A Day at the Met

I’m enjoying a wonderful day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City today. Bus from Boston, check in at the hotel, cab ride to the Met and California (statue inspired by the California Gold Rush).

Almost Japan

I have never been to China but I love the peaceful paintings of snow on pine. The view outside my office window this morning reminds of those paintings.

Do It Yourself Purse

I spent hours online looking for a crossbody bag to carry my ipad – something lightweight and discreet. Most messenger bags large enough for an ipad but small enough for a petite women were either too heavy, too large or too cutsie.  Nearing the end of my allotted time to spend on this project (as it was becoming too much like work)  I stumbled across www.timbuk2.com and found that I could create my own bag.  They have several styles and fabrics, many geared towards women.  Being able to design my own petite, lightweight and femininemessenger bag was a god-send!I hate worrying about my purse so I’ve always worn crossbody style bags.  I needed something with a little padding but I didn’t want anything that looked like I had a computer inside.  This x-small bag was the perfect solution and the fact that I could design it myself was really great.  For all you ladies in the same bind, take a look at this website.  They aren’t cheap but nothing worth having ever is.   Sorry for the crappy photos!!

Orange interior makes it easy to find items, too!

Getting Ready

For about 8 years I have been selling Christmas ornaments online.  Each year my mother and I take a buying trip and choose what that year’s stock will be.  Last year was the first time we had to travel far to do our buying.  In previous years we just went a few towns over.

Wonderful Dreams

Halloween is the demarcation line for us.  We spend the summer checking in stock, photographing them, folding tissue paper, and cutting huge rolls of bubble wrap into neat 12″ x 12″ squares.  But, on November 1st we go into “lock down” mode.  Our lives become the ornaments.  I’ll get up a little earlier as the season wears on, go to bed a little later and homemade suppers will get simpler until they are non-existent.

Wild Animals

With all this work and sacrifice, you would think we made a lot of money at it.  Every year sales improve and our profit margin grows (thankfully!) but if we had to pay for our labor we wouldn’t be able to run the business.  After the expenses are paid, the rest goes into next year’s stock.  As the profit grows, so does our inventory.  It is a pretty simple business – exhausting, but simple.

Living History

It is hard to put in words why I do this every year but the simple answer is I love owning and touching beautiful things – even if it is just for a short time.  There’s something more to it, though.

Life's Little Stings

Christmas ornaments are precious items.  It doesn’t matter what it costs, $1 or $100, each one says something about the person who gave it and the person who received it.  That’s what makes even a mass produced, poorly painted plastic Christmas ornament special – it was given and received with love.

That’s why I do it.

Nirvana - Hopefully

Walking with Kings

Last year, just about on this day, JeanPaul and I rode a rickety golf cart through the desert towards the Valley of the Kings.  I had asked him what he wanted for his 50th birthday.  He said he wanted to go on vacation – somewhere on a boat.  He didn’t care where so I picked the destination.  We needed a plane to get from the boat in Alexandria to the desert west of Luxor but that was a minor detail.

In my head the desert is filled with sand but here, in Egypt, it was gravelly, rocky.  Oh, and HOT.  110 degrees by 9:30 in the morning.  Before entering the Valley, we had to unpack our pockets, leave cameras behind and enter the ancient Necropolis with just the clothes we came with.  Sort of like the way the pharaohs were brought here.

Our guide, Bahgat, wasn’t allowed to enter the tombs with us but he gave us as much information about what we would see as he could.  As we entered each tomb, a turbaned Egyptian stamped our ticket, flipped on the lights and escorted us into the depths.  He pointed his flashlight here and there, mumbled a few unrelated English words and waited.  Then he put his hand out.

After the 2nd tomb, we figured it out – flash money if you want to see THE REST of the tomb.  We did and … we did.  He took us down into Ramses VI tomb beyond the locked gates and into the burial chamber.  He walked us around pointing out details with his slowly fading flashlight and told us where to touch the sarcophagus of the great ruler.  He said it would bring us long, fruitful life.  Ramses had 250 children so I guess he’d be an expert in fruitfulness.  That said, no one seems to know how many wives he had. I’m guessing more than a few.

By the time we emerged into the hot sun, it was nearing noon and the Valley was empty.  Workers were settling under shadowed rocky overhangs to eat lunch and take their nap.  Bahgat was waiting, urging us towards the carts – our group was waiting for us.  It went on that way for the rest of our visit to Egypt – we flashed a few Egyptian pounds and got a private tour of some special place.  And, we were always running to catch up with the group.

It seems when we are all on vacation, we take hundreds of pictures as a way of remembering our out-of-the-ordinary experience.  In Egypt, we had so many of these experiences but so few photos because we weren’t allowed to take our cameras pretty much everywhere we went.  Without all those digital reminders,  I have to rely on the depth of the experience, how much time I spent being there, rather than recording being there.    I wish I were a better writer so I could share my experience of this place with you.  “Amazing” doesn’t come close.   Is there a place that touched you?

Renaissance Man

Art is simplicity.   In a world where multi-tasking has become a cult and complexity worshiped, art becomes superfluous.  Simply unneeded and unimportant.  Or does it?

I was at my doctor’s office  a few months back for my just before the treatments meeting.  We were having our risks and benefits discussion.  He spoke a bit about the complexity of the human body and how he was amazed the thing works at all.   It brought to mind the ancient Greek sculptor, Praxiteles.

Hermes by Praxiteles

This master of simplicity was able to cloak the complexity of the body in a soft mantle of marble.  He made the human body beautiful and elegant, in action and in repose.   Thousands of years later, no one has been able to match his gift.  Not even (dare I say it?) the blessed Michaelangelo.

There are artists who change things forever:  Praxiteles, Vitruvius, Michelangelo, Bach.   They frame the forms and define the endeavor.  Steve Jobs created complex machinery and in that way, he is the Edison of our time.    But how he chose to display it makes him the Praxiteles of our time. Like the great sculptor, he took cold, hard materials and made them soft and fluid.  He took mind boggling complexity and made it simple.

ipad by Jobs

There are artists who have singular gifts to give humanity.   They are not replaceable and the world mourns the loss for centuries.  Steve Jobs is one of those humans.   And his art?  Certainly NOT superfluous.

Precious Things

Nancy’s daughter became a wife recently.  My parents and I traveled to Chase City, Virginia for the wedding.  She was beautiful, the wedding lovely, the food delicious.  The marriage took place southern style – in front of a huge magnolia tree on the front lawn of an impressive Victorian mansion.

She wore Nancy’s wedding gown and had a photo of her nearby.  I knew she couldn’t be there but she would have really wanted to be.  As I watched her daughter become a wife, I felt her right next to me.  I felt her hold my hand and whisper to me about what a beautiful bride her daughter was and how proud she felt.  In life, Nancy always came and went in a whirlwind.  It’s sort of still the same – she surprises me with her presence and just as quickly leaves.

I never thought her children looked much like her – they are beautiful but not in the exotic, dark skinned way of their mother.  Still, I see her in them – Jessica especially.  I can’t quite put my finger on how she looks like Nancy.  It is ethereal but unmistakeable.

I watched this young woman deeply in love marry a man equally as in love and my heart was in my throat, still is.  I prayed to every God I could think of to bless this woman, this marriage.

Aside from beauty and intelligence which she inherited from her Mom, Jessica also inherited a house.  This house is full of precious things collected over the years by her husband’s grandmother.  She gave me the tour – showed me the silver and teapots, the statues and vases.  One mandolin playing, pantaloon wearing dancer caught my eye.

My precious thing now lives in that house and one of hers lives in my house.  I pray the gods bless both homes.

Getting Home

I just got home from the hospital and felt the need to share an incredible experience I had today.  It’s been a whole YEAR since I’ve had a round of treatments.  My choice, really.  The complications from last year’s sessions were uncomfortable and unnerving.  So, I put them off for as long as I could – at least until my doctor admonished me.

For eight hours I’m tied down to 2 machines.  Thank heavens the chair is comfortable and the bathroom nearby.  Anyway, I like to watch a movie during each session.  Usually a classic – what men would call a chic flick with old fashioned clothes.  Seldom in any of our lives can we enjoy a 4 hour extravaganza of a movie so I chose this session to watch Cleopatra.  You know the one -  with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.   It was beautiful, amazing, stunning.  What else can I say?  It is the perfect old fashioned clothes chic flick.  Taylor is stunning, Burton gorgeous.

See what I mean?

Elizabeth Taylor once told the story of falling in love with Richard Burton on the set of this film.  I watched both of the them closely and I can say I felt the electricity between them.  You can see her swallow nervously during one of the close scenes.   The next time you get the chance to have a girls’ night in – you might want to check this film out.  It is available from iTunes for rent for $2.99.

Must Read Cleopatra Bio

Check out my library link to the right to see some of the new biographies on Cleopatra.  It is too bad that she has come down through history so poorly.  Fall in love with a couple of the most powerful men in the world, have their kids so they won’t destroy your country and voila! – you are a harlot.  I think most women of her day would have thought her quite clever.  The Egyptians loved her during her reign.  Unfortunately, men – Roman men – got to write her story.    Good thing she predated the Christians.  I don’t think she would have fared any better than Joan d’Arc.

The real Cleopatra (Berlin, Germany)

Okay, so the row of ram headed sphinx aren’t exactly historically accurate and the scenery is a bit kitchy but still,  I honestly loved every minute of this film.  Check out the row of sphinx late in the movie when Elizabeth goes back to Alexandria after they are beaten by Octavian.  Here’s what they really look like – with little pharoahs under the rams’ chins.  Let me know if you liked the film, too.

Ram Sphinx from Karnak Temple, Egypt

A Blessing

I’m not quite sure if we’ve been given a blessing or not.  We moved 4 weeks ago and within a few days of moving, I noticed Borgia wasn’t right.  She would walk into the backyard and stand there.  It was as if she’d forgotten why she was there and when I called her, she didn’t seem to be able to tell from which direction my voice had come.  That’s unusual for her.  Then I noticed her mouth was pale, inside her ears, too.

Cayden & Borgia Yesterday

I was worried but she’s been eating fine, doing her “business” fine, etc.  Everything about her just a little slower than usual.  Both Moses and Borgia had their annual appointment with the vet yesterday.  She’s not doing well at all, it turns out.  Something inside is destroying her red blood cells and destroying them at a prodigious rate.  Her body isn’t trying to replace them.

She’s been my little girl dog for 11.5 years.  I picked her out of a litter when she was 6 weeks old and she’s been my constant companion ever since.  JeanPaul calls her “Mommy’s little girl”.   My vet told me I am days away from losing her.  She may suffer or she may pass away in her sleep.  I have an appointment tomorrow at the vet because I don’t want her to suffer.

This morning I’m wondering if we’ve been given a blessing or not.

My Beautiful Borgia

 

Joining Forces

I’ve lived most of my adult life alone except for a well tempered cat and two lovable dogs.  I don’t really know why that is as I think I am pretty easy to get along with.   Be that as it may (or may not be), I’ve left more relationships than I can count on both hands – mostly because I need more time, either with them or without them.

Borgia at Rest

In each case, they have asked me what would it take for me to stay.  When I tell them, their answer has usually been “I mean anything but that…”  When JeanPaul asked me this question, and I told  him, he said “Okay, I can give you that.”  He’s won my heart, again.

Our past

Nothing is forever.  That lesson life feels the need to teach me daily.  But, some things are meant to last a lifetime.  JeanPaul and I have made our new home together, just a few doors down from his old home.  His old home is reserved for his children’s future.  Our new home is meant for our future.

Our future