One Hit Wonders

This afternoon I got sucked into VH-1's "Top 100 One-Hit Wonders". I think they are moving into hour 4 or 5 right now. But what kind of cracked me up is that nearly every song that they showed, I said out loud to Brian, "I have that album," or "I have that 45", or "We have that CD". I got to see and hear some of my fave rave tunes of all time, including "Bittersweet Symphony" by the Verve, "Turning Japanese" by the Vapors which will ALWAYS remind me of Holly who taped it off the radio in 1980 and played it for me....and I always had the big time hots for lead singer David Fenton. Oh, and who could forget coming in at #25, "Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo who I absolutely adored in the mid-80's. The bass player, Nick Beggs, even had the courtesy and kindness to handwrite responses to my gushing fan letters. I got 3 letters from him. Then in 1995 when they did a "where are they now" thing on VH-1, I wrote to Nick again, and he wrote back and sent me a picture.

Here is a list of One-Hit Wonders from the 1960's, 1970's & 1980's that I would have also included, had I been running the show. I'm not sure what the criteria was to be a "hit", i.e., top 100, top 75, top 40 or top 20, because some of my picks probably didn't even make the top 100, but they were played on the radio or had their videos on MTV, and for a time, were somewhat popular. This list has been culled from my stash of vinyl albums and 45's:

After the Fire - Der Kommissar
Animotion - Obsession
Baltimora - Tarzan Boy
Blackbyrds - Walkin' in Rhythm
Blue Swede - Hooked on a Feeling
Blow Monkeys - Digging Your Scene
Boys Don't Cry - I wanna be a Cowboy
Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy
Brothers Johnson - Strawberry Letter 23
Cock Robin - When Your Heart is Weak
Julian Cope - World Shut Your Mouth (former lead singer of The Teardrop Explodes)
Cyrkle - Red Rubber Ball
Diesel - Sausalito Summer Nights
Double - Captain of her Heart
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band - Cherchez Le Femme
Dream Academy - Life in a Northern Town
Edison Lighthouse - Love Goes Where My Rosemary Goes
Eurogliders - Heaven
The Firm - Radioactive
First Class - Beach Baby
Five Man Electrical Band - Signs
Flash & the Pan - Hey St. Peter
General Public - Tenderness (former members of The English Beat)
Georgia Satelites - Keep Your Hands to Yourself
Go West - Call Me
Paul Hardcastle - 19
Murray Head - One Night in Bankok
Hipsway - The Honeythief
HooDoo Gurus - I Want You Back
Icicle Works - Whisper to a Scream
Industry - State of the Nation
Donnie Iris - Ah Leah!
It's a Beautiful Day - White Bird
Jigsaw - Sky High
JoBoxers - Just Got Lucky
Korgis - Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime
Lemon Pipers - Green Tambourine
Level 42 - Something About You
The Look - I am the Beat
Love & Rockets - So Alive
LTD - Back in Love Again
Major Harris - Love Won't Let Me Wait
Gwen McCrae - Rockin' Chair
Scott McKenzie - San Francisco
Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes - Bad Luck
Allison Moyet - Love Resurrection (former lead singer of Yaz)
New England - Don't Ever Wanna Lose Ya
Oxo - Whirly Girl
Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Jackie Blue
Partland Brothers - Soul City
Pilot - Magic
Records - Starry Eyes
Reunion - Life Is a Rock But the Radio Rolled Me
Rock & Hyde - Dirty Water (not a remake of the Standell's song from the 60's)
Roman Holliday - Stand By
Peter Schilling - Major Tom
Scritti Politti - Perfect Way
Feargal Sharkey - A Good Heart (former lead singer of The Undertones)
Shirley & Company - Shame Shame Shame
Small Faces - Itchycoo Park
Sniff & the Tears - Drivers Seat
Split Enz - I Got You
Steam - Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye
Talk Talk - It's My Life
R. Dean Taylor - Indiana Wants Me
Ali Thomson - Take a Little Rhythm
Thunderclap Newman - Something in the Air
Johnny Wakelin & His Kinshasa Band - Muhummad Ali
Matthew Wilder - Break My Stride
Yello - Oh Yeah (best known from "Ferris Buehler's Day Off")

Rest in Peace, Sweet Willow

I received an extremely sad email this morning from my bff/sister Michelle, in Maine. They had to put their collie, Willow, down yesterday due to old age and failing fast. I am absolutely heartbroken and fighting tears as I write this. What makes this even harder on my friends is that they had to put down their 19 year old cat, Harpo, last month.

Willow is the reason that we got Pepper back in 2003.

Brian had been lobbying me for years to get a dog. I had not grown up w/ pets and although I liked dogs, I just didn't want one. All I could think about was the extra expense, the dog hair, etc. etc. etc. Michelle had been lobbying her husband, John, for a dog too and he felt the way I did. Finally, he acquiesced and Michelle got Willow, who was already about 6 or 7 when they adopted her.

I was receiving pressure from everyone I know to get a dog. One day I asked Michelle how John felt about having a dog now that they had Willow. She told me that he had grown to love Willow very much. That did it. I told Brian to go ahead and adopt a doggie, and we found little Pepper. Now, I do not know what I would do with both of my sweet little furchildren.

I had the privilege of getting to meet Willow in person in 2005, when I went back east to visit my mom and took her up to Maine. We spent a great day at Michelle's house and it was impossible not to adore Willow. It was especially amusing to see her sitting on Michelle's lap, this big ball of collie fur.

And now she has crossed over the Rainbow Bridge to romp happily with Harpo. Sleep well sweet friend.

The Mea Culpa

I'm going to tell you a story, to set the scene for The Mea Culpa.

Back in the spring of 1989 when Brian and I were talking about getting married, he confessed his distress that he could not afford to get me an engagement ring. At that time, he didn't have two nickles to rub together, and he had given me what little savings he had to put in my "California account" for our move to San Francisco later on that summer. I thought it was sweet that he was concerned that I'd be disappointed but I truly didn't care about having an expensive ring. We went up to Provincetown for Memorial Day weekend, and we were browsing in the wharf shops, where there are, or were, stalls with lots of craft vendors. One of the vendors was selling silver rings and I off-handedly said to Brian, "Aren't those pretty?" I tried a few on, then I moved on with my tunnel-vision shopping. Later on that afternoon we were on the beach at Race Point and he proposed to me, and presented me with one of the rings I'd tried on. It is a $5 ring, but let me tell you something, to me it is absolutely priceless.


In 1995, we decided to spend our anniversary in San Francisco at a hotel on Ocean Beach. We were already living in Marin, and our anniversary fell over Gay Pride Weekend. Instead of driving in from Marin for the parade, we decided to stay over in SF and go downtown from there. We were hanging out on the beach watching the sunset, and Brian surprised me with an upgraded ring which he bought at The Fairfax Festival. It's a silver ring w/ a yin-yang design on either side of the blue topaz stone. The artist based the design on his mother's own wedding ring. Brian thought that it was appropriate to give me the new ring on the beach in San Francisco, to bookend his proposal on the beach in Provincetown. How sweet is he?!


Well, a couple of Christmases ago, I got the shock of my life when I was presented with another upgraded ring. He said that he'd always kind of felt bad that he never got me something with diamonds, even though I never once expressed the desire to own one. This is what made his idea and gift so much more special, because I've never been a high maintenance person or hinted around that I wished I had expensive jewelry. In fact, those "guilt trip" jewelry commercials that they run at Christmas annoy me with their portrayal of the bumbling husband who didn't get his wife the ultra delux diamond gift and her bitchiness about it. All of the expensive jewelry Brian has given me has been his idea. My current ring is a stunning star sapphire, with 3 small diamonds on either side of the stone. You should see that star shine!!


Last summer I accidentally caught the stone on a drawer and it popped out of the setting. I took the ring to Fred Meyer Jewelers to have fixed. The woman in the store was really snotty and snobby. She was short with me, and I got the feeling that she was looking down at me b/c there I was in a ratty tie dye shirt and shorts and clearly not the clientele on whom she would prefer to wait. She snapped, "it's going to cost about $100 to fix" and I said, "that's fine, it's my wedding ring so I will pay whatever it costs to fix". She says to me, very sarcastically, "That's your wedding ring?" That simple phrase alone made me absolutely boil. I gritted my teeth and hissed, "Yes". I'm sorry she's unhappy that she couldn't score a job at Tiffany & Co., but that snotty little remark was uncalled for. When I went to pick up my ring a week later, there was another saleswoman in the store. She was so nice to me. I told her what the other girl said and I got a knowing nod of the head, as if that wasn't the first time she heard a customer complain. Meanwhile she takes the ring out of the bag and exclaimed, "What a gorgeous star sapphire! You can't find good ones that have such a vivid star like this one! Where in the world did you find this?" Oh, and the ring only cost $25 to fix.


Which leads me to The Mea Culpa. A few weeks ago, the stone popped out again, so I went back to Freddies to have them fix it. Snot-girl was behind the counter again and gave me major attitude AGAIN. "It's going to cost $115 to fix," she snaps. I said, "You told me that last year and it only cost $25, so why the difference in price?" She said, "Well the price of gold has gone up! There's no way you paid $25 to have it fixed!" I was thisclose to getting in her face and really going off on her, when another saleswoman, who could see where the confrontation was heading, intervened. She even went in back and fished out my original order from last August and found that I only paid $25 because Snot-girl forgot to write down that the ring had to be set AND re-tipped.


I picked up my ring the next week and told the woman that I couldn't stand Snot-girl, what was her problem and why is she still working there? The woman said they get a lot of complaints about her but they can't fire her b/c she's union. Meanwhile, she pulls my ring out and she too exclaims how gorgeous the ring is, and even calls over a collegue to look at it!! I asked who I could speak with to complain about Snot-girl. They directed me to Customer Service and told me to fill out the form and send it to corporate, and gladly told me Snot-girl's real name. As I walked away, I could hear the 2 women in the jewelry department still discussing how gorgeous my ring is. I filled out the form, mailed it and pretty much forgot about it.


Last night I got the mail and I see a card addressed to me from someone I don't know. I open it and see a handwritten letter which I started to read. I had absolutely no idea what this person was talking about then it hit me, it was from Snot-girl. Although she didn't say so, it seems that the store came down hard on her and she had to write me The Mea Culpa. The letter is nice enough, begging me for a second chance, told me that there was no excuse to treat a customer like that, that she's really a happy and bubbly person, etc etc etc.


On the one hand, I appreciate the gesture as it was very unexpected. But on the other, I know that she was forced to write it by the company because I named her in my complaint form, and was told by the other jewelry department women that they get a lot of complaints about her. In fact, ever since she got all 'tudinal with me last summer, I've made it a point to glance in there every time I'm in the store (which is at least 1-2 times a week) to observe her behavior with other customers. She never, ever smiles. She always looks like she has a haughty air about her, or as my mom would say, "like her shit don't stink". I have never once seen any indication of a "happy, bubbly person", as she describes herself.

And so I have accepted her apology, and I forgive her for being the way she is, because to me, she is clearly an unhappy person deep inside. I will just have to make it a point to visit the jewelry department when she is not working.

Ain't it the truth

Got this in my email from Jean today.....it's called "The Universal Symbol for Gasoline".

$3.44 in Bonney Lake when I left. Heard it was $4.50 in Oakland, CA.

I can expect to pay about $4.08 US for the equivalent of one gallon of gas when I visit Vancouver Island this summer.

My alter ego

Julie never had a chance to see my little chibi, made last summer so here she is, my alter ego. My cousin Sharon keeps asking me to please put pants on her, but I think she looks hotter w/o them.

Brian had checked out my blog at that time, and came up with a little short story, based on this character and my commute (BTW, at home, I'm always in flannel pajamas).

Again, sorry about the "c" word, for anyone who might be offended:

"She wiped the blade of her sword on her flannel pajama bottoms before reaching behind her and stowing it in the sheath she wore across her back. Looking at the woman in the car, 2 screams frozen on her body: One on her face, a frozen slit of red lipstick, the other about 6 inches lower, a bloody gash where her throat was cut. She smiled grimly, reached in the car and put it into gear. The car idled slowly off the road and out of the way. 'Stupid cunt' she thought she she strode back towards her car, her leg muscles flexing smoothly & powerfully beneath the pink flannel."

Happy Anniversary to Me!

I have now officially worked at this job the longest I've ever worked for anyone, in my life. My previous record was when I worked for Burnstein & Trimbur in San Francisco/Berkeley. I started there 9/4/90 and left 10/26/96. I started working for Steve 3/6/01.

We still haven't gotten an attorney in to take over since Robyn left last fall. So far we have plenty of business and clients to keep us extremely busy, so fingers crossed that we can keep on going. Although it would be nice if we could get another attorney in because Steve is pretty overwhelmed.

This is where I work in Fircrest, "College Park Professional Center". My office is upstairs, although since Robyn left, we aren't "Fisher & Lindsay" anymore. Steve said he's not paying for another carved sign so it's staying up, but I did finally scrape Robyn's name off the front door.

Here's my boss, Steve and his wife Mary. I shot this at a Tacoma Rainiers baseball game last spring. Steve's a hoot and we have a great time at work, usually laughing hysterically about something!

Nothin' Shakin' on Shakedown Street

...it used to be the heart of town.


Just wanna promo my hubby's new blogtalk radio show, "Shakedown Street" which begins tomorrow (Sunday) May 6 at 4:00 p.m. Pacific, 5:00 Mountain, 6:00 Central and 7:00 Eastern. He's starting w/ a half hour show, just in case no one calls in or he runs out of things to talk about (to which I said, "fat chance"). I have a link on my blog roll, but here it is anyway:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/-Shakedown-Street



The photo he used on the page is the one I took of him in the early 90's at City Lights Bookstore. I came up w/ the idea and dragged him out the door, with him protesting that we'd never find parking, but I told him we were going to double park and be there 5 minutes, tops. I had him wear the floppy leather hippy hat we'd bought in Colorado on Pike's Peak, and posed him against the window. I told him to put his foot up on the wall, put a cancer stick in his mouth, and look towards Chinatown.

As most people know, the Grateful Dead is from the San Francisco Bay Area. They lived and were based out of Marin County since leaving Haight Ashbury in the 60's. It wasn't until after Jerry died that I found out that the cover of this album is depicting a street in San Rafael's gritty Canal District. After I looked at it closely, I was like, "Oh yeah! There's the bowling alley!" Duh.

Speaking of music, Brian and I had a debate of sorts this morning. I came home from the grocery store and he greets me with, "I can't find any of the Janes Addiction CD's". I said, "Did you try looking under J?" and he says, "Yes but they aren't there!" So I go downstairs, pull out the drawer, flip a few CD's and said, "They're right here! How could you have missed them?" And that started the debate. He saw the Elton John CD's and assumed he was in the "E's". I said, "Why would I put Elton John in E? His last name is John! So his CD's come after Janes" and Brian said, "Because the artist is Elton John so it goes under E for Elton." I said, "He's not a band, he's a singer, so he goes under J for John. Jethro Tull goes under J because they are a band." He begged to differ. This from the man who put his telephone number under "M" for "My Apartment" back in the late 80's. Thoughts anyone?

I was pretty incommunicado last week, blog-wise. Steve's left for NYC for his daughter's graduation from NYU. I cannot believe she's finished college. When I started working for him, she was still in high school!! So we were really busy at the office, literally milling work from dawn to, well, not dusk since it gets dark here at 8, but at least till late afternoon.

My dentist is stalking me. Seriously. A few weeks back I got one of those "reminder" cards in the mail. I was like, "yeah yeah, whatever, I'll get around to it." Then I get a second reminder card, "we still haven't heard from you." That one went in the garbage. So I'm at work last week and Debby calls in that Dr. Rhodes office is on the phone. Well, he's also a client of our office so I answer, "Hi this is Joanne, can I help you?" and she goes, "Hi Joanne, I'm calling to schedule your cleaning appointment." Sheesh.

I took yesterday off to begin spring cleaning upstairs. I got a lot done. Started at 8:30 with the livingroom (even did the windows!), washed walls, cleaned out the hall closet (I think the hangers had mated because I threw out about a hundred of them), cleaned the bathroom, bedroom and made a significant dent in the kitchen. A welcome break came at 2 when Julie called me so that we could lust over the various blog photos from "Rocketman". But I was a cleaning tornado, lemme tell ya. I used the SpotBot on the carpet and while it does a great job getting out the spot, I now have large bright white spots which only emphasize how absolutely disgustingly filthy the carpet is.

At about 4, I ran out of steam. My legs hurt, my back hurt, my feet hurt.....but I had planned to finish the kitchen today. Needless to say I could barely move when I got up this morning and decided maybe next time I shouldn't throw myself into 7.5 hours of nonstop cleaning. So the fridge & kitchen light fixture remain untouched, and I didn't clean the stairs and entry (we have a split level) today either. I'll get to it.

Don't kick me out of the Vincent Groupies group, but I fell asleep watching "The Thirteenth Floor" this afternoon on the FX channel. Not for lack of interest, but from sheer exhaustion. Ash and Whit are so adorable, but I could not keep my eyes open.

Anyways, I hope that my Stateside friends and family can tune into Brian's debut show tomorrow; I realize it'll be like 2:00 a.m. over in Europe. Thereafter, he will be on Sundays from 4-4:30, and may increase to a one hour show. I have been banned from the room b/c he will be too self conscious, so I won't even get to listen to it!!

Blessed Beltane

With all of the current stressors going on in my personal life - between work, our battling with Sears' installation over the gas stove fiasco and some other more recent personal issues - I nearly forgot that today is Beltane! So Happy May Day everyone!

Back in Fairfax, CA, there used to be a fantastic May Day Festival in the park, with a maypole, music, crafts, and all kinds of fun stuff. Unfortunately I checked the Fairfax website and it looks as though they've abandoned the May Day Festival. Here's a picture I shot on May Day 1999, but sadly it's the only one I have of the park itself that day. We were about 3 weeks away from leaving California and so all the pictures I shot that day were of my fave stores and places in Fairfax, and not so much the festival.

From www.circlescentury.org:

Also known as May Eve, May Day, and Walpurgis Night, happens at the beginning of May. It celebrates the height of Spring and the flowering of life. The Goddess manifests as the May Queen and Flora. The God emerges as the May King and Jack in the Green. The danced Maypole represents Their unity, with the pole itself being the God and the ribbons that encompass it, the Goddess. Colors are the Rainbow spectrum. Beltane is a festival of flowers, fertility, sensuality, and delight.

Prepare a May basket by filling it with flowers and goodwill and then give it to someone in need of healing and caring, such as a shut-in or elderly friend. Form a wreath of freshly picked flowers, wear it in your hair, and feel yourself radiating joy and beauty. Dress in bright colors. Dance the Maypole and feel yourself balancing the Divine Female and Male within. On May Eve, bless your garden in the old way by making love with your lover in it. Make a wish as you jump a bonfire or candle flame for good luck. Welcome in the May at dawn with singing and dancing.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming

Records

Although I certainly don't have as many records as a lot of people I know, I have made it a point to collect really unusual stuff. Old friends will remember my extreme fondness for coloured vinyl and picture discs, and our shopping expiditions to Newbury Comics in Boston to score those rare finds. I have several 33-1/3 sized picture discs & coloured vinyl albums as well, but those are too big to scan.

Once in awhile, a small record store in Hyannis, called Wave Records, would carry some of the coloured vinyl, but for the most part, we had to go up to "the big city" to get them. By the way, these really do play, although they look weird spinning around on the turntable.

Here are a few of my most treasured picture disc 45's:

Here's one for Bryde: Toto's "Africa", b/w "Rosanna" (which has a picture of Rosanna Arquette leaning against a brick wall that has a Toto poster on it). This one was a total score: A green vinyl Turtles EP, called "Turtlesized", which contains on side A, "Happy Together" & "Outside Chance" and on side B, "Eve of Destruction" & "She'd rather be with me".

Men at Work's "It's a Mistake"....which my bff Michelle and I bastardized into "it's a moose steak", since we were in college in Maine at the time this tune came out.

This one I scanned especially for Liz, as a "blast from the past": Jane Aire & the Belvedere's "Call me every night". She was married to Pete Briquette from the Boomtown Rats, which was our fave rave band. Liz & I had a radio show together on our high school radio station, WSDH, and we played punk rock and new wave. The booth had windows that faced out into the corridor of lockers & was across from the library. It used to really freak kids out when they'd walk by and see this spinning face on the turntable, since none of them had ever seen picture discs before.

I just had to include Kajagoogoo's "Hang on Now". Oh what a crush I used to have on Limahl and Nick Beggs. What was I thinking?

Ya gotta love Captain Sensible, although "Jet Boy Jet Girl" was not exactly suitable for radio airplay. The flipside is "Wait for the Blackout" by the Damned.

One of my all time fave songs from the 80's, "Hymn" by Ultravox.

I have 2 A Flock of Seagulls picture disc 45's, and "I ran" is my fave of the 2, design-wise. The other is "Space Age Lovesong".

And another of my alltime fave 80's new wave/electronica bands, OMD, & the 45 of "Telegraph".

Thanks to Tess & Diane for the idea....

The Valentine Cat's play on words for their Friday post got the Elvis Costello song stuck in my head:

"She is watching the detectives.'ooh, he's so cute!'....."

Actually, I'm surprised none of us thought of this before.....

Ya gotta check this out

Dudes and Dudettes!

Mark posted this link on his blog (Knockin on the Golden Door), and it's just way too hilarious to pass up: http://my10kidfamily.blogspot.com/2007/04/everyone-appreciates-good-cock.html

The woman who wrote this has a fantastic sense of humour, and an amazing talent for, um, shaping ground beef.

You simply must check it out.

Gas prices are going up by the hour here in Washington. Last night when I got home, it was $3.25. When Brian went to Radio Shack at 7:00 pm, it was $3.27. When I left for work this morning, it is now $3.31. My monthly Chevron bill jumped from $268 to $331. Kinda puts a crimp in the ol' travel plans and makes me think twice about doing scads of day trips this year. As it is I'm going to have to save money for my trip to Canada, between the long haul between Bonney Lake and the ferries, and then gas up there being way more expensive than down here!

Mark - do you want to do a workshop on how to do a blog roll? I'm getting a lot of requests for the instructions!!!

Blog Roll Roll Call

Mega thanks to Mark, Claire & Fezzi who helped me sort out how to add links to my blog page; special thanks to Mark for kicking me in the ass to do it and posting my site on his page yesterday. "Sayin' thank you, for a real good time!"

When you get a chance, please visit the sites and web pages I have listed (the ones you don't already visit of course), so that we can all support each other. If you know of other great blogs I should be visiting, let me know too!

I added the website for Mandala Connections, the place where I've gotten my colouring books.

Also, check out "Dark Side Radio", Friday afternoons. It's a one hour radio blogcast which airs at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time. This week's topic is Fred Phelps, that asshole who protests at funerals because "god hates fags". I heard he was protesting at some of the Virginia Tech funerals, and he's said that Hurricane Katrina (and other natural disasters) are "god's punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuals". What a freak show. Methinks he doth protest too much.

Working Out

I did a stupid thing. Well, I did a smart thing, then I did a stupid thing. About a year ago, I joined a gym in Bonney Lake. This was the smart thing. I worked out religiously, 3-4 days a week, cardio and weights. I was eating fruit and veggies all summer long and thought I'd dropped a few pounds. Don't know for sure because scales are verboten in my home, so I only went by how my clothes felt. Well, in the fall, I decided I needed a few pairs of pants. I figured I had to have dropped a size. Nope, I had to buy pants 2 sizes larger. I did a blog post about it, called "an exercise in self loathing". I was really, really discouraged. I couldn't bring myself to go back to the gym out of sheer frustration. Then all hell broke loose with our weather and I spent the lion's share of the winter lifting candies and cookies rather than lifting weights. This was the stupid thing.

So the other day I decided I had to get back to the gym. No more excuses!! All the good that I did last summer, such that it was, was completely erased and I am starting from scratch. Which means painfully sore muscles as I get back into the swing of things.

Yesterday I went straight to the gym on my way home from work. Stopping at home is deadly because I'll never go back out, so I change at work before I leave. The cardio and weight machines are on the second floor, so I have to walk the gauntlet past the muscle-head guys doing the free weights downstairs. It's not very comfortable to make that walk, and I keep my eyes ahead, but fortunately they are too busy strutting and preening and looking at themselves in the mirrors to notice anyone else but themselves.

I chose my treadmill, trying to ignore the cruel irony of the Wendy's that happens to be right across from the gym (the smell of fries permeating the air as you walk from your car to the front door of the fitness center is a real test of willpower, let me tell ya). So I start walking on the treadmill, stealing glances around to see who all else is working out at the same time. I am, for the most part, pleased that many of the people in there are middle aged and pretty overweight. But here and there are those annoying spandex covered gym treats who are working out but clearly don't need to be, and setting the bar impossibly high for the rest of us.

I was wearing a pair of shorts that are pretty comfortable, but unfortunately, the faster I walk, the more I can feel a wedgie starting. For those of you in other countries who are not familiar with our American slang, a "wedgie" is when your underbritches start creeping up your ass crack. Have you ever tried to surreptitiously correct this situation? There's really nothing I can do, my back is to everyone else at the gym as the treadmills are right at the windows, and I didn't really want to give the entire place a show if I reach back and pulled them out, so, on I walked, faster and on an increasing elevation. Well, by now, I am walking so fast that my thighs are rubbing together with so much friction that I was afraid I was going to set my shorts on fire. It, also, was not a pleasant feeling. My underwear has now become a thong and my inner thighs are chaffing. So after about a mile or so of distance, I slowed down and came to a stop, then went over and hid behind some weight machines so as to adjust my very uncomfortable situation. Lucky for me no one was paying attention to the fat old broad picking out her wedgie.

Hopefully this year I'll see some results of my working out, and hopefully I'll stick with it over the winter months. No pain, no gain, so they say. But if that is true, judging by the pain in my muscles today, I have gained a lot. Wish me luck!

For Julie

Go to town!

Colouring for grownups

On Christmas Day, 2001, one of the presents Brian gave me was a book of mandalas for colouring. He wasn't sure whether or not I'd like it; he thought he was really taking a chance buying me this gift. I, however, squealed with delight, as I had always loved colouring as a child, and as my oldest friends will recall, I prolifically coloured those posters you can get at craft stores and decorated my room with them in junior high. In college, I found a really cool Unicorn colouring book that me and my bff/sisterfriend Michelle took turns doing.

I started colouring in the mandala book on 12/31/01 and did one page a week till the book was done. I use coloured pencils, markers, glitter glue, water colours, oil pastels, acrylic paint, glittery gel pens, rhinestones...whatever the piece calls for. I always say that I don't colour the designs, they colour themselves. I try to do one per week, that way it stretches out the experience and I don't blow through all of the books too quickly. I also take them with me on vacation and note the date and place where the picture was done.

Since then, I have acquired nearly all of the mandala colouring books available through Mandala Connections in Montana. These include: Tibetan, Native American, Peace, Power, Everyone's Mandalas Volumes 1-3. I am currently working on Keltish Mandalas, and I have one of Asian designs as well. I've also coloured a snowflake book (given to me by Michelle) and one of dragons.

Here are pictures of some of the pages from the 10 different books I've worked on over the past few years. Some of them scanned kind of crooked or cut off.

(This next one's for my British friends in honour of St. George's Day).I started this one in Vancouver, BC and finished it when I got home the next day.

Congratulations, eh!

A hearty CONGRATULATIONS are in order for Kathleen, who has been accepted to the University of Toronto! I really feel old having a friend with a daughter old enough to be starting college in the fall.

Good job Kathleen!

"Founded in 1827, the University of Toronto is Canada’s leading research-intensive university. With roughly 70,000 students, 3,000 faculty and over 300 undergraduate programs, Maclean’s magazine notes in its annual report that ‘Canada’s top-ranked Medical-Doctoral university is a place where learning is the order of the day’. Spanning three campuses in the Greater Toronto Area and Mississauga, it houses 14 professional faculties, 32 libraries, 7 colleges and has links to 9 teaching hospitals.

A liberal arts education is the heart of the undergraduate curriculum at Toronto, and the Faculty of Arts and Science has more students than any other faculty. The education of students for the professions has always been an important part of the University’s role, and the University accordingly maintains a wide range of professional faculties. The University’s insistence on the importance of research in all disciplines has made it the major centre for graduate education in Canada. In many fields it produces a majority of the nation’s doctoral candidates. The quality and range of the programs - undergraduate, graduate and professional - attract students from all parts of the province, from around the country and from abroad.
To support its work of teaching and research, the University has collected a library that is the largest in Canada and among the best in the world. The University maintains many laboratories and specialized aids to research. The University of Toronto Press Inc. is the chief institution of its kind in Canada and one of the most important scholarly publishers in North America. "

What a lovely campus!

Rest in peace.

Thor - God of Hotness

"Adventures in Babysitting" was on last night....quite possibly one of the worst movies ever made, and a clear rip off of the John Hughes style of 1980's teen flix. But it was worth it to see Vincent's brief cameo as "Thor" Dawkins, tough guy owner of the garage, who initially is quite mean, but then softens after a gift from a child.

With profound thanks to Eliza for her fab caps, including the boot shot that I was so hoping she had in her Photobucket stash.

Also profound thanks to my hubby who put up with my switching back and forth to this movie last night so that I could record the scene (he cracked me up when he groaned, "This movie sucks. Please tell me this was his first role!").

Julie, this post is specially for you. Now let's hope I can get the scene off the DVR and onto a videotape so you can see it in action!!