120

Who wouldn't like a piece of cake?

That's what I want to know...

119

"I feel like the country dog in the city ... if I stand still they screw me ... if I run, they bite me in the ass."

- The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

118

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

- Albert Camus

117

A friend of ours gave us this little package from someone who had given it to her after getting a bunch of them on his trip to Japan.

I see these cats in all sorts of sushi restaurants and apparently they are there to bring good fortune to the business.

I've been sad and really low lately.

I could use some good fortune.

I post it here and share it with you because we could ALL use some good fortune.

116

I'm going to miss seeing Polly Holiday when we leave the neighborhood.

Kiss my grits, indeed.

115

"The real voice of reason sounds like Bea Arthur..." - David Sedaris

Indeed.

I got so much joy growing up watching the Golden Girls and as an adult I have found fresh joy and comfort from the show. It remains my favorite tv program even after all those viewings.

I always related to the characters Bea played (Maude and Vera Charles amongst them) and when we went to see her perform on Broadway a few years back I found I connected with this larger than life, somewhat curmudgeonly and fabulously devilish character even more than I thought.

I just loved her.

***

Blanche Devereaux: Dorothy, you're a mess!
Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: I just spilled orange juice on myself.
Blanche Devereaux: Oh, really? I didn't notice that.

***

Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: Listen, you keep your bloomers on, Scarlett. He's taking me out tomorrow night.
Blanche Devereaux: But he wants me, I can feel it.
Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: Let somebody else feel it.

***

Blanche Devereaux: My Mammy, the woman who took care of me when I was little.
Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: Oh, I'm sorry, I don't think I ever heard anyone called Mammy before.
Rose Nylund: What about Mrs. Eisenhower?
Dorothy Petrillo-Zbornak: Mammy Eisenhower... I think only the Nixon kids got to call her that

***

And finally some words from the woman herself.

I especially love the last quote here - very fitting given the way things have been going lately.

"...I think I am a bubble-pricker... I don't like anything phony"

"I guess just, I don't know, I didn't know I was that vibrant, I just love being alive, and I love people, and I find something wonderful everyday."

"Life is filled with a lot of stuff, you know. There is never a dull moment."

- Bea Arthur

Thank you, Ms. Arthur, you've made my life better.

114

Constant Craving - kd lang and Ben Mink

Even through the darkest phase
Be it thick or thin
Always someone marches brave
Here beneath my skin

Constant craving
Has always been

Maybe a great magnet pulls
All souls towards truth
Or maybe it is life itself
That feeds wisdom
To its youth

Constant craving
Has always been

Craving
Ah ha
Constant craving
Has always been

Constant craving
Has always been
Constant craving
Has always been

Craving
Ah ha
Constant craving
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been

113

We've got to fly like a butterfly.

Well we have to move out of our apartment. Our landlord told us today that she wants to sell as soon as possible.

The stress of living through open houses in the past has us hot in pursuit of new living accomodations sooner rather than later.

See I told you...changes.

Let the stress commence.

112

"The devil inside, the devil inside
every single one of us
the devil inside"

- INXS

111

I read the below as part of my tribute to Nana last year at her memorial service.

I've been thinking of her all day - being that today marks one year that she had to leave us - and hoping she was watching down on Kiawah as she comes closer to the end of her journey with us.

How lucky am I to have had such strong spirits around me? Such vital strong spirits fighting the fight for life.

Here’s To Life

No complaints and no regrets
I still believe in chasing dreams and placing bets
And I have learned that all you give is all you get
So give it all you've got

I had my share, I drank my fill
And even though I'm satisfied, I'm hungry still
To see what's down another road, beyond a hill
And do it all again

So here's to life
And every joy it brings
Here's to life
To dreamers and their dreams

Funny how the time just flies
How love can go from warm hellos to sad goodbyes
And leave you with the memories you've memorized
To keep your winters warm

But there's no yes in yesterday
And who knows what tomorrow brings, or takes away
As long as I'm still in the game, I want to play
For laughs, for life, for love

So here's to life
And every joy it brings
Here's to life
To dreamers and their dreams
May all your storms be weathered
And all that's good get better

Here's to life
Here's to love
And here's to you

110

Things will be changing so much in the next couple of months.

Little ways, big ways.

Tomorrow will mark exactly one year that my grandmother died.

It feels both a lifetime ago and also as fresh as yesterday morning. It's a change that I have yet to fully understand.

But sometimes you aren't meant to understand change. Sometimes change is just change - it doesn't make you a better person nor does it lead you to a better place it just makes things...different.

109

"In memory everything seems to happen to music"

- from The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

This weekend it seems as though spring, and tones of summer, were absolutely busting to break out held just at bay by the thinnest of twine still lingering from winter.

108

"Teabagging is forbidden here at the Fudge Palace!"

- Tina (Martha Plimpton) in Pecker by John Waters

107

"I think the sea is a useless teacher, pitching and falling no matter the weather, when our lives are rather lakes unlocking in a constant and bewildering spring."

- Marie Howe begins her gorgeous poem "From Nowhere" in her anthology The Good Thief

106

"He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone."

- James Joyce "The Dubliners"

105

I am an amateur photographer. I’m not a professional. Perhaps I never will be – but I hope that’s not true. I would like, one day, to call myself “professional” – but I am aware that it is a ways off.

I have been taking photographs since childhood when I first started using my father’s old Argus 35 mm camera, a Kodak 126 and a Polaroid (that I LOVED). I learned to develop photos (black and white) when I was in the photography club in junior high. I maintained that skill for a few years but interest waned when other things presented themselves (pubescent angst primary amongst them).

My father was always a photography nut. It seemed to me that he knew everything about it and was always the one chronicling family events and taking photos of the scenery and animals and things we would see on the many trips and hikes in the mountains of New Hampshire. I suppose then I got this interest from him. He doesn’t much take photographs anymore…and when he does it is with a p&s digital that doesn’t seem like it provides much satisfaction. I think he’d probably like to do more but I suppose work and life sometimes get in the way of nurturing the things we love…even those things we hold most treasured.

I don’t know that I would be much good in a darkroom right now (at least not in developing photos *bah-dum-dum*) but I intend to get back to those roots. I’ve identified the classes I want to take and hopefully by fall session our money will be free for me to invest in something that will bring me to the next level. In the meantime this project is part of my self-education and I like to think that it is helping me, even if in small ways.

Picking photography up again at this point in my life with such excitement and so much to look forward to in my development and connecting me to my past, is a great gift.

104

I’ve been seeing the ads for the “no smoking” in PG-13 movies on the sides of city buses lately. For some reason this morning seeing one really pissed me off.

I am no fan of smoking, in fact I hate it. I grew up in a household with a smoker and I know plenty of them but I’ve never quite gotten used to it. I find them disgusting and stifling. One of my biggest pet peeves in this City is walking behind someone who insists on not only smoking while walking but also in blowing the smoke behind them so not only are their lungs getting effed up but potentially so are mine. I find it vile.

That said I am really hocked off that there are demands to remove it from movies. The history of smoking in films aside, what does this say about our respect for creativity and the creative control artists’ have over their projects not to mention how much control we have relinquished (or wish to relinquish) when it comes to raising our children?

I don’t believe it is up to films or athletes or celebrities to teach children the facts of life (and death) – it is up to the parents, the grandparents, the aunts, the uncles, the partners, the neighbors – the adults in their lives should be teaching them not only with facts but also by example and experience. After that you have to trust that your child will make the right decision given these tools and examples.

To expect that a movie or tv show will make or break your child’s decision to smoke is irresponsible and very short-sighted not to mention doing a disservice to your child.

What’s next? Alcohol consumption? Candy eating? I mean how far do we go in our expectations regarding the content of entertainment and art?

I still maintain that you have a choice for yourself and your child – view it or not, listen to it or not, read it or not – why take that choice away from someone else who may not share the same views as you?

Why are we taking less and less responsibility for the lives we live and the lives we lead?

103

I’m grateful that this evening felt a little warmer, more springlike. It allowed me to go out on an expedition for photos rather than toting my camera along on my way to the gym, errands, etc. with the hopes of finding something of interest along the way. I anticipate that the summer will afford me regular opportunities at this. Makes me happy.

I started this evening in a rather bad-ish mood. This is an off day from the workout and I think sometimes that makes me a little crazy to begin with but add on my dissatisfaction with my job and it can be a snowball to hell.

Getting out around the City, on a decent weather night, with lots of people about, resets my mind.

Although I hide behind my camera often and I typically hope not to get noticed when taking photos, being out with my camera actually provides the greatest chance for me to interact with the pulse of this city.

I see things. I notice things. I read people. I search. I think. I understand myself better by understanding the place I live in better.

It's not a miracle but it's a small mercy.

102

May all of your days be filled with the technicolor tastiness of cabana strawbana, laredo lime and chesapeake cherry jelly beans!!

101

"Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody."

- Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, brilliant proponent and activist for the concept of bottom up community planning