tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60156026055032578572024-03-05T20:50:33.631-06:00Namaste what?!For those of you unfamiliar, the sanskrit word namaste (pronounced nah-mah-STAY) is a blessing which roughly translates as "the Spirit of God which is in me blesses the Spirit of God which is in you." So to all of you wonderful, beautiful, incredibly intelligent readers: namaste!MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-13647508715928471162008-02-29T16:49:00.002-06:002008-02-29T17:14:22.912-06:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgivPw2RVB2fzWjXbzB33DbO7eyihwlKRGHLGJKkJACmxs3bioGLfbEgjwcGamJW05goVa5-rOcuqjDI0EiOwjgvGavlNfdzsfI74vVCo9YE_XfZDI1AXep1pcWt40cVlaI5F5Iv5MmD90/s1600-h/girls_wave_goodbye.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5172543963145695586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgivPw2RVB2fzWjXbzB33DbO7eyihwlKRGHLGJKkJACmxs3bioGLfbEgjwcGamJW05goVa5-rOcuqjDI0EiOwjgvGavlNfdzsfI74vVCo9YE_XfZDI1AXep1pcWt40cVlaI5F5Iv5MmD90/s400/girls_wave_goodbye.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Dear Readers -</div><div></div><br /><div>To those of you kind enough to tune in from time to time to read this little blog, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you. I have enjoyed it immensely and have been uplifted by your kind and thought provoking comments over the past year. I never knew these tele-friendships would come to be such a meaningful part of my life. The time has come, however, for me to give blogging a much needed rest in order to explore other paths of my life.</div><br /><div></div><div>I would like to propose a toast my favorite bloggers...</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="http://semi-charmed-lifeforme.blogspot.com/">Semi-Charmed</a></div><div><a href="http://www.onekentuckywriter.blogspot.com/">One Kentucky Writer</a></div><div><a href="http://speculatinonahypotenuse.blogspot.com/">Speculatin on a Hypotenuse</a></div><div><a href="http://laurakatthebay.blogspot.com/">Laura K at the Bay</a></div><div><a href="http://ilistpaducah.blogspot.com/">iList Paducah iBlog</a></div><div><a href="http://evilhrlady.blogspot.com/">Evil HR Lady</a></div><div>and especially <a href="http://bizzyblogging.blogspot.com/">Bizzyville</a> who helped me to believe that I had something worth saying.</div><div></div><br /><div>Hopefully, I'll be back at this someday, in the meantime I have you all on Speedblog!</div><div></div><br /><div>Namaste</div>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-41986508476362823792008-02-27T17:14:00.004-06:002008-02-27T18:17:18.710-06:00The Star Attraction<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIZHzPQbkm784Du6QOKwWz5agKOmoOF1aYYBezNgdxlTldPs1308zUo8Dyc1xnNwg-_PIwC5FwxcOIBnZVlIpZkeDF4EX2-92PeuhlG18Nm74Y-p4OM73bze0C6R6yvtJJq0iNxkk9d5c/s1600-h/solar+system.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171818153466120770" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIZHzPQbkm784Du6QOKwWz5agKOmoOF1aYYBezNgdxlTldPs1308zUo8Dyc1xnNwg-_PIwC5FwxcOIBnZVlIpZkeDF4EX2-92PeuhlG18Nm74Y-p4OM73bze0C6R6yvtJJq0iNxkk9d5c/s400/solar+system.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><div><span style="font-size:85%;">I have to take a moment to say that I personally witnessed <a href="http://bizzyblogging.blogspot.com/2008/02/im-all-right.html">this</a>, and it happened exactly that way. The concerned appeared very truly such, and it was a touching exchange. Even while observing such an act of kindness, however, I couldn't stop myself from thinking "That question must get really old." It's an oddly amusing question, because she is about as empowered as I've ever seen her. <a href="http://bizzyblogging.blogspot.com/">Bizzy</a> is truly an inspiration, a person who brings joy and laughter along wherever she goes.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">On that note, I wanted to shout out to one of my new favorite blogs, <a href="http://semi-charmed-lifeforme.blogspot.com/">Semi-Charmed</a>. This girl has been way too long without blogging. Check it out for yourself <a href="http://semi-charmed-lifeforme.blogspot.com/">here</a>. She tells it like it is, real life, no fluff...something we could all us a lot more of. Plus, she can flat turn a phrase.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Personally, I've been doing a lot of thinking...thinking about The Planets. In case you haven't heard, everything we learned in elementary school is now totally defunct...out the window. Mr. Wilson was wrong. We have 11 planets, not nine...8 "normal" and three dwarf planets. OK, I'm thinking. <em>Wait a minute.</em> First of all, haven't we all just recently been re-trained? Shouldn't it be "<em>little planets</em>?" Secondly, what about all the other millions of big rocks out there in the Kiper belt? We haven't even seen the half of them. How do we know there aren't more dwarfs out there...maybe even midgets?! Are we going to take in every stray dwarf and call them a planet now?</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;">For the record, it's now: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Eris, Pluto.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">And if you are having trouble remembering all of the newly discovered planets out there, <a href="http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/815532,planet022708.article">this little fourth grader from Montana</a> came up with a lame way of pulling it all together for you...something about an elephant on a magic carpet or some such ridiculous nonsense.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Let's just say it right here and now...Pluto, Eris and Ceres don't <em>deserve </em>to be memorized by millions of fourth graders. They don't deserve to even be questions in the St. Mary Trivia Tournament. They're <strong>Midget Planets</strong>, for crying out loud. They're tiny. <strong>There's something inherently wrong with them!</strong></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">OK, ok, I know I'm going to catch some heat for this and some of you rock-huggers will say something [in your whiny, bleeding voices] like...</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">"Just because they're not normal sized doesn't mean they don't matter."</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Or "Just because they're not like Earth doesn't mean they don't participate in our Solar System."</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Blah, blah, blah.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Well...I'm saying just that. They don't. They're sub-standard. They're not right. They're just plain weird, and nobody wants them around. End of story.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Next thing you know they'll be calling our boy Mercury a dwarf, and we can't be having that with the Gary Coleman of our Solar System...our literal star attraction.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span></div></div>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-18263951331559033882008-02-25T19:05:00.002-06:002008-02-25T19:46:52.792-06:00<span style="font-size:85%;">Just got back from yoga class...my first class since December. Getting back into any form of exercise is a lot like deciding to watch Grey's Anatomy in the middle of season four. All of your friends know all the subplots, who's slept together, and random additional social configurations, but you're the loser who doesn't even know the name of Patrick Dempsey's character. I don't know if you understand this logic. If you do, we should probably get together for a drink sometime.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Last week a very gracious and premium seated season ticket holder invited my daughter and me to see "Annie" at the Carson Center. I am famous for saying that I dislike all musicals (caveat: "The Wizard of Oz"), but I guess I am being forced to throw yet another blanket statement out the proverbial window. I really, really liked "Annie." And I know I'm going out on a limb here with the possiblility of causing some musical aficianados unspeakable anguish...I liked it better than The Producers.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I ran across a couple of friends in the restroom (where else?) that I hadn't seen in years. They had their daughters (aged 5 and 6, respectively) with them to see the play. I felt such pride and a strange sense of relief after meeting their little girls to point at my own daughter seated in the foyer, absently playing with her cell phone..."That's my little girl." (now basically a full-grown woman).</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I know that I have an entire blog pending about being a very young mother...maybe even more than that. The entire time my kids were growing up, going to school, and I was one of the youngest room mothers, I never thought there would ever be relief associated with it. I would love to say it's a cake walk by the time they're 17, but just tonight I had to speak with a very reputable and upstanding attorney of Paducah about teenagers and speeding tickets. Parenthood is like taking a high school achievement test. First you're sailing along being embarrassingly self-congratulatory when suddenly the questions turn into a mensa application as you turn the last page.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-17323214025551463352008-02-21T17:04:00.002-06:002008-02-21T17:43:14.430-06:00<span style="font-size:85%;">Today hope returned to my life. After spending some amount of time de-icing my car in the parking lot after work, driving to the library (closed!) to return some items before their actual due date, I returned home to find that my basil seeds have actually germinated! I was astonished. Last spring was a dismal year for my flowers. I simply abandoned them in favor of self-pity and air conditioning. This year I am attempting to rekindle my gardening passion armed with a few peat pots and an assortment of envelopes from the Burpee company. I have an assortment of annual herbs (dill, parsley, basil) as well as sage and even a few annual flowers. I hope my one and only fluorescent light will serve as surrogate sunlight long enough to get them started. By the time they are transplantable, we should be through with all of this icy mush.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">There is no therapy like gardening. Setting a seed, watching it sprout and grow, caring for it like your own child. Working the soil in the springtime feels like talking to God. It's deep and hypnotic, revealing truth and meaning. It promotes a feeling of connection with life itself. Peace, I guess.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I wish I had the land to have a real garden...one like my grandfather's. Potatoes, corn, green beans, squash, watermelon and the most luscious tomatoes ever grown on this earth. He had a true talent for gardening, for growing anything, yet he made it seem effortless. There were apple orchards, peach trees, cherry trees (my favorite), gooseberry and blackberry bushes, pear and pecan trees. If only my own grandchildren could visit such a wonderland. I never knew how much love and care lived in the rich dirt of my grandfather's garden until now...when the sight of one tiny sprout makes this soggy, cold, wet February day a great one.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-62535984703574316272008-02-19T17:35:00.002-06:002008-02-19T18:00:06.326-06:00<span style="font-size:85%;">I am here but still lacking any substance of which to write. I went to work, then to an off-site event two hours away and am home again. I thought a lot about the event that I attended, and I actually started to write about it but thought better. Work should remain at work.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I haven't been to yoga since December. I get this way...hermitic (is that a word? It should be) at times. I come home from work and immediately put on my sweatshirt and yoga pants. This way, I convince myself there's no chance in leaving since I'd have to put on real clothes to meet society. And let's face it, that's just too much trouble.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Some days, if my daughter is actually at home, I start supper. It's no secret that I like to cook, but cooking for oneself is anticlimactic to say the very least. On the nights that I don't cook and no one's here to witness, I eat gigantic piles of Wheat Thins or half a bag of Baked Lays for supper. Eating something crunchy always makes me feel like I'm getting more bang for my calorie.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Lately I've been sewing. Yes, you read that right. I've taken it up with a vengeance. I have yet to make myself anything presentable, but little Heidi has more dresses than she could ever possibly wear by age 12 months. I've become somewhat obsessed by it, I'll admit.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Well, I have to go now and get back to my latest work in progress. I will update you on how that goes...only if it turns out, that is.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-51179387571808026552008-02-14T16:42:00.002-06:002008-02-14T17:03:56.136-06:00<span style="font-size:85%;">It feels a little weird to be sitting here writing in my blog. I've been a little out of sorts lately...in a "general funk" as my friend Kim used to say. With the holidays gone and the cold and dreary weeks of winter creeping in, I had nary an ounce of blogging fortitude. I'm quietly making my way back, but it's been a bit of a struggle.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">First and foremost, Seinfeld was great...much funnier than I'd expected. I've never been one of those die hard Seinfeld fans...the ones who know every word in every episode. The ones who know every scene that features the Soup Nazi or each Kramer idiosyncracy. All in all, I can say that I really like Jerry Seinfeld and were it not for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004517/">this man</a>, would probably have loved the show. I've never been able to name specifically why I despise him so and have wondered that very question aloud to more than one close friend. Is it his Weeble-ish physique? His whiny demeanor? His smarmy, totally unbelievable aptitude with women?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">As usual, someone is circling the computer as I type...anxious, nervous. It has been a full 8 hours since her last IM (texts don't count, you know).</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">To be continued...</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-64739715973427528872008-01-09T17:45:00.000-06:002008-01-09T18:20:00.267-06:00<div><span style="font-size:85%;">Finally back from my road trips for the week. They started on Sunday with a five hour trek across Missouri, through the horror of St. Louis construction traffic and back again on Monday. Then Tuesday it was off to Louisville for a meeting early Wednesday morning and back again this afternoon. Spending four and five hour stretches in a car creates a kind of interdependent depressed anxiety a lot like insomnia. The more I think about it, the slower the miles tick by. The slower they tick by, the more I want to scream, etc.</span><br /></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;">So, although it feels like Friday, it is only Wednesday...however...TOMORROW:</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span> </div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5153635766263805954" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhErkbLMIEKplk4igSHor5QiurPch3K1AK5FaUuhc4heFU2KIxDOBXfGNcCpwthc-q3cv3z644Vsxs7n9LM7cfo4jRUUjQt3JQAFncm2kRORH-ZQet2touBYRM_qHXERhnz-HxGT1WtArw/s400/Seinfeld.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Yes, as a very unexpected and thrilling Christmas gift, and no doubt through some bizarre planet alignment, my brother was able to procure a Seinfeld ticket for yours truly. Aside from the cobalt blue ten-speed I received at age nine, this may be my best Christmas present <em>EVER</em>. I am joining my brother and his girlfriend for dinner tomorrow night at an as yet undisclosed location and then on to The Big Show. This is a very big deal for me since it starts at...</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"><blockquote><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">9:30 P.M.!</span></strong></blockquote></span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"></span></strong></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;">It might as well be at midnight, as anyone who knows me would agree. Even my brother, as I was marveling at the gift on Christmas Eve, said "The only thing is...it's a <em>little</em> late." But Seinfeld in Paducah is a once in a lifetime, so I am going to get crazy and may even stay up until...who knows...11! Wish me luck.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span></div>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-79788623298319179172008-01-05T06:17:00.000-06:002008-01-05T07:52:18.909-06:00Project Runway is Back!<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151980417148450690" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYRZSNNdAT1n-WAJkUit24uxAN5AAeYKxuO7Zu_qBGGjjqeN8D-yjPUSpHD__VlAwaETX1iaAO85EVsrn2FeBbq4oVPvM-vRVHojOQi9N9KFZmqnqxNDjPuUB7jMMvwZFOMRAxA6OFQyw/s320/rami+winner.jpg" border="0" /> <div><div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.bravotv.com/Project_Runway/index.php">Project Runway</a> has returned from its holiday hiatus and not a moment too soon. <a href="http://www.bbcamerica.com/content/154/index.jsp">Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares</a> on BBC America have begun to rerun. This week, the designers were taken to Hershey's Times Square Superstore. They were to create a design of their choosing from only the materials that they could find in the candy store. They had no budget, <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0I0jIqAkItg8uDRIYTVuFki9GS9HM6gwR3lh9oKh-eFrcb7r4GuqQ6oqA_XJwd3D_oFo3KUVcj05qX64UNNClnf8Y-7OUotB-zB2YjZ1q2UCw_6nwo6Bv2UoqDfBxnJlacNESPDUtSCs/s1600-h/chris+dress.jpg"></a>two sacks, and five minutes to grab and bag their materials.</span><br /></div><div><div><div><div><span style="font-size:85%;">The results were amazing. The winner of this challenge, Rami, created an incredible halter dress using Twizzler pillow cases and Peppermint Patty papers. The dress was an amazing fit on his model, and the styling he chose was a great match for the fun and funkiness of the dress.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Although I tend to favor halter dresses as a rule, the design by Chris could just as easily have taken top honors this challenge. I especially liked how perfectly the Hershey's logo was woven in and out of the bodice of the piece. The only thing that didn't quite do it for me was the fit. It didn't appear curvy enough. I guess this is one of the hazards of strapless, especially when fitting runway models.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVel8iLxrTlCuUXgeKtpRs0VS0fXw47Huk4s1omldBjEfwPryP-nVU_QrH3NRUohm_GdGm8H5XW1BzF5iF6OiAcj8fywKfMsxAQUqEsG2RjVfpKYLbhIhR6ZzS5-tmKhKCcUyvnuE9hLc/s1600-h/chris+dress.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151987671348213698" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVel8iLxrTlCuUXgeKtpRs0VS0fXw47Huk4s1omldBjEfwPryP-nVU_QrH3NRUohm_GdGm8H5XW1BzF5iF6OiAcj8fywKfMsxAQUqEsG2RjVfpKYLbhIhR6ZzS5-tmKhKCcUyvnuE9hLc/s200/chris+dress.jpg" border="0" /></a>There was quite a bit of crap out there, in my humble opinion, not the least of <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPFS10UAd6IuxqhrugZdn7TrbnICuAMt9MRKlf4rYjVGWSOhf02vcxib8BlkuBamLI1jIDRG-yhF8m7nLGOrGxmVeySJYCjAV355RrZhdK8uy6I5y_Lk3RuKXhLP8FoWnJ-aIzzTUDvFo/s1600-h/chris+dress.jpg"></a>which was this losing design by Elisa. I'll have to say that I will not miss her other worldly presence or her hand sewn craptastic de<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzJLiS_nZzYRh7D5EL1oERp3wcLugZrgSjcn4NuToQdgjNFUSRaIRoVNKcQZcp14w9HB5o_wFG6EHm2jo3uxYsEme8SITE8ltgbvx1-0dAWJYyocU6peP2BARO2fbr2_IXyAn3gwsn4Q8/s1600-h/jillian.jpg"></a>signs. Her creativity was too much for her skill set, and her taste was usually ten paces behind both. The final straw was this drab brown collection of pillows [bottom left] stuck on a model hailing from the same planet as Elisa. A melted chocolate Barbarella Kiss. How in the world could the model keep a straight face with those silver pillows hanging off her elbows? Good-bye, Elisa. The rest of us are due back on Planet Earth.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRPDqlRo1qWOd-vKv8zv2NGjmvnfDeQVs6Q0Ho-da4AoyKGZ3gSwEFxHfkLtmBZBgpPoBXT5Im2d7ccNZSIyJzgYXAwT9qm7CcrsBA-YskdDpVILO5XSYaF28hIsGxnXCUTt2G0uVr4mQ/s1600-h/elisa+design.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151987924751284178" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRPDqlRo1qWOd-vKv8zv2NGjmvnfDeQVs6Q0Ho-da4AoyKGZ3gSwEFxHfkLtmBZBgpPoBXT5Im2d7ccNZSIyJzgYXAwT9qm7CcrsBA-YskdDpVILO5XSYaF28hIsGxnXCUTt2G0uVr4mQ/s200/elisa+design.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwT1lTw1V7xCruCF_Wz0c_Pao3OVBn4pkdpHY08nGYVazWu3QGa0uHqbdGpeGaTBSVntNUQrLZ2LpQI7tsbE6MXrrSH6uZ00Yssf9MytJF6NXgtLLVOMUmXQCcbj8bbZEkaofgENkiDhM/s1600-h/jillian.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151988508866836450" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwT1lTw1V7xCruCF_Wz0c_Pao3OVBn4pkdpHY08nGYVazWu3QGa0uHqbdGpeGaTBSVntNUQrLZ2LpQI7tsbE6MXrrSH6uZ00Yssf9MytJF6NXgtLLVOMUmXQCcbj8bbZEkaofgENkiDhM/s200/jillian.jpg" border="0" /></a></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></div><div></span><span style="font-size:85%;"></div><div></div><div>One very honorable mention: although I wasn't crazy about Jillian's design, I was awestruck that she brave enough to construct a garment out of actual candy...the only contestant to do so. Check out this incredible edible dress made out of Twizzlers. Wow!</span></div></div><div></div></div><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwT1lTw1V7xCruCF_Wz0c_Pao3OVBn4pkdpHY08nGYVazWu3QGa0uHqbdGpeGaTBSVntNUQrLZ2LpQI7tsbE6MXrrSH6uZ00Yssf9MytJF6NXgtLLVOMUmXQCcbj8bbZEkaofgENkiDhM/s1600-h/jillian.jpg"></a></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span> </div></div></div></div></div>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-70738144935245368722008-01-02T17:04:00.000-06:002008-01-02T18:10:19.972-06:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQP8S_FFGvjcTb3lQWEHR1kinsBhBoabl-ADS7DbpROInl9BOpmtBrlRBXfnscDh7ygeFHsaQPBtVfkcy2v3-M8fripJOUwPBvqWW7a8b8vBac6jz7aXApOb3Zcjtuh2BZ0_DQyAGZaB0/s1600-h/Rod+Serling.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151031804901652210" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQP8S_FFGvjcTb3lQWEHR1kinsBhBoabl-ADS7DbpROInl9BOpmtBrlRBXfnscDh7ygeFHsaQPBtVfkcy2v3-M8fripJOUwPBvqWW7a8b8vBac6jz7aXApOb3Zcjtuh2BZ0_DQyAGZaB0/s400/Rod+Serling.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">New Year's Day is for marathons...televisions marathons. And this year was no exception. I spent the first day of 2008 watching back-to-back episodes of the Twilight Zone until my eyes bled. Except for the incessant commercials, each episode is perfect...filmed in black and white, thinly veiled slightly leftist message, neat and tidy storyline. Rod Serling smoked right there on television in front of God and everyone while setting up the moral structure of the story. I had started watching the marathon on New Year's Eve when I awoke at 12:30 p.m. after having taken a nice, three hour nap. It just doesn't get any better than that...New Year's Eve or not.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I had spent the previous day watching another marathon...which in the end amounted to my watching the first movie completely and then switching back and forth on the sequels. Planet of the Apes (1968). I embarrassingly admitted this to a friend I'd called during the 17th commercial of the first hour.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">"You like that, too?" she asked. "I can never resist the Apes."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">We spent a couple of moments considering this and wondering why we were both so mesmerized by the film.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>(Charlton Heston in a loin cloth screaming "Keep your hands off me, you damned dirty apes!" HA! - Every time the apes would gag him during the movie, I thought how effective that image would be on a gun control poster.)</em></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">It wasn't until today that I learned that screenplay for Planet of the Apes was co-written by none other than our good friend Rod Serling. Who knew?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-78172657122217110302007-12-28T07:21:00.001-06:002007-12-28T08:10:04.686-06:00<span style="font-size:85%;">Good morning! I'm sorry that I've been so out of the loop lately. With the computer going down and the holidays coming soon thereafter, it's been hard for me to get back on track.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Yesterday I had my first ever facial. I have the same recommendation for a facial that I have for visiting New Orleans...everyone should do it at least once. It's a completely self-indulgent, incomparable experience, just like New Orleans. Except that you feel fantastic when it's over...the antithesis of the New Orleans experience.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">When I entered Serendipity Day Spa, I was lead to a changing room where I was instructed to take off my shoes and to change from my shirt into a towel that wrapped around me just below my armpits and fastened in the front with velcro. Then I was asked to complete a questionnaire about my skin. While I reclined on a chaise lounge, noting whether I used sunscreen daily or experienced flakiness, soft music played in the background in tandem with the indoor waterfall in the corner of the room. When I'd finished, Amy the facial maestro, entered and asked me to follow her to the next room. Amy appeared to be in her mid-20s. She had a very sweet countenance and one of those really soft voices...like a kindergarten teacher.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Once in the room, she softly suggested I take off my Liz Claiborne slippers and lie down on what looked to be a gurney topped with a three inch thick mattress pad and luxurious down bedding. It was very dimly lit with the same soft music and waterfall sounds from the last room. When I got in and covered up, I noticed that the bed itself seemed very slightly warmed. I laid back and closed my eyes. For the next 90 minutes, my face was cleaned, stripped, massaged and moisturized with nary a word spoken. The soft music, the aroma of the different products, the warmth of the bed, the massage, felt almost like a meditation. It was relaxation deeper than sleep. Strangely, I never felt weird like I often do during a pedicure...where I have to hold back my apologies for coming in and asking the pedicurist to paint my sad little toenails. When we finished, I was escorted to a third room with a huge, Hollywood-like makeup mirror with shelf upon shelf of Bare Escentials and MD facial products. I was treated to a full makeover, the likes of which I'd never experienced. Afterward I looked and felt like I was going to the Academy Awards...all shined and polished and feeling fabulous.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">When I returned home, I was all dressed up with nowhere to go. I sat down and folded laundry and thought about Nicole Kidman. I wondered if she ever felt slightly deflated after all the primping and relaxation only to go home and sit around watching Presumed Innocent.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-66391957467745581132007-12-14T06:19:00.001-06:002007-12-14T06:19:39.504-06:00Guess who's 'oudt?'<object wmode='transparent' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer' data='http://widgets.bravotv.com/o/4657041ec2a2cf53/476274da2d04f625' quality='high' height='385' width='384' id='W476274da2d04f625'><param value='transparent' name='wmode'/><param value='http://widgets.bravotv.com/o/4657041ec2a2cf53/476274da2d04f625' name='movie'/><param value='' name='scaleMode'/><param value='all' name='allowNetworking'/><param value='always' name='allowScriptAccess'/><param value='' name='flashvars'/></object>Poor little Steve with his slow and labored speech and wicked sense of humor. He was great entertainment for the season.MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-31573650812715828102007-12-13T19:09:00.000-06:002007-12-13T20:11:27.028-06:00<span style="font-size:85%;">OMG! I'm BACK! It's been so very long. It's so surreal to actually be typing at home.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I guess it's best to begin at the beginning...three weeks ago. It was early on a Sunday morning, and the computer had been cranking along, acting sorta weird, but generally just being it's geriatric self. I decided to do a little house cleaning by deleting some files...you know, just your usual crap when you're trying to ignore dirty dishes and clean clothes piled to the ceiling on the dryer and pretend you're not actually going to surf the internet...just do a little much needed maintenance...</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">OPERATING SYSTEM ERROR</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">These are words you never want to see. I probably shouldn't even be TYPING them. As a matter of fact, stop reading them NOW.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">THOSE words flashed around, and the screen went blank.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Remember the Sex and the City episode with the "Sad MAC...Sad MAC?" And then dumba$$ Aiden did the control+alt+delete to wipe out everything on Carrie's hard drive? That's pretty much how it went over here, except I was dumba$$ Aiden AND Carrie (OK, my daughter was an innocent in all this, she might be Carrie).</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">When it happened, I did all sort of crazy crap...restart, restart, restart. I couldn't actually reBOOT, as Windows wouldn't even give me a wink. I was out in the cold dark world of blank black screen with the occasional hopeful glimmer of blank blue screen. Staring, staring, staring. Thinking, thinking, thinking. More staring.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I scrounged around in the decrepit funeral home computer desk and in some freakish alignment of the stars FOUND the operating system disk. "Damn, I am GOOD," I smirked at the blank black screen.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Insert disk.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Restart.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Random commands.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Then the computer became Hal and started yelling at me to do this and do that and asking me funky questions about where everything was...all in that depressing MS DOS mode, like I wasn't already depressed enough that I have to stare at these no-font lines of crap telling me to type in some crazy prompt.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">"If you're so freaking smart, YOU type the damned command you MF-ing #*%^@*# computer!!"</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Computers can be such ill-mannered creeps sometimes. They act so proud of themselves with their fancy backslashes and blabbering on about C drives and their evil return key BEEP. Even when they're sick and dying, they're total bitches.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">So, what did I do at that point? I went into the bedroom, woke up my daughter, gave her the sad news and...I cannot believe I'm telling you this...cried. </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Tears started flowing out completely unrestrained. Suddenly, everything that was wrong in my life (my sad love life, depressing finances, the fact that I missed the last episode of Project Runway) all came to settle upon the shoulders of this now expired computer.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">We scrambled around and got this 1990s band-aid for a couple of weeks (don't even ask), and then...incredibly...<a href="http://www.truenorthyoga.com/images/photos/timtriangle02.jpg">this man</a> came to our rescue. Can you believe it? He's a geologist, <a href="http://www.truenorthyoga.com/index.php">yoga teacher</a> AND computer whiz. (I couldn't make this stuff up, people!)</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Anyway, I just wanted to give a big shout out to <a href="http://www.truenorthyoga.com/images/photos/timtriangle02.jpg">Tim</a> for helping me to get cranked up to posting again. BTW, if you're interested, <a href="http://www.truenorthyoga.com/index.php">True North Yoga</a> is sponsoring an Introduction to Power Flow Yoga class Saturday, December 15 starting at 9 a.m. There are just a few openings left for the class. Check out <a href="http://www.truenorthyoga.com/">www.truenorthyoga.com</a> for more info.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste!</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-60777906952341408082007-12-06T19:39:00.000-06:002007-12-06T20:44:29.145-06:00<a href="http://onekentuckywriter.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-size:85%;">One Kentucky Writer</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> has tagged me, and although I am not yet up to full capacity (friends are working on my computer problem), I do have a small window of opportunity to post while out of town. Here's the skinny:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;">Link to the tagger and post these rules on your blog. Share five facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. Tag five people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.</span></em><br /><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Just a few years back, a very </span><a href="http://bizzyblogging.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-size:85%;">good friend</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> of mine called me and then boyfriend "O Canada" to the front lines. To this day it remains one of the most exhilarating jobs I've ever held: running the spotlight for Lou Rawls. We stood on a platform directly behind Lou's sound and light guy who shouted orders at us through some funky 1970s headphones. I had no concept of the light's actual power. Up to that point, I had been impressed by the 100 watt bulb. I completely blinded Lou upon his big stage entrance. As he waved his free, unmicrophoned hand over his eyes in a surrendering motion and the sound/light guy screamed "BACK OFF OF LOU! BACK OFF OF LOU!," I struggled to regain my composure enough to find dim. When I did, without hesitating, Lou launched into "You'll never find..." The rest is Paducah Riverfront history.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">In the early 1990s I lived in a funeral home.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Sometimes if I hear an unusual word, I will type the word in my head over and over. I imagine my hands on the keys, the keystrokes, spelling. Sometimes without realizing it, my fingers will be moving. This has been going on since my eighth grade typing class. I guess it serves a purpose as my spelling is slightly above average.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">When I was growing up I wanted to be a cowgirl, veterinarian, television journalist (in that order). Then I graduated high school and had no idea.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">My life's dream is to visit Alaska.</span></li></ol><p><span style="font-size:85%;">I'm tagging </span><a href="http://ajourneyofjoy.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-size:85%;">Joy</span></a><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span></p>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-32217334755368042522007-11-30T07:28:00.000-06:002007-11-30T07:33:27.023-06:00<span style="font-size:85%;">I just thought I should tell you all that, as fate would have it, my computer went down in flames on Sunday. The substitute that I currently have is a poor one (about 7 years old). Internet Explorer strobes every five seconds, and I feel as if I'm on psychadelics when I try to maneuver the internet. A <a href="http://bizzyblogging.blogspot.com/">very concerned friend</a> has given me some insider information on a possible solution. Say a prayer.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-60758726300828618762007-11-24T07:08:00.000-06:002007-11-24T08:25:58.257-06:00<span style="font-size:85%;">Sometimes I think about what it would be like to be a bartender. Bartenders are so serious. They don't take crap and they don't joke around with the customers. It would seem to me that they would certainly get more tips if they participated a little more. Don't they care about making more money? Or maybe they should tell jokes. Maybe that would do it. How perfect would that be? A bartender who doubled as a comedian. I for one would pay big money to sit at a bar like that, but it's fruitless to even dream about.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Last night, I met some friends at a local restaurant. We weren't sure who all was showing up for dinner, so we sat at the bar for a few minutes before taking our table. It seemed rude to be within such close proximity (two feet) to someone and not include them in the conversation, so we tried engaging the bartender. When one of us would speak directly to her, she would answer. Otherwise, she just pretended not to hear us. (They must teach you that in bartender school - how to artfully ignore a conversation that's close enough for you to breathe on.) No matter how many funny and clever things we said to her (and we're pretty funny people), the bartender never cracked a smile. She would simply look at us with that Prozac face, make a controlled comment and then wipe down the bar for the seventh time. I've met Wal-mart checkers that were more animated.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I guess bartenders are pretty important. A lot of them know it. I guess they're so high on the restaurant business food chain that they know they don't really have to bend over backwards for the customer like the poor servers do. Talk about your crap job. Servers are the lowest on the totem pole - lower than busboys. They are the Marines of the service industry - meeting customers head-on in the Battle of Wills. They have the torturous job of listening to customers bitch all day and all night as they turn on the Doris Day. They have to know the menu inside and out and give calculated advice on what to order. If the food doesn't live up to the customer's expectation, it's their neck. I feel particularly bad when I order something extra after they've already brought all the food and refilled all the drinks. "Sure, sure! No problem! Be right back with that!" in that strained, happy voice. That sad little cheeful voice always makes me want to cash out and go somewhere else.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I wonder if there's a restaurant workers' secret society - a place where they all meet up after hours or before hours as the case may be and talk about the stuff they see. Somewhere they can all go to talk about who was with who last night, who's a drunk, who's a cheapskate, who's stepping out on their spouse. They have to be chock full of insider information. How great it would be to get inside that secret society even for just a day.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-45172162821328529732007-11-20T18:27:00.000-06:002007-11-20T20:12:32.994-06:00AOS<span style="font-size:85%;">I have intermittent Adult-Onset Stuttering (AOS). It's not the normal little kid kind, as in "I-I-I wi-wi-wish I had an ice cream cone." My stuttering is more like a revving engine, i.e. "I wish I had a...I wish I had a double martini." I quite literally talk myself into [in this case, 'saying'] something. </span><span style="font-size:85%;">What I can't quite decide is if it is more akin to a co-pilot or to a dress rehearsal.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Strangely, the magic number is two. I tend to say certain phrases twice ("Hand me that...hand me that Tom Jones CD.") It happens more often when my left brain is hard at work installing a shower head or figuring out which button I touched on the remote that made all of the others quit working ("Why can't I...why can't I turn it back to Star Trek?") It's always the beginning of a sentence or phrase, and it happens more often when someone, usually one of my unsuspecting daughters, asks me a question while I'm in The Mode.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">While attempting to hook up the DVD player to my bedroom TV, my daughter struggles to have a conversation...</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Daughter: "What are you doing?"</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Me: "Trying to get...trying to get this freaking DVD player to work. What is the DEAL with this thing?"</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Daughter: "Well, I think I'm going to go over to Taylor's to do some chemistry homework."</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Me: "Why won't this...why won't this WORK? %$&#!!!"</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Daughter: "OK. Well, I'll see ya later. Be home about 9:30."</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">[Pause]</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Me: "Where did you...where did you say you were going?"</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">My main brain is focused on this freaking DVD player (that I never did get to work, incidentally), but the co-pilot is still attempting to carry on a conversation unbeknownst to everyone else.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The second type of AOS is what I call my dress rehearsals. I tend to spend a great deal of time with a limited number of people. At work, it's about three. At home, it's two (that's including myself). To make matters worse, I'm a person that tends to live inside my head. I think in words instead of visually, so I'm constantly thinking things out in sentences, paragraphs, novellas. My mind is so bogged down with words sometimes that I can't even think. Just imagine what it's like for someone like me in a disagreement or, God forbid, a heated argument. ("Ernie Fletcher...Ernie Fletcher is a slimeball.! I can't believe you voted for him.") It's pure torture. ("Don't even...don't even get me started on Bill O'Reilly. Fair and balanced, my ass!") I have very strong opinions but by the time they come out I've rehearsed them so many times that the rehearsals crowd into my actual words. When it happens, people tend to get dismissive, tend not to listen, to talk over me. In short, I sound like a dimwit ding dong. So, instead of chiming in with my broken record, a lot of times I'll just listen.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">So now you know...so now you know the rest of the story.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-26075559953161912662007-11-20T05:55:00.000-06:002007-11-20T07:19:31.946-06:00<span style="font-size:85%;">I awoke with a start this morning at 5 a.m. and a slightly sick feeling in my stomach. Vacation anxiety. It's only my second day and already I'm experiencing something akin to buyer's remorse: nagging guilt for fear of not spending my vacation days wisely. Why, why, why must I torture myself? How do I stop it? It's not even that I have been unproductive. Yesterday I washed (and wonder of wonders - <em>put away</em>) so many clothes that it came down to the unspeakable drudgery of sorting stray socks.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I am worried that I have missed the trash man. Every holiday week is the same. I wake up and look down the street to survey the numbers to make my decision. Only one lonely trash can sets at the curb. I have learned to trust only the retired neighbors for knowing the trash man's schedule, yet today there is dissension. My most trustworthy and least mobile retiree neighbor is the only one with her garbage at the ready. Do I blindly join her, dragging my already overflowing bin out to rest beside the bags of leaves that the trash man did not retrieve on designated Yard Waste Monday? There have been days when the potential embarrassment factor of dragging a sadly overstuffed bin back up the drive has outweighed the hope of an empty can by the end of the day...way too many days than an adult should have to admit.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Last night after yoga class, I went to eat with Eva and <a href="http://bizzyblogging.blogspot.com/">Suzanne</a> at Tokyo Sushi. I was slightly self-conscious when I entered since I was still wearing my yoga garb and my face had that mushy makeup-mixed-with-sweat quality. No one cared.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Every time I order sushi, I forget what I ordered before it arrives and end up spending my entire dinner trying to decide what's in it. All of the sushi rolls have dumb sounding names most of which have no association with their contents. When I look at the sushi menu, I expect to see an exclamation point beside the name. I am not sure why. I guess I just think it would fit the name to have it followed by an !, i.e. <em>Dragon Roll!, California Roll!, Fire Roll!. </em>Italics really work sushi names, too.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I guess I should get off the computer. I have much anxiety to experience today while I hold onto Vacation Day Two like so much running water.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-45107463255354921682007-11-18T16:44:00.000-06:002007-11-18T17:59:51.868-06:00Things I Learned This Weekend<span style="font-size:85%;">Things I learned this weekend:</span><br /><ol><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The cost of living in Malibu, CA is astronomical.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Some dogs actually prefer Charmin.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">It takes roughly two weeks for an eligible bachelor in this town to procure a new girlfriend.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Dolly Partin's ride is a macked out Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">If Survivorman planned even a little, he probably wouldn't have to eat grass soup every episode.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Nicholas Cage is highly overrated.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The perfect temperature to cook a pizza is 600 degrees farenheit.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">It is physically possible for a person to take out seven gallbladders in one day and entertain guests later that evening.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Man vs. Wild is a sitcom.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">A jet-setter can get to any place in the world from Amsterdam (but as <a href="http://bizzyblogging.blogspot.com/">one person</a> aptly questioned, "Once in Amsterdam, why leave?").</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">There are rumblings of a pro-am Bake-Off next spring in Paducah.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Cakebread Cellars cabernet tastes better than your generic $12 bottle of sale wine.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">It's almost impossible to find a way to get someone to guess the word "chiffon" if you can't say the words fabric, dress or lemon. Thankfully, <a href="http://www.onekentuckywriter.blogspot.com/">one person</a> did.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Snow Prom does, in fact, exist.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">It's impossible to karaoke a rap song after 3/4 bottle of wine.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Paducah wants a Coen Brothers film marathon at the Maiden Alley Cinema.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">Bar soap works wonders on dreadlocks.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">A person can interminably look like "the best friend."</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">France is sexy.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:85%;">The mayor believes that Target is Paducah's own personal Jesus.</span></li></ol>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-88779766512427093732007-11-12T17:00:00.000-06:002007-11-13T06:07:56.693-06:00<span style="font-size:85%;">My daughter left for a week-long trip to Washington, D.C. Saturday afternoon. All I could think to do about that was to rearrange cabinets and thoroughly clean my kitchen. It was residual guilt from an episode of <a href="http://www.bbcamerica.com/content/154/index.jsp">Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares</a> on BBC America. <a href="http://www.gordonramsay.com/">Gordon Ramsay</a> is my interim obsession post-Top Chef, pre-Project Runway. Like: he bleeps incessantly. Dislike: too much hair gel.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I turned on the self-clean feature on the oven, and the house filled with the smell of burnt popcorn. There's evidently no way to stop a self-cleaning oven once its mind is made up. This oven was on a three hour tour. Burnt popcorn morphed into level 20 flat iron and then finally to broiled nothing smell. When the oven beeped its end, there was no more black caked-on goop, just ghostly remnants of white dust.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">There is a new miracle sponge on the market called The Magic Eraser. I'm positive it's straight from Roswell. It erases anything: Sharpie, soap scum, Kool-aid stains. I have even used it to erase paint streaks on a wall. While I was wiping the weird paste of grease-dust off the blades of the ceiling fan, I thought about using it on those rough spots on my feet. Then I moved on to my cellulite. Then I thought how great it would be if it came in Q-tip size, so I could reach into my brain through my ear and erase my first marriage. The possibilities are endless.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I scrubbed the kitchen floor. I had to do it in one foot increments on my hands and knees. It had been awhile. There remains a no-man's land of errant potato peel, chunks of cookie, chopped onion in that one inch wide space between the cabinet and stove. It's like looking down into a cistern. I can barely make it out. From what I can tell, it resembles the caked on goop from my oven topped with the salad of lost chunks. Maybe after a few more years I won't have to worry about going through all the trouble to bring someone over to help me move the stove so that I can get in there and shovel it out. It will just grow and grow until it's the same height as my kitchen cabinet. I would paint it white, of course, so that it matches.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I would love to tell you more about the excitement of moving casserole dishes to their own cabinet space, arranging skillets and mixing bowls, but I suppose I'd better get ready for work. If I could only use the Magic Eraser on my bills...</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-42600389645979975122007-11-05T19:29:00.000-06:002007-11-05T21:02:06.573-06:00The Storm Cellar<span style="font-size:85%;">I am a little out of sorts today. The time change combined with the breezy, unseasonably warm evening brings memories of my grandparents' home. It's odd how clear those memories are, how I can recall the view from the small concrete and brick front stoop, the placement of the gigantic cottonwood on one side of the yard and the wide drooping apple tree on the other. Of all the place I have lived in my lifetime, memories of my grandparents' house are as distinct as those of my own childhood home and much more distinct than any place I've lived as an adult.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Now as my own house creeks against the force of the breeze and the windchimes sing, I think about my grandparents home and have that same slight feeling of anxiety that blows into a soul as a thunderstorm approaches. I can almost smell it, that air, heavy with the threat of rain at the same time faintly sweet, like freshly turned soil. Nights spent observing my grandfather as he paced from front yard to back watching the rolling, angry skies. His mood would grow dark and his gaze would sharpen, and for a time he would cease to speak. Birds would stop singing and the air would be silent except for the pound of an occasional distant thunderclap. He would stand immoble for several minutes in a sort of environmental trance surveying, absorbing the clues, totally silent.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Then just as suddenly as he'd stopped, he would snap into action. He would quickly move inside the house and brief my grandmother. Things would begin to happen. The house would begin to take a frantic pace: crackers and bologna packed in paper bags, nightgowns tossed in on top, lines to the restroom would immediately form. Strangely, I never actually heard the orders directly from my grandfather. It was always my grandmother's voice that announced, "We're going to The Storm Cellar." While Granddaddy made trips back and forth, readying the Storm Cellar for a night's stay, Grandmama would be calling the names of each child, gathering us all on the back porch, soothing us as we grew more and more agitated.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">We would all traipse out together amidst the light falling rain, and descend into the cellar with mixed feelings of dread and relief. The cellar was dank and musty. Cobwebs filled the hard to reach corners. Old jars filled with water lined up in odd places. Dust settled throughout. Usually, by the time we arrived there was at least one oil lamp burning thanks to my grandfather. The Storm Cellar was designed and built by my him as a bomb shelter during the Cold War, but it served the family best and most as a refuge from tornadoes.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Inside it was like an army bunker, many beds and very little rambling space. There was always a fight for the top bunk which usually resulted in my two cousins and I sharing it. We would complain of being hungry and incessantly ask when we could go back to the house. Sometimes there were card games to play. Other times, we simply laid in bed listening to the rain pound the tin room of the cellar, trying our hardest to be quiet.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">When dawn would finally break, we would ascend to the yard, our nostrils black from the oil lamps. The grass would glisten, the sun would shine and the air would smell like hope. We would all eat breakfast and think but rarely talk about the Storm Cellar. The same is true today.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-38694201695318917872007-10-20T06:00:00.000-05:002007-10-20T06:53:03.698-05:00<span style="font-size:85%;">I forced myself to read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Womens-Press-Classic/dp/0704347334/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4001055-9568637?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192879831&sr=8-1">The Awakening</a> during my trip to Texas this week. I had picked it up to read so many times before, but the language of the era had always stopped me from getting past page 25. This time I was determined, especially since I was captive for six hours with nothing else but American Airlines magazine and maps of the DFW airport at my disposal. The story made me think a lot. At times while reading I would lose myself in the streets of New Orleans [one of the settings in the novel] wondering what it would be like to spend my days wandering around visiting friends and drinking coffee in outdoor cafes. I wondered what it would be like to have no responsibilities other than those of a wife and mother. In Edna's life even those responsibilities were limited. Her husband was away from home most of the time, and there were servants to help care for the children, cook and clean. What would be left? I can understand the darkness that befell Edna in living this life: the frustration, the loneliness, the absence of purpose.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">As Edna's behavior began to change within the story, I went down a mental sidestreet. I sat on the plane staring into space for some 30 minutes plus wondering why it is so difficult for us as humans to allow our loved ones to change. Why do so many of us insist that relationships stay exactly the same forever? We seem to accept only inconsequential changes and tend to allow only terrible tragedy as a mode of true growth. Is it easier to believe that our friends are exactly the same people that they were when they were 12 than to try to understand where they are, how they are, who they are now? It's almost as if our minds won't let go of that very first picture we had of someone, like it doesn't know how to categorize and catalog the growth that happens from years of living. Why?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Let me know what you think of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Womens-Press-Classic/dp/0704347334/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4001055-9568637?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192879831&sr=8-1">The Awakening</a>. How does a human being become a possession and who/what is at fault?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-50679452554963554562007-10-17T18:59:00.000-05:002007-10-17T19:30:56.873-05:00Still Here<span style="font-size:85%;">I just got back from dinner...this time at Jimmy Corino's. It was ok. The bread was good. The service was excellent. That's one thing I've noticed about the people here...they are all friendly. So far I've had pretty great service everywhere I've been. Even the airport employees are nice here.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">A friend of mine just called from Myrtle Beach. I felt embarrassed that I was already in my room, already in my pajamas, so I didn't mention it when he asked what I was doing. It's 7:20 p.m. The sun has yet to even set here. That's another weird thing about Texas. It doesn't get dark here until about 8 or 8:30 p.m. It's deceiving...well, to other people I would think it is deceiving. I am the kind of person who gets in bed at 7 p.m. when they're out of town for fear of missing their flight the next day. I'm pathetic. Last night I fell asleep at 8 p.m. watching a PBS special on Oprah's family tree. What is wrong with me?!</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I always eat too much when I'm out of town. I eat because I have nothing else to do. I hate going to the movies when I'm out of town. It's just too unfamiliar. I already shopped and had to stop myself before it was too late. At least the wind stopped whistling violently. My face is actually windburned this afternoon. Well, I'll go now. My ramblings are beginning to get on my own nerves. Tune in tomorrow.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-24529760586625702672007-10-17T15:51:00.000-05:002007-10-17T16:23:52.566-05:00<span style="font-size:85%;">Still in Texas. Just finished with work and am listening to the wind whistling outside. It never stops. This is one place where it pays to have a really great haircut...as in a hairdresser who knows what they're doing. No hairspray on earth (even Freeze Dry, Suz) could hold up against this. It feels like a twister is going to blow up any minute ALL THE TIME. Granted, last night there was hail, but this is crazed. It sounds like 75 fifth graders warming up their recorders.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Today we went to lunch at a fabulous Mexican restaurant. This place has nearly as many restaurants as residents. On one side of this block alone there is Logan's, Carino's, Lin Buffet, Country Buffet, Joe's Crab Shack, Arby's and Kabuki. Across the street is Hooter's, Outback, Blue Star...I don't even know. Every city block is the same. The Mexican taco shops alone could fill all of Lone Oak. Last night I ate at Kabuki. It's new and elaborate with interior sound effects of thunderstorms that gear up about every 30 minutes complete with rain that falls into a mote that encircles all the hibachi grills. While eating my much too well done tuna steak, I noticed that they have a roped off (and clearly marked) "VIP Area" with red carpet and the whole 9 yards that leads to a loft for private dining. I wonder who qualifies as a VIP in this town.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-32254430828949132762007-10-16T19:18:00.000-05:002007-10-16T19:24:11.989-05:00DFW<span style="font-size:85%;">I’m at DFW now, and it’s a whole new ballgame. It’s like a busy mall here with all types of people, all ages, all types of stores and restaurants. I am sitting at my gate. There is a drama queen in a wheelchair right behind me. She is yelling at her attendant. “I SHOULD BE MOVED OVER IN ORDER TO KEEP OUT OF THE WAY OF THE ONCOMING PASSENGERS.” He is quite young and a different color from her. She assumes much from this.<br /><br />I am waiting at B9. It just emptied out and is slowly beginning to fill up again. People stroll through the open hallway with their rolling luggage. Almost everyone has something that rolls. I think about how proud I would be if rolling luggage were my invention. It has changed a lot about travel. People love it and they also seem oddly proud of it.<br /><br />I spoke to an older Blythe Danner look-alike in the restroom wearing a pink cardigan sweater set a few moments ago. She said she was headed to Palm Springs. She is a native of Michigan, and when I told her that I’d just come from there a few days prior, she indicated that she hailed from a golf club community near the area I visited. I’m not sure why she felt compelled to say golf club community. I guess I hadn’t responded appropriately when she told me the name of the town. She asked me what I was doing in Michigan and where I was headed now. When I told her, she said “Hmmm. OK.” and left without saying anything else. Afterward, I thought that maybe I should have said, “Have fun in Palm Springs.” But then I thought I didn’t really want her to have fun or at the very least didn’t really care if she had fun or not.<br /><br />It is humid here, much more humid than it was in Nashville. It is also warmer by some 15 degrees outside and at least ten degrees inside. There is a thing called the Skylink at DFW that is comparable to the monorail at Disneyworld. It connects all of the terminals. The older people appear to be a little scared of the Skylink. The hesitantly step on and off it and never seem quite sure of where they should get off.<br /><br />I am seated in plain view of one of the security checkpoints at the airport. I like watching people take off and put on their shoes. It’s such a personal offense. It was only when I took off my shoes at BNA that I noticed how dirty they were on the inside, how worn. For some reason I suddenly wished I’d worn another pair, a more expensive pair. Right now there is a guy putting on a belt in front of me. He is looking around aimlessly trying to pretend he is not doing what he is doing. He is hiking up his pants and checking his watch. I feel for him; it’s incredibly demeaning. Boarding call. Talk to you soon.<br /><br />Namaste<br /></span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6015602605503257857.post-77026140513866971692007-10-16T19:14:00.000-05:002007-10-16T19:18:18.799-05:00BNA<span style="font-size:85%;">I’m sitting in the Nashville airport. It’s 8:15 a.m. I have 45 minutes to go until boarding. As usual, I couldn’t sleep last night. I have both an unconscious and conscious fear of missing a flight. I woke up five times last night finally giving up and rolling out of bed at 4.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Sitting in airports is interesting. Most people try to be inconspicuous, and if you look at them, they will look away as if startled. Looking around right now, about 45% are reading newspapers, magazines, books. There is one guy talking on his cell phone in his outside voice. It’s one of those tiny ear phones which makes him look a little effeminate and makes his head look huge. His significantly heavy significant other is sipping her coffee and rubbing his back as he shouts in the air careful to avoid any oncoming glances. They both just finished gigantic honey buns.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">There is a man two rows away wearing a straw cowboy hat with leather trim who is traveling with a guitar. He looks like a cross between Woody Harrelson and Steve Ervin with a George Hamilton tan. His son, who appears to be about seven years old, is wearing a huge black sombrero with silver trim. The son is five seats away from him, bored and fidgety. The guitar is leaning on the dad's leg. He occasionally moves the guitar around, leaning it this way and that, making sure it is close within his grasp. Meanwhile, the son is doing a backbend over the edge of the last chair in the row with the neck strap from the sombrero bunched up and stuck completely in his mouth.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">There aren’t many kids or young people headed to Dallas. Mostly they are my age and 20 years older. The 20 years older crowd travel in pairs – husband and wife teams. The 40 somethings appear to travel alone except for the cowboy and son. It’s funny the number of people who read business books when they travel. I wonder if it could possibly be for pleasure or if they’re scared of losing their jobs.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The significantly heavy significant other can’t seem to stop touching her loud talking man. As I sit here I wonder if I’ve ever felt that way about someone. Surely I have, yet I can’t remember.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The rain is easing up outside on the runway and the sun is beginning to peek out. The Nashville airport is a pretty nice airport. When I think about the Memphis airport, I feel that BNA is pristine. They are calling for boarding. Off to DFW.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Namaste</span>MCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00100257355775420941noreply@blogger.com0