Clearing memory sticks so I could take more pictures of the dogs and the new writing spider in the back yard, I found a batch of photos left over from a trip, two Thanksgivings ago, to Branson Missouri.

It was a trip that Fuzzy’s family organized, and I remember really dreading it when we were on the way up. I wanted to be home in our cozy house, and at the time, money was tight, but we’d bought a friend’s timeshare stay, so we had a cushy place to stay, that even had enough room for us to give the fold-out couch to my sister-in-law’s foreign exchange student, a lovely young woman from Switzerland with a smart-ass sense of humor, and a mischievous streak we really appreciated.

I wasn’t expecting to have fun on that trip, but we did, even seeing a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, that was quite good.

I also wasn’t expecting to fall in love with the Ozarks. I thought my mountain appreciation was all centered in the Rockies and Sierras, but there was beauty in those lush green hills, and starry skies.

I remember telling Fuzzy that I wanted to go back, maybe do a weekend in a B&B and go quilt shopping.
I still want to.

Questions:

1. Do you check your email once a day or more? Explain: More. I completely do not understand people who only check email once a day. I almost never turn it off.
2. When you receive SPAM emails, do you just delete them or take the time to mark it as SPAM? Explain:
   I try to mark them, but sometimes I’m in a hurry.
3. When a friend/acquaintance emails you a “forward” email like a joke or chain letter, do you forward it to your friends or just delete it? Explain:
   Generally? Read, delete, move on. Unless something is so original and funny that I’ve never heard it before AND it makes me laugh.
4. 
   Who are two people whose emails you look forward to receiving? Explain: Oh any of my real life friends, but Sky and our family friend Helen most of all.
5. Do you believe that email has completely replaced other forms of communication? No. And I hope it doesn’t. Email is great for immediate contact, but there’s something so satisfying about a really thick letter, or a phone call.

Pop-Up
What TWO things come to mind when you think of:

The Zoo: Pacing tigers and stoic gorillas
The Beach Surf and sand
The Mall Noise and the scent of caramel corn
The Weekend Sleep and comedy
The News Violence and weather

Today we’re going to make a Musical Lemonade. I’ll give ya “The Lemon Song” by Led Zeppelin, so now you tell me a song with the word:

Where do you enjoy lemonade the best? Out on the porch on a hot summer’s day. Tell me a song that would be appropriate for such a situation.

Sugar: “Sugar, Sugar” – The Archies
Water: “Water” – The Who
Ice: “Cold as Ice” – Foreigner
Lemon: “Lemon” – U2

And where do I enjoy lemonade best? Sitting out in the summer sun, could be on the beach, could just be on the deck. Lemonade’s a happy beverage though, so it’s got to be a happy song: “Walking on Sunshine,” by Katrina and the Waves.

You can Mambo too, by clicking here.

I’d demanded sushi for my birthday dinner, so we went to a little Japanese place near the Irving Public Library, arriving before they reopened for dinner. No matter, there was a Half Price Books down the block, so we went there, flirted with having Indian food instead, then went back to Hanasho for dinner. I like it there, because it’s comfortable, low key, casual, and the music is generally cafe jazz and light standards, as opposed to club jazz.

While I often get Unagi Don (a bbq eel over rice) I chose a salmon, sashimi, and tempura bento box last night. Fuzzy had a bento box also, with beef and California Roll. I love bento boxes because instead of getting a huge amount of one thing, you get to taste many different things. Also, I like the compartmentalized trays. I’ve often wanted to bring a large bag to dinner, and steal a couple for use is jewelry trays (I don’t have a jewelry box, and really desperately need one), but that would be messy.

The rest of my birthday weekend was similarly satisfying: Stardust at the movie grill on Friday evening, a mani/pedi and eyebrow wax yesterday afternoon, and pink sneakers and a micro-SD card for my phone (the card, not the sneakers) from Fuzzy, not to mention breakfast with Ms. Eclectic this morning while we watched buff young men with colorful bandanas roasting Hatch chili peppers.

All in all, a great weekend.
And now?
A nap, followed by grocery shopping, dog food buying, jamba juice, and a quiet evening at home.

If you’ve been surfing other people’s blogs lately, you’ve probably noticed banners like this one:

But you may not realize what it means. Actually, until last night, I didn’t either.

See, there’s this tag used in blogs a lot (no_follow) that turns links in comments into dead ends so search engines don’t crawl them. Originally, it was intended to stop comment spam, but we all know that doesn’t work.

Why, then, should we deny our blog visitors the link love they so richly deserve? We shouldn’t. So I’ve implemented a WordPress plugin called DoFollow, that makes my comment links “live.” I figure, if you’re leaving a comment here, you should get something out of it.

Mind you, comments are still moderated (the first time you post here, and if you have a comment with two or more links), anonymous comments are generally deleted (so please make sure there’s a way I can visit YOUR site, or send you an email, and use a valid address for ONE of those fields), and spam is NOT tolerated, but I’m all about sharing the link love.

For more information, go see DawudMiracle, and for a cute little icon, visit Randa.

My manicurist is a Costa Rican native named Rosie, who reminds me a little bit of my great-aunt Molly, though I think it’s just the way she purses her lips when she’s concentrating, and the way she wears a classic hair-do, and never changes the length or style (though she’s gone sort of blondish of late.)

She speaks in this thick accent, and tries to convince me that even women with small hands should paint their fingernails. I generally do just my toes, and leave my hands buffed and shiny, but not tinted. Today, she won, and I’m now sporting OPI’s “Don’t Know, Beets Me” pink on my fingers and toes.

As she worked on my fingers today, holding my hand gently but firmly, thunder rumbled overhead, and she mentioned that her last client before me was a man about to go on a cruise. “He’s leaving from Galveston,” she said, “And going to the Caymans, where the hurricane is.”

I suggested that he might not be leaving til after Hurricane Dean had blown itself out.

She told me he’s leaving tomorrow.

She helped me practice Spanish for a while, as she continued to use brushes and emery boards and clippers to make my hands look pretty, and our conversation involved my fantasy about living on a house boat, and theories about what happens when cruises are affected by hurricanes.

I quipped, “Well they give you a discount if you’re blown overboard.”

It was funnier in the soft light of the salon, with thunder rumbling ominously overhead, and punctuating my words.

I say… And you think…

1. Darling :: boy
2. Majesty :: purple mountains
3. Pebble :: ripple
4. Fate :: accompli
5. Instant :: pudding
6. Screen :: Gems
7. Unplugged :: MTV
8. Dairy :: Queen
9. Benefactor :: Bronte sisters
10. Market :: square

Like this meme? Play along at http://subliminal.lunanina.com.

I’ve been reading this amazing book, A Writer’s Paris: a guided journey for the creative soul. It suggests taking a trip to Paris, and spending a month or three or six just writing. Actually, it says, you should write in three different sessions each day and spend the rest of the time exploring the literary culture and history of the city.

I am, of course, fantasizing, nay, pre-planning, a trip to Paris next May. Why May? Why not. I like Spring weather, I guess. I’ve gone so far as to browse vacation home rental sites on the ‘net, something I’ve done before.

In 2002, my parents, Fuzzy, and I rented The Tall House – a vacation home in St. Thibery, France (near Bezier) – and spent Christmas there. In the morning we strolled to the outdoor market and bought chestnut pastries, and in the evening we would brew tea and carry it up the steep steps to the second-floor lounge (the house was very tall, but only two rooms wide) and eat pastries while we watched the lights in the sleepy village click on and off, or read aloud to each other, or watched video tapes of Brit-coms.

We all had the flu, we broke the funky thread-spool toilet-flushing mechanism, and it was raining a lot.

And I’d never felt more like I belonged somewhere in my entire life.

I don’t remember my first diary. I remember having one that was red and had sort of a smooshy fake-leather cover and gilt-edged pages and a lock with an impossibly tiny key, but I don’t know if that was actually the first.

I do know that until I started blogging, I was the world’s worst diarist. I’d start them, write a few pages, and then end up doodling in them, or writing short stories. I didn’t write down my deepest secrets because I didn’t really HAVE that many secrets. I mean, even when I was little, “Dear Diary, I had an extra cookie at lunch today, and Brad Gillespie is kind of cute,” seemed like a stupid thing to write down.

I have strong memories of reading about journals and diaries. Probably the most famous was Anne Frank – The Diary of a Young Girl – which I devoured. Looking back, I think part of what made it so special is that Anne treated Kitty (the diary) as if she was a person, not just a book full of empty pages.

I have never named a diary.
But I did once write a series of letters to Pavel Chekov (the character) from TOS, as if time travel was possible and we’d met. Hey, I was eleven. We all do stupid things when we’re eleven. At least mine were just pages in a book, and not actual, you know, LETTERS. (Of course, now if I did such a thing, I’d call it fanfic and there’d be no embarrassment.)

I like pen and ink, and there are times when in order to get a passage “right” I have to actually write it, but I don’t generally use a journal for stuff like that. I use a moleskine, or I use a plain old spiral notebook. I really like those. Especially when they have green lines and are college ruled.

I still don’t keep a diary as a diary. I have this amazing book that a friend gave me, and I don’t use it as a diary, but as one of my “magic notebooks” – part commonplace, part collection of quotes, part fragments of stories, or notes. To me, a diary implies structure, and my notebooks have none. I lead a rather unordered life.

(Hey, that’d be a great domain name. Unordered Life DOT Com. Wonder if it’s available…)

See what I mean about distractions?

It’s been almost a year since I left the world of real estate finance, and today the subject of whether I have any regrets came up not once, but twice.

First, one of my oldest friends called from Arizona to wish me a happy birthday, and we were talking about what I’m doing now. “A year ago,” I told him, “I was coming home in tears every night, not writing anything, and my dogs barely knew who I was. Now, I’m not making as much, but I’m really happy.”

He told me that he was really glad he’d chosen to leave is position at a major university and concentrate on spending time with his two-year-old son, and finally finish the dissertation he began in 1999. (I really wish he and his family lived closer. His wife is smart, funny, and snarky, and I’d love to get to know her better than I do.)

Then, in the car, Fuzzy asked if I’d heard about a certain major lender that is in serious financial trouble.

I looked at him and said, “You know, I really respect my Realtor and Mortgage Broker friends, but I think I left the industry at the right time.”

It’s strangely appropriate that these two conversations came up at the same time as my “almost anniversary” of leaving.