I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

River_Rat

Jackie, it was 61 here yesterday and supposed to be be mid 50s today.  We had a warm winter last year, strawberry plants and other things stayed green through the whole winter.  It seems like more people are starting to believe that climate change is real and worrisome - at least around here.  Also, it's hard to get in the Christmas spirit when it's so warm.  I need just a light dusting of snow and it doesn't have to be really cold, just cold enough for that little bit of snow to last a while.

1Athena1

Alexandria - you may know how much difficulty Sylvia Plath encountered getting The Bell Jar published. Joyce had to self-publish Dubliners. So you are good company!

bluedahlia

Nekkid Pittchurs!  Woooooohooooooooooooo!

bluedahlia

alexandria58

Athena: can't say I'm in company with Plath or Joyce.  They're wonderful artists, whose work is among the best of the 20th century. I don't think the novels I write - thriller, mystery - basic genre entertainment, albeit good entertainment, are anywhere in the same league, let alone ballpark with the likes of Plath or Joyce.   Still, I love doing the writing, and iit'd be great to be published, if for no other reason than to get some respect from the family for my writing time.

Jackie and Alyson:  e-publishing is a definite possibility - if I don't get an agent and contract out of the contest I'm in for the current novel.

  

YramAL

50's and pouring down rain here. We seem to be having a typical Seattle winter, so far, if a little bit warmer. (2 or 3 degrees or so warmer). This is the time of year I have the most difficulty with. Dark when I get up, almost dark when I get off work, and wet, wet, wet. Rivers rising and flooding in rurual areas. 

I'd love to have a good snow, but my husband works for a heating oil company and he hates snow. He hates it when people wait until the day it snows to order their oil, and he hates delivering it in the snow. Seattle is not functional in snow.  He calls it the "s" word, and I am not allowed to utter it in his presence.

Mary

gardengumby

Alexandria - I look forward to being able to read your books - however you get them published!!

As for the weather - it's been raining furiously here in Western Washington this morning - and it appears rain and wind will be with us through tomorrow, tapering off through the week as the temperature drops - which is a fairly normal process for us at this time of year.  Though the weekend was off and on damp - we also had some nice sunshine on Saturday.  Good enough for my husband to replace a couple light fixtures on our deck as well as the light fixture at our front door.  They look lots better now... 

Anonymous

Greetings from sunny western ma, temps in upper 50's - after snow on Sat. 

Athena, thank you for the art lessons, reminds me of my college days.  Janson's History of Art must be on everyone's book shelves.  Also love Gombrich, I lived in England for years.  Miss the FREE museums of Washington DC, but finding wonderful information on line now too.

Love watercolor - and the British certainly did incredible work, but then I also love Winslow Homer, and hope to get up to see his studio now open to public, some day.

Having SUCH fun making Hannakah ( sp?) never know where to put the "u's" and Christmas presents.  Doing a lot of jewelry making.  Found a glass bead artist who lives locally, and adore her work, fun to create necklaces with her creations.  Wonderfully quiet days, so grateful for this time in my life.

Hope all are doing well.  Welcome to "newer" posters, good to meet new people.

Alexandria - self publish, get out what the independent book stores near you might offer: Politics & Prose in Washington DC now has a "publishing" point in the store too!  You can find info on their website.

Can't remember who (Linda?) asked about allergies, food, etc - definitely what is happening in agriculture - contents of plain ole wheat ain't what they were even 20 years ago - and if you look at the labels of most commercial icecream, you'd never eat it again.  Keep referring friends to David Kessler's The End of Overeating to learn what's happened to our 'food.'  Mark Bittman is doing a FABUOUS job on his website with this subject.

1Athena1

Alexandria - just hoping to encourage you.

gardengumby

Meant to say - Athena, thank-you so much for the art class.  I have re-read the last few pages of posts a number of times, and it's so fun to read.  Thank-you, again!!! 

We have the King Tut exhibition in Seattle right now, and hubby and I have been planning on going to it ever since it arrived last May or June.  We obviously are procrastinators, as we are leaving on vacation in one week and it will be gone by the time we return.  So.... if we don't make it this weekend, we'll miss it altogether which will make me most sad. 

1Athena1

You're welcome, GG!

lewing

Alexandria, I will for sure read anything you write!

Sunny and warm here, too . . . supposed to hit 60 today and be even warmer tomorrow.  When I went out for my morning run, it felt more like March than December.  It even smelled damp and green.  

There's something incongruous about all the lights and decorations and store displays when it's T-shirt weather -- I really want to go see the over-the-top Christmas light displays in a neighborhood not too far from here that's famous for that sort of thing, but I'm holding out for a dusting of snow.  Or at least a nip in the air.

Here's a modest example of the light displays I'm talking about:

L

Edited to add: is the picture showing up for others?  I can see it in preview mode, but not here.

River_Rat

Lewing, I don't see the picture.

lewing

OK, here's another link.  Or you can google "Dyker Heights Christmas lights" and see a multitude of glorious images!

kayfh

At the beginning of December my granddughter (10) and I go to Toronto to stay with a friend and her husband. (Started this the year of my diagnosis with no idea that it would become a tradition.)  They live almost downtown so it is an incredible opportunity for an urban experience.  We take the subway, walk for miles, eat widely diverse food, always go to a gallery or museum, look at the Christmas display windows at Sears, and always make and decorate gingerbread cookies.  This year we went to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) with the goal of seeing the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera exhibit.  My daughter, the mother of the ten year old had been in Toronto the weekend before and she had gone to see the exhibit.  She was wearing her 7 month old in a front facing infant carrier.  Maxine, the baby, was particularly taken with Frida's work.  At one self portrait she was "talking" quite loudly and pointing.  The next thing my daughter knew, her baby had grabbed the shoulder of a man next to her and was engaged in a "discussion" about the work.  He thought it both charming and funny.  Strangely, when we were at the exhibit, there was a mom, with a infant girl in a front facing carrier.  The baby was "talking" quite loudly to the same painting that had attracted Maxine!  I asked the mom if her baby was always so reponsive to art and she told me it was the first time she had taken her to a gallery, but she was definitely going to make it a regular thing.

Frida had so much physical and psychic pain.  It was amazing to see and hear babies responding so strongly to her work!

YramAL

GG-I went to the King Tut exhibit last summer, and while it was quite good, I was a bit disappointed by its comparison to when it was here in the late 70's. If you are expecting to see the large gold death mask, it is not in the exhibit anymore, even though it is on the posters.  I felt that this time did a much better job of educating me about the history of the pharoahs in Egypt-there are lots of "non-Tut" artifacts, but the Tut part was a let down for me. 

So, if you didn't go in 1978(I think) you'll love the exhibit as it is now, but if you did, like me, go in 1978, you might be a bit disappointed. It's still a marvelous exhibit.

Mary

lewing

Kay, I love that story!  What painting was it that attracted your granddaughter and the other baby so strongly?

(And what a wonderful tradition you've developed of that December trip to Toronto.)

Linda

1Athena1

Sunny, Gombrich is a favorite of mine - as is the great John Ruskin, arguably as great as some of the painters he wrote about.

ETA: We can talk about Winslow Homer and also the English landscape masters at some point.

gardengumby

Mary, I did go in '78 and was awed by the exhibit.  I heard the death mask wasn't there this time, and am disappointed in that.  It doesn't seem fair that they use it in the exhibit advertisements, but not in the exhibit itself, though I understand that Egypt decided not to allow it anymore because it was vandalized somewhere (though I may have that wrong....).  I won't be TERRIBLY disappointed if we don't make it, but there are also some personal reasons why it would be a good thing (in my mind, at least) for us to somehow squeeze it in. 

alexandria58

It's 60 degrees here in Trenton.  Beautiful, spring like day, and i hate it.  It's December.  I like my seasons to be seasons.  I don't even need to wear a jacket to go Christmas shopping. Where's the cold?  The snow?  Definitely not hot chocolate weather - no roaring fires, no chestnuts roasting. No kids skating on ponds. Sledding. Global warming isn't just killing people and devastating the planet with droughts, storms, etc., it's ruining Christmas.  (That should get Fox news energized.)  Slow Global warming!!! Save Christmas!!!

1Athena1

What Alexandria said!!! It may go up to 70 here tomorrow - yuck, yuck and more yuck! I want my first snow!

I was so happy with the 30s and 40s weather we were having. Our autumn was quite lovely as a result.

YramAL

GG-I had heard that the mask was damaged somehow on its last tour. I don't know if it was deliberately vandalized or if it was somehow damaged in packing and transporting. I did not know it wasn't in the exhibit this time. It was my husband's first time, and I kept saying, "It must be right around the next corner-wait till you see it!" All of a sudden, around the next corner was the gift shop! What a letdown. Glad you know ahead of time it's not there. 

Edited to add-the guest book is full of comments-"Where's the mask?"

Mary

Belinda44

So much great info to read! 

Welcome, Jezza and Juliaanna!

Athena, great art history info.

Kay, love the story.

Belinda44

Also enjoying reading all your comments on British history and various books.  I've always been fascinated with Elizabeth I, as well.  And also the more modern monarchs and their stories. 

kayfh

The Frida painting was a self portrait with monkey and small hairless dog and pre Columbian art object.  

It is so amazing that we live on the same continent as those wonderful Mexican people.  Their history, art and culture is so different from what predominates in the rest of North America and yet at the same time we are intertwined. 

lewing

I can totally see why babies would be fascinated!  They're always drawn to animals . . . and probably to Kahlo's strong features, too. 

When my daughter was tiny, she tended to gravitate toward 3-dimensional art -- sculpture and (especially) African masks.

L

suzieq60

It's going to be 39C (102F) here today - lucky I'll be at work in the aircon.

QuinnCat

Sun - I think my brain is gone.  I just reread your Nov 3rd post to me about Arimidex when I did a search on yet a NEW SE from this Exemestane - I now have a trigger finger (right ring finger), in addition to my finger joint stiffness after sleeping (well, all of the time, but really bad when I wake up in the morning).

(I also consumed so many books about the Tudors in my 20's and they are all gone from my brain!! My memory is terribly bad and just getting worse...ergo, my absence from the thread lately.  It's embarassing and the reason I eventually gave up reading...I couldn't remember anything I read from the day before.  I guess it is worse than I thought given what I've observed lately on our thread.)

So you took 6 weeks off, started wearing wrist splints and was able to go back on AIs without another hand incident??  Please tell me this is true.

Every week, it is something new.  And I thought hot flashes were bad...I'll take them over this tendonitis stuff as I know how debilitating this is.  I have a call into my MO, but she'll just try me on another drug, that I'm sure will cause the same symptoms....I don't see any that don't..why should they, it is the lack of estrogen, after all.  I am very susceptible, it seems to musco-skeletal-nerve issues....though my neuropathy is slowly getting better.

i feel like i have Hobsen's choice here....BC recurrence, or QOL issues......kam

bluedahlia

Kay, whereabouts downtown Toronto?  I know it like the back of my hand!

kayfh

My friend lives between St. Clair and Bloor Street and bounded on East by Yonge Street and West by Avenue Road.  We took the subway to Dundas Street as far as Roncesvalles and went into every German and Polish deli looking for Advent Calendars (obviously found them) then we walked to Queen Street and then walked and walked to Spadina.  It was fun.  We, my gdaughter and I live in a small city (75,000) so it is exciting to see all of the people of all shapes, colours, ages, income levels, all of the stores. If you walk from Parkdale in the west to the trendy part of Queen Street near Spadina you get to experience an incredible slice of the city of Toronto.   It was very interesting to get on the subway at 5pm (crazy but interesting) downtown for the ride to my friends home.  My gdaughter was the only kid, we were packed like sardines, though I'll bet the people of Tokyo could fit another 20-30 people in each car.  MaeBelle said that she was glad she had surfing classes last summer in Nova Scotia, because she had learned how to take a stance and remain upright.  We also decided it would be fun to pick a theme, but it would take the rest of our lives, for example to eat in every Pho restaurant on Queen Street.  Or drink coffee in every coffee shop, or have our nails done (one at a time in every nail spa).  We didn't do either.  But the possibilities are endless.