Whaddup, Weekend?

Phew! There's been a bit of radio silence round here as I was fighting a stomach bug. On the day we celebrated checking out of the hotel (after two months) & arriving to our new digs in New Orleans, my body decided to celebrate in its own way. After getting sick & introducing myself quite abruptly to our ter-let mere hours after arriving home, I made the joke that "Well, the place is definitely ours now." But things are looking up, because it's my birthday weekend! I've got nothing planned except some R&R with my man. "The art of nothin' doin'!" And that sounds glorious!

Some things from around the interweb...

This young Irish lady is going to be huge. I feel it.

A doggie photo shoot!

Ellen meets SNL Ellen.

A squirrel photo bomb.

Buy gift cards at a discount.

How people let technology get in the way of life.

An entrancing view from a Greenwich village window.

For my fellow book nerds.

What Dana Velden does when times are rough.

A genius ad.

A production guy + proposing = Mini goosebump-giving movie.

Not a care in the world.

We so just bought this touch of whimsy for our potty!


Don't forget to have a great weekend on purpose!

Book Passages

Usually I have offerings from several books at a time, but this alone was one dog-eared book!! Enjoy...

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

"The kind of smile you smile for yourself, not the guy behind the Goddamn camera."

"An afternoon of iced tea and idleness... They are lazy together. This is comfort. This is joy... No one wears a watch...This porch time isn't penciled into a DayRunner...Those porch girls had no idea they were going to sprawl on that couch until the weight of their adolescent bodies sank down into the pillows. They have no idea when they will get up off that couch. They have no plans for what will happen next. They only know their bodies touching as they try to keep cool. They only know that the coolest spot they can find is in front of the rotary fan. I want to lay up like that, to float unobstructed, without ambition or anxiety. I want to inhabit my life like a porch."

"But Sidda was tired of being vigilant, alert, sharp. She longed for porch friendship, for the sticky, hot sensation of familiar female legs thrown over hers in companionship. She pined for the girliness of it all, the unplanned, improvisational laziness. She wanted to soak the words "time management" out of her lexicon. She wanted to hand over, to yield, to let herself float down into the uncharted beautiful fertile musky swamp of life, where creativity and eroticism and deep intelligence dwell."

"Those eagles, like angels, don't distinguish between work and play. To them, it is all one and the same."

"The words shot through Vivi's bones and blood and muscle, and her body relaxed, so that when her feet touched the ground they met the earth differently, as though they had found roots that reached deep down and anchored to something tender and undamaged."

"Although Sidda was not one to quote to Bible, there was a quote from Luke she'd always loved. "Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh." Sidda thought the quote was lovely and was impressed by its light touch. Luke- or whoever really wrote it- didn't promise you'd prosper or be saved. He promised that if you wept, sooner or later you'd laugh."

"For the first time in her adult life, the sight of her concave belly did not please her. Instead, it made her feel alone, unused, as though she were the kind of woman who enjoyed packing for a trip more than the trip itself."

"This was a moon you had to curtsy to. A big, heavy, mysterious, beautiful, bossy moon. The kind you want to serve things to on a silver platter. The noise of the crickets and cicadas and the clinking of ice against the girls' glasses mingled with their voices and sighs. From their spot on the porch, they could see a paradise of stars golding their own with the moon."

"... the moon loved them. Not because they were beautiful, or because they were perfect, or because they were perky, but because they were her darling daughters."

"Liminal moments, those moments apart form time, when you are gripped, taken, when you are so fully absorbed in what you are doing that time ceases to exist."

"Her sixteen-year-old body, long unstroked, long unheld, craved the sensation of hot water against her naked skin, of steam rising, of her body sinking back into the arms of another element. There was almost nothing she would not do to earn such an indulgence."

"Why don't you try picturing your tears like soft rain?"

"...knew that her body, in all its imperfections, was her own lived-in work of art. She lived there and she'd die there."

"I try to believe that God doesn't give you more than one little piece of the story at once. You know, the story of your life. Otherwise your heart would crack wider than you could handle. He only cracks it enough so you can still walk, like someone wearing a cast. But you've still got a crack running up your side, big enough for a sapling to grow out of. Only no one sees it. Nobody sees it. Everybody thinks you're one whole piece, and so they treat you maybe not so gentle as they would if they could see that crack."

"I have been missing the point. The point is not knowing another person, or learning to love another person. The point is simply this: how tender can we bear to be? What good manners can we show as we welcome ourselves and others into our hearts?

"From her perch on the crescent of the harvest moon, the Holy Lady looked down on her imperfect children. The angels attending her that night felt little twinges of longing to be in human form, if only for a few minutes. They wanted to rock, they wanted to roll, they wanted to feel the peculiarly human feeling of having a perfect night in an imperfect world."

"Them that know don't tell; and them that tell don't know."

"All that was left was love and wonder."


Don't forget to have a great day on purpose!

Some Men Are License Plates & Other Things Mama Taught Me

Source

So about once a month I call on my mama to open up her book of wisdom garnered from years of livin' & tell me things she thinks will help me & hand me a pair of big girl panties. After these sessions, she always signs off with...."but that's just what worked for me. You pick & choose what you like from what I said, if there's any, and you tailor it to you. Do what works for you." Not all parents are like her. I'm one of the lucky kids.

To celebrate this day for Moms, here's a mixture of some heartwarming & silly things my mom has taught me...

1. Go with your gut. Always. You may not like what it's telling you but you need to learn to trust it because it will never steer you wrong. I can remember sitting down in the chair to get my wisdom teeth removed a few minutes later & at that moment something told me to find a different doctor. So we left. And my mom was proud of me.

2. Say stop to the negative nelly in your head. When it pipes up just tell it to "Shut the **** up!" You are what you think so try to control it.

3. For late night hunger that you can't ignore stick with peanut butter. You only want to eat protein at that late hour. And sidebar, OJ before bed will help your bowels. (We're a very open family. We discuss BM's.)

4. Some men are license plates. Sure, there are "other fish in the sea" but some of them are the license plates that get stuck on the fishing line you've got danglin' in the water. Throw that garbage back!

5. It takes balls to be happy.

6. Never park near a van or away from lights for your own safety. And have your keys ready in your hand before you leave the store. Always be lookin' out!

7. Never drink something a stranger brought to you. If you're eyes weren't always on that drink, don't go drinking it.

8. It's OK to "take a day" for yourself. Some days are rough & it's alright if you only thing you did that day was breathe.

9. Store brand foods rocks. Don't buy in, pun intended, to the name brand fancy labels. All you're paying for is the name & the artwork.

10. She brought me in this world...and she can take me out. (Always said with that Cosby sense of love!)