Footnotes to Stories

Still Reading Lauren Winner

2012-02-15T15:03:00.002-06:00

My favorite chapter in Lauren Winner’s new book, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, comes near the end, a chapter she calls “Middle Tint.” Here she describes the painter’s palette, how according to nineteenth-century art critic John Ruskin, middle tint comprises most of an artist’s painting.

Lauren compares the miles of ordinary colors in a painting to the life of faithfulness, in effect saying that most of our lives are lived in the gray tones, again quoting Ruskin, with only touches of “extreme lights and extreme darks, isolated and sharp, so that the eye goes to them directly, and feels them to be key-notes of the whole composition.”

This comparison reassures her, as well as her readers, that midlife grays are as necessary to a vital and vibrant spiritual life as the early exuberance that she captured so well in Girl Meets God. In other words, one must persevere through the dreary, drab and difficult.

I took a weeklong memoir workshop Lauren taught last summer, and she read this chapter, “Middle Tint,” at an evening session where all participants at The Glen in Santa Fe had gathered to hear her speak. She read like a performer, holding an advance copy of her book, switching hands, pacing and making eye contact with the audience, smiling, pausing, dramatic; she wore a plain black knit dress with cowboy boots, a scarf and dangly earrings—seeking approval while hoping not to need any.

Sitting to Lauren’s left at a table in the classroom each morning from nine to noon, I felt aware of her distraction, the way she seemed both engaged and detached, excited and wary, perhaps a bit self-conscious because this book chronicles a different chapter of her life, not the one she expected to live out as a Christian. She played with her hair, taking it down, twisting it, putting it back in a ponytail holder, again and again as she listened or conversed, trying to encourage and critique.

She wore sleeveless dresses that exposed her unshaved underarms (something only a person who does shave under her arms would note), adding to her quirkiness, originality, diffidence. Since the first time I had met her at a seminar in Orlando in 2008, she had gone through a divorce, and her mother had died, and she was waiting for this book to come out in January. Both fearful and full of faith, I told myself, aren’t we all?

Lauren Winner was well prepared for the workshop and attentive to each person’s manuscript, guiding class members’ comments with finesse. In a hand-written note at the end of the week, she encouraged me to finish my memoir. I wonder what she said to the other people in the class. That she had taken the time to write each of us, 15 in all, said a lot. Lauren teaches at Duke Divinity School, an author and a speaker whose voice has resonance in a culture where a good girl is hard to find.

Writing this blog led me to a review of her book in Christianity Today, which that writer titled "Girl Meets Grace." Legalists will not like this take, but that article notes that Lauren Winner's continued participation with the body of Christ, i.e. going to church when she doesn't feel like it, "suggest[s] that liturgical churches may provide a stronger antidote for doubting Christians than praise choruses and video sermon illustrations."

I like her. I like reading her books. I like the way she weaves in and out of her doubts, like a car in traffic on the freeway. She knows where she’s going with her arguments and illustrations, accommodating passengers willing to take a ride on the Reading. She struggles with her faith and doubts, the way one might consider which route to take home, but Lauren does this on the page.

“I think on paper.” Don’t all writers?

Most of all, I like knowing that she’s a real person, confronting real problems and not wanting to sound expert at solving other people’s problems when she has learned how hard it is to tackle her own. She said, “It turns out that the Christian story is a good story in which to learn to fail.”

And my favorite quote, “ … I am a small character in a story that is always fundamentally about God.”

Always. Story. God. I think we’re on the same page.

The Organizer

2012-01-03T11:03:00.000-06:00

My daughter-in-law has the gift of organization. She likes to use her gift to help others. She cleans up messes that other people make.

While the rest of the adults saw a movie at the theater, Audra organized my daughter's pantry. This feat turned into a video that Audra and John made as their talent for this year's Christmas Family Talent Show.

A legend in our family, now I share Audra with the world.

Audra Frugé in "The Organizer"

This is not the end, only the middle of a continuing story . . .

Amaryllis by New Year's

2012-01-01T21:41:00.002-06:00

The amaryllis surprises; the life is in the bulb.

Last year, the bulb I planted had no flowers. This one has three blossoms so far. A wonder to watch it open, it gets top-heavy and tips over so a stake and a tie help support the weight.

It's worth the wait.

A friend planted this bulb in a glass bowl and told me to water it with ice cubes, 4 or 5, a couple of times a week.

I started taking pictures every day after Christmas. It didn't take long to go from this . . .

. . . to this.

Aerial view.

And now I can't decide which view I like best.

Here's a link to basic information about amaryllis bulbs because this glorious flower does all the work. No green thumb required.

Texas Tech Football 2011

2011-11-12T10:20:00.001-06:00

Texas Tech University plays its last home football game today against #2 ranked OSU. Expect to get blown away, both literally and figuratively as high winds are forecast.

But football tracks with the seasons, and as this season of high level spectator sport concludes, fans like me have fun even when the team loses.

The Tech versus A&M game was my personal favorite. I wore a Tech sweatshirt, sat in a season-ticket-holder seat and thought about the story of the little boy who refused to sit down in church. Finally, his mother succeeded in making him sit, but he said, "I'm sitting down on the outside but standing up on the inside." That was me at that game. I had to look like I rooted for Tech, but in truth I cheered for A&M, on account of my Aggie son, Jordan.

Now I'm wistful, too, about the breach from the Big 12 by A&M, which made this possibly the last time Tech will play A&M in Jones Stadium, at least for the foreseeable future. So here's my tribute to the Fightin' Aggie Band.

Read here to learn why this statue of Will Rogers is on the campus of Texas Tech http://www.ttu.edu/traditions/rogers.php

Coach Tommy Tubberville and his gunslingers … a tribute to Tombstone, maybe?

Storm Front

First game and I bailed when a storm front blew in. One minute, dead calm. The next, gusts of wind brought dirt from harvested cotton fields to the north to engulf the stadium. Temperature dropped 25 degrees in minutes. Lightning struck in the sky behind the Jumbo-tron.

"We gotta get outta here. (pause) Yeah, we gotta get out."

Dark settled in the midst of daylight.

The last patch of blue before the sky goes granite grey.

Oh, say, can you see?

Tech's band in their matador uniforms carry on school traditions, too.

"You wanna play some football?"

Guns up

Tribute to US flag, Sonic and son-in-law, Chris

Nobody does sunset better than West Texas

Lift off: four feet off the ground

Tech has had some high points this season and I hope they distinguish themselves in a good way during today's game. Lubbock fans are crazy for their football team.

"Ya'll come back, Ya hear?" (Coach Tubberville didn't say that. Granny Clampett did, but when it comes to football, that's what every coach hopes for, right? The fans will return, the players will improve and the coach will keep his job.)

Intentional

2011-11-09T14:14:00.000-06:00

My friend, Marcia

Where have all the bloggers gone?

Like others, I have gone missing in action to pursue other concerns.

Has anyone missed me? I mean, really?

But I have missed blogging.

Still hacking away at a manuscript that I began in earnest at the beginning of 2011, I find this "book" (a memoir) the hardest to complete of all the projects I have ever begun.
And it's teaching me something about myself that I needed to learn.

Unless I enjoy the process, the product will disappoint.

During my second year at DTS, my great friend Marcia spent the night with me, and I shared with her my discouragement about school. She startled me by saying, "You will finish, Carol. You're a 100%-er. You finish what you start."

Pictures I took of Marcia when I studied photography at AC

And she was right, too. I did finish in 2008. And because I did not enjoy the process during the 4 years spent attending seminary, I have failed to appreciate that accomplishment.

Why has it taken me so long to realize this?

My friend's date of birth falls on Veteran's Day.
I will be thinking of her that day, as on so many other days since her departure. I wish she could have seen me graduate. I wish she were still here to celebrate another birthday. I wish she could have imagined a better future.

Rather than give up, I plan to blog again. Marcia would have been glad.

Here's the Hook

2011-09-02T09:24:00.000-05:00

Fishing for fingers but he caught a thumb!

Imagine a fishing lure––a treble hook––attached to a rod leaning against the wall inside a friend's garage and within seconds Beau had grabbed the rod and the lure had him hooked.

By the time I got to the doctor's office, Beau had conked out. Dr. Klepper called this the body's natural defense against pain.

My daughter, seated in a chair while elevating Beau's arm, had a barf bucket next to her as Beau had thrown up several times. Both boy and boy's mother looked white as ghosts. Mother of four, her eyes conveyed that familiar expression, "Can you believe this?"

The hook was embedded deep in Beau's thumb so that the large looped part stuck out more than an inch. Friend Randy had used wire cutters to cut first the lure from the fishing line, next the 2 other 3-pronged hooks off the lure, and then the other 2 equally sharp hooks off of this one. Randy told his wife Robin that he had just bought the wire cutters yesterday, replacing the pair he had lost 6 months ago.

The doctor used locking forceps to push the hook in before pulling it out from its point of entry. "There's lots of ways to do this. I've tried them all. This is the best."

First thing twin brother Beck said when they got in the car, "Beau, you need to be more careful." And then a few seconds later he asked, "Beau, are you okay?"

And what does 4-year-old Beau remember? At the end of the day he said, "I was brave."

Shall We Sew?

2011-08-06T17:51:00.003-05:00

Apropos: Rose and I named the dress form Scarlett

Weeks ago, I started making costumes for my daughter Rose. Up until the last minute when I had to leave for a writer's workshop in Santa Fe a week ago, instead of singing "Shall We Dance," I hummed Shall We Sew … duh-duh-duh-duh.

Opening night was last night for Lubbock Moonlight Musical's production of The King and I, and Rose plays Anna.

Shall we dance? One, two, three and

Granddaughter Ava loves to play dress up. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

For the skirt, I started with this formal, removed the bodice, added a waistband and an underskirt.

Shall We Dance costume was the hardest dress I ever made, remade or fitted.

And when I finished, I felt like dancing. duh-duh-duh-duh.

Making a mess: my husband says I excel at it.

While Rose and the rest of the cast swelters in the record-breaking heat––I am very sad about the heat––I sit at 7300 feet in Santa Fe, the last day of a writer's workshop with Lauren Winner at The Glen. More about that later.

Whether I am more sad about the heat or missing opening weekend, I cannot decide. The King and I has performances tonight and the next two weekends, Friday and Saturday night, 8:00 p.m. at Mackenzie Park. I intend to be there.

Directed by Gerald Dolter and Musical Director Jacob Miller, come see this classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical performed by a great cast and orchestra.

Happy 4th of July in Livingston, Montana

2011-07-04T23:28:00.001-05:00

Even houses get decked out for the 4th of July

I love a parade. And so do millions of other people. Especially in small towns do people turn out to watch a parade. This year I got to watch the rodeo parade in Livingston, Montana, which reminded me so much of when we lived in Pampa, Texas.

We picked a spot in the shade of the Post Office to watch the parade.

Crowds gathered in 90 degrees heat long before the parade started.

Let parade begin

Woody, a real beauty

Kids line the street, scrambling to collect candy

One of the first entrants, I wonder how long this Cub Scout lasted.

We would never have made it to Montana from Texas driving these cars. But wait, pioneers rode in wagons and on horseback.

Bagpipe players in Montana? Life is filled with surprises.

Twirlers and majorettes from 1957 until now marched in their school colors. How cool.

"Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys." Yeah, right.

20 Mule Team Borax? No. Outfitters.

Who dares dissent? Or argue with Betsy Ross?

A unicycle or a tri-cycle? Yes, he can ride and juggle.

A mad hatter

This horse is walking backwards.

The flavor of the Old West, cowboys and Indians

Patriots and Old Glory, and an old movie theater, too

Oodles of vintage cars in pristine condition …

… but this '55 Chevy had fuzzy dice

Clowns floated by

A skunk bug made a big stink

Is it over?

Come back next year. We just might.

Gone With the Wind Turns 75

2011-06-30T18:19:00.001-05:00

Although disputable, the date June 30 marks the anniversary of the publication of what many consider “the great American novel, one that Time magazine placed on its ALL TIME 100 novels list, and a book James Michener said “It’s the shortest long novel I have ever read,” Gone With the Wind.

I loved this book when I first read it the summer before my junior year in high school, and then again about 10 years ago. This occasion serves as reason enough to read Gone With the Wind for the third time, with enhanced appreciation for the book, the movie and the captivating story of both.

An interview with the Ellen F. Brown, author of this book may be watched on this CBS video. But skip this if it you don't want to watch the commercial

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, A Bestseller’s Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood––a book about the book––appeared this spring, its release timed to coincide with the 75^th anniversary of the classic literary novel. While this book does summarize the process of Margaret Mitchell writing the novel (10 years to complete), this book focuses more on the book’s publishing saga as well as the making of the movie, and the lengths Margaret Mitchell had to go to protect her literary rights.

The Life Is in the Book

Both publication and the making of the 1939 movie, which won numerous Academy Awards including Best Picture, occurred in record time.

“In less than a year," Ellen Brown writes, "Mitchell had gone from unemployed reporter and housewife to proud parent of an imminent bestseller. Her reference that spring [1939] to the book as her first and only child was an apt one. Since the contract’s signing, she had spent approximately forty weeks bringing the manuscript to full term. Like any first-time mother, the thirty-five-year-old author was nervous. And, as with parenthood, no matter how stressful the pregnancy, the biggest adjustments were yet to come.”

What a great analogy because books, like children, take on a life of their own.

Check out this link to an early review of Gone With the Wind, published on July 6, 1936. Nobody, including the author, the Macmillan publishers or readers could have known how far the wind would carry this great story.

Read it and weep.

Please read it and don't settle for watching the 4-hour movie, even though the David O. Selznick production stands on its own merits.

Boys in a Tent

2011-05-10T10:20:00.001-05:00

Should have known I was in for a treat when grandsons Beau and Beck arrived. Their mom said, "They dressed themselves."

Shirts and ties and sweats. Flip-flops and clogs. Their individuality shows. Their smiles make me glad.

At last, the search for the lost tent ends. And I knew when I grabbed my camera, a blog post would follow.

Space, the final frontier.

Spontaneous pose captured by a quick click.

"Cheese"

Vantage points. I wonder how I looked to them?

Beau on the left, Beck on the right

Scout from behind

What next?

How do we get in?

This is a little tricky.

"We're in here."

Can you see? "I'm sideways."


"We didn't get enough sleep in the real night."

"We didn't get enough sleep in the real night." I love the way these boys put words together to express their thoughts. I don't think their parents ever get enough sleep in the real night.

"We're in our own igloo … This is for outside when it is snowing."

"If there was a storm, there would be no sun."

Plenty of sun around here though. Lubbock, America made the national news last night as an emblem of the drought in Texas. Reporting only .88 inches of rain so far this year, unprecedented since 1927, even Houston has received half of its normal rainfall to date.

Meanwhile, Memphis is drowning as the mighty Mississippi River flexes it muscles, flooding beyond its banks threatening cities all the way to New Orleans.

Thankfully, these boys in a tent remain free from adult anxieties. They don't watch the news.

Still for about 5 seconds

The Royal Wedding in Pictures

2011-05-02T16:29:00.001-05:00


"She wore the dress. The dress didn't wear her."

The Royal Wedding: Official Programme

The Official Royal Wedding Website

In the midst of our own family BIG-0 birthday celebrations for my husband and youngest daughter, The Royal Wedding took a recorded rather than live action priority. Wedding streamed from the Royal Channel on YouTube, this link lets you select portions of the coverage to replay.

Yes, I watched as much coverage as I could while baking and otherwise preparing for a house full of guests, my own version of bed, bath and body and beyond. I have no servants.

Still, I wanted to blog. I wanted to quote speeches and search for pictures that displayed the day's events from start to finish. Having visited London and walked through Westminster Abbey where so much English history is memorialized, I had plenty of scope for the imagination.

Here's a summary then of what commentators called "the wedding of the century," which of course means this century. Do the math. Nothing for the next 88 years can top this occasion. Apparently billions of people agree.

These are the best pictures I found, "The Big Picture" at boston.com

Other coverage noted as follows:

The Telegraph Coverage of the Wedding

ABC News photos of the Royal Wedding

The Reception Dress and other links via AOL

Wedding of the century indeed or perhaps, but such a statement made me think of a recent American Idol live broadcast when Jennifer Lopez referred to James Durbin's performance as the best of the night, and he was only the second person to perform. Or while awaiting the Royal Couple's much anticipated balcony kiss, one talking head predicted a "Hollywood style kiss full of passion" between William and Catherine. Ooops.

Chuckle and nod to hindsight when we climb out on a limb and carry our own saw.

Here's a link to Time magazine's Mad Hatters, also called "13 Ridiculous Royal Wedding Hats." I love hats.

Favorite quote: “When Princess Elizabeth, now Queen Elizabeth II, married Philip Mountbatten in November 1947, Winston Churchill welcomed the wedding as 'a flash of color on the hard road we travel.'”

Crowds gathered and behaved

Apparently billions of people agree that Prince William and Catherine's Royal Wedding brightens the current world scene, a flash of color set against the gloomy backdrop of killer tornadoes on this side of The Pond, earthquakes in various places as well as ongoing wars against terrorists.

Although unlikely that I will return to this topic, I do want to go on record: the wedding was SPLENDID.

We the people love our fairy tales.

And I hope that the prince and his bride live happily ever after.

Funding for the Arts

2011-04-13T15:49:00.000-05:00

"Migrant Mother," Dorothea Lange, 1936)

Imagine a world without color. Life without Art.

The best slogan I ever read about Art:

ART

You can't spell SMART without it

Follow this link to MSNBC where Chris Matthews interviews Kevin Spacey about budget cuts to the Arts. Sent to me from the Media department at Dallas Theological Seminary, keeping me posted because I received a degree in Media and Communication from DTS, please take time to consider this topic.

My daughter teaches choir in high school in an area deprived of advantages, yet the school district still offers arts education classes in music, band and art.

Arts provide a lifeline to people trapped in poverty, if nothing else, by helping individuals envision a way out.

Ordinarily, I avoid issue-driven policy. As the political climate grows increasingly heated over budget debates, choosing ideological battles becomes increasingly important. Is this another Civil War?

A lot of what gets funded in the Arts stinks, but the culture needs the Arts more than it realizes, for one thing, to maintain our sense of shared history and encourage civil dialogue. This article in Psychology Today discusses a number of other benefits.

Thank you, Maya Angelou

2011-04-08T11:32:00.002-05:00

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

picture from Maya Angelou website

This quote by Maya Angelou appeared in The Writer's Almanac, April 4, 2011. The brief article commemorates her birthday, which also notes April 4 as the day Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, on what was then Maya Angelou's 40th birthday.

Once a friend took me to hear Dr. Maya Angelou speak at event held in a university arena, a large venue so that thousands could see her in person. Maya Angelou seemed small against a backdrop where competing teams in sporting events devour that space, a poet's tiny voice crying in the wilderness.

Unimpressed by the speaker, for me the best part about being there was being there with my friend.

Now, years later, a connection between Maya Angelou and me sparked when I read that quote, as if an arc of current suddenly breached the philosophical and physical, as well as theological space that separates us.

I bear an untold story. It helps to know that someone understands that agony, the weight of bearing.

Every day I confront my writer self with the question of whether I will ever tell that story. If I write that story, will someone publish it? If published, who would read it? Does anyone care either way?

In a way, I wish I had someone else's story to tell. I continue a love affair with reading other people's stories. Captivated, I fully appreciate the writer's ability to tell their story well. Reading The Pioneer Woman's Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, I wish I had a frolicking love story to tell.

Reading Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood, the writers chronicle the literary journey from book to film. The story shows through Margaret Mitchell's experience how a book takes on a life of its own, quite apart from the author's best intentions or hopes or aspirations.

That's what scares me. What happens when a writer releases his or her words to readers? Best line from Back to the Future, "I don't think I could take that kind of rejection."

However, I want to write the book I was born to write, to somehow tell a coherent story that makes sense of my life. Rather than report facts or record incidents, I need to craft the story. But I have been trained to write reports. About writing, I still have a lot to unlearn.

The reporter me has a just the facts detachment, a kind of third eye, which keeps me a safe distance from the emotional pain of a childhood fraught with uncertainty about everything. You never know what's behind Door Number Three. Surviving a tumultuous, extended period of confusion, all I ever wanted was to feel safe.

Writing about your life is not safe.

What has occurred to me though, looking in the rearview mirror, all the really dramatic stuff happened at the beginning, as I held on for dear life to my mother's flapping coattails.

Near the end of her life, knowing she would die with cancer, my mother wrote a brief summary of her life. "My checkered life," she called it, and while not her obvious meaning, if I envision a chess board, I can see that my mother never did anything in an ordered way.

Yet in living my life, I have tried to overcompensate for her disorder. A curious tension between us continues long since her departure.

Thus, I bear the burden of an untold story inside me. My story involves the most interesting person I ever knew. I seek to honor the life that my mother lived because with all her wild and random choices, she managed to shape mine.

Today, I have Maya Angelou to thank for inspiring me to keep writing.

Hyacinth, here and gone: Is it Spring yet?

2011-04-03T16:16:00.000-05:00

Record breaking heat yesterday and today in Lubbock, America, 92 degrees. The spring bulbs came and went with much ado about hardly anything. Oh, but these flowers were lovely while they lasted. And the cut ones, the ones the dogs mowed down, I brought into the house to enjoy their fragrance.

What I learned about planting these bulbs: plant closer together and in clumps.The purple blooms first, much sooner than the yellow, so plant colors together for greater impact. Watch these bloom in waves.

And to think these bulbs were buried before Christmas.

A thirty degree drop between the high temperature today and high expected tomorrow, the wind is blowing and the sky is brown. Lows can still dip below freezing until Mother's Day.

Spring keeps teasing me.

Pretty, but purple wins the day

Elizabeth Taylor: Death of a Perennial Presence

2011-03-23T21:42:00.004-05:00

Katie Couric opened the CBS Evening News: "Tonight America says goodbye to one of its biggest stars, Academy Award-winning actress, Elizabeth Taylor … If movie stars are America's royalty, then Elizabeth Taylor was queen and her long reign has come to an end."

Treated as the top news story of today, Couric spent more than 8-minutes at the beginning of the broadcast describing the 79-year-old actress––her life, her loves and her career––and another 3-minutes at the end recounting Liz Taylor's work as a spokesperson for AIDS.

The time devoted to this story on national news attests to the power of film, which transcends its medium. Millions of people feel as if someone they knew personally has died. Her UK obituary recounts the milestones of an extraordinary life lived both on and off camera. The NYT posted a summary of her life, stating that "In a world of flickering images, Elizabeth Taylor was a constant star."

I often wondered if she got tired of shining.

Giant, 1956

My favorite Elizabeth Taylor movie Giant captures on film the peak of her physical beauty against the backdrop of Texas cattle, oil and excess.

All three of the movie's stars loomed larger than life in celestial Hollywood, but James Dean died in a car accident before the film's completion. Rock Hudson died in 1985 from AIDS.

"All gone" my mother once wrote in an album under a picture of my dad, my grandfather, an uncle and their friend. My dad died in a car accident when I was 9-years-old, and I used to stare at that picture, run my fingers across those words.

Pictures somehow accentuate the loss. The loss of youth, the loss of beauty, the loss of life.

Father of the Bride, 1950

After watching more than a dozen videos on YouTube, this one called "Elizabeth Taylor: A Thing of Beauty" (4 minutes) has wonderful film clips from some of her best movies.

My favorites: Giant (1956), Raintree County (1957), Elephant Walk (1954), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Father of the Bride (1950), National Velvet (1944), and Little Women (1949).

The artist and the artifact, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

Pie Making 101

2011-03-04T17:42:00.003-06:00

The recipe for this delicious Chocolate Silk pie comes from the Blue Bonnet Cafe in Marble Falls, TX. A family favorite, someone I know prefers this pie to cake for her birthday.

Any excuse to visit the Hill Country will do, but just thinking about the Blue Bonnet Cafe's pies makes me glad that they sell their cookbook.

The last time I made this pie, I failed to take pictures of each step. I do, however, have pictures of how to make a crust, and that's the part cooks fear most about pie making.

For pie crust, Betty Crocker's recipe, an old reliable made with ingredients I usually have on hand, is an easy one for beginners. If you have a food processor, the Barefoot Contessa's recipe is outstanding. It makes a buttery, sturdy yet flaky crust, but it requires more time and ingredients.

Instead of rolling the dough on a floured board, I roll the crust between sheets of waxed paper. My 8th grade Home Economics teacher in Beverly Hills, CA taught that the secret of a good pie crust is to handle the dough as little as possible. If you have to gather the dough into a ball and roll it out again, you might as well start over. The crust will turn out tough, not flaky.

Here's an idea what the combined flour, shortening and salt look like.

With shortening cut into dry ingredients, the incorporated flour should be smaller than pea-size.

Next add ice cold water a tablespoon at a time (2–3 T. for a one-crust pie).

Stir in water with a fork.

Looks about right.

Gently gather dough into ball.

Here's the secret to aid even the most tentative pie-maker. Place dough ball between 2 sheets of wax paper. You can also use Saran Wrap, but wax paper is easier to handle.

Roll from the center out to the edges, picking up the rolling pin each time.

Peel back the top layer of wax paper and then lay it loosely back in place so that you can flip the flattened dough to the other side. This makes it easier to transfer the dough to the pie pan. The wax paper can tear holes in the crust if you haven't loosened it first.

Loosely lay the crust into the pan and gently press into place, without stretching the dough.

The crust should extend at least an inch beyond the pie pan. Roll the excess crust to form an edge. You can pinch off excess dough from one place and add to thin spots.

Use thumb and forefinger to form the decorative edge of the crust. Sometimes I use the knuckle on my right hand placed inside and then pinch around it with the thumb and forefinger of the left hand. (Here, I'm holding the camera with my right hand.) You should be able to see how rough this crust looks. Not a Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way.

Next, prick holes in the crust with a fork. Very important to make sure the holes go through the dough as air pockets that form underneath while the crust bakes, if the steam cannot escape, will cause bulges in the crust. The bulges do not go away when the crust cools. Other tips: line the unbaked shell with foil and place pie weights on top of the foil. You can also use dried pinto beans in place of pie weights. Lift the foil with weights out after about 10-minutes baking so the crust can brown all over.

Even a not-so-perfect crust gets forgiveness if the filling is luscious.


The recipe for Chocolate Silk pie follows.

You need a stand mixer because eggs require 2-minutes beating after each addition.

Resist the temptation to get a spoon and start tasting. It's the butter, no, it's the chocolate, no, it's the texture …

Pour into crust and refrigerate.

This pie is unbaked, so to make sure eggs are safe, before using, I place each egg in a bowl of water to check for cracks. Eggs should be fresh and high quality. The long beating times produce "heat" that cooks the eggs.

You can even freeze this pie and save for later. I can't wait till December to make this again.

Chocolate Silk Pie

Early in the day:

Set out 3 eggs and ¾ cup butter so they are room temperature when you start.

Roll out pie crust. Prick with fork; bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes. Cool completely.

Melt 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate baking squares in a glass bowl in the microwave being careful not to burn. Allow chocolate to cool completely.

Cream together for 4 minutes:

1 cup sugar

¾ cup butter (not margarine) at room temperature.

Blend in cooled chocolate and 1 ½ tsp. vanilla.

On medium speed, add eggs one at a time, blending for 2 minutes after each egg.

Put mixture in cooled pie shell and chill several hours or overnight.

Later, whip 2 cups heavy whipping cream, adding a few tablespoons of powdered sugar at the end. Spoon on top of pie. If desired, garnish with chocolate curls or sift powdered cocoa on top.

Sweet Boys and Angry Birds

2011-03-02T16:31:00.000-06:00

When 4-year-old grandsons Beau and Beck come over, sooner or later they say, "Gran, can I play on your iPod?"

Their favorite game: Angry Birds. Also one of the NYT Top 10 Must-Have Apps.

Some pictures from a day in the life. I take that back. A few hours in the life because they go home at night to wake their mom and dad as often as possible.

"I didn't get the pig!"

"Score."

This is scary. What will this generation know when they reach my age?

A matter of perspective …

Advancing, Beck unlocks levels of increasing difficulty.

Does this look familiar?

Beau fell asleep across my lap and kept snoozing when moved.

Beck said, "Take a picture of us."
Remember, Beau is asleep.

New venture, thread over and under horizontal handles.
Beck said, "I can't do it. It's eleven." Eleven what?
"I need it longer."

"I need help, Gran." So Gran added some ribbon.

Love watching little hands at work.

Ta-da!

"I need to get Poppy."
"Poppy, you need to come see this."

Best Quotes from 2011 Academy Awards

2011-02-28T08:45:00.018-06:00

Hollywood's big night

"Mister, I don't know any of those names."

That's actually a line from the 1985 western Silverado, a movie my family and I have watched so many times we have lost count.

But since award ceremonies are notorious for speakers who thank a gazillion people no one in the audience at home would know, well, you can see why that quote came to mind.

No big dramatic outbursts last night, the Academy Awards had to resort to replaying scenes from previous acceptance speeches, such as Cuba Gooding, Jr. and his "I love you" to just about everybody in the world.

These quotes from last night's telecast––Even a blind hog gets an acorn once in a while––reveal a few gems that sparkle amidst the gush.

Christian Bale thanked "… my little girl, who's taught me so much more than I'll ever be able to teach her."

David Seidler, who wrote the original screenplay for The King's Speech:

"The writer's speech: this is terrifying. [a pause that writers can appreciate] My father always said to me I'd be a late bloomer."
         Next he said that as the oldest person to win this award, he hoped the record would be broken quickly and often.
         He thanked, "… Her Majesty, the Queen, for not putting me in the Tower for using the word Melissa Leo used."
         "On behalf of all stutterers, we have a voice, we have been heard thanks to the Academy."

Colin Firth did not stutter as he accepted his award. He began by saying, "I have a feeling my career just peeked."

Lee Unrik, who won in the Best Animated Feature category for Toy Story 3 said, [this was a movie about] "talking toys that had something very human to say."

Randy Newman, who won for Best Original Song, "We Belong Together," from Toy Story 3 spoke about the advice someone had given him if he got the opportunity to thank people, something about doing good television instead.
       "I don't want to thank these people. I want to do good television." And then, of course, he went on to thank people.

Tom Hooper, who won as Best Director for The King's Speech told how the idea for making the movie came from his mother who had seen a stage reading of the the play. His story enriched appreciation for the movie that went on to win Best Picture.
       Hooper concluded his acceptance speech saying, "The moral of the story is: Listen to your mother."

Here's a list of all the winners who got to take home the statuette.

And the NYT slideshow of the best dressed on the red carpet. This shows the best.

That's what I call gumption

2011-02-25T14:13:00.000-06:00

The dictionary defines gumption: 1. initiative; aggressiveness; resourcefulness: With his gumption he'll make a success of himself.

2. courage; spunk; guts: It takes gumption to quit a high-paying job.

A news report that aired on local TV prompted my brother-in-law to recall a time when he displayed gumption.

The television screen showed a worker in something that looked like a space suit spraying a chemical coating on playground equipment that had burned children playing on it in the record-breaking heat last summer in Dallas.

The white suit reminded David of a job he had between his freshman and sophomore years in college.

Showing vs. Telling

David had gone to Baytown, TX to stay with his friend for 2 weeks until school started at Southwestern University at Georgetown.

"I needed to get a job. My buddy took me to apply at a company that did contract work for an oil company where his dad worked. But he said, 'You won't get a job working for them.'"

"Yes, I will. You just watch me."

The line of prospective applicants was long, David said, but before he got in line, David went to the bulletin board to read the job postings. "The only help wanted was for experienced sandblasters."

When David got to the front of the line, the man asked him what he could do.

"I'm an experienced sandblaster."

"Where have you worked?"

"All over Dallas," David said.

"Okay, we'll give you a try." And then the man told him how much they would pay him per hour.

"That's not enough. I'm an experienced sandblaster."

So the guy raised it to $6.00 per hour, "which was a lot of money back then. An obscene amount," David said.

The next morning David showed up for work and they gave him a 3-man crew, and then took all 4 to a work site.

David put one man in charge of the sand, another the machinery, and the third man to feed him the line. David did the actual sandblasting wearing a protective suit. He climbed up to a platform and blasted the top of a tank, finishing the job in 4 hours.

When the foreman came back at lunch, he was astonished.

"This is a cost-plus job. You've got to slow down or we won't make any money," the foreman said. "This job should have taken all day or a day-and-a-half."

David said he took lots of breaks after that. And when he quit at the end of 2 weeks, the foreman said, "Is it the money? I can get you more money."

"No," David said, "I gotta go back to school."

Now that's what I call gumption.

Something's Coming

2011-02-22T16:30:00.000-06:00

Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something's coming, something good,
If I can wait!
Something's coming, I don't know what it is,
But it is
Gonna be great!

First bit of green peeking through

Bulbs amaze me. The life is in the bulb.

Come on, Little Bulb. Show us what you got.


Ooo-La La: A hyacinth

It always surprises me when something I planted before winter starts to show. I never know if what I put in the ground will grow.

A long time ago, I cross-stitched a bell-pull with these words:

Who plants a seed

beneath the sod

and waits to see

Believes in God

I'll keep you posted on this portent of spring.

Taking Yoga to the mat

2011-02-16T17:34:00.001-06:00

My husband gave me a new Yoga mat for Valentine's Day. Yes, I was surprised … and thrilled. It's a really great mat, a Jade Yoga mat to replace a basic entry level mat I got at Target.

Hey, in the seventh week of an 8-week beginner's class of Yoga, I will graduate next week. I said to my husband, "I guess this means you want me to keep going."

What has Yoga done for me? Well, for the first time in my life I can sleep on my stomach, if I want to. I don't. But it is nice to be able to lie on my stomach for more than 30-seconds. I learned in Yoga that lying flat on the stomach is considered a back-bend, and just that much of a bend compensates for all the time most of us spend butt-in-chair.

And I attest to increased mobility in a shoulder injured during our move to Lubbock 2 years ago this June. I can actually clasp my hands behind my back, place them at the sacrum, straighten my arms and then bend forward, lifting my arms. How far? Well, not as far as some people I know, but this is something I could not do before I started taking these classes.

Is Yoga a religion?

A lot of people worry about Yoga as a religion. It is. The language of Yoga is Hindu Sanskrit. But not everyone who practices Yoga holds Buddhist beliefs or subscribes to Hindu philosophy.

Meditation is optional, and personal, and who knows what goes on in someone's head and heart anyway? Even in church.

People who teach Yoga, I can tell you, use the same words Bible-believing Christians use. Words like compassion, perseverance and acceptance.

"That's because everyone wants to be spiritual," a friend said. But the problem is not with words but with the meaning a person invests in those words, and what sort of ideas a person formulates based on words. Nature abhors a vacuum.

A wise teacher shared this principle: "All people are worshipers and will choose someone or something to worship."

Yoga falls far short of leading me to worship my body. Instead Yoga heightens awareness that "… I am fearfully and wonderfully made …" (Psalm 139:14). Even imperfect me, I marvel at what my body can still do.

Personal Testimony

My daughter, who can bend like Gumbi, says when she goes to Yoga, she gets there feeling like hardened wax from the accumulated stresses in her busy life, and by the end of her practice she feels as if she has melted.

For me, Yoga practice provides a time and a concrete way to honor my body. Since I began Yoga, this awakening of how I have neglected my body has come into sharp focus.

I leave each practice session filled with gratitude for this amazing creation that carries me around, wandering thoughts and all, thankful and knowing whom to thank.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T09:30:00.005-06:00

For Valentine's Day, these are a few of my favorite romantic movies. 25 to be exact, both comedy and drama. I've included some great quotes from these movies and a couple of links to YouTube.

Have fun stormin' the castle.

"I want to do something for her... but what?"
"Well, there's the usual things: flowers... chocolates... promises you don't intend to keep ... "

Tale as old as Time: "… there may be something there that wasn't there before."

"Remember, when you go out not to put on too much makeup otherwise the boys will get the wrong idea and you know how they are ... They're only after one thing."
"What's that?"
"I don't know. Nobody will tell me."

"I think you're a hopeless romantic who's discovered that romance is hopeless."

"So close to reaching that famous happy end …"

"Face it, Rose. You're no picnic."

"A woman's heart is an ocean of secrets."

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind …
William Wordsworth

"I felt that it was my heart only that I was risking … but my heart is, and always will be, yours."

"All great beauties must suffer and sacrifice."

"After all the stops and starts, we keep coming back to these two hearts …"

"You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness."

"Do they still really have prizes in Cracker Jack boxes?"
"Oh yes."
"That's nice to know... It gives one a feeling of solidarity, almost of continuity with the past, that sort of thing."


"This is true love. Do you think this happens everyday?" "Death cannot stop true love, it can only delay it for a little while."

"You'll never find anyone as good for you as I am, to believe in you as much as I do or love you as much."
"I know."

"Do you believe in love at first sight? Nah, I betcha don't, you're probably too sensible for that. Or have you ever, like, seen somebody? And you knew that, if only that person really knew you, they would, well, they would of course dump the perfect model that they were with, and realize that YOU were the one that they wanted to, just, grow old with … ."

"If you fit into my pants I will kill myself"

"Okay, um. What do you mean by the leaning thing? You mean because he gave me flowers?"
"And then you leaned."
" …Okay, how did I lean when I leaned?"
"It was a lot different from hugging. Hugging's very different. Hugging, that involves arms and hands; and leaning is whole bodies moving in like this …
Leaning involves wanting ... and accepting…"

"Rhett, don't. I shall faint."
"I want you to faint. This is what you were meant for. None of the fools you've ever known have kissed you like this, have they? Your Charles, or your Frank, or your stupid Ashley."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a great fortune must be in want of a wife."

"I am determined that nothing but the deepest love could ever induce me into matrimony."

"Perhaps I didn't always love him as well as I do now, but in such cases as these a good memory is unpardonable."

"I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly."

Movie's Ending: most memorable sequence

"Can a man and a woman be friends, without sex getting in the way?"

"When you realize You want to spend
The rest of your life with somebody,
You want the rest of your life
To start as soon as possible."

"You've ruined it for me, you know."
" Ruined what?"
" Being alone."

"That's your problem. You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie."

"That's a chick's movie"

"I've been taking pictures all my life––long before I had a camera."

"More isn't always better, Linus. Sometimes it's just more."

"So, I'm not a theatre buff."
"Buff? The most difficult tickets to get will be for a Broadway musical."
"Okay."
"That means that the performers will periodically dance about and burst into song."

"I love you, Loretta."
"Snap out of it."

"Democracy can be a wickedly unfair thing, Sabrina. Nobody poor was ever called democratic for marrying somebody rich."

"A gentleman fits in anywhere."

"A sponge fits in anywhere."


"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake." "I don't know what you mean, Miss Ilsa." "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" [not Play it again, Sam] "Why, I can't remember it, Miss Ilsa. I'm a little rusty on it." "I'll hum it for you … Sing it, Sam." "Who are you really and what were you before? What did you do and what did you think, huh?" "We said no questions." "Here's looking at you, kid."

"The likelihood of one individual being right increases in direct proportion to the intensity with which others are trying to prove him wrong."

"She loves me, Mr. Jordan."
"Joe, you must abide by what is written."

"You're the quarterback."


"I came to Hollywood over 60 years ago, and immediately fell in love with motion pictures. And it's a love affair that's lasted a lifetime. When I first arrived in Tinseltown, there were no cineplexes or multiplexes. No such thing as a Blockbuster or DVD. I was here before conglomerates owned the studios. Before pictures had special effects teams. And definitely before box office results were reported like baseball scores on the nightly news … Iris, in the movies, we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason, you're behaving like the best friend."

"You knew what a frightful girl I was when you married me."

"Take love, multiply it by infinity and take it to the depths of forever … and you still have only a glimpse of how I feel for you."

Beau, Beck and Bowling

2011-02-11T22:07:00.000-06:00


Wish I had gotten the picture when Beau crossed his eyes.

Fabulous Friday. The twins came to our house for lunch, ice cream and to fly balloons with Poppy.

Beck ate the cherry is why he looks so happy.

Chris, Erin, James and I went bowling tonight. So much fun. And I didn't come in last.

We had to wait for a lane but the bowling alley is now a smoke-free zone. I scored 120 my second game. w00t

Jazz hands

Erin and I discovered that Yoga breathing does not improve our bowling.

James quickly recalled his technique.

Chris got a groove and hit the most strikes.

Where's the ball, Paden?

The Dude still abides.

A word about other blogs

2011-02-10T17:31:00.000-06:00

My granddad and I shared the same birthday

Faithful Readers,

Reportedly, there are now more bloggers than blog readers.
If you are still reading, you may have noticed the blogs I follow. Looking at that list may strike you as a bit eclectic. It is. I am.

The Pioneer Woman and Bakerella

While most of my blog reading trends toward writing, you will see that The Pioneer Woman and Bakerella relate to cooking and photography.

What's not to love about The Pioneer Woman? Creative, upbeat and humorous, Ree Drummond provides the perfect antidote to the sky is falling. If the sky did fall, Ree would find a way to make something wonderful out of the pieces.

Bakerella, just in time for Valentine's Day, is new to me. Already my daughter has made cake pops. And I love that this clever girl just does what she loves and takes the time to share with others recipes, pictures and her ideas.

Nathan Bransford

My son, the reader, suggested I check out Nathan Bransford. He's cool. Nathan, not my son. Oh well, my son is cool too but he has yet to launch a blog because he spends so much time reading.

Today Nathan wrote about writers, in particular their striving to make something change. Referring to The Great Gatsby, which Nathan has just reread, "there has to be a pretty intense fire burning inside you to devote the amount of time it takes to write one [a book] … writing is an act of getting down on your hands and knees and hoping the world spins on a slightly different axis. It's the art of not taking life for granted and trying to make something, anything change."

That pretty much says it for me, the hands and knees part, and about not taking life for granted.

Aspire2 and RetroChristianity

Two of my favorite professors from Dallas Theological Seminary blog.

The blog Aspire2, written by Sandi Glahn, who besides working as an adjunct professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, she nears completion of a PhD from UTD.

Sandi taught a couple of the writing classes I took at DTS: Journalism and Advanced Creative Writing. Both classes gave me a much-needed sense of direction and redeemed my time at DTS. Sandi also co-taught the Preaching class my Master's degree in Media and Communication required. There, she played an even more pivotal role as friend.

Sandi also writes regularly for the Tapestry blog on bible.org, a site that has world-wide readership. I took the pictures of doors used on the Women's page, and occasionally I blog as a substitute.

Mike Svigel, who teaches in the theology department recently updated his RetroChristianity blog, accounting for his long absence because he has written another book. Can't wait to read it. This guy is brilliant and grounded. A student of real life, not simply ideas in books, he doesn't blow smoke.

Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent

While I keep working to complete a manuscript, I follow Rachelle Gardner's blog. She's an agent. Don't have an agent. Don't know if I will ever need one. Don't know if I will ever finish this book. But Rachelle offers lots of good advice for writers, would-be and otherwise.

Chip MacGregor

Agent Chip MacGregor wrote a blog that I read for ages, and when he up an quit a few months ago, I thought, whoa. Blogs are so yesteryear. That post combined with the holidays derailed my blogging engine.

Keepin' it simple, I stop short of endorsing a bazillion other blogs. If I blog too much or read too many blogs, I will never finish writing this book. It's easier to blog, because deadlines tell me when to stop.

Ho, hum. For now, I will keep reading, writing and stretching my creative muscles to build a blog. Whether or not I have that intense fire burning inside, these few blogs serve as my Energizer to keep going.

Nikki Heated

2011-02-09T13:36:00.000-06:00

Continued from yesterday's post, my Nikki Heat story has a happy ending. Usually try to save the best for last, but this iPhone photo tells a better story than all the rest.

Beau and Beck have to wait for Gran's rolls

Lightly flour work surface and rolling pin

Plop out the dough and start rolling into a rectangle

An imperfect rectangle, I might add. Then slather with REAL butter, room temperature.

Mix high quality cinnamon and sugar, about half and half.

Spread to within an inch or half-inch on all sides.

Start rolling along wide side of rolled-out dough.

Gently, so the sugar and cinnamon stay put.

There you go. Press seam into dough before cutting.

Cut about one-inch wide slices and leave room for rolls to rise. Cover with a towel and let rise overnight.

In the morning, voila. Ready to bake.

350 degrees for 15–18 minutes. Do not over bake.

Baby Bear porridge: just right

Glaze: 2 T. butter, 2 T. milk, 1 t. vanilla, 1 1/2 c. powdered sugar

Keep stirring

Stir until smooth and not a bit grainy.

Start icing while rolls are still warm.

There will be "orpha-lans"–end pieces and ugly rolls that don't fit in the pan.

Luscious

Share these delectable rolls so that you don't wind up on The Biggest Loser.

Care and Feeding of Nikki Heat

2011-02-08T13:57:00.002-06:00

Nikki Heat needs stirring every day

When a friend gave me some of her family legacy sourdough starter several weeks ago, I had no idea how much attention this would require.

Cover sourdough with a towel as it needs to breathe.

After naming this creature Nikki Heat for detective Kate Beckett on the television series, Castle, I even had to arrange for a friend to care for and feed the beast when I went out of town. Miss Nikki Heat, sourdough starter, has made a place for herself on my kitchen counter.

My family is starting to love her.

Already I had to move to a bigger bowl, and the plastic lid on top of the towel keeps the dough from drying out.

The down side is also the upside. Lots of yummy rolls, as often as I want to make them, so long as I plan ahead. Down, because our weight could go up. Up, because Nikki makes magnificent rolls.

And at last, after numerous iterations, I have perfected cinnamon rolls made from this sourdough.

Here's how to make the dough for either dinner rolls or cinnamon rolls.

Measure 2 c. all purpose flour into bowl

Add to flour 1 t. salt

Next add 1/4 c. oil

then 1/2 c. water

to this you will add sourdough mixture

scoop out 1 c. of sourdough mix

goopy looking stuff

That's it. Just 5 ingredients

Mix well

See how clean the sides of the bowl look. Smooth the dough with spatula. Such an easy dough to work with.


Cover and let rise in a warm place

Next post, I will show how to make rolls.

The starter my friend gave me has been in her family for more than 25 years. Imagine stirring and feeding a starter for 25 years. I thought that had to be a record until I read that the Boudin Bakery in San Francisco still uses its original starter, used there since 1849 (see sourdough link above).

This recipe calls for feeding with 1 c. flour, 1 c. sugar and 1 c. milk, twice a week. Whisk and add to original mixture. Unless you use a lot, you have to give some away, which is how Nikki came to live at our house.

Tiny TOMS

2011-02-07T12:02:00.000-06:00

Tiny TOMS

Teenie tiny TOMS

Teenie tiny TOMS on tiptoe

Read about TOMS, the shoes that with every pair purchased a pair of new shoes is given to a child in need. "ONE FOR ONE."

Seven-year-old Ava just got a pair of the smallest TOMS made. When her mother pulled back the covers to awake Ava yesterday, she still had on her TOMS.

Ava, the girl who hates to wear shoes, has found her shoe-mate.

Super Bowl XLV: How 'bout Them Cowboys

2011-02-06T11:30:00.003-06:00

Really looking forward to watching the Cowboys play at Cowboy Stadium tonight. Wait a minute. Those players will be in the stands or at home to watch Green Bay play the Steelers.

Is it my imagination or does football season last longer every year? Pretty soon the Super Bowl will compete with the Academy Awards. No, that will never happen. Too much money at stake.

Whether you watch the game or not, this Volkswagen commercial tells a story without a single word uttered.

At work, a cultural force.

The first time I saw Paris

2011-02-05T13:07:00.009-06:00

View taken from the Jules Verne restaurant, May 1, 2006

A chapter in Pat Conroy's book, "A Southerner in Paris," made me think again about my own experience of Paris. Conroy writes, "Parisians and polar icecaps have a lot in common except that polar icecaps are warmer to strangers."

This comment cracks me up. My own impression to the contrary, Parisians my husband and I met seemed warm and welcoming, tolerant of my, Je parle francais un peu.

"In Europe, climate shapes character, and the Parisians have been left out in the rain too long," Conroy said. "To Parisians, all Americans are Texans, grinning cowboys."

So true. But even to the rest of the United States, Texans appear caricatures like J.R. Ewing since many people believe Dallas the city exists for oilmen, ranchers and football players.

So much for stereotypes.

Another Conroy observation made me cringe as he characterized the Japanese as "untiring photographers" [who] "… experienced the city of Paris through glass, through square apertures and focused lenses."

That's how I travel too, my camera a barrier between me and raw experience. Because I love that the possibility exists to capture a scene––a split second in time when the light illuminates a drab building or an architectural detail or the unguarded look of a person unaware that someone even notices them––I lug around my camera and lenses.

Life. No one can stop the crush of time pressing us into the next moment, but people can freeze-frame a few images that remind themselves how wonderful life is.

The river Seine courses through this ancient city.


Outside Notre Dame Cathedral, this medallion marks the center of Paris.

Inside the cathedral

An astonishing sanctuary

Even with Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth,
attempts to describe building cathedrals fails to capture the architectural feat.

The cathedral's flying buttresses hold up this massive structure.

View of the Eiffel Tower from a Batobus, a great way to get from one end of the river to the other. And yes, it rains a lot.

Alongside the Louvre, uncanny seeing the street without cars or without hearing sirens. Paris is a city of sirens.

I love this angle from the courtyard of the Louvre, which makes the building look like a titanic sinking ship.

On what's called "the People Bridge" another photographer snaps a candid.


Sun sets on one of the bridges across the river

How many hands have handled this handle?

A guardian of the city atop the Musée d'Orsay

On Sick Days

2011-02-04T15:28:00.002-06:00

At first it felt like a novelty, giving myself permission to lie in bed all day … Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday … giving my body the chance on its own to heal, and most of all taking time to read. But while I read I also felt guilty for not writing.

My plans got waylaid. After building a head of steam, the manuscript I had begun again to complete before the end of March waits like my husband's truck, which has been in the shop for a month. Starts and stops compete with all things out of our control.

So with 2 books that had arrived the day we got home from our trip to Houston, I chose to read first Pat Conroy's My Reading Life. I read the whole book in a day. A feat. And then I took notes in my journal to summarize what helps me both as a reader and a writer.

Like mine, Pat's mother made him a reader. Although I came to reading for pleasure much later than he did, my mother surrounded me with books. Displaced me with books would be more accurate. And for that reason, I felt as if books were my rival.

And my mother used reading to punish me. More than once she made me read a book and write a report on what I had read. The one I remember, in particular, was a volume of the Time Life series on world nations, which she had purchased. She made me read France.

So I thought about that book I had read in the fourth grade when I got to visit France, twice. And the cookbook my mom gave me in high school, written only in French. She was trying to elevate me, the same way she and Peg Conroy educated and elevated themselves.

Pat Conroy writes, "Peg Conroy used reading as a text of liberation, a way out of the sourceless labyrinth that devoured poor Southern girls like herself."

Ah, yes, my mother was born in Dallas in 1931. After her mother died when she was 7-years-old, she was raised by relatives in East Texas. Poor indeed.

Thus I have come to appreciate reading as a reward. Time out for good behavior. And I do agree with Pat Conroy who goes so far as to say, "The most powerful words in English are 'tell me a story.'"

That's My Boy

2011-01-30T21:56:00.000-06:00

Long day's journey into night began this morning around 5:00 a.m. for son Jordan who ran his second half-marathon.

Jordan runs by at mile 3, 2 blocks from where he and Stephanie live.

Forest. Forest Gump. He just kept running and running.

Stephanie waited at mile 9 to cheer Jordan to the finish line.

Big boy Clancy congratulates Jordan

How do you spell relief?

It's over.

Clancy and Daisy crash with Jordan

This year's medal

It all began before daylight.

Early leaders

Ahead of the pack

Here they come

And more …

22,000 people started the race.

Keeping the pace in packs

"Keith" has run 13 marathons

High fives

High-five

Again

Ouch!

Coming …

… and going

Fans don't mind the rain.

Runners adapt.

Fashion counts

My husband and I stood at this corner for an hour-and-a-half. A balmy day for a foot race.

That joyous moment: home at last.

Flowers for Algernon

2011-01-24T20:08:00.001-06:00

Have you read the short story "Flowers for Algernon?"

Required reading for me in the 9th grade, several years later Cliff Robertson starred in a movie called Charly, available on Netflix, based on the prize-winning novel written after the success of the short story.

Flowers made me remember Algernon, the name of the mouse.

As I searched for some pictures of flowers, it cheered me to remember some of the places I have gone and the things I have seen. Everywhere I go, I notice the flowers.

Bird of Paradise, at Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego California

Pictures of this purple flower that looks like a cluster of bells and the succulent plants above, which grow in the sand along the beach, were also taken on Coronado Island.

These next three pictures I shot during hikes in the woods.
The daisy, on a forest floor in either Colorado or New Mexico, has a tiny bug on it. The purple flower grows in A-lask-kaaah. I came across these blue flowers in the middle of Kauai island where the movie Jurassic Park was filmed.

Mary, Mary quite contrary

How does your garden grow?

That's what I wonder when I see such beautiful flowers, vibrant colors.

This peony popped up in our flower bed last summer. What a glorious surprise.

This rose actually grew in my own backyard.

In Dallas, though, not Lubbock.

A rose is a rose is a rose … I can almost smell it.

Organized religion scares this author

2010-10-22T12:39:00.001-05:00

For some thoughts about author Anne Rice's conversion to Christianity and her subsequent departure from organized religion, check out my Tapestry blog at bible.org
http://blogs.bible.org/tapestry

Any thoughts on how or why organized religion lets people down?

My Gift from the Sea

2010-08-03T16:03:00.001-05:00

Sunset at the marina

Most people have heard of Hilton Head, but not many who live west of the Mississippi know about Fripp Island, SC. Less than 60 miles apart, the two resort destinations afford beachcombers alternative experiences.

Fripp Island is only 3-miles long, but the beach at the center of the island stretches to fill the horizon. As Anne Shirley would say, much scope for the imagination.

Portions of the movies Forrest Gump and The Prince of Tides were filmed on Fripp Island, but we first learned about Fripp through friends who live in Atlanta.

Though both Hilton Head and Fripp have premier golf courses, the private access to Fripp Island provides a less commercial setting than nearby resorts. Because amenity cards are required to use any of the island services, arrangements to stay on Fripp can be made through VRBO. No food or gas or rentals or golf or even souvenirs without an amenity card. No, no, not one.

South Carolina is a long way from Texas, but after our nephews wedding in Savannah, GA, my husband I spent 4 days at Fripp. We arrived just before high season: no heat, no bugs and practically no people. Aaah.

From the condo where my husband and I stayed, it looked like we were on board a cruise ship, steady and without the rocking or sea-sickness. This corner unit's living area had windows that faced both east and south so that the expansive view we saw each day filled my camera lens. I took this picture at sunrise.

At low tide, the beach below our condo grew from a few feet to include sandbars extending far out to sea, the length of several football fields end over end. Astonishing.

On our last day, this particular shell came to rest unbroken a couple of hundred yards from the shore, my own gift from the sea. Until then, I had collected a variety of shells at what's called the trash line, where waves deposit pieces of shells.

Unbeknown to us at the time, we brought home a hitch-hiker; a hermit crab inhabited one of the smaller shells. This creature rocked back and forth on the kitchen counter, making a click-clacking sound we finally traced. We named him Pedro, after the turkey in Giant, but unfortunately after a few weeks, he met the same fate as the turkey.

Moonshells, lots of them, and what variety. In one chapter of Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, she wrote:

This is a snail shell, round, full and glossy as a horse chestnut. Comfortable and compact, it sits curled up like a cat in the hollow of my hand … On its smooth symmetrical face is penciled with precision a perfect spiral, winding inward to the pinpoint center of the shell, the tiny dark core of the apex, the pupil of the eye. It stares at me, this mysterious single eye––and I stare back …

I read this compact but insightful book each year even though I seldom get to visit a beach. The moon shell chapter explores every woman's need for solitude as a source of renewal. Like AML, memories made at the beach reinforce my resolutions to live a simpler life, the life I envision when I get away from my regular routine.

Yes, the beach renews because, "Time wasted at the beach is not time wasted."

Future Guitar Hero

2010-07-23T11:26:00.001-05:00

Beck demonstrates in this video that he is picking up more than notes when he watches the rest of the family play Guitar Hero. When twin brother Beau joins the band, the family can start their world tour.
Future Guitar Hero

This past Wednesday, during the performance of Texas, a lavish musical production in the Palo Duro Canyon, Beck sat on my lap. At one point when the characters in the story react to a coming rainstorm, the show has lighting and sound effects to simulate lightning and thunder. Beck looked up at me and said, "We gotta get out of here."

As if I were not sufficiently alarmed, he looked around and repeated, "Yeah, we gotta get out of here."

Seated in an outdoor amphitheater that holds more than a thousand people, I had to suppress my laughter. To think that a three-year-old assesses the situation and assumes responsibility for the family's safety cracks me up.

The shows we pay money to see have nothing on the kids I get to watch and enjoy. That's entertainment.

To Kill a Mockingbird turns 50

2010-07-08T15:23:00.003-05:00

image from publisher, Harper Collins

Every child fears the boogey man, real or imaginary. Whether an actual person or an idea that sprouts in the imagination, the concept of a boogey man consolidates mankind's fear of the unknown. To Kill a Mockingbird explores a childish fear evoked by a mystery in a coming of age story that engages readers to face the all-too-real adult fears that wear the face of prejudice, conceit and injustice.

Flannery O'Connor said, "We have to have stories. It takes a story to make a story. It takes a story of mythic dimensions; one which belongs to everybody; one in which everybody is able to recognize the hand of God and imagine its descent upon himself." Author Harper Lee wrote such a story and won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1961.

The Washington Post review at the time of the novel's release referred to its moral impact: "A hundred pounds of sermons on tolerance and an equal measure of invective deploring the lack of it, will weigh far less in the scale of enlightenment than a mere eighteen ounces of new fiction bearing the title To Kill a Mockingbird." That impact multiplied exponentially when the book was made into film the following year and Gregory Peck received the Academy Award for best actor.

Today both the novel and the film exist as artifact to convey a timeless message to new readers and viewers unfamiliar with the historic context and artistic excellence. Readers continue to benefit from fresh exposure. That the novel exists bears concrete evidence to Harper Lee's imagination and her skill in creating great literary art.

But not everyone agrees. Read here for a dissenting view Malcolm Gladwell wrote for The New Yorker. Or take a look at this 4-minute video clip from a new documentary by Mary Murphy or the USA Today article for sympathetic voices.

On Sunday, July 11, To Kill a Mockingbird turns 50. Boy, I would love to debate the literary merits of TKMB.

A story of belonging

The setting for To Kill a Mockingbird, Maycomb county Alabama, fixes the story in 1932 during the nation-wide depression where economic recovery was as sluggish as the days of childhood were long. The main character, Scout tells the story as an adult looking back on the privilege of an ordinary life, slow-motion-days, light refracting through a reverse-lens view––wistful memories merged with the author's adult understanding of innocence lost.

Paced over the course of two summers, a little more than a year's time, the story begins when Scout was six-years-old, ready to start school. Selected scenes set the stage for seismic upheaval brought about by the trial of a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. Scout's father, attorney Atticus Finch, agrees to defend the black man, Tom Robinson.

Single father Atticus––who both the children call by his first name––devotes himself to Scout and her brother Jem, four years older, whose mother had died when Scout was a baby. Family relationships invite readers to move closer to the warmth radiating from a home where Atticus educates his children while at the same time tries to shield them from adult evils.

To Kill a Mockingbird survives long past its contemporary audience because the story captures icons of character, recurring social conflicts as well as a visionary's quest for social justice.

After the trial had been lost, a neighbor, Miss Maudie, said to Scout and Jem, "I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them." The American Film Institute (AFI) voted, Atticus Finch, portrayed by Gregory Peck, the number-one movie hero of all time.

The director of the movie, Bob Mulligan, said "The key to whole [story] is the point-of-view of children. The brilliance of Harper Lee is the creation of this world of children and their first contact with good and evil; having this fantasy father figure that all of us would like to have had, to guide us through this; to live on this street all of us would like to have lived, in a neighborhood--to belong."

Boo! Did I scare you?

Seemingly unrelated to the trial, a mystery-man outlines the story's shape when the children first got "the idea of making Boo Radley come out." Shadows of Boo Radley linger in the imagination of the children and reader alike until the end of the book.

To Kill a Mockingbird reminds readers how dark the heart of prejudice: how beguiling moral conceit that ignores a person's character, and how social injustice prevails when superficial differences distort people's judgment. This story incarnates human dignity.

But the real boogey man lurks in our hearts.

Eclipse eclipses Twilight and New Moon

2010-07-01T23:23:00.005-05:00

My grown daughters and I saw the movie Eclipse on opening day. Third in the Twilight Saga, we got tickets for the early matinee on Wednesday. Vampires are asleep that time of day.

Even as the three of us ventured to see the latest film, I felt uneasy. I had read online a well-written, thoughtfully documented, biblically referenced piece that purported the evils inherent in the whole story. The books and movies continue to trigger a range of reactions from Christians, everything from harmless entertainment to the devil’s doorway into lives.

My husband, when I read aloud the entire article to him said, “Unless it’s The Hardy Boys, some Christians will find something wrong.”

One thing will never change though. Opposition incites interest rather than quells it.

What would C.S. Lewis do?

Questions raised are not questions answered. Is the Twilight series Satanic?

I don’t know how to answer that question for anyone but myself, but if I believed it was inherently evil, I would avoid contact. If I thought its ideas poisonous, I would attempt to keep those I care about from exposure to danger. I might fail, but I would try.

The world of thought remains an unsanctioned region, patrolled by one’s own conscience, contaminated by reality and filtered through experience. Are there better books to read? Yes; but in our family, my mother outlawed book-burnings.

I read these 4 books to maintain a conversation with my book-loving family members whose diverse literary tastes expose me to selections I would otherwise bypass. When I posted several months ago my thoughts on the Twilight series, I maintained keeping this story in the realm of fantasy fiction frees readers to relate to the book as a creative endeavor rather than a treatise on vampires.

Without getting into particulars either about the movie or the Bible verses that may or may not apply as an individual sees fit, what struck me while viewing Eclipse was how often the audience laughed. In a crowded theater, laughter throughout a dramatic movie suggests that most people refuse to take this stuff too seriously. Most people, like my daughters, just find the story entertaining if not compelling. I’m the one who strives to figure out what’s going on here.

Why do people love or hate Twilight?

Before the movie started, previews of coming attractions included the long-anticipated release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last book in the J.K. Rowling series. Though book seven concludes the Potter series, the movie will appear in 2 parts, the second half released next summer. The trailer for the November movie release showing on You Tube already has over 3 million hits. Touted as “The motion picture event of a generation,” the publicity will help to make it so.

The phenomena of Harry Potter and Twilight afford parallels. Both originally written for Young Adults, somehow these stories reached and resonated with a wider audience. Both authors dealt with themes characterized as occult: wizardry and vampires. Both book series portrayed heroes/heroines that represent good values held in the midst of an evil counterculture embedded in the contemporary settings; both occupy the seen and unseen world of men. Both publications attracted huge followings and both enterprises evoked strong reaction from critics, supporters and detractors.

One question for detractors: Did you read, watch and think for yourself? Even preachers have moderated, and many from pulpits have lately endorsed the Harry Potter series, saying that to disparage Harry Potter calls into question the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

The main thing I see in Stepanie Meyer’s writing is creative repackaging of themes as old as fiction itself, especially romantic fiction. Not surprising since she divulged that she read to the point of emulation literary classics by Jane Austen and Emily Brontë.

In the PBS movie, Miss Austen Regrets, the character Jane says, “The only way to have a man like Mr. Darcy is to make him up.” Could Meyer’s creation of vampire Edward Cullen represent a modern-day, under-worldly version of Austen’s Mr. Darcy?

What women want, Meyers gives readers through the characters she has created. Between Edward and Jacob, few female readers even try to resist imagining herself as the object of their fatal attraction.

Women want a man who wants them, desire pulsating. Discussing the books with my husband who has not read, nor would he ever read these books, he said, “Vampires have always been about sex.”

His insight helped me to evaluate the so-called pro-abstinence some say these books promote. I do not agree that Edward’s love for Bella is as he calls it, “old school.” Author Stephanie Meyer knows that restraint heightens tension between the sexes, whereas “giving in” decreases interest. And she has written according to old school morals a commercially successful page-turner.

Theology 101

Everyone holds particular views of God, which is why an author’s theology will infiltrate his writing. Even the atheist refusal to believe in God, his non-view reveals belief that he has no one to whom he must answer.

Myer’s Mormon theology, “Ye shall be as gods,” does bleed through her story as she had her characters end up choosing what Satan offered Eve in Eden.

By using the term immortal to describe the choice that Bella makes to be with Edward forever, it appears that the undead have a decided advantage over those who must experience the limits of mortality, including continuing to age.

But the Bible teaches that all human beings are immortal by virtue of their creation by God. Only some will live forever separated from God, even after physical death, while the elect will experience eternal life with God forever—a life that as mortals commences this side of the grave.

In seminary, students are taught exegesis, how to interpret from the content and context of a biblical passage its meaning. Eisegesis, however, interprets meaning by reading into a text one’s own ideas. Thus, unless we achieve sterile objectivity, each person must concede that most of our conclusions derive based on efforts to support preconceived ideas. Or as C.S. Lewis said, “What you see depends on where you are standing.”

This too shall pass

After the movie ended, my daughters and I talked about the movie and the books as well as the objections noted by the author of the piece I had read. My girls bring a lot of perspective that otherwise I might ignore.

My eldest daughter has four children; my youngest teaches in a Title 1 high school. They live in the real world; I respect their observations and opinions. They both liked the movie even more than Twilight and New Moon.

The third book was better, one said. The other felt giddy after seeing a grown up movie without kids. Yes, the sexual tension between the characters appeared more overt, building in intensity. But is there anything new under the sun?

Then we shopped. And I ran into a friend who has neither read the books nor seen the movies.

“Oh, is it that vampire thing?” she said.

And then she brought up the vampire movies she and I saw at the movies when we were kids; Saturday matinee features that tweens—a word not yet invented— and teens even way back when stood in lines to see.

All sorts of horror movies reigned at the box office during the late ‘50s and ‘60s. The 1922 silent movie, Nasferatu, is still considered the defining movie about vampires.

Stephanie Meyer, however, has created a new kind of vampire, not one that glows in the dark but one that sparkles in the light. And some see this as a representation of Satan who the Bible refers to as an angel of light. Maybe. Maybe not. Is the author herself possessed?

Eclipse was not scary. Not in the horror movie sense, although there were some gory sequences.

But people don’t go to Twilight movies because they’re scary. The teenage love story has most people hooked. And the complicated relationship Bella has with her divorced parents tugs at heart chords. And her love for a friend who wants more than her friendship, that’s part of the chemical equation too.

As for the proliferation of vampire books, movies and TV shows, well, I have lived long enough to venture this too shall pass.

“Reel spirituality”

Movies have ratings and parents have reason. And kids who want to read or see what their friends read and see will find a way. Rules break before relationships do.

As for cautions, yes. Readers must think, movie-goers must decide which movies to view, and parents must teach their children how to think and evaluate, how to challenge ideas that threaten values.

Discuss. Dialogue uncovers a multitude of insinuations.

Blind obedience fails in the cultural crucible where too many voices cry in the wilderness.

Waste not, want not

2010-06-30T10:07:00.001-05:00

Posted today at Tapestry my blog about how not living a good story constitutes waste.

Waste feels cumulative, the way the movie WALL-E showed how mass consumption walls us in, leaving life that feels devoid of purpose, meaning and direction.

Comments about wealth, excess and waste welcomed and appreciated.

Savannah Smiles

2010-06-05T17:12:00.023-05:00

Our nephew Steven and Kelly's wedding in Savannah, Georgia brought Texans and Californians, family and friends from everywhere to the deep South to share the joy of Bride and Groom.

Cheri, mother of the groom and my husband's sister, with her youngest son, Professor Steven

Groom's nephew, Anderson, pursued by paparazzi

… but he can't be bothered.

Groom and his dad await the bride's entrance.

Here comes the bride.

"I DO."
"I DO." I really do."

"With this ring …"

"You may kiss the bride." Perfect!

Mr. and Mrs., the two become one.

A real southern belle in a dress too pretty for pictures to capture.

This is my favorite candid:
Kelly looking at Steve and Steve trying not to look at Kelly.

Here's looking at you both, Kids.

Let them eat cake. Please, let them eat cake.

Brother of the groom and sister of the bride, aka. our adorable nephews, Steven and Dave

Dancing with David, proud father-in-law, who welcomes Kelly to the family.

Fabulous dancers.

And a happily ever after looks like this:

The Gutenberg Bible, the Printing Press, and Paper vs. Digital Devices

2010-06-04T09:33:00.000-05:00

To read my Tapestry blog post, click on link to http://blogs.bible.org/tapestry.

Here are the pictures Erin took of the Gutenberg Bible when she visited NYC in April.

Just think how the printing of this Bible has changed the world.

I Pledge Allegiance

2010-05-11T10:02:00.000-05:00

… to the flag
of the United States of America …

Twins Beau and Beck learned the pledge in BSF, or as they call it, BF.

Beck goes first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkhay0YFX5g

Then Beau, "Can I do it?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TBS4Uqy9ec

Yes, you can.

Pretty sweet for 3-years-old.

Take It Easy in Winslow, Arizona

2010-05-05T01:54:00.008-05:00

Uncanny how song lyrics submerged beneath decades of disuse will bob to the surface when certain words fit the situation.

Well, I'm running down the road…

headed from Albuquerque, NM to Flagstaff, AZ when barricades, flashing signs and men wearing orange vests diverted traffic off I40 at 2:30 in the afternoon.

Well, unlike the Eagles' song, I'm [not] standing on a corner, but I am in Winslow, Arizona, and I think to myself, of all places to get stuck.

Semis crossed the overpass and simply got back on I40 heading east … don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.

What did truckers know that we didn't?

"We can't turn around," I said to my husband, "we just came from that direction."

From the overpass facing west, seeing no cars or trucks on the Interstate appeared like a scene from The Twilight Zone. Eerie.

Ignoring our GPS, which showed that if we turned right, the road dead-ended. We felt sure we could find a way past this roadblock. Instead we found ourselves in the middle of the prairie, forced to turn around. This really was the Twilight Zone.

Merging into the line of cars and trucks funneled to the onramp, my husband rolled down his window to ask, "What's going on?"

The man who leaned into the 50+ mph winds said, "Dirt storm closed the Interstate."

Cheeze, Louise. We lived in the Texas Panhandle east of Amarillo for 25 years and only blizzards closed I40. No blizzards in late April.

Lighten up while you still can

Don't even try to understand

Just find a place to make your stand

And take it easy.

The iPhone to the rescue, first to check the Arizona Department of Safety to see how long we should expect to wait and then, because the recording said the road would remain closed until 8:00 p.m., to find a place to spend the night. We got the last room at a hotel we would never have looked for but which turned out to be a marvel.

La Posada, a Fred Harvey Hotel built along the Santa Fe railroad, opened in 1930. The entrance pictured here faces the old Route 66. Closed to the public in 1957 when the railroad turned the building into offices, La Posada reopened when the current owners began renovations in 1998. http://www.laposada.org/

The new owner's vision for restoration reveals a labor of personal commitment.

"I believe we save great buildings in the same way we save families, cities, nations: one day at a time, with constant investment and courage, undaunted by naysayers. I believe in the sacredness of place, and in the power of great architecture to inspire creativity, kindness and civic responsibility." Allan Affeldt, taken from the Souvenir Guide and Map for a Walking Tour of La Posada.

A desert treasure, the hotel has a 5-star restaurant, a gift shop and art gallery. Designed by architect, Mary Jane Colter who also designed Bright Angel Lodge as well as lodges and cabins at Phantom Ranch located at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, everything about this old hotel says grand.

A list of well-known guests, which included Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bob Hope, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Mary Pickford, Will Rogers, Carol Lombard, Albert Einstein, John Wayne, to name a few, as well as pictures of celebrities from the 1930's–1950's line hallways, and each guest room gets its name from one of the hotel's famous visitors.

My husband and I stayed in the Jane Russell room, where a picture hangs of the actress in the Howard Hughes movie, The Outlaw. Above the picture was a quote by Bob Hope, "Here's the 2 and only, Jane Russell." In California, I went to school with her niece, Jaye Russell.

Vintage black and white photos displayed throughout the hotel recall a time when passenger trains criss-crossed the country as the best and fastest means of transportation, for soldier, civilian and celebrity alike. Once upon a time, trains were mighty giants, but then Atlas Shrugged.

Charles and Anne Lindbergh spent part of their honeymoon at La Posada, and later stayed there when they designed the airport at Winslow. In the early days of aviation, Winslow, AZ was a TWA stop and Howard Hughes owned the airline.

I love taking pictures of pictures. I took this one of Howard Hughes because my mother had a job interview with him in Las Vegas.

My husband and I had dinner in the Turquoise Room, a meal that ranks in our top 5, all-time best. Today the restaurant can seat 100, but during the 1930s and 1940s, it was not unusual for the kitchen to serve 1000 meals a day. The hotel's guidebook notes, "In addition to the main kitchen, there was a full bakery and butcher shop, a maze of store rooms and freezers, china and linen rooms, and a lead-lined walk-in humidor for cigars. They even refrigerated the kitchen trash to keep it from smelling!"

Pictures taken before we consumed every bite: salad with Blue Cheese dressing––the best ever––; grilled chicken resting on a green chile sauce with a corn tamale side––luscious; and a corn and bean soup with a red pepper sauce garnish. Fantastic creations by the "renowned Chef John Sharpe."

Only one of several remaining Fred Harvey hotels in operation, Who is Fred Harvey?, La Posada offers more than a place to sleep. Guests have access to bookcases filled with books in the guest rooms as well as in common areas, a garden, a ballroom and a reading room where all the "Arizona Highway" magazines since 1945 are bound by year.

Judy Garland starred in the movie, The Harvey Girls , an MGM musical that won the 1946 Oscar for best song, Johnny Mercer's "On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe."

To read more about The Harvey Girls, check out this book, The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West.

At La Posada, guests get a glimpse of not-so-ancient American history highlighted by western architecture and artists' creativity.

If you ever get to Winslow, AZ, dirt storm or no, stop at La Posada and Take It Easy. I'm glad we did.

Grease is the Word

2010-05-03T13:44:00.008-05:00

Have you heard?

Rose Frugé will play Betty Rizzo in Amarillo Little Theatre’s production of Grease.

http://www.amarillolittletheatre.org/index.html

"Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee."

Tell me more. Tell me more.

http://www.amarillolittletheatre.org/calendar.html

Performances start May 6 thru May 23, Thursday thru Saturday evenings, and Sunday matinees.

Tell me more.

Ticket prices: http://www.amarillolittletheatre.org/ShowTicketPrices.html

Rose was

Born to hand jive, Baby …

You’re the one that I want

… to see. Especially since you cut and dyed your hair. That's dedication to a theatrical role.

We're for each other like

A wop ba-ba lu-mop and wop bam boom

Just like my brother is

Sha na na na na na yip-pit-y dip de boom

Chang chang chang-it-ty chang shoo-bop

We'll always be together

Wha oooh yeah!

We'll always, be together …

Elton John in Lubbock, America

2010-04-17T00:22:00.003-05:00

As the first concert performance in the Texas Tech Spirit Arena 10 years ago, Elton John returned to Lubbock April 9, 2010.

Seeing and hearing this music icon perform for nearly 3 hours without a break is believing that Elton John came to entertain his audience.

Watching the crowd, it occurred to me how to distinguish between performers and entertainers.

A performer performs because of how entertaining makes him feel.

An entertainer entertains because of how performing makes his audience feel.

The audience felt appreciated. The crowd could feel the love that night. EJ wore Tech colors and held his guns up.

Being there brought back memories as only music can. Doing dishes while the radio played "Your Song," I felt as if the artist "put down in words how wonderful life is while you're in the world."

Phenomenal.

James captured some video of "Your Song"which I edited for youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5qElk4xQdM

But if you want to hear more, someone posted "Circle of Life," the song Elton John said changed his life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4GG-K1rlBQ

Ring Bears as Ring Bearers

2010-04-11T20:37:00.001-05:00

A movie footnote to Jordan and Stephanie's wedding, nephews Beau and Beck dressed in bear costumes for the wedding rehearsal. No one expected the ring bearers to growl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvdHKL2_JcE

A Pampa Footnote: "Circles inside of circles, inside of circles"

2010-03-29T19:55:00.002-05:00

Although a number of women traveled 120–150 miles round trip from surrounding areas to attend, Janice flew from Dallas to Amarillo––up and back in a day––rented a car and drove by herself the 60 miles each way to and from Pampa contending with a 50+ mph crosswind. Janice had dressed for Spring, but nary a complaint about the Panhandle weather crossed her lips.

Janice, me, Pat, Sue and Danina

Thank you, each and every one who got out on such a blustery day, Saturday past, to hear me speak at Faith Bible Church. When I overheard some women saying that the bad weather had made it possible for them to attend because ball games and various outdoor activities got canceled, it struck me how hollow my prayers sound when I ask for comfortable conditions, the removal of obstacles and the wish that things I value would come easy.

Since graduating from Dallas Theological Seminary in 2008, I have sought to discover and develop a speaking/writing platform. Based on remarks and written evaluations, I am encouraged to continue in this direction, to continue as Prof Hendricks tells his Creativity classes, "plussing," to make ideas better.

Several asked about quotes used in my talk, indicating that they wished these had been written out. Most of the quotes came from the books I recommended, titles and authors printed on the back of the outline I had prepared, then distributed.

Without repeating the full outline, here are a few quotes corresponding to each heading.

I. Reading …
"Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become." C.S. Lewis

II. Writing …
"You are the custodian of your memories and they are perishable." William Zinsser

III. Creativity…
"All people are born originals, but most die a copy."
"The tragedy of life is not in the fact of death but in what dies inside us while we live." Both of these quotes come from the revered Dr. Howard G. Hendricks, who this year celebrates his 60th Anniversary as a professor at DTS.

IV. Transitions …
"The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask." Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"Circles inside of circles, inside of circles …," my story reads better because of you.

Speaking of Pampa

2010-03-25T11:00:00.001-05:00

I will be in Pampa, TX on Saturday March 27, 2010 to speak at Faith Bible Church, 10:30–12:30. http://maps.google.com/places/us/tx/pampa/w-kingsmill-ave/110/-faith-bible-church?gl=us

Which, speaking of faith, I must exercise my faith to trust I will have a voice by then. Laryngitis struck with whatever the last 60–70 mph. wind blew into Lubbock the day before yesterday.

My subject is Story. The main points are Reading, Writing and Creativity, with a post script, Transitions.

One of my favorite books, Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, offered inspiration underlying the message I hope to deliver.

The movie, Castaway, a portion of which was filmed in the Panhandle, near Pampa, captures visually how like the ocean that part of Texas is. An intentional parallel, I might add.

Vast, with islands of inhabitants, the land creates its own geographic isolation where the treasures of friendship wash up onto the shores of individual stories.

A Gift to be part of and to know some of these stories, I look forward to seeing familiar faces, hugging necks, meeting new people and reinforcing the ties that have bound my heart forever to Pampa.