Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
My new boyfriend
It doesn't matter that I don't know his name, whether he uses trans fats in cooking, or even whether he's available; I'm in love with a chef. I mean, just look at him. Have you ever seen anything any cuter? When Alberta and I were wandering the streets of Athens Saturday night looking for an art store, I saw him and told him I just had to take his picture because he was so handsome. I'm thinking--pesto with pignolia nuts, the smell of foccacia baking, being served cappucino on Saturday mornings, Puccini playing in the kitchen. Yeah, I'm feeling it. Don't tell me I'm living in a fool's paradise.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Mistakes you make at the beach
Things that don't seem like mistakes at first often are when you are on vacation. I'm not talking about the obvious (just in case, don't forget the spf 50 on your face, feet, and ears).
Maybe overtanning; I've seen a lot of that. But other things that seem perfectly normal at the beach make you delete your travel photos off your digital camera quicker than a sand crab scuttling into its hole. Wearing a bright red Hawaiian shirt or a towel coiled on top of your head because you forgot your hat, for example. Or a red bikini (you're a man in this scenario).
It is incredibly tempting to collect as many seashells as you can put in a plastic bag from the Bi-Lo, which happens to have an excellent wine selection, so you might already have more bags than you can use for wet swimsuits anyway, another potential pitfall. But what are you going to do with those seashells when you get home, once you have one glass bowl full of them on the table in the dining room? I give myself the edict that I can have no more than I can carry in one hand, and when I'm over the limit, I take a picture of the shell instead.
I cheated just once when I found a large scallop shell I could use as a soapdish at home--I dropped my fragment shells into it and carried it from the top with all five fingers, which was the only way I could hold it with one hand. You can see it in the picture of Alberta's feet, next to my beach chair.
One thing you will almost certainly do is eat too much fast food when you're on the road.
Don't worry, these beaches are made for walking, and that's just what you'll do, walk, dammit, until you look good in your swimsuit. My strategy is to fix my eyes on the farthest condominiums from our boardwalk and walk till I get there, even though on the beach what I estimated a half-mile is really about three. It's excellent to fool yourself that way and burn up six times the calories, as long as your companions don't get sweaty and tired and go back to the beachhouse for a shower and lunch.
Souvenir stores affect people differently--I find the bright windows veritable sirens, while Alberta is horrified by them. Who could pass up three beachtowels for $10? But then you read the sign for a free hermit crab with every purchase and you see Alberta is right.
Of course, you can use our vacation as a warning. Or if you're especially alert and disciplined, you might have already realized the countless opportunities for screwing up at the beach. But if you're lulled by the soothing sound of the waves and the crumbly texture of sand under your fingertips as you lie under the July sun, it's only when you get home and unload the gritty towels and throw the "Myrtle Beach 2008" t-shirt in the laundry. When did I ever plan to wear 6-inch flourescent letters on my front, you wonder.Then it's too late.
But those mistakes aren't irreparable,not unless you succumbed to tattoo temptation. Even if you did that, there is a purple Jesus in Rains, South Carolina, and so be sure to pull over on the way back and ask his blessing.
Even then if you were given the choice prior to the trip, when you were thinking soberly, before you fell victim to sun and the wine selection at the Bi-Lo, wouldn't you still eat the fried shrimp and she-crab soup with probably a cup of cream in it, have the watery Happy Hour margarita,and snap up the towel bargain at Happy Jack's?
Yes you would. If you would have done it any differently, you'd be with the Outward Bound crowd or the Lonely Planet travelers in Costa Rica saving the rainforest, and it's too late for that. You and I are are not nearly that serious.
We do have some other holiday snaps; no, not the Monty Python kind of holiday snaps. Alberta, Susan, and I documented vacationers who, years if not decades past adolescence, threw ice cubes to attract each other in a public restaurant and paid for one buffet platter but got four plates of crab legs. We're saving those, however. We're sure the photos are our ticket for admission to Quantico, where we will reveal our ideas for a Special Buffet Surveillance detail, of which we will be the chief operatives.
Meanwhile, you go ahead and opt for excess. It'll be fine.
Maybe overtanning; I've seen a lot of that. But other things that seem perfectly normal at the beach make you delete your travel photos off your digital camera quicker than a sand crab scuttling into its hole. Wearing a bright red Hawaiian shirt or a towel coiled on top of your head because you forgot your hat, for example. Or a red bikini (you're a man in this scenario).
It is incredibly tempting to collect as many seashells as you can put in a plastic bag from the Bi-Lo, which happens to have an excellent wine selection, so you might already have more bags than you can use for wet swimsuits anyway, another potential pitfall. But what are you going to do with those seashells when you get home, once you have one glass bowl full of them on the table in the dining room? I give myself the edict that I can have no more than I can carry in one hand, and when I'm over the limit, I take a picture of the shell instead.
I cheated just once when I found a large scallop shell I could use as a soapdish at home--I dropped my fragment shells into it and carried it from the top with all five fingers, which was the only way I could hold it with one hand. You can see it in the picture of Alberta's feet, next to my beach chair.
One thing you will almost certainly do is eat too much fast food when you're on the road.
Don't worry, these beaches are made for walking, and that's just what you'll do, walk, dammit, until you look good in your swimsuit. My strategy is to fix my eyes on the farthest condominiums from our boardwalk and walk till I get there, even though on the beach what I estimated a half-mile is really about three. It's excellent to fool yourself that way and burn up six times the calories, as long as your companions don't get sweaty and tired and go back to the beachhouse for a shower and lunch.
Souvenir stores affect people differently--I find the bright windows veritable sirens, while Alberta is horrified by them. Who could pass up three beachtowels for $10? But then you read the sign for a free hermit crab with every purchase and you see Alberta is right.
Of course, you can use our vacation as a warning. Or if you're especially alert and disciplined, you might have already realized the countless opportunities for screwing up at the beach. But if you're lulled by the soothing sound of the waves and the crumbly texture of sand under your fingertips as you lie under the July sun, it's only when you get home and unload the gritty towels and throw the "Myrtle Beach 2008" t-shirt in the laundry. When did I ever plan to wear 6-inch flourescent letters on my front, you wonder.Then it's too late.
But those mistakes aren't irreparable,not unless you succumbed to tattoo temptation. Even if you did that, there is a purple Jesus in Rains, South Carolina, and so be sure to pull over on the way back and ask his blessing.
Even then if you were given the choice prior to the trip, when you were thinking soberly, before you fell victim to sun and the wine selection at the Bi-Lo, wouldn't you still eat the fried shrimp and she-crab soup with probably a cup of cream in it, have the watery Happy Hour margarita,and snap up the towel bargain at Happy Jack's?
Yes you would. If you would have done it any differently, you'd be with the Outward Bound crowd or the Lonely Planet travelers in Costa Rica saving the rainforest, and it's too late for that. You and I are are not nearly that serious.
We do have some other holiday snaps; no, not the Monty Python kind of holiday snaps. Alberta, Susan, and I documented vacationers who, years if not decades past adolescence, threw ice cubes to attract each other in a public restaurant and paid for one buffet platter but got four plates of crab legs. We're saving those, however. We're sure the photos are our ticket for admission to Quantico, where we will reveal our ideas for a Special Buffet Surveillance detail, of which we will be the chief operatives.
Meanwhile, you go ahead and opt for excess. It'll be fine.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
I've been tagged by Alberta
As part of Alberta's sinister ploy to make me blog more, she has tagged me. As I understand it, I must answer the following six questions, tag 5 other people,and then pour gasoline on a household object, fling it into the air, and shoot it like a clay pigeon.Okay,the last is my own innovation, but it IS Memorial Day and here we are without any fireworks. Fine,Alberta, here goes:
Here are the rules:
1. Each player answers questions about themselves.
2. At the end of the post, tag 5 people by posting their names.
3.Go to their site/blog and leave a comment telling them they've been tagged. Invite them to your site/blog so they can read the tagged post.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've completed your tagged post.
You have to answer these 6 questions:
What were you doing ten years ago?
What are five things on your to-do list?
What are five snacks you really enjoy?
List some places you've lived.
List some bad habits you have.
Name some jobs you've had.
1. What were you doing 10 years ago?
Like I remember.Amaryllis and Magenta were four, so I'm guessing that writing their names on masking tape and sticking it on their backs every day because their day care workers could never tell them apart took up a good deal of my time. Also that year, I learned to use desktop publishing programs, researched landlord/tenant laws in order to deal with the psychos I rented from. On the positive side, that was the year I found I loved opera late at night with all the lights turned off, found the perfect green to paint the living room, and refinished the hardwood floors.
2. What are 5 things on your to-do list?
Hike up Stone Mountain, sell my house, learn to hand-tint photographs, take the god-awful silver polish off my toenails, buy a bike and ride it, go to the Dalmatian Coast. Is that 6?
3. What are 5 snacks you really enjoy?
Weight Watchers ice cream bars if Mr. Alberta hasn't eaten them all, Wheat Thins, lemon gelato, bananas, coffee.
4. Name some places you've lived.
south central Mississippi; New Orleans; near-Memphis, Tennessee; Georgia; under the bush across the street with my imaginary friend Linda (but that was a long time ago)
5. Name some bad habits you have.
Denying reality, making excuses, being too exacting with Amaryllis and Magenta, putting on lipstick while I'm driving, being shy.
6. Name some jobs you've had.
Wrapping gifts, baby-sitting, working for a newspaper, PR photographer, motion/efficiency research in a Pringles factory, waiting tables, weeding for a mail-order nursery, teaching GED math/life skills (basically calculating how much you can spend at Target if items are on sale AND you have a coupon), Alternative radio station DJ, filing transcripts, hardware salesperson, teaching English, and modeling.
Yes, I WAS a model--Bennett George took my picture sitting on the grass inside a ring of mushrooms and put it on the cover of the alumni magazine, mostly, I think, because I had long hair and a flowy white dress and he was probably high. That's it for the jobs, but I fully plan to become a published (and paid) writer.
5 people I plan to tag:
Magenta and/or
Amaryllis
Yellow Chicken
Funto
Maggie
Hannah
Here are the rules:
1. Each player answers questions about themselves.
2. At the end of the post, tag 5 people by posting their names.
3.Go to their site/blog and leave a comment telling them they've been tagged. Invite them to your site/blog so they can read the tagged post.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've completed your tagged post.
You have to answer these 6 questions:
What were you doing ten years ago?
What are five things on your to-do list?
What are five snacks you really enjoy?
List some places you've lived.
List some bad habits you have.
Name some jobs you've had.
1. What were you doing 10 years ago?
Like I remember.Amaryllis and Magenta were four, so I'm guessing that writing their names on masking tape and sticking it on their backs every day because their day care workers could never tell them apart took up a good deal of my time. Also that year, I learned to use desktop publishing programs, researched landlord/tenant laws in order to deal with the psychos I rented from. On the positive side, that was the year I found I loved opera late at night with all the lights turned off, found the perfect green to paint the living room, and refinished the hardwood floors.
2. What are 5 things on your to-do list?
Hike up Stone Mountain, sell my house, learn to hand-tint photographs, take the god-awful silver polish off my toenails, buy a bike and ride it, go to the Dalmatian Coast. Is that 6?
3. What are 5 snacks you really enjoy?
Weight Watchers ice cream bars if Mr. Alberta hasn't eaten them all, Wheat Thins, lemon gelato, bananas, coffee.
4. Name some places you've lived.
south central Mississippi; New Orleans; near-Memphis, Tennessee; Georgia; under the bush across the street with my imaginary friend Linda (but that was a long time ago)
5. Name some bad habits you have.
Denying reality, making excuses, being too exacting with Amaryllis and Magenta, putting on lipstick while I'm driving, being shy.
6. Name some jobs you've had.
Wrapping gifts, baby-sitting, working for a newspaper, PR photographer, motion/efficiency research in a Pringles factory, waiting tables, weeding for a mail-order nursery, teaching GED math/life skills (basically calculating how much you can spend at Target if items are on sale AND you have a coupon), Alternative radio station DJ, filing transcripts, hardware salesperson, teaching English, and modeling.
Yes, I WAS a model--Bennett George took my picture sitting on the grass inside a ring of mushrooms and put it on the cover of the alumni magazine, mostly, I think, because I had long hair and a flowy white dress and he was probably high. That's it for the jobs, but I fully plan to become a published (and paid) writer.
5 people I plan to tag:
Magenta and/or
Amaryllis
Yellow Chicken
Funto
Maggie
Hannah
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Inspire me Thursday: The Envelope--A note to Elvis goes in mine
Dear The King-
I went to your house last week and this was on the radio in my car:
"The Mississippi Delta is shining like a national guitar.
I am following the river down the highway through the cradle of the Civil War."
But those aren't my words and what's the simile about anyway?
My Delta smells like when you come over the hills from Philadelphia in the evening and roll the car window down and inhale the fertilizer mixed with Malathion, and
you can tell it's summer in Mississippi.
But that's not quite as elegant, so I start over:
Dear Elvis:
My mother claims some friend of hers in college dated you just the least little bit,
"Oh, we didn't think that much of him," she says with that look you'd have to live with her to get.
It probably had something to do with Tupelo and truck driving and behind your ear, that cigarette.
But Mother would never even let us call her "Mom", if you know what I mean.
When I went to Graceland, so many had written messages to you on the retaining walls and the ground, and I found four signed with my own name, but in the end, I just took a picture of my feet by one written on the sidewalk, and I had painted my toenails silver for the occasion.
So, here's my letter to the King of Rock and Roll:
Dear Elvis,
You were always on my mind.
Love,
Ava
I went to your house last week and this was on the radio in my car:
"The Mississippi Delta is shining like a national guitar.
I am following the river down the highway through the cradle of the Civil War."
But those aren't my words and what's the simile about anyway?
My Delta smells like when you come over the hills from Philadelphia in the evening and roll the car window down and inhale the fertilizer mixed with Malathion, and
you can tell it's summer in Mississippi.
But that's not quite as elegant, so I start over:
Dear Elvis:
My mother claims some friend of hers in college dated you just the least little bit,
"Oh, we didn't think that much of him," she says with that look you'd have to live with her to get.
It probably had something to do with Tupelo and truck driving and behind your ear, that cigarette.
But Mother would never even let us call her "Mom", if you know what I mean.
When I went to Graceland, so many had written messages to you on the retaining walls and the ground, and I found four signed with my own name, but in the end, I just took a picture of my feet by one written on the sidewalk, and I had painted my toenails silver for the occasion.
So, here's my letter to the King of Rock and Roll:
Dear Elvis,
You were always on my mind.
Love,
Ava
He painted silence and stillness and light
I've been watching art critic Sister Wendy on Vermeer. He lived in a house in Delft with his wife, his mother-in-law, and his eleven children; I knew that, but it never occurred to me that Vermeer painted with the same craving that drives me to the woods to run down trails---the craving for solitude. Vermeer's subjects, placid Dutch women, are bathed in light, and they're all so still. You can almost hear dust motes floating around them in sunlight, they're so still.
I run through the other Dutch painters I know--Rembrandt, Cuyp, Rubens, Mondrian, Hals, de Kooning. I dismiss them as too stiff, too marine, too primary, too cavalier, too expressionist, too just notVermeer. Only one, Adrienne Coortje, captured the light in raspberries and asparagus as Vermeer did with silks and tiled floors. His tiny oils had the same timeless luminescence.
What's more beautiful than light? The light of winter dusk backlighting stark black branches, late afternoon sun stretching out a shadow till it's twice its length, a watch crystal flinging spangles onto a painted wall. If I could only see one thing in my last moment, it might be the flash of sun on water or wood or the hair of someone I loved, or heck, it doesn't even have to be someone I love; Keanu Reeves' or David Beckham's hair would do just fine. What I'm after here is the physical property of beauty. What Vermeer saw when he locked the door against his eleven children and wife and mother-in-law, the peace in which to savor these blessings and the time to watch light shimmering and sparkling in his mind's eye without interruption.
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