gone but not forgotten

sadly she passed away last night. i fly out tomorrow night to be with family and friends for a celebration of her life. the stories will come pouring out i am sure, over martinis i hope. just wanted to say thanks for all the well wishes, it was muchly appreciated. i am sure she is grinning up a storm over it in a cyber cafe in a corner of heaven. you wouldn't believe the high speed access there! incidentally it is also my blog bday today.

finder of four leaf clovers

my grandma could use a bit of good karma, prayer, and well wishes right about now. she's sick in hospital in critical care. here's a pic of her just last summer when she visited. it's at the drake. she hates photos of herself but i love this one of her. she is a definate free spirit, always finds four leaf clovers, and celebrates her birthday with a martini every year. she is the kind of person who likes to seek out wild flowers and make bouquets, totally has a creative, artistic streak. back in the day, she had a flair for wild hats and leather pants. there are just so many great things about her. she is sweet and a total original. thinking of you grandma and wishing you the inner strength to get thru this tough time, i know you have it in you.

road trip'in

sometimes you just have to get out of dodge, you know? take the road less travelled, amble further than you would on any other saturday. audrey and i did just that this past weekend. we went across the border to a place with trees like cathedrals, pathways dotted with fairies and angels, and welcoming porches with a beckoning lake just beyond. of course, no road trip would be complete without the roadside diner experience -- in our case, dinner at bob evan's. it's like denny's only slightly more upscale, lots o'meat and freshly baked country biscuits with a pat o butta. we played this game on the way home where we pointed at stuff out the window and yelled out random words, so instead of house it was freckle, or instead of street lamp it was chia pet.
the exercise was supposed to free you from your dull, predictable state of being, make everything seem brighter and crisper. try it. i didn't think it would work but it did! totally frees up your mind to make new associations. i think this would be a good exercise to get someone out of writer's block. anyhow, the weekend was a lark. definately glad i went.

once

see.this.movie. if it is possible for a musical movie not to seem cheezy, here's the proof. here's one movie where it make sense for the songs to be there and it really shows the collaboration and creative process for song writing in a convincing manner. it is quirky, feels authentic. a beautiful unconventional story that doesn't cave to convention. the lead is an irish musician and the music -- great. itunes was sold out of soundtracks when we checked out the site after the movie.

lucky seven

07.07.07 Can you just feel the luck oozing from today? i'm hoping i am the 7 millionth person to write this on a blog in cyber space. bring it on baby! bonus points for 7 comments, i know you can do it. even if holding expectations on numbers seems kinda silly it sure can be fun. welcoming all lucky or unlucky seven stories...

on fire

lean too close to the flames and you will get burned. this week, at laughing meditation i scalded my hands on spilt tea, also burned my tongue and my lip on the calm cool sounding white cloud tea.then wednesday i left a hand towel on a still warm burner (for thirty seconds) as i was making some ancient grains on another burner...what's that smell? smoldering, smoking, burning hand towel. totally smoked the place out. had to throw the burning towel outside douse with water, turn on all the fans and open all windows and the door. i even ran the shower for a bit hoping the moisture would remove the cloud of smoke lingering near the ceiling throughout the place. a day later, it still smells like smoke in here faintly. yeesh. whatta week. thankfully these were just small misfortunes, really it could have been worse so i thank my lucky stars. still, seems kinda funny these two burning moments so close together...maybe the universe it trying to tell me something.