Living well is an art...

© Janelle Meraz Hooper

5-16-06-The photo of the red door was taken in Alaska. I don't know what there is about doors that fascinates photographers...maybe it's what may be behind them that intrigues us so...

What a laugh! I’ve discovered an Arabian website that has printed one of my stories in English, but the rest of the website is in Arabic! I’m tickled to know that I’m being read somewhere else in the world, and hope that my story can help bring us all closer together. I’ve often said that I write stories about Americans who are just looking for a good piece of yellow watermelon…I’m hoping that I can help show the world that there are more of those kind of Americans here than the kind who live in Trump Towers…

Of course, these stories will never make me rich. The literary agents love to tell me that books about ordinary people don’t sell in this country. They’re looking for books about women who drip with wealth and men who drive Italian sport cars.

Now, to an extent, I agree. I don’t like to read about poor, downtrodden people who are still poor and downtrodden in the last chapter. BUT, there are lots of people who live full lives without millions of bucks. Living well is an art. Living well with lots of money may just be lucky.

I’ll never forget a young man I met years ago who managed to see all the plays and concerts around even though he didn’t have a dime in his pocket. He got in by volunteering to usher at those events. How smart was that?!

Here’s a few tidbits from my blog drawer :

Headlines: (Yahoo!)Treating mom’s depression may help kids…duh! Just think: someone got a grant for thousands of dollars to figure that one out!

Say what?!: They want to make a movie about Mother Teresa with Paris Hilton playing the lead?! That’s just plain nasty.

In the mail- As I writer, I love and honor all language. The Comanche Language and Preservation Committee has a dictionary out that is terrific. It has Comanche to English and English to Comanche sections. Price $34.00 which includes shipping and handling. They also have other language materials in a varied price range, some come with a CD to help with pronunciation. Contact them:
Comanche language and Cultural Preservation Committee
P. O. Box 3610
Lawton, OK 73502-3610
(Psst! I’ll bet they have a web site…)

Quote du jour:
“We mustn’t confuse dissent with disloyalty.”

Edward R. Murrow (Good Night and Good Luck)

"You came from a family of liars!"

Fantasy Cover for Custer and His Naked Ladies
© Grace G. Shondeck

5-15-06-I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day. This year, I felt inspired. Besides our present to our daughter, I copied some of my mother’s stories, and put them in a folder with a design on the front. I totally misgauged how long it would take me to copy my mother’s handwriting into a Word document, and, as it turned out, it took me days. But it was worth it, and I hope my daughter gets a chuckle out of her grandmother’s stories. I did!
I’ve kept just about every letter my mother ever sent to me, so I imagine I’ll add some every year to the folder, which will most likely end up on a disk.

Both of my parents were storytellers, and that is probably at least partly why I write. My daughter is also a writer, so there seems to be a pattern developing. Once, I tried to explain to my Aunt Norah that I wrote because I came from a family of storytellers, and she replied, “You came from a family of liars!” Well, maybe so! But they were interesting liars!

Custer and His Naked Ladies-The third book in my turtle trilogy is coming along.

In the mail- As I writer, I love and honor all language. The Comanche Language and Preservation Committee has a dictionary out that is terrific. It has Comanche to English and English to Comanche sections. Price $34.00 which includes shipping and handling. They also have other language materials in a varied price range, some come with a CD to help with pronunciation. Contact them:
Comanche language and Cultural Preservation Committee
P. O. Box 3610
Lawton, OK 73502-3610
(Psst! I’ll bet they have a web site…)

I'm in a hurry today--I'll try to do better tomorrow...JMH

Quote du jour:
"If I had just ten minutes left to live, I’d write faster." Isaac Asimov

Chinese food after the powwow...

Books for Mom...

A Three-Turtle Summer

As Brown As I Want, The Indianhead Diaries

Free Pecan Pie and Other Chick Stories

5-01-06- I liked May Day better when we hung flowers on our friend's doors. Now, it's just another day to protest. Maybe we could set aside one day on the calendar when no one would protest anything. Wouldn't that be refreshing?

Today, my Hispanics are boycotting. I can remember that, once, I asked my grandmother what a Chicano was. She said a Chicano was a Mexican who wouldn't work! In my family, everybody worked, and we were glad to have the job. Things have changed. I support Mexicans being treated fairly and being able to come over the border to work, but I cannot support violence or threats of violence. And even though we need my relatives to work, they are still guests in our country and should behave as guests. In return, I promise not to go down to Mexico and demonstrate.

Mom’s Day- I never knew what to get my mom for Mother’s Day. I would think and think, and then get her something dorky. I adored my mother but I am a lousy present buyer on special occasions. I do better when I come across something in a month like April or June—when nothing is going on. If I had her today, I still wouldn’t know what to get her this Sunday. If we were in Oklahoma, we’d probably just go out to a powwow (my mother knew a lot of the dancers) and go out for Chinese afterwards. How funny is that?! An Hispanic woman going to a Comanche powwow and then eating Chinese food…

In the mail- As I writer, I love and honor all language. The Comanche Language and Preservation Committee has a dictionary out that is terrific. It has Comanche to English and English to Comanche sections. Price is $34.00, which includes shipping and handling. They also have other language materials in a varied price range, some come with a CD to help with pronunciation. Contact them:
Comanche language and Cultural Preservation Committee
P. O. Box 3610
Lawton, OK 73502-3610
(Psst! I’ll bet they have a web site, but I'm not allowed to mention other web sites on this blog…)

Tee shirt rant- I started this rant before I got involved with Mother’s Day. It started when I saw tee shirts with inappropriate messages on children's clothing. The last one I saw said: You should see this shirt wet. It was on a 14-year-old just beginning to develop. What mother would let her girl wear a shirt like that?! Did I mention her mother was with her?! Some people have asked what I do like. I like two that I saw in a Macy’s ad. One said: I do all my own stunts. The other said: You’re looking at a legend. Now, that’s funny!

At the movies-Late-breaking news: Wes Studi, has taken over the role of Buffalo Hump in the movie Comanche Moon. First cast as Idahe, he took over the larger role when Graham Greene backed out of the production. You may remember, he was Famous Shoes in an earlier Lonesome Dove production. Lots of movie-goers know Wes as Magua in The Last of the Mohicans, and Geronimo in the movie by the same name. Why am I telling you this?! Because, if you're not a Wes Studi fan, you should be!

Iraq- Are we still in a war? I can’t bare to look anymore.

Quote du jour:
From my mom: “A wrinkle in your nylon is worse than a wrinkle in your face.”