REDONDOWRITER'S SACRED ORDINARY

Pomegranate Rd. is a Fitting Tribute to Pomegranates and Paper Blog

When I saw this street sign inside one of the gated Portuguese Bend communities this morning, I thought of Loretta Benedetto Marvel of Pomegranates and Paper blog and writer for Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine.

Loretta, an artist, teacher of art and writer, is the most creative lawyer I’ve ever known. I knew she would get a kick out of this photo. What was I doing at Portugues Bend this morning? I attended an estate sale on Pomegranate Rd. in Rancho Palos Verdes in what is called the landslide area near Wayfarers Chapel and Abalone Cove. If any of you have driven Palos Verdes Drive South where the land slippage affects the road, it’s a scary roller coaster ride, particularly on a foggy night. 

But, this whole area is so very beautiful and the communities behind the gate are like a slice of rural heaven complete with horse properties and lots of wide open space still in its natural state. You don't see that often in Los Angeles. 

Knowing Loretta's penchant for beautiful things, I know she would buy a vacation home on Pomegranate Rd. if she had the money, but--she is saving for a wedding right now that you can read about on her blog.

I did not find anything at the estate sale I wanted to buy today, by the way, but driving there and back on such a beautiful day was like taking a mini-vacation. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

This book by Aimee Bender really fascinated me. Though I had some difficulty initially trying to figure out what had happened when young Rose began to be "gifted" or "cursed" when she felt the feelings of the cook who cooked the food, I stuck with it--and I'm glad I did. 

This is the review BookSlut gave to Lemon Cake.

If you've read it, give me your impressions. If not, I recommend it. 

"The fabulist elements of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake are stunning, but what makes this novel a keeper is the sheer beauty of the language Bender uses to describe love."
-- NPR, 'What We're Reading'

SoulCollage® Card: The Princess

It has been a long time since I've posted a SoulCollage® card, although I have been making them. Yesterday I saw my old friend Vicki at the Malaga Cove Library Used Book Sale and she is another SoulCollager, although she is an artist and a renaissance woman. 

So, tonight, while I watched Temple Grandin from Netflix, I made this card I call "The Princess." I would put it in the Council suit as the archetypal princess. 

I am the one who has admired the late Grace Kelly since I was an early teenager. High Society is one of my favorite Kelly films. She would be 81 this November had she lived. I am the one who followed her career and her marriage to the Prince of Monaco avidly and wondered how a "regular girl" could become a princess with a fairy tale life. I was the one who some people thought looked like Grace Kelly when I was young although I was not able to accept that then because of my lack of self-confidence. I am the one who watched her blossom as a wife, a mother--and a princess. And then she died in an automobile accident. How could death take this special woman so young? By then, however, the real world had encroached and I knew that life isn't a fairy tale and if it looks like one, it's because I bought into the myth. Classy, sophisticated, but down-to-earth, gentle.

I am the one who wished she had "really known" Grace Kelly as she was, not who she looked like she was. 

If I could ask her a question, it would be, "What was it really like to be you in the kingdom of Monaco?" 

I made another SoulCollage® card years ago called Conjunctio featuring the wedding of the Prince and Princess. I picked up this photo of the wedding on the Internet tonight.

 

Sophia, the Art Mannikin: The Belle of the Ball

Tonight Sophia is attending a ball; she's getting ready to watch the new season of Dancing With the Stars although she has secretly told me that she knows she is more skilled than she expects Bristol Palin to be. Sophia says she definitely is not attending any tea parties; she fears that Bristol may bring her mother to the competition. (Rumor has it that Sarah herself will be on the next season.)

Sophia's ball is at the Sons of Italy Hall and she is wearing one of those true estate sale finds I so dearly love. The house was soon going to be torn down and there was beaucoup junque as I did my walk-through. In a tiny little back bedroom whose popcorn ceiling was falling down there were racks of both women's and men's vintage clothing. This dress is amazing--handmade, and was hand-sewn for a large woman. The sales guy asked $10. I offered $5; he took it. I am using the old model's trick of safety pinning up the back where the crowds can't see. This dress would actually fit me, but I don't go balls anymore and don't even dress for Halloween. Party pooper, or old lady, depending on your POV.

There are yards and yards of taffeta, detailed peplums and the bottom is lined with a slip made of rows and rows of stiff netting. The side opens to reveal not only the netting, but some white roses the seamstress tacked on. The writer in me sure speculates about where this dress was originally worn, who made it, and what was the occasion. Want to make something up?

Sophia's shoulders are draped with a piece of lace I long ago picked up at another yard sale. Around her neck she wears one of the most beautiful pieces of jewelry I personally own--two strands of exquisite crystals given to me after my dear mother-in-law passed away. I so rarely dress up anymore so the necklace sits in a red velvet box filled with rhinestone, pearl and crystal jewelry that a lot of people would kill for. See that lovely handkerchief in Sophia's hand? That belonged to my mom; she made the lace around the edges. That green rose is borrowed from a favorite black felt hat I do still wear. 

A harvest candle is burning at Sophia's feet which Mollie keeps going over and checking out. Thank heavens Mollie is not a boy dog. 

I was fortunate to get the two mannikins I have at a store closing a few years back and I know I got a deal according to the prices at the Mannequin Super Store. Be sure to click on the economy female and male mannikins and the abstract ones. 

I've been Googling to try and find a mannikin club of like-minded eccentrics like me. I actually read about one once in the Los Angeles Times. Anybody know of any in the L.A. area? Guess I'll go check out Meet Up.

Here is Sophia's face up close. I see a lot of Angelina Jolie in her. 

Toilet Paper Protocol: There is a Right and a Wrong, Isn't There?

In A Course in Miracles there is a question: "Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?" When it comes to toilet paper on the roll I must admit I have very strong opinions. I have no idea why I became OCD about the rightness and wrongness of how TP should present, but this diagram says it all for me.

Are you saying, "Get a life, Fran?" I'll admit that in the big scheme of things, who cares? I don't know why, but I do--and it only began a few years ago out of a clear blue sky. I'll admit I have changed the TP in private homes if it is "wrong," but who am I anyway to try to impose my beliefs on someone else? When I used the bathroom in a restaurant tonight the TP was hanging wrong. I debated about changing it and then I thought, get a grip. Usually I'm a live and let live kind of gal.

At Current Configuration there is an entry called: Essential Life Lesson #1: Over is Right, Under is Wrong that corroborates my anal beliefs. Anal, get it?

So, are you an over or an under?

 

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to Host Opposing Rallies in Washington D.C.

POSTED BY: Eric March at Comedy Central's Indecision Forever

What's that dull, scraping sound? It's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, sharpening their knuckles for a face-off that promises to be bigger than Nixon/Kennedy, Ali/Foreman, Aniston/Jolie, 50/Nas, Joe/The Volcano, Alien/Predator, Bunny/Fudd and Ecks/Sever combined. Put Sept. 30 on your calendar. 

On October 30, 2010, Jon and The Daily Show will lead the first-ever Rally to Restore Sanity on the National Mall in Washington D.C. — a movement of "people who have been too busy to go to rallies" — to beg America to stop shouting, throwing and drawing Hitler mustaches on people other than Hitler (or Charlie Chaplin).

Not to be outdone, The Colbert Nation is calling on all freedom-loving patriots to challenge The Daily Show's dark, optimistic forces by marching on the Mall at the same time to help Keep Fear Alive.

Which side are you on? Visit the rally pages and declare your allegiance!

 

 

Tonight I watched both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and got a really big kick out of the National opposing rallies to be held by them in Washington, DC on Oct. 30, 2010. Wish I lived in DC.

 

Definitely a Day for a Dance of Gratitude

Today I got the news that my dear nephew Ted, age 60, checked himself into emergency in Phoenix during the night and was diagnosed quickly with a heart attack. He had some indigestion the past few weeks, but noticed after a game of handball last night that something was amiss. At 2 a.m. he drove himself to the hospital. This morning they put in three stents and the docs say he is a miracle man. For this I am very, very grateful. He's a good man with a lot more life to live and to continue his work of making the world a better place!

I hope this video from The Gratidudes makes you smile and do a little gratitude dance yourself. There website is a lot of fun, too.

 

Resubscribed to Thoughts From the Universe

Way back when, I subscribed to Mike Dooley's Thoughts From the Universe, but then I got tired of the unrelenting power of positive thinking some three years back and I unsubscribed. I need a little kick in the butt when I log in each morning to help me continue in my attitudinal shift. 

If there's something you want, anything at all, or if there's something you need, no matter what it is, or if there's something you'd like to change, please remember that all the bells and whistles of time and space were first hewn and blown in the windmills of one's mind, long before they were ever dung or heard by hands and ears.

Whatever you dream of, live it, live it now, as fully as possible, to whatever degree you can, in your thoughts, words, and deeds. And sure enough, as day follows night, as rains fall from pregnant clouds, and as melodies float from bells and whistles, your dream will come to pass.

It's a sure thing,
The Universe

I know, I know. Dung should be "rung." But "dung" just kind of wrote itself... and made me laugh. 

Who is Mike Dooley anyhow? Oh, I Googled and now I remember. He was in The Secret, although I'll admit that DVD/book was a little more into the law of prosperity than I was comfortable with. 

Magnificent Monday Full of Surprises

Some pretty sacred ordinary things happened to me today.

My grandson, Anthony, now 22 and sharing a house with four others, called to invite me to see his new place. It's in Walteria and it is a wonderful old tract house that has grown and grown, and was updated along the way. The biggest surprise of all? It was amazingly clean. Something happened between when he lived with me in high school and currently. Could it be the adorable Anastasia, his girlfriend? My own first place away from home was a boarding house by San Jose State; I was 19 years old. Such memories. Anthony's place reminds me of some of the houses my sons rented in Isla Vista when they were going to UC Santa Barbara.

Grandma (known as g'ma) then invited Anthony to tag along to Costco and "we'll get some stuff" for your house. What fun it was to spend time with him and he came home with lots of good food and cleaning supplies. (These are the two A's) 

Then out of a clear blue sky, my daughter Christy called tonight and she and Lorenzo asked me out to dinner at the Olive Garden--just because. It was delicious and we caught up with so many things. 

I finished "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" which I found utterly fascinating. No spoilers from me, but if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

I put up five items on Freecycle on Sept. 4 and our list admin must have gone on vacation because I never saw them offered. Today they finally appeared and all five items have been spoken for and two already picked up. 

 

What About This Blog Being a Daily Spiritual Practice?

In November, Sacred Ordinary will be seven years old. I can't believe I've stuck with it this long. I remember how exciting it used to be not only to post, but to read the blogs of like-minded people--or seek out ones that were very different. Bear with me while I analyze all this yet another time.

In my One-Line Bio on the home page I wrote, "Writing at Sacred Ordinary is one of my daily spiritual practices." This is no longer true. I'm not focused anymore, not only at the blog, but in my every day life. I'm all over the map. I'm not very disciplined except on the days I work for money or when I have obligations and responsibilities. I've always been deadline driven and at this point in my life, deadlines happen seldom. I look at the world very differently than when I was forever setting goals and working toward achieving them. I am very aware that I was always far more "other" oriented than I realized. Making and keeping to my own meaningful schedule doesn't come naturally to me.

It doesn't help right now that summer never really came to my part of Southern California. Usually we bask in sunlight for at least three months, but it has been unusually cool. We are swathed in perpetual marine layer or what we call June Gloom, but it now seems to be year round. I crave sunshine and I have missed it terribly.

So, I've got to do an attitudinal shift before I get whiny and ungrateful. I'm still convinced I am blessed to live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. I am grateful that at 73 my body and mind are functioning pretty darned well, all in all considered.

I do want to make this blog a spiritual practice, like I used to, but I also know that I need to cut myself slack and "listen" to where it and my life want to go. I have been writing almost daily in my handwritten journal and one practice I do faithfully every day is write at night in my five year journal.

Keep it simple, silly (used to be stupid but that is obviously not PC) is what I learned in journalism school and taught my own journalism kids. I'm really in the mode of watching and listening as I've been pretty disconnected from myself this summer--and I have to ease into the fall and winter.

Just some thoughts on a foggy night. Tomorrow I'm going to write about a woman I met in the 1970s, a nun, who called herself "The Wonderologist." Her ideas have stayed with me all these years.