California Fever

star...redux

It's another free pass today at Poetry Thursday.  Last week, Jon left this comment on my poem star, "I also appreciate the unusual line breaks used to create great lines like: 'forgotten desires open' which create a meaning completely separate from the syntax of the more explicit 'sentences.'"  As I told him in a return email, that comment made me look at my poem in a whole new light.  Michelle once wrote that she liked the 'form' I was using on some of my poems.  I had to laugh when I read that, since there is no form.  I haven't the foggiest clue how to write poetry!  What I have learned to do this year is allow myself to write down lines that pop into my head in the way I'd speak them to you.  And I only screwed up my courage to do that after meeting Liz Elayne last Spring.  I loved the idea of Poetry Thursday, but thought because I'd never written poetry before, it wasn't for me.  Here's part of Liz Elayne's comment on last week's poem, "...look at you writing more and more poetry..."  See, people--if I can do it, any of you can!  So take the leap!  Jump in and write some poetry!  :)

That said, I had no clue what to write for Poetry Thursday this morning.  So I thought I'd surf around a few blogs first--not for poetic inspiration, purely for procrastination.  But as we all know, the blogosphere is nothing if not a gold mine of synchronicity.

I stopped by Karen's new photoblog, where she had a photo of a heart-shaped stone for Love Thursday, for the Love Is All Around Us site she runs with my dear pal Irene. In her post, Karen mentioned she'd been inspired to search for a love-shaped rock by Elspeth.  I wondered, "Who's this Elspeth?"...so I went to her blog.  (And where were all these incredible Caribbean bloggers when I lived there?  I couldn't find any!)  And Elspeth's post today is all about how some linkety-linking led her to discover a form of poetry called French Pantoum.  And she learned how to do it by reading this post at Urban Abbess. I love the idea of this form!  So I thought I'd re-work last week's poem into a French Pantoum.  It's not great, but it's my first (unedited) attempt.  So here it is--star...redux:

storyboard your dreams
spirit so you can hold
winds as star
forgotten desires open

spirit so you can hold
beating baby's breath
forgotten desires open
wings take flight

beating baby's breath
winds as star
wings take flight
storyboard your dreams

Easy-peasy, right?  So there you go.  You can either write all new lines (and repeat them in the order shown in the Urban Abbess post), or you can use lines from a previous poem and add a couple of new ones (again, using the form in that post).  Voila, a French Pantoum!  Happy Poetry Thursday!

Wednesday searches

I've had a lot going on, and I'm sleeping erratically at odd hours.  I'm trying to make my way through my Bloglines feeds.  If I haven't been around as much lately, please know that I will get caught up...eventually.  There's a lot of stuff swirling around at work, most of which I can't talk about here...but let's just say I'm feeling, shall we say, feisty.  I'm going to keep pushing and pushing to try to effect some change.  So there!  :)

I know I 'should' be mentioning the Hawaii quake (my thoughts go out to them)...the horrors of the war in Iraq and how casualties on both sides are exhorbitant...the sliver of hope that I feel that the Democrats might take back at least one body of our legislature (and even if you don't agree with me politically, please exercise your right to vote!)...the continuing nightmare that's happening in Darfur.  (And if ever I feel guilty about letting anything slide re giving it my attention, it's that situation.)

But because time is short this morning and I've got nothin' (in terms of a post), I'll give you some recent searches found in my stats.  Haven't done that in awhile...

fever door (I may have stepped through that one awhile back...)

75% of the world's nuts are produced in what California town (rim shot)

ladies custom fit swimsuits Portland Oregon (Always happy to provide a plug for Pam at Poppi Swim!)

cheap funky shelf fittings (Are they talking about my chest?)

the little red hen play (Ciara was excellent in that in 2nd grade.)

poetry about thinking for yourself (Right on, sister!)

Brian Reagan download (I think you mean Brian Regan.  One of my favorites and freakin' hilarious.)

old treasure maps (If I find them, you can bet your ass J will have them on eBay in nothing flat.)

ASSHOLE FEVER (Love how that one's in caps.)

a short article on impact of watching TV on emotional behavior of children and adolescents in India  (Whew!  Hope the article you found was shorter than that search.)

elementary school children fortune telling printable fortunes (I'm as airy-fairy as the next gal, but I think I might have to draw the line at teaching small children to tell fortunes.)

24-hour laundromat (Yes, we have one, and thank god for it.)

pheasant hunting wallpaper (What the...?  Oh.  Must have been the story about my brother bagging a pheasant that later woke up while it was in his hunting knapsack...that he was wearing.  I forgot about "George"...which is what Ciara named him when he spent a few days frolicking in their backyard...before expiring...one can only assume from the, you know, GUNSHOT.)

poem coworker friend (Yes, they appear in those sometimes.)

blue bitch (I beg your pardon.)

poem morning (I should be having one right now.)

desolate photo booth Southern California (Don't know it, but love the imagery it evokes.)

SUV turnover pine cone (Honey, if your SUV has a tendency to roll if it crosses paths with a PINE CONE...)

client safari (What I'll have to go on if I ever become self-employed.)

ROAD JUNK COLLAGE (Is that a critique of my photo collages?)

Ciara has a cheerleader.  (Yes, she does.)

sweet sixteen poems  (Awww.)

retro

Patry has assigned to me the letter R.  I must ponder R a bit to see where it takes me...  Want a letter?  Hop on over to Patry's blog and let her know.  (I loved her M post.)

You can still help send Ms. Kathleen's shorties to the shore!  Go to her blog and "click on the flipper-wearin' shortie."   I know the kids will appreciate anything you can give.  Please help fund their trip to the beach.  They're helping themselves--selling and selling and selling--but they could still use our help.  Can't you skip that latte for just one day and send it to the kids?  Thanks.

We're going to see Curtis tomorrow night.  He's got a series of club dates in Northern California this week:  Chico tonight, Newcastle (NE of Sacramento) tomorrow night, Mill Valley Thursday night (same club we were at last Saturday night) and Mt. Shasta (my Mom's old town) on Saturday night.  The Newcastle show is only about half an hour away, so we'll surprise him there.  The "Concert for Curtis" on June 13th in Portland was a big success.  They raised a good chunk of money to put toward a liver transplant.  The tumor in his liver has apparently shrunk enough from the treatment he's been receiving to qualify him for a transplant. Now everything has to be right to make that happen:  enough money, the right liver, test results, etc.  Please hold a good thought for our old friend--time is of the essence.  It was apparently quite a show on the 13th...Steve Miller, Taj Mahal, Robert Cray, Everclear...the Oregonian review is here.   The "secret weapon" in the last sentence of the review is a much-loved old friend.  We always say if we ever get around to tying the knot that he's gotta be the best man...he's got a good track record as that.

Speaking of Portland, thanks to Rozanne's tip on her blog, I will soon be the thrilled owner of this swimsuit.  I just ordered it.  I can't possibly describe how happy this makes me.  All those years in the tropics, I wore the same little bikini with boy shorts--grabbed at K-Mart on St. Thomas when I first arrived.  I bought one more similar style suit from our friends' bikini store down there, but it never fit right, even when I tried it on.  I guess I just wanted to make a purchase from them to show my support, but it was quickly shoved to the back of a dresser drawer.  Last summer, our first on the mainland in six years, I didn't don a swimsuit ONCE.  How sad!  When my sister-in-law said "Bring your suits!" the other night so we could soak in their (new) hot tub after dinner, it occurred to me that I'm WAY overdue for a new swimsuit.  Not to mention the fact that I'll be in Vegas two weeks from now and one of the things my mother wants to do during my visit is get in some nighttime swimming in her complex's pool.  (It'll be too hot during the day and she has a severe vision disability, so can't get herself there at night.)  Although I'm still thin, there comes a time when a gal (over 50!) doesn't wanna have to worry about sucking in her tummy to wear a two-piece.  A boy shorts leg (so flattering!...at least on me) on a one-piece?!  My dream come true.  :)  Check out all the suits at Poppi.  How ironic that the store is located in my old Portland neighborhood of five years--wish it had been there when I lived there.  But wait, when the hell did I ever wear a swimsuit THEN?

Last night we finally saw Mr. & Mrs. Smith via Netflix.  We enjoyed it for what it was.  I'd forgotten that Vince Vaughn was in it.  How creepy is that?

I'm off work, thanks to the S.W.A.T. team taking over our campus for training exercises today.  Back at the job tomorrow and Thursday...and then I'm done.  Jeffrey didn't wake me when he left this morning (his start time has been bumped up to 5:30 am), but like a doofus I automatically flipped on my alarm last night, forgetting I had the day off, so I woke at 6.  Got up for a bit, which immediately seemed like a bad idea, so I crawled back into bed and started reading short stories.  Love this book (purchased for fifty cents at a parking lot book sale).  Fell back asleep until a phone call from an automated survey ("Do you favor having a Target store in Davis?"  Hell, YES!) woke me.  J. called right after that...and didn't even sound mad that I was lounging in bed while he was hard at work in the hot sun.  Could I love him any more than I do?  Don't think so.

Carnival...Marilyn style...

Say it like Cary Grant said, "Judy, Judy, Judy!"  It's Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday!  Week 6 of the ThirdAge Blog Carnival.  This week the Carnival is hosted by Elisa at The Hip and Zen Pen.  Check it out.  (My Carnival submission appears in the post that follows this one.)

I subscribe to several email newsletters that I often go weeks without reading.  This morning I got caught up a bit and thought I'd share a few snippets from some of them.  Think of this as my own mini-Carnival...

How Much Joy's Suzanne Falter-Barns had a good slant on creative deprivation in her November 17th Joy Letter 128:  Do you really believe you can have what you want? Or do you tend to operate with your feet in two camps -- one that says, 'I'm going out there and pursue my dream' and another that says, 'I'll also hedge my bets by doing something I don't love that much, just in case the dream thing doesn't work out.'  ...  Do you want a life that's halfway, but never all the way, to the dream?  ...  The urge not to provide ourselves with what we need in life is a sort of creative anorexia, deprivation that is all about a distorted picture of who we are and what we deserve. The real irony is that seldom do the contingency plans and hedged bets work out.  "Creative anorexia" -- love that!  Let's stop starving ourselves creatively! 

This is from Debbie Ford's December 6th newsletter (if the "G word" makes you uncomfortable, substitute a word or phrase that feels more comfortable for you.):  One of my favorite requests of the divine is to ask for a sign, and I often do this through prayer rounds--praying three or four times a day to remember my ever-present and intimate connection with God.  ...  Ask for a sign that will shift your consciousness and reveal solutions to important decisions or challenging circumstances.  Things work in miraculous ways when we ask for guidance from this reservoir of creative power--a place bigger than ourselves, bigger than our own capacities alone.  Standing in this place, anything can happen and often does.

In her November 29th newsletter, Debbie shared a message someone had sent her that tickled her.  Here's a portion of it you might want to imagine happening for you in the remaining weeks of 2005:  For the remaining (months) of the year, your problems will enter call blocking, your enemies will have network problems and their bad wishes for you will enter into voicemail and you will ony get them as missed calls.

Debbie included several Goethe (1749-1832) quotes in her November 6 newsletter.  Who knew "New Age" was so old?  :)  Here are a couple:  It is my personal approach that creates the climate.  ~and~  In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized.

 Vicky White at Life Design Strategies is a Feng Shui consultant.  Most of us are aware of the power of photographs in our spaces, but I'd never considered something Vicky mentioned in her December 1st newsletter:   You can pick up on family dynamics in the positioning of photographs. Are the people looking away from each other?  Perhaps two of the individuals could do with having their photos if not next to each other, then closer together and perhaps looking towards each other? For family unity you could have the photos grouped around a small symbol – something that represents love and unity to you. Ideally each person is looking towards the center of this group of photos.  Arrange photos until they feel right to you.  This is an opportunity to position your family members as you would like them to be.

An urgent plea to take action to stop the slaughter in Darfur was in Marianne Williamson's November 29th newsletter:  I've asked before; I'm pleading now. Today please make the time to call your two Senators and your Congressional representative, expressing your desire for the American government to help stop the genocide in Darfur. To read more about this human slaughter and how you personally can help stop it, go to www.savedarfur.org.  She closed with this:  Dante's famous quote resonates: "There is a special place in hell reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, remain neutral." Genociate in the Sudan is a moral crisis of the first degree. And we can stop it.  Maybe each of us can take a few moments in the midst of shopping and card writing and holiday parties to take some action.  Just a few moments of our time might save someone's LIFE.

Summer McStravick is the producer/director of programming for Hay House Radio.  (If you sign up for the Hay House Radio newsletter, you'll receive weekly updates of upcoming shows.)  Summer has developed something called Flowdreaming.  Check it out here and here.

Lastly, inspired by Jory's two new lenses, I made one, too.  The theme is inspiration.  It contains some of the posts readers here have seemed to especially like, as well as links to some of the sites where I go to find inspiration.  It's brand-new--I'll add to it as I find time.  Oh...the name of my lens?  Why, The Church of the Divine Spark, of course!  ;)

pink section

When I was in my 20's and 30's, the first thing I'd do on Sunday mornings was grab 'the pink section' (Datebook) from the San Francisco Chronicle and flip to the back of it to read my horoscope for the week.  Because lord knows it applies in great detail to every one of the hundreds of millions of us who share the sign...

Today's horoscope by Minerva:

CAPRICORN:  Professional connections are important as Jupiter, the original Mr. Lucky, shoulders his way into your friendship house.  It's that old "not what you know but whom" thing.  Your pizzazz weighs in as you use the old-boy network to pull together gains made in the past year.  Now take that niche you've carved for yourself and build a dream castle.

It's nice to be a Chronicle subscriber again.  We subscribe to the Davis Enterprise, but I subscribe to the Chronicle for cultural coverage, not that we have the funds right now to be gallivanting all over the culture map.  But after the cultural drought that was island life, I'm just so thrilled to be back in Northern California where one can find just about any kind of cultural activity one desires.

A few items from today's 'pink':

• A new show ("Revenge Monster") at Creativity Explored, a place Andrea has often written about
• Sarah Vowell at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City next Friday night
• A profile of Mose Allison, someone I've never heard perform -- Those of you who read Fussy will remember when she went to Paris in June.  Check out that Fussy link...scroll down to the 9th photo in her June 11th Paris post...you'll see a drummer with long black hair wearing a suit.  Why am I linking to it?  Because that drummer used to play with Mose Allison.  :)  Oh yeah, and I know him...but haven't seen him in years.
• A story about the history of Arlecchino as a preview to Piccolo Teatro di Milano's upcoming performance of "Arlecchino, Servant of Two Masters" at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Playhouse this week -- The article mentions The Dell'Arte School of Physical Theatre which has been in Blue Lake (Humboldt County) since 1975.  I moved to Blue Lake, a town of 1,300, in the summer of 1978.  I shared a converted gas station on a corner of the town's main intersection with a blonde Deadhead who had a huge Dead logo painted on the hood of her car and a guy who was a mime and pedal steel player.  He was studying at Dell'Arte, which was right next door.  A couple of months later I moved to a second-floor flat in a large building owned by a drummer who occupied the downstairs flat.  It was directly across the street from Dell'Arte's building.  I liked to open the windows in that funky old flat and listen to the rehearsal sounds drift across the street.  (That flat was haunted, too.)
• "Tain" Watts brings his quartet to Yoshi's in early November - Jeff "Tain" Watts is one bad drummer.  Remember Spike Lee's "Mo' Better Blues" with Denzel?  Jeff Watts played, appropriately, the drummer.  (Might have to drag the boyfriend to that show.)
• Matt and Ben at the Unidentified Theatre Company
• Every Sunday's Chronicle has a feature called "Cook's Night Out" where local restaurateurs pick their favorite places to dine out.  This week's interview subject, Chakay McDonald, picked Scott's Seafood Restaurant on Jack London Square in Oakland.  Interviewer GraceAnn Walden writes that she waited for McDonald in Scott's bar, where she listened to the jazz playing of John Turk...who just happens to be the bandleader at Glide.  :)
• And just like every Sunday for nearly 20 years, the pink contains an ad for Kelleher & Associates.  I can't look at that ad without recalling how a former employer dated Jill Kelleher for awhile...before he came to his senses and reunited with his long-time on again-off again girlfriend...causing them to quickly decide to marry on a yacht on a hot August day while it cruised San Francisco Bay...a cruise where I proceeded to get snockered...and...well...I'll leave it at that.  The same employer who upon hearing my request for a raise, patted my hand and asked, "Is it that time of the month?"  Who knew the term 'sexual harassment' in those days?  That was just THE WAY THINGS WERE.  Even so, he remained a pal...I later used his gorgeous hilltop home in Ross as a location for an infomercial shoot...

this, that and the other

This was written up in a little blurb in the San Francisco Chronicle.  "...some 400 images by more than 100 designers from four continents are on display as ceramic tiles at the International ExperimentaDesign20005 in Lisbon.  All seek to express an idea or personal opinion in a single design."

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I was flipping through the Davis paper and saw a short article about a reggae concert at a cantina tonight, a cantina that's close to our house.  I thought, "Hmmm...gee there's a reggae band on St. John with that same name..."  Then I read that it IS the band from St. John!  Wow, what are the odds?  And no, I didn't go, and Jeffrey couldn't--he's at his own gig.  I never heard Inner Visions play when we lived in the islands, but they're big in the USVI.  (I like reggae well enough, but it's a tad repetitive for my taste.)  You can listen to them here.  And check it out:  Blue Bitch Music....blue bitch is a stone indigenous to the V.I.?  I've never heard of blue bitch...but I love the name...  Tonight's show is a benefit for the Davis Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund.

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I read that Nipsey Russell died last week.  He was 80.  You young'uns won't even know who that is, but I used to see him on "The Ed Sullivan Show" when I was a kid.  He was a comic, but was known for his short, topical poems.  They were deceptively simple, but always had a great message.  Like this one:

The opposite of pro is con;
That fact is clearly seen;
If progress means move forward,
Then what does Congress mean?

Timeless, no?

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And for you jazz fans, the Chronicle also had a story on the new Blue Note album featuring Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall in 1957.  The tape had been mislabeled and misfiled among Voice of America recordings until it was recently found.  I haven't heard it, but evidently the sound quality is amazing.

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I realize there may not be any golf lovers among my readers, but what the hell, I'll mention it anyway.  I watched the end of the American Express WGC Tournament at Harding Park in San Francisco this afternoon.  It was a nail-biter to the end--lots of drama.  It came down to Tiger Woods and John Daly and as I was watching, I was growing increasingly anxious because Jeffrey was missing it.  He finally got home from work when they were on the second playoff hole.  Daly lost the tournament by missing his putt on that second playoff hole.  Very anticlimactic, but a great tourney nonetheless.  Hours later we were having dinner and Jeffrey quietly told me (he always quietly tells me...and usually DAYS later) how there was a moment when he was in Tiger's gallery on Thursday...Tiger waited at the green to watch Daly, in the group behind him, hit his drive.  Daly hit some ridiculously long drive and Jeffrey said he and Tiger happened to make eye contact and they both just started cracking up--because Daly's drives, well, you can only laugh.  Oh yeah, and then he casually mentioned that the Amex folks interviewed him about why he likes Tiger.  I give up.  The man never tells me anything...

totally random crap

I got nuthin' this morning, so treat yourselves to this hodge-podge smorgasbord...

Stella's groove took a nasty turn.

Do you know about conservation banks?  I didn't, until I read a front-page story in the Davis Enterprise yesterday.  Turns out developers who destroy habitats and must preserve and restore habitats in return can buy 'credits' from landowners who've created conservation 'banks.'  There are geographical limitations--a developer can't destroy a wetlands in Southern California and buy credits from a bank in my neck of the woods.  There are also mitigation banks which restore and create wetlands, whereas conservation banks preserve habitats.  Interesting.

Anyone attending the BlogHer conference on July 30th in Santa Clara?  I'm still undecided.  Having read the agenda, I'm not convinced that bloggers of my ilk (those of us who are simply documenting our daily lives) would get that much out of it.  Your thoughts?

This one's for T...here's an article on a gorgeous straw bale home that a retired female airline pilot built in Sonoma. 

Carlos Santana's wife, Deborah, has written a book.  I won't bore you with the linkety-linking that brought me to her site, but I was stunned to see that she's African-American.  How could I not know this?  I mean, why WOULD I know it?  But it surprised me that having lived in the Bay Area for decades--and knowing lots of musicians, including some who've played in Carlos' band--that I've never seen a photo of her until now, and they've been married for over 30 years.  Maybe the reason it's interesting to me is a recent conversation we had with a white woman who's married to another prominent Bay Area musician who's African-American.  (Well known--he's in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.)  We were introduced to them at a gig recently and after "Hi, nice to meet you" left my mouth, her next words were (with a laugh), "We should start a club!  An interracial club!"  I thought, "Whaaaa....?"  Then she sort of looked around and I realized that there were four couples standing there that were comprised of African-American males and caucasian women.  She then began regaling us with the details of how her family had had a hard time accepting her marriage to her husband.  There was more, but it was just so odd that she began telling us such intimate details of her life when all we'd said was "Hi."

Anyone catch The Girl in the Cafe on HBO on Saturday night?  We missed it, so I may try to catch a rerun tomorrow.  Interesting that Richard Curtis has attempted to couch a G-8 message within the framework of a light romantic comedy.

Speaking of HBO, we've become hopelessly addicted to Entourage.  I live for the moments when Jeremy Piven's onscreen.

We went out for breakfast yesterday and had no sooner been seated in our booth and gotten comfy with the Sunday papers spread out before us than an earthquake hit.  The Sacramento Bee says it was a 4.8 east of Truckee.  It was a pretty good side-to-side jolt for such a small quake.

My mother has given me her Bernina sewing machine.  We picked it up yesterday from my brother's house where it had been sitting in his garage for the past week.  Now I just have to, you know, sew something.

If you feel like adding a link of interest in your comment, feel free.  I'm feeling bored.  On tap for today?  More job-hunting.  Blech.