Dave, spousal unit/mysterious airport gift giver, also does his best to send us postcards from many of the destinations which his business takes him. We always learn something. Before, whenever anyone mentioned “Sweden,” I would think of filmmaker, Igmar Bergman, and of ABBA.  Now I can add to this short list, the strapping Swedish royal family. That would be some party, wouldn’t it?

When Dave calls me our conversations go like this.

“So how’s it going?”

“Ok, I guess. If you like terrible weather. I’m not ready for the meeting and  I’ve got a lousy view from my hotel room.”

“But what have you been doing?”

“Nothing. Just sitting around in my room. I could watch television, but all that’s on are creepy black and white Swedish movies. I had to go out to dinner. Nothing that great. Just some Swedish people.”

The Seventh Seal, 1957 Swedish drama

He tries to make me think business traveling stinks. I  appreciate that.  I can look out the window and make myself feel better, imagining his generic hotel room and him looking out his.  I see trees and grass, but he, poor thing,  looks out over graffiti covered walls and parking lots. And has to eat dinner and play nice with pale Swedish people, while we call Dominos.

Bless his heart that as rough as he has it, he still goes to the trouble of sending postcards at all. We rarely receive them until after he’s been home a week or two. But unlike many countries, Sweden has an extremely efficient post office. This postcard of the Swedish royal family arrived a mere three days after it was sent.

Nov.6 2009 Stockholm, Sweden

Hello Ladies, I had a nice dinner...

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I'm glad an El Camino can't fit on a plane

Dave hasn’t backed away from his story from my last post. Actually, after reading the blog and the comments, he seems more determined than ever to stand up for the veracity of his unlikely tale.

I started to offer him Jane’s advice that from now on, I would prefer to receive only towels and jewelry as gifts – the reason being that since towels are bulky and usually aren’t available at the airport, it would protect me from future “serendipitous”, “romantic,” and ultimately “butt ugly” gifts. One problem though is that after this last trip he gave me one other present:

Not butt ugly, but DISH towels

He claims he didn’t buy these dish towels at the airport. Shall I believe him? Will this madness never end?

Humm… I find myself growing bitter…  Do you think I would have gotten airport bling if he hadn’t already purchased that artwork that was calling our names?:

Still butt ugly. BUT interesting.

Per Busy Bee Suz’s advice, I have hung my personalized, computer generated Monet in an out of the way place.

It replaced this:

All I know is it has something to do with Chinese opera

I may have recently become an enlightened person who doesn’t believe in coincidences. Still I’m thinking we were dumb as bricks to allow the above picture hang on our master bathroom wall for five years.  Dave just told me that it was given to him by a Chinese businessman who was trying to buy his company. We have no idea what it is, or what it means. We thought it would be funny to hang it up in the bathroom. FAIL.

I sincerely believe that if we hadn’t...

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My husband, David, known better as “Dave,” got home today after a long business trip to a bunch of foreign countries he’d never been to before.

One night, leaving a restaurant in Cape Town, South Africa, a picture being displayed by a street vendor on a busy street caught his eye. Since he hates shopping, this picture must have been very special. His eyes would have certainly passed right over it, except for one salient detail. That this detail didn’t involve a Victoria’s Secret model or American football makes it even more amazing.

Spotting our names together on this picture felt like a weird dream, he said.  I refused to believe him, because this is the kind of prank he pulls on me all of the time. It’s part of our relationship’s shtick: him, the straight-faced wiseacre; me, the spacey blonde.

Over the years the spaciness and blondness have dissipated. I’ve wizened. So I did just as any wife of more than two decades would: I made this poor jetlagged man fight for my gullibility.

When he claimed the piece was the only example offered by the vendor, not an example, I merely rolled my eyes. Ten full minutes of strenuous convincing later, I finally accepted he was telling the truth.

Why the change? Because I couldn’t help but notice that this picture is butt ugl- … um, I mean… not exactly my taste. I figured he knew that I’d kill him if he went to such extremes as to personalize, pay for, and haul something so… so…. butt ugl… um… not exactly my taste, all the way home from South Africa to South Carolina for the sake of fleecing me.

Is that not weird and kind of cool? Both that the picture was there and that he spotted it? What do you think...

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We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude. ~Cynthia Ozick

First thing this morning I was in a pissy mood. There’s  the rain, torrents of it. Then along with that comes a really bad hair day. Then there was Lily the Labradoodle tracking mud and water all over the house, and looking much more thrilled about it than she should, if you ask me. And as always the ringing phone, a mountain of laundry and the writing.

If I were to show you a picture of how I felt, I might have shown you the one above. In my tortured state of suburban angst, I would be  hopelessly locked on this side of life; the side that is a little grey and boring. I would be annoyed and more than a little covetous, all because of  what I only thought I could see through the slats.

Then I remembered today, November 11 is Veterans Day.

To the over 20 million living US veterans, I sincerely thank you for giving us the privilege of living in a country where we are often allowed to forget that freedom isn’t free.

That I’d written a blog post on a Monday morning was great. The reality of my netbook battery dying just as my finger was about to press “save,” spelled “potential turning point.”

Suddenly there was a distinct possibility that I would quit NaNoWriMo, blogging, flossing and cooking dinner.

When I didn’t know I had ADHD those inevitable messy parts of daily life would take me on, and most often, win. I accepted it as normal that I would jet over to the opposite end of zen, and mentally torture myself with loathing words such as, “Why bother? You’re going to eventually fail anyway!”

But today I’m taking charge of this moment, which pulses with potential disaster thanks to my deleted post (which, by the way, was GREAT). Instead of quitting everything, I’m “going random.” By Tuesday, the traditional day of blogging randomness, I plan to have moved forward. Besides, I’m not feeling the least bit musical, which we all know would be more appropriate, because in the blogging realm it is Musical Monday.  But I’ve broken up with appropriate.

“Going random” isn’t quitting. It is simply a tempered blogging equivalent of “going postal.” *Repeat*

I dedicate this post in honor of all bloggers and writers who have ever hit “delete” by mistake. I’m in week two of NaNoWriMo and for some reason that may be misguided, I am determined to still post here every few days. This isn’t because I think anyone is waiting out there with baited breath or anything ego-maniacal...

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I am a 40 something female and mother to two teenager girls. To my husband’s chagrin, we consume, ie – buy stuff, somewhat majorly. In spite of the bad economy, our credit card bills prove we’re sure doing our part to improve it.

It’s doubtful anyone in Hollywood gives a damn how I feel about anything. But I’m here to tell you I see myself and those who share my views on many of the products that are aimed with laser-like precision at teenage audiences – particularly female – as a new “inconvenient truth.”

All  Mama Bear asks is that you please stop sexualizing younger and younger women.

I think girls have it pretty hard these days and have to put up with a lot of garbage being shoved into both their conscious and subconscious minds. As a group, I don’t see where young women have moved either forwards or backwards in recent years. Actually I sometimes think the whole world’s headed straight towards hell. For the record that doesn’t make me a right wing wack job. I know you love absurd generalizations, but that doesn’t even make me part of the right wing.

The other day I was all over Teen Vogue. Today it’s that charming little show called Gossip Girl, which since day one has billed itself, quite effectively and accurately as “a parent’s worst nightmare.”

Grab a hard hat, perhaps a xanax and Tivo a few episodes of The Good Wife. Big Announcement: I don’t want my teenagers, or anyone else’s to be  exposed to an episode of Gossip Girl being referred to by the CW network  as  a “Very Special Threesome”

The upcoming episode was also promoted this way: “three major characters having sex. At the same...

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Call me a prude if you want, but I would prefer models on the cover of magazines bearing the word “teen” not be pregnant.

Before I learned about the pregnant teenage model on the cover of this month’s issue of Teen Vogue, I already wasn’t a big fan of this particular magazine. Jourdan Dunn, 19, was pregnant at the time of the cover shoot in which she appeared with fellow teen model, Chanel Iman. I was surprised that when Teen Vogue found out about the pregnancy, they went ahead and published the planned cover. For around ten whole seconds.

Jourdan Dunn, iconic enough at 19 to be referred to only by her first name, in an interview which can also be found in the November issue, recounts how difficult it was to tell her mother, her agency and her boyfriend about her “unplanned” pregnancy.

Was I hoping Teen Vogue would at least take the opportunity to talk about about birth control? Maybe. Would I have preferred the cover be pulled? Not necessarily. However I could have done without vogue.com’s headline when Dunn’s pregnancy was announced this past July:

Expecting in Style: What the Pregnant Jourdan Should Wear this Fall

I’m sure this young woman is absolutely lovely both inside and out. But she is a model. Clearly not a role model for 13 – 17 year old girls. Yeah, I know. The above article about rocking a stylish pregnancy was on the regular vogue.com. But seriously – would the Vogue reader really be missing out on anything at all if it wasn’t the teenage Jourdan who was featured?

In reaction to Jourdan talking about how her mother was blaming herself for giving birth to Jourdan at the same young age, Teen Vogue responded,

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If the book I am going to draft for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)  is a soundtrack, I wouldn’t mind if Brandi Carlile’s new album, Give Up the Ghost, was it. I just can’t listen to it when I’m actually putting pen to page.

Let me explain. I think it’s part of my ADHD that listening to music during the act of writing doesn’t work for me. After much experimentation, the only music I can safely count on to leave me in a safe writing zone is cello music.

During all other times, I find music to be essential. Part of what makes writing such a great way to live is that writers, if they are doing their job well, are always observing, thinking, and imagining.During those hours between actually putting pen to paper, the right music provides a doorway. Everything from jazz to Mozart to heavy metal can express and in turn, provoke, all the thoughts and moods that novelists are challenged to put into long strings of full sentences and paragraphs.

As an angsty teen, it was Carly Simon and Carol King whose songs whispered with the pain, love and sincerity of a favorite novel. They were the first female singer/songwriters I loved. More recently there’s been Shawn Colvin and Mindy Smith.  Now Brandi Carlile joins my list of “keepers.” Her clarion singing and songwriting voice has the same rare ability to sweep me into  a world of emotional possibility.

Carlile’s music is a little bit country,a little rock n’roll. She has a musically talented, kick ass band. On one of my favorite songs, Pride and Joy, the way she uses her voice makes my arm hair stand on end. On this same track, powerful orchestrations meet, but don’t overwhelm her singing voice.

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Part Two of what I am calling my “stress dream related the upcoming NaNoWriMo and perhaps everything else in my life.” Part One can be found here.

Because the alternative of being left half naked in a parking lot with the wild, book club/intellectual crafter-chasing paparazzi after me, sounds much worse, I climb into the back seat of the behemoth of a vintage Cadillac – but make sure I sit by the door.

Survival through this strange night hinges on a right moment meeting a quick exit strategy. I’ve lost my voice; no one will hear my requests, so my hand clutches the door handle ready to make a move. The cover of darkness allows me to pretend to be the same age as my fellow passengers whom I realize now to be very young. The big phony best not draw attention to herself.

Every now and then the Cadillac dispenses one or two of us on a corner, as if it were a city bus. I am unaware of a driver and only assume there is one. Vaguely familiar street signs flip by, as if in a flash book. Aren’t all street signs vaguely familiar and alike? Black skyscrapers loom overhead. Apart from the occasional light emitting from a high floor window, the buildings are unrecognizable as being apart from stars.

At a seedy city convenience store, the driver confidently wheels his vehicle into a parking space as if he owns it. Florescent lighting throws a bluish cast on the scene and in the silence emits a discernible hum. The driver leaves. I am left with the same guy I did not trust to hide me from the paparazzi back at book club.

I pull my phone from my pocket and check to be sure it’s really dead. Reluctantly I ask my reluctant hero if I can borrow his. Just as...

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I'm going to start drinking chocolate at bedtime. How did I not know about this stuff before?

Last night I wore my pajamas to book club. These pajamas are not of the kind that will ever be mistaken for Oprah- loving loungewear. Really they aren’t pajamas at all, but $6.99 Costco pajama pants with holes in them. To complete this glamorous outfit I paired them with  one of my husband’s ratty old tee-shirts.

When I leave the book club in a little while, I will have somehow managed to lose these comfortable, but embarrassing pajama pants. I’ll get back to that. In case you’re wondering, this is a dream. In honor of starting NaNoWriMo in two days, I am going to show through this dream that this week, I officially am a brain freak.

I can’t remember the hostess’s name, but at least I had finished the book for this month. I forget that I am the book club secretary until the meeting has been going on for about an hour. Managing to only disturb half the women in the room, I obtain a  working pen from a member who is familiar with my scattered ways. She sits clear across the room. About this same time, despite my ready optimism, I realize I read the wrong book. The Book Thief. The Good Thief. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. My Sister’s Keeper. Who? What?

Thankfully the president calls for our “intermission”. For reasons that I believe are very clear, I love the idea. Everyone else exits the room as if rushing a concession stand for a popcorn refill – or maybe to catch an airplane.

When we reconvene mere seconds later, I am prepared with working pen poised in hand.  I am even feeling better about wearing pajamas. The realization that this is not my...

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