WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

Baby Kennedy & Her Books

Photographer:  Rosemary McGunnigle

NEWS or "NEWS"

TUESDAY NEWS DAY

Palin Hosting Fox News Show

There are just too many baffling thoughts I have about this...

Will it be news or "news"?  Will the conversation be scripted?  How much free reign will she have?  What in the world will LL Cool J and Palin discuss?  How is it possible that Fox is coming off it's most successful quarter ever?  What constitutes a "Real American Story"?  Will I be disgusted?  Will I be offended?  Will I be embarrassed to admit if I watch it (like when you can't help looking at a car wreck)? 

Sigh...

SEEMS LIKE A LIFETIME AGO

MONDAY MORNING MEMORY

ALCHEMY

SUNDAY SCRIBBLINGS

"Sunday Scribblings was set up to provide inspiration and motivation for anyone who enjoys writing and would like a weekly challenge."

I cannot see the word "alchemy" and not immediately think of the wonderfully personal novel by Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist.  It has a common plot of dreamers who seek adventure/treasure out in the world, only to truly find it at home... though there is something whimsical and honest about the book that pulls right at the strings of my heart and has allowed me to read it several times over - gaining a different perspective and different insights each time I turn those worn pages.

The subtitle of the book is "a fable about following your dream", (a fable being defined as a brief, succinct story meant to impart a moral lesson - think The Tortoise and The Hare: "slow and steady wins the race").   I like this idea - a lesson about following your dream.  And note that it isn't plural.  It's not more than one dream.  It's a single dream.  The Dream You Have For Your Life.  Doesn't necessarily mean the same dream throughout all of your years - which is what I love about the book.  Each time I've read it, it seems to mean something different to me depending on what's happening in my life just then.  If it's heartache, I see that in the book.  If it's love, I see that.  If it's needing a sense of direction, that is what is presented to me.  If it's feeling far from family and home, that feeling leaps off the pages.  

One of the definitions of what alchemy is pertains to alchemists looking for (or trying to create) the "elixir of life" - a magic potion that would cure all disease and allow you to live forever.  Now, although dying is something I hope doesn't happen to me for a very long time, I don't think I'd want to live forever.  Doesn't sound very appealing.  But the idea of following my dream forever, whatever that dream may be and in whatever time I have to follow it... well, that appeals to me very much.

FUNNY SITCOM

MOTHER: You think I smother our child?

FATHER: It's not your fault, honey... "mother" is part of the word. 

You never hear of anyone being sfathered to death.

(MODERN FAMILY)

OLD WORDS, SAME FEELING

SATURDAY SAYINGS

"So many people walk through life in this town - and few of them see the beauty that is striving to make itself known between the multitude of sky-high buildings and the cracks of crowded sidewalks.  But it makes me happy that I notice it.  And I know that you would, too."

These words were written by my hand on the back of a postcard dated December 2002 that I apparently never sent.  I found it in a wonderfully worn old notebook of mine... a small cloth-bound book with many blank pages and a dozen or so old memories I stuck in there over these past years in New York.  This and two other postcards that were stamped and addressed and never mailed.  A list of Theatre To See, plays and musicals that aren't even running anymore.  A picture of a pregnant woman, cut out from a magazine and tucked away here like a foreshadowing of a dream that's only just come true.  A thank you card from my brother.  "To Rachel (heart) Edward Norton" scrawled on a piece of scrap paper.  Photos of her garden from one of my favorite college teachers.  Quotes hastily written on post-it notes.

And a P.S. on this particular memory:  "Thanks for introducing me to Pad Thai... I eat it all the time since I've moved up here!"

OVERHEARD

FRIDAY WORDS OVERHEARD

Him:  "Oh, wow.  Is that Dr. Dre?"

Me: "Um, yea? Uhh... hon, I don't know what Dr. Dre looks like."

(but then my beau nudged me to alert me to the fact that Dr. Dre's Dr. Pepper commercial was on)

(and now I know what he looks like)

"Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, maker's match..."

(we need to teach dad the real words to those nursery rhymes)

"Hug your brother, honey.  (pause)  Hug your brother.  (pause)  I said, HUG YOUR BROTHER!!"

(overheard from a mom at the park, after one brother hit the other in the face with a dodgeball)