On a recent movie-going trip I really enjoyed It’s Complicated, with Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and a surprisingly likeable Steve Martin. I won’t give the story away, but it was refreshing to see romance between some very mature folks. Alec Baldwin was particularly hilarious as an aging enfant terrible.
We need more stories like this for old broads like me. It made me think of writing Jasper and Katherine’s story (see Thorne/Ward series ) and publishing it online myself. What do you think?
I’m sitting here watching The View and an interview with the actor who plays Dick Cheney in the new movie W. I’m also thinking about the most pervasive question I get as an author: where do you get your ideas. Now I know you are wondering how exactly these two things intersect, so I’ll tell you.
Many, many, (many to the tenth power) years ago, I was young, adventuresome and caught in a downpour trying to get from Vineyard Haven where my cousin and I had gone to swim back to Oak Bluffs where we were staying (this is Martha’s Vineyard folks). We had walked there but now we were soaked. So my cousin decides what we really need to do is hitchhike the rest of the way.
Now, a few years back, when we were teenagers we’d hitchhiked as a group. Our caveat was that we we only allowed to accept rides from little old ladies. Yeah, we followed that. But on this particular day I was convinced that no one was going to stop for two soaking wet women but an ax murderer with a gun under his seat. You can see that at an early age I had a flair for murderous fantasy.
Still I wasn’t too worried since not a soul stopped for us . . . until a lone car slows and eventually stops in front of us. The first thing I notice as we approach the car is that there is a baby seat in the back. So okay, how bad could he be if he’s got a back seat stuffed with baby toys? Still, as the two of us squeeze into the front seat, I tell my cousin to get in first since this was her idea. If this guy starts anything I’m throwing myself from the car.
So we’re finally in and I’m so squished I can’t see who’s driving. I can only hear his voice, which sounds oddly familiar. He’s telling us about how he only stopped for us because he was lost and he was hoping we could tell him how to get back to where he was staying.
And it hits me who the voice belongs to. I can’t see him, so I have to ask. “I may be completely crazy, but are you Richard Dreyfuss?” He laughs and says, “Yeah, and my hobby is picking up strange women in the rain.” My cousin elbows me and tells me she was trying to play it cool. Oh, well.
Well, we show him where to go, then he drops us off at our B&B (The Pequot, by the way, only two blocks). We try to tell him how to get back to where he’s staying. From the befuddled look he gave us we figured he’d be looking for some other drenched folks for further instruction.
The funny thing is, this happened a couple of years after Jaws was filmed on the island. So it couldn’t have been his first time there.
But THAT is where I got the idea for my hero Jarad Naughton’s faulty sense of direction in Spellbound.
And, yes, I did climb the mountainside at Gay Head on a dare. What the hell was I thinking?!?
No, not one of my novels but my baby offspring. She’s the one in the front row in the hat. She and her brother (who, incidentally, has sported a mohawk every summer for the last three years) go to this church to listen to underground or alternative bands. Good clean fun. Most of the kids I know who go are in Catholic school, driven by or picked up by parents (often me or my husband).
To the neighborhood I say, lighten up. They may be loud and dressed in a way your generation deems inappropriate, but at least the pack of teenagers on the street isn’t hitting you over the head or thiefing your purse. Not that night, anyway.
I meant to post yesterday on the historic day, but I got sidetracked by a visit from a family friend. Friday was 8/8/08, a very special day. Like 6/6/06 and 7/7/07 the past couple of years, any date with three of the same number is considered important. Historically, three has been the number for perfection. Eights are particularly spiritual. Place an eight on its side and it becomes an infinity symbol.
Today, or on any other day, you can use the power of eight (infinity) to clear your energy and rejuvenate yourself. Make a quiet place for yourself where you will not be disturbed. Sit upright but in a comfortable position. Breath deeply from your belly until you begin to relax. Imagine a white light glowing at your base (red) chakra (see chart below for chakra locations and colors). See that light begin to glow red. From that center imagine a ribbon of light flowing toward the front of your body, around your side and into your back. The ribbon flows around your other side, making a figure eight. Let the ribbon flow a few times, growing brighter and more intensely red each time. As you visualize this imagine that your most basic concerns (money, survival issues, fear) are released into the light and burned away. When you feel moved to, disconnect the ribbon and let the light return to the chakra.
Repeat this with the six remaining major chakras as follows:
sacral (orange)–creativity, sexuality
solar plexus (yellow)–power, ego
heart (green)–love, caring
throat (blue)–communication
brow (indigo)–imagination, visualization
crown (indigo)-spirituality, enlightenment
After you have cleared each chakra, take a few more cleansing breaths then open our eyes when you are ready.
This is a much simplified version of the Infinite Spectrum meditation created by Laurelle Shanti Gaia. Ironically, or maybe not, you are supposed to do this meditation daily for eight weeks to completely clear the chakras.
For a fun chakra test, go here.
I’m not going to be able to post tomorrow, so I’m posting a little funny now. Enjoy the laugh and your weekend!
A man and a woman were asleep like two innocent babies. Suddenly, at 3 o’clock in the morning, a loud noise came from outside. The woman, sort of bewildered, jumped up from the bed and yelled at the man ‘Holy crap, that must be my husband!’
The guy quickly jumped out of the bed. Scared and naked he jumped out the window like a crazy man. He smashed himself on the ground, ran through a thorn bush and then started to run as fast as he could to his car.
A few minutes later he returned and went up to the bedroom and screamed at the woman, ‘I AM your husband.!’
The woman yelled back, ‘Yeah, then why were you running ?’
And that folks…………is how the fight started.
Other than Tuesday, what day is it today?
Give up?
It’s Bobby Sherman’s birthday. Maybe you have to be a baby boomer to care, but Bobby turns 64 today. That’s right the hearththrob of Here Come the Brides is a senior citizen.
Sherman dropped out of sight, becoming a policeman, after the series faded, but when He sang Julie, Julie, Julie, Do You love me? I substituted Dee dee, Dee dee, Dee dee–and swooned with everybody else.
Sigh. Now Bobby’s old enough to get the seniors discount at the movies. I guess it had to happen sometime, but there seems to be something very bizarre in that.
Riddle me this, riddle me that. Who’s afraid of the big black bat? Apparently no one since the movie raked in a record 66 plus million for one day and a record $155. for the weekend.
I haven’t seen the movie, but my nephew was there for the first midnight show in our area–come to think of it, he never did call to tell me what he thought of it. As y’all know, I’m much more of a Netflix kind of gal. I watch when I can eat my own damn popcorn. LOL
But does this whole hoopla strike anyone but me as being kind of morbid? I mean doesn’t it seem like folks want to see it just because Heath Ledger is dead? I’ve been a big fan of his since the commercial bomb but personal love, A Knight’s Tale, so it’s not as if I haven’t been following her career. Still, I wonder if people would be so quick to rush out to see the movie if Ledger had lived.
But let’s focus on the positive. It doesn’t surprise me there’s Oscar buzz around his performance. I hope he gets the nomination at least. I still loved Jack Nicholson as the Joker, though. Eventually I’ll see this new one to compare.
Girls want to control the man in their life.
Grown women know that if he’s truly hers, he doesn’t need controlling.
Girls check you for not calling them.
Grown women are too busy to realize you hadn’t.
Girls are afraid to be alone.
Grown women revel in it using it as a time for personal growth.
Girls ignore the good guys.
Grown women ignore the bad guys.
Girls make you come home.
Grown women make you want to come home.
Girls leave their schedule wide-open and wait for a guy to call and make plans.
Grown women make their own plans and nicely tell the guy to get in where he fits.
Girls worry about not being pretty and/or good enough for their man.
Grown women know that they are pretty and/or good enough for any man.
Girls try to monopolize all their man’s time (i.e., don’t want him hanging with his friends).
Grown women realize that a lil’ bit of space makes the ‘together time’ even more special-and goes to kick it with her own friends.
Girls think a guy crying is weak.
Grown women offer their shoulder and a tissue.
Girls want to be spoiled and ‘tell’ their man so.
Grown women ‘show’ him and make him comfortable enough to reciprocate without fear of losing his ‘manhood’.
Girls get hurt by one man and make all men pay for it.
Grown women know that was just one man.
Girls fall in love and chase aimlessly after the object of their affection, ignoring all ‘signs’.
Grown women know that sometimes the one you love, don’t always love you back-and move on, without bitterness.
Girls will read this and get an attitude.
Grown women will read this and pass it on to other Grown women and their male friends
That’s all. I don’t really have more to say than that. If you’re a mom, enjoy your day. If you’re a kid, make your mom feel special. If you’re a mom and a kid, like me, enjoy having three generations together.
Just in case you’re having a hard time accomplishing this, here’s something my cousin sent me.
Before I was a Mom
I never tripped over toys or forgot words to a lullaby.
I didn’t worry whether or not my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.
Before I was a Mom -
I had never been puked on.
Pooped on.
Chewed on.
Peed on.
I had complete control of my mind and my thoughts.
I slept all night.
Before I was a Mom
I never held down a screaming child so doctors could do tests.
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.
Before I was a Mom
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn’t want to put him
down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn’t
stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom.
Before I was a Mom -
I didn’t know the feeling of having my heart outside my body.
I didn’t know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby.
I didn’t know that bond between a mother and her child.
I didn’t know that something so small could make me feel so important
and happy.
Before I was a Mom -
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to
make sure all was okay.
I had never known the warmth, the joy, the love, the heartache,
the wonde
rment or the satisfaction of being a Mom.
I didn’t know I was capable of feeling so much, before I was a Mom.
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!
(Didn’t I say that already?)
Recently, we had an addition to our family. My younger sister and her husband adopted a baby girl, Christiane. So, of course we have to have the baby shower and of course, the author and kindergarten teacher in me demands that the new baby must have a book. My choice–Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. I don’t know an adult who can get through this book with a dry eye. In fact, when I was in Barnes and Noble looking for it, another woman, obviously a mother by the child glued to her hip, said, “Oh my children love that book. They say, read us the book that makes you cry.” That’s what I did. I read the story to my mother and sister in the store and the three of us ended up weeping like lunatics in the aisle. Is there anything as cathartic as a public, communal tearfest? I don’t think so.
Anyhoo, I was quite proud of myself presenting my new niece and her parents with a worthy tome–until I read this article in PW. Apparently there are some folks who find the book creepy and detestable. I never would have guessed, despite the mother in the story baring a striking resemblance to Shirley MacLaine’s character in Terms of Endearment (emotionally anyway). There are some who suggest that Munsch wrote the book as satire, but that strikes me as the protest of one guilty of mawkishness and lavish sentiment, and well, you’ve got to tell them something.
Oh, well. I’ll go on loving it and you can judge for your own self, but next time I feel the need to indulge, I’ll stay out of Barnes and Noble.
