Enduring Love

True sorrow carved out a space in my heart long ago - that must be the reason my eyes pour like Iguassu everytime I see a romantic flick. Last night it was 2004's "The Notebook" for the 33 time. It's bookmarked below the Sony DVD player tempting me whenever there's a full moon on a warm evening. Last night though, it was a friend, Jenn Joy, who hadn't seen it yet and that was excuse enough. Why I ask do I put myself through this? Surely I thought tears siezed after seeing a movie this many times. In my case, they don't. Sarge came up from the basement bunker tossing his head from side to side, obviously disappointed in my overtly dramatic and insipid performance. But when Ryan Gosling (Noah) takes one look at Rachel McAdams (Alli) and knows instinctively that she's the person for him...well, my God, no matter how perfectly idealist the notion is, there's hope for love yet - at least in the movies and that's sustenance enough until the next sappy show or Nicholas Sparks novel. Let me end with the very first and favorite line of the movie: "I am nothing special; of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough."

Pick Your Own

It looks like the line to Walt Disney World! 80 to 100 wrinkly Floridians with hungry bellies lining up for fresh strawberry shortcake at President Bush and Elvis's favorite ParksDale Plantation. I'm too ansy to wait in line so instead bag myself a few jars of the jam preserves, dried gator meat and clementines sweet as chocolate. The added Vitamin C boosts our energy level to bike through a dense Everglades State Park. Dad is struggled to keep up - his old man's 3 speed rusty chain flops off every few feet. Senior Citizens are even passing with the greatest of ease. I went from running Marathons to being lapsed by a Centurian, oh the humanity! Wild black boars, low flying egrits and pink cranes gives us pause to stop so Dad can catch his breath. Forget Mickey Mouse (synthetic fun), sunning by the seashore or kitchy flea markets - untamed natural habitats, unseasonably cold weather and friendly farmers fruit stands are what make coming back to Florida tolerable.

Canoeing Crisis

Sunny Florida is having a coldspell this week and I couldn't be more grateful! 65 degrees and no more is just perfect for walking Holmes Beach, canoeing through alligator-infested backwaters, catching shots of poisonous snakes and black-winged vultures and enjoying southern cooking on the beach. Family insisted I make it down before Easter and who am I to argue with a free flight? And Dad's neighbors can tell tales of wrestling wild 7 foot crocs and surviving years of destructive hurricanes like none other.

Suddenly, blood-curdling screams pierce the Zepherhills jungles when I come face to face with a hairy face spider the size of a Florida grapefruit! We're trapped in a canoe, my Stepmom in front and I'm steering. She just ducked under a fallen tree stump where this gigantic monster, furry and grotesque, is parked. "SPIDER! HOLY SH**!" There's no way I'm ducking under the log and risking it jumping on my head. What to do? Carol resists going back under and I'm frozen in place, screaming for dear life. "KILL, KILL, KILL", words that echo through me as I lambaste this monster with my canoe paddle. It circles the log and avoids my swings. "If it jumps into my canoe, gators or not, I'm jumping overboard!". With that Carol decides to play the brave one and backs back under. Whew - that was close.

Give me a 8 foot python, a low-flying bat or even a ugly sewer rat - I'll toy with them all like pets but spiders, big or small...KILL is the only motive.

Spring Cleaning

As a little kid I loathed seeing garbage strewn about the neighborhood. Especially after a windy day when the newspaper recyclables that were put out the night before ended up flying into deep ditches and tall tree branches. I'd grab a waste paper bag and spend hours picking up plastic cans, broken glass, heavy cardboard and old tires. And this was years before there was a recycling deposit incentive.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this but I still do the same today. During my excercise routine this weekend, I became frustrated seeing all the junk acccumulate on sidewalks and footpaths in my Suburbian Paradiso. Clutter that was buried all winter under snow now flew about the neighborhood in wild abandon. Picking it up would be a thankless and wretched job but who else would do it? The town's Waste Management department wouldn't bother fighting thorny brush and cold water to dispose of a rusty coffee can. My privileged neighbors seem too busy tending to babies and their BMW's to notice. In a few weeks trees will grow enough green growth to cover it all up from view anyhow.

But my inner child eco-conscience got the best of me and off I went donning gloves and garbage bags to do Mother Nature a favor. I admit I'm also the one who pushes other people's lost shopping carts back to the store, lights her home with wind energy, air dries her laundry and looses sleep when a tree falls. I guess you could say I read a few too many Mother Jones issues instead of Glamour and Mademoiselle growing up.

Pretty Posies

My stepfather Sarge, God love him, used to be one of the best Funeral Directors around. Before that he was a 101st Paratrooper, Green Beret, Night Ranger, Special Forces, Iron worker, St. Lawrence Seaway Director, Mortician Graduate, Union President, Mason, Mensa member, Mohawk Indian, Drunk, Woman Chaser and Partier - though not necessarily in that order. He and Mutti have been camping out in my 5 bed/4 bath dream home until I can get PilotGirl Productions, my new business, to hit the big leagues.

Before Sarge moved in I hadn't received a fresh bouquet of flowers in decades. A bottle of vino, sure, a box of chocolates, absolutely, a wonderful homecooked dinner - big bonus points there... but flowers? I guess men might think flowers are too gushy or romantic or old fashion or whatever. It's not that my crop of transient boyfriends keep rotating because I lack flowers but if the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach than the quickest way to a woman's is saying it with flowers. Didn't your Mamas teach you anything?

Lucky for me, Sarge doesn't need an occasion to shower Muti and me with daisies (my favorite), carnations and even pink roses. He retired from his job as a Funeral Director long ago and his vice for fresh flowers lives on. The expense must be astronomical but you won't hear complaints from me. If it were an overpriced piece of bent metal, also known as jewelry, I'd demand an exchange but not with pretty posies. Go ahead - bury me six feet under on a bed of soft colorful pedals and I'll actually rethink cremation.

Sorrow Mountain

On very rare occassions there are times when I'll buy the original hardcopy of a library book I finish reading. 'Sorrow Mountain' by Ani Pachen, a Tibetan Warrior Nun is one of those books. For several weeks now, it's gripping narration and poetic prose kept me feeding off it's pages till 3am.

From the age of 25 Ani endured 21 years of brutal torture and starvation at the hands of the Chinese during the Cultural Revolution. Emanicated, weak and ashen she wore leg irons while in prison, she was confined to 9 months of pitch dark isolation and she was routinely beaten during interrogation.

"In the familiar room of ropes, bamboo rods, and iron pails, of bloodied walls anad urine-stained floors, they tie my hands behind my back. They hoist me up by my wrists. Once again flame shoots through my shoulders, bile fills my mouth. I swing, senseless, and the room fades into darkness."

Hers is just one of millions of Tibetian hardships that need telling. Mao's determination to destroy their customs, spiritual practices and culture is not unlike the Jewish holocaust. Hermitages, monasteries, the land, the people, all were destroyed over the past 50 years. Equally disturbing is that no free democratic countries intervened to stop the bloodshed! How is it that the Buddhist princlples of compassion and justice weren't enough to warrant political intervention among free nations but oil reserves and a guy named Hussein are? I'll be wrestling that thought for the rest of the day and beyond.

The Candida Albican Crisis

I'm a world traveler - or at least I try to be when the opportunity comes up. Following Mexico, South America, South Africa, Asia and several states in between most of the past 2 years have been spent on the road. With so many exciting adventures, tales of woe and intrigue and stories of scuba diving with sharks, I can easily add a new dimension to a listener's life. Instead though, I found myself caught in a conversation about 'Yeast' last night dining at the Circus Cafe in Saratoga. No, not the kind you bake with but the female health related medical condition that makes men squirm.

While my friend Joan sang sentimental favorites with her lone jazz pianist, Jenn and I lamented about our personal alergy problems over Ceasar Salad. Here we were instead, comparing diets - having to say no to wheat products, dairy foods, most alcohols, all caffeine products and certain shellfish. Allergies that go far beyond itchy, watery eyes and sneezing caused from dustmites, pollen and mold. Just to breath normal, Jenn alone takes more pills and shots on a monthly basis than a full-fledged drug addict.

An anti-allergen to our right overheard our conversation and chimed in. "It's a chronic problem, a pandemic and it's caused from too much yeast in your body". Go on we insisted. "Proven medical theories and nutritional supplements can help regulate the abnormal levels of yeast in your body. Even dental fillings can lead to alergies. Dental amalgams (silver caps) contains 50 % mercury and mercury is a highly toxic metal, especially damaging to the immune system". Oh great, my unatrractive gums have been loaded with metal since I was ten.

Today's internet check confirmed everything. Check out yeastconnection.com for more on intestinal bacteria and the proliferation of Candida albicans, a discussion that trumps my body surfing in Hawaii anyday!

Childhood Issues

As a child of the '70s growing up in the sticks with limited entertainment I faced 2 tv series that forever frightened me: Doctor Who and Planet of the Apes. This week I confronted both my childhood fears.

First, I read in the New York Times today that the enigmatic BBC cult series "Doctor Who" is returning with new programming on March 17th. The show will be called Doctor Who 2 and will run on the Sci Fi Channel. When the original show rebroadcast on PBS in '75, the time machine, the Daleks and the Master scaried the daylights out of me. I'd run and hide when I heard Tristram Cary's surreal electronic score but that provoked my mischievous friends to turn up the volume and laugh at my cowardice. Not anymore, as of next week I'm determined to watch what sounds more like a sexually controversial sitcom than a dark thriller.

Following "Doctor Who" came the Planet of the Apes. Not Tim Burton's 2001 remake but the old 1968 TV series with James Naughton as Astronaut Burke. This too warped my conscience as a kid. A post apocolyptic world, human-hating apes and a creepy Chimp called Galen; why did '70s shows have to be so annihilistic? My childhood haunt was confronted though when I got to work with Jim Naughten this week in his Connecticut home. I didn't make the connection until his voice greeted me at the door. The series came sweeping back as he pointed out photos of Roddy McDowall and Ron Harper. I held firm knodding with disbelief that I was actually having a conversation with the source of so many childhood nightmares.

Now if I could only resolve my issues with Land of the Lost, The Partridge Family and Mr.Rodgers.

White Powder Withdrawl

Only in Montana will a cowboy open a door for you or a single gal keep her house unlocked at night or a Raggae band offer you a t-shirt and free CD. I'm back in New York now and feeling withdrawl from power-naps on ski lifts and the super nice folks I met out west. They rolled out the red carpet for us lucky press peeps and I sure was grateful. Put political affiliations and religion aside I made some very close friendships in a relatively short time in Montana. And I discovered how inept I can be after 5 straight days of downhill runs.

But Montana, like so many other states, is a changing landscape right now. The little town of Bozeman used to be a quaint art town and quintessential ski resort. Now big box stores like Target, Petco, Costco and Home Depot are gentrifying the area and fat-cat developers are using the power of eminent domain to take property away from little people. How much shopping do people really do? With gas prices skyrocketing doesn't everybody use the internet, like I do now?

I picked up a Real Estate guide out of curiosity. Albeit the log cabins are beautiful but who can afford 1.6 million for a 2-bedroom dream home on the side of a mountain? What if this country has another recession - a ghost town of retail chains, empty condo's and skiless slopes will follow. Montana is too rich with wild game and wide open space to blight themselves with ugly commercial enterprise. I saw a rare Bald Eagle, several grazing Buffalo and a Ram perched on a cliff's edge while I was there. I sure hope the wildlife and the cowboys can survive another Starbucks and Barnes and Nobles because they are what make Montana, not Walmart.