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“What he needed, Arnaud often told himself, was a wife.
He had one in early August, unfortunately not his own.”
Hahah. That is my favorite line, thus far, in the book Encore Provence by Peter Mayle. In preparation for my first “real” vacation in a ridiculously long-stretching dusty dry path of two years, today I purchased the book about the South of France as I’ve spontaneously decided that I am going to the South of France to explore my lil’ petite self along the Cote d’Azur. Tres enthousiaste!
My morning preparatory measures involved three missions:
1. Purchase homeopathic remedy to combat jet lag.
This morning I received a call from a family friend/hair stylist in my hometown.
She said: Hi honey! I’m here with your mom, doing her hair, and she told me about your trip to France– so excited for you! Now, you must go get this homeopathic remedy so you don’t get jet lag or it will ruin your whole trip.
I said: Oh, wow, thank you! I hadn’t actually thought of that…
She said: Well, do you have time today to find some? If you don’t find any, let me know, I have some and I’ll overnight it to you on Monday.
I said: Yeah, this is San Francisco. I don’t see it being any trouble at all locating homeopathic remedies.
She said: Okay great! Well, have fun and we love you!
I have a ridiculous love for conversations like this ~ homegrown love from the hometown. Nothing beats it.
(Remedy found at WholeFoods!)
2. Travel Guide + French book to provide path for the feeling of France to awaken within me.
It’s not hard for me to connect with the feeling of France. I do have some French ancestral roots in me and quite a few times it’s been assumed that I’m French… by fellow Americans. (a bit odd but it makes me smile every time.) Anyway, I wanted to read some sort of travel memoir about France to provide proper mood alignment. Sound weird? Maybe. I actually did this with New York too. One day I read the book The Devil Wears Prada (not my usual sort of book but entertaining nonetheless) and within 4 weeks I was living in NY without having had any real previous conscious thought about moving there.) (I’ll send postcards if I decide to move to France while there– promesse!)
Also purchased travel guide and pocket translator — essential dining translations necessary to avoid such things as duck meat cooked in flaky butter pastry. (Leave the flaky butter pastry, s’il vous plaît, remove the duck.)
3. Première Passe packing
This first pass at the packing thing involves:
~ Drag sun dresses out from back of San Francisco closet.
~ Decide that packing for the French Riviera is fantastique. Love one-dress-wonder packing.
~ Try on bikini and determine that… good lord almighty. I clearly work indoors for entirely too many hours a day. Any tan gleaned from the 4th of July has disparaitre. Oh well. C’est la vie!
So, now I return to my preparations for spontaneity… South of France, here I come mon amour.
In lieu of not being with my Fathers on Father’s Day (sorry to my two favorite men! I will be home from NY soon to celebrate!!), I decided to share two books with you that are currently topping my list o’ things I enjoy:
~ One that I read and then re-read immediately because it was so delicious ~ Emily The Strange, The Lost Days. (I posted the book trailer here.)
~ And another that I am in midst of reading but find too fantastic not to share ~ The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. (Not a difficult choice to pick this one up as it’s been on bestseller lists and has won the Newbery medal.)
At looking at the cover of these two novels, it appears as if I’ve suddenly garnered great fondness for the dark side (er…gone goth?), but rest assured, I still love puppies and sunshine and jasmine tea.
Anyway, if you can’t spend the day with your dad, for whatever reason, I recommend you pick up a good read and head to the park, the beach, your couch, or wherever you can find a reading nook/cranny. (Sunshine and jasmine tea optional.)
Enjoy and happy Father’s Day!
I just wanted to pause for a moment and toast two people who are doing it their way and doing a darn good job of it…
Author Susan Wiggs posted this on Twitter:
And author Meg Cabot posted this on her blog:
“My dad was an alcoholic, and he spent most of his time passed out on the living room floor in his underwear, so we could never have friends over (I spent most of my time at my best friend’s house, where even with her parents fighting, it was nicer than at my house). My house was sad. There were bottles of vodka hidden all over the place (under sofa cushions, in the toilet tank, but mostly under the front seat of the car, because my dad’s favorite place to drink was in the car. And yeah, this means what you think it means. But on the plus side, Dad drove so slowly that everyone passing us would scream, “Speed it up, old man!” so it was unlikely he would ever hit anyone).
What kind of books was I supposed to read? Books about girls whose dad was an alcoholic? Um, no thank you.”
“And I vowed then that if I ever became a professional writer, I’d write books that I hoped would give readers like me a fun escape from whatever awful thing they were going through.”
“So that’s what I write. Books that I hope make people laugh or daydream or just give them a little break from their real life.” [emphasis added]
So cheers to two people providing hope, escape, and laughter to one person at a time.
Generally speaking, book trailers can be rather bland and somewhat cheesy. This one, however, I find terrifically “strange.”
Fantasy seems to have entered my life.
I’m not usually drawn to fantasy as a general category but it seems to be finding me with very little effort at the moment. From reading Neil Gaiman to hearing Melissa Marr and Kristen Cashore (writers of NY Times Bestselling books that could be considered YA Fantasy) speak, to now reading their respective books (Graceling and Wiked Lovely). And to top it off (presumably? perhaps this will continue?), today on Notcot these adorable paintings featured on Small and Round were calling my name:
How great are these?
Well, I didn’t consciously invite you over, but, Hello Fantasy. Come on in.
In celebration of Women’s history month, here is one person’s list of ten inspiring quotes by women. My favorite of the listed quotes:
“The most effective way to do it, is to do it.”—Amelia Earhart
A while back I was the proud winner a fun little writing contest– the prize was that I got to spend an afternoon with author Susan Wiggs on Bainbridge Island (where she lives). (More on this in a future post.)
Well, last weekend, I saw that she is #1 on the NY Times bestseller list for her latest book “Fireside”. Wooooot!! Way to go, Susan! (Great photos here of how excited she is.) Looking forward to reading Fireside (especially since it’s drizzly and cool in my neck of the woods…er…city this week).
Here’s a pic of my cousin Jenny, Susan, and me getting ready to boat to lunch on a neighboring island.
(Photo by Susan’s husband, Jay)
The word “literature” and the world “digital” just don’t seem to sit on the tongue very well together. It’s like a Bacon Martini I read about the other day… it just seems it would taste wrong. (Though I do have a few friends that would probably love a good meat martini.)
Anyway– this is something I’ve been thinking about (digital literature not bacon martinis) and today I read an interesting article on Time.com. People are consuming words in such different ways now– citizen journalists breaking news, Demi Moore is Twittering, etc., etc., so where will this leave fiction? The publishing industry is clearly experiencing some challenges, but how will our consumption of fiction change in the digital age? Who will be the leaders to instigate a change? How will writers get paid? Will traditional publishers even find a purpose in this new age if they decide to remain stoic in their approach? Will writers just publish their stories on a website and become advertising based? Anything’s possible I suppose…
Even Chocolate Bacon Martinis.
Whenever Ennui sets in, as I mentioned it was, I hunker down and do what I can to keep my center strong and flexible (a seeming paradox!) and as conscious of my breathing as possible (Inhale…Exhale…Inhale…Exhale…). Also, when I have days like yesterday where the environment of high tension (declining economy at the core) causes ego-based fear to rule, I admit that I came home with bright red splotches over my chest and feeling like my forehead was going to melt over my eyes in an effort to shut down the anxiety. (By the way– it should be said that I am not complaining but rather expressing how I feel in the moment. I am in no way complaining– I am grateful to have such a terrific job!)
Anyway, when I’m in hunker-down mode, I return to my trusted sources for inspiration to power through. Wayne Dyer is one of those people I turn to. I’ve met him and have heard him speak several times and truly enjoy his message that comes out in an honest, sincere, humorous, grounded, enlightened but simple way. I visited his daily inspiration page and saw this:
USE your imagination! I love it. This is exactly what I wanted to be reminded of. It’s “the concept of Spirit within” us. Beautiful.
“Women want to be thrown up against a wall but not truly endangered. Women want a caveman and caring.” So said an article in the NY Times today.
Interesting article– you know I love paradoxes– and it’s fairly long but worth the read.
I also decided to meander through some of the comments and what I found was a bit peculiar. Either the majority of the people posting comments didn’t read through the entire article or perhaps they merely read it through glasses all their own (don’t we all?). Comments expressing that what women want is money, credit cards, chocolate, shoes, etc., I found this to be missing the essence of the article entirely. It seems to be a mix of both men and women writing these comments too. There does seem to be a decent amount of men writing that it’s either hopeless to know what women want or are assuming they know (shoes, credit cards, etc.)– which is interesting– I certainly wouldn’t want to be with a man who assumes that at my core, my desires are so…well…boring. A kind, caring, AND take-charge passionate man? Yeah, that sounds much more interesting than shoes…
Not sure why I’m commenting on comments here– I guess I just find it fascinating to peek at a glimpse of what our culture feels/thinks/expresses on a whole.
All in all– interesting article and interesting reaction.
