Summer Olympics, 2012.


Have you been watching the Olympics?  I have, but just bits and pieces.  I am always impressed.  When I watch I try to imagine how many years and hours of practice it took to be able to participate in London, now, in this particular time and space.  Seeing the best from all the countries of the world, some names of which I am not sure of the correct pronunciation, is a pleasure and I find myself rooting for someone I do not know, who is perhaps not a sure medal winner, but is so determined that I will for him or her to win over all the miles and ocean between us. 


There is so much drama of course: the faces of those who did not quite make it in the qualifying events; the ritual hugs; hand shakes; tears of joy and tears of disappointment; the expressions of the coaches; glimpses of parents and friends who have come to watch; all make these days unique.


I was not athletic in school.  It was the days before women were encouraged to participate in sports.  We all hated gym and had to wear ugly one-piece gym outfits.  But, I wish I could have excelled in some sport, like swimming, which I like very much.  Watching the Olympics, I have a dream sport I would like to try.  Fencing!  Yes, Fencing.  One of my grandsons is attending Fencing camp this week and after dropping him off at the Fencing Academy and seeing the gym and all the equipment, I thought, I could do that, (I think).  Perhaps I could sign up for a few private lessons; so much more fun than Weight Watchers.


What sport would you like to try?  A dream sport, one that is too expensive or may be too late to try now but is fun to imagine doing, or something you could do?

Horrific, horrible, unbelievable.


Colorado is in the news again, not for forest fires but a psychic horror, a murder of innocent people at a local movie theater.  As a lover of words there are no words to describe this but only to offer my pitiful words of condolence to all those who lost a son, a daughter, a wife, a husband, a child, a friend in the massacre. 

Goodbye Martha Stewart

When I moved from California to Colorado, I packed all my Martha Stewart Living Magazines thinking that I could in some small way become Martha Stewart in my new home.  I would plant an English garden, become a gourmet cook, everything in my home would be organized including drawers and closets.  And I would be the perfect  hostess with table decorations to match the season, as well as superb food.  And holidays. . .handmade gifts for everyone, a Christmas tree worthy of Rockefeller Center, and of course handmade ornaments which would bring oohs and ahs from all my guests who  would notice the special handmade soap in the bathroom and the vintage linen towels there as well.

What a surprise; it never happened and. . .quite a few years later while de-cluttering and painting my office, there were the Martha Stewart magazines neatly stacked in the closed cabinets, all 50 of them!  So, feeling environmentally guilty, I arranged to deliver them to a craft store here in Denver.  They were so heavy that I had to box them and use a wheeled cart to deliver them.

So Goodbye Martha, I can never be you, but I admire you.  You are like the perfect student in class, the one who gets straight A's, the one the teachers adore, the one who gets chosen for those secret sororities we had in high school, and also attractive. . .sigh.

But like those unrealistic dreams we have, dreams they are, so we take the best of those dreams and make a tiny part of them come true. Let's see which part?  I know, I'll marry the guy I met at my high school reunion and live happily ever after.  Martha did not do that.

Happy Birthday, America!  236 years old today.


I just had to wish our country a happy birthday today, July 4th, 2012.  I included but edited the Declaration of Independence with the lines I like the best.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.