Life goes on

I'm back in business...happily ensconced in front of CBS Sunday morning with my new Toshiba lap top and still trying to learn my way around Windows 7.  So far I can't say I'm in love with it as it has some quirky stuff going on but perhaps I will get used to it.  And slowly I'm coming to grips with what I lost when my old one crashed.  But what the hey, it's only stuff and I can create again.
Has anyone tried hooping?  My friend Rowan teaches it and has a full page article this morning in the Houston Chronicle.  Dancing with a heavier hoop swirling around one's middle.  Rowan is teaching it and has lost 50 lbs. and looks great.  I think I'm ready to try it as my workouts at the gym don't seem to be doing something about my middle, darn it.
Friday was a total loss...it was the day for my colonoscopy check-up.  If you haven't had this lovely procedure, the prep the day before is the worst, really the worst.  Imagine the worst stomach virus only this time you are experiencing it on purpose...cleaning out your whole system before the procedure that takes about 20 minutes.  DH took me over at 6:30 am and the waiting room was crowded....geezus, all these folk volunteering for this?  So I was taken to Bay 3, told to strip to my socks and put on the paper gown.  Soon a pleasant nurse named Jackie took my vitals and put in a catheter for an IV.  There must have been 12 bays in this little hospital and they were all full of beds moving in and out.  Soon it was my turn and it was grand Central Station with a traffic jam of gurneys rolling in and out, some with patients knocked out.  I was rolled into the op room and greeted my doctor for the first time and looked around at various screens as I lay under the bright lights.  A nurse came with two vials of the magic stuff and put them into the catheter.  I was out like a light and here comes the problem.  I'm very sensitive to any kind of anesthetic and don't remember anything for quite a while after that.  The procedure went fine, I'm fine and don't have to do it again for 5 years but the problem was afterwards.  My husband said I started falling when I tried to get into the car, the nurse caught me and helped me in.  I have no memory of getting dressed, getting into a wheel chair, being rolled out to the car and barely anything until I woke up in my own bed around noon.  My husband was so worried that I would fall getting out of the car at home that he drove around for a while so I would come to.  He stopped at Starbuck's and got me a giant coffee which seemed to help and got me home and into bed.  So weird to have no memory of all of that.  This drug is designed to allow one to respond but not remember what goes on while you are on it...guess it is kin to the "date-rape" drug.  It is scary to think what could have happened if I had fallen at home.  I think the docs in there are going "ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching" every time they roll another one in.  Not a comforting feeling!  What else would motivate a guy to spend his working hours sending cameras up people's asses? 

Weekly Entertainment from Entertainment Weekly

Sorry I have no illustrations for this....but in a recent article in a popular magazine a performer's vocals were described as a "singing orgasm."  Now there's a thought.  I do recall orgasms that left me singing but I can't recall any singing orgasms by me or any of my partners.  However I'm not ruling out that possibility.  Are there voice coaches for that?  Or would it be a specialty of a sex therapist?  What exactly should I ask when inquiring about this training and how long does one have to train to become skilled in singing orgasms?  Would such a coach take on a more mature student?  Mature, not old, just mature.  And does Medicare cover this service?  I'm trying to imagine just where one's focus might be in all of this.  It sounds challenging...like trying to pat one's head, chew gum, and rub one's tummy counter-clock wise at the same time but then I'm not a singer.
      I wonder what my husband would say if I suddenly broke out in an aria from Aida or Madam Butterfly but then he is a fan of Gilbert & Sullivan.  Maybe he would be happier with something from the H.M.S. Pinafore...probably better rhythm in that.  Also I wonder if a costume or wig is necessary for this magical experience.  Perhaps we should consider a duet.  We could do ads for Viagra...big or little ones depending on its success.

How did I get to this point?

Still no computer...it is a matter finances really.  I would love an Apple but will probably be limited to a PC.  But what I have come to grips with is how dependent I have become in just a decade on this little machine.  The rest of the world seems to run on one and so do I.  Are we just communication sluts?  Addicted to knowing?  I am amazed at the chunk of time I now have without it.  I even rediscovered my handwriting yesterday preparing for my memoir class.  But let me tell you, folks, I don't write as well by hand...I really don't.  thoughts get lost while tediously moving the pen across the page.  Other writers tell me they have a different experience and write first by hand and then edit it onto the computer. 
I was so hoping to have a new lap top for the workshops I'm going to with Max Regan this weekend but alas, I doubt it....it occurs to me I could have a big step toward the new computer if I didn't go to the workshops but I really want to go and will be happy to be there writing by hand while everyone else is clicking away.
Another sign of aging...I rediscovered some memoirs I wrote about 5 years ago and they are better written than what I wrote yesterday.  Darn!...What is going on here?  Is it my memory or just my thinking process cluttered with other stuff?  A bifarcation point?

Oh no...Murphy's Law

My computer crashed!  I've heard of others having the problem but yep, it has been verified!  There is no recovery of all those files that I didn't put on a CD.  All those pictures gone, all the documents vaporized.  The doctor said it was a fatal virus that there is no medication for, that there was no vacine for it in all the vacines that were current.    I'm borrowing my husband's computer now and trying to figure out what to get as a replacement and how to pay for it.  But I'm also noticing the amount of time that has been freed up.  No Facebook checking, no diddling around with other sites. 
     As for me there is no DSM IV diagnosis for computer loss.  It feels like an invasive attact, a violation.  How dare some varmint come and infect me!  Hmmm....and yet I feel like I have lost a close friend.  Maybe I should have a little ceremony in the back yard and bury the old one.  Two hundred years from now some land developer can dig it up and make some judgement about what it might be for.  Probably not...two hundred years from now this will probably be all under water if our society doesn't do somthing quick about global warming.  So how should I mark the grave?  Maybe a colorful flash drive glued to a stick.
       So now the question is:  Mac or PC?  Lots of folk tell me Mac and I am going this afternoon to a friend's house to play on her new one.  Any comments on the subject would be appreciated. 
        Dang....life is what happens when we are making other plans!  Off I go...hubby wants his toy back.

Ho hum...

Okay, this is getting old...all this gray and gloomy weather but it has put me indoors and getting stuff done.  I finished the jean jacket for granddaughter's birthday next week.  $19.95 at Target and I've spent $25 on trims and sequins.  It has a picture of Justin Bieber on the back; he's the latest teeny-bopper heart throb.  We are giving her tickets to his concert at the Houston Rodeo next month.  Last year I made her one with Taylor Swift on the back but she has lost status this year.  I love revamping these jackets with lace and buttons and stuff.  I can't sell them with the pictures on the backs as I feel sure the pictures are copy-righted even if I get them off the Internet. 
My studio is even cleaned up...holy moly.  About time, huh!  My writing class is going so well.  The teacher doesn't teach us anything which is rather odd but we learn by listening to each other's stories and oh what stories they are.  By now we are all so hooked into each other's dramas that we keep taking the class to keep up.  It would be nice however if every now and then the teacher added a little something but after 4 semesters I've given up.  When I run across an article that is about writing memoir, I send it on to class mates.  The teacher in me just can't help it.

Rolling down memory lane

Who says one can't go home again.  I do with my annual reunion in my home town of Austin.  It is hard to believe but this trio have been friends for more than sixty years; two of them for more than 66 years.  And we still have such a good time together.  I married following my junior year at UT and the other two married after graduation and we are still married to the same great guys who seem to have a great time together at our annual get togethers.  We bring pictures from high school slumber parties, junior high year books and laugh and giggle and gossip all over again.  Next meeting we have agreed to bring our wedding albums.  We feel so fortunate to still be healthy enough to get together and share our many blessings as we toddle into our elder years. 

We grew up in a post war age...after WWII and before Korea, a time of magic and dreams at the budding stage of women's liberation when the Ladies Home Journal was telling us to wrap ourselves in cellophane to greet our husbands at the door while our college degrees told us that we were fully capable of doing anything we wanted.  We three have rasied families, had careers, have volunteered in our communities, cared for aging or ill parents and have traveled widely on the planet.  We still find each other interesting and wise.  We have traded sodas and cookies for wine and cheese but never have lost our desire for good chocolate (that is a given, right?). 

There was no organ recital of our aches and pains though I know we have them but some honest discussion of our plans and concerns about the last stages of our lives, where we will live, who will care for us and what we would like when we make our transitions to our next life.  How many people do you know that you can have these honest discussions with?  I consider it a mark of friendships with deep roots.  We do go way back...we loved not only our own parents but each others.  I knew their siblings and envied them for having some.  One still has her precious mother alive, now 97.  We tease her about her good genes.

I am so grateful that I grew up in basically the same neighborhood all my life...3 different houses but the same neighborhood and my friends had the same experience.  We had to grow up and move on to experience how the rest of the world lived and worked but we were secure in our sense of self and place no matter where we ended up.  What a gift!

This afternoon my daughter and I took the Spectator bus from the Kemah parking lot to the Extreme Makeover building site. It was teeming with landscapers, contractors frantically trying to get it ready before the family with 12 children return tomorrow afternoon. It is almost scary to think that this house went up, all 6,000 sq ft of it, in a week. Workers were frantically trying to put in the landscaping today following the bull dozer across the yard. Tents were set up on a lot across the street for workers and volunteers. This whole family had been living in two trailers on their property since Hurrican Ike so there is a real need here. The family has four children of their own and 8 adopted kids, several of whom are special needs children. It has been fascinating and what a boon for Kemah as it has brought in good business for restaurants, Wal-Mart and Home Depot much less local contractors. The show should air the middle of March I was told so look for it. It is the biggest house the show has ever built. I would love to see the back yard as evidently they put in some awesome play stuff.
Rain is predicted for later this evening and tomorrow...darn. Some folks are planning to camp out at the site so they can have a front row when the family returns tomorrow. Geez...built so quickly, I pray this house is up to handling another hurricane if heaven forbid we should get another.
Notice the green structure at the back of the trailer obviously ready to go inside when it is time...should be interesting. There are 8 or 9 bedrooms in the house and I don't know how many bathrooms.

Mary Karr

My idol, Mary Karr, was in town last night speaking at the Hobby Center to a sold out audience.  She is funny, witty and has an amazing grasp on language and especially metaphor.  I was thrilled to have her sign my copy of Cherry, her wonderful memoir of her adolescent years and probably the best revelation of female teenage sexuality ever.  Nothing is sacred to Mary, few secrets not spread out like lacy underwear for all the world to see.  She is Texas through and through even though she is now living in NYC and teaching at Syracuse University and belongs up there with iconic Texas women like Molly Ivins and Ann Richards.  In the audience were two of her high school teachers from the little town in which she grew up and she honored them for working hard to keep her in school.  I can't wait until her latest book, Lit, arrives and want to collect more of her poetry.  She claims that all Texans speak metaphorically.  God, I wish that were true.  I think my dad came closer to it than my mom who was a stickler for "proper" English.  Metaphors are the spice of life and language and when I asked her if she thinks in metaphors, she answered a definite "Yes."

Someone asked her what she thought it was about the rather grim, derelict part of Texas around Pt. Arthur that has spawned such creative folk as herself, Janis Joplin and Robert Rauschenburg.  Her answer was that in such impoverished surroundings one was forced to create an inner life, one relied on one's own creativity to get through life.  I think she's so right about that.  It makes me sad to see my children and grandchildren rely so much on outside stimuli to be entertained.  My childhood was filled with imaginary games, homemade theater and dramatizations with imaginary characters and costume, drawing, reading and writing stories.  I would like to think that kids are still doing all that and that TV and video games haven't totally taken their place.  Guess time will tell.

New Year Intentions

My intentions for the year 2010...hmmm....
to love and be loved
to experience more joy and laughter
to experience wellness and gratitude every day
to give something somehow somewhere to someone every day
to commit to creating, writing and painting
to experience my work growing, developing and supported financially
to clean and clear more crap out of my house and my life
to eat healthy and exercise regularly
to continue to grow into my potential whatever that is and live it OUT LOUD
to travel
to be more patient with myself and others
to honor the wisdom that comes with being an grand old broad and negotiate the rest with dignity and some fashion of success
to have FUN doing it all

From the Daily Om

I gotta tell you...the Universe is listening in. I hadn't anymore written that last blog than this showed up on my Daily Horoscope:



January 8, 2010
Endings as Beginnings
Aries Daily Horoscope
A significant ending in your life could leave you feeling alone today and unsure of what is coming next. You may experience a sense of loss or feel abandoned because a phase of your life has come and gone. Solace can be found in the fact that all beginnings are preceded by endings. Though you may mourn for what has passed, try looking toward the future. You may find that in leaving your past behind, a myriad of opportunities are waiting to be discovered. Consider all that you once dreamt of and ask yourself which of those dreams you might find pleasure in resurrecting today. A fantasy that once tugged at your heartstrings could become a real goal for you.

Viewing an ending or loss as an opportunity for new beginnings can make moving into a new phase of life a more enjoyable experience. Though leaving a valued part of your life behind can sting, the fact that the future is not yet written means that there are infinite possibilities waiting for you. A period where you are encountering obstacles can be the best time to consider altering your course to create the life you desire. The pain that loss can cause can be the motivation that drives you to discover unknown worlds or immerse yourself in new knowledge. Endings are simply transitional periods that prepare us for the unknown. The ending that saddens you today will become the starting point for the next amazing phase of your journey.



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This is almost spooky.

Which way and what?

It is time that I get more serious about downsizing but to what and where? I really don't want to own again or at least that is my thought right now. I am tired of maintaining property. I want to call someone else when the faucet leaks and let them deal with scheduling the plumber; I want to call someone when the light goes out on the oven; I want to call someone when the bathroom heater doesn't heat; I want it to be someone else's problem to wrap the pipes when it is twenty degrees outside.
But where to go that will have room for me to paint? An office for my computer? A dining table to hold 8? And a table for sewing? And might I never want to create another assemblagewith all the funky stuff I've collected? A collage with some of the wonderful papers I've saved? And what to do with years of journals, a constant source for poetry and memoir? Stacks of unframed, unsold art work? Robert Genn says in his newsletter to just burn it...ouch! Maybe a giant sale in my house...hmmmm.
A daunting task before me and I know it must be done. Old clothes and shoes are easy to let go but art supplies? Heart-wrenching! Knick-knacks, no problem dumping them...I'll have the memory of where they came from and who gave them to me. But art supplies? Oh dear! Copies of Somerset Studio? Yeah, go through and save the articles. Books I pass on anyway or sell at $5 a box to Half-Price Books. But art supplies? I have enough to open a craft store...now that's a thought but then I would have to look after it and I'm done with looking after stuff. When this husband goes and I love him dearly, that's it. I am so ready to be looked after.
Maybe that is the lesson in aging...that we return to the children we were. Now that's a thought I could live with as I was a happy child with a huge imagination that only wanted to paint, read and play. I could easily return to that and am working on it.

Hippie boots

Waaahoo! I'm so glad I kept these little babies all these years. They are back in style and the envy of my nearly teen granddaughter. Who woulda thunk! I bought these jewels over 20 years ago when I was hanging out in New Mexico a good bit. I fell in love with them the minute I saw them and had to have them. But darn it, here on the Gulf Coast they sit in the closet for a decade waiting until it is cold enough again to wear them. And at last it is that cold...well, cold for here anyway.
Down in the twenties tonight and colder tomorrow night. I love this weather aside from covering the tropical plants and azaleas and the fact that the master bath stays colder than a witch's tits. Saturday I am gonna put on my skinny jeans and my hippie boots with a red sweater and read my poetry at Barnes & Noble...poems from my new up and coming chap book. It tis mostly done...now to get it printed or published. To do either I shall need to either sell some paintings or hock my boots. Let's go for the first.
So what da ya think about these awesome boots? They are even very comfortable.

Oh jeez Louise

Why is it that such sad things seem to happen around Christmas or is it that they happen all the time but the emotions around the holidays run deeper? We lost a very dear friend on Christmas Eve. A week earlier he had a massive stroke while driving out of his neighborhood, drove his truck into the water and was in intensive care since then. He never regained consciousness and most likely never would have. He would have hated being incapaciated so in many ways it is a blessing he didn't linger on. His wife is one of my best friends and we had dinner with them just a few days before. We hung out together, dined together regularly and we had the pleasure of introducing them to the Kerrville Folk Festival this year. He was like family and never knew a stranger. He had had a full and wonderful life as a sailor, a pilot and was taking piano lessons. We will miss his humor and his kindness and his never-ending support of his wife and me in the arts. Not only am I saddened by this loss but now I realize that I am growing into the age bracket where these things are going to happen and I will lose some of those near and dear. Damn, another one of those hard realities of aging.
This has so brought home the message to me to take every day as a precious one and let your friends know how much you value them.

I Am....

A poem I wrote about having Lyme Disease after seeing the incredible documentary "Under Our Skin." See it if you can.

I am …
Homage to Anne Waldman, “Fast speaking woman: chants and essays”

I am a tick bite
I am a sore throat
I am fathoms of fatigue
I am desperate
I am IVs every 12 hours for six weeks
I am aching joints
I am T cell poor
I am Clafarin
I am called a nut case
I am a war under the skin
I am a doctor who misdiagnosed
I am unable to sleep
I am a mid-line
I am a heart gone crazy
I am a $175,000 cure
I am scared
I am a red rash
I am a Herkheimer that feels like the flu
I am a silent epidemic
I am a killer
I am sexually transmitted
I am able to fuck with your head
I am a doctor who had Lyme Disease
I am three years of antibiotics
I am a spirochete
I am an infusion clinic
I am a firing squad without rifles
I am everywhere
I am hanging on by a thread
I am a borelia block
I am a syringe
I am an immune system forever damaged
I am Lyme disease
I am lucky you didn’t kill me
I am a survivor

Kay L. Cox
@2009 All rights reserved

Super wife or at Least I Tried

In the summer of 1965, our house in Nassau Bay was finished and we prepared to leave 7307 Carew in Sharpstown and neighbors that had become family. Ken was working at the Manned Spacecraft Center and finishing up his doctorate at Rice University so I had been in charge of supervising the construction. This involved months of loading our toddler son into the car and winding our way across town. At that time Loop 610 was only in the planning. All of this meant we had little time to socialize with the community around NASA. Fortunately our small Sharpstown house sold quickly and we were at last residing across the street from the MSC. I, at age 25, was figuring out window curtains and my role in the new community.
It would be generous to say I was reluctant to fill the role of a rising executive’s wife. Maybe reluctant isn’t’ the right word…clueless is more like it. My mother knew more about this than I did and I just really wasn’t interested enough to pay attention growing up. I was several years younger than most of the wives of Ken’s employees but tried to keep up. I hated the “division wives luncheons” but felt I should go as Ken was in management. I hired a sitter, donned the panty hose, hat and gloves, gritted my teeth and showed up smiling. I was trying.
The week after we moved in Ken’s office group of employees got together to give us a housewarming on short notice. I panicked and knocked myself out ironing curtains and unpacking between washing diapers and scraping mac and cheese off the floor. I was just relieved I didn’t have to cook. My idea of getting ready for a party at the time was to make sure the bathroom was clean with plenty of toilet paper and somewhere there was ice for sodas and beer.
Fortunately the group was prepared and brought food, drinks, ice and paper plates and napkins. Our breakfast table was covered with newspaper and a huge tray of unpeeled boiled shrimp was laid in the middle. I was dismayed; I had never seen shrimp served with the heads and shells on. I had no idea what to do with them. After a demonstration, I squeamishly pulled the head off a shrimp and then the shell. I thought the whole thing disgusting but didn’t want to appear ungrateful so I just removed myself and became very busy looking after our 20 month old. The beer flowed, the shrimp disappeared. Everyone had a great time and all pitched in with the clean-up. Eventually I got over my shrimp phobia (living on the Bay did I have a choice?) and can now clean and cook them with finesse.
A couple of years and two kids in diapers later, I agreed to Ken’s wish to host the office Christmas party at our house and waded in with both feet. I loved decorating the house for Christmas and spent hours after the kids were asleep creating ornaments and decorations and looked forward to sharing all of it. But the menu was pure agony. Food prep was not and never has been my thing. Like my mom, I can do it but am just not that into it. I finally settled on some kind of Mexican food. The appetizer was the forever Lipton onion soup dip and chips, the only one I knew how to make. I left Ken to get the drinks iced down and prepared chicken enchiladas in baking dishes and a great big salad with pralines for dessert. I so wanted things to look like I knew what I was doing among these more experienced guests.
Guests arrived, drinks served and I popped the enchiladas in the oven while tossing the salad. All was going pretty well until about twenty minutes into the 30 minute baking time when smoke started rising from the oven activating the smoke alarm. I opened the oven door and flames were rising from the floor of the oven where the enchiladas had spilled over. I grabbed the dishes and ran for the baking soda to douse the flames. Ken opened the windows and turned on the exhaust. On checking the enchiladas, they seemed done enough and I announced dinner was ready. All was well and the party went on without another glitch and the kids stayed asleep.
The next year once again I bravely invited the office back for Christmas. We finally had a table in the dining room, my grandmother’s, a buffet (my aunt) and a sofa from my aunt and uncle in the living room so I decided to use real china and go a little more formal with a simpler menu that could be prepared in advance. I borrowed my mother’s silver chafing dish and polished silver trays for small sandwiches. The silver chafing dish sat on a silver tray on the breakfast table with a hot dip and chips underneath. As the doorbell rang with the arrival of the first guests, I lit the sterno under the chafing dish and removed the lid. Soon people went about helping themselves to dip and chips. I went on to talk with guests when I heard a shout from the breakfast room. Shit! There was a fire under the chafing dish. Chips were in flames and before I could get the fire out with a wet dish towel, a leg of the chafing dish melted, the bowl tilted and out went the dip. Good grief! Another fire! What were these people going to think and what was I going to tell my mother? Everyone seemed to still have a great time and made jokes about the dip and fire but I was rather traumitized.
By the time the next Christmas rolled around needless to say I was less than enthusiastic about entertaining Ken’s office. However after a year I figured most had forgiven or forgotten and out of guilt and my need to try again to be the “supportive good wife”, invitations went out to his office for a Christmas gathering. The children were older and I was able to really get going on decorating without the fear they were going to eat them or tear the decorations apart. We put a tree up in the den, another in the living room and even a little one in the guest bathroom downstairs. It was Christmas everywhere.
I had been gifted with a punch bowl and cups (by my mother, of course) which I placed on the new Christmas table cloth in the dining room. The platters of food were going there as well so I prepared a pretty centerpiece down the center of the table of greenery, pine cones and candles on a piece of aluminum foil to protect the new table cloth. The table looked lovely. The buffet held plates, napkins and silver ware.
Guests helped themselves, ate well and were relaxing after dinner with coffee and sweets. The kids were in bed and I was relaxing at last on the floor in the den talking with friends. Others were milling around, talking and drinking. Whew! Life was good, coffee hot and good conversations with real adults. But then Ken came rushing in from the kitchen saying “We just had a big problem but it is over. I took care of it and all is fine now.”
He had been standing in the kitchen next to the refrigerator with his back to the open door into the dining room when the friend facing him and the dining room said, “Is the table supposed to be doing that?” Ken turned and saw flames rising from the centerpiece on the table and it wasn’t the candles. He quickly grabbed the fire extinguisher from the utility room and doused the flaming pine cones and greenery.
Amazingly the remaining punch and food survived untouched. The foil under the centerpiece saved the table cloth; the extinguishing foam was easily brushed off later. It was all over before I even knew anything was happening. But right then and there I decided there was a message in all this. Three fires and that was it. The universe was telling me something. I was done hosting big office parties. No more—to hell with being super wife. If Ken’s rise to fame and glory depended on a classy wife entertaining flawlessly with great success, he was doomed.
I would later hostess many parties for friends and family whom I love and cherish but only taking heed that simpler is better and always have a plan B.

Life little amazements

This afternoon I got a call from Harpo, Oprah's company. They wanted to know if they could quote a line from a response I sent them to Oprah's current book choice, Say You are One of Them.

The book is so interesting...set in Africa, written by an African. Sad and touching look into impoverished families who manage to care for and love each other under terrible circumstances while holding onto their faith. It is a story of children as prostitutes providing for their family accepting the responsibility without question until they are able to finally leave.
They asked me to read a line from my response which they recorded for possible use in promoting the book.
Each day I awaken grateful for whatever the day may bring but certainly would never have imagined this happening.

The Kerrville Wine and Music Festival was so much fun and even better this year having some friends come along. The music line-up was the best we have heard in a long, long time. I adored these guys, Los Texmaniacs, mostly from San Antonio...incredible accordian player and great sound altogether. I was up and screaming "more, more, more" when their set ended and they accomodated. I've ordered their CD...definitely conjunto music...geez, did I spell that right? It fed right into my love for Mexico and so reminded me of my father-in-law, born in Mexico, the son of a Methodist missionary. Dad played guitar and sang Celito Lindo and other Latin tunes. We played the Mexican national anthem at his funeral.
The Wine Seminar was great...so full of information. Four Texas wineries were represented on the panel which focused on port wines. A little plate of chocolate tidbits was served to go with each tasting. I had never enjoyed much port wine before but now think we may try serving one as dessert occasionally especially with chocolate.
The Texas hill country is shockingly brown...the severe drought is taking such a toll...trees are dying, creeks have dried up...so when it began to rain during the seminar, everyone was thrilled. As Kerrvivers, we have learned to expect the mud, the flood and the crud when at a Festival weekend so we made sure we were all prepared with ponchos and umbrellas. Unfortunately all that was in the car so I and a friend volunteered during a slight break in the downpour to walk to the car and get them. We both got pretty wet. After the evening concert, I was mostly dried off when we got to the motel but thought I would never get my feet warm.
Of course, a stop at Schoebel's for lunch coming and going to Kerrville was a must. Their buffet is loaded with lots and lots of veggies with awesome fresh green beans. Others went for their pie...especially the chess pie...not just once but over and over. I was good, darn it, only tried one piece and just ate the top off since I've avoiding wheat.
It was a great weekend and a nice celebration of our 51st wedding anniversary. I doubt when we volunteered to help the Festival out 25 or so years ago in exchange for lifetime tickets that they ever dreamed that these old folks would still be coming. Ha! ha! Here we are!

From Robert Genn's newsletter

As a sometimes teacher, I love these quotes:


"The best way to teach somebody something is to have them think they're learning something else." (Randy Pausch)

Esoterica: In the conduct of your own affairs, understate and over-prove. Give well-planned, information-rich demos. Let folks make up their own minds and take what they want for themselves. Make your comments short and precise. Tenderness and your own humility count. People are human beings first and artists second. Thankfully, some will pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, no matter what you have to say. And while there will always be those who stay put, a properly conducted workshop can be a place of miracles. "The burned hand teaches best." (J. R. R. Tolkien)

So amiss at writing...

I have been terrible about keeping up this blog since I discovered Facebook. Good grief. Now I get all these ridiculous requests for an egg in someone's basket, to tend their farm, discover my chakra color, send someone in the Mafia a new gun and it goes on and on. I have failed the Myers-Briggs so I guess I am without personality. My writing skills have gone down the tubes trying to text my pre-teen grandaughter on her phone. I try to do better but get seduced to join the American Red Cross or Artists United or some poetry group. And then when I do get to my blog, nobody has commented so I think that no one is reading so why should I bother when there is Facebook where it seems that if I sneeze, I get blessed by many. Hmmmmm......

 

This is a wonderful fun fountain in downtown Colorado Springs. It begins as just a blue dome but on the hour it begins shooting water out like an umbrella and rises to reveal a guy playing a horn. Pretty magical. There is lots of public sculpture around CO Springs. I spent a relaxed week there visiting a friend from high school. We did so many things...a jazz concert at The Secret Garden, the movie "Food, Inc.", a farmer's market with more jazz, a gallery opening at a gallery called Rubbish, a tour of the Garden of the Gods and other spots in Colorado Springs. All this began or followed with some great meals of fresh, fresh organic veggies. And the best pizza I've ever eaten at a place called Rico's. What a great place to live...free music every night of the week somewhere. All this with lots of laughter at memories and other stuff and dining al fresco (something just about impossible here because of the heat, humidity and mosquitoes).