Grown-up Easter Barbie

Sunday morning. Here’s how it went:

8:00am. Alarm goes off: beep-beep-beep. Slap! Snooze.
Alarm goes off again. Slap! Snooze again.

Repeat above about 10 times. Why that many? Because I actually got up around 9:20 and the snooze goes off every 8 minutes.

Great. Now I have 10 minutes to get ready for church and 30 minutes to drive. Stumble to the shower.

Out of the shower. Glance at clock. That's ok, I can drive to the church in 20 minutes. 10 minutes to get ready and 20 minutes to drive.

Now what to wear? Hey, it’s Easter! That means I should wear something pretty. Pull out floral skirt. It’s probably too big. I haven’t worn it since I lost weight. Try on skirt. It’s not too big. Curse skirt and hang it back up. It’s too floral and Hawaiian-looking anyway. This is church not a luau.

Hmmm…what else? It’s cold today. Not Easter-like at all. Not like the South. Better wear something pretty AND warm.

Oh, there’s my long white linen skirt. Admire it. It IS pretty. Check the size. Definitely too big. Try it on. Yayyy!!!! It’s too big!! Definitely going to wear this skirt. And it’s ankle-length so I can wear boots! (I love boots.)

Now what top? Black linen with the white embroidery? Try it on. Hmm..verrry slimming. Looks good with skirt. Am I really that slim on top? I look almost delicate. Nevermind, black and white are definitely not Easter-y. Back into closet. Will keep in mind for funerals. But it's too pretty for funerals. Maybe for a festive spring funeral.

Hey there’s my yellow linen jacket with the ruffles all around the edges and sleeves. Never worn it. Verrrry feminine. Too feminine? It’s from J-Jill! It’s allowed to be too feminine. Anyway is there any such thing? Probably not. It’s Probably too big. Try it on. Hmm, lovely. Too big in a way that fits, not too loose.

Now, I have an outfit. Glance at clock. Ok, well I can get ready in 5 minutes and get there in 15.

Walk into bathroom. Pull my hair back. Why doesn’t it look right? And why does it look different depending on the angle I pull it back? Because they’re different angles, duh…now get a move on. Pull hair back and take it down. Repeat at least 10 times.

Well that took long enough. Don’t even THINK about makeup. Exit bathroom. Glance at clock. Ok if I leave now I have 10 minutes to get there.

But I need a coat. Which coat? And perfume.

Glance at clock. Drat!! 5 minutes!!!!!!!!! I’ll never make it!!!!!!!!!!!

Walk towards garage. Pass powder room mirror and get a glimpse of almost full length of outfit, including lime green coat which looked very Easter-y in the closet but on me just hangs.

Great. Everything’s too big. I look like a pastel-colored bag lady. Maybe I should…..

“Oh no you don’t” I think…….and mentally push myself out the door.

Made it. Only 5 minutes late. Service ok. Go to Easter brunch with girlfriend. Two little girls who are mixed half-black/half-white walk past our table holding the hand of their mother who is white. The older one looks at my girlfriend and makes a shocked face.

“Don't be shocked” I think, “You’re going to be one of us some day”. (Unless of course Barack Obama wins president in which case you'll get to be whoever you want to be and your skin color won't matter, I continue my mental conversation with her. )

They walk by again later. This time I catch her eye and flash her my best “grown-up Barbie” smile. She smiles back and gives me an “Oh my, you look like a princess” look. “Yes, and you’re going to be one of us someday” I give her a knowing look and a nod back. This time she looked like that would be just fine with her.

There, that's better.

Let There Be Light

The ultimate destination of faith is to come to that point where you realize that (1) eternity is a very, very, very long time and (2) no situation is permanent and (3) suffering may seem like a bad thing (OK it actually IS a bad thing) but imagine the monotony of a life with no struggles or growth...it would be like a world without seasons. Saying suffering isn't bad would be like saying winter isn't cold. It is, but you can avoid freezing and sometimes even manage to enjoy yourself.

I would love to live in a "spiritual Hawaii"......a world of no problems; a paradise. But to live in a physical world with changing seasons, well......... that is like living in Omaha, Nebraska. The winters are long and hard here to be sure, but not impossible and not nearly as bad or as long as they seem. Just like all suffering, it looks far worse to the people who aren't going through it. The dread of it is worse than the actual experience.

A friend of mine at work emailed me the story below. I've heard it before and probably you have too. But it is exactly what I think of Christianity. The people, believers and atheists alike, who believe themselves to be good people because of their own abilities are like candles that think they lit themselves.


Does Evil Exist?

The University professor challenged his students with this question.

"Did God create everything that exists?"

A student bravely replied, "Yes he did!"

"God created everything?" The professor asked.

"Yes sir", the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are, then God is evil."

The student became quiet before such an answer. The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?"

"Of course", replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, "Professor does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students nickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460? F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."

The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded, "Of course it does."

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

The young man's name -- Albert Einstein

Match Dot gosh-darned Com

So I just changed my profile on Match dot com. First of all, may I tell you how much I hate actually being on that site? But I have found that starting out by telling guys how much you don't want to be online dating......is not a good way to start off.



I've been out with two guys, one of whom is quite possibly gay and who obviously (since I am calling him gay) has not been invited to read my blog. Ironically the gay guy (ok, ok "Metrosexual guy") is turning out to become a pretty good girlfriend. So here's a sampling of a possible profile...... :




When I was very young my aunts used to tell me I should become a model. (I know that sounds conceited, but stay with me here, I have a point). I didn't, because I didn't want to get paid to have strange men look at me. Now I'm a member of match dot com and I am actually paying money to have strange men look at me. How ironic is that?



So, what would you like to know about me? I'm smart, fun-loving and easy-going. I have a great sense of humor and can be very funny. I love to laugh. I like to play tennis, belong to the Jane Austen Book Club, and travel a lot, especially for work but also for personal recreation. I like to try to stay in shape so I just got some new excercise equipment delivered to my home because I find that with travelling I excercise a lot in hotels but when I'm home my workout routine gets interrupted. I hope you like to stay in shape as well. (Not that I expect you to be a model. Most male models are gay...not that there's anything wrong with that. A woman can never have too many gay male friends. Anyway...).



I like to think of myself as a citizen of the entire country rather than only one city. I am relatively successful. I'm very outgoing and everywhere I go I am constantly meeting smart and interesting people. I look for, and usually find, the good in everyone.



If you're still reading this then hopefully we have some things in common and if that's true then you are a rare and special person. If we actually do get a chance to meet I hope you will realize what a privilege it is just to call each other friends.



P.S. If you've changed your profile lately you'll notice that match dot com now gives us about a quarter of an inch of space in which to type a profile of 4,000 words, so you can never actually see what it is you just typed. What is up with that?

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

Went to New Orleans this weekend. Had a bachelorette party for "the bride". Well, not so much a bachelorette party as just a girls weekend. My brother asked me if he'd be seeing me on the next "Girls Gone Wild" video. That prompted many thoughts & questions in my mind...

First......What's he doing watching a Girl's Gone Wild" video? Yuck!
Second...I think at the age of 38 I no longer qualify to be called a "girl". At least I don't think the sleazeballs who create those videos would consider me one...
Third... If I did "go wild", I'd have enough sense not to do it on a video.
And fourth.... If he knew anything about my friends at all he'd realize I am the wildest one of the bunch, even if you consider them all collectively, which means there is absolutely zero chance of a video ever happening.

We must be the only women on the planet who've gone to New Orleans to celebrate a pending nuptial and went there to enjoy the food, art, culture, and weather. As boring as it sounds, we toured art galleries (my favorite was Galleria Bella on Royal street - check out Randy Cooper's wire mesh shadow art. It's the coolest thing I've ever seen. The shadows cast by the wire mesh actually show more detail than the mesh sculpture itself.) My favorite artists there are Antonio Gravina, David Chandler, and Marso Savaro. I also think I like Ann Copelan, but I'm not sure.

At a place called "the Brass Monkey" (yes, I know that sounds like a dive bar but it's actually a cool antique artifacts shop) I discovered Sabino glass, a type of glass made with milk. It has a blue-ish milky hue and it feels soft, like soap. I've been wanting to become a collector of something. You know how people collect teapots or mugs or thimbals or (if they're like my ex-husband) comic books. Well I've decided I'm going to collect Sabino glass! I decided to start my collection with the Rabbit. He's the little fellow you see up top of the post.

For years now rabbits have been becoming a sort of good luck charm for me. Whenever I see a rabbit something good is happening in my life. I first noticed it happening back around 2002. I would see a rabbit.....and then something good would happen. Or vice versa...something good would happen and then I'd see a rabbit. There's an old wive's tale in North Carolina that on the first day of the month you wake up and say "Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit" (with the proper accent of course) and it will bring you good luck. It doesn't matter what form the rabbit comes in. Sometimes they're stuffed. Sometimes they're real. last week in Wyoming I was working with one of the switchmen, sitting outside in the truck waiting for trains to go by, when I saw three white rabbits in the snow. First one appeared, hopping back and forth over the tracks, and then another, and then another. They were barely visible against the snow. As if to make sure I didn't miss my rabbits, the Universe sent me another one. We left our spot and drove over to where my car was parked. There in the grass in front of the building, near my car, so close I could have walked up and petted him, was a brown rabbit. He was just sitting there, not even afraid when we walked near him. I think I'm going to collect both bunnies AND Sabino glass.

The highlight of the weekend was having custom perfumes created for each of us at Borboun French Parfums. We got to name them. I named mine "Lyrical". I also have another scent but I don't want to reveal its name here. Anyway, they both smell heavenly, and the cool thing is that each of our perfumes smells exactly like us. That is, each scent matches the wearers personality. And amazingly, considering we made them all together, in one sitting, at the same time, none of the scents fit any of the rest of us nor do they smell similar to each other. I also had two amazing discoveries:

1. Almost anything smells good on me. Ok not almost. Everything smelled good on me. (I like to think it's because I am a happy person so my body chemistry created happy smells) And..
2. No matter what scent she put on me, after leaving them on a while they always combined with my body chemistry to end up smelling the same.

Another cool thing about this is that once they have your scents on file, they keep the formula. So friends and family can call or go online and actually order perfume, lotions, shower gels and whatever else they carry, either for me or for themselves, all in either of MY two signature scents. It's like the ultimate gift registry.

Not to worry, we did get our groove on at Bourbon Cowboy. There's nothing like walking past a wide open club full of people doing their version of dancing to some great R&B/Hip Hop sound to pull us in so we could "show 'em how it's done". Yes, the bride wore an "I'm the Bride" sash. And yes, we got up on one of the platforms and "performed". At one point we were joined up there by three other girls, so there were six girls dancing in all, three white and three black, all in sync, in a very small space. But the interesting part about this was there was not a drop of alcohol among us. None of us had even had so much as a glass of wine. We're just cool like that.

But what would a weekend in New Orleans be without jazz? We started the weekend on Friday night with dinner at Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro, followed by a live performance in the back room of the bistro by Ellis Marsalis, the grandaddy of the great Wynton Marsalis and the first family of jazz. We finished our weekend with brunch on Sunday morning at the Ritz Carlton hotel (we didn't stay there, we stayed at the adjoining Iberville suites which were much cheaper). The garden was beautiful. in all my trips to New Orleans I've never noticed how many beautiful courtyards there are. We had some time before our flight left Sunday afternoon so we decided to get in some shopping. Real shopping this time, not the art-browsing, "we're not actually here to buy anything" type we'd done the day before.

My friend, "the bride" got into a huge bruhaha at one of the stores where we were buying our designer knock-off purses. She had, against my advice, bought a Juicy Couture knock-off the night before, and then had carried it around to the various places we went, including dancing at the Bourbon Cowboy. I'd advised her against it, not because I was worried about the purse, but because one of the earliest rules you learn when you go out with a group of girls is "every girl watches her own purse", which as you grow older translates to "never carry a purse out dancing" to which was later added the corollary: "especially to a bachelorette party".

As she was buying the purse I had flashbacks to my early college years when I was still young and naive and I'd gotten stuck sitting at the table because I was watching the purses. It didn't take me long to figure out that the sooner I got up and got out on the dance floor, the less likely I was to be the one benched for the night. Hence the rule. The one thing all good bridesmaids know is that the rules don't apply to the bride, so I knew if she wanted me to watch that purse, I'd watch it. I was going for prevention. But here's the thing: Her maid of honor is her twenty-six year old sister. I'm not sure at what age you write the rules in stone, but I know it's not that young. The sister/maid-of-honor who outranked me insisted that she buy the purse RIGHT NOW. I don't know what the hurry was, but the bride bought it (both the advice and the purse).

The next morning when we went back to buy the fake Coach I'd wanted she noticed a rhinestone was missing from her purse and she demanded her money back. The store clerk pretended he couldn't find her original receipt (it mysteriously turned up later). There were all kinds of things wrong with this picture. The important thing to know is that while all of this was going on I noticed that we had thirty minutes left to get our luggage out of the hotel before my credit card was going to be charged for an additional half-day. While she was still arguing with the store clerk and waiting for the owner to arrive, I raced back to the hotel (20 mintes), up to our room, finished packing everyone's stuff, and had it packed and was loading it on a cart (10 minutes) when the bride and her sister returned. All my travelling experience came in handy. They had packed a lot of their stuff already but there was still a lot left lying around. I have packing down to an art science. I even knew who's stuff was who's and which pocket in which bag to put it so it's owner would find it. The girls walked in and checked. I hadn't missed a thing.

As we were leaving on Sunday, we were sitting in the New Orleans airport after our flight was delayed. The inbound flight at our gate de-boarded, and there strolling off as cool as you please as if he weren't the least bit famous, we spotted the great Mr. Ellis Marsalis.
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit....