OurGirl: Dear God, What is THAT

that's a line from the Princess Bride:

Westley: I wasn't finished. The next thing you will lose will be your left eye followed by your right.
Prince Humperdinck: And then my ears, I understand let's get on with it.
Westley: WRONG. Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, "Dear God! What is that thing," will echo in your perfect ears. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.
Prince Humperdinck: I think your bluffing.

i ain't bluffing, either. i've swallowed my pride and i've done it. i've created an etsy store called chesapeake street. and it sells shell art that i create. see right column.

very funny. shut up.

ok, first, shell art kept me sane during a career transition. anyone familiar with me knows my not so secret hobby that i would rather not talk about but feel compelled to, anyway. if you don't know, here's the bare bones.

me loves sailor valentines and 18th century victorian shell art. i own books about it. i even started making my own posies out of shells. and selling it on ebay. it helped keeping me sane and when i landed where i landed and made a ton of new friends and then the vineyard kicked in and i started grad studies so i lost time and the hobby went into hiatus.

but i still have the detritus and the desire to do more craft. no. i only own one cat. why do you ask?

so my brother pointed out etsy, but that was back in the day, so i went uh-huh, really trying to put that behind me, you know? and didn't act on it. don't want to be that crafty-girl. then my girl graciously accepted a little shadow box i put together for her birthday. and she hung it in her bathroom. and i dug that.

i started thinking. i've got to unload some of the pieces i've done. it would clear out space in my office/second living space no one uses. it would make my husband happy. we had agreed i would not cover the house in my creations. he did say that if i did go mad that he would donate my output to the american visionary art museum. i liked the idea it might sit in the same room as the throne made out of tin foil.

you know, its just one of those john-hughes-esque movie lines where the hard core chickie-boo that competes hard, talks big and works her heart out turns out to have a very soft nougat-ey centers that enjoys making tiny, tiny effete flowers out of seashells and adhesives. i'll learn to live with it and your comments. walsh, morgan and andy are not allowed to purchase anything from the store w/o prior permission as i think that will crush me to have those two separate worlds collide like that.

the rest of the world need not seek my permission for buying my stuff or for anything else they may need. just saying. heh.

Morgan: Rhino Trek

What does a Rhino, an Iphone, a Canon Powershot SD400 and Macromedia Fireworks have in common?

Why the debut of the much anticipated, light hearted and whimsical travel blog Rhino Trek!

Before my trip to Greece, Byrne suggested that I take along my spirit guide and photograph him in exotic locales. Byrne always has good ideas...but the whole expedition almost never happened.
Weeks before the trip, I looked all over the Morgan household for my little friend. I fear that he met with an untimely demise. I was appalled, how could I have misplaced my battle standard before the big soirée? The weekend before the flight I went searching for a replacement Rhino. I went to Toy's R Us...but that was a dead end. "Do you have a rhino?" the blank look on the haggard employees face gave me the answer. Nooooo! I finally found Rhino V2.0 at Target. Yes! they have a whole aisle dedicated to Rhino fans and their assorted paraphernalia...who knew?

I put the little Rhino in my backpack and we flew to Greece. I forgot all about him. I was preoccupied with everything around me the sights, smells and food. The history, monuments and temples. Rhino almost never made it out of the backpack. Then one evening my wife was digging through the pack, probably repacking in her never ceasing workaholic frenzy. When she pulled out the Rhino and said, "What's this?"
"uhhh thats my Rhino", as I tried explaining the ambitious concept to her. She looked at me with raised eyebrows.

The next day I carried the Rhino in my pocket, looking for the perfect photo opportunity. When the moment came I was surprised to find I was a little embarrassed. Here I was a grown man on a tour of historical Greece and I was pulling a Rhino out of my pants to photograph. The majority of our fellow tourist looked at me with raised eyebrows. I shrugged my shoulders. How could I explain this?

For the next couple of days I would discreetly photograph my Rhino when no one was around. On the final day before departure, we traveled up to the Acropolis. It was a beautiful day, sunny yet not to hot and very crowded. I took all the obligatory normal photos, dreading the moment when I knew I would have to release the Rhino for his portrait.
"C'mon lets go! I've had enough of rubble, lets go shopping!" My wife declared.
"uhhhh wait a minute I need to take one more shot."
Swallowing my pride I stoically remove the Rhino from my pocket and marched down past throngs of tourists from all over the world. And with my back to them I couched down next to a block of marble, carefully positioned the Rhino just so. Bent down even further, I think my ass was higher than my head and took the perfect photo. When I turned around hundreds of tourists were staring at me, with raised eyebrows.

OurGirl: Notes From a Far Away Place

no, i don't have anything to compare to rhino's quest for the primordial bellybutton of humanity and existence. i'm just kickin' back and enjoying that ride.

i have been having some larger than thou experiences, so i get what he's been talking about. mine are just of a smaller, more olfactory nature. smells are a powerful thing. each one of my boys had their own unique baby odor. im certain i could have picked my baby out of a crowd blind-folded.

my recent smell-experience made me weep.
[men, feel free to leave NOW]

the moment the top note odor hit my passages, i was transported back to being a child, in my paternal grandma's kitchen. yeh, proust covered involuntary memory, first. i know. but i was on my laptop, the smell hit me and suddenly i was profoundly grateful that my husband sent me back to my primordial bellybutton, my grandparents, both now gone.

and it may have been the flu i've been battling that makes me a little weepy, but even the flu struck an involuntary memory chord. what adult, in the grips of the dreaded flu, does not long for their mother's cool hand brushing back their hair? or the kisses that desire for nothing but for you to be well again? did your mother wipe your face with a cool cloth? those things were paramount in my adult mind, tuesday, as i shivered under my think goose-down comforter, waiting out the bug. being an adult can be miserable. my new toast: may you always have a comforting hand at your most ill. ok. i need to work on that. but you get my point.

for those still with me, here's the recipe to making your kitchen smell like my grandma's:

saute onion and garlic in a little oil
add something, anything, meaty.

then, peel and slice a cucumber.
for added authenticity, sprinkle vinegar over the cucumber.


want to play proust yourself? take this survey i found here.