awareness

*Hi Loves,
This is a post from Christmas past. I think it was way back in a simpler time — 2013.

Anyhow…it’s a crowd favorite, the number one most requested holiday post because it’s all about my husband and everybody roots for my hubby. Right? I mean, he tolerates me and that is no small feat.

He’s no saint, believe you me. He’s a procrastinator extraordinaire as this story will reveal, and a curmudgeon rapscallion of epic proportions.  HOWEVER, all that being said, the man never ceases to amaze me with his common decency.

Here on Earth 2.0, I miss common decency. I think we all do.

So here’s a dollop courtesy of my own, personal Avatar. I’m immensely grateful for him, all of you, and your decency and continued loyalty. Wishing you and yours the happiest of holidays and an amazing 2019!
xox

AVATAR
av·a·tar
ˈavəˌtär/
noun
1.HINDUISM
a manifestation of a deity or released soul in bodily form on earth; an incarnate divine teacher.

I met my husband when he was 47 and I was 43.
To say I kissed a lot of frogs along the way is an understatement!
And since he’s French there’s also a certain irony there.

On paper, I looked über normal.
I had a great job, a house, a relatively “normal” family, lots of good friends, two Siamese cats, and a Partridge in a pear tree.

But as you all know by now, I had my dark, hidden secret.
I was a closeted seeker.
Devoutly spiritual.
I did yoga,
I meditated twice a day,
I could have been a monk.
Well, except for the red lipstick and nail polish…oh, and the sex.

Anyway…
I’m pretty sure I blurted it all out after a glass of wine on one of our early dates, half expecting him to excuse himself, saying he was “going to the restroom”, only to discover he had made a run for it!

But he didn’t.

It ends up he was a seeker as well, having worked with
a Peruvian shaman along the way—so I should have seen this coming.

For years, I had sought the counsel of a channel, a friend who had the ability to call in “beings” of higher wisdom. So, I invited her/them over to “meet” my new husband. I’m not exactly sure what I expected, but what they did was to completely ignore me and practically fall all over themselves (in a nebulous, ghosty way), calling him “Great Avatar”.

Then they explained that I am the “consort” to this great being.

What? Really?
Like the Cleopatra to his Marc Anthony?
Uh, nope. Nothing like that.

More like the Robin to his Batman.
The Abbot to his Costello.
The Kato to his Green Hornet.
The Elaine to his Jerry.
The Heckle to his Jeckle.

Well, not exactly. I have to aquiece to the undenialble fact that, gulp,
He is my teacher.
I am grasshopper.

I just rolled my eyes, thinking that infinite wisdom must have mistakenly ‘Avatared’ the wrong guy—but the irefutable proof of it happened again—for the gazillionth time on Christmas Eve day.

He told me the story with tears in his eyes that night on our way to dinner.

He is a typical man in the sense that he waits until 3 p.m. on the 24th of December to start his holiday shopping.

So…there he was driving while famished, navigating an overcrowded parking lot with nothing to sustain him.

He had becoome Hangry (hungry + angry).
You get the picture.

Finally, after circling eight-thousand times, he saw a car ready to pull out of its space so he positioned himself, left blinker on, and waited…and waited…while the person sloooooowy backed out of the coveted spot. Meanwhile, on the other side of them was a little pickup truck that has the same idea. My husband seeing what was about to happen, aggressively blocked the spot with his black Porsche and pulled in. (Don’t judge, just because it’s a Porsche and a pickup truck, just don’t do it!)

As the pickup truck drove off, the driver made eye contact and flipped my husband the middle finger.

Oh, don’t worry, that stuff rolls off his back…he’s French, remember?
But still, it was Christmas Eve for cryin’ out loud!

No matter. He walked into a local joint to grab a quick burger and realized while he was eating, that middle-finger-pickup-truck-guy was eating with some of his buddies a few tables over.

So, he got out a pen and wrote a note on a napkin.
He then attached $20 and handed it to the waitress to deliver to the guy…and left.

The note read:
Even though you flipped me the bird,
It’s Christmas Eve.
your lunch is on me.
The black Porsche.

While walking away he glanced back to see the guy showing the note to his buddies as he stood up to search the cafe for this mystery Santa.

So decent, right? It brought tears to my eyes you guys!

He’s my hero.
He’s my teacher
He really is an Avatar.
(And said without any eyeroll whatsoever) It is an honor to be his consort/grasshopper.

Merry Christmas everybody!
Xox

There are Masters walking among us you guys. Teachers. Wise ones.

They don’t wear white robes. They don’t levitate or walk on water (well, not in public).

They wear the disguise of a mere mortal.

Sometimes, the ones we tend to overlook the easiest. The unassuming. The forgotten.

The harried waitress, the sweet kid at the Christmas tree lot, the homeless guy in front of Starbucks.

Read this short story about just such a Master from my wickedly talented writer, sister-friend, Mel—in my other sister-friend’s new magazine! #lovemytribe

Then go and grab yourselves some holiday cheer!
Carry on,
xox

http://www.huntsvillelifemagazine.com/single-post/2016/12/18/A-LESSON-IN-HUMANITY

This is making the rounds on social media and I adore it! So, of course, I had to share it just in case you haven’t seen it yet.
Big candy cane kisses,
xox

I don’t know about you guys but I love “unknown”. “Unknown” is so wise and says the greatest shit. Which leads me to believe “unknown” knew I needed to remember this now more than ever.

Carry on,
xox

Hi everyone,
One more week to go!

I hope this finds you not too stressed out and enjoying at least some of the cheer the holidays have to offer. Me, you ask? I’m coping with regular meditation, lots of self-care and…oh who am I kidding? I’m polishing off chocolate chip cookies at an alarming rate!

Listen, this is the season of giving and I’m such a giver (ha) that I wanted to pass along this podcast to you guys. It’s longer than normal so I’m doing it on the weekend because it’s totally worth a listen!

The interviewer is my favorite bookmama Linda Siversten, founder of my favorite book tribe the Big Beautiful Writers Group, and she’s sitting down for an in-depth chat with one of my favorite gurus and her pal Guru Singh.

They talk about life, creativity, the “ambrosia” hours, his book Buried Treasures, (which I read this time last year and loved!)  Even the election results!

Listen to it while you wrap presents. While you’re sitting in the airport or stuck on the freeway. I listened while I ran errands yesterday and the time flew by!

Okay. Here you go. Gird your loins. You will make it through these last seven days, I promise.

Love you,
xox

https://www.amazon.com/Buried-Treasures-Journey-Where-You/dp/1497594324/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482070677&sr=1-1&keywords=buried+treasures+guru+singh

bookmama.com

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world,
I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport.
General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed,
but I don’t see that.

It seems to me that love is everywhere.

Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy,
but it’s always there – fathers and sons,
mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends.”
~From the movie LOVE ACTUALLY (One of my holiday favorites!)

Oh, My loves, God only knows what I’d be without YOU!

xox

“I work 8 hours, I sleep 8 hours, that leaves 8 hours for…what?”

I was listening to a podcast today and this “old saying” stopped me in my tracks.

Well, the big, juicy melted piece of gum I stepped in while I was listening and traversing the parking lot at Target actually DID stop me in my tracks. A stop so dead—I walked right out of my shoe.

I kid you not.

Seeing that we are deep into December, I had to park so far away that the actual Target store was just a speck on the horizon. I’m sure someone left their gum, like a bread crumb, to mark the trail back to their car so…I can’t really be mad, can I?
But enough about my glamourous life.

Back to the saying. You know, the myth that implies that there are more than enough hours in a day.

You work eight hours.
Stop laughing.
I know we’re smack dab in the middle of the holidays and what with shopping and wrapping and all—the Elves up at the North Pole have a shorter work day. And better benefits. And terrific catering. Nevermind.

So… you work.

Anyhow, you sleep eight hours. But seriously, who does? I’m lucky to get seven. This morning I woke up at 3 am because I thought I saw an orange glow down the hall and knew for sure the tree was on fire.
It wasn’t.

Too late, adreneline rushes don’t keep regular office hours.

Then I couldn’t remember all of the reindeer names or get that damn song out of my head.
I lay there wondering where on earth my pine nut cookie recipe went and the next thing I knew it was 4am and all I could think about was how good coffee would taste with a pine nut cookie—so I got up and made some. Coffee. Not the cookies. I’m still at a loss.

So…You sleep.

But you guys, that still leaves at least several, maybe four, hours left to do whatever you want.

My friend says those hours are reserved for worrying.
Yikes.
My hubby says traffic on the 101 freeway chews up his spare time.
Jeepers, people.

What about eating?
Sex anybody?
Holiday merriment?

I decided to paint with a broad brush.
“I work 8 hours, I sleep 8 hours, that leaves 8 hours left for… FUN!”

That sounds downright illegal, doesn’t it? Fun? Really? And for eight hours? Oh, sweet Jesus, help me!

But fun can be anything, right?

A glass of pink champagne for no reason?

Maybe it’s staying up after everybody else goes to bed to binge watch Netflix.

What about going out to lunch and catching up with an old friend?

Today, my friend Kim and I played hookie and went to see a movie—in the middle of the day!

How would you complete that sentence? Gimme some hints, I’d love to know.

Carry on,
xox

“Oh, the heartbreakingly beautiful tender weight of being human.” ~ Unknown

I’m tender-hearted.

Truly.

I know I may seem pretty cold-hearted sometimes, but I can be brought to tears by a beer commercial with big horses and dogs. And carols. Oh Holy Night or that incredible duet by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli —that one slays me.

So, yeah. I cry easy. Especially at Christmas.

A “friend” sent me a story with the video of a Santa who was granting a terminally ill little boy’s wish to talk to him only to have the boy whisper at the end of their visit, “Santa, can you help me?” and then die right there in the bearded mans arms.  The man is undone as he weeps through the telling of the story.

Well! That was the cruelest of Yuletide acts so of course I was forced to rip up her Christmas card and eat the fudge I made her.

I will not post it here because it really is THAT sad, but if you need to see it with your own eyes it is currently doing the rounds on Facebook where I have had to do the equivalent of running past it for the past week lest I cry my eyelashes off.

But you’re not getting off that easy. I saw this video and just had to share it with you guys. It is the epitome of the Christmas spirit and that’s all I’m going to say. Except…

I was shocked.

I was touched.

I cried and then I wondered what Oprah,  I would have done in the same situation at the same age.

https://www.facebook.com/unbelievable.wow/videos/289671704767444/

What do YOU think?

Carry on my people,
xox

The energy was a bit frantic this weekend and it carried into Monday.

After all, It’s mid December.

I hiked, had some Facetimes with two of my tribe members whom I love, and then before I started gnawing on own arm I decided to make myself something to eat. These days I’ve been preparing a lovely riced cauliflower dish which I convince myself through the power of my mind and copious amounts of butter, salt and pepper, is perfectly steamed jasmine rice.

Some days it tastes like a big carb cheat. Most days it does not. It tastes like sock drawer lint covered in butter, salt and pepper.

I’m doing this during December because I just so happen to have the ingredients for Toll House chocolate chip cookies in the house and so I consider myself armed and dangerous. Dozens of cookies could be baked at a moments notice so I feel better eating them knowing I had something bland, tasteless, and carb free for lunch.

So you can imagine my horror when I opened the butter dish only to find a sliver of butter left behind and none in the fridge. This sliver should have never been left there. It was barely enough to butter one piece of toast. The culprit, and I’m not naming names, but his initials are RB, should have just used it up and left out the empty butter dish so I would have bought butter when I was out shopping, oh, I don’t know, every day this past weekend.

Anyway, I has just enough time to run to the market to fetch some butter for my lint before my friend Kim was due to arrive, AND I had on the appropriate clothing. I have been known to run to the market for a stray ingredient (not big grocery shopping mind you), in whatever I have on in the moment. Pajama bottoms, a stained sweatshirt and flip-flops, shorts, no bra and Uggs to name a few examples. It’s like I’m running out to the garage, not a public place. So…if you ever see me—I apologize in advance.

Today I had on real pants…a bra…and some proper shoes. This is worth mentioning.

So, I raced to our nearby Ralphs, grabbed a butter (salted, of course), and finally, finally, several poinsettia plants that did’t look as if they’d fallen off the back of the truck. I checked myself out at the Self Checkout (because I am so fast it’s not even fair), ran back to my car in a very crowded and chaotic December parking lot and unloaded my one bag while an SUV waited patiently for my primo spot.

In my rush to expedite the entire process and because I was pressured by that freaking SUV, I took my purse out of the cart and put it down in the back so I could maneuver the dog cushions and a rogue rug I’ve been driving around with for the past day or so.

Hey! The poinsettias were delicate and they needed breathing room!

That was my first mistake.

My second mistake was shutting the back when I was finished.
As I flashed a quick smile and an I’m going as fast as I can hand wave (sans the middle finger in case you were wondering), to the waiting SUV, my smile was instantly replaced by the taste of vomit when I realized the back tail gate had just clicked shut and LOCKED itself—with my purse inside.

The last time I locked my keys in the car was…NEVER. I have never locked my keys in the car.

I have one of those new fangled cars that works without keys. It has a push button ignition and the doors will lock and unlock and it will start as long as the key is close enough to smell. I’ve tried to lock it many, many, many times with my purse still in the back seat and the doors refuse to lock. It is smarter than me. It knows things. Yet, somehow the same rules don’t apply to the back of the station wagon.

You know how I know that? BECAUSE I COULDN’T OPEN THE F*CKING CAR!

At least I had my phone in my pocket, so I called my husband who, when he was done laughing, said this:

Me: I locked my purse in the way back of the car.
Husband: How?…Never mind. Looks like you have a walk home ahead of you.
Me: Of course! I can walk home and get the other key! It’s a fifteen minute walk. That’s genius!
Husband: I know. Between the two of us we have one brain that’s firing on all cylinders.
Me: Right?
Husband: Gotta go. I hope I haven’t used my one great idea for the day.

As you can imagine, the SUV lady was NOT happy when I mimed I locked my keys in the car accompanied by the universal forehead slap and the Doh shrug.

So, off I went a walkin’.

This was the perfect opportunity to slow down. Something I decided to embrace. I also decided to pay attention. This was my quaint little neighbor hood that I usually race thru at fifty miles an hour. Walking at a decent clip the first thing I noticed were all of the changing leaves. My God! It’s SoCal, not New England, I get that, but still! Look at this!

One thing I could not avoid noticing was all of the smeared poop on the sidewalk. It was like avoiding land mines and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the result of one incontinent canine or that the dog walking people in my neighborhood are seriously THAT rude.

My neighboorhood has real holiday spirit. What I hadn’t noticed before were all of the holiday wreaths. Every single door has a wreath of some kind. Even some gates and garages have wreaths. I even spotted one on the front of a truck. Some of the old-fashioned lamp posts in the neighborhood are wrapped with ribbon and many a mailbox is tied with a bow. Is that a thing? Putting a big red bow on your mailbox? I saw so many, I think it’s a thing.

Something else that was really surprising were all of the phallices drawn in chalk on the sidewalk. I’m serious. I counted five. Is there a band of depraved, sexually precocious six-year olds wandering our neighborhood drawing dicks in colored chalk? Or is this Pompeii? I’m still scratching my head on that one.

By the time I got the spare key and started to walk back it was starting to drizzle. Not enough to get wet. Just enough to frizz my hair into a giant gray afro. Terrifying. But I was glad I had on pants and real shoes because, you know, weather.

After my half an hour walking tour of the neighborhood I have to tell you I was never so happy to pull into my driveway—in my car. The sheer gratitude I felt for reliable transportation and for my swell little neighborhood was barely overshadowed by the fact that sitting happily in the driveway, admiring the white lights of the tree glittering through the window, I suddenly realized I’d left my Christmas tree on the entire time I was gone.

I need to slow down. How about you?
Carry on,
xox

Hi Guys,
Meet my dear friends Kim and Sandra O’Donnell. They are a very brave couple. They married within a few months of meeting, he left a business, she started one, then they left Kim’s family home in California to move to Sandra’s home state of Alabama to be near her family.

So the least I could do was write about the fact that poinsettias upset me and send it to them because I am so far out of their league I can only hope to illicit their sympathy…and yours.
Please check out their Magazine, it’s awesome.

http://www.huntsvillelifemagazine.com/single-post/2016/12/08/A-FEW-WORDS-ABOUT-POINSETTIAS

I have a very complicated relationship with the holidays and their prerequisite decoration requirements, most particularly, the Poinsettia plant. Some people call it a flower but really, is it a flower? It seems fairly obvious to me that it is a green plant that has the ability, once a year, for our enjoyment, to turn its leaves red.

I find that to be an amazingly unselfish contribution to the holiday season which I can appreciate, so that being said, I cannot pass up a good poinsettia…or five. And therein lies the complication.

They are not an inexpensive obsession.

I need several, and by several I mean many of the medium plants, most which sell for around $5.99 to $7.99 a pot. My need for them is nonnegotiable if I want to put together a proper centerpiece or decorate an entrance. Don’t even get me started on the giant ones which I LOVE—because they are gorgeous. They can be as much as $25-$30 at a swanky nursery, upscale farmer’s market or florist in the city.

Granted, you can find them cheaper at certain grocery stores, (you know which ones I’m talking about) but they are the text-book case of “you get what you pay for.” Pathetic is the word that comes to mind when I think of them. They are the Tiny Tim’s of poinsettia plants. They are generally minuscule, dry and scrawny, with broken leaves, which these plants can’t afford because of their inherent sparseness.

After feeling the appropriate amount of pity I turn around, suck it up, and pay my eight dollars.

Here’s the thing. I have been buying poinsettias at Christmastime for well over forty years. I figure I pick up at least six to ten of them at eight dollars a plant. I am ashamed to admit I also buy at least three of the large, lush and perfectly crimson red thirty-dollar-a-pop plants each year so that makes almost fifteen poinsettias and that doesn’t count the replacement ones I buy after the ones I purchase right after Thanksgiving wilt and die by the second week of December. And you can just forget about all of those years we held Christmas Eve at our house. There was veritable red sea of Poinsettia plants as far as the eye could see. And not the Tiny Tim’s, the big, expensive guys.

I know you’re all with me. I see you with your plants at the check-out counter where we all size up each others choices and swallow our shame.

I sooth my guilt this way: Poinsettias are like buying into those expensive but strictly frivolous kitchen gadgets, like a super-duper vegetable juicer or a fancy food dehydrator. You convince yourself you must have them. You NEED them. Then after a couple of weeks you curse yourself for being such gullible idiot and get rid of them only to find yourself a year later forgetting why you hated them and doing it all over again.

So… you can do the math. I have spent a small fortune on seasonal plants that every year I promise myself I will nurture and use again the following year but in truth I once spotted a poinsettia plant in a friend’s garden in July. It felt like an aberration. Nope. I will continue to squander my money for the next three weeks and I justify it by deeming poinsettias necessary and calling them festive. To me, they signal the start of the holidays.

But let me be blunt. Had I not been bamboozled year after year by this nefarious plant/flower I would own a small island in the Bahama’s next to Johnny Depp’s or a diamond the size of my head.

Happy Holidays