April 2014 Books

April is my favorite month - most years. It's the Spring and the forsythias, lilacs, hyacinths, and other blooming things bringing the beauty back after the long winter. And usually this is the time of year when new perfume and books show up.  What's not to like? As a special bonus,  this month includes World Book Night (coolest new find of the year),  National Library Week, and National Poetry Month! I have fond memories of libraries and a wish to some day live in a converted library. Or at least having a stunningly beautiful library in my home. 

To live surrounded by books. I can imagine nothing more grand.

Spring Flowers

The flowers bloom in quiet solitude. 

The garden has started to shine. I came to visit and nurture the flowers a bit. It seemed a good way to spend an unexpected day off. Tiny star flowers, peony shoots, tulip leaves, iris starts. So far it's an unusual year. The crocuses are spent. But yet the cherry blossoms are barely popping. 

Honored 2

It may not have gone unnoticed that I've been a bit neglectful of this space. Life sometimes gets in the way and some times I get lured by a "better" offer, which is what happened when a friend was kind enough to not only showcase my words in his blog space, but even created a playlist to accompany the entry! I'm deeply honored he'd share his space with me.

Opening Excerpt:

This is not the movie, The Words; this is the lyrics that go with the sound. For me, that's where it starts. I'll lay awake with pieces of songs rolling through my head like thunder. Daily, while walking around in the world, my musical sense gets triggered at random times. Someone will say a phrase in conversation and the lyric with melody will run through my head. Much of the time, I actually walk around with a soundtrack playing in my head.

Read the rest at Echoes and Silences - a blog on music, sounds, and all things related.

For the Love of Disney

A friend, Daniel, wrote this piece. To my knowledge, he loves two things most dearly - music and Disney. He writes often and eloquently on his own blog about music. I asked him to share in this space his love of Disney.

When I was a child, the word "Disney" represented something very different than it does today. In the 1970's, Disney had 2 theme parks, had television shows like "Wonderful World of Disney"  & Mickey Mouse Club, and its hit movies were "Freaky Friday" and "The Love Bug". Its animation was struggling, and Pixar wasn't even a glimmer in anyone's eye.

But for a little boy growing up in Southern California, Disney was mystical. 

March 2014 Books

This month in books....

• I Spy DYI Style by Jennie Radosevich
• Stats & Curiosities from Harvard Business Review (I continue to read it in bits)
• Five Minutes on Mondays by Alan Lurie (Reading a chapter a Monday, the one on teamwork was great)
• A Chair for My Mother by Vera Williams (prep for kidlets)
• Now One Foot, Now the Other by Tomi dePaola (prep for kidlets - wouldn't recommend)
• The Color Master by Aimee Bender (which, unlike The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, I did not much care for except a single line)

Take-away - What did you read this month? What was meaningful for you?

Other posts of potential interest... The February List
Oola Book Review

February 2014 Books

I'm a book geek. I admit it. (My Twitter profile proves it.) And I read EVERYTHING. Blogs + on-line articles, magazines, newspapers (WSJ is a Sunday favorite), and books. Not as many books as I once did due to the proliferation of online information, but still, books. Books fill my home. I've often got at least one hard copy on me plus more at the ready in my iPhone's Kindle App.

Honored

I'm a big fan of saying Thank You!  (Preferably in writing).  So I would like to thank The Writing Whisperer for featuring my piece on blogging as a journal on her webspace! 

Thank you! Gracias! Merci! Grazie! Danke!

It's amazing, humbling and scary to see my words in a different space. Below is a small excerpt of the piece I wrote.

My mother’s family is loud. Large. Ethnic. Full of smart, opinionated women. And the club house sign says “Introverts not allowed.”

I took refuge in books.

I devoured them. Any kind. All kinds. And if books were not available, any written word would do. Perfume  bottles. Cereal boxes. I read everything. But I wasn’t a writer. Writers never wrote less than perfectly or scribbled out lines. Writers also always had a clear idea on where a story would go.

Journals seemed too lovely to be desecrated by my barely legible handwriting; then, paper and typewriter ribbons were resources not to be wasted; and finally computers lacked the personal feel of a journal. There was always a reason to keep my inner voice unheard, even by me.

To read the full piece, please click over to The Writing Whisperer's blog.

New Recipes

Earlier this month I got a new recipe book by Mary McCartney (yes, daughter of Paul and the food-guru Linda). The food in it is easy to prepare, beautifully photographed, healthy and vegetarian.  The photographs also reminded me about how things turn out - not always how you plan!

Scent and Memory

Of late, I've been exploring perfumes again. I have favorites - Magazine Street by Strange Invisible Perfumes, Lotus Garden by Pacifica, Tocca Florence, and others. But I've also a restless disregard for a "signature" scent. As my thoughts shift and change, so does the scent of the day - the week - or the month. What suited me last week bores me now. (And this is why I'll never be a bombshell according to a favorite style book.)

Fragrance is a very personal thing. Some scents bring back a memory. A fragment. A moment in time. A reminder of the past.

Oola

As mentioned in prior posts, I do love my Twitter. I look up product info, check for Netflix outages, read funny tweets and seek inspiration. One of my favorites is a guy named @OolaSeeker.  He notes in his bio that he had a great life, made mistakes and is working his way back. I noted  - from his tweets - his gracious outlook on life as he gets back his "Oola". 

To Be Seen

Once I read a story about Marilyn Monroe. The interviewer was out with her and marveling that no one around them seemed to recognize them. Marilyn said the equivalent to "Watch this" - left on her sunglasses, took off her scarf, straightened her shoulders and became Marilyn. Within bare seconds, everyone on the street recognized her and they were mobbed.

   

The Color of Fall

First, I prefer to spell it "colour". Second, while October Blue is my favorite colour* - ever - the fall holds another favorite. That first blush of yellow-peach-orange some trees turn.

It's gone now. It happens in early to mid October for just 3 to 5 days before it goes too orange for my taste. 

Mostly the trees now look "burnt" and faded with occasional pops of the conifer evergreen. Still pretty - for a while - against the grey November sky but not the same. 

Take-away - Enjoy while you can, beauty and joy are fleeting things - the better to teach us what to truly treasure.

(Mobile post)

*FYI - yes I'm a little obsessed with colours and Colors of The Wind is my favorite song.

Blessings in Disguise

A year is 365 days (most years). That's time to think. Time to mourn. Time to grow.

This week I've been in Canada. (Hey, Toronto - I had a great time. On my calendar to come back.). As I usually take quick 1-2 day trips for business, packing for this trip revealed a surprise.

The Land of Lilies

In a classic gardening move, I plant multiples of anything I like. I have about 6 kinds of lilacs, 4 or 5 kinds of peonies and about the same of irises. Then there are the lilies. I love them - grace, elegance and fragrance.  I've yet to find a kind of lily I don't like. So, I plant tons.

They came up in this order.  First, the plain whites with hostas. Then the pinks.

Playground Shapes

Long ago and far away (often in strange cities), I used to moderate focus groups. This meant I was paid to do one of my favorite things - people watch. A focus group is a microcasm of life, and you get to see a variety of personalities merge.

The Herd Minus One

Griffin is gray. Wesley is speckled. Killian is white.

It's been a rough month at Bunny Haven Manor. People, pets and places - all unexpectedly stressful. A quick business jaunt to Canada. La Gram Russe breaking a femur and being at a rehab place to recover. An unexpected illness and extra work.

Plus, all the Herd has been ill in various forms. Killian is expected, as his diabetes is hard to control and has complications. Wesley is expected with his heart murmur, bladder and kidney issues. In July his heart became enlarged and he is now in heart failure, which we are managing with medicine. Griffin, except for one brief episode 3 years ago, is never sick. 

I've recorded Audioboos about Wesley and Killian. But not Griffin. Because Griffin was always well and happy; and we had until forever. Today was the end of forever. I held him until he stopped purring. He only stopped purring when his heart stopped.

Summer Days

Yesterday I got to stand outside in the middle of the day for a few minutes. It had just rained. The air was heavy with the scent of milkweed (a bit like honeysuckle and the preferred food of monarch butterfly caterpillars.) The humidity from the inland sea was practically visible in the air.

What was your path?

Random thoughts have been swirling around my head lately. Lots going on in my life - not to me, but more around me. That tends to unsettle me. It makes me more prone to flights of fancy and less inclined to document them.

One of the more interesting (to me) thought tracks had to do with jobs, kids and family expectations.

Lilacs and other Fairytales

Spring is always my favorite time of year. I love the verdant growth. I love the way the trees get painted with green and then everything bursts with color. I love the scents. Lilacs are among my favorites.

Another One Bites The Dust

While birth and death are part of the cycle of life, one doesn't expect institutions to change. But they do, like lipstick colors.

Language

How often do you think of what you say and how you say it?

Potato Chips

Remember that old commercial that you can't have just one potato chip? Uhm, hum. Lots of things are like that: spoon of ice cream, doughnut, pair of shoes, lipsticks, cats....

Or at least I've heard people say the same things about cats. And we all know I have the herd (3). Really - they entertain each other!

But in this case, I meant something else. I love all things potato - people, it can be a battery, a bread or liquor! I probably have potato chips a couple of times a week. Today the nasty mean Pringles chip cut my lip. It hurt all day. And I realized, just because one chip hurt me doesn't mean I'll give them up forever. After all, I quite like potato chips.

I guess men are a little like potato chips. Just because one hurt me doesn't mean I should give them up.

(Mobile post. Soundtrack "Try" by P!nk)

Eeyore

As a child, my room was covered in Winnie the Pooh characters. My mother's boyfriend was an artist. He was a generous man with his time and talents.

He painted a mural over the sink so my mother had a view while doing dishes. (Even though he did them, too.) He sketched Winnie the Pooh characters in my furniture and painted them. He made a painting as big as my three year old self with all the Winnie the Pooh characters.

What You See and What You Don't

Everyone you meet has hidden depths. Some have more challenges than you will ever guess. They disguise them. They ignore them. They live with them.

I'm one of those people.

Dating Profiles

I know a single guy who is moving to another city. While he's fairly social, he's been in the same place and near family for a while. Moving somewhere new will mean meeting new people. Some of them female people. I have it on good authority that he's not always great at noticing when women are interested in him*. So, I've suggested on-line dating but there is the problem of creating dating profiles....

*There's a story that his married friends have to tell him when he's being hit on in bars. Clearly this is a man who needs a little help! Given that I'm handy with words, I offered to make him up a few profiles.

(Advance warning - this is an odd entry and may be unsuitable for small children)