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MissMelisshttp://www.missmeliss.com

Friday’s Feast: 0710.12

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It’s twenty minutes to Friday in my time zone, and while I generally stay up til two, I’m just beat right now.

Appetizer
When was the last time you were surprised?
This morning. I logged into our bank’s website to check the status of a reimbursement check that had been held because it was over a certain amount, and found my paycheck had been wired four days early.

Soup
Fill in the blanks: My eyes are ________, but I wish they were __________.
Right now my eyes are kind of dry, but I wish they were not, and the eye drops are in the bathroom. Seriously, I like my eyes, they’re warm brown, and I’ve never wanted them to be any other color. Also, since I had LASIK five years ago, I can’t even complain about my vision. 20:20 baby!

Salad
If you were a Beanie Baby, what would you look like and what would your name be?
While I realize adults all over the world got into these things, I have zero interest in them. I also didn’t save my Barbie dolls, and my few remaining stuffed animals are on a high shelf in my studio. I may have pink hair, and pink sneakers, but I don’t do “cute.”

Main Course
Name two things you consistently do that you consider to be healthy habits.
Even if it’s just in my living room, I sing for at least half an hour every day. It’s silly, and cheesy, but it keeps me happy.
I walk the dogs at least four days a week. We should go every day, but sometimes life gets in the way. Or weather. Still, four out of seven, regularly, is good.

Dessert
What brand of toothpaste are you using these days? Do you like it? Why or why not?
At the moment, some green gel Colgate stuff with sparkly flecks in it. It’s fine. A good combination of minty freshness and tooth cleaning capabilities. In a pinch, I once used a tube of Crest bought at CCC in La Paz, BCS, Mexico, and the texture was just weird. I sort of miss the fennel flavor of Tom’s of Maine.

Change is in the Air

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It finally feels truly like fall. Temperatures are cresting in the mid-eighties and cooling into the sixties at night, and there are different birds eating the seeds (and baiting MissCleo) in the back yard. As I write this, I have the air conditioning off, and the windows in the bedroom are open wide. Until the sun went down, I was watching the water in the pool reflect the sky, the trees, whatever.

Fuzzy has another trip coming up and I threatened to redecorate the living room. He’s panicked. Now, understand that when I say “redecorate,” I don’t mean that I plan to call strapping young men in cute uniforms and tool belts to install home theater lighting in my living room. I mean I might move one of the couches to a different wall, or move a lamp or two. Nothing major, just a small change.

Fuzzy is one of those people who does not embrace change well. He is also one of those people who cannot find objects that are located behind other objects. I pointed out to him that my couch-moving plan would place the back of the couch against a wall, so that nothing would be behind it. He asked me if I’d measured the space.

I do not need to measure the space to know if my couch will fit. I can look at it and tell.

At least he didn’t ask, “What wall?”

Thursday 13: 0710.11

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Thirteen Things about MISS MELISS
Things that Begin with V

  1. Vagina Monologues: Eve Ensler’s frank episodic play about women and their anatomy.
  2. Vampires: Dark, seductive, mysterious…but not always toothy…the creatures of the night always fascinate and entertain me.
  3. Velvet: I love velvet. It’s so rich and the texture is just amazing. My favorite dressy pants are chocolate velvet, not black…I love them.
  4. Venison: I don’t hunt, but I have friends who do, and my venison stew is amazing. Really.
  5. Verandah: Porch time is a big thing for me. I’ve always wanted a big waterfront house with a verandah and a porch swing. I’m getting there. Right now, I have a big house with a pool and a deck.
  6. Vespers: Evening prayer. I like the calming, reflective mood of vespers more than the actual praying part, though.
  7. Vices: We all have them. Mine are books, expensive coffee, perfume, and hats.
  8. Violets: My grandmother used to talk to her violets, and even though it was her sister’s name, not hers, I associate them with her. Violets, morning glories, wooden spoons and Oil of Olay…those are her symbols and scents.
  9. Violoncello: Known informally as just ‘cello, this is perhaps the most versatile of the orchestral strings, and I’m not just saying that because it’s my instrument. Listen to a recording of Pablo Casals or Jacqueline Dupree, and then listen to Apocalyptica or VonCello, and you’ll understand.
  10. Virgin Rose: It starts out as a deep violet, and ends as an earthy, beety pink. It’s not a flower, though, it’s a shade of Special Effects hair color, and it’s my new favorite.
  11. Virginia: She was my cousin, and I was born on her 31st birthday. When I turned sixteen, she gave me her sweet-sixteen ring – a peridot flanked by diamonds, mounted in rose gold. I don’t wear it, but I love that I have it.
  12. Vitari: It’s this fruit-based sorbet we sold at the snack bar in college. No dairy, no fat, not a lot of sugar. The wild berry and peach flavors were to die for.
  13. Voodoo: Magic, mystery, melodrama, what’s not to love? Or at least, love reading stories about?

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And Now A Word…

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Every business needs some kind of advertising. It could be print ads, television spots, radio commercials, or billboards, but modern businesses know that one of the most far-reaching methods of spreading their word is via the Internet. There are whole companies devoted to “webvertising,” media companies that make nothing but videos, and SEO experts that teach their clients how best to get their corporate sites ranked in Google, and out to the viewing public.

One such marketing firm, specializing in the market in the UK and Ireland, is MyAdBase.com, a “media broker” that offers everything from press release distribution to information on average radio advertising costs in your market of choice. While they work via the web, they provide services across all the media mentioned above, serving as a sort of advertising portal for their clients.

As well as serving the general business population via their marketplace, they also do one-on-one work with regular clients.

Not quite ten years ago, advertising to the web was “new media,” and people weren’t certain it would take off.
Now, new media traditional media are used in combination, for broad-based campaigns that put company names in front of us in as many ways as possible.

If you think about it…it’s really kind of cool.

OD: Open a Drawer

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Every so often, I like to play with the Observation Deck, a box of cards that offer prompts or suggestions for getting around writing blocks or starting daily writing practice. One of my favorites is “Open a Drawer.”

My desk drawer isn’t really in my desk, but in a rolling file cube that can slide under my desk when I want it to. Right now, however, it is against the wall, holding the printer, and atop that a TiVo box and a cable converter, because the television in my studio is an old one, with no real top space on which to balance electronica, and the room lacks a formal television stand.

I open the drawer to pull out the purple plastic pencil box where I store postage stamps and stickers for the backs of letters, and when I do, other things, precariously arranged around the box, fall into the gap it’s left. I see an eraser, on of the oblong ones from school, pink on one end, gray on the other, a pencil sharpener, a roll of cellophane tape, another roll of masking tape, a glue stick.

Moving outward from the miniature landslide, toward the edges of the drawer: a box of Cinnamon Altoids, a stick of Dell Memory, a small bottle of bubbles on a plastic lanyard – because what is an office-y type place without bubbles?

The bubbles make me smile, and draw my eye out of the drawer and onto the desktop. I see my yellow rubber ducky, a souvenir from a spa we spent two glorious nights at for our third anniversary. We had to climb stairs into the tall fluffy bed, and we made an excursion into town for books and ollalie berry pie, and for dinner we ate out on the pier at Avila Beach and watched the seals playing below us as we ate Chilean sea bass in a coconut curry.

People say there’s no such thing as time travel, but I can move forward and backward in time, just by opening a drawer.

Does Anyone Remember…

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Does anyone remember the Alchera Project? Laurie Murray hosted it, and the site has now apparently reverted to the registrar, since all it contains is links for more ads and products.

As a reminder, it was a monthly writing project in which Ms. Murray would offer five prompts – a first line, a quote, a picture, a grab bag of words, etc. and participants had a month to contribute their interpretations of at least one of the prompts.

I’ve been thinking I’d like to host something similar, and I have a domain name (currently blank) primed to host it: cafewriting.com

If you’re interested, leave a comment here.

Tell your friends, as well.

Sunday Scribblings: Sorry

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“Sorry – no Scribble” was what participants looking for a prompt were greeted with this week when we went to the Sunday Scribblings website, and people quickly decided to accept the challenge to write something anyway.

The word “sorry” inspired me to figure out a scene from my book. I’m linking you to the raw, unedited version, which may or may not be recognizable when it’s incorporated into the book.

I stress the raw, unedited part because, well, it is.

Read The Beginning there, and feel free to comment here or there.

Cooking

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Right now, there is a whole chicken roasting in my oven.

I have never actually roasted an entire chicken, and am not a particular fan of chicken, but I’ve been completely craving it lately, and even though it’s still summery outside, the calendar says it’s fall, so (Rana, don’t read this part) I have no problem with cranking up the a/c a little bit so I can use the oven.

Anyway, inspired by Cynthia’s A Week in Food project, I decided to roast a chicken. I took a before shot, with it all covered in herbs, it’s just been through its first 20 minutes in the oven. The recipe I’m using said to do 20 mins at 400 and then an hour or so at 325, and so I am.

This is a no-baste recipe.

I should add that while I’ve never roasted a chicken before, I’m an expert on roasting turkeys.

Sorry, photos are being held for Cynthia’s project.

But the house smells amazing, all garlicky and herby, and…

Well, you get the idea.