The Tide of Change

It was the best day of Ryan’s life.  Rockin’ out with the sickest group of musicians he’d ever met, he felt like he’d gone straight to heaven without the bloody, zombie-rampaging part in-between.  Finally, all the hours and days and months of practicing had paid off – big-time!  He - Ryan Francis Martin was the drummer for the “Wyld Stalyuns”   and he rocked at the only 2 things that mattered in this whole entire world, playing music and impressing Jessica Manley.  Coming off a wicked solo he smiled in the direction of the group of girls jumping in front of the school stage shouting “Ry-an, Ry-an!”   But his smile was meant for only one of them.

Then suddenly the chanting turned to “Get up, get up!” Jessica’s adoring face dissolved before him like a mirage in the desert and a hand was on his shoulder shaking him.  “Noooooo! Noooooo!  Leave me alone!” Ryan pulled the covers over his head and groaned, “I reeeeeally don’t want to get up!”

Errors and Omissions

She beheld her dream; hair like coal, cerulean eyes, ruddy face and a fatal smile. That picture made Ruth buy the June issue of Sail Magazine and predisposed her to a life-long passion for pretty yachts and handsome strangers.

Mosaic Memories

Donnie said some funny things. One time he told his mom, "I hate fall. All that orange and red in the trees gives me a headache."
Judi thought that was an eccentric observation but grinned and said, "I'm glad I'm not the only weird one in this family."
Another time he said, "Whenever I think about something that happened in the past, I can only picture it in black and white."

Judi Does Opera York!

I had a passion-filled weekend that I’m just dying to tell you about!  I was whisked away to the Paris of artists, poets and lovers.  I was swept off my feet by a potent cocktail of romance and wine and youthful ardour.  Who was the author of this delicious assignation?  It wasn’t just one, but an entire posse of passion purveyors by the name of Opera York.  

Stories on Canvas - Are you in one??

Amberlee Rosolowich is a young artist from California.  She paints powerful, narrative images of childhood fantasy and anxiety.  View her work and read more about it HERE.

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Call Me Frankenstein

I set myself a task this evening.  Hooked up to my MP3 player  I went out for a walk.  The mellow voice of Madeleine Peyroux set a comfortable pace.  The music; however, turned out to be a weaker draw on my senses than the spongy, hot August evening.  The sky was black and motionless; before it the trees stood out in surreal relief.  The heavy mist felt tingly and made my skin shine.  Before an intense palate of black and green my eyes awakened from their mid-summer sleep.   I turned off my music, took out my ear phones and walked, as such an evening demanded, "unplugged." 

Untethered to the words of the music, my mind quickly started to wander.  I started thinking of the start of school in September and how I might be able to engage my 11 year old son, Kyle, in creative evening activities.  I had him start a blog last year.  He has a few entries in it.  (Right click HERE and "open in a new window" if you would like to take a peek.) 

I thought I might ask Kyle one evening to write a blog entry describing his idea of the "perfect friend."  With this exercise, he would have to think about: 1. what it means to be a friend and 2. what qualities constitute good character. 

No sooner did I hatch this little plan for Kyle than I started thinking about it in reference to myself.  Enter Frankenstein - how would I "build" the perfect friend?  I don't know if this would be my final design, but the prototype would be something like this:

• there would be a male version and a female version
• he/she would be strong, decisive
• objective and non-judgemental
• brave but not foolhardy
• wouldn't dream of telling me a lie to spare my feelings
• would love me but never pity me, envy me or enable me 
• would not need to be with me constantly to know how important the friendship was
• someone I'd want to "measure up to" and vice versa
• would most likely have a "quirky" and unique take on life

I think that's probably more than enough to expect of my imaginary paragon!  I have one friend who very closely fits my ideal.  Zoe was the subject of my very first blog entry in 2007.  She has been the best of friends for over 35 years. I had no idea that my one hour walk this evening would take me all the way to BC!

What a happy thought this exercise has been.  Love ya Zoe! 

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Heard of "Project Gutenberg?"

From Wikipedia: (right click on any link and select "open in another window) to read the complete article.

"Project Gutenberg was started by Michael Hart in 1971 with the digitization of the United States Declaration of Independence.^[4] Hart, a student at the University of Illinois, obtained access to a Xerox Sigma V mainframe computer in the university's Materials Research Lab. Through friendly operators, he received an account with a virtually unlimited amount of computer time; its value at that time has since been variously estimated at $100,000 or $100,000,000.^[4] Hart has said he wanted to "give back" this gift by doing something that could be considered to be of great value. His initial goal was to make the 10,000 most consulted books available to the public at little or no charge, and to do so by the end of the 20th century"

One of the coolest things on the Gutenberg website is the free audio book offerings.  I down-loaded "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde recently.  It's a wonderfully narrated piece of work!  I copied it to my MP3 player and listened at my leisure on walks and roller blade skates over a week or so. 

Would you like to try down loading this classic story too?  Here's how:

• go to this website: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/26230#downloads
• scroll down to the table titled "Hand-Crafted Files"
• there are 13 "audio" files (for the 13 chapters of the novel)
• starting on the first of the "Audio" files, left click where it says "main site" in the 5th column of the row
• then, in the dialogue box where is asks if you want to save this file, click  the "save" option
• In the next, "save as" box, select a suitable library - music, document etc. and create a new folder, title "Dorian Gray" by,
• Right clicking the library name on the left and selecting "new" then select "folder"
• a "new folder" will appear under your library title - documents or music that you selected           
• Rename that "new folder" to "Dorian Gray"
• save all 13 files in sequence to that folder then transfer the entire folder, if you wish, to your MP3 player for easy summer "reading."
• then continue browsing the collection!

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