Should you tell her he's cheating? - CNN.com

Should you tell her he's cheating?

Amen sistah!

BBC NEWS | Health | MS woman wins right-to-die fight

BBC NEWS | Health | MS woman wins right-to-die fight

Good for you madame. May the end of your life be diginfied and graceful; filled with peace.

Bless this woman for fighting for the right to make a decision about HER body and HER life.

Sacred City Photography

Check it out - it's the 'new' blog with the hubby...cool stuff.

Reimagining 'Fahrenheit 451' As A Graphic Novel : NPR

Reimagining 'Fahrenheit 451' As A Graphic Novel : NPR

Wow...now this is cool.....

The Next Dr. Seuss Movie: 'The Lorax' - Monkey See Blog : NPR

The Next Dr. Seuss Movie: 'The Lorax' - Monkey See Blog : NPR


Bummer....I mean with the world ending in 2012 and all we're gonna miss this....

(*smirks*)

Food On Film: The Famished And The Feasts : NPR

Food On Film: The Famished And The Feasts : NPR

Food for thought...and for the soul.

How to save your marriage from your kids

I am posting this for many reasons. Not because Erin and I have little ones to attend to - but because kids of all ages can and do sometimes wreak havoc on your marriage/relationship. In fact, sometimes as the kids get older they demand more (you become a chaffeur, a mediator/arbitrator, and a law-giver - not to mention the 'uncoolest' parent on the block). It is just as important to make sure you are staying on track and at least agreeing to not disagree in front of the kids (even when you do) as to provide a more united front. This is sometimes much more important in 'blended families' (which is what Erin and I have) than it is in families of origin.

I am also posting it for other couples out there because there are some great ideas and advice here.

May your lives be full of hope, love, and peace.

BBC NEWS | Health | Divorce 'health scars permanent'

BBC NEWS | Health | Divorce 'health scars permanent'


Hmmmm.....

I am thoroughly disgusted with everyone and everything at this point - I don't even know where to begin.

My son's life is a mess - thanks to the stellar parenting job of his father - my ex - who does not seem to care that his son is apparently using drugs, is depressed and just can't get his life together. But *I'M* over-reacting....yeah right. My ex's attitude - as it has been for years now is to shrug it off, act like an ostrich with his head in the perverbial sand and have things fall by the wayside - why interfere - perhaps he thinks it's natural selection.

Not being able to finish things is appropros of what, exactly?

It's the story of my life and my relationships.

My heart has never felt heavier. I have never been more hurt and insulted as I am right now. Or angry for that matter. I want to scream but, I am afraid to as I may never stop. I feel as fragile as butterfly wings - and butterflys, so I am told, only live for two weeks - to me as it stands right now - that sounds like heaven.

Whatever.

Jamaica Flowers Charm The Kitchen : NPR

Jamaica Flowers Charm The Kitchen : NPR

YUMMY!

From the sublime to the ridiculous

"Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise. "

Sorry - I just had to....

'Angela's Ashes' Author Frank McCourt Dies : NPR

'Angela's Ashes' Author Frank McCourt Dies : NPR

I am very saddened by this.

Rest in peace, Sir McCourt - may your fire always be warm and your teacup always full. Your charm and wit have surely earned you a place in heaven.

COULD YOU SURVIVE WITHOUT MONEY?

COULD YOU SURVIVE WITHOUT MONEY? MEET THE GUY WHO DOES

Shared with me by my love.

Great article.

Well??? Could you survive without money????? Would you dare?

Legendary CBS anchor Walter Cronkite dies at 92 - Yahoo! News

Legendary CBS anchor Walter Cronkite dies at 92 - Yahoo! News

But heaven forbid he get a much coverage as fucking Michael Jackson

Rest in peace Mr. Cronkite - I for one think you were much more important than MJ.
You were an incredible journalist and you carried yourself with dignity and integrity.

James Wolcott on Cultural Snobbery

James Wolcott on Cultural Snobbery | vanityfair.com: "Pity the culture snob, as Kindles, iPods, and flash drives swallow up the visible markers of superior taste and intelligence. With the digitization of books, music, and movies, how will the highbrow distinguish him- or herself from the masses?
By James Wolcott August 2009"

**************

The title of the article is actually: "What's a Culture Snob to do?"

I do not as a rule consider myself a culture (or cultured for that matter)snob. However I do decry the advent of getting our information, culture and 'enlightenment' from electronic sources. Just as the thought that the ART of writing a letter has gone by the wayside makes my heart heavy, so does the idea that carrying around a honest-to-God REAL tome makes you some kind of freak that is not moving along with the latest technology, makes me want to scream at people on their blackberries, iPods, Kindles and the like and then have them flogged.

It's almost like the scene from the Monty Python skit where the Pythons are all sitting around discussing their horrid childhoods (The 'Four Yorkshire Men' skit) - as if I should say to people 'Now when I was a kid....we used to read books'...as the person recoils in horror....'A BOOK wow - what's that?'

An apology

you know who you are. perhaps you will accept this.

i am not, nor will i ever apologize for my writing.

that being said - i AM sorry for how it made you feel - it was never meant as a slight or to hurt you.

peace, love, and understanding

always and as ever,
Colette

erie.effusion

erie.effusion


Nice commentary - dead on.

She's the blog of the week. Mainly because, simply put, SHE ROCKS.

Check her out - she's brilliant.

Unrequited

Feeling forlorn and melancholy...for many reasons. Bored. I am bored to fucking death. I need to feel useful and wanted but that’s just not happening.

I read today about the ‘reworked’ version of ‘A Moveable Feast’, Hemingway’s autobiographical book...

Hemingway.

Thoughts that make me long to be scandalous, not some 9-5 suburban housewife, eeking out an existence – and it’s not that I am not happy with my ‘lot in life’ or my husband, or where I live. It’s a longing to be doing something else. To have mad passionate experiences and keep the feeling alive of those experiences, not sink into the depths of the mundane…

(*sighs*)

I need a change.

Of Life and Remembrance...

So much has been going on lately. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yadda, yadda, yadda…I am sure it is the same with every single one of you out there. We are, all of us, too busy, never have the time, wake up one day, dead…

There, I said it: Wake up one day dead.

What will be your legacy? What do we end up leaving behind for our loved ones to remember us by…

Today I found out that one of my co-workers lost their dad this past weekend. And with everything else that’s been going on in my mind, there seems to be enough fertile ground to plant the seeds of asking such questions.

Is it an ego thing to want to be remembered? To want to leave something behind so people will remember you? Is that why rich people have university and hospital buildings named after them?

Is this what we strive for? Some form of recognition? Some bid at immortality? Is this why is hurts us to be rejected or to feel like people are not paying enough attention to us? Do we just do things for the sake of doing them – such as mitzvahs or tasks for the greater good/volunteer/charitable works? Or is there an agenda?

This past weekend, my wonderful husband and I ‘worked’ our parish festival. The reason behind this anti-carny work was about as antithetical as it gets from working a carnival/festival. We were there to get people to pray. That’s right, a church festival where people should try to pray – what a concept. And I have to tell you we did not get very far with the ‘powers that be’ if you will about having a ‘booth’/space where we could dedicate time to praying the rosary. I would go into more detail here but that is for my husband to chronicle since it was his brain child to begin with….

Suffice it to say – we won a victory and indeed we had an ‘I Pray the Rosary’ table at the festival. We met some cool people. We made t-shirts and we prayed every night we were there. It felt really good – especially to be doing this with my husband – and to be praying with others – keeping the spiritual flame burning.

Meanwhile, I am reading a book I read when I was young. ‘The Song of Bernadette’ – it is the ‘fictionalized’ story (written by Franz Werfel) about the life of St. Bernadette of Lourdes (Bernadette Soubirous). In this book, Bernadette is a very poor, very simple country girl. She is a bit addlebrained. She has no clue about the outside world and she is not very devout at all in her Catholicism. Suddenly Bernadette’s world is turned upside down by a supernatural event. People are suddenly interested in her and her family. They want to know everything. Against her will, the young Bernadette is suddenly thrust into the spotlight. What has always amazed me about this is that she keeps her head. She keeps her simplicity. She keeps her integrity, honesty, and innocence. This to me is just astounding. Even though this child has lived a poorest of the poor existence, even though she has conflicting feelings about what is going on, she stays true to her innermost self. She suffers greatly because of this…yet she stays the course of her heart.

In the end – isn’t that what we all need to do? I am not trying to get preachy here or holier than thou on you all – take it as you wish – but deep down, what good will the legacy of buildings named after us, more wealth than we know what to do with and high-brow aspirations do us if we lose our selves in the process?

So do I want to be remembered when I go? I suppose. The measure of a life is not counted so much in those that you loved – but by those that loved you. Selfless acts, without expecting anything in return seem to be the most rewarding activities we can cultivate. The garden of our soul needs tending, I believe, more than any other part of our own cosmology of self or any other aspect of our existence for that matter.

You Are Not A Bible Character « Glory to God for All Things

You Are Not A Bible Character « Glory to God for All Things

Very well done, Father.

I pray the Rosary

....and I do.

This year at our parish festival, Erin decided to try to emulate this video by having a place where people could make t-shirts saying: 'I pray the Rosary'.

Logistically we hit a couple of 'walls' from some unlikely quarters but in the end we did triumph and so now for the past two nights, we've manned a table and had people make t-shirts...and you know what...

IT ROCKS!

There's a feeling of joy and peace working our little table - every time someone makes a t-shirt Erin takes their picture - I will post the pics when this 'project' is done.

I am so glad I get to be married to such a great guy and that we get to wonderful things together.

God/dess bless you all.

C~

Love Words With Staying Power?

Love Words With Staying Power? : NPR

Because....

Sometimes, I want to remember.
Sometimes I want to forget.
Sometimes I just don't care.

Because...
If I could ever capture this kind of poetic beauty,
this kind of love,
and hold it forever....
I'd die happy.

Because....
Even in the highest of highs
and the lowest of lows...
In the end - all that remains...
Is Love
********

Poem #20
by: Pablo Neruda

Tonight I Can Write
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, "The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance."
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
********
Somewhere I have Never Traveled, Gladly Beyond
by E.E. Cummings

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near


,your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously)her first rose


or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;


nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing


(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

'The course of true love never did run smooth...' - Shakespeare

A case of you

Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, constantly in the darkness
Where's that at?
If you want me I'll be in the bar

On the back of a carton coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh Canada
With your face sketched on it twice

Oh you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh I would still be on my feet

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid
I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time

Oh you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet

I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
Go to him, stay with him if you can
But be prepared to bleed

Oh but you are in my blood you're my holy wine
You're so bitter, bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet

Lyrics by: Joni Mitchell

British spy chief's cover blown on Facebook by Reuters: Yahoo! Tech

British spy chief's cover blown on Facebook by Reuters: Yahoo! Tech

LMAO

America's Frugal Food Roots With Chris Kimball : NPR

America's Frugal Food Roots With Chris Kimball : NPR

....for future reference.

Oldest known Bible goes online - CNN.com

Oldest known Bible goes online - CNN.com

Dreams...

"Your dreams have been tumultuous, but they will spark some very interesting ideas."
(My horoscope)...

Gosh I sure friggin' hope so...my dreams have been downright scary of late.

*drum roll please*

Last but not least, and, most exciting of all....'pictures' of things to come (aforementioned project with Erin).

These shots below were also taken in various churches in Ireland - more on our project later...

It's one of those days...

...where day-dreaming is running rampant as I am bored out of my skull...and the clock ticks by ever so slowly - too slowly - as I am anxious to start my long weekend of golfing and camping and general good time stuff-n-things....

Meanwhile the day-dreaming includes pictures of the Emerald Isle to reminisce by....of a wonderful time spent in a glorious land with the love of my life:

A Friendly PSA

Just remember - you too can resist the urge to wage war.

Movie Review - The Reader - Innocence Is Lost in Postwar Germany - NYTimes.com

Movie Review - The Reader - Innocence Is Lost in Postwar Germany - NYTimes.com

Last night's viewing.

I have to say that the NYT review is dead on. The movie was at time excruciatingly slow and tedious - yet like some weird 'Holocaust' movie accident - you couldn't stop watching.

At times I think even Ms. Winslet was surprised at the role/character she was delivering - seeming wooden and so unlike her usual masterful self. But somehow the story left you asking a lot of questions. Particularly about Michael's (Ralph Fiennes) character - just who was the victim (Michael or Hanna) to me is rather debatable. Michael's 'better-late-than-never' attrition just seemed to set my teeth on edge. Uncomfortable morality issues aside I would definitely recommend the film. Be prepared to cry.

Commentary: Let's end disposable marriage - CNN.com

Commentary: Let's end disposable marriage - CNN.com

Sex Without Intimacy: No Dating, No Relationships : NPR

Sex Without Intimacy: No Dating, No Relationships : NPR