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10.29.2005

That reminds me

Just imagine yourself seated on a shadowy terrace,
And beside you is a girl who stirs you more strangely than an heiress.
It is a summer evening at its most superb,
And the moonlight reminds you that To Love is an active verb.
Your hand clasps hers, which rests there without shrinking,
And after a silence fraught with romance you ask her what she is thinking.
She starts and returns from the moon-washed distances to the shadowy veranda,
And says, Oh I was wondering how many bamboo
shoots a day it takes to feed a baby Giant Panda.
Or you stand with her on a hilltop and gaze on a winter sunset,
Everything is as starkly beautiful as a page from Sigrid Unset,
And your arm goes around her waist and you make an avowal which for masterfully marshaled emotional content might have been a page of Ouida's or Thackeray's,
And after a silence fraught with romance she says,
I forgot to order the limes for the daiquiris.
Or in a twilight drawing room you have just asked the most momentous of questions,
And after a silence fraught with romance she says,
I think this little table would look better where that little table is, but then where would
that little table go, have any suggestions?
Yes, thats the way they go around.....
It isn't that nothing is sacred to them, it's just that at the Sacred Moment they are thinking of something else.
- Ogden Nash

she will dance


I was five years old and at gramma's house . We put on our "jammies", as we call them and right before bed she would tell me about the music box that set on her dresser.
I only remember her big brother had brought it back to her from WWII in Japan. But it was special for a million different reasons. It was decorated with inlaid pearl and ornate carvings.
It had little drawers on the sides and a big compartment in the middle. That was my favorite part. The middle. The middle had velvet lining half and a mirror base on the other half. As I would open the lid, soft music would begin to play slowly. I would take the ballerina figurine with her magnet base, and quickly try to find the unseen floating magnet beneath the surface of the mirror. If I was quick enough I would get to watch her gracefully spin to the sound of the music box. The music only lasted a while though. See, this music box had been wound too tightly, too many times. It wouldn't wind anymore. It played only
when you opened the lid, and often that was only a few seconds. But when she danced, it was magical.
Sometimes she danced, sometimes I missed it.... but there was always next time. And maybe next time she would dance longer.


When I need solitude, I go to gramma's and watch the ballerina. She takes me back in time. When I watch her, im five years old , eye level with my gramma's dresser, anxiously waiting to see if she will spin for me.
I have no worries. She will dance tonight.

10.28.2005

To see it.

"Travel is the most private of pleasures. There is no greater bore than the talked-of travel bore. We do not in the least want to hear what he has seen in China.
We want to see it."
-mostly Vita Sackville-West



10.27.2005

bubble baths, blankets and bobby pins


my favorite nights go in this order....
1. get off work when it's dark and go right home
2. (someone will inevitably have started a fire in the fireplace)
3. get all of the bobby pins out of my hair
4. take a loooong bubble bath
5. wrap up in a cashmere blanket
6. read by the fire with a cup of chai...
I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. Philipians 4:11

10.16.2005

My quest for culinary enlightenment.

Sure, I can cook. If you like scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese, hamburgers or spaghetti, your in luck. Now if you want something with a little more class or pizazz..... you are sure to be disappointed. But my novice skills in the the kitchen are taking on a new form. I am going to learn to cook.
I started this journey about a month ago. I bought two Martha Stewart cookbooks, two Betty Crocker cookbooks, Anita Prichard's Candy Cookbook, Patrick O'Connell's Refined American Cuisine, and the Complete Book of Preserving. I now have a collection of beautiful cookbooks.
I pulled Martha off the bookshelf a couple of weeks ago and proceeded to make the all-american apple pie.
I first made what Martha refers to as the "Pate Brise'e" (pie crust) and then made the filling.
I kept thinking that my bottom crust was too thick, but hey what do I know? So I put the filling in the pie and realized that it would dry out if I baked it without a topcrust.... so I made an entire recipe of Pate Brise'e again and put it on top. That works right? Yeah, guess not. I baked it for the alloted time... plus some. It still wasn't done. Finally, I pulled it out of the oven. The crust was one inch thick on the bottom and the strips covering it were about 3/4 inch thick . Unbeknownst to me, you are supposed to divide the crust in half - 1/2 for the top and 1/2 for the bottom. Maybe that would be obvious to most people...but I am new at this sort of thing.
Needless to say, it was one of the more doughy pies that I've eaten. My precious family ate it like troopers though. They even lied and said it tasted good. Such a brave lot.
I havent cooked since then, but I am not giving up. I think I'll start with Betty instead of Martha next time and work my way up to gourmet.

10.15.2005


Happy Sweetest Day!

10.11.2005

Phobias

I often give myself too much credit for living a life that is quote, unquote "healthy by American standards". I take my vitamins, drink water, exercise, eat the right amount of the proper foods, and try to stay in a healthy BMI range..... Sooo how is it that I have 5 doctor appointments scheduled in the next two and a half weeks, and all but two are entirely unrelated?
While not algophobic, I still get apprehensive about the slightest pain.
Doctor's appointments tend to make me nauseous.
Maybe its the smells, fear of catching a dread disease, the kids wailing, or just the fact I have self- diagnosed myself with the deadly flu that is supposedly going to wipe out America this winter. I guess all this is to say, I am one of the weirdos with a million unreal and unfounded phobias.

So its random fact time.
Did you know that up to 12.5 % of Americans have some type of a real, doctor diagnosed phobia? Here is a list of a few interesting ones.

Androphobia- fear or aversion to men
Anemophobia- fear of winds or drafts
Astrephobia- fear of thunderstorms
Autophobia- fear of being alone
Batophobia- fear of high objects(towers, mountains)
Caligynephobia- fear of beautiful women
Optophobia- fear of opening one's eyes
Demophobia-fear of crowds
Ergasiophobia- dislike of work, taking on responsibility
Gamophobia- fear of marriage
Necrophobia- fear of dead bodies.
Photophobia- fear of light
Scopophobia- fear of being observed
Sitophobia- fear of eating


If your bored go here....

http://www.phobialist.com.... its amazingly stupid.
While there obviously are very legitimate phobias..... I think most people need to just find something to occupy their time with.