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Showing posts from 2015

Resolution [essay]

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#NoNewYearsResolutionsResolutions It ’ s that time of year. Over on my book to movie site, Chapter1-Take1 , I  should be making a list of my favorite screen adaptations of 2015. Ideally it should be a top ten list but five will do. I should definitely be creating a post titled the Ten Most Eagerly Awaited Film Adapations Coming in 2016 . Or s omething like that. That’s a bit clunky but you get the idea.  Here at past tense, perfect/imperfect where I’m mostly into memoir but sometimes venture into what is actually happening—or not happening—in my own life, I should be sharing my list of New Year’s Resolutions. My plans to exercise more, stick to a regular writing schedule, cook more creatively, be kinder to the people I love.  But after a lifetime of resolves that dissolve with the dwindling of the setting sun,  when it comes to resolutions I’ve learned if you don’t make ‘em, you can’t break ‘em. Instead, like Peggy Lee, “I’ll just keep dancing.” I’ll continue to indulge in

Dreaming of France: Is a trip in my future?

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I’m so used to looking back on this blog. Back on my own life. Back on my childhood, my adolescence, my multitude of careers. Back on old boyfriend ’s and long-ago  romances. Back on my mother’s life and her death, my own life as a mother. It seems I rarely look forward. Which, let ’ s be honest, can’t be an entirely good thing. It’s weird then that something from the past actually has  me looking forward.  Photo Source:  freeinfosociety.com Last Friday’s blog post about my recent discovery of my grandfather and my great-grandfather’s service in World War I has me actually planning for the future. Okay, planning is not quite right. But I am tooling around online, at least musing about a trip to both France and England. My British great-grandfather is buried in France, near to where he died at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, in September of 1916. My grandfather fought in the same historic battle. Doing the quick math makes this coming September the 100th  year anniversary

Above Ground on the London Underground Day 10: Finding family

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Star & Garter Hospital, Richmond Hill, 1915 I’m taking a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide and my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk at least 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings. This is  Day Ten. What was it John Lennon said,  “ Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans? ”  I ’ ve been here in an imaginary version of London, one where it never rains until after sundown and by 8am the morning fog has disappeared, taking a make believe walk  ‘ Above ground on the London Underground ’  for awhile now. I started out at Heathrow , following the Picadilly Line route, but found myself taking a detour to Richmond,  irresistibly  drawn to the house where I was born. Now,  despite my plan to get back on the Picadilly track, I find I can’t leave. Life stepped in with other plans.  The real me, the one back in California, mapping out this pr

#ThrowbackThursday Of Brasso & Brownies [memoir]

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When I say Niagara Falls you probably think cheesy honeymoon destination, ‘slowly I turned’ and tourist trap. But Niagara Falls is where I grew up. Coming of age in Canada It’s daunting to move into a new house and make it yours. A never before lived in house seems more than new as it stands before you, untouched, immaculate, strangely virginal. The difference between new and brand new can be an almost empty hollow feeling. No ghosts live within those walls. No child’s smudged fingerprints have been wiped away. I was ten years old when we moved into our new house in Niagara Falls. We moved in the spring of 1963, the season of change in what would turn out to be a decade of change. In a house without history it fell to us to write the first page. Keep reading ... 

Above Ground on the London Underground: Day 9 Christmas at Kew Gardens ... Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

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I’m taking a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide and my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk at least 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings. This is Day Nine I’ve been off track from my imaginary walking tour of London, where I’m currently meant to be following the Picadilly line but I’m unwilling to leave Richmond with its fading green grass behind. Wasn’t it just summer? And now December’s come! One more stop before I leave; Kew Gardens with its’  famous glass Palm House, the Great Pagoda, the Ruined Arch folly and the flowers. All the flowers. Image via TheOldMapMan.com I’m here at the wrong season for flowers, of course. The earth has shifted since Virginia Woolf first wrote about Kew Gardens almost 100 years ago, her evocation of nature on a hot July day, flower stalks tipped with red, blue or yellow petals, stirring in the summer breeze, whil

The San Bernardino Shooting: This one hit close to home

12.4.2015 And now it’s official, this is being investigated as an act of terror. We usually start the day with the morning news on; half the time the sound is down, no one’s paying attention, it’s just background patter.  I’m home alone and instead of taking my usual walk I decide to do a little writing; I mute the TV, I don’t know why I don’t turn it off completely. I’m on a roll and it’s sometime shortly after 11:30 before I finally look up from my desk and see a red banner splashed on the TV screen: Active Shooter Situation in San Bernardino, California . My heart hits the floor. That’s close to home. I find the remote, un-mute the TV set in time to hear that the shooter is at a building on the corner of Orange Show and Waterman. That’s my husband’s old stomping ground, most of his large family still live and work in the area. About an hour and half from our apartment in L.A., it’s just a few minutes from his parents’ home where we gather for family birthdays and holiday celebr

Flashback Friday: Photographic Memory [memoir]

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I usually take an imaginary Walking Tour of London on Fridays but the reality of Thanksgiving stopped me in my tracks. Instead, I’m sharing an earlier post, flashing back to the 1980’s when I worked as a copywriter at Max Factor in Hollywood.  I hope you enjoy it. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to go on a real walk to get rid of some of these very real pumpkin pie pounds. Photographic Memory When my boss at Max Factor was assigned to the company’s London office for six months we were both thrilled. She got to go to London —LONDON!— and I jumped from in-house copywriter straight into her Creative Director shoes. Suddenly I was in everybody’s rolodex; the girl to call if you were working the freelance beauty market in L.A. in the very early 80’s. Along with other writers who came out of their introverted shells to offer their services— No, I ’ m still doing the bulk of the in-house copy, thank you very much —graphic  designers, photographers and illustrators all wanted t

Beach Music

BEACH MUSIC IT WAS A TIME OF TANS, BLONDS AND HOT PANTS, WHEN THE ENDLESS SUMMER WAS JUST A SHORT WALK DOWN A HOT SIDEWALK We came to California from Canada, with a detour to Puerto Rico that lasted one endless summer of a year. A year in which I turned 15, and my hair turned blond from living in the sun. “Psst,” the boys and men would call after me in the blue-cobbled streets of San Juan. “Psst! Hey, blondie. Psst! Hey, cutie pie.” I was devastated when my parents said we had to go, that it was time to leave the island so that my older brother, Russell, could get a first rate education. The plan was to drive cross country from Miami and settle in San Francisco so that my brother could finish high school before going on to UC Berkeley. But, once we got there in the fall of 1968, we found that while the city was undeniably beautiful, we simply couldn’t take the cold. After one short year in Paradise, we’d grown accustomed to beach-kissed legs, fried plantains and coconu

Above Ground on the London Underground: Day 8 Dear Mum, Did we like the deer at Richmond Park?

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The high street in Richmond I’m taking a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide and my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk at least 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings. I'm currently following the Piccadilly Line. This is Day Eight. Last week I found the house where I was born in Richmond, about a dozen miles from London’s city center. While I wanted to see inside, to pinpoint the very spot in my parent’s bedroom where I came into the world, I  realized, even in this virtual little tale, that asking the current residents to let me in would be an invasion of privacy.  So I walk away, peering into everyone’s windows as I pass, nosy, curious to see how they live. Do you do that too? I’m terrible as I take my real walks here in Los Angeles, peering sideways through my sunglasses, trying not to obviously crane my neck just to get a look at the books on

Above Ground on the London Underground: Day 7... Going home

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I’m taking a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide and my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk at least 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings. I'm currently following the Piccadilly Line. This is Day Seven. There’s nothing to it, but to do it. No more dilly dallying around, I’m heading out from The Swan Inn in Isleworth where I’ve spent the night  across the river to Richmond, and the house where I was born.  First things first—even though I’m dithery with nerves and eager to see the house and area—a quick stop for breakfast before I head out on my 1.8 mile walk. I pick Greedies, a short 3 minute stroll down South Street because they open at 7am for breakfast—and for once I’m actually up at 7—and because they have hanging flowers and outdoor tables. I’m a sucker for ambience. I looked Greedies up on Trip Advisor where the comments range from ‘best scr