Friday Afternoon

So, after Chihuly in the NY Botanical Gardens... Yes Q-B, those lotus flowers were real!
We took the M line past Spring's work and back near the soup nazi and X-Dell's old digs.

We were late to get back to hotel for 2PM late check out!

"MotherFuck!!!"

Quips my Gran as we book it back to the Intercontinental in the heatwave.

We end up checking into the Hilton around 3PM and we need to just rest for a couple of hours.
This is a good thing as it is currently POURING rain...

After the rain we venture out, and it begins to pour again. We WERE going to go see St. Marks Place but the rain was preventing us.
Gran suggests museum as it is indoor activity but then realizes she has left the address to the Museum of Folk Art up in the room and so I wait downstairs while she retrieves it.

"Wanna buy a watch?"
asks scrawny guy with briefcase.
I actually DO want to buy a watch and I wonder if a fake Cartier will last half as long as an original.

Should last 2 years, he admits to me.

I offer 15 and he says to not waste his time, repositing his stance that they are in fact, genuine Guccis and Cartiers.
Soon fake Fendi bagman has my attention.
I don't care much about handbags, am more of a shoe gal myself, but Gran has rejoined me and seems mildly curious as well, and it IS still sprinkling... Watchman wants my attention again it seems, but I inform him he HAD HIS chance!!

Soon Gran and I are in the Folk Museum. (Sans new bags or watches)

I was told not to take photos just as we got to the best exibit... Rock Garden.

But here are the images that I did manage to score as we made our way up the 8 or 9 floors...


Some whittled musicians that are about 175 years old....




A painting from a famous Union organizer who enjoyed making Socio-Economical and Race Commentary paintings in his free time as a hobby




Some fish decoys that were used at the inception of Anglo Ice spearfishing.... I think they are about 120 ish years old




And finally the wee little metal bug sculptures



I did NOT get a photo of the creepy blonde hermaphrodidic children bent on revenge. Were i to venture diagnosis on the "artist" (term is used loosely in the folk museum) I would say s/he was schizophrenic.





After the museum, we had a nice Thai supper in midtown and then Gran was asleep early (9PM) because she needed to be in the airport in Newark by 7AM.


This is the Friday night view from the most satisfactory Hilton Hotel at Rockefeller Center

The Soup Nazi

Americans who know Sinefeld can appreciate this one.
My Gran says: "Hey, isn't that the Soup Nazi?"

At the time we were wandering around the Grand Central Station area of downtown looking around.

(I need a new watch as the cheap one that I just bought has died already, I think somehow a nice one will last longer. Cartier is not on my budget however, and we shuffle on.)

More Chihuly

Chihuly

PS:
On the way back from the Village, before the Broadway play, I saw 2 things:

First I saw a bum sitting on the sidewalk. I had seen kids going back to CAli and well fe gentleman begging for money (I almost always give to women, because sisters gotta work it out, but saw only men begging)

This man was sitting, as we sped by and his legs were crossed (boney) and he was slouched, spine up to the building and he had a box and he had his hands cupped, and his head bowed.

I heard him, rather than saw him first and then I looked in the direction of the need.

He needed money, and I mean he needed to eat.

Then, I saw on the opposite side, as we rushed by, pretty little ribbon headbands, and some little delighted sound must have escaped me, because Gran, who is exhausted, suggests I hop out of cab and purchase ribbons for my hair.

I am sure i could make one just as easily as buy one, but I have alterior motives, and jump out the cab.

As I stand there contemplating how many to buy (4.... one satin pink, one satin green a blue-grey swirl print, and camoflauge one as well) [camoflauge one makes my head disappear... HAHA!]

And then the real delight of my trip happened
I crossed the street as I rolled up five singles and bent to place them in his cupped hands directly.
I caressed his hand and spoke to his need. But I did not look him in the eye... i did not want to embarrass him I guess... and I woke him up from his emptyness as his head popped up as I departed.
I wished that the bucks would bring him hope, and luck... that many other people would be drawn to him that day. It is the way I manifest the transmogrified energy that goes through my black hole.

He reminded me of the Siox man Leh that I discovered sitting in the subway stairs. He said he was waiting for death... but had dreamed of me.

but that is another story....

SO, after the cabride and after the fivebucks and the rickshaw and the Broadway play, we were scheduled to depart overpriced Intercontinental and hit the way better priced Hilton at Rockefeller Center.
But we first got breakfast and got stuck in the rain.

We wanted late check out because we wanted to go to the Botanical Gardens to see the Chihuly exhibit.
So we went up the street to Grand Central Station.
Well we had just missed the train so we beat the pavement looking around, and we saw... the SOUP NAZI!!! A soup shop marketed as the one featured in Sinefeld episode.

I have a photo, but again, blogger is down!!

And so we zipped on a train thru Harlem and down past Fordem to the Botanical Gardens.

I took several photos of Chihuly, but since blogger is down I can only show you these which I managed to sneak in....

more to come..... (maybe??)

Times Square... now with photos!

After getting to the airport 2 hours (years?) early... I then realized that while I had remembered to pack dental floss and about 18 pair of underwear for my 4 day journey, I had neglected to grab my brown walking sandals and black strappy sandal with the heel. So I sat in the airport wondering how to make casual chic work with a pair of satin pink puma sneakers that I was wearing.

Once arrived, i kicked around the LaGuardia terminal for a good 3 hours waiting on my Gran who is not really blood relative to me. She and I are more alike than anyone in the family. And case in point, here are the reasons why:

WE BOTH:

Adore elephants
Vibrate to the color red
love hearts
Walk in love daily
Help others
Love Love to shop
Like to collect small things
Like the art scene

She gave me a Paul Simon One Trick Pony tape as well as Michael Jackson's Off The Wall cassette tapes when I was a kid. And I remember her keeping Interview and Rolling Stone magazines in my Granddad's house.
(Granddad is no longer with us as of one year ago, and when he passed, we flew out for memorial service. I spoke and people said it was great. After that, on the way home, the airline messe up and sold our seats. They oversold ALL the seats I guess because there was alot of pissed off people in the South trying to go North.

You know I am a psychology person so I assess situation. Nasally Midwest Irritating Accent lady with small child will get ONE voucher and have to pay for her child if they travel in the future.

Infinitesimal thinks of her Gran and the smooth Texas accent that makes you listen to the end. How would she handle it?
I assume her persona for a few minutes as I speak to the manager directly. (same guy who told Midwest mother and child to suck it on a second travel voucher) And I smile and greet him. How're Yeeeew? Fine thanks... well, I have a my-graine, an it herts like all get aut rite now. An we are here trying to go home from my grandad's fuuuuuneril. Well, Ah jess doan know, my head sure does hurt alot....,

In the end I quickly receive 5 FIVE free roundtrip tickets for my family's trouble.
It was just my Dad and me traveling home, my brother traveled on an early flight, but was supposed to be on the one we were on as well. So he had 2 vouchers in his nam,e, and 1 had one and 2 for my dad and stepmother. (she was not traveling on that day either)

Emulating my gran for a few minutes sure was a good move. Southern manager man was happy to hear the thic accent. Works well in Memphis too, but that's another story.

I gave the four passes to my dad and kept the one in my name.
I used it to get to NYC
The other four are being used next week to bury Granddad's ashes in Ohio.
He was the son of immigrants an actually we are originating in New York, but eventually his family moved to Ohio, and he move on to Texas before I was born, but after my Dad was grown.

So I am in the airport, by this point, farting around, have purchased magnet with twin towers still in the cityscape. Have sent out glittery postcards.
Want to go to hotel and hit the city.
So does Gran, who arrives eventually.
Her baggage did not.
In Jersey.
So, we waited a bit to see if it would come, then filed a claim.
then we took a bus.
and then?

We were in TIMES SQUARE!!!




And we check into the Intercontinental Barclay 48th and 7th ave.
for 270 bucks we stayed in a small room with two beds and an atrociously loud commode and drain.

Anyway, it was good to be able to let off the bags and hit the City streets.
We found an Indian place and had some coconut curry and other good food.
And then, we went back to hotel.

The following day we got breakfast and hit the Village.
MAN was it HOT!!!

and I gave some guy from Chicago directions, because I had finally got my bearings.
(I used to live from 13th street and D to Houston and Allen *that little triangle*... but I did not know the Times SQ and later Rockfeller Center areas at all.

So I ended up getting new sandals and a cool denim skirt and then we went back to Times Square to wait in line and see what tickets we could get for half price.





We ended up seeing a Broadway Play, the one Gran fancied the most... Faith Healer
This is what the Village Voice said about it:

"Ralph Fiennes stars as a miracle peddler who can't quite believe in the cures he sells"

It is set in Glasgow and England and also Ireland... not sure how to explain it.
You either loved it or hated it.
It was dark.

I was not expecting a set of four soliloquy.
But I was entertained.
Gracie's monologue was raking my last nerve though.

In order to get to the play we accepted a bike rickshaw boy's offer to bike us there.
He was the sweetest Russian boy EVER!!!!!
about nineteen.
I just wanted him for a pet, really, GOD such a cutie! (not sexual, just pure, you know that kind of cute?)
He took a photo of us on Gran's camera.

So we ate at a deli and then we just cabbed it back after the play was over.
It was an interesting play written in Scotland and will be back there soon as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. There was an East to Endinburgh preview for 15 bucks that we did not make, but was a vingnette from several different American productions headed for the Edinburgh festival.
My friend Gretchen lives there, maybe i should recommend she attend.... I think to myself as we are sitting in the cafe in the village after shoe shopping perusing the Village Voice looking for a play to see.

I had forgotten to mention the fact that I woke up on Thursday morning at 3:30 AM with a horrible migraine and realized I had only packed one tablet of strong medicine. I was getting halos and feeling like I was going to puke. The medicine did not work and I was screwed by the time Gran woke up.
So she insisted we get some HEAD ON migraine relief from the drugstore.

This over the counted homeopathic balm (chapstick for your head)
WORKS!!!!!!! I recommend it to anyone with a headache, but just don't get it in your eyes!!
I think everyone who ever has had a headache should buy this stuff. It comes in 3 strengths.

Catch up to you soon with the rest of the trip including Chihuly exhibit. Turns out this famous artist went to Grad school where I currently attend.
As much as I hate to admit it, this dinky town i live in currently is really immersed in the arts.

Effing Blogger....

I made a post replete with splendid photos and Blogger ate it.
Ate it all. 2 hours of work.

so F**K it.

Here is a picture of me and my Gran.

More to follow when in not such a foul mood....

Effing Blogger.....

*mutters*

Life Cafe 1991

Flowers that I sketched in Life Cafe when i was 19.

Thank you all for your kind suggestions.

I am pretty sure there is a Ray's Pizza in Williamsburg.

Will attempt to capture on film.

See you Sunday!!

What's Good in the City???

Going to be in Manhattan next week.
Wednesday night
Thursday night
Friday night
and return on Saturday.

I am wondering if any of my Blogville friends who live there have any suggestions on what to do.
I am familiar with the City, but have not been there in 12 years.

When I lived there, Blue Man Group was 7 bucks in the Village.

So what's hip now?
I am meeting my Grandma.
She likes to read things like Rolling Stone Magazine.
I want to show her the City.

I'd like to make the most of my time.
I would really appreciate any suggestions of theaters or shows about town.

Any good shoe stores?
Bargins on clothes???


Tell Me, Tell Me!!!!

Please????

3 Quotes

I am not a big fan of memorizing quotes.
I mean, I love that other people take the time to do it, but me?
I don't usually memorize stuff.

But sometimes something will just stick with me.
Here are thre things that others have said that have come to my min recently:

1. "How Can You Think Rationally About Emotions?"
-Anonymous sidewalk grafitti, at old highschool (Grant) in Portland
(I plan to be reading a book called "Rationally Emotive Therapy" as it was suggested reading for me as a counselor in training

2. "You can never know how stupid people are prepared to be."
- One of my great friiends named Guy said that to me on the phone one night as we were discussing the way people tend to not give a crap while on the job. At home they can manage to fuction, but on the job??? well, you can just never know how prepared they are to be complete idiots on the clock

3. "Ginger Rogers could do anything Fred Astaire could do, backwards, and in high heels."
- Ann Richards (former governor of Texas) during keynote speech at 1988 National Democratic Convention.

I just thought I would share what is going through my head these days.
have a nice weekend.

The Body of Christ

I spoke to my mother very briefly today, just now. July 6th
She is in touch with Christ, and seeks to be closer. Quietly.
And I have been devoting my time, over the years to learn the other ways of being calm and in touch with my spirit.
I tried for example, Wicca.
Also was far into Buddhism, and still enjoy it immensely.
But the way, for me, to connect with my mother, was to connect with Christ.
Being baptized 4 or 7 times over the course of my life did not seem to connect me.
But, as the saying goes:

Even at the face of death, you still have a chance to meet Christ.

so I got my chance, in my mother's arms, coming as close as I ever have been to date, to death.

fading in and out. Not sleepy or weak or passing out fading... the end fading.
as much as i can figure, having passed out and been sleep deprived and weak before.
Never been so weak, never been so faint, never been so ready to let go.

that's all i know.

Mom's praying.
I ask for help.

I live.

I get better, and life gets better.

Mom is happy.

I am happy.

We have something to talk about now.
Life, is good for me.

Well, so that's the history lesson of my life. will answer any and all comments.
and so tonight my Mom says:

She is too tired to talk, and is studying for a seminar on the Body of Christ.

Some of you know that I am prone to visualization.
So I got a picture.

She said, and I knew the body of Christ is a group of people.
It is the sum total of the people who have it in their hearts.

My heart?
feels a lot cleaner.
It is a house for Jesus.
and i am sorry that that has become something to laugh at.

When devote myself to anything,, I give myself to it.
I first had to clean my house, to be devoted.
my house inside my heart.

when your house is as dirty as mine was. You can't even see it.
And I thought I was so crystalline and good!

but the thing of it is....
the house is a vessel for a living thing.

a living vessel for a living thing.

and as Bob Bullet Indian shaman once told me:

"You can send your self out of your boy and you can have a fine time out there too.
But don't forget you anchor, because your body is still in the real realm calling "Bob....Bob...Bob..."

and so just don't forget: first Bob back gets the body!"

That STILL makes me smile!

anyway,

A house that is vacant, a vessel unused... can be inhabited by squatters.
Parasites, who are uninvited.
They make for a dirty house.

The cool and tragic and tender thing about Jesus Christ, I have found,
is that he does not possess you or reside inside You uninvited. He is polite and respectful and earnest.
He has a sense of humor, not in the sick way, but in the way that makes you relax and feel comfortable... like a best friend!
But Jesus just waits, beside you, hoping for an invitation and some conversation.

Do you remember Tinkerbelle?
how she needed hearts to believe?

or she faded.

Jesus also protects you. that is his right.

anything bad that happens, it could have been MUCH worse. He had a hand in the happening not being so severe.

["happenings" the nasty ones. saved for another day.]

Nasty happenings meaning 911.

But consider the surprising number of people who MISSED work that day or were arriving late...

911 was nasty

surprising number of people missing work?
God's attempt to lessen the pain.

Human beings have ABSOLUTE free will

this tenant is the same in Buddhist Christian pagan dogma/philosophy/approach

nasty happenings occur as a result of Man's inhumanity to Man.
free will to choose action.
sometimes as directed by one's heart.

one's heart can, sometimes overrule one's sense of self, and promote behaviors...nasty ones.

As a certified black hole for energy ----[ (took my watch off and lost another 3 minutes)]----

I feel qualified to remark on energy and its transmogrification.

Which brings me to the point of this post.

The Body of Christ.

A living organism.
A microcosm
within a macrocosm
which is
a microcosm
within a macrocosm
which is a microcosm
within a macrocosim...
etc...

that's just science.

the spirit (alive)
lives within the heart
of a human
who lives in the world
which is in a solar system
in a galaxy
in a universe....

the spirit is the body of Christ
the bodies of humans who are possessed by the spirit
are the body of Christ. A collection of bodies forms one united living body
writing this I become part of the body of Christ in an Infinitesimal way.

the body of Christ generates energy within me.
I generate energy by living the good and walking the right and harboring the light.
E=MC squared energy never dies.

This energy is fueling the fight to stop the nastiness.
the uninvited darkness that exists in some hearts or even the "accidents" that occur.

My friend Alice Who is AWESOME!
who beat cancer, regained her hearing from being born deaf, and mute and who now speaks wonderful ministry
was almost killed by a horse when she was six.
It damn near trampled her to death after bucking her and throwing her to the ground.

She was near death when they found her.

Later in life, she asked in an accusing way:

"Where were you then, big fancy pants Jesus??????!"

she had then an image, a memory, a scene in her mind in the moment of that day, as if it were a movie.

she saw herself, it was sick how trampled she was.

but she saw something else too.

someone else.

There, getting the living shit kicked out of him, was Jesus.
Being trampled.
holding her as far away from the skull cracking hooves as possible.

He was bloodied and beaten.

and Alice told me,

"I was so touched by the amount of Love that Jesus had for me, someone who never heard of him, to protect me in that way."

Well, have you ever seen those movies where the supernatural being draws up energy and rejuvinates himself?

How do you think Jesus bounces back from this beating?

The Body Of Christ.

It cannot be broken.
It generates energy, and rejuvinates, the body of Christ.
the spirit that protects.

Some of you Buddhist friends may know of Kwan Yin.
She gained enlightenment, but chose to stay in this realm to help aid in suffering.

Everyone has a piece of the spirit of Jesus, he walks near you always.
really, and it's OK if you do not see or speak or thank him.
He loves you silently.

But, if you clean up your house, and ask him in, he will speak to you, answer questions, keep you company.
He will even clean your house up for you, if you ask him, according to your own free will, with all of your heart.

and i am not quoting some packaged Christianity, i am just telling you what i did, and how i feel.

and now?

I want to tell you what I see.
after speaking to my Mom briefly, I saw the image of the body of Christ.
Really.


Have you ever seen thermal heat imagery?

where you can look through walls to see a living organism in a house by their heat energy?

There is a living organism within me
the body of Christ.

It exists in the hearts of many human beings who exist in the world.

Together, as a united and living organism, they compose the Body of Christ.


If you took a spirit thermal heat energy photo of the Earth from space, you would see a shape formed of individuals who all generate the same light.
This shape, spanned across the world is the same as the shape in the heart of a soul who has invited Christ to live within them.
The bigger it gets in the world, I am convinced, the brighter it burns within me.

This was my vision.

And finally,
Ever hear of the Hundredth Monkey Theory?
Wherein scientists took sweet potatoes to several unihabited islands that were home to the same species of monkey.
The islands were too far apart for monkeys to swim to or communicate with one another.
The sweet potatoes were placed via air drop onto the sandy beaches.
After several days, one monkey discovered the good idea of washing the sandy potato before eating it.
She told her family and word soon spread across the island. And then what happened was pretty cool.
As the island was learning to wash the food, the other islands were still eating sandy potatoes.
But, once enough members in the original island LEARNED the trick of washing?
Suddenly it became an instinctual knowledge that was learned somehow across the species.
The entire group of monkeys across all the separated islands were now washing their food first.

The hundredth monkey theory makes the claim that if enough minds are tune to the same concept, the entire species will understand the concept inherently, without struggle, as a knowing.


So, wrote Dr. Lyall Watson:

I am forced to improvise the details, but as near as I can tell, this is what seems to have happened. In the autumn of that year an unspecified number of monkeys on Koshima were washing sweet potatoes in the sea. . . . Let us say, for argument's sake, that the number was ninety-nine and that at eleven o'clock on a Tuesday morning, one further convert was added to the fold in the usual way. But the addition of the hundredth monkey apparently carried the number across some sort of threshold, pushing it through a kind of critical mass, because by that evening almost everyone was doing it. Not only that, but the habit seems to have jumped natural barriers and to have appeared spontaneously, like glycerine crystals in sealed laboratory jars, in colonies on other islands and on the mainland in a troop at Takasakiyama.

Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.

Although the exact number may vary, the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the consciousness property of these people. But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone! - (excerpt from The Hundredth Monkey by Ken Keyes Jr.)

I believe that the concept of a clean heart-house can be as this theory states, inherent, and easy. If enough people practice the cultivation of Christ, and not some prepackaged dogmatic BullShit...

If enough people can cultivate light in their hearts, it can illuminate the hearts of humanity as a whole.

The body of Christ is a living collection of people.
It is within this body that Jesus will return.
We are the living Christ.

Enjoy your Sunday and thank you for your time.

Black Hole For Energy Pt. II

I have not been able to wear a watch for some time now.
They always stop, or slow, or drop an hour... or something weird.

I HAD a nice watch... the expensive kinds seem to last longer...
And I really liked it, except for one thing,
you could never tell what time it was!
There was this long rectangular face, and it always looked like four thirty instead of five thirty, and i could just see it losing me a job someday... so i traded it in for some decent luggage on sale and bought a cheap watch (timex)
For 20 bucks I expected more than 2 weeks!

So I took it off, and lay it down, for a day or so, did not wear it...

Now, putting it back on I notice the time had slowed exactly 10 minutes.
If the battery is not reliable after only 2 weeks, looks like either watch could end up costing me a job.

I am too old fashined to do digital, but sometimes the digital ones lose the readout and then you can't tell the time either.

Guess I better look for a sundial watch or something.

that's all, just a little piece of randomness today.

sorry i been gone, will be back soon.