 years ago working with a homeopathic doc I had blood work done and it was determined that I have very low levels of progesterone. Which allows the surplus of estrogen to take over my sanity.

Back then I was given my only natural hope, which was a cream that was derived from Mexican Yams that had properties similar to progesterone.

Things have begun to escalate the last couple years because I have been on the pill and that builds more estrogen up in my system, further turning me into Ms. Hyde.

While I was at the chiropractor this past week we stumbled upon things and I don’t even remember what or why or how -- all I know is that he had an answer and I have some new hope.

Dr Rob’s mom is like me, hormonally challenged, and he’s been helping her get things balanced and thinks he can also help me.

Seems there have been new natural stuffs they have developed that I wasn’t aware of. Actual plant derived progesterone that is a near perfect match. He then went into how it’s really stable and something about sub-lingual this and blahdy whoohaaa that…………..

Sign me up!

I picked it up yesterday and I’ll keep you posted.

If it works they can stop worrying about the big east coast quake that’s supposed to be coming in our lifetime.

If not, buy stock in really good 85% Dark De Cacao----it’s the only thing that calms me.

OOOoooo, gotta run---a new edge needs to be put on the axe.

Send lawyers, guns and money

2006-01-26T13:12:00.000Z

My mother has a way of never leaving me. Not that I want her to.

Bits and pieces of her find their way into my life when I least expect it but need it most. Even if I don’t know it yet or at the time, it always comes clear.

We have a new grocery store here in Keene. A Price Chopper. Those of you in NY know them well as they originated there. They have made their way into NH and my backyard. Within a mile and a half of it, literally.

The Boy Wonder applied and is working there knowing he can transfer to one of the 3 locations near where we are moving to in NY.

So of course I had to check it out.

Me and 25,842 other people during the first week it was open. You would think we didn’t have another two major grocery stores to choose from in town. Maybe they were running some great specials that I was blissfully unaware of as I shop only the outside walls of the store.

I start in the organic produce section and what’s not available there I get from the rest of the produce section. I then head into the natural foods section before hitting the natural and organic meats section. Pick up a couple things from diary and I’m done.

Today though I was a first time visitor at their deli counter thanks to The Boy Wonder. His dinner request was for hot sub sandwiches. Crusty baguette, bacon, fried Genoa salami, roast beef, capicola, roast turkey, red onion, hamburger pickles, tomatoes and Irish Swiss baked in the oven. I’m getting hungry again just writing about it.

That sandwich was slamming delicious!

So there I was at the deli counter and as they are slicing up the roast beef I start checking out the salami choices and there it is. The Tobin’s First Prize logo was screaming at me from inside the case on the liverwurst, bologna and salami.

Tobin’s First Prize products originated from the Tobin’s meat packing plant that was located on Exchange Street just off Exit 5 of Interstate 90 in Albany. It’s where my mother worked while we lived in Albany, until I was nine. They are now produced and distributed by John Morrell.

But they have kept the same logo and packaging on the products and when I saw them a smile followed by a slight wince emitted from me.

Funny how a big old slab of liverwurst brings my mother back to life but it does.

I don’t believe I ever stepped foot in the plant but I remember vividly what the parking lot and the big white building looked like and the logo on the tower that you could see from the interstate going north.

I also remember this one girlfriend she had from there that had red hair, smoked, dressed in bright prints and dated a gangster. I think her name was Denise?

A day when the two of them spent the whole afternoon painting the ceilings in the dining room and living room and enough time went by that a little blonde girl playing quietly on her own staying out the way was blessed with them being themselves and given a window into the lives of women without the usual boundaries by which they’re tied.

I’d like to think that day played a small but important part in what makes me the woman I am.

Then there was a story that has become infamous over the years for me.

A Christmas party prank gone horribly wrong which involved an air hose, some poor mans buttock and too much alcohol. You do the math.

The last couple days have been an ongoing dialogue with The Boy Wonder about where he’s going and how he is in control of what does and doesn’t happen for him. We’re coming to the end of the semester and he’s in full excuse mode and defense. (I'm the innocent bystander Somehow I got stuck , Between the rock and the hard place, And I'm down on my luck)

On my way to Price Chopper I had time to think as the guy in front of me forgot he was in his truck and was basically strolling to the plaza with his cigarette, reading his newspaper and darning a pair of socks.

I got to thinking about what I want for him in his life and it’s really quite simple and here is how the thought process went.

**Disclaimer~ those prone to motion sickness should take the necessary precautions or at the very least, remain seated and have a paper bag handy.**

As I was pulling out of the driveway the Santana/Steven Tyler song came on and it made me angry. It’s not the song. The song, Just Feel Better, is hauntingly lovely and what is it about Steven Tyler when he is doing the belting bits in any of his songs I uncontrollably sing along at the top of my voice.

Every time.

Hearing Mr Tyler sing is like smashing into a fresh bruise for me at the moment because it makes me think of J Frey and that makes me want to smash J Frey into a million little pieces if for no reason than there will be truth in the title of that book.

In that book J Frey goes on and on about a guest speaker who he refers to as an aging rock star who is clean and making a comeback and seems to go out of his way NOT to identify but sounded all the world to me that he was describing Mr Tyler.

J Frey goes on about how angry this speaker is making him, that this person is lying and no one could survive the amounts of drugs and alcohol they were saying they would ingest in a 24-hour period. And I am trying not to be upset as I love Mr Tyler but not in that---they have to pull me off his leg kinda way and then isn’t it ironic that we find out thanks to this article that J Frey himself is the liar.

How bloody hypocritical is he.

So yeah, I’m still bitter as J Frey became yet another person who chose to lie to me after I became emotionally invested in him.

Which got me to thinking about The Boy Wonder and how I want him to be his own best friend and know that he can do whatever it is he sets out to do. No one can stop him but himself.

Here I am, 45, finally investing enough in myself to pursue the one thing I always wanted to do---write. Send little bits of myself out into the world through my own distinct voice.

I’m not looking to win any prizes---won’t turn any down---not looking to be famous and not looking to be like anyone else, just me.

Apparently my voice is very different and not everyone wants to listen and I’m okay with that.

My humour class assignments have developed a pattern in what the teacher has to say and none of it is about a lack of humour, he tells me I’m very funny, it’s about the mechanics of my writing; switching tenses and POV----and that thing that’s gotten me pulled aside my whole schooling life.

“It seems like you didn’t follow the directive, but this is really good and I had to give you the A.”

A writing mentor recently told me that, “You’re humour and voice may be too intelligent for most average Americans to follow.”

I’m okay with that because I’m 45 now and not 12, 14, 18 and 21 when no one put it to me in that way so that I could see that I shouldn’t stop and this time I won’t.

I want The Boy Wonder to know he shouldn’t stop.

I wish my mother hadn’t died before she finally did the one thing that was inside her, but she didn’t and I’ll never know what it was. I don’t know that she did either.

And that’s when I pulled into the parking space at Price Chopper and two minutes later there was my Mother visiting me in the form of Tobin’s First Prize, Mother Goose Liverwurst.

She’s given me more advice in the years since her death than she ever did when she was alive.

I guess that’s because those boundaries that use to keep her tied, no longer apply.

Isn’t it ironic.

Just Feel Better

She said I feel stranded
And I can't tell anymore
If we coming or I'm going
It's not how I planed it
I've got the key to the door
But it just won't open

And I know, I know, I know
Part of me says let it go
That life happens for a reason
I don't, I don't, I don't
It goes I never went before
But this time, this time

I'm gonna try anything that just feel better
Tell me what to do
You know I can't see through the haze around me
And I do anything that just feel better

And I can't find my way
Girl I need a change
And I do anything that just feel better
Any little thing that just feel better

She said I need you to hold me
I'm a little far from the shore
And I'm afraid of sinking
You're the only one knows me
And who doesn't ignore
That my soul is weeping

I know, I know, I know
Part of me says let it go
Everything must have it seasons
Round and round it goes
And every day's a one before
But this time, this time

I'm gonna try anything that just feels better
Tell me what to do
You know I can't see through the haze around me
And I do anything that just feel better

And I can't find my way
God I need a change
And I do anything that just feel better
Any little thing that just feel better

Long to hold you in my arms
To all things I ought to leave behind, yeah
It's really getting nowhere
I think I need a little help this time!

Yeah

I'm gonna try anything that just feel better
Tell me what to do
You know I can't see through the haze around me
And I do anything that just feel better

And I can't find my way
Girl I need a change
And I do anything that just feel better
Any little thing that just feel better

Things are not always as they appear to feel

2006-01-24T15:40:00.000Z

photo source

I slept in today. I didn’t mean to I honestly made an attempt at actually getting up but somehow there I was at, 9:45 AM EST, having to forcefully drag myself out of bed.

Which is no fun at all. Just ask The Hubster.

It’s really strange though, I was asleep by 10:45 last night. And while I had a couple of disturbing dreams that I will NOT share here, I slept pretty good. Makes me wonder if I am suffering from SAD disorder.

The SAD website defines it as:

SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is a type of winter depression that affects an estimated half a million people every winter between September and April, in particular during December, January and February.

Makes me feel better just to have something to maybe point a finger at.

But back to those dreams, I don’t normally remember my dreams.

During particularly stressful time periods I have a tendency to remember them but I am not having a particularly stressful time that I’m aware of.

That I am aware of.

I mean what’s the point of being stressed out if you can’t share it with people this stress of which we speak?

If I’m stressed I should be having unpredictable mood swings that level everything and everybody within a 5-mile radius. Of which I show no remorse because I’m stressed.

I should be eating truckloads of carbs trying to comfort and calm the stress.

I should have something or someone that I can firmly point a finger at and be blaming for all this stress until an appropriate amount of time has passed and I can pull myself up by my bootstraps—wherever they are, and save myself making all right in the world once again!

So I spit at you SAD disorder. What kind of a disorder are you that you can’t even muster more than a tendency to remember my dreams and a need to sleep 11 hours rather than seven?

Disorder indeed.

I’m off to make some mashed potatoes all this hoopla has me feeling a bit not quite myself and a wee tad sad.

12:46PM edit: I am always the last to know but this apparently the worst day of the year---who decides this stuff and how are they right?!

What's cooking? Everything!

2006-01-19T13:18:00.000Z

I know I kept talking about the kitchen remodel and had yet to post a pic but that’s because it is, I am sure, a much bigger deal to me than it will be entertaining for you all.

That being said let’s get this over with and we can all move on already.

(I have to run to my doc appointment and will post pics later if photo bucket is being nicer than it is at the moment---grrr!) edit----YAY it's working!!!

There is still the finishing bits to be done but all the working areas are in place and, well, working and I am loving it.

I didn’t realize just how much I learned to work around all the problems of the old set-up.

I love to cook. Love, love, love it. I now enjoy it even more.

I now have clear and distinct stations. A bake station that’s a joy because my beloved Kitchen-Aid mixer now has a proper place and I no longer need to drag it out to use.

To the left of the fridge is the beverage center. The electric kettle lives there. A very practical appliance, which, is a staple in every household in the UK and a tea drinker’s must have. Holders for six bottles of wine run down the side of the cabinet.

Opposite the bevvie center is the snack and sandwich area.

One of the greatest things about the new set-up is the use of drawers instead of traditional cabinets and the open shelving that replaces the wall cabinets.

Could be messy and cluttered looking but it’s not and everything I need is only a quick reach away.

I also went from a double sink to a single deep one. Combined with the gooseneck faucet washing up is a breeze.

Unloading the dishwasher now happens in half the time as everything is stored very nearby.

The two big drawers to the right of the dishwasher, one holds all the plastic bins and the other holds all the lids. Makes for quick stashing of leftovers as this is directly opposite the fridge.

My main working area around the stove rocks! The hanging pot rack, genius! The cabinet to the right of the cooker has a double carousel rack and all those small appliances and roasting pans live in there. No longer do I have to crawl inside with a flashlight looking for my beer-can-chicken racks.

The best part is that I can be cooking up a storm and people can still come in and get something to drink or make a snack and one doesn’t affect the other.

So what’s cooking?

Yesterday; A roasted split turkey breast, mashed, gravy, stuffing and broccoli. A batch of my signature cookies, Mocha-choco caramel kisses and a batch of homemade vanilla ice cream.

Tonight it’s beef satay and prik pow fried rice.

I even made a batch of my signature Follain breads the other day. I hadn’t baked bread for months.

Cooking has always been therapy for me and now it’s a joy.

Best Laid Plans Made

2006-01-17T16:23:00.000Z

I’ll admit I’ve been thinking about this for a very long time.

I’ve always thrived within a predictable structure.

Then along came Teri and I thought, “See, it is a good idea.”

And did nothing.

Then I signed up for an online Humour Writing Class over at Gotham Writers' Workshop and it really seemed like a good idea.

Hold on.

Did someone just ask, “Why a humour writing class?”

So you can all start giggling and tittering to yourselves while reading my blog of course.

Because apparently I can’t believe I write funny unless the person telling me is in a qualified position.

And I need to kick my fiction into gear.

And I’m paying him.

Back to business.

Even Pia’s given it some thought recently.

So now that I’ve added the commitment of a weekly gig at the Daily Irish News I’m finally going to do it.

I’m going to write in my blog twice a week.

There I’ve said it.

I feel better all ready.

No more will I feel guilty when go into Stat Counter and I see my loyal readers, (Yes, I have some. They don’t leave comments but they are fiercely loyal readers on both sides of the Atlantic. I love you guys!), have been checking in for new posts, sometimes a couple times a day.

The pressures off me and no more guess work for my readers.

Every Tuesday and Thursday there will be shiny new posts to my blog.

For those of you who can’t get enough you can sign up for the delivery of the Daily Irish News and read me every Friday there.

I may even pick a day to post my assignments from my class if my teacher doesn’t rip them apart too much.

Or not, if he seems to be telling me that I am indeed not funny at all but only have been playing the part of a humourous writer on my blog.

If that turns out to be the case I am in for a long and painful 10 weeks.

On the bright side, if that’s how it plays out I can turn my full energies to my mid-life crisis and let the belly baring, spandex, and stiletto heel wearing begin!

And yes, I’ll post pictures.

Because one way or another I will make you laugh.

Print the Fit That's News to All

2006-01-13T13:51:00.000Z

I have had the pleasure of writing an article for The Daily Irish News.

Thanks TJ!

That's it's logo up there. I'll be writing more articles for them and if you want to be sure not to miss any future blonde blatherings I post there, you can subscribe to the publication by sending an e-mail to the following address:

manywhoknow@yahoo.com

This is the article that's in the DIN today.

NBC has a hit with; My Name is Earl, which debuted in the 2005 fall line-up and they recently showed their faith in it by moving it to the famed Thursday night line up. Famed yes, but hasn’t had any meat in it since the departure of such iconic shows as, Seinfeld and Friends.

It’s smart, quirky and funny. Much like myself.

The Earl website describes the show thusly:

Earl (Jason Lee, "Almost Famous," "Chasing Amy") has taken one too many wrong turns on the highway of life. However, a twist of fate turns his life into a tailspin of life-renewing events. Earl wins a small lottery, and, after an epiphany, he is determined to transform his good fortune into a life-changing event as he sets out to right all the wrongs from his past.
Before Earl can begin his journey, his inevitable attraction to misfortune surfaces once again. Seconds after winning the lottery, he is hit by a car and while unconscious; the winning lottery ticket blows away. While in the hospital, Earl watches "Last Call with Carson Daly" where Carson says that his success is a direct result of doing good things for other people. It is at that moment Earl discovers karma- and in hope of a better life, he sets out to correct every bad thing he's ever done starting with a grade school geek, Kenny (guest star, Gregg Binkley), who Earl used to pick on.

The Boy Wonder and I are loving the Crab Man and if you don’t know who I mean, watch the show.

Karma hasn’t received this much airtime in ages. Unless of course, you are The Dali Lama and company or Richard Gere.

My G4’s handy little dictionary widget thingy defines karma as:

Or at least it did after it politely informed me that my spelling of, k h a r m a, was quaint but erroneous.

I’ve long been a fan and believer in karma although I don’t always remember to keep the karma ball in play.

You see karma, is very much like a woman. If you want to be able to get what you want when you want it, you need to be paying it/her some attention or you just might get what you need. A not so pleasant wake-up call, which can be subtle or slamming, depending on how long you’ve been ignoring it/her.

But if you truly are remorseful and get your attention focused on it/her again you will be rewarded.

Back in 2001 I was a struggling single mom and never seemed to have enough time, money or peace. I was constantly pushing forward in order to stay one step ahead of the bills and keep my son healthy and happy.

I was operating in a state of total fear. Fear of everything that could happen to us and all that was stable and good was becoming completely lost on me.

The, not yet, Hubster made the move from London to the US in June and we were married August 11th. Do to IRS rules he could not yet legally work in the states so I was still supporting the household. So even though life was taking real positive turns I was still so bogged down by the fear factor and missing the big picture.

Until our one-month anniversary, September 11th, the day that forever changed everything for everyone everywhere.

My fear factor shifted from my own little corner of the world to the world in general and what small bit of control I thought I had over my life was shattered.

Which turned out to be a good thing. Nothing like the world as you know it collapsing to put things into perspective.

A couple days after 9/11 the local radio station was doing a remote outside of Dunkin Donuts------

Hold on.

Why is Dunkin Donuts trying to take over the world?

In my little NH town and the surrounding 3 miles just beyond I have 5 locations to choose from. Two of those are less than ½ a mile apart.

Just curious.

So I divert to Dunkin Donuts while heading to work that morning and empty my wallet into their jar. It amounted to less than $50, but for someone who was wondering how to pay the mortgage that month after killing her savings account for a VERY modest wedding the month before, it might as well been $5,000.

The DJ’s made a big deal over me as I emptied my wallet all the while I am feeling bad that I don’t have more to give.

Driving to work after that I felt so content. It was odd because every penny counted but it no longer seemed to matter to me. Doing that small gesture had become more important.

I knew that if I lost the house that I would still have The Boy Wonder and The Hubster and that was all I really needed.

During the next two weeks I received a promotion with an increase in pay and was included in my departments bonus allocation program for the first time.

Sometimes you have to actually do a karma circle dance with yourself.

When The Hubster could legally pursue work here he found little in his field, production sound, in New England. In the space of 3 years; one independent movie and local, on location, day gigs for A&E, Discovery, History Channel and a failed David E Kelley show.

Brotherhood of Poland--- anyone?

During this time, The Boy Wonder found his home life so safe and secure that he finally let his suppressed anger towards his father out and began to self-destruct. He needed stability and someone at home. I left my job and the 37,000 we counted on to pay bills.

Surely there would be more films shot in New England. There was, all head of depts. were flown in from LA or NY because of old under-handed crap that happened with the Boston local in the 70’s/80’s that we were cleverly not made aware of when Hubster joined.

The Hubster was reduced to pushing boxes and building stages for an insulting wage to barely get the bills paid. He refused to let me go back to work. Nothing was more important than getting The Boy Wonder back on steady ground.

Occasionally he would do a gig for a music production company over the border in Massachusetts. The money was slightly less insulting, and he enjoyed being behind a mixer at live performances again but the gigs were far and few between.

December of 2003 that company needed a management position filled. Hubster had been out of the music business and into film/TV for the 10 years and his own boss but the stability of a weekly paycheck and health benefits was very tempting.

The picture they painted at the two interviews and the offer they made him were thousands of dollars apart and not in our direction but he was still determined that the stability would be for the best.

I hated that he was willing to settle and compromise everything he had worked the last 15 years building his reputation in a business he loved. Even if it was for all the right reasons.

While I was hacking out the taxes for the previous year I discovered something and ran to tell him.

His gross income for the past year came to just slightly more than the yearly salary they were offering him and he had only actually worked 34 weeks as opposed to the 50 he would have to for them.

The owner of that company was shocked when Hubster called him to say he couldn’t take the position and explained why.

We knew we might be facing the same struggle in the year ahead but our still new family would have the bonus of all that extra time together through it.

Within 3 months he was offered a chance to work on American Chopper as the sound supervisor for a contracted 3 months.

That was 20 months ago and it looks like the boys will be doing at least one more season for Discovery.

While it means that Hubster works and lives in NY six days a week and The Boy Wonder and I live in NH even that is sorting itself out and you read about that here.

Even the smallest karmic gestures circle back on you and my most recent is what inspired this piece.

I belong to a website community for people like me who are obsessed with their cars.

They have this feature on the boards where you can add to a member’s reputation. It’s a point system where you receive points if they give you positive rep and take away points if they give you negative rep. It happens privately between you and them and not on the public boards.

I’m really not sure what the whole reputation thing is supposed to do for us but I play along.

Last week I received negative feedback from someone on the site because he didn’t care for the way I wouldn’t rise to an argument he had tried to establish with me on a past thread.

My first instinct was to react and call him out publicly on the boards and vindicate myself.

For some reason, good place in my hormonic cycle perhaps; I instead gave him positive feedback with the comment that I preferred to spread good karma regardless.

Within 24 hours I received enough positive reputation from other members to make up for the points his subtracted three times over.

All karma, big or small, inward or outward circles right on back to you.

You all might consider giving karma some well-deserved attention today.

After all, if karma ain’t happy, nobody’s happy.

Just ask Earl.

Sibling Simplex

2006-01-11T15:02:00.000Z

The Boy Wonder is an only child.

When the decision not to have any more children became public knowledge I was amazed at what people thought they had a right to say.

Out loud.

To my face.

“How can you do that to him? You have an obligation to give him siblings so he has someone to relate to. No one understands you like a brother or sister. He needs someone who will still be family after you’ve died.”

Obligation?

To give him siblings?

Funnily enough I thought my obligation was to love, protect, feed, clothe and teach him how to be a good person in this crazy world.

And I told this person so.

Funnily enough this person went on to engage in a years long affair with one of his oldest daughter’s friends and eventually his entire family disintegrated from the fall out and he and the now young woman basically have only each other.

So no, the man who spouted his opinion at me was not Dr Spock and I’m sure his three girls are comforted by the fact that they share the common bond of that past and think of the therapy discounts they are entitled to.

The Boy Wonder went on to acquire 3 step sisters who aren’t legally his step sisters but there is no known term for the offspring that a father’s live-in partner has and that got confusing just typing it.

So now he has the best of both worlds or at least a firm appreciation of growing up the first 11 years as an only child.

Do I have any regrets?

I would’ve liked to raise a daughter and instill in her everything that was not instilled in me as a girl.

Like self-confidence, self-worth and a belief that I was important and should be treated with respect. To have been taught that there is nothing that a little girl can’t do simply because she is a girl.

A little girl should know that school is important and that there is more to life after high school than going to college where, “ Maybe you’ll meet a nice boy and get married.”

I was at a mall in Connecticut a few years back with my brother John’s third wife on a Sunday.

I noticed how many mother/daughter pairs there were sharing the day.

The young girls ranged from like 6 years old and up.

I felt a longing for something I didn’t know I missed.

Of course if I had more babies there would not have been any guarantee that I would’ve had any daughters and not more sons and that’s the practicalities of that.

I have tried to instill in my son a sense that he has an obligation to treat girls with respect and that they are capable of anything he is if they have a mind to do it.

Seems to be holding so far. I have seen how he treats his girlfriends and he is destined to have his heart trounced for quite a few years.

Teenage girls are all about the drama and nice boys don’t hold their interest for more than a week. If a boy isn’t making them cry every other day he’s just not good enough.

While I missed out on sharing things with a daughter there are things that The Boy Wonder and I have shared that I never could’ve with a daughter.

Like how our testosterone levels rose and we started sprouting wiry little hairs on our chins at the same time.

Good times.

Oh yeah.

Good. Times.

Mother's little helper...wish you were here......

2006-01-06T14:11:00.000Z

Yay!

The guys are here installing the Corian counter with integrated sink.

It’s the only bit of the kitchen remodel we are not doing ourselves.

I am trying hard to not think about the fact that they are going at the tops of the cabinets with a jigsaw at the moment but this is impossible as it is all I can hear and they don’t look like they’d enjoy it if I turned the Gorillaz up any louder.

Look more like Big & Rich kind of guys.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I have lots of pics I’ve been taking through this entire process and an entry I’m working on about it as well.

Nothing like a major home renovation project to bring underlying issues up to the surface.

Ha. Bloody. Ha.

So I’m going to go and refill my water glass and pop a Valium.

See you on the Dark Side of the Moon.

Horton hears a pixel ping

2006-01-03T15:56:00.000Z

I know. It’s been the talk of the entire blogosphere thingy.

Where’s Angel and when will she be back????

Okay. Maybe not the entire blogosphere thingy.

Just a small corner.

A minute, tiny little spec--------

All right! A bloody pixels worth.

But hey, a pixel is a pixel no matter how small and should not be ignored.

This is for you pixel!

New Years. Something needs to be done.

Is there a holiday that matches it in all its anti-climatic glory?

If you’re single you had better have a date. It’s like the junior prom all over again.

It doesn’t matter who the date is just have one.

You and said date get overly dressed and have an overly priced dinner out with all the other bazillion people out having their overly priced dinners with their questionable dates and being seen doing it so as not to be the topic of the bazillions and their hangover conversations on January 1st.

Because nobody makes a resolution not to gossip, that would be impossibly unrealistic.

Let’s stick with the resolutions that we all know we can keep.

• Go on a diet
• Go to the gym
• Get out of debt

We know we can do them because we do them every year.

For a day and a half and then we get over it. Or at least bury them in excuses and rationalizations.

It’s okay though because nobody gives you a hard time about it. They’re all too busy breaking--- ermmmm, rationalizing their own.

Last year I wanted to get back my faith.

In people, life, but mostly myself.

I even bought a silver ring inscribed with the word, which was way more chic than tying the tired string around my finger.

Of course I could’ve made it a red string and told everyone I had started my own offshoot sect of the Kabbalah and sent the entire throng of celebrities who aren’t actual Kabbalah followers but just play one on the red carpet into a tail-spin trying to find a local chapter of the new, finger-wrapped, sect.

Okay. Sidetrack with me for just a sec.

Do you know what the red string is for?

“The Red String protects us from the influences of the Evil Eye. Evil Eye is a very powerful negative force. It refers to the unfriendly stare and unkind glances we sometimes get from people around us. According to Kabbalah, the critical need to confront the problem of negative influences cannot be underestimated.”

Uh huh.

Stay with me.

When my son was 2 he started waking up in the middle of the night screaming about spiders in his room.

After a few days and no signs that it would end soon I needed to come up with something to stop the madness.

At bedtime the last thing I would do was spray his room to kill the spiders.

No, of course I was not really filling my son’s room with insecticide every night for 3 months, I was spraying an all-natural citrus oil spray.

His room smelled great and we all got a good night’s sleep again.

All I’m saying is he was 2.

So everyone out there who thinks that you are causing Madonna and company great grievous harm with your dirty looks-----jokes on you.

This year I’m going to start being gentler with myself.

I am harder on myself than anyone. I’m the only one who I continue to allow to drag me down and beat with a stick.

I don’t need no stinking string to protect me from other people’s negativity---just my own.

I don’t think I can fit that inscription on a ring.

Am I too old to be seen in public with my blankie?

Happy New Year!

Old Year Revolutions & Changlings

2005-12-22T12:58:00.000Z

Wow.

I wish I could say that I’ve gotten immersed in the Holiday Chaos, but not so much.

I’m debating whether or not to post on the kitchen’s progress. It’s getting very exciting now.

Any who ~~~~

How does everyone feel about the new blog skin?

I. Am. Loving. It!

I still have a little tweaking to do but this new look is going to be a keeper.

It’s just sooo, ummmm, ME.

A huge round of appreciative applause goes out to Ginger of, Baby Jane Blogs, whose popularity is increasing with a bullet up the charts. And whose patience went above and beyond the edge of reason as we toiled through this process together.

Check out her portfolio, she does great work, the cost is reasonable and worth every penny.

Let me give you the grand tour and then we can have snacks and bevvies.

For anyone who doesn’t know the story, the header pic was inspired directly from a shot done of Renee Zellweger, (Officially never married/single again.) for the movie, Bridget Jones’s Diary. Thanks Tanisha!

After 6 plus hours of coaching, posing, a bottle of Champaign and a trizillion snaps---- Hubster increases his super hero status.

I don’t hate it.

Which is saying quite a lot for me. As a rule, I hate any pic that includes any part of me.

The author pic is from that same long afternoon/evening of making me into a supermodel.

I don’t hate that one either. Now if I could just figure out how to write the blurb about me….

Bedside Table ~ Except that this isn’t my bed. It’s the purple chair in my sitting room and features my furry little muse, Ozzy, my soul mate in fur and partner in crime.

Recent Blonde Moments ~ I spent February of 2005 in Ireland. In Ring, a Gaelic speaking community, on the southern coast. These beasts were across the road and every night they sang me to sleep.

PPP ~ Ozzy the Wonder Kitty, on bird watching duty. Destined to be in one or more of my novels. ( everyone say—3 book deal…)

Obsession ~ That’s the Princess at a gathering with some of her buddies in NY. Soon to be immortalized in Target’s Spring Ad campaign and larger than life on a billboard in Times Square. Something changes in me when I get behind the wheel of this car and she’s sure to become a main character in one of my books.

Playlist ~ Cheeky Robbie William’s cover art of his latest CD, Intensive Care. It’s Robbie, no explanation is necessary.

Daily Diversions ~ Pieces of Ozzy and I.

Blogroll ~ That’s a pic of one of my bookshelves and some of my ChickLit books. Genre research don’t you know.

Dedications ~ Taken at Ardmore, in Ireland, along the coast to the west of Ring a bit. My business name is AngelWorks born of the Desk Top Publishing/Marketing business I had back 10 years ago. I was just starting it up at the same time my mother was dying and it was my way of keeping her with me even as she was leaving this world.

We've come to the end of our little tour.

I look forward to hosting you all here for many happy years to come, now who wants a cocktail wieney???

Shooting blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back...

2005-12-15T19:01:00.000Z

Parenting is like shooting in the dark, (actually, that’s how most of us became parents in the first place), you don’t know what you’re aiming at and you’re never quite sure if you’ve hit anything properly. (again, a lot like sex)

Sometimes though the light comes on and you see that the target intended was a direct hit.

Other times the light comes on and you wonder, “Who the bloody hell are you and what are you doing in my bed!”
The boy wonder is 16 going on 40. It is safe to say that he is one thing in my life that I absolutely set out after.

Planned does not begin to describe his conception.

My youngest sister was coming home from boot camp and I told my mother I’d be there if a bedroom were guaranteed as I would be ovulating that weekend and tell the neighbors to pay no mind to the rocking doublewide.

Two worthy events happened that weekend.

The boy wonder was conceived and my sister was informed that she had not discovered a new fantastic rock group.

It was 1988 and Areosmith was making their comeback and I referred her to evidence in the form of a, “Toys in the Attic” album.

Yes, an actual album.

They say marriage is a leap of faith but I think the real leap comes when you parent a child.

Notice I did not say become a parent or give birth.

You’re not a parent unless you do the actual work.

If that confuses you, you haven’t earned the title.

The rest of you need no explanation and that’s the audience I’m writing for today.
My tools for parenting were limited. Basically, I had childhood references of what NOT to do.

I have treated my son as a person since the day he came into this world.

Nothing was left unsaid or unexplained because he was just a child.

There was this one time when he was 2 that I locked myself in the bathroom and called my mother and was sobbing my frustration down the phone.

She told me I was taking this parenting thing much too seriously.

Of course I was.

It was/is my job.
When life was forever altered for he and I when he was ten years old, I made him a promise.

That I would keep him here in his house, his neighborhood, his school until he graduated from high school.

Life as he knew it had exploded and he needed something to remain the same, something he could count on.

I have kept that promise.

The Hubster moved here from London to help me keep that promise.

When there wasn’t any proper work here in New England in the Hubster’s field, he built staging and pushed boxes.

Making an insulting wage that barely kept the bills paid.

It’s why the Hubster has been living and working 6 days a week for the last 20 months in NY and the boy wonder and I live in NH.

It’s difficult sometimes but it’s proper work and wages in Hubster’s field and we no longer struggle to pay the bills.

The plan has been to relocate to NY, (I refuse to move to LA), after the boy wonder graduates and goes off to college.

Until 2 months ago.

The boy wonder and I were driving home late one Sunday night after going to NY to visit the Hubster.

We are chatting and all of a sudden he comes out with:

“I’ll have enough credits except for one English class at the end of this year. If I can take a night class for that and graduate early we can all move to NY.”

“Sell the house?”

“Yes. I can find a place to intern at for what would’ve been my senior year, earn some money and experience and then find a tech school that I can commute to from there.”

He had decided just before high school that he wanted to go to tech school for auto mechanics – gas & diesel and custom auto body.

Being he didn’t grow up in that sort of an environment he feels very behind the other kids he’s taken classes with who’ve had their heads under the hood of a car since they were 10.

The show Hubster has been working on has built up a network of opportunities that the boy wonder has and can continue to benefit from and he knows that.

He also knows how difficult the long distance relationship can be for the Hubster and me. Especially when there are months I see him maybe 2 days out of 30.

I was shocked.

I let it lie for a week and asked him about it.

“Oh yeah, it’s what I want to do.”

Bulls-eye!

I told the Hubster that day over the phone and we both cried.

The light shines bright and true and we’ve come full circle.

That’s why we are making ourselves crazy doing over the kitchen and next the bath to get the house ready to sell come the spring.

And we’ve been looking at land to build a house on with enough acreage for horses for me and motor toys for the boys.

That pic I posted was of 14 acres in the New Paltz area—close enough to 87 for a clear shot down to Manhattan for the Hubster-----and all orchard land.

The process is a difficult one as we plan to own this new family compound for many, many years and we want to get it just right.

Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts on the photo and excuse the fuzziness of these. The bloody printer refused to scan and I took pics of the pics with the digi-cam.

Oy.

Feelings evoked

2005-12-13T13:01:00.000Z

Okay blogging buddies I need some assistance.

Look at that photo for a bit and take note of the feelings/thoughts that come to mind.

Then if you would be ever so kind, please share that with me in the comments.

I'll fill in the details later~~I don't want it to influence how your looking at it.

Many thanks in advance!

Barbie’s Dirty little Secret

2005-12-09T14:26:00.000Z

We all have had a love/hate relationship at some point in our lives.

The kind that you know is in no way healthy for you but you can’t help it, they’re soooo beautiful.

You keep being drawn back to them time after time only to have your ego beaten down around your ankles and have your life seem grossly inadequate after a few moments spent in their charmed atmospheric peripheral.

Mine has been going on for 38 long years.

I do believe that my alter Angel was born of that very relationship.

In fact I’m certain of it.

Yup, Angel is a Barbie Doll knock-off.

Okay so even in Angel mode I don’t miraculously and physically sprout an extra 6 inches on each leg.

That would be too Incredible Hulk-ish and green is not my colour.

In my twisted little blonde head though, Angel is every bit a physical impossibility as Barbie and Heidi Klum.

And sometimes in real life a well projected fantasy woman can actually fool people.

Pamela Anderson for instance.

Other times there is a flaw in the projection and no one is fooled.

Anna Nicole for instance.

For 38 long painful years Barbie has been my nemesis.

My ego’s kryptonite.

Every time I get to a comfy place where I am happy and accepting of myself there she is to poke me in the cellulite and slam me back into self-loathing reality.

How do you compete with someone who burst onto the scene and was already a teenage model?

Shut up Cindy Crawford------I was NOT talking to you!

At seven I was eager to believe I had time to evolve into Barbie-ness.

Barbie changed my nightly prayers of wanting to wake up a German Shepard to prayers of wanting to wake up Barbie-esque.

By age 16.

Surely nine years would be enough time, not an unreasonable request.

By the time I was sixteen Barbie had a dream house, designer clothes, a Californian tan, a pink Cadillac and a steady boyfriend for as long as I had been on this earth.

I had zits, one psychotic boyfriend for 2 months time, sun poisoning twice, my brother’s hand-me-downs, 3inch legs and was myopic.

My prayer must have got lost in the queue.

The only thing I managed to be before Barbie was divorced.

Never one to be left behind she promptly became divorced as well.

Bitch.

Imagine my happiness when flipping through the Radio Shack flyer and see that I had beat her out on something else.

By only six months but I’ll take it.

Just in time for Christmas Barbie has got herself a VW New Beetle.

I’ve had Princess since March------I win!

I know hers is a convertible and mines not.

Shut. Up.

Fine.

While doing some background research while preparing this blog I found out something that is going to take that perpetually perky little over achieving bitch down once and for all.

Sit down this is big.

JLo butt big.

Pam Andersons implant upgrade big.

Omarosa ugly big.

1~ The Barbie doll was invented in 1959 by Ruth Handler (co-founder of Mattel), named after Ruth’s daughter.

2~ The Ken doll introduced as Barbie’s boyfriend in 1961 was named after Ruth's son.

3~ Barbie first had bendable legs in 1965. (So she could play better with Ken I suppose.)

Wait a minute.

Back up to number 2.

Ken is Barbie’s brother!

EEEEwwwwwwwww.

Some prayers are better and thankfully left unanswered.

German Shepard.

What was up with that?

The Palace Needs a New Chef

2005-12-03T18:32:00.000Z

I love to shop.

I mean I reaaallllllyy love to shop.

It matters not if it is for me or someone else.

My money or yours.

Okay that didn’t sound exactly kosher, but you know what I mean.

Thinking back to the not too distant past and long throaty phone calls to the 800 numbers found on the back of catalogues makes me wax nostalgic.

Having to go through the effort of making my way to the phone to place an order must have robbed the economy of thousands of dollars.

Cordless phones put that to rights.

High speed Internet and having user accounts at my fav sites put immediate gratification just, “one click” away.

Hurrah!

Then there is Ikea. It’s different

Everything is flat packed and you have to assemble it.

Keeps the prices down and such. Which is great. You can buy more that way.

They have catalogues.

They have a home on the Internet.

You can order from the catalogue, by phone & you can order off the Internet.

Sort of.

Not everything and not all the different choices can be purchased these ways.

They want you to go to the store.

My first Ikea store experience was on a visit to The Hubster in England before he was The Hubster.

It was all very exciting and low stress, as I knew I would not be purchasing anything.

I already had enough things to drag through the airports on the trip back home.

That was 6 years ago and I had not stepped in one since.

Only lusted after it over the Internet and flipping through the pages while in the loo.

With Hubster living and working in NY 6 days a week we have often talked about going to the Ikea in NJ on one of my weekend visits.

20 months and it has yet to happen.

We usually end up doing, um, other things.

Which is why we are selling the house in New Hampshire come spring and we are all relocating to NY.

So there will be time for other things when we are together other than, um, that other thing.

In order to sell the NH home we are gutting the kitchen and starting over.

This weekend.

Yes, I know Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza et el are less than a month away.

We’ve been over this people. PAY attention.

It’s how I like to do things.

With as much stress and difficulty as possible.

Which is why after 6 long awaited years, I finally stepped into an Ikea store again this past Saturday.

I had seen on the Boston news that the folks in and around Stoughton had been complaining about all the trouble they were having because of Ikea’s arrival.

It’s just a store. They’re everywhere.

Stores in general, not Ikea.

How bad can things be?

Just in case, the plan was to leave as early as needed to arrive just before they open their doors.

Simple yes?

Except that it snowed on Thursday, Thanksgiving, and the Explorer that my son drives was badly in need of new tires.

No biggie-----just get Hubster and son to Tire Warehouse on Friday to get said new tires.

Except that it snowed on Thursday, Thanksgiving, and everyone else in greater Cheshire County was also getting new tires.

So Hubster and son pre-pay for said new tires and plan to be at Tire Warehouse when their doors opened at 8 AM Saturday morning to get new tires put on, son off to his new job orientation and Hubster and I on way to Ikea by 8:30 AM.

Wonderful plan. Hubster and son were so proud.

As was everyone else in greater Cheshire County who were also getting new tires
and came up with the same wonderful plan.

At 8:45 son was walking to his orientation.

And at 10 AM The Hubster and I were finally heading to Ikea.

At Noon we were approaching the exit off of Route 24 and I see State Trooper cars at the exit ramps on both sides of the highway for the 2 exits previous to where we get off.

Huh goes my little blonde brain. Only for a second though as Hubster points out the Ikea sign.

WhooHooooo!

There is stopped traffic snaking onto the highway at the exit.

WhooHoo-ness turns into, “Bloody hell….”

While we slowly make our way off the highway in the midst of a bizarre, Ikea-car-conga- line, we see a surreal sight and I suddenly feel bad for thinking those folks on the news had been exaggerating.

What should be a lovely main thoroughfare through town dotted with quaint shops looks like a car park with multiple quaint little parking attendant houses.

And if the policeman lining both sides of the street heading to Ikea were dressed like this.

I would have thought we were headed to see the Queen herself.

Finally the store is in sight and you would’ve thought that the Fab 4 had finally consented to that reunion concert. (Before John & George had died natch.)

There were makeshift overflow car parks, people everywhere and the policeman had given way to an army----seriously, an army of security guards who had those flashlights with the red extensions fitted on them that made me you think they look like rent-a-jedis.

What do you mean? I can not be the only one whose mind works this way.

So we slowly snaked up to Ikea Palace guided by the mini light sabers and into the parking facility.

Shout out to the Ikea royal family:

Yo, in the future, build multi-story parking garages.

Would have saved the 45-minute merry-go-round driving we did trying to get a parking space.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the incredible young woman,

THANK YOU INCREDIABLE YOUNG WOMAN!!! ,

who walked us to where she parked and blocked out the other cars trying to get into her spot with their tiny little cars before we could maneuver Hubster’s beast into the spot.

The beast looks like this------only Hubster’s also has the extended bed.

I should’ve been all a twitter as Hubster led me into the Ikea Palace but alas our heroine was not.

I wanted to get right back into the beast and go home.

Soldier on did I and after a brief mind adjustment in the loo, came back out ready to shop.

After all we were there on a mission.

Hubster had taken full advantage of Ikea’s online kitchen planner and had his bundle of printouts, (in the Thanksgiving spirit of Arlo Guthrie and the immortal Alice’s Restaurant),
with circles and arrows and would not be denied.

Once I had ridden the palace escalator up to the showrooms all the previous angst washed away and it was like the other shoppers, all 237, 568, 012 of them, faded from view.

It was just I, The Hubster and that retail playground laid out in front of us.

Two hours later the fact that I had not had anything to eat yet hit me and I was starting to look like one of the renegade balloons from the Macy’s parade floating off course and in danger of injuring people.

Following the screams, Hubster found me he pushed me towards the food counter where I had choices to fill the void.

5 choices.

Hotdog, cinnamon roll, chips, coffee or cola.

For real.

I’ve had better meals at a gas-etc stop.

The hotdog was like none I have ever tasted or want to again. I am left wondering if they brought over Swedish hotdogs?

The cinnamon bun would’ve sent the Pillsbury Dough boy into a panic attack if he thought that sawdust-ty thing had popped out of one of his tubes.

Feeling less empty in spite of the gastronomical horror endured, we pressed on.

Hubster, super hero that he is, sensed that I was running on a limited amount of good will toward men and got us to the kitchen center kiosk quickly.

Where the very personable Frederic helped us. He was amazing.

The Hubster later suggested that Frederic was most likely embedded by Ikea from overseas to insure a smooth grand opening of the Stoughton palace.

Embedded? Where were we, the Persian Gulf?

But given the legions of Troopers, Policeman and Jedi’s in training it took to deliver us to the palace----it fit.

So Frederic sang and danced his way through entering our order into the computer, double checking everything along the way, and presented us with a 2-page print out.

We were instructed that all we needed to do was to bring that print out to a cashier, pay and then bring it to the furniture pick-up kiosk where they would hunt and gather all our cabinetry in their flat packed glory and bring them to us.

Today?

Frederic smiled and assured us that it would indeed happen today and if there were any other self-gathering purchases we wanted to make we should take care of the cabinetry and finish shopping while they put our order together.

Well there was, so we did.

It was amazing.

We took that print out to a cashier who looked it over, smiled at us----smiled--- keyed in the order code and the receipt printed with all our individual items.

We walked in dazed amazement to the furniture pick-up kiosk where the woman standing behind the counter looked up, smiled and asked if she could help us.

If not for the horrible food in my belly I think that would’ve passed out right there.

I hadn’t seen actual customer service in action since 197?????.

Renewed by the experience we went back to the showrooms and left them to their hunting and gathering of our cabinetry.

Hubster declared he had found the perfect office chair for me-------and indeed he had.

It was me all over.

And after sitting in it and checking it out it not only suited me it fit me.

So mine it was and back to the furniture pick-up kiosk we did head.

They hadn’t finished gathering our order at the furniture pick-up kiosk so we ended up waiting for about 30 minutes longer.

But I didn’t mind.

Because I could see them in the back double and triple checking our list against the boxes piled up on the carts. Three different people did this.

And even though the day was long

and I nearly let my entire cart piled up with cabinetry go careening down the ramp escalator

and rode home in the beast shock-worn and wrapped in a fleece blanket that cost all of $3.99 at the palace

and that when we arrived back home at 6 PM-ish---

while Hubster and Boy Wonder unloaded the 56 flat packed boxes---I promptly crawled into bed and ordered in from our favorite Thai Restaurant:

Even after all that, oddly enough, I am looking forward to another trip to the efficient, customer-friendly, Swedish shopping palace.

Nuptuials by fire....

2005-12-02T23:12:00.000Z

This post is for The Queen of Spain who extended this challenge on her blog.

So to that end I am posting about the day I became a HouseWife again and The Hubster became, ummm, The Hubster.
Being that I prefer to do things with as much stress and chaos as possible I did all the cooking, decorating, bow making, handmade our invitations and my outfit for our wedding.

Oh and our friend’s Peter & Marloes flew in from The Netherlands and were staying at our house for the week before and after the wedding. That was great and the Dutch have a tradition where they get up and do little rhyming skits about the couple at the reception. Peter & Marloes stood up in front of all these strangers and did one for us. Priceless.

I continued working my normal full time desk job right up through the day before our wedding.

I am nothing if not crazy.

The main entrée was this killer brisket I have a recipe for.

It slow cooks for hours at a low temp in the oven so I started it on Thursday night before bed.

Waking up to the smell of that brisket on Friday morning was heavenly.

I had the temp even lower overnight and turned it up a few notches as I went out the door to work while everyone else slept.

Around 10 AM I call home to see how everyone’s getting along and it rings off to the answer machine.

Odd. So I dial again thinking I misdialed even though I had it programmed into speed dial.

On the second ring the not yet Hubster answers sounding a bit breathless and the phone call goes something like this;

Me – “Morning. How’s it going?”

Him – “I’ll have to call you back if that’s okay, the kitchen’s on fire.”

CLICK

I stand up in my cubicle with the phone still pressed to my ear and announce;

“It’s the day before my wedding and my kitchen’s on fire.”

Everyone in my department stands up and says, “WHAT!?!?” , in unison.

“It’s the day before my wedding and my kitchen’s on fire.”

Of course everyone wanted details. So did I, but we’d all have to wait till the not yet Hubster phoned back.

30 minutes later he finally did.

When my phone rang, the entire dept jumped back to their feet to listen.

I hung up.

“WELL???”

Seems that when I had turned up the temp on the brisket it eventually bubbled over and being that brisket is a very fatty cut of meat the over flow caught on fire in the gas oven.

The not yet Hubster being his true super hero self knew enough to keep his head and risk his own limbs by stopping Peter from using the fire extinguisher until after the not yet Hubster pulled the brisket out and clear of the oven.

Fire was extinguished brisket saved and kitchen was still in tact. The only loss was the oven, which actually still worked for another 3 months before it died.

The not yet Hubster said that he, Peter and Marloes were woken by the smoke detector and they were all wonderfully calm and just took care of it with no one running, screaming out into the streets and that when the fire was out the Boy Wonder finally emerged from his room and still rubbing his eyes asked;

“What’s going on?”

And after they explained the whole fire story he turned around and went back to bed.

As they say, The Show Must Go On, and it did.

Here’s a pic of me serving it up to the guests on the day that we became Hubster and HouseWife.

It all worked out in the end.

Fire plays a recurring role in The Hubster’s and my courtship as well.

Did you know that it’s possible to set 15,000 gallons of water, give or take, on fire?

Dust bunnies and other diversions

2005-11-29T14:44:00.000Z

A funny thing happened this morning while doing my usual procrastination routine.

Come on. You know what I’m talking about.

Don’t even try to pretend you don’t have one.

Mine goes something like this:

• Call out to sleepy teenage son to get up from the warm confines of his bed from confines of mine -20 min
• Flip between CNN, ABC & NBC trying to find something truly news worthy -30 min
• Make tea. Sip tea while struggling to have the Special K with flax seed and soy milk instead of leftover mashed potatoes and gravy for breakfast -20min
• Eat mashed potatoes and gravy with big smile on face -5min
• Boot up computer and check e-mails -10min
• Remember iPod needs charging, play in iTunes -45min
• Check statcounter site for blog stats –WHAT!!!!

Imagine my surprise when this showed up amoung the usual suspects.

When they usually look like this.

Everyone who visits my blog leaves a footprint that StatCounter records.

For those who read blogs but don’t have a blog, that’s so we can get an idea of where are readers are coming from, how often they read our blog etc.

Everyone leaves a footprint except for that guy.

Who has the power and need to not leave footprints?

Santa? He has to see if I’ve been naughty or nice after all.

FBI?

Does the goddess have a computer? Surely she does.

CIA?

Bill Gates? Found out I recently slipped off the PC train?

Fashion Police?

Steve Jobs? Found out I recently jumped on the Mac/Apple train?

Or did someone sitting in an office named after a geometrical shape going through their own procrastination routine this morning stumble across my blog and much to their dismay cry out in frustration;

“Gab dang it! There is not one picture of, men with paws, anywhere on this confounded page!”

• Writing this blog entry -10min

Red Sox 1 game down behind the Yankees~~(Repost)

2005-11-27T14:07:00.000Z

The Hubster and I went to the new Ikea down in Stoughton, MA yesterday. I am still recovering. Don’t worry there will so be a post about this, but until then, please enjoy this repost.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s come down to this---The Pre-Game Show

Whether you’re talking; World Series, Super Bowl, World Cup, whatever- why can’t they just let the game play out without all the hype?

It’s analyzed and dissected for weeks on end.

Blah blah. Bladdee, dah.

Makes one long for small talk about the weather, religion even bloody politics.

Of course there is always a root cause for such things.

The Men were clever about this one really.

Sports teams and events that change with the seasons and they have an on-going, year after year big distraction from actual feelings and relationships.

Sorry love. No time to sort that one out, only 6 weeks before play-offs, wild card picks and such. Can I get back to you on that intimacy thingy in about 3 months?

So now tell me that a man didn’t dream up this whole Perimenopause business.

Perimeno what!

Perimenopause or menopause transition is the stage of a woman's reproductive life that begins several years before menopause.

As if we needed one more hormonal curse.

Maybe I am just bloody cranky.

Treatments range from low dose birth control pills to anti-depressants.

Goody.

So I’ll be blissfully unaware when they start shoving me full of hormone replacement therapies when actual menopause occurs.

How did our grandmothers survive?

The same way their grand mothers did and theirs before that.

A shot of whiskey, a little sherry…………….

And if grandpa had to take a hit to the back of the head every once in a while for the team; well, we were all the better for it.

How bout them Red Sox?

Thanks or something like it

2005-11-24T14:18:00.000Z

I love Thanksgiving Day. But what’s not to like about a day that revolves around stuffing yourself full of some of the world’s greatest comfort foods?

My Mom was not the greatest cook and by that I mean she had a limited pool from which she pulled.

What she did better than all the rest was Sunday dinners.

I lived for those Sunday dinners.

They always consisted of a roast something. Beef, chicken, or pork roast, mashed potatoes, gravy and a couple of veggie side dishes.

Thanksgiving was the ultimate Sunday dinner. Forget that it was on a Thursday. Added to the usual suspects served; stuffing, rolls, cranberry sauce, fruit cocktail and about 25 extended family members.

It took me years to perfect my Mother’s stuffing, gravy and mashed potaoes. I have done her proud. My oldest Brother will vouch for that and he’s no easy critic.

My 16 year old has dubbed me the Thanksgiving Queen.

I prefer Goddess or Diva but I’ll take it.

My Mom has been dead for nearly 10 years now and today is one of the days it hits me.

Hard.

One of my strongest memories of my Mom and Thanksgiving has nothing to do with our meal.

I come from a family that didn’t have much. We got by and when you’re very young you don’t really have a clue.

One year when we were still living in Albany my Mom found out about a family at church that was in a bad way. I don’t know what happened but they were struggling to make it day to day.

While we were doing the big turkey day shop I failed to notice that she bought more than usual.

Hey. I was 6 and she was cooking for 30 people.

When we got home I started to notice.

Some things weren’t being put in the pantry or fridge. Some things were being packed in a large cardboard box. All the fixings for a complete second turkey dinner.

That box and I were tucked back into the car and we drove to a street I didn’t know.

I asked endless questions and she shushed me and said it was just something to make little girls ask questions and I was told I had to zip my lips when we got out of the car till we got back in.

Hey. It was the 60’s and still about being seen and not heard.

Mom unloaded me and that box and then she somehow managed to carry that heavy box around the corner and up to an apartment duplex I had never been to before.

Mom paused instructing me again to be completely silent and to walk on tippy toes. Followed by a look that told me to do now, ask questions later.

We crept inside and Mom placed the box outside the downstairs apartment’s door and we crept back outside to the street and back around the corner.

I started to ask what we had just done but Mom wasn’t done yet. She spoke with an older man who was on his way around the corner we just came from.

The older man agreed to go knock on the door where we left the food promising not to describe us to the folks inside.

I finally got my questions answered years later. That family was too prideful to take donations from the church and my Mother couldn’t stand the thought of them not having a proper Thanksgiving dinner.

I’m sure it cut into my father’s Pabst Blue Ribbon budget for a few weeks.

So as I sat here typing this memory while The Hubster and son still sleep and the snow piles gently up, I know why on Tuesday while I finished shopping for my family’s feast that I bought two extra turkeys and got extra cash out at the register.

My Mother’s legacy goes beyond the gravy, mashed and stuffing to die for.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Changes are a foot, or at least a yard anyways

2005-11-21T22:55:00.000Z

When my good friend Tanisha helped inject some style into my blog she started a blogalanche.

That photo she posted from the movie, Bridget Jones, was just the beginning.

After a back breaking 4 hours of posing, and one bottle of champagne, for the infinitely , okay-mostly, patient Hubster, we have the recreated photo pose starring me.

That led to what is in the works at the moment soon to be revealed here at this very site.

Can you hardly stand it or what?

Oh the anticipation is killing you. You just don't know it.

OOoooo, and only 3 more days till Thanksgiving!

Feel free to drop by, I cook enough for an army regardless.

Silicone, it’s not just for implants anymore

2005-11-17T13:22:00.000Z

It’s also what’s for dinner.

Or at least it’s playing a big part in my kitchen as well as my bath cabinets these days.

It’s an uber substance that knows no boundaries.

I line my sheet pans with it, scrape my bowls, grab my pots, why I even have a spoonula made out of it!

I have this stuff in a tube that if I spread it on my face before applying my make-up I look 10 years younger.

Combine that with the Oil of Olay lotion and I’m practically 12 again.

And I fit right in with all the other 12 year olds that have boobies.

What are we putting in those infant vitamin drops that allow girls to grow boobies by age 11?

The poster child for late blooming, I was 40 before I had boobies.

Silicone is the new polyester.

Micro-fiber if you must show my age.

Micro-fibers took the 90’s by storm. It was new and revolutionary!

I read the label.

It was polyester.

Some genius found a new way to twist those threads and get us to love polyester and wrap our lives in it.

It’s in our closets, on our sofas and beds. It’s racing down the slopes, swaddling our babies and beneath our sleeping pets.

Back in the 70’s polyester was still the poor cousin of the textile world.

I remember a brief conversation with my mother in the kitchen of Woodbridge Ave.

I was 14. It was 1975.

“So mom, at what age will I suddenly get an urge to wear only itchy, elastic waist, polyester pants in a rainbow range of pastel colours?”

“You little bitch!”

Alrighty then.

I held out as long as I could when the new polyester showed up.

It was over the minute my hand touched a bit of micro fleece.

Like butter.

From that moment on, Malden Mills’ stock rose by 75%.

Back in 1975 I was sure of two things.

I hated polyester and I knew my flat-chested self would love her some silicone.

Flash forward to the new millennium.

My mid-life boobies look fab encased in my raspberry micro fleece turtleneck.

Good things come to those who wait for the redesign.

To Diva or not to Diva-------Hell Yes Diva!

2005-11-16T15:23:00.000Z

What exactly is a Diva?

Merriam-Werster online defines it as:

Main Entry: di·va Pronunciation: 'dE-v&Function: nounInflected Form(s): plural divas or di·ve /-(")vA/Etymology: Italian, literally, goddess, from Latin, feminine of divus divine, god -- more at DEITY: PRIMA DONNA 1

I would also post Oxford’s definition except that they have a site that is subscription only.........
Oxford --For an annual rate of $295, you'll have full-unrestricted access to the OED Online - including quarterly updates! Love the OED, but can't commit to a full year subscription? You can also enjoy access to the OED Online on a monthly basis. For a low monthly rate of US$29.95, this is great value with no commitment.

I would post from my personal Oxford Dictionary but I haven’t yet allowed myself the luxury of spending the bazillion dollars on that either.

Besides, then I wouldn’t have had the cash equity to buy that Olive Topiary thingy now would I.

I don’t know about you but I’m digging the; literally, goddess, part and the deity.

The reference to prima donna is clearly when some unfortunate soul ran into a diva while she was PMSing.

That was their bad.

So we’ll discount that.

I am sure that somewhere in my blonde little head I have the term for such mistaken research from high school chemistry----I’ll keep you posted on that.

Clearly all females are born divas, we just then have to learn to own it as we grow.

This thankfully happens sooner these days.

I say that because I was born on the cusp of the feminist movement.

I was too young to be bothered by the surge because I didn’t yet own a bra to burn and was much too busy begging Ken to pay more attention to Barbie.

Which he did---but only after she had that bitchin pink corvette.

Of course we have to be careful, there is a right way and a wrong way to be a diva.

I have seen some frighteningly young divas out there abusing their powers.

We’re talking 4 year olds people.

Thankfully there are places divas and divas in training can go for advice and to learn how to use their powers for good.

One of them that you should check out and return to often is;

I exercised my diva rights this morning.

I had apple pie for breakfast.

I applied the diva law of:

If you baked the damn pie you can eat the damn pie for breakfast!

As a fallen diva that has now risen like a phoenix up out of the ashes back to her throne says;

“It’s a good thing.”

Blogs By Women Bloggers

2005-11-16T03:55:00.000Z

**join the blogroll

Shopping, Rainy days and Tuesdays

2005-11-15T13:59:00.000Z

I am nothing if not unpredictable in my predictability.

Stop hurting your brain and just read on.

I leap towards my desk every morning with lofty aspirations of all the work I will get done.

Metaphors that have not yet been ridden within an inch of their life will leap from my typing fingers of fire.

All three of them.

Fingers, not metaphors.

Unbridled creativity will burst through my usual productivity glass ceiling of 20 minutes.

YES!

In my fantasy I work tirelessly for at least 45 minutes.

Then I check my e-mails.

OOOooo, sale alert.

It’s saying something when most of your holiday greeting cards are from merchants thanking you for being such a good customer.

Unable to resist I click into the link just to have a little looky loo.

Harmless browsing, that’s all.

Next thing you know, I am trying to gage if I should print the order confirmation page or will the order confirmation e-mail arrive as promised?

Never mind that I can always log into my account and retrieve the order information.

The need for tangible proof of purchase is too strong and as I hit print, up pops the notice of said confirmation e-mails arrival.

Foiled again.

Um. So, yeah. I bought things.

IMPORTANT things.

Like a miniature silk Lemon tree.

An Olive Topiary

2- 2’x7’7” runner rugs

And a French Country Bench

Hey! French Country is the new Scottish Hunter’s Den. Where have you been?

The rugs are v important as they will run down each side of the Hubster’s and my marital bed. I of course will use it to wipe any little bits off my feet thereby keeping the sheets bits free while he of course will not.

The lemon tree will be placed on my desk so that I can pretend to be in my posh Hollywood Hills bungalow this winter while trying to forget that I am actually freezing my Jlo like assets off up in this frozen wasteland called New Hampshire.

The Olive Topiary--------- okay you got me there, but it’s cute dammit!

Cute is not to be ignored or under appreciated.

No sir, cute is a force to be reckoned with.

Just ask the Hubster.

Another day, another template

2005-11-15T02:10:00.000Z

Getting the text sorted meant another new template.

The other one was causing the text flumuxing.

Do not ask me to explain---- my dark roots ache just thinking about it.

Thanks again to my friend down in Texas!

Extreme make over, bloggy style

2005-11-14T16:51:00.000Z

So how do you like me now?

The blog you silly gooses. Haven’t you noticed the redo?

Merci to my new friend in Texas, (go read her pronto!), who worked tirelessly this weekend giving my blog a face.

I had been busy procrastinating on the blog identity project because my laptop is dying and I am now just days away from my Apple PowerBook fantasy becoming reality.

Besides, I told my lazy arse self, the return visitors are coming back for the writing, not because it’s pretty.

Well now my rabid fans can enjoy the awesomeness of my writing in all its new gorgeousness.

Both of you.

Of course now I have to work on getting my pic up where that empty space is over to the left. I have the concept in my head just waiting for the Hubster to help me take the conception to reality.

BTW, he adores having the Hubster nick. He’s taking to it like it makes him some kind super hero.

I refuse to sew the costume.

And what is up with the folks over at, http://www.blogrolling.com?

My new friend in Texas, tried to get me set up on the blog rolling train because my little blonde head was busy elsewhere and I am now up to my ears in WTF?

Texas, set me up with an account and we awaited a verification e mail.

Two days and nothing.

So I go in this morning bright and early and set up a new account under my gmail addy and………….. nothing.

While staring at my gmail inbox while periodically checking the empty spam folder just in case was good for 3 ½ hours of not posting a new blog entry, by hour number four I was starting to get well and truly pissed.

Off, not lit.

I am now sensing a conspiracy.

It's like they have some universal block on me.

"No no no! We cannot have that one blogrolling. The force is too strong with her. She will become much too successful, much too soon, catapulting into super stardom with the likes of Marion Keyes, Helen Fielding, Jane Green and that Sophia woman! No, the world is not yet prepared for that."

Oh wait, that's just my silly lil mind going off on one of its tangents again.

Hard to tell lately.

"Back to reality, oh there goes gravity..........."

Opps, a brief Eminem moment, we now return you to my regularly scheduled post.

It’s becoming like a damn country club----- let me in damn it!

Do I need a couple of sponsors?

Any volunteers?

I’ll be good, I promise.

And for the love of chocolate, can anyone tell me why those bloody Euro symbols are popping up in my text!

The Artist formally known as Princess

2005-11-11T21:30:00.000Z

The whole Big Apple adventure was muddling up my little mind so I’m splitting it up into two blogs. This first will be about the Princess’ becoming the next “it” girl of said Apple.

I bounce out of bed bright and early on Sunday to pack and become a bundle of nerves about the trip into the city. It’s not everyday that my car becomes a super model.

Eventually, I successfully drag the hubster out of bed and leave early enough so we can stop and do breakfast and try to normalize me.

Emphasis on try.

We pull into at a service area on the way and are surrounded by a green and white army of babbling Jets fans on their way into the game.

So much for normalizing.

I do however take a moment to appreciate the hubster’s Englishness and complete lack of interest in American sports.

We reach the island with what would’ve been more than enough time---me following hubster in his truck.

Said truck is a beast. F-150, extended cab and extended bed. The Princess could probably fit in the pick-up’s bed.

When we suddenly hit what could be confused for a Friday evening’s commuter traffic and maniacs are assaulting me on all sides, I try to will the Princess to hop into the truck.

Ummm, no one bothered to tell us about the bloody marathon.

Apparently people in advertising don’t care about such things.

We slowly work our way over to a parallel street and fly down the island, movie style, with all the lights changing to green as we reach them for about 30 blocks surrounded by nothing but yellow taxis.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

We arrive at Chelsea Piers and find Studio 59 @ Pier 59. Imagine that.

I drive The Princess into their freight elevator.

Why?

Because they looked at me with that, “ We can drive her if you’re a scardy girl”, way that I saw as a challenge.

Backing her out of the elevator and maneuvering her into her set space with little to no room to work in takes a couple of minutes but I get the job done.

Hurrah! I manage to save face for blonde, women drivers the world over for one more day.

I just might make it into the Blonde’s Hall of Fame yet!

I get out and do the formal introductions with *J* and tell him it is his job to introduce The Princess to everyone tomorrow and make her feel at home.

He looks at me nervously and shakes his head in the appropriate direction.

Not wanting to bother with the camera right then, I ask if I’ll be able to take a pic of her there in the studio tomorrow---he says that’s iffy but if it makes me feel any better, that Princess will be used in the client’s big spring campaign and that she will be on a billboard in Times Square.

WHOO HOOO---- a 6 1/2 story Princess in Times Square.

I smack *J* in the shoulder and say, “You are so lying to me!”

After picking himself up off the floor, he assures me he is not.

We say good-bye and leave them to get her lighting sorted.

I anxiously wait until we are a half block away from the studio before whooping with joy.

I feel all Mary Tyler Moore-ish except;

This is not Minneapolis

I am not single

I have no hat to throw as I don’t do hats

The Big Apple will have to settle for my whooping spin and twirl.

**This is where it got all messy for me----the part now that is hubster’s and my adventure, which is diff from The Princess’ so we do a Hollywood---

Fade to Black

And cut to the next morning.

I awaken, alive and alone in my hotel room.

(Alone? See, you’re going to have to read Big Apple Blog #2---muuuaaaaa ha haaaa!)

In the light of day, being in a hotel alone goes from being scary to lovely.

I take a leisurely shower, eat my fruit and yogurt thingy and watch the morning news.

All the while pretending that I am an independent, single woman in my chic NY flat and not a married woman alone in a rather odd hotel room in Chelsea that is a cross between a closet and a hallway where the only window looks out onto 4 other outside walls of the hotel and room windows.

Before the novelty wears thin *J* rings on my mobile.

“Your good to head over anytime we should have you out of here before noon.”

I repack all my bags thinking I can eliminate one somehow but no such luck.

I head down to check out saddled down with;

My laptop case

My big purple overnight bag

My big lime green tote bag

My big bag of goodies from Fishs Eddy

And my purse

Which is why I cannot walk the 4 blocks to the studio and have to catch a cab.

And don’t you know that I have to cross over to the other side of the street outside the hotel because I need to head that way after getting a cab.

And you’ve already guessed that the other side of the street is nowhere near as friendly as the side with the hotel.

“Show no fear---show no fear….”

Luckily it only took 3 minutes before an available taxi drove up.

I schlep all my bags up to the second floor studio looking like some well-dressed hobo.

Step into the studio space and wow.

All the other sets have been set up and there is about a million people all running about.

I am taken aback for a moment.

I am use to film sets. They are busy but in a quieter way.

This is completely diff. And yet very much the same.

There’s craft services set up, wardrobe, make-up and hair.

Lighting and grip guys hulking about.

Lots of PA’s scurrying everywhere.

And lounging on any available soft spots---not actors, but models.

If not for the loud music and such----very much the same.

I find a small patch of couch and settle in after stowing my stuff in a corner.

A girl walks up and inquires---“I belong to the car”, I say.

“Oh lovely----have some food please.”

All the ad folks at the long table in front of the craft services table all look up from their Apple PowerBooks and cell phones and say, “Yes, please have some food.”

Weird.

I am now scared to eat the food and instead wander over to peek at Princess.

She is vogueing it up for the photog and I leave her to it.

As I walk away, I run into *J*---“Great, should be done within the hour, she’s a trooper. Oh and have some food.”

Again with the food.

Maybe they should invite some of the homeless people up that were wandering about in the road having intense conversations with the pigeons.

Apparently whose territory the piers are was in question.

A grip comes up to me and says, “You must be Princess’ owner, hi.”

A PA walks over, “I just love VW’s, and it’s all I’ve ever had. I currently drive a Jetta. The Princess is adorable.”

I want to sit down, as I do so the girl at the end of the table looks up from her laptop and introduces herself as Catherine.

I stand back up to shake her hand and notice the ad-copy concept next to her computer. “I’m Dawn. That’s my car.”

I sit down, pull out my notepad and start taking notes to settle myself.

The only thing scarier than too thin female models in person is a too thin male model.

Their heads are too big for their little bodies. I swear I could’ve wrapped my hands around this one guy's hips and my fingers and thumbs could’ve touched.

They are also much bitchier than the girls and way more self absorbed.

One guy bends over in front of me and I am treated to the view of the tattoo across his hips right above his tiny butt. It’s those 3 monkeys—hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

Above his butt-----hmmmmmmmmmmm.

I’d give my soul to be surrounded by narcissistic actors right now. They at least pretend to be interested in you in case you or someone you know can further their career.

I am a stranger in a strange land.

Right before I go head long into a full blown panic attack…..

“Hi, I’m *D*, the photographer. That’s your car?”

“Yes.”

“She’s been wonderful, a real star. What’s her name again?”

“Princess.”

“Of course!”

I never did get to take my photo.

The biggest head of all the big heads doesn’t allow any pics of his sets.

Ever.

Okay, I get that.

However.

Her set consisted of nothing but white backdrops and lighting.

The models are no longer in the car.

The rest of the stuff will be digitally put around her.

The end result will be a shot of her head on, close up with a guy driving and a girl passenger going through a tunnel--- a red and white tunnel. The princess being the red bulls eye------ahem, this is a Target ad.

But I am a good set mom and keep all of this inside.

They put my car back to her self---angry eyes and all and I load my stuff into her.

We roll off the freight elevator and up to the parking attendant----who informs me, “Wow, it’s a good thing they took care of this for you—would’ve cost $144.”

Only in NY.

We speed out of the city and back towards the safety of New Hampshire.

Oh, and the artist formally known as Princess, (symbol to follow, but it’s my understanding it is basically the female symbol with the VW in the middle), is insisting I call Nate Berkus to do a redesign on her half of the garage.

On not being 20 anymore...

2005-11-08T14:51:00.000Z

Wow.

Give me one fun filled, jam packed, long weekend as an adult and I apparently now need 12 hours of sleep to recover.

There were a couple of firsts added to this old girls list.

The Princess is a born star.

I need to go have coffee with my best friend and catch her up.

In less than an hour.

I should already be showering.

Stay tuned.

You won't be disappointed.

What would you do?

2005-11-04T13:56:00.000Z

Oh the complicated little life I lead. Everyday I am presented with a new and challenging decision to make.

To shave or not to shave? That is the question.

If you’re a woman it needs no explanation.

However, since the majority of peeps leaving comments lately are men, explain I will.

I am getting ready to head to NY for the weekend to visit my husband. He lives and works there 6 days a week and has for the past year and a half. But that’s a blog for another day.

So there I am in the shower rinsing the Loreal Tone Refiner from my hair. (Because I’m worth it damn it!)

And it hits me, the monthly conundrum.

The blessed curse has arrived the Red Tent erected, (excellent idea BTW) and the stubble rears it’s ugly head.

OY. Like I need one more bloody thing to deal with.

Literally.

While it’s true that there will be no mattress tag on the itinerary, do I owe him the courtesy of legs that won’t slice him if he rubs up against them?

He is my husband.

No one enjoys going to bed with a Ron Popeil Chop-o-Matic.

I only see him a couple times a month.

I wish I could say that I did it for him in the end, but that would be a lie.

I did it for the Princess.

Princess Poppy, my 1998 Red New Beetle.

She is being used in a print ad this Sunday and Monday.

I am living vicariously through my car and I’m sure my son is thankful for this.

I didn’t want to embarrass her, so in the end I did it for the Princess.

And I’d do it again.

I have seen the other side and it is NOT pretty

2005-11-03T23:33:00.000Z

There was one very enlightening thing that happened while I rode out the hormonal tsunami that was my life last week.

I became a man for 3 days.

Okay, no. I did not grow a penis. And yes. I still had boobies.

But other than that, I became a man.

I did man like things and I had no control over the situation.

Bathing now seemed optional.

I developed an uncontrollable itch on my ass. My hand spent more time down the back of my pants during those 3 days then it has in the entire other 43 years and 362 days of my life.

And I didn’t care where I was or who was around while I scratched.

It’s going to be a very long time before I will be welcome at the deli counter.

My yoga instructor didn’t buy that there was a variation of Proud Warrior called Proud Warrior 2.5 with a hand down your pants.

I told her she wasn’t as evolved as she claimed.

During those 3 days a small mountain grew on the floor beside my bed.

It was as if there was a magnetic field that would not allow socks or underwear to make their way to the clothes hamper just a couple feet away.

Dishes would not, could not be put into the empty dishwasher. They were piled willy nilly-- no scraping or rinsing.

Glasses grew on every piece of furniture in the house. All only half empty.

The most disturbing thing though, was how I was still my real self, trapped inside my head.

I was screaming in there at what was happening. More to the point, what was not happening.

So when for those three days I could not manage to put the mascara back in it’s little elastic sleeve in my make-up case----- somewhere inside it was driving my real self quite mad indeed.

It was going against the grain.

I am a total creature of organization and habit.

For instance, let’s talk about bathrooms.

I have realized over the last couple years that if I use the bathroom in a public place more than once, I will use whatever stall I used the first time.

Even if the next time is months down the road.

Any public bathroom.

In my town, state, and country or across the Atlantic--------I automatically use the stall I used the first time.

If it’s occupied, I will wait.

It’s okay----laugh. I find it a bit bizarre as well.

So on that morning when I actually slipped the tube of mascara back into it’s rightful spot in the case, I knew I was back.

I celebrated by doing the laundry and cleaning the house.

Without scratching my ass once.

Hang on sugar, I'm going down swinging!

2005-11-01T13:36:00.000Z

Explanations are in order as to why I haven’t posted in such a long time.

It was the hormones. Not just any hormones. Hairy hormones.

HAIRY. SCAREY. HORMONES.

Coincided with Halloween, which goes to prove that the goddess’ have a wickedly dark sense of humour.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I wish I could tell you something much more dramatic and practical.

Like;

1. I was riveted to the Supreme Court Nominee shuffle of lameness

2. I was busy discovering the 11th planet. It’s name is Periodo and it can not possibly support any life forms as it’s atmosphere is too volatile and unpredictable with storms that seem to come out of nowhere without warning.

3. I was bathing the dog. (Seriously, that would be a week plus project.)

Honestly, my uterus hasn’t demanded this much airtime since I was pregnant 17 years ago.

I know what your thinking……….and NO.

I. Am. Not. Pregnant.

Keep up people!

Go back and read…

http://angelchicklitfic.blogspot.com/2005/09/red-sox-1-game-down-behind-yankees.html.

We’ll all wait here for you, and yes, we’ll be talking amongst ourselves.

About you.

Back to the present.

I know that my cycle gets wild, wooly and wonderfully eccentric during the big seasonal transitions.

Spring into Summer. Autumn into Winter.

That’s not what they’ll tell me at my appointment today.

Yeah. That appointment.

I am too old to be that kind of humiliated on a yearly basis.

Oh, and let’s just set the record straight right now.

I will not perpetuate the lie.

It does not get any easier as the years roll by.

If I thought it was humiliating when I was 19 without an ounce of body fat and my, ahem, everything was where it should be-----------how do you think I feel at 44 with the added bonuses of cellulite, spreadage, (yeah I made up that word), and sagging?

I’m old but I still have my pride.

I propose that after we are allowed to remove our naked everything back down to earth and cover it as the goddess’ intended it to be, that we get to perform one embarrassingly invasive procedure of our choice on the Doc who just removed all those prehistoric torture devices from our very tender bits!

Bloody sadists!

I am honest to a fault which is why when they ask if my cycle has been regular, I will explain the last two months in all it’s glory.

September’s visit was late. Very late. Over a week late.

It taught me one thing.

My son is 16 ½ and I am two short years away from having control over my own life again.

The thought of being pregnant and giving birth at my age did not bother me.

The thought of 2 consecutive 18-year interments was bone chilling and I felt a horror that was indescribable.

The fact that I ran out onto my back deck and screamed into the sky with joy when it finally showed---------- well, that was scary for the neighbors.

Gina Davis may be thrilled with becoming a parent for the first time at 45 and giving birth to twins at 48 but she was out making movies and walking the red carpet through her 30’s.

I was busy in my 30’s with all that stuff that she’ll be doing into her-------60’s.

Madonna is also talking about wanting more children. Good for her.

I love Madonna. But she had more sex in any given weekend in her 30’s then I had in the entire decade.

I have some catching up to do.

I remember sex and I think I liked it.

If I can quote from that epic film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail;

"I'm not dead yet."

I’m going shopping for a bigger Day Planner.

And you’re not off the hook----- I have at least a weeks worth of hormonal sagas to post.

Who’s looking after your inner-child?

2005-10-20T19:08:00.000Z

While Angel may be held on high for her pretty lil pout and peppering her babble with baby talk, I’m not sure she’s in touch with her inner child.

It’s about the power she has and how she uses it to manipulate the situation to her advantage.

Not that you had a thread of advantage to begin with, but you like it that way.

They say we all have one, but it seems that most people won’t admit to theirs.

I keep my inner child close at hand at all times.

She is cheeky, loud, demanding and prone to complete breakdowns at the most inopportune times.

Back in the days when I was a cubicle inhabiting worker-bee she proved most helpful in my survival.

As an example - I was in a meeting once where everyone was going around the table introducing themselves and passing out their cards.

You know how it goes:

“I’m Mister So & So, VP of Sales and Marketing with Big Important Company”—hands out card with a string of assorted alphabetical codes that show how important they are…………and so it goes round the table with everyone nodding and acknowledging solemnly each other’s importance.

My turn comes and out of nowhere that cheeky little monkey pops up and with a completely straight face:

“My name is Princess Angel Frou-Frou Face, Queen of Everything and I require no cards and don’t normally indulge an introduction when holding court you silly mere mortals.”

2-3 eternal and agonizing seconds of blank stares. Then the entire table erupts in laughter.

Including my department head.

Phew.

My inner child also comes in handy when things between my 16 year-old and I become strained and he is exercising his voice in that democratic way I raised him, (what was I thinking?). Twisting the logic quicker than I can think.

And I think pretty fast.

Inner child to the rescue, she takes over and I am instantly on the floor in the middle of an eye-scrunching and red-faced screaming fit of:

“YOUR NOT LISTENING TO MY WORDS!!!!!”

Immediately reducing him to fits of hysterical laughter and giving me time to regroup.

Way more effective than the:

“Because I make the rules!”- place I was headed with my adult self.

She may be extremely hard to control and unpredictable in all her immature wisdom, but I love her immensely.

I think I’ll take her out for ice-cream tonight.

Perhaps you should pay more attention to yours?

***************************************************************************

***Your Inner Child Is Naughty***

Like a child, you tend to discount social rules.It's just too much fun to break the rules!You love trouble - and it seems that trouble loves you.And no matter what, you refuse to grow up!

***Your Inner Child Is Naughty***

Like a child, you tend to discount social rules.It's just too much fun to break the rules!You love trouble - and it seems that trouble loves you.And no matter what, you refuse to grow up!

How Is Your Inner Child?

Husbands, Frogs, Sex, Cold Beers and Darwin

2005-10-15T01:48:00.000Z

I want to be helpless like the Angel’s of this world.

People fall over themselves to meet her needs and remove the little flurry of angst that threatens to wrinkle her perfectly arched brow.

Now that the gas cap has been successfully turned in the correct direction it can indeed be removed.

Phew.

I am a multi tasking wonder. If I am not doing at least three things simultaneously I must be lapsing into a coma.

Or PMS-ing.

Premenstrual in it’s long form.

Understandable, though it is, why they shortened it to the abrupt, PMS form.

Premenstrual sounds too much like fun.

Minstrels were those wandering, random musicians of the Middle Ages and I can verify with conviction, (just the one and I swear I don’t remember picking up the knife) as can my husband and son, that there is nothing fun or musical about being Premenstrual.

However, during those other 2 days a month I am a Multi Tasking phenom.

Stand back I can handle all.

Everything.

Et el.

Men have lost the capability as well as the need, to multi task, due to our due diligence as women.

We swoop and jump in, negating any need or forethought on their part what so ever, with our bowls of tortilla chips, scooped up laundry, cold beers, immaculate housekeeping and goddess like sex offerings.

Which works really well except on those days when we are lapsing into a coma or PMS-ing.

On those days we would like very much for them to be able to pick up the slack.

Or at the very least, their underwear and socks.

Hello Darwin?

I want to turn back the hands of evolution.

Please.

Naked Surfing, Drag Queens and the Body/Mind Connection

2005-10-06T13:40:00.000Z

What really bothers me about the Angels of this world?

I actually contemplate this on a daily basis. Which must thrill the Angels to no end.

*** Good goddess! They are morphing into an entire flock! ***

What I abhor about the Angels is the same thing I adore about Drag Queens.

They are so damn comfortable with their femininity. With their bodies and the way in which they use it, dress it----- be in it.

In their estrogen hyped up state, it has become a tangible force that rubs up against you from fifty feet out. Pulsing out from their very core you are unable to resist being drawn into it like a moth to a flame.

Let the battle begin.

As a woman I am reluctant to embrace my femininity with such verve. It seems to be in direct conflict with the feminist side of me.

Ironic isn’t it?

That totally embracing everything that is feminine in myself is somehow in complete violation of being a woman.

That’s a little window into the madness of my psyche. You look at the ying yang symbol and see balance------ I see two fish caught up in an eternal race to eat the other whole.

So I’ve decided to beat them at their own game. The Angels that is, not the fish.

In an effort to become more comfortable in my own feminine skin I do one thing a day in it.

Naked.

Baby steps, I began with showering naked on Monday. There’ll be more laundry this way but I have to admit to enjoying it.

Tuesday- naked loading and unloading of the dishwasher.

My cat is amused. The dog is confused.

Wednesday- naked plant watering.

My neighbors seem to be starting a petition of some sort?

Today- Thursday- naked internet surfing.

That’s right, I’m writing this blog naked.

Perfect time for a little self-psychological assessment on your part; do you feel queasy, dirty, excited or intrigued? Hmmmmm…..what does it mean?

They say it takes 30 days to effect any change so I’ll get back to you on this naked thing.

Meanwhile, let’s not tell my husband.

I don’t want him to start getting any crazy ideas--- I’m nowhere near ready for naked sex.

Red Sox 1 game down behind the Yankees

2005-09-29T11:58:00.000Z

It’s come down to this---The Pre-Game Show

Whether you’re talking; World Series, Super Bowl, World Cup, whatever- why can’t they just let the game play out without all the hype?

It’s analyzed and dissected for weeks on end.

Blah blah. Bladdee, dah.

Makes one long for small talk about the weather, religion even bloody politics.

Of course there is always a root cause for such things.

The Men were clever about this one really.

Sports teams and events that change with the seasons and they have an on-going, year after year big distraction from actual feelings and relationships.

Sorry love. No time to sort that one out, only 6 weeks before play-offs, wild card picks and such. Can I get back to you on that intimacy thingy in about 3 months?

So now tell me that a man didn’t dream up this whole Perimenopause business.

Perimeno what!

Perimenopause or menopause transition is the stage of a woman's reproductive life that begins several years before menopause.

As if we needed one more hormonal curse.

Maybe I am just bloody cranky.

Treatments range from low dose birth control pills to anti-depressants.

Goody.

So I’ll be blissfully unaware when they start shoving me full of hormone replacement therapies when actual menopause occurs.

How did our grandmothers survive?

The same way their grand mothers did and theirs before that.

A shot of whiskey, a little sherry…………….

And if grandpa had to take a hit to the back of the head every once in a while for the team; well, we were all the better for it.

How bout them Red Sox?

Profiling is wrong!

2005-09-27T13:52:00.000Z

I don’t like to get into political discussions. It’s not that I don’t care. I care a great deal.

I just hate circle-jerk discussions. They’re pointless. As pointless as fat-free ice cream, sugar- free candy and lite chocolate bars.

If I am in need of a Milky Way bar give me every fat laden calorie that goes along with it.

DO NOT save me from myself thank you very much.

But I have to speak out against profiling. It’s gone too far. The Department of Homeland Security needs to step off and no one will get hurt.

This is an audience participation blog today.

Look over to the right there. There’s a place to click to see my complete profile.

Click on it.

For heaven’s sake! I’m not asking much. Go bloody read it.

I’ll wait.

· Age: 44
· Gender: female
· Astrological Sign: Virgo
· Zodiac Year: Ox
· Industry: Arts
· Location: New Hampshire

I am an aging, mountain dwelling, virgin-like carb embracing, ox resembling, hippy-troll woman.

Ha. Bloody. Ha.

I’m sure Angel’s would read something like this;

· Age: Perpetually 30 ish
· Gender: female
· Astrological Sign: Virgo- South Beach Rising
· Zodiac Year: Purring Kitten
· Industry: : Beautifying the Planet by my Mere Existence
· Location: Heaven sent

Donald Rumsfeld, Tom Ridge, just so you’re aware;

I am not a fan.

Thinking back to March

2005-09-26T17:04:00.000Z

----- Original Message -----
From: Dawn M. Kelly
To: Brother Dearest
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 7:31 PM
Subject: my new baby...........

Long story short, here she is.....

If I could have just one brief Crocodile Hunter moment;

"Crikey, she's gorgeous! I LURVVEEE her."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Brother Dearest
To: Dawn M. Kelly
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 10:45 PM
Subject: Re: my new baby...........

Hey there!

When'd you get back? How was it?

That's cute, and perfect for you. Now you need a vanity plate. I saw the BEST license plate on one around here a few months ago. A white haired lady was driving, with the plate "ABUG8NANA".

PLEASE DON'T tell me that you have one/bunch of flowers in a holder on the dash.

BrotherDearest

----- Original Message -----

From: Dawn M. Kelly
To: Brother Dearest

Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 11:23 PM
Subject: RE:Re: my new baby...........

It was fate, pure and simple. No other explanation.

I have been stuck in the house all week due to a nasty cold given to me by the boys----------

So yesterday I get my arse in gear and showered, (v imp!), (you did read Bridget Jones diary didn't you??? Run don't walk if you haven't), and drove to P-boro to go to Job Lot.

As I'm pulling out of the garage I think;

"Derek has my mobile--- Marty's in NY, anything happens with the car, I am up the frozen creek without a sled & dogs. "

Mind you, I have not had a lick of trouble with it since buying it last summer.

Find bargains on a slipcover for the loveseat, saving $80 from the one I was going to buy direct from Sure-fit on sale. Find 2 baskets for the new pantry @ $6 each saving on the two I was going to buy at JC P's for $15 each.

All happy I take my prizes out to the car, deposit them all cozy in the hatch and plop my JLo, (which by the way, looks so much better attached to me and without the scary M Anthony attachment), behind in the driver's seat patting myself on the back and praising my v. g. efforts at saving money, planning my woman of year speech- wondering if maybe they have a Pulitzer category for thriftiness while retaining high-style????, (read B J's D!!), and turn the key;;;;;;;;

{{{{{{insert the sound of deafening silence here}}}}}}}}}

Dash lights, heat, radio all work-----no engine engagement what so EVER!!!!!!

Tragedy turns my Pulitzer/woman of year award into tragic melodrama which now will surely include a book deal and a MOW, (movie of the week), can't you see me on Oprah as she fights back the tears, (pan the audience openly weeping at the sheer horror of it all), as I bravely tell the tale of my being stranded in the parking lot, (looking so like Mother Theresa/Princess Diana--comparisons are sure to be made), with no cell phone, no coffee shop in site and def no TRENDY BOUTIQUE to drown my sorrows, as well.

end of act 1.......................

So Marty drives back from NY Fri and we all pile into the truck to go rescue the Saab in the snow storm with a push start.

I am blonde and I am a girl, but I had pretty much eliminated things down to a blown starter motor.

Success and I drive back to Keene in the snow w/ Marty and DK following in the truck.

We had decided to build Marty's credit further by taking a car loan for a reliable used auto for me.

Saturday morn I hit the local paper's site and check out the classifieds. Nothing, BUT, there is a banner/link to, AutoTrader.com.

I click it and start searching in my price range for my fantasy vehicle since their reintroduction.

A search for VW's with-in a 50 mile radius brings up 32 pages of listings of all VW's.

On page 27, there she is. After seeing New Beetles in my price range a couple years old with over 100K on them---------- a miracle;

1998, Red, 2.0, 5 Speed, $7,495 with ONLY 18K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I now go and wake Marty and start babbling about it.

At an appropriate hour of the morning I call the Dealer over in Merrimack.

I wait not so patiently for the call back which I am convinced will come and I'll be told;

"You actually believed that ad?"

or

"OOOPPPs, forgot to pull that ad. Sold it yesterday."

or

"We did a background check and you're not worthy of such a car."

etcccccccccccc

Vic finally calls me after he finishes plowing the lot and clearing off vehicles.

Big storm.

The car is still there. No misprints in the ad.

I tell him we will see him tomorrow.

Of course I never verified the price over the phone.

I spend the day being snowed in, dreaming of me in that car.

ME in THAT car!!!!

We drive to Merrimack, find the place and there she is.

I dive from the still moving truck to go see her.

She is as shiny and in as good condition as she appeared in the ad.

Marty has caught up as I am hugging the car and says;

"Have you seen the sticker?"

I freeze and nearly throw-up.

I walk over and squint at it with one eye.

$6,995.

I nearly puke again.

Vic has joined us he walks me through the car. He is very easy going and low key. Like a nice uncle showing me my crazy aunty's car. Not a used car salesman at all.

We go and sign papers and fill out loan apps.

He says I'll love my new car.

I say, but first the bank has to approve the loan on Monday.

He says, it's my car. Due diligence and it will be sorted.

I love my new uncle Vic.

8:30AM, next day, Uncle Vic calls and says my car is waiting for me to come and get her.

I do.

And for the first time, I start her up.

Yes. First time. I never test drove her.

I can't wait to start modifying her.

I am waiting till my next registration renewal to pick the vanity plate. It happened so fast I couldn't pick properly.

We take our first road trip today to NY for the weekend.

Oh and her name is, Princess Poppy, she told me right away!

Okay, I won't mention anything about the flowers or lack thereof.

The attached photo will speak for itself.

Love from,

The girl in the Red Beetle!

I'm in!!!

2005-09-25T14:43:00.000Z

Okay…………so curves have been declared far and wide to be, in, so I am fashionably on target for once.

Mind you, it’s not something I planned.

I’d like to tell you that I had a late hour vision that I should gain 25 extra pounds so as to be on the cutting edge of beauty.

No. Not so much.

Granted I did decide at the 15 extra pound mark that I liked the curves and what separated me from the planky-bodied pre-teens and rail thin runway models. And all that food I was eating. Pass the smashed potatos!

Finally, at the age of 41, I was giving myself permission to accept my womanly body with open arms.

What took so long?

Downside; while I was reveling I gained 10 more curvaceous pounds.

SIGH.

Curves are one thing; endless hills and valleys, are a whole other matter. Back to this little matter of what’s in.

When are we going to stop this insanity?

Why isn’t it in, to be comfortable in your own skin no matter what shape or size that happens to be?

When will we accept being happy and healthy of body and mind with all that is less than Angel perfect?

Who gets to decide what is in? Is this some little known committee at the UN, the Supreme Court, maybe Mr. Blackwell is also head of this department?

Even if you have the in body type of the moment it doesn’t stop there. You had better make sure that you have in hair, in clothing, in jewelry, not forgetting in make-up.

When you have that under control move on to making sure that you are eating only in foods, you live in an in house type filled with very in furnishings in all the rights colors and flavors.

Now let’s talk about the kids; they had better be going to the right school and involved in just the right activities, (no, it doesn’t matter if they enjoy it or not silly), so when you are being seen at the in restaurants you have the things to talk about to all the other in people.

I guess that’s cool if you enjoy scooting along on the surface of life.

I’m still holding on to the hope that someday, in my lifetime even, that it will be in to be marching to the beat of your own heart and soul.

I have always been drawn to the differences in life and people. It’s enlightening, interesting and gives me perspective.

OOOOooo, gotta run, I'm late for the gym!

Buy stock in Kleenex, the weather's changed.....

2005-09-24T13:45:00.000Z

Just when I think I’m better than Angel, I get a head cold.

Sore throat followed by an obnoxious cough and a never-ending runny nose.

For two days I don’t care what I look like, I just want to live to taste food again.

There is no satisfaction in putting food in your mouth when you can’t taste anything. It’s like sex without the orgasm.

Why. Bloody. Bother.

Don’t even start in with the psychobabble about the shared intimacy and there’s more to sex than the orgasm------

Bloody. Shut. Up.

It’s. Not. True.

Okay look. It’s like running. Ever listen to people who do it? You would think it was a religious experience with harps, flowers and fluffy clouds.

You’re sold. You want you some of that. You go out buy a pair of running shoes that cost as much as a good used car, but it’s worth it, we’re talking change your life here and you look so damn cute in them. You then buy up every pink and purple bit of spandex running apparel there is and you’re off and running!

And sweating. And wheezing and it’s not invigorating, exhilarating or any of that line of crap they sold you.

They Lied.

Still, you’re confused and convinced that there’s something wrong with you. Maybe you’re not doing it right.

Come on. It’s running. We’ve been doing it since we were two.

Maybe we didn’t do it long enough. Two excruciating weeks later, it still sucks.

So you go out to see how other people do it. They’re not hard to find.

You study their form. Technique. Start noting what brand shoes they are wearing, their gear. Camel pack or water bottle? With a partner or without?

What am I missing?!?

Then it hits you. Square in the face. Not yours, THEIRS!

Look at their faces.

They look as miserable as you felt. All of them. Not a one has a smile, a look of inner peace or joy. They all look like someone just stole their cookies and punched them in the gut.

They lied.

Sex without an orgasm is no more fun than running. Food without the ability to taste it is a waste of calories.

And what does this have to do with me being better than Angel??!!?

Well. You know how after a couple days of non-stop wiping and blowing, your nose turns a lovely shade of red and gets all dry and crusty?

Where is someone like Angel when you need them?

I have yet to figure out a way to cover that up and/or tone it down so as not to scare old people and small children.

Make-up only seems to make it worse and as soon as you blow your nose again- can you say- Michael Jackson?

OY! Pass the bloody tissues.

Hurricain a comin!

2005-09-23T12:46:00.000Z

Unlike my alter, Angel, who really is more intelligent then she lets on, but still...

I, myself, am cursed with intelligence. I am lousy with the stuff.

How in the universe's great infinitesimal wisdom did it come to the very skewed conclusion that the un-Barbie like women of this world would be best compensated by uber intelligence is beyond even me.

And yes. I know that is a very long sentence. Needs must on occasion.

That all being said take a breath, I do have a bit of a glitch in the firing of the old synapses. Insert gasp of shock horror here.

I can’t spell. There I’ve said it.

I can’t spell I can’t spell I can’t spell I can’t spell I can’t spell I can’t spell!!!!!

“Hello. My name is Dawn and I am spelling impaired.”

If one of the 12 steps in the recovery process is atonement for past miss-spellings I will have to live approximately 347 years.

I know. You’re sitting there thinking; “And this all has WHAT to do with hurricanes?”

Look at that title up there again.

Hurricain.

Should be hurricane.

This I now know because I opened up a Word doc in order to write the rest of this blog.

Spell-check is my friend.

I want to be at the top of the list for spell-check-chip studies that can be implanted in the brain.

Oh yeah. I’m there.

The Angels’ of the world may be all comfy with their flaws that are hidden behind hair spray mist and mirrors, but not me.

If I can’t posses cleavage at least give me spelling powers!!!

Okay. So yeah, what was the universe thinking?

Enters room slowly....hugging the wall.

2005-09-22T22:06:00.000Z

Nervously clears her throat and begins;

"My name is Angel and I am hopelessly addicted to myself."

Well, of course I am. You would be too. IF you were as fabulishous as I am.

Anyway, enough about you, let's talk about me.

These blog thingys are grand. Imagine a place here on this world wide all about me web where you can always connect to you know, me!

Although if it were up to me, and it should be, I would change their name.

Blog.

Look at how it just sits there all icky and such.

It should be called something yummier. Like............Divine Angelic Driplets.

Oh wait. That wouldn't work for everyone. Mostly me. Hmmmm.

So where were we?

Oh yes. Me!

Okay, so I can explain.....

That rather self-centered being above is really my alter ego. Angel.

She helps me write what I love best--- ChickLit.

Now before you go and poopoo the Genre based on how it doesn't impart any new epiphanies, change your life or even the babies diapers, they are great fun to read and for me; a joy to write.

Now back to Angel. She's the place that I go to write the main characters in these books.

She and they, are the girls who say and do things that we, as self respecting women, wish we were unconcious enough once in a while to be.

Oh please.

We sit back all self righteous, ripping the ditzy blonde with the barbie doll figure to shreads, (you do too---don't you?) when we would give anything to be her for just one night, week or summer holiday. Her with all her incomplete sentences, lack of world news knowlege and surrounded by men who couldn't care less if she can find the square root of pi while they---------------

-----------picture her pole dancing naked.

Men.

So you and I are somewhere in between the Angels and the women who have it all figured out. With their 2.5 kids, husband who works 80 hours a week and volunteer on no less than 5 not for profit boards.

We're still looking for our happy ending.

Isn't it nice that you don't have to be alone in that quest?

Welcome to ChickLit.

Sit down, buckle up and enjoy the ride.

;)