25 Random Notions About Me

January 30, 2009 at 5:49pm

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Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25
random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25
people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged
you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(Don't feel guilty, I had to be tagged six times before I got around to it.)

1. If I must eat “commercial, candy-store chocolate”, please let it be a York Peppermint Patty.
2. I do not willingly relinquish an open microphone.
3. I dream of a greener future in which I live close enough to my work that I can walk or ride my bicycle.
4. I have reinvented myself almost a dozen times in the last 20 years and it’s getting to be that time again.
5. I don’t eat chicken not because of health or PETA reasons but because I simply do not like it.
6. The last time I ate a steak was in Manhattan, Montana with Steve Bowen and James Gierman. I stopped eating beef because the rain forest has been decimated by clear cutting in order to graze cattle.
7. I once lived in a garret in Paris.
8. And I once lived on a commune in Upstate New York.
9. My 30th birthday was spent in Moscow where the gendarmes at the Hotel Leningradskaya attempted to arrest me.
10. I aspire to spend a night in jail for civil disobedience although I may have missed my opportunity (hope-fully.)
11. I believe my dead father leaves me coins.
12. The Grand Canyon is “awesome.” (I know because I’ve been there a few times.) Therefore, the use of “awesome” in response to providing my order to a waitress or completing a doctor’s health survey or to describe my macaroni & cheese drives me completely crazy.
13. I’m in better condition physically and emotionally than I was ten years ago.
14. Dogs make me laugh.
15. I know all the words to La Marseillesaise in French and I can spell it and translate it.
16. I love to research.
17. My therapist told me that I am not a leader. Nor am I a follower. “You are a goer,” she said, “and if someone goes with you, that’s fine and if they don’t, that’s fine, too.” And this is why I pay her.
18. There is a dent in my skull from the time I hit my head on a radiator when I was two. It is narrow and about three inches long and the edge of a radiator coil fits neatly into it.
19. I would rather be in Italy than just about anywhere else on Earth.
20. I adore high heels. They do not, however, feel the same about me.
21. Yoga makes my world better.
22. George is my favorite Beatle.
23. I’m a wicked stepmother.
24. An upper class British accent makes me weak at the knees. A real one.
25. If it wouldn’t kill me, I would so be a pack a day smoker. After all these years of not smoking, I still need something to do with my hands.

AN OPEN LETTER TO COLIN FIRTH

AN OPEN LETTER TO COLIN FIRTH

Dear Sir,

I must address a situation that has arisen for which you are somewhat responsible.

This particular day is one on which, in America, one finds an extraordinarily gross display of wealth, marketing and sado-masochism on the television. Avoidance of this particular event has become essential to my life.

Americans, as you probably know, are, for the most part, a selfish, self-involved lot that tend toward violence and buffalo chicken wings.  There are, however, perhaps 150 or so of us who have who have moved away from the two-fisted Budweiser-Dunkin Donuts drinking and profanity to appreciate some finer cultural virtues that do not involve testosterone poisoned individuals slamming their precious bodies against others of similar dimensions.  While the other 350 million of my fellow Americans will be gorging themselves on beer and nachos, I will be at my local, semi-independent cinema.  Several years ago I realized that I had seen, on successive last Sundays in January, one of your films on each of those days.  The years of “A Single Man” and “The King’s Speech” were particularly gratifying.  There was the one year that I had timed my cinema-viewing incorrectly and arrived home at Halftime which required that I find a small television in an upper room and pop in a very well-worn copy of “Love Actually” but I have done better in subsequent years with scheduling.  And there was the year that I chose to go shopping but, really, I’m not a shopper.  I’m a filmgoer.  Hence, that was a wholly unsatisfying year.

After my viewing of “The King’s Speech” I began to refer to this particularly Sunday in late January/early February (it is late this year, isn’t it?) as “Colin Firth Sunday.”  Many of my friends have picked up the habit, as well.  Your onscreen persona, Sir, is the epitome of the antithesis of, (there is no way around this; I must refer to it as others do) Super Bowl Sunday.  You appear cultured and refined, as most Brits do to us Americans, but you add a tangible sensitivity that is not often found in American film stars. That you are British is essential, too, as the British do not give a fig for what Americans call “football.”   Your films present us with a handsome, articulate (especially as King George) man with depth and tears, a soupcon of the mercurial and a solid dependability. In short, just what my friends and I need when our houses fill with beef chili, braggadocio and thudding helmets. 

This year, however, I find there is not one of your films being screened at a cinema anywhere near my home.  This is a horrifying situation. Must I resort to watching a film with the Other Colin in it?  But, no, I have already seen that film.  And, besides, the Other Colin’s film persona is one of debauchery, not at all adhering to the Rules for Colin Firth Sunday. A friend has suggested that I see “The Wolf of Wall Street” because a trailer for your film XXXX is attached to it. That, too, would not meet the criteria for “Colin Firth Sunday” as Martin Scorsese does not understand the female psyche in the least and would defeat my purpose in being absorbed by intelligence, culture and Earl Grey Tea. 

I realize that you are not strictly in control of when your films are released but you are a powerful individual in your chosen field and you must, I am certain, wield some authority in this regard.  I am imploring you, from the depths of my Earl Grey-drinking, Downton Abbey-watching, “Pride & Prejudice”-reading soul, please find it in your power to make certain your devoted contingent of “Colin Firth Sunday” advocates have something in at the cinema to see next year on this date.   Our very sub-culture depends upon it.

Very truly, most assuredly yours,

Mary Alice Holmes

           

Thich Nhat Hanh Does Boston

“Imagine the energy of thousands of people gathered together and meditating on the open grounds of Copley Square with one of the most influential people of our time: Zen Master, author, poet and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh.”

It’s the Sit in Peace Event for Boston. Uh huh.

I’m keen on this. I am. I’m a yogini. These are my people. I’m thinking that this is going to be about world peace and the Buddha knows we need a whole lot of that right now. So I drive into Boston and park my car because I am running late and missed my time frame for public transportation which is unreliable on Sundays.

I end up being railroaded into a too-expensive parking structure because there is no exit once you have turned down what appears to be a side street but is actually the parking structure because, as I already said, there is no exit. Yes, Kafka really did consult with the City of Boston on the subject of transportation and traffic patterning.

Arriving just after it starts, I place my folding chair down on the edges of a very large crowd. Yes, there are a few thousand people sitting quietly in meditation. Wait, are we meditating already? Am I that late? Rats. I didn’t want to miss the introduction but, oh well. I sit down.

I place my feet flat on the ground. I close my eyes. I place my hands in the wisdom seal. I deepen my breath. I focus on my breath. I silently think with each inhale and each exhale, “I visualize World Peace” because, damn it, I was late and I don’t know what else to do. And then I lose focus, immediately. Because I am lousy at meditation. Really bad at it.

And I am sitting in a crowd of thousands who are all being very quiet but, well, we are sitting in the middle of a major American city in the middle of the day and there are also thousands of tourists and coaches and taxis and ambulances and police cars and motorcycles circling around us. Mother of God, it is noisy!

I return to my breath and to the personal mantra I have chosen to repeat for lack of knowing the mantra that I should be repeating because that’s the story of my life. Not ever knowing what it is I should be doing and making stuff up as I go along.

And then I vacillate between self-flagellation and visualizing world peace for the next five minutes. And thinking about my sister’s ex-girlfriend, Sue, who always claimed she could think nothing and my brother who makes the same claim.

Meanwhile, I suffer through meditations with all of my monkey-brain chatter silently cursing my loved ones who can do it so easily and then I hear the Zen Master speaking.

I open my eyes and it has been 55 minutes. No kidding. I somehow managed to sit in meditation in the middle of a bustling Boston afternoon for nearly an hour and have it feel like five minutes.

Thich Nhat Hanh is leading us through a guided meditation. Inviting the world into our cells, inviting our fathers, our mothers. Our anxieties, he says, are the anxieties of our world. Release them. Have compassion for ourselves, for our loved ones.

There’s a few moments of him explaining that we have to be with the ones we love which, in my Monkey Brain, begins to sound like “if you can’t be with the one you love…love the one you’re with.”  And somehow everything, except that momentary cheesiness, makes sense.

This isn’t about world peace. It’s about peace. Straight up, no chaser peace. Be at peace in the midst of chaos.  Duh.

Sit in peace.

Sometimes I need to be hit upside the head with the message and, in this case an $18 parking tab but, you know what? I’m at peace because it’s pretty darn amazing to sit with thousands of strangers and meditate, think about and consider a common purpose.

Sit in peace.

I think I will do it again tomorrow. Just me, by myself, but it’s like aum, isn’t it?  At any given moment there are thousands of people chanting aum at the same time around the world. Can’t some of them be mindfully peaceful, too? Yes, I’m there.

Sit in peace.

This post originally appeared in elephant journal. 

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/09/thich-nhat-hanh-does-boston-mary-alice-holmes/

Upon hearing someone being interviewed on the radio state that allowing gays to marry will destroy legitimate marriage, she asks "Do you think gay marriage is a threat to your marriage?  Our marriage?"

He responds "Of all the possible threats to our marriage, gay marriage isn't even in the Top Ten."

A Different Kind of Commencement

It's Commencement season and yesterday I had the honor to be present at a very special ceremony.

Most graduations fall into the same standard format.  Processional, prayers (depending on location), speeches, names read, diplomas presented, recessional.  And this one fell into that format...sort of.  

Photo Courtesy of CardinalSeansBlog.org

The Cardinal Cushing Centers in Hanover, Massachusetts "provides individuals with intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disabilities of all ages opportunities to discover the benefits of a supportive and vibrant community."  I have passed the campus hundreds of times, located as it is on Route 53, a major north/south route through the South Shore of Massachusetts.  Always noting as I passed the small, sweet chapel near the entrance to the grounds.

I have known of a few people who have attended Cardinal Cushing, in particular the young man who died suddenly last week.  (See previous post.) Yesterday was the first time, though, that I had been invited to participate in the activities at the Center.  It was a profoundly moving experience for me.

My graduate, the one I had come to support, is the daughter of a cousin.  Both mother and daughter have worked very hard to reach yesterday's milestone and I am overwhelmed by the strength each of them display.  That strength of character, of will, of determination was apparent in many of the graduates and family members in attendance.  

A ceremony marking the end of a period of education, a commencement, usually means a beginning.  The commencing of "real life" for most of us is a time of anticipation and joy.  As I sat in the auditorium I was thinking about the variety of these ceremonies I had attended and the kind of happiness that other graduates feel as they say goodbye to their educational institutions.  Most of us cannot wait for the rest of our lives to begin.  And some of the Cardinal Cushing graduates were feeling that way, too.  Here, I editorialize.  I don't know what most of them were feeling but I know what I was feeling on their behalf...trepidation.  Most of these students are graduating, not because they have achieved a measured standard goal, although some of them have, having passed the MCAS standardized test.  They must matriculate because they are reaching a different standard, that of chronological age.  

Photo: Gary Higgins-Patriot/Ledger

In Massachusetts, the Commonwealth provides educational services to all its residents up to the age of 18, up to 22 if there is an assessment of disability.  So this most lively, happy group have reached the age where they must move into adult services.  A few of this group will be able to live in a group situation and many have received job skills training so will be somewhat self-supporting.  But all of them will need some level of care and support throughout their lives.  This is not to say that the members of this group are not functional.  One or two are born politicians and will probably have higher profile jobs.  Several are gifted with humor and have the ability to intentionally make others laugh.  One young man introduced himself with a self-assurance, firm handshake and genuine smile that I sometimes lack.  Making the acquaintance of these new graduates changes my perspective on personal growth and social development.

There was one young woman whose response to the entire ceremony broke my heart.  She wept aloud, her face contorted in a psychic pain that I can only imagine, her sobs diminished only she hid her face in her partner's shoulder.  She embodied the kind of fear that I had been feeling for all these graduates.  The world can be a harsh, dangerous, insensitive environment for all of us.  These graduates have been taught and been shielded and now they face more daunting challenges than most people I know.   There was a moment when I recognized that Kimmy was expressing what I, too, probably felt inside when I graduated from high school.  Much as I wanted to get away from home and from that place, I had a feeling that it might be safer to just stay where I was.  "Better the Devil you know."  It's a caption for living, though, that we accomplish very little that doesn't involve some level of fear.

I have as much hope as I do fear, for there are wonderful, intelligent and supportive people who devote their lives to helping guide others along the treacherous path.  I witnessed incredible sensitivity yesterday among the teachers, aides, partners and staff at the Center.  The program was altered a few times because of the uniqueness of the participants, some of whom had their own private goals and ideals for the day.   Perfectly illustrating the diversity of the graduates was the  commencement address by Tony Clarkson, Hanover Town Manager, who skillfully encouraged all of us who might be "different" to reach beyond our perceived, socially preconceived boundaries, to be exactly who we are and to use our unique abilities to touch the sky.    

http://cushingcenters.com/

http://www.patriotledger.com/videos/x1213258569/Proud-Milton-mom-at-Cardinal-Cushing-graduation#axzz2WOo7op18

http://www.patriotledger.com/mobile/x1213258552/Cardinal-Cushing-Centers-Graduation-2013#axzz2WOo7op18

Last week.  A young friend with cancer that should have been curable was moved into hospice care.  An old family friend was having vision problems that have turned out to be a brain tumor.  A sweet young man, the son of former neighbors, died suddenly of leukemia.

It was the kind of week that is sent as a reminder to stop and smell the roses, that each day might be your last, to tell the people that you love just that, you love them.  All those trite, cliched ideas.  But just like stereotypes that have an essence of truth, there exists inside each platitude the element of veracity.  So I have stopped to smell the roses, quite literally, along my path to my train station.  And I stop before I sniff to let the bees find their way out of the blossom,  an effort to pay homage to that most useful of chestnuts, when probing unseen places use protection.  I inhale the rich, ripe scents of subtle and not so subtle roses.  I remember a field of lavender in the south of France.  I let the umbrella close so the rain falls directly on me.  I sense.

It happens that a wandering through Facebook posts of friends has lead me to a YouTube video of Pema Chodron talking about tonglen.  It's a practice that I'm not terribly familiar with.  There are no accidents and as I watch her brief videos and read a passage on the Shambala website it is clear to me that this is a practice I need to cultivate.

http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/tonglen1.php
http://youtu.be/312oBat6MXs
http://youtu.be/PIyt4G4s2zc

There are so many people in my life who are suffering and I am grateful for the opportunity to be present for them.  I am grateful for my awareness.   I am grateful to be.  

Digital Fingerprints, Junk Mail and a Long Dead Spouse.

I picked up the snail mail earlier today.  It included a few items that we see every other day or so: a 20% off coupon from Bed, Bath & Beyond,  a postcard from the local Ace Hardware,  the monthly bill from Target informing me just how much I really spend as soon as I walk through the door which is always more than I intend.  I've developed a formula for spending at places like Target.  Also included in this calculation is my local Fruit Center Marketplace, a grocery store/fish market/butcherie with wine.

I spend $50 for every ten minutes I am inside, therefore, if I wish to spend only $20 I may only permit myself to be inside the Red Dot for four minutes.  No cart, one canvas bag, shopping list with less than five items.  Go!

I made this particular Casual Observation after shopping in the Fruit Center with my mother, who had left her wallet on my kitchen counter.  Mom is a slow mover, slower with each passing year, and she loves to shop for groceries.  Once she had the cart to lean on, my bank account was doomed.  Fresh mozzarella and locally sourced goat cheese, PEI mussels, imported olives, in-store baked goods, New Jersey blueberries.  Even at my gentle prompting, which was pushing her ever-closer to a temper tantrum,  it took us an hour and ten minutes to complete the circuit of the 14000 sf store.

Let's do the math.  If 10 = 50, then 70 = 350.  Yes, when grocery shopping with my mother in a store where I normally only buy fish and vegetables, I was able to spend my entire month's food budget in just over one hour.  Note to Self: do not shop with your mother if she isn't picking up the tab.

Back to the mail.  There was another item in the mail which surprised me.  It was an invitation from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.  And it was addressed to my husband's very long dead first wife.  When my husband first moved back to this part of the world, it was from the home he had shared with Pam, so we were not initially unnerved to receive mail for her, after our first move, especially from the very persistent folks in the Alumni Affairs office at her Alma Mater who seemed very unwilling to admit defeat.  And then we moved again.  As I have learned, when one moves correspondents are sometimes left behind.  Hopefully, these are of the advertising variety but sometimes they are old friends who never got the Change of Address Notice.  And then there is the other variety.  The scarier folks.  The ones that find you no matter how well you think you have covered your tracks.  It's the people who send elder housing information packets to my mother at my address, even though she has never lived here, because somehow they know I have an elderly mother, and the mortgage lenders anxious to convince me it would be a good idea to use my home as an ATM, and the Columbia House Record Club.  Now we add to that list the fine people at the Rock Hall who, in their efforts to reel Pam into a visit to the Rock Hall included a personalized (for her) web address on the outside of the packet.

Really.

Several points.  #1  Pam has been dead for more than 20 years.  #2 and 3 She never lived here, nor was her mail ever forwarded here.   #4  She died about a minute after Sir Tim Berhners-Lee posted a summary of the World Wide Web at alt.hypertext newsgroup.  Consequently,  #5 she never had an email address or a website.  #6  She died before there was a Rock Hall.  

Which makes the Ted Talk I heard yesterday that much more prescient.

http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_how_to_think_about_digital_tattoos.html?qsha=1&utm_expid=166907-23&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Ftalks

I might visit the address that the Rock Hall printed on the package out of curiosity except that I'm afraid my own beloved Mac might think I had suddenly morphed into her and begin to address invites to me as her.  Nor do I feel I can contact whoever sold them the list with her name on it because then they would know the mailing reached an actual person.  And how did her name get on that list?  At our address?  How long can we reasonably expect that our loved ones will be receiving our mail after we have moved on?  Is 22 years too long?

St. Patrick's Day Poem by Frank Delaney

March 17, 2012

Ireland has launched some of the greatest writers in English literature, from William Butler Yeats to Oscar Wilde to George Bernard Shaw.

To honor St. Patrick's Day, Irish expatriate Frank Delaney, has penned a poem especially for NPR's Weekend Edition called "Drowning the Shamrock." Delaney is the author of the novelIreland; his career has lasted more than three decades and includes more than 3,500 interviews with some of the world's most significant writers. His previous literary project, "Re: Joyce," is an ambitious podcast that deconstructs each sentence in Ulysses.

"Drowning the Shamrock" is Delaney's irreverent "James Joyce-ian" take on St. Patrick's Day, filled with Irish pride.

Drowning the Shamrock

by FRANK DELANEY

Listen To Frank Delaney Read His Poem

 

 "Hail glorious Saint Patrick dear saint of our isle
On us thy poor children look down with a smile —"
But I'm not singing hymns and I'm not saying prayers
No, I'm gritting my teeth as I walk down the stairs
And into the street with these louts fiercely drinking
And screeching and lurching, and here's what I'm thinking —
They're using a stereotype, a narrow example,
A fraction, not even a marketing sample
To imitate Ireland, from which they don't come!
So unless that's just stupid, unless it's plain dumb,
All these kids from New Jersey and the five boroughs
And hundreds of cities, all drowning their sorrows,
With bottles and glasses and heads getting broken
(Believe me, just ask the mayor of Hoboken)
All that mindlessness, shouting and getting plain stocious —
That isn't Irish, that's simply atrocious.
I've another word too for it, this one's more stinging
I call it "racism." See, just 'cause you're singing
Some drunken old ballad on Saint Patrick's Day
Does that make you Irish? Oh, no — no way.
Nor does a tee-shirt that asks you to kiss them —
If they never come back I surely won't miss them
Or their beer cans and badges and wild maudlin bawling
And hammered and out of it, bodies all sprawling.

They're not of Joyce or of Yeats, Wilde, or Shaw.
How many Nobel Laureates does Dublin have? Four!
Think of this as you wince through Saint Patrick's guano —
Not every Italian is Tony Soprano.

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/17/148752482/a-st-patricks-poem-on-shamrocks-and-stereotypes

 

 

Skinny.

Originally Posted:
by Mary Alice Holmes on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 10:55pm

Yes, I really am baking an apple crisp right now and I have high hopes of shoveling the entire fat laden thing into the mouth of Mr. Twenty Year Old who looks like a street urchin. He took off his jacket and I nearly passed out. His ribs are visible and, when he turns sideways, he all but disappears. Every woman I know wants this diet. The drawback is that it apparently involves Physics and Macroeconomics and concentration on a level I have yet to experience. Strange how some of us eat when stressed....my boss called me one day in the middle of a huge project and I couldn't answer the phone because my mouth was full of cereal. When I finished chewing I walked down to her office to find her mouth and fist completely full of chips....because we are women, and women stress-eat. But young men starve instead. They just eat enough, in the words of the college student, to keep the hunger pangs at bay. Wow. What a concept. Anyway, it's ten minutes to apple crisp. Did someone get the ice cream?

2012 Postscript:

Said 20 y.o. is now almost 24.  He lives across the country now, away from my watchful eyes and healthful meals.  A steady diet of fast food has caused him to gain so many pounds in a year that he now has a belly that is rounding over his belt.  Oh, Happy Medium, where are thou?

All I Want For Christmas

Originally Posted:
by Mary Alice Holmes on Monday, December 15, 2008 at 10:37pm
I am appalled. We as a nation are swimming in debt, banks failing, celebrity fund managers are bilking rich and famous clients of billions, major industries are crashing to the ground, and just like in 2001, we are being told that shopping will somehow cure all society's ills. No, it won't. Really. 

Please don't shop for me this holiday season. I don't need it, whatever it is. My house and the houses of my friends and my family are overwhelmed by stuff we don't need. Please help me cull my stash of unnecessary items by not giving me anything. I'm not kidding.

If you were considering buying anything for me, please donate to your favorite charity. Or mine. I have a few...my public radio stations (or yours), Rosie's Place in Boston, the Los Angeles Mission, the Women's Bean Project in Denver, my special favorite (the gift tht keeps on giving) The Heifer Project. Just the other day, the Boston Globe ran an article about how The Home for Little Wanderers, an organization that houses homeless and runaway children, has had the least amount of donations this year that they have had in many, many years.

A five or ten dollar donation to any of these charities will mean so much to a child who has nothing. (Well, except the public radio stations but you don't really need me to lecture on the joy that they bring to everyone who has a radio. I'll do that in March for the spring fundraiser.)

I have complex feelings about Christmas. I can really relate to Linus Van Pelt at Christmastime. I don't think the way we "celebrate" Christmas was what Jesus had in mind with his gift. It's not about scented candles or bath beads or socks or iPods. It's about a gift from your heart for someone who is truly in need. In this case, I am talking about cash and I am talking about kids. Please give to your local children's charity. Remember how great it was to be six and to believe in Santa Claus. Think about helping to provide a needy child with that special kind of magic. That's what I want for Christmas. 


2012 Postscript:  I'm still appalled. 

Thanksgiving Sunday

Originally Posted:

by Mary Alice Holmes on Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 8:09pm

I don't eat turkey. Not for about 15 years. Even with me not eating, the 20-pounder is almost gone. One drumstick, a lb of sliced white meat and some gravy are the final offerings of a noble bird. I have two pot pies in the freezer, one for son, one for spouse. Five gallons of turkey soup are consumed and reduced to two small ziploc containers and all that remains of dinner besides the turkey is a bit of sauteed red cabbage with a dijon glaze. 

Even though I don't eat it I still insist on buying organic, free-range. I know free range means they can wander and I know they don't. I just like the idea that they aren't subjected to too-tiny cages. The first Thanksgiving in Massachusetts (mine, not the Pilgrims, in 1994) I searched for free range. In vain. The people behind the meat counter at the local supermarket looked at me as though I had three heads (but then maybe that's just the way New Englanders look at all outsiders.) Finally, one woman let me in on why they looked at me like that. Turns out they didn't know what free range meant. Nor organic, as ubiquitous as the word is now. Not only did that store not carry free range poultry, they didn't know who might. Here's some thankfulness for changing times!

I made one last pumpkin pie today to use up the last of the whole wheat crust. I used my godmother's recipe, "Never Fail Pie Crust," which she annotated in the back cover of a Romanian cookbook she once gave me. She's been gone a decade now and sometimes the way I conjure her again is with her pie crust! And if she showed up, she would complain about the way I waste water. Hopefully, she would give me hints about dealing with kitchen compost. She would be glad I chose this man instead of the previous one! And I hope she would think I turned out okay. She never came to a dinner that I prepared from scratch, although she was the one that taught my sister and me how to do it: how to make anything from scratch. My mother was keen on the latest labor saving devices including slice & bake cookies but my godmother would have none of that. She grew up in a time to which we are now returning. Layaway and home canning, compost piles and button jars, swap meets and auctions and cash. She was right thirty years ago and I wasn't listening. I give thanks that I had her in my life.

Jennie Botosan's Never Fail Pie Crust

4 cups of flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 3/4 cups shortening
1 egg
1 tablespoon vinegar
1/2 cup cold water

Sift dry ingredients. Cut in shortening with 2 knives or pastry cutter. Beat egg slightly, add vinegar & water. Mix well and add slowly to ingredients, blending well with fork. Chill in fridge.

Roll on pastry cloth or between wax paper. Makes two double crust pies. 

Facebook and me.

Originally Posted:
by Mary Alice Holmes on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 9:09pm


My therapist is amused that I now have a Facebook page. She thinks I seem like the least likely person to be disclosing my every whim. I told her it was all Teresa's fault and she believed me. And I am not really whimming about as anyone who checks my page can tell. But I am fascinated by the instaneousness of this work. Maybe what I really needed was a blog but this will have to suffice as long as a I have a big girl job to occupy my days. Should I be laid off, though, watch out, because I could start divulging all the intricacies of my mind right here in these notes. 
_________________________________________________________
And now a note from February 6, 2012


I've been freelancing for more than a year now and I have, obviously, not made a habit of blogging.  As I continue to post notes from Facebook from the last few years, I am reminded that I can actually think of coherent words to share.  Heartened by this revelation, I will continue to share what I know. 

Squandering

Originally posted:
by Mary Alice Holmes on Friday, November 28, 2008 at 10:30pm


I have squandered a perfectly good Friday but after perusing my friends' Facebook pages, it seems I am not alone in vacillating, wandering and napping. Ambitions lag. It's cold and I would rather stay in bed. Even staying in bed is not conducive to getting anything done because, instead of reading, I simply fall asleep. Quickly, within minutes. Sure, the dogs got a walk in mid-afternoon but that was it. No yoga, no intellectual reading. Then why do I feel like it was a really good day? Pie was consumed, gravy was made for leftovers. I am content. Mostly, I am warm. Anyone detecting this as a theme? This "warmth?" 


My brother in law came by for dessert yesterday with his wife. They are talking about Florida as a permanent move. Are we here already? Time to move to Florida? Yahoo has a list of the ten best places to move to in the U.S. and most of them are WARM. My vote goes to Santa Barbara, Santa Fe and Asheville NC, even though I have never been to Asheville, I think I'd like it there! It's warm. Or at least warmer than Boston. Now I am taking self upstairs to my warm bed with the down comforter and feather pillows. My pack, two dogs and a cat, follow me, intent on not letting me out of their sights. 

Saying you were there...

Inauguration Day 2009

by Mary Alice Holmes on Monday, January 5, 2009 at 10:54pm


I had decided some time ago that Washington was going to be too much of a mad house. When the predictions of crowds reached four million I thought that was three million too many. But today I received an email from an old b.f. (who had not an ounce of political savvy in his 140 lb body when we were dating) who is headed to Washington for the occasion and I am now beginning to wonder if I should be going, too. I've experienced one million people in Washington before. With my sister, in 1988, for the pro-choice March on Washington. It was a fantastic experience, mind-bending and hyper-stimulating. And I love Washington.  I will probably dehydrate myself beforehand because por-a-potties are my least favorite thing but there is nothing like worshipping at the cathedral of Thomas Jefferson in the dark of night. Sure, the view will be better from my family room on the 56" telly but what about the roar of the crowd? I am thinking about that moment after he says "so help me God" when the crowd, the country, the world will scream with joy. Do I really want to miss that? It's like I said to a friend earlier today, it's a bit like being able to say that you've been to Times Square on New Year's Eve. If you go to one inauguration in your lifetime, shouldn't this be the one? (At least until Hillary gets elected.)

So, who's game? Anyone want to road trip?

25 Random Notions About Me

Originally Posted:

by Mary Alice Holmes on Friday, January 30, 2009 at 5:49pm

1. If I must eat “commercial, candy-store chocolate”, please let it be a York Peppermint Patty.
2. I do not willingly relinquish an open microphone.
3. I dream of a greener future in which I live close enough to my work that I can walk or ride my bicycle.
4. I have reinvented myself almost a dozen times in the last 20 years and it’s getting to be that time again.
5. I don’t eat chicken not because of health or PETA reasons but because I simply do not like it.
6. The last time I ate a steak was in Manhattan, Montana with Steve Bowen and James Gierman. I stopped eating beef because the rain forest has been decimated by clear cutting in order to graze cattle.
7. I once lived in a garret in Paris.
8. And I once lived on a commune in Upstate New York.
9. My 30th birthday was spent in Moscow where the gendarmes at the Hotel Leningradskaya attempted to arrest me.
10. I aspire to spend a night in jail for civil disobedience although I may have missed my opportunity (hope-fully.)
11. I believe my dead father leaves me coins.
12. The Grand Canyon is “awesome.” (I know because I’ve been there a few times.) Therefore, the use of “awesome” in response to providing my order to a waitress or completing a doctor’s health survey or to describe my macaroni & cheese drives me completely crazy.
13. I’m in better condition physically and emotionally than I was ten years ago.
14. Dogs make me laugh.
15. I know all the words to La Marseillesaise in French and I can spell it and translate it.
16. I love to research.
17. My therapist told me that I am not a leader. Nor am I a follower. “You are a goer,” she said, “and if someone goes with you, that’s fine and if they don’t, that’s fine, too.” And this is why I pay her.
18. There is a dent in my skull from the time I hit my head on a radiator when I was two. It is narrow and about three inches long and the edge of a radiator coil fits neatly into it.
19. I would rather be in Italy than just about anywhere else on Earth.
20. I adore high heels. They do not, however, feel the same about me.
21. Yoga makes my world better.
22. George is my favorite Beatle.
23. I’m a wicked stepmother.
24. An upper class British accent makes me weak at the knees. A real one.
25. If it wouldn’t kill me, I would so be a pack a day smoker. After all these years of not smoking, I still need something to do with my hands.

BBC 100 List

Here's the list that was making the rounds on Facebook about two years ago. I never did confirm that this list was actually from the BBC. Perhaps I'll do that now. I did make a note at the bottom that this was a "half-baked list", at best, given that it includes Mitch Albom's Five People You Meet in Heaven. Also, that Shakespeare appears a few times on the list, sometimes listing a particular style of play for which he is known and sometimes listing specifics, e.g. Hamlet., is distracting and haphazard. It's that kind of inaccuracy that makes me think it didn't come from the BBC. Why the New Testament and not the whole Bible? No Bagavhad Gita? No Talmud. A Euro-centric list with a random American thrown in, but few other ethnicities. Get my drift? Still, it's a list guaranteed to stir up conversation!

BBC - 100 Books.
Originally Posted by Mary Alice Holmes on Friday, March 13, 2009 at 2:05pm

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? Instructions: 1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read. 2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE. 3) Star (*) those you plan on reading. 4) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen- x
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien – x
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - I started it.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling – (shouldn't this count as 7 books :)?X +
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee- X +
6 The Bible (New Testament) - X
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte – I tried
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller - X
14 Shakespeare – X – um, how much? 
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - X
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk - X
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - (every two years or so) X+
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - X
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot X
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - X+
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald- X ++ (and so we beat on, boats against the current…)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens - *
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - X(and So long and Thanks for all the Fish and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul and Last Chance to See. Should this count as four?)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - 2012 note: Now that I have seen Downton Abbey on PBS I may have to read this one!
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky And yet The Brothers Karamazov which I have read is not on this list!
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - X
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen - X
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - X 3
8 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - X
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - X
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving - X
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood - X+
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding -
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert – oh dear God. Seriously?
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - X
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Set
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley – X+
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon - X
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez – X ("It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.")
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - X
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt - X
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - X
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - X (in French and English)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - X (Consumed whilst on the road in Paris)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy – X+
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding - X
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville X (Although I much preferred "Captain Ahab's WIfe")
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson - *
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath - X
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - *
80 Possession - AS Byatt
 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker – X+
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro*
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert - X
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White - X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom (Are they kidding?)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - X
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad *
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery - X (In French and English)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams - X (Read whilst in England near Watership Down)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole – I tried but couldn’t finish
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare – X (Didn’t we cover this above?)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - X (again, in French and English)

This is a half-baked list at best. I'm at 61, not including the several that I started but never finished.And I think I should get extra credit for the ones I read in another language! But that's just me.

Comments from Friends: 
Kathleen Z: And don't forget all the Ernest Hemmingway you've read that is curiously missing from the list. Brits! March 13, 2009 at 2:45pm
ElizaBeth C: I think seeing the movies of some of these should count.... March 13, 2009 at 3:49pm
Laurel W: ‎47 and one half!...never got all the way through les mis! That is better than one per year given that I couldn't read until I was 5! March 13, 2009 at 4:59pm
Laurel W: It's too much work to copy and repaste! March 13, 2009 at 5:03pm
Rich B: I thought I read alot. Only read a quarter of these... March 13, 2009 at 5:33pm
Tricia M: Kind of an odd list...War and Peace AND Bridget Jones Diary? March 14, 2009 at 9:22am
Jane D: Do we get extra points for having read them multiple times and teaching them? Not surprising, MA, that you and I have read so many of the same titles. My total is 69, but like on your list, there are a few I started, then didn't finish. March 14, 2009 at 1:36pm
Alexa B: ‎43, with probably another dozen that I couldn't bear and didn't finish..sketchy list - my father would be appalled to hear that I got points for The Da Vinci Code but not for Ulysses.. March 14, 2009 at 3:33pm
Mary Alice: And my father would've been appalled that I got credit for Bridget Jones' Diary and not for War & Peace. But, seriously, do they really consider "Five People You Meet in Heaven" to be worthy of reading? Who are these people? March 14, 2009 at 6:56pm