I think courage and dignity.

He was born on my father's birthday.

He was a dancer.

He loved and rode horses.

My ballet teacher had a meltdown when I started riding horses.  He told me it was the worst thing I could do for my ballet body.

I was forty and had taken up riding because my daughter made it look like so much fun.  I was forty and ballet was my exercise of choice, not my career.  So I didn't stop horseback-riding until the day I fell off just like Christopher Reeves had...it was not my first fall--

I finally faced up to the fact I wasn't good enough to carry on.

And ballet eventually got gently pushed aside for yoga--

What does this have to do with Patrick Swayze?

I didn't know him of course, but his love of these two things--dance and horses, plus his lifelong love for his wife, tell me all I do need to know about him.

' This morning, in my journal, I wrote September 2, 1998.

And a tsunami of unhappiness swept over me, as I reached for the whiteout to fix the error--

Because it finally crept into my awareness--I will never in my whole life be able to write  nineteen anything when it comes to the date.  No 1978, no 1949, no 1980.  No 1999 for that matter.

It will forever more, in my lifetime, only be 20 something.  Like today it is 2009--

Which makes for a  namby pamby bunch of numbers if you ask me.

Twos and zeros are soft round.  They eat donuts for a living.  They are what is described as plump. 
Therefore plump, round numbers will now identify every day of the rest of my life.

Nineteen is sexy.  The number itself is commanding to look at--'one' is sleek and tall.  'Nine' can round, true, but it can also be ramrod straight.

So, aesthetically speaking, I like the look of 19 more than 20.

I like the sound of nineteen--that clean sound of the tongue against the roof of the mouth, on the back of the front teeth.  Whereas twenty has the soft 'w' to contend with.  Elmer Fuddish, okay?

I thought a new century was fabulous.  I still think a new century is fabulous.

I just hadn't comprehended that the new century now meant 'nineteen' was out the window.  And dumpy 'twenty' was here to stay.

Sigh.

Thanks for letting me share.

I leave town for five weeks and all hell breaks loose while I'm gone.

That is to say that when I got home I ventured into the garage to reacquaint myself with my car, and there crowding my car was--

A BICYCLE.

I hate bicycles.  I hate riding bicycles.  The wind is always in one's face.  One's body is held at an awkward pose--bad for the lungs they say.  And one is at the motorists who may or may not respect your right to be there.  I am one of those hostile motorists--

The last time I rode a bike I was twenty-five, and my husband at the time and I seemed to think riding expensive, very thin bikes for excessive amounts of miles was a cool way to spend time.  So, one day we decided to ride our bikes from Pasadena to Newport Beach.  This is one hell of a long jaunt, and involved riding through bleak parts of town usually viewed from the freeway.  It was hot.  It was asphalt and diesel exhaust.  It was no stopping for lunch.  After a very long time, we made it.  I vowed I'd never get on a bike again.
I've kept that vow.

I hate the insane recreational bicyclists of today, the Lance Armstrong look-alikes.  I especially hate the spandex outfits they wear, their teeny rear ends waving in the air from the ridiculous posture they assume.  I hate the way they suck on straws while pedaling madly.  I hate the ones who seem to feel the best time of day for a spin is rush hour, or worse yet, are oblivious to the existence of such a thing as rush hour--

I could go on, but I won't.

So, there in my garage is a bike.  It seems my son thought having one might be a good idea.  You know, like for riding for fun.

Riding for FUN?

There are those who do get on a bike to toddle from one block to the next.  Or perhaps to take a little spin around the neighborhood for that touch of fresh air.  The kind who wear regular clothes while biking, like sandals and dresses.  I've seen them.  Usually they are kids.  But lately I am seeing a lot more of the kind I am, the...er older woman, newly freed from being serious by virtue of her last birthday, and our spiritual advisers assuring us that NOW is the best time of our lives.

I see these women out on bikes...their bikes looking suspiciously like the one that now sits in my garage.

When I was a kid, of course I adored my bike.  My bike was power, freedom, and a fine companion.  We went all over the place--

That's right.  My bike was my boon companion, even when I moved to Brussels and had to learn how to negotiate cobblestones on it--

Riding a bike under those circumstances, as in gentle recreation, isn't bad, I seem to recall.  Then the wind isn't beating one's face up.  No, it's a gentle breeze in one's face.  One is hearkening back to gentler times--

Hmmm.  A little spin around the neighborhood?  Maybe with my camera in my pocket?  Maybe a small pedal up to Main Street for some ice cream?  Now that would just be darn cute, wouldn't it?

We'll see--

I take umbrage.  With Chicago.  Yet once again they have caved into pressure and re-named a well known place--

Meanwhile screaming how upset they are by the whole thing, how the natives aren't going to ever call the place the new name, how history is treated seriously there, so names aren't to be trifled with.

Gimmee a break.  This is the town that allowed Comiskey Park to be re-named U.S. Cellular Field.

U.S. CELLULAR FIELD?  Is that name even legal for a baseball field?

Of course there is the Marshall Fields fiasco.  It's called Macy's now.  You know, having been purchased by Macy's...which still goes by it's original name, but maybe that's because Macy's was started by Ohioans.  Maybe Ohioans can hang on to their names. 

So now SEARS TOWER has been re-named Willis Tower. 

Because an London based company , yes, Willis something or other, has leased (not bought) about 145,000 square feet for office space within the Sears Tower, and as part of the lease agreement, this London based company wanted their name spelled across the building .

American Landmarks Properties of Skokie is the bad guy here.  They could have said no.

Except, it was about the need for money.  We all know that.  Would Chicagoans rather have a shiny clean, maintained Sears Tower called Willis Tower, or a rundown ruin that is starting to create havoc on the sidewalks below as the thing starts to fall apart.

Can't Chicago take care of its own stuff?  I mean don't even get me started on the travesty the Chicago Tribune has become.  LA Times and NY Times are hanging in there.  Why couldn't Chicago? 

Now they are wailing and gnashing their teeth and saying things like we'll never call it Willis Tower.  Not ever ever ever. 

I lived a lot of years in Chicago, and my son was born there.  I took him to the Sears Tower when he was three.  I took him to Comiskey Park when he was six months old.  Marshall Fields toy department knew him well.  I read the Trib when it weighed something.

But now...Willis Tower?   U.S. Cellular Field?  Teeny Chicago Tribune?

Hmmmmm.

Reading the recipes in Martha Stewart's magazine LIVING (January 2009), the recipe my eyes fell on first was:

HONEYED TOFU on UDON WITH CUCUMBER RIBBONS

Cutting to the chase, I read HONEYED RIBBONS.

I'm as much a vegan as you are, certainly more of a vegetarian than you'll ever be, and I can starve myself with the best, okay?  I know how to do liquid.

In my real life I also know what tofu is.  I even tried to feed it to my children back in those days when they actually were children.  The recipe suggested I fool the little darlings by frying the tofu and serving it with homemade ketchup.  "They'll think it's french fries."  What these people didn't know was MY children ate THEIR french fries with homemade mayonnaise, thank you very much, a holdover from those years I lived in Brussels...where people eat their french fries...nevermind.

I blanked on Udon...maybe it's Japanese lettuce or those bean things they give you while you are waiting for sushi?  One day I'll bestir myself to look it up, so that I'll know what I'm talking about the next time I am at a dinner party and the subject turns to udon.

I'm okay with cucumber, but not okay enough to eat it anymore.  I've put my time in with cucumber, and that time is over.

So, reading this recipe I was left with Honeyed Ribbon.

There is ribbon candy.  It shows up at Christmas, if it shows up at all.  Last time I had some was when I was five years old, and lived on Welcome Street in Peabody, Massachusetts.  And that was in what is now known as the last century.

Honey I eat every single day of my life, but would never add it to ribbon candy, which I recall was ghastly.  So, this recipe would not be happening for me.

I moved onto the next recipe:  Lamb Chops with Citrus Sauce and Baby Mache Salad.

Baby mache?  Paper Mache...Baby Sache...Mache Sache, for the closets....

Does this look like the kind of woman who gives a rats ass about wood flooring? 

Does this look like a woman who wants to see how she'd look now, if she were still forty-five, and not...gone to her reward?

Armstrong Floors seems to feel Katharine Hepburn is the perfect woman to sell their floors.  Their laminate flooring, that is.

See, they have a computerized picture of a live(ish) looking Katharine Hepburn, relaxing in a chair on one of their laminated floors.  It says "It only looks like the real thing."

The picture is a radiant Katharine Hepburn.  She'd be damned pleased about that.  No doubt about it.  No matter it was done by a computer.  Beauty is beauty.

She would NOT be pleased about the product she's been hauled back from the grave to hawk.  Laminate flooring?   Listen to that raspy sneer.

Katharine Hepburn was a true New England blue-blood.  Not only would she have had REAL wooden floors in her house, the floors would be scuffed and gouged and otherwise trod irrevocably upon by the ghosts of her and her family's past. 
There would be gouges so deep, one could lose a stiletto in them--
There would be crevices so high a ladder would be required to get out--
And--
They would be polished by hand, lovingly and often.

As a result, these real wood floors would be so softened by age and use, babies could sleep on them. 
And their fragrance would save marriages.

I've come to Macomb, Illinois because I have a retreat here that I can retreat to, see.

I have a book to finish that is in piles all over the place.  This book is about Paris.

I won't go into why mine is going to be different...

I will say it is fabulous.  It is charming as hell.  And it'll never see the light of day if I don't DO SOMETHING.

So I have, as the picture implies, run screaming to this quiet place to pull the book together.

This place is Midwest countryside heaven.  Green.  Firefies at night.  Thunderstorms.  Fragrant.  Quiet.  A babbling brook.  Deer running through the back.  No kidding.  Cows, okay?  Dairy Queen is THE place in town.

I've left Southern California heaven.  Blue ocean.  Palm trees waving.  Bentleys all over the place, coming out from the mothballs, I guess, because is anyone actually buying them these days, even if they could?  Taco stands.  There is a Dairy Queen, but it's kind of a cute thing, not to be taken seriously. 

And it is the place where my life lives--  

Lives are distracting, so here I am, a Californian in Illinois, trying to write a book about Paris.

Just so you know.

It's not even Easter, and already I am up in arms.

There is a battle in Europe over who has the right to make chocolate bunnies--
More specifically, can a company trademark their version of the chocolate bunny.

Lindt makes the cutest little rabbit, sitting on its haunches,wrapped in gold foil, ears on alert, wearing a red ribbon around it's neck, with a little bell attached to it.
Lindt sells indecent amounts of this calorie ridden, tooth decaying, hunks of nirvana.

An Austrian company called Hauswirth sells a chocolate bunny sitting on it's haunches, ears on alert, wrapped in gold foil, a red ribbon wrapped around it's neck, too.  There is no bell.

Lindt trademarked their bunny a few years ago.  Now they say Hauswirth can't make their bunny, because Lindt owns the style.

Hauswirth has taken umbrage and has hauled in lawyers who say the issue of trademarking 3D shapes has always been 'murky waters'.  Of course you can see why the minute you think about that, right?  I mean I know I was thinking about all those difficulties trademarking 3D shapes last night in the shower.

One of the difficulties the lawyers point out that to make a chocolate bunny like this certain things, like the long upright ears, have to be there for the shape to even sit properly...or something.

Do you get the drift?  I do.  But then, I am easily called to attention when to comes to chocolate bunnies.

Haiswirth is also pointing out that chocolate bunnies are generic, and who the hell does Lindt think they are even trying to restrict the production of chocolate bunnies, greedy pigs....or something to that effect. 
"Bad faith" in trademarking practices (like wanting a monopoly on those cute chocolate bunnies--improper conduct) is also being called into question here.

This is a serious issue.  Quantity of chocolate bunnies is being threatened here.

If Lindt gets to stop Hauswirth there will be that many fewer bunnies. 

Who the hell does Lindt think they are?  Someone needs to remind Lindt that they did not create the squatting bunny.  They did not invent gold foil.  They are certainly not alone in the chocolate making industry--

I'm shocked, just shocked, I tell you, over Lindt's greed--

Just picture the sight of the Lindt corporate bigwigs, ties askew, red in the face, nostrils bulging, in a state of cardiac arrest over chocolate bunnies.  THEIR chocolate bunnies, goddammit.  

The millionth...I didn't even know 'MILLIONTH' was a spellable word...is

WEB 2.0

Does that look like a worthy enough word to be the millionth word in the English language?

With those numbers attached, does it even LOOK like a word?

To me it looks vaguely mathematical, which puts me right off it from the git go.

According to my on-line dictionary of choice it means:

"The second generation of the World Wide Web in which content is user-generated and dynamic, and software is offered that mimics desktop programs."

This isn't a definition.  This is a novel.

 'WEB 2.0' is also, for those of you firmly in touch with your Virgo tendencies, a noun.

Apparently it takes a word being used 25,000 times to become an actual dictionary worthy word.  Obviously 'Web 2.0' has pulled this off.

Luckily, for me anyway, there are worthy dissenters.  They are not going to take this lying down.  And, in fact, the web monitoring company, Global Language Monitor,  who made this pronouncement, is waffling, because it has been pointed out that the announcement of the millionth (there's that word again) word has changed often, and now a decision is made just as the president of the company's book, which deals with the millionth word project, is about to be published.

'Slumdog' was in close running.

I ask you--which looks like a real word-- SLUMDOG  or  Web 2.0.

It seems I have a penchant for Norwegian movies.  Given I'm a talker myself, and love nothing more than superfluous but extremely witty dialogue in movies, this is an unexpected development.
Because Norwegian movies are skimpy on dialogue.  I'm not sure what there is actually amounts to dialogue.

O'Horten is playing right now, and it is a fairytale come true, especially if you like trains, pipe smokers, snow, icy roads, fortuitous missed connections, love between two seventy year olds, a dog named Molly, and monosyllabic conversation.

It is one of those quietly gorgeous films in which the improbable happens over and over, in silent certainty.  I don't think bombastic amazement is a Norwegian thing.

As O Horten, a bachelor railroad engineer comes to grips with his honorable retirement, he smokes his pipe, covers the parakeet before leaving his apartment, and meets strangers with whom he is unexpectedly finding himself interacting.  He tries to sell his boat, he saves a dog, and rides with a man who claims to be able to drive blindfolded.  And he finally acknowledges where his heart truly must be, after a trip down a long ski jump.

See what I mean?  Magic!

I loved "O Horten" so much because I was prepared by having seen two other Norwegian movies--  "'Kitchen Stories" and "Elling".  Charmers, both.

But so, I then ran to Netflix, tapped in Norwegian and--  

"The Other Side of Sunday" is on the way.

I'm on to something, and it feels like Christmas.

I just took a nap.  It was quick and to the point, lasting ten minutes.  I used my trusty eye bag, which is sage scented, and made of pale green silk.  (This eye bag goes everywhere with me.)

I have returned to work, after having first gone out to check on the chicken baking in the oven, and to eat one Chessman cookie, and am now back here, at my desk, toiling away.  Totally refreshed.

I just took what is called a POWER NAP.

Even though the words 'Power' and 'Nap' do not in any way belong near each other in a complete sentence, it seems that people these days cannot let a good thing lie, and the innocent nap, the short snooze, can no longer be something as simple as that. 

If one is living an insane life,the kind of life that includes huge amounts of over-scheduling and travel on jets, and rushing late to everything, one needs to take naps.
These frenzied, oops, I mean super competent people can't bear the idea that any activity of theirs be anything other than extremely important, so therefore they have re-named the 'catnap'.

So, I re-introduce you to your cat nap.  It is now the Power Nap.

May you rest in peace.

I was looking at pictures of adorable endangered animals in Audubon and weeping.  They are such cute little things.  Especially as seen through the lens of a sensitive photographer.

I wept until I came to the fly known as the DELHI SANDS FLOWER-LOVING FLY.

Such an attractive fly the little guy was, lying there on his side, politely encouraged towards a certain drowsiness, a federally permited fly handler standing by making sure the little guy (gal?) was safe.  After all, there are so few of these flies left.  Under 1,000.  And where do they live?  They live in Southern California.  My back yard.

I don't like flies. 

My weeping ceased.  Why me? I asked the universe.  Is this a test?  To see just how committed I am to the ideal of saving each and every endangered species in the world?  If I can support the adorable Choctawhatchee Beach Mouse or the Pallis Sturgeon or the Guam Rail, why have I skidded to a halt over the Delhi Sands Flower-loving Fly. 

The fly (any kind of fly) isn't even supposed to exist in Southern California. There are some, but not the nuisance they are elsewhere.  To demonstrate how little a nuisance flies are, my fly swatter is very old, and in fact I don't even know where it is.  Or even if I actually have one.

But now I find there IS a bona-fide fly here in Southern California who is making waves, and I don't like it.  Even if there are only 1,000 of them left.  Even if the whole Delhi Sands eco-systems will disappear if they do.  Even if the area referred to is an hour away.

I don't like myself for this.  I need to reframe the scenario.  I need to like the fly.  I need to feel its pain.  I need to feel love for all God's creatures.  Right now.

I look at the photo of the drugged fly (bearing in mind the fly handler).  I note its large green jowls.  I see its legs are spindly and unshaven.  I look for its eyes.  I don't see any eyes, unless, god forbid, those green jowls are the eyes.  But the eyes are closed, right, because the fly is unconscious.  So...the green could be the creature's eyelids?

Emerald green eyelids.  I used to wear an emerald green eye shadow...I think it was in the eighties--
I'm looking at a fly who wears make-up.

I feel less animosity towards the fly.  It's endangered, for god sake.  If we don't do something, this little gal may soon be gone, never to be seen again--
And such a beautiful shade of green would be darkened forever.

Tears threaten-- 

I reach for the Kleenex.

I read the Wall Street Journal because I need to know these things.

Coming up is an opera which will feature live scents, all through the action.  A small canister of spray, attached to your seat, called a 'scent microphone', will intermittently emit a spray of smells orchestrated with the music, relating to the action of stage.

Some of the smells will be good.  Some will be bad...I do worry about the bad ones, specifically described as real 'stinkers'.  But some of the scents, such as the one used for 'earth' which includes moss, beet and patchouli, I find I am tantalized by, in spite of myself.

The spray will shoot out for sixteen seconds, enveloping the smeller/listener/viewer of the opera, thereby involving them more completely into the...er...moment.

Apparently hotel chains and casinos and such have experimented with using scents unsuccessfully before.

But this goes further, with more technical knowledge and determination.  The opera will debut at the Guggenheim, which seems an...encouraging way to do it.

I go to the opera once every ten years whether I need it or not.  I choose the opera by the venue at which it is playing.  I am particularly fond of the opera house in Brussels, as well as the opera house in Chicago.  The one in Brussels has box seats and velvet drapery to die for.  And the one in Chicago has a ladies room with the most gorgeous yellow cabbage rose wallpaper I have ever seen...or at least it did fifteen years ago.

I do have favorite operas--Carmen and Madam Butterfly--but basically I don't like opera because I can't abide listening to dying sopranos bellowing out their distress, prone on the floor.  Which is what happens at the end of most, if not all, operas.

Spare me--

Except now--an opera where one will be diverted from the distressing story by scents blowing out, at the appropriate moment, to further involve the opera lover quietly weeping in their seats.

It has taken one Christophe Laudamiel, a high-end perfumer, two years to develop the twenty-three scents to be used.  The name of the opera is "Green Aria'.  It is about the struggle between Nature and Industry...I will try to ignore that, because--

One of the scents smells like caramel with hints of leather and black cherry.

I can taste it.

Every time I drive by a local movie theater called Edwards Big Fancy Five or something, I scan the list of movies.

And every time the same thing happens.

I read:

X-Men Origins:Wolverine
Angels and Demons
Management
The Soloist
Sunshine Cleaning

and

Now Hiring.

And every single time my eyes bug out in hopeful surprise--

NOW HIRING???

I haven't heard of it.  Wow.  A movie I haven't heard of.  This is either very good news, or...not.

NOW HIRING.  I cast about for any hidden piece of info I might have heard and failed to take note.  I wonder how long it's been out.  And I wonder again, how it is I haven't heard of it.  I start salivating--

This thought process takes one second.

And then, like every other time I drive by this abysmal theater, my heart drops.  I experience dashed hopes.  Then, yet once again, I admonish myself for being taken in.

But now I'm thinking--hey wait a minute.  I should go into that place and admonish them.  Who do they think they are using their public billboard to advertise a job?  Like all the time.

And why, for that matter do they always need to be hiring?  Can't they keep their personnel?  Are they lousy employers?

Give me freedom from awareness of their problems with personnel, I say.

And give me the new Johnny Depp movie, like yesterday.

I loved Ritz Crackers...once upon a time.  Like 1966...and even then croissants were beginning to take over.  Whole wheat honey nut bread was emerging.

I went to an African/Cuban wine tasting, Women's Club of Laguna Beach, CA. happening last night, and there sat:

Platter after platter of Ritz crackers.

Somehow I just know there are more appropriate crackers to serve for a wine tasting.

There are certainly more appropriate crackers to put out for that fulsome African/Cuban music.

There are more appropriate crackers to eat for any reason.

I didn't even know they still made Ritz Crackers.  Although since Twinkies are still sold, I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised.

I ate some.  My friends ate some.  We all agreed that the Ritz crackers weren't as bad a choice as say barbecued potato chips.  We also told ourselves this was a fun trip down memory lane, but I noticed we each ate only one.  I noticed the platters themselves were barely touched.

With nine thousand types of crackers in the grocery stores, I wonder what taste decision went on behind the scenes.  Somebody knew of a warehouse load about to be tossed?

Maybe the wine was sub par too.  I don't know.  I'm a water-guzzler.  But, now I wonder.  Surely a posh little place like Laguna Beach, California can do better than Ritz crackers...unless the wine was Boone's Farm--

Is Boone's Farm still sold?

Don't tell me.  I still haven't recovered from the way they added sugar to the packet of Kool-Aid. 

Remember, pre sugar, the blisters from licking the soul satisfyingly pungent Kool-Aid particles off the palm of your hand?

Fabulous, right?

The Ritz crackers weren't.