November 20, 2007

How do you eat your M&M’s?

When you open that bag of M&M’s, what do you do? Do you start right into the bag, popping each one as it falls into your hand? Do you spread them out and group them by color? Do you eat one color at a time? Do you pair your colors together? Eat them in groups? Dump them all in your mouth at once?

I tend to eat whichever one pours into my hand *until* there is about half a bag left. Then I carefully group the survivors together so that there is one color in each group — then I eat the group. I eat the small groups first - the ones that aren’t full groups, but instead contain the stragglers. One brown, one green, one orange, for instance. Then maybe one brown, one green, one orange and one red. Repeat on up until I’m left with the last groups that contain full rainbows. Crazy, yes. But hey, M&M eating is serious business.

Some people say certain colors taste better. Some people say certain colors have personalities. Some people say there are, ahem, “benefits” to eating certain colors. Jami Alden and I held a deep discussion on M&M’s the other day, and I thought I would throw it out to you.

What’s your take? How do you eat your M&M’s, which colors do you like best and what do you have to say about them?

November 19, 2007

Then vs. Now

Last weekend a friend from high school was in town. We’ve exchanged phone calls and e-mails and he’s been in regular contact with my mom (who he also addresses as Mom) but this was the first time I’d seen Mark in person since shortly after graduation twenty-some years ago.

Wow, did he get old.

Grey hair, thick waist, multiple kids and even a grandchild or two. I, on the other hand, am still just as youthful as the day I collected my diploma. (Can I interest you in this bridge I have for sale?) I don’t have any gray hair (my hairdresser says she found one once but it was too short for me to see so as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t exist) while Mark is thrilled he still has hair, regardless of its color. And to be fair, most of the salt appeared in his pepper after his dad died last year.

The mental image I’ve carried of Mark is probably from when we were both in the chorus of Fiddler on the Roof, kicking around backstage during rehearsals. Mark had no trouble doing the Russian dance then. Now? Don’t think so.

While Mark and his wife and Mom and I chatted at dinner, if I closed my eyes his mellow tenor voice was exactly as I remembered, other than the fact he was taking cell phone calls from his 18-year-old daughter. (Don’t even get me started on the contrast of his youngest daughter who can vote and my son who needs a binky.) Open my eyes and there’s this old-looking guy across the table. Okay, not old. Mature. But the juxtaposition between memory and reality periodically had me shaking my head in disbelief.

Keep hearing a line from one of the songs in Fiddler: “I don’t remember growing older…” I don’t feel significantly older than I was in high school, though I do have a ton more self-confidence now.

Have you had a wake-up call regarding how much time has actually passed?

November 17, 2007

Favorite holiday food

I’m not much of a cook but I always look forward to the holidays because most of my family are good cooks.

I love almost everything they make. With Thanksgiving less than a week away, I started to wonder if my daughter (who is hosting Thankgiving this year) would be making my favorite food– Stove Top Stuffing.

Don’t laugh…I love the stuff. Even more than home-made stuffing. I also love those canned sweet potatoes (can’t remember the brand)

As you can tell, it doesn’t take much to make me happy.

The thing is Wendy, my daughter, loves to make everything from scratch and is a great cook….so I’m sure that if there is stuffing, it won’t be Stove Top

What about you? Anything in particular you’re craving this year?

And….what do you think of Stove Top stuffing???

November 16, 2007

Right Brain ~ Left Brain

Are you a right brain person, or does the left side of your brain dominate?

The left side controls such things as logic, language, math and science, order and patterns, strategies. It’s the detail-oriented side of your brain.

The right side is more involved with spacial perceptions, fantasies and possibilities. It uses feelings and allows for impetuous behavior.

If you look at the silhouette below, it appears to be rotating one way. If it rotates clockwise, it’s an indication that you’re using more of your right brain. Counter-clockwise shows you’re more of a left-brain person. But you can make it switch. Try it by concentrating on the picture for a minute.

November 15, 2007

Writers Write

For the last six months or so I have been ‘an author’. For the last two weeks, I’ve been ‘a writer’.

So what’s the difference?

Well, an author has all this outside stuff to do. Sometimes I think I get all caught up in that outside stuff, like managing my MySpace page and writing blogs and posting responses to message boards and traveling to conferences. The websites, the amazon numbers, the group sites… all ‘author’ territory.

What does a writer do? They write. That’s it. They write. Butt in chair, staring at the blinking cursor, working scene by scene… WRITING. That’s the hard stuff, the tough stuff and honestly, it’s the good stuff. When the ‘author’ work gets hard and frustrating and painful and disappointing, when I go into the writing, that’s good. It’s safe. It’s pure pleasure.

Sometimes, though, I see aspiring authors getting all caught up in ‘author’. They want the recognition, the website, the pen name, the whatever. And they forget about the writing. So here’s my writing advice for the week. I rarely give it here, but what can you do.

You can’t get to author without writer.

If you don’t do the work, if you don’t sit in the chair, if you don’t sweat and grow and learn your craft, it won’t matter if you built a website or picked a pen name or have your review sites all lined up. It won’t matter.

And besides, when you’re knee deep in reviews and conference flights… you’ll want that safe place that writing provides. So make it. Nurture it every day if you’re a writer. Give it your whole heart. And it will give you so much in return.

November 14, 2007

Have You Ever Walked Out on a Movie …

We did, just once. The film was Caligula, and it came out in the early 1980s. It was around the same era when I, Claudius was popular, and we thought Caligula would also be historically interesting. Nah. It was atrocious. OK, so that was the worst movie I’ve ever ’sort of’ seen.

What was the best? They’re often little films. Like one I saw just recently, Lars and the Real Girl. The blurb sounds hokey, but this is an absolutely wonderful film. Lars and his issues are only a small part of what happens in the movie. The writer and director bring together all the plain, down-to-earth characters in the film and have them rise to the challenge of handling the situation with Lars. Dear Frankie with Emily Mortimer and Gerard Butler, was another one of the “little” films that I really like.

The funniest? I’m almost embarrassed to say that I truly enjoyed Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. I got roped into going to see it with my kids and all the nieces and nephews, and I will readily admit that I laughed my tush off. Reluctantly at first, but wholeheartedly by the end. And many of Jim Carey’s lines still pop up during dinner conversation when the kids are home. (Alllllll righty then!) And don’t get me started on Dumb and Dumber!

The major tear-jerker? Hmmm… I’m not much of a cryer, and I guess I avoid movies that are going to make me feel bad. But I think maybe Dr. Zhivago would fit this. I’d like to see this again, just to see if it holds up after all these years. An Affair to Remember (the one with Cary Grant) is definitely on the list, and so is A Farewell to Arms with Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones.

Best Sci-Fi? I love good science fiction - it used to be my main genre for reading. So when a good sci-fi movie comes out, I am there! I think Independence Day is my favorite, but Alien comes in as a close second. I also thoroughly enjoyed Men In Black, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and ET.

Most violent … The Matrix. It’s really sci-fi, but I don’t watch a lot of violent movies. This is pretty tame compared to a lot of films coming out these days.

Best Musical? Chicago. I used to love musicals, but not so much any more. Don’t know why, although I’m looking forward to Across the Universe. I’ve heard some of the soundtrack (re-dos of some great Beatle songs) and the music is excellent.

Favorite animated movie? Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. I really appreciated the way the writers made Belle into a true heroine and not just another pretty face.

I haven’t even mentioned the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which was a definite favorite. It was a masterpiece of adaptaion - I can’t imagine a better film version of Tolkein’s books, although I wish someone else (Gerard Butler, maybe?) had been cast as Aragorn. I didn’t think Viggo Mortenson was the right choice at all.

What’s on your list of best and worst films ever? Did you ever walk out on a bad one before it ended?

November 13, 2007

Unusual collections

Do you collect anything? I’ve always been a collector myself. When I was a young girl I collected anything to do with unicorns. I had candles, glass and ceramic statues, stuffed animals and even Christmas ornaments. I went through a cow phase when I was in college. Not really sure what happened to all of my unicorns and cows. Now I have two random collections, ink wells and pocket dragons, I haven’t added any new pieces to either collection in several years, but I still have them on display both in my office. But my most active collection is somewhat unusual, I suppose and while I haven’t been able to add to it in a while, last week I was able to. I collect seaglass and have for years. I have quite an extensive collection, filled mostly with clear (or white), green and beer-bottle brown, but on occasion I’ve found special pieces like red, black, blue and turquoise. Seaglass has gained in popularity in the last few years so I’m sure most of you are familiar with it, but for those who aren’t it’s bits of glass that’s tumbled and smoothed in the ocean’s waves and sand making it dull in both sheen and sharpness.
While most people comb the beach, searching the sands for that perfect shell or whole sanddollar, I look for that shine when the sun hits the glass and it winks up at me. I’ve been saying for years that I’m going to do something with my glass collection, make a mosaic of some sort, but nothing has come to mind just yet. So for now they sit in elegant crystal bowls in my house. So how about you, do you collect anything unusual?

November 12, 2007

Veteran’s Day

Happy Veteran’s Day!

Okay, now be honest. Raise your hand if you knew it was Veteran’s Day.

Don’t feel bad. I didn’t know either until I was trying to think of topics for this blog and, in desperation, turned to This Day in History sites.

(FYI, on this day in 1946 The Exchange National Bank of Chicago, Illinois, instituted the first drive in banking service in America, and in 1927 Josef Stalin took full control of the Soviet Union, expelling Leon Trotsky from the Communist Party.)

So what does Veteran’s Day mean to you? If you’re in the military or related to someone in the armed forces, it probably means a lot to you. If you’re like most Americans, Veteran’s Day probably means very little to you. I mean, most of us don’t even get the day off work.

I think that’s sad.

Don’t worry. This isn’t going to be a political statement. I don’t think it’s political to say that no matter your feelings on the situation in Iraq or Afghanistan, the wars in Vietnam or Korea, or World War II, all Americans should honor the sacrifices our soldiers made and make to protect our country.

And it’s not just soldiers who make the sacrifices. Their wives, husbands, children, parents, and grandparents sacrifice too.

There have been so many times since September 11, 2001 that I’ve thanked God Ultimate Sportsfan wasn’t called to be a soldier. I don’t know how our marriage would survive so much separation and life-threatening uncertainty.

Sadly, many military marriages don’t survive.

So this Veteran’s Day, I hope everyone takes a moment to reflect on what this day means and why we celebrate it.

November 10, 2007

First Kiss

The other jaunties have been writing all week on the topic “First Kiss.”

When you write a book, the conventional wisdom is that you need to put a fresh twist on a familiar topic. So I tried to think how to put such a twist on this topic.

How about a non-conventional kiss that touched your heart? The open mouthed kiss of your baby daughter…the swipe of your dog’s tongue… a sand-paper kiss from your cat…

When I think of my favorite non-conventional kiss, I’d have to say my dog Comet (a bichon, now deceased). Comet adored me (most of our pets have preferred my husband–but not Comet)…and when I’d go to bed, he’d jump up (he slept at the foot of the bed) and he’d always give the top of my hand a little lick before settling down. It was a sweet gesture from a very sweet dog…and one I’ll never forget.

How ’bout you? If you had to pick just one non-conventional kiss, what would it be?

November 9, 2007

Sweet Dreams

I think most young girls dream about what their first kiss will be like. You know what I mean. You reach a certain age, and suddenly you are coming up with all sorts of rose-colored scenarios, doping off during math class and envisioning all of the details instead of listening to your teacher discuss the lowest common denominator and the addition and subtraction of fractions. (Probably part of the reason I stink at fractions to this day, LOL) For me, I reached that age about the time I hit sixth grade, when a lot of boys still think girls are yucky and have been recently grossed out by the film we are forced to watch in sex education class. Of course, we females–who are much more wise than our male counterparts–had our eyes opened to all sorts of possibilities by that film. Suddenly, we are looking at guys in a whole new light and daydreaming about princes on white horses who swoop in, carry us off, and bestow upon us our perfect first kiss. Probably on a moonlit beach or in a candlelit boudoir with sweeping music–just like in the movies–playing the background.

Of course, very rarely does that first kiss live up to expectations. My first real kiss took place when I was fourteen, backstage at one of the community theater musicals I had a small part in, and it was with a fourteen year-old stagehand I was temporarily smitten with and who was obviously a first-timer as well. It was a very hot day and we were both sweaty, and I remember thinking that I hoped I didn’t smell like BO when he leaned in. You know, there were many factors involved in this kissing stuff that I had never even considered. Noses colliding (Ouch!) and where to put your hands, not to mention the slobber factor when tongue is involved. I couldn’t disengage fast enough. So, needless to say, it was a couple more years before I truly discovered just how nice a kiss could be.

So, what about you? Did you have the perfect scenario in your head as to how that first kiss would play out, and did it live up to your dreams?