Beale Sister Breakfast Banter

So, the Good Countess of YikYak and I are stting around the breakfast table one morning, having what the Baron blithely refers to as 'a Grey Gardens moment'; we're both in our pj's - she's sipping iced tea and reading her book, I'm savoring my coffee-and-crossword ritual. We are inches away from each other and light years apart.

She, "Blah blah blah Goldy blah blah blah-dee blah."

Me, glancing up from my puzzle, "Who's Goldy again?"

She (and it is from this point forward that you must channel your inner Marge from 'Fargo' - I will transliterate to the best of my abilities...): "Goldy is my caaahr."

"Doesn't your caaahr haf a neem?"

Me: "Uh, no. I'm the scientific one, remember? To me, a car is a mechanical device that gets me from Point A to Point B. No more, no less."

Countess of YY: "Oh, Baronesssss, no. Mine is Goldy. Maaahhrk's is The Exploder. The Suburu is called Wanda. You haff ta neem your caaahr."

Baronesssss: "That's where you would be wrong, hon. I so do NOT have to 'neem my caaahr'. "

She: "But ahr caaahrs do so much for us. I alwiss taaahlk to Goldy. I thaaahnk her for all the haaahrd work thet she does for me, evry deeey."

"Ef I had yur caaahr, I'd call her Olive, because she's greeeen."

Me: "Why am I not at all surprised by this? The only thing that I do in my car is sing. "

She: "Well, then. That's it."

Me: "That's what, Countess? For god's sake, stop talking in riddles."

[and for love of all things holy, please end this conversation so I don't have to transliterate anymore; it's making both my fingers and my head ache...]

She: "Yur caaahr's name. It should be Carrie. Carrie Okie."

Well, then, that's it.

My caahr now hess a neem.

Thanks, Big Edie.

Thoughtful Thursday

Living in a country with not only a Prime Minister but a member of royalty ruling the classes, one would be lying if one admitted that one was not an Anglophile of some degree.

Unless, of course, one lives in Quebec.

Which one does not.

(Thus concludes one's sad attempt at speaking in regal-ese. Back to our normally scheduled programming)

I've been through my 'Brideshead Revisited' phase - watched the mini-series, read the book, listened to the soundtrack whilst sipping tea and racing bejewelled turtles.

I did the whole 'Lady Di' scene - wore the hairstyle, perfected my coquettish lowered head/upward eyes glance and shy smile, had two heirs to the throne. Job well done.

I have to admit, however - somewhat shamefacedly - I came a little late to the 'Pride and Prejudice' party. One of the Baron's friends lent me the BBC miniseries to watch a few years back, and I was immediately, absolutely, charmed. Elizabeth Bennet's lexiconography tickled my ears, and made me positively giddy. I swooned over Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy.

I was more than a little sad when this gem scrolled through the final credits - however would I get my Anglo fix?

I can't believe I'm saying this, but thank goodness for 'Becoming Jane'. I proceeded to swoon over McAvoy. And marvelled over the freaks of nature that are known as Anne Hathaway's eyes.

Now, thanks to the heads up from my fellow JAPPS (Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice Society - pshaw - what were you thinking?), I have learned of the latest BBC endeavour to cash in on our fair Jane - "Lost in Austen".

Here, where modern meets past, the characters are colored with an extra brushstroke of exaggeration and affection.

And, just like the novel and the mini-series preceding it, some of the delicious lines transcend time, and are completely relateable.

When appalled by bad behaviours that teems around us, both me and a certain Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy are of the same mind:

"Everywhere I behold the squalid prospect of grasping arrivistes, harlots, and liars, scrabbling over each other in the sewer that is existence outside of society."

When just tired of everything and nothing in particular, I share the opinion of the put-upon and ova-centrically weary Mr. Bennet:

"What I do, Madam, is collide with folly and conceit whenever I am rash enough to step outside this room. Henceforth, I am minded to remain here."

But mostly, I try with all intention to heed the words of my new herione, Miss Amanda Price:

"We are not condemned to endure our lives. We can change them."

I love that.

Mere enduring, to my mind, seem to be a burden that we ourselves have packed and parceled with no regard to the length of time we must carry it forward.

Isn't it time to lay that burden down?

Life is fleeting, people. Condemn yourself instead to a life of enjoyment.

Of Sad Sidewalks and Hellacious Handprints

The last time we were in California, the Dukes were wee, adorable little tikes, content to have their personal bankers/parents buy into the money-grabbing whore known as Disneyland, and its equally commercialized slutty siblings, the San Diego Zoo and Sea World.

Now 10 years older and infinitely wiser (and still adorable, said their non-biased mother), their roster of holiday activities must equal their refined palate of all things cool and au courant.

After arranging for a remortgaging of our home and the signing of a promisary note for highly-valued black market internal organs, we valet-parked our vehicle here:

and proceeded to the most important section of Hollywood's Walk of Fame:

Gah.

I'm not even sure if this is the correct Michael Jackson, but I certainly was not about to address this possibility to the avid zealots milling around. They looked reasonably tough (and more than a few could potentially have been armed). They're sensitive, not stupid.

After a perfunctory donning of our sparkle gloves and moonwalking, we continued on to Mann's Theatre, where we browsed around through the hand & footprints of the stars.

Some random observations:

. George Burn's cement square not only has his hand and foot prints, but also (what I'm hoping was) his cigar.
. The Star Trek square had all the TV show's stars - nothing creative, except of course for Leonard Nimoy's handprint - done as the Vulcan greeting - I love it when people think beyond the normal.
. John Wayne's footprints? Not so big. Surprising.
. Mel Gibson's footprints - huge. Disappointing.

And then?

I saw it.

The clouds parted; rays of sunshine were cast down upon one particular square; angels sang; Baronesses gasped.

"GET.THE. CAMERA!!!!!!!!!!!", I squawked.

This would be a photo op that would win me legions of bloggy fans - inspired by Nimoy, it was now me that was thinking out of the box. Ha hah!

I knelt. I put my hands down into his handprints, all ready to lower my quavering bosom into the impression that would lovingly cup my boobies like an expensive La Perla bra.

Did I mention that the afore-mentioned "parting of the clouds" is actually a hole in the ozone layer directly over Mann's Chinese Theatre, which turns a normal 95 degrees Farenheit day into about 3125 degrees?

"Holy shit! This is really, really hot!"

Said the ever-patient Baron, "Yes, dear (eyes rolling). We all know how you feel about Clooney..."

"No", I minced, "I mean - the pavement is really, really hot!"

Sighing. More eye-rolling. "So are we taking the boob shot or not?"

"I will singe my nurples right off if I go any lower - this is low as I can go"

"Fine. Whatever."

Click.

"Done. Let's go."

And off we tromped - we were due to pick up our car, as we had reached our 1 hour/4 kidney/2 liver limit.

George? Honey?

Sorry, baby. We'll just have to do this some other time.

If we wait another ten years, I won't even have to kneel anymore...

Thoughtful Thursday

Having just returned from a lovely time on a friend's "hobby farm", I have come to realize that this description could not be further from the truth, and in fact is somewhat insulting to all the 'hobby' farmers out there.

She is one of the hardest working woman I have the pleasure to know; she hits the ground running at about 6:30 am, and allows herself some horizontal peace again sometime around 11:30 pm.

As another 'hobby', she is near-completion of her certification as a Master Spinner. To fulfill her spinning needs, the focus of her farm has become her fleece-bearing critters: a llama, 2 alpacas, and 3 sheep. To listen to the process that goes into getting the wool from animal to tidy little skein is to be in awe; it has given me a true appreciation of all of the blood, sweat and tears that go into something that is, by and large, taken for granted - bought for few dollars at the wool shop.

While she is so very accomplished in so many areas, I think the thing that impresses me the most is the way in which she goes about her daily rounds with a graceful purpose. She has seen the big picture, and she mindfully carries with her the knowledge of all the little steps that it takes to get from Point A to Point B.

Today's TT from Sarah Ban Breathnach's "Simple Abundance" marries this idea of grace in little things with the larger concept of purpose and our expedition to find our our 'raison d'etre':

"Each of us possesses an exquisite, extraordinary gift: the opportunity to give expression to Divinity on earth through our everyday lives...we live truth even if what we think we're doing is just planting a flower bed, cooking a meal, nurturing a child, editing a book, producing a television show, sewing a curtain, writing a brief, painting a picture, teaching a craft, composing a song, or closing a deal. As the Vietnamese Buddist monk, poet, and writer Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us, "Our own life is the instrument with which we experiment with truth."

Seek that truth. Live that truth. For you are all exquisite and extraordinary.

Mission Accomplished

As one of my many, many responsibilities as a parent in the vonBloggenschtern household, it is up to me to be not only the uber-mater, but the Cultural Minister.

And I'm not talking the usual fare - art exhibits of The Great Dutch Masters, edu-mack-ay-shu-all science presentations, blahdee blahdee blah.

I'm talking the Culture of Weirdness.

It is my mandate and mission to research, seek out and present any havens of oddities that we might stumble upon during any of our various family vacations.

It doesn’t take a lot of doing; one just needs the right resources. Like my dog-eared copy of “Roadside Attractions”.

Like the World Wide Interwebs, when you Google the following phrase, "Weird things in ___(insert city here)". One might be pleasantly (?) surprised by the embarrassment of riches at one's fingertips.

It is because of the above research that we have explored the somewhat unsettling yet intriguing hoarding expo (cleverly marketed as "Collections") in Salt Lake City.

It is because of my investigations that we ended up in Lucas, Kansas to witness the 8th Wonder of the World, The Garden of Eden:

behold the backyard shed-cum-mausoleum

where the owner/creator of this awesomeness is preserved on ice

And as if this marvel wasn’t enough for one town, Lucas is also home to The Grassroots Folk Art Museum. The day we were there, we were lucky enough to have the lovely Marionette as our personal docent, and whoo lordy, the stories she could tell. There was rock carving sculptures; there were jewelry pieces with cameos made out of dessicated chewing gum. There were sculptures made entirely out of aluminum beer can pulltabs.

In St. Louis, I dragged my men folk to the Bowling Museum. Don’t get me wrong here; I am in no way a bowling officiando. I enjoy a few frames as much as the next person, but I’m not fanatical.

But the curators of this museum certainly are. And they do not disappoint in the weirdness of lauding all the untold glories of Ten Pin.

There is various documentation of bowling through the ages. There are team shirts. There are newsletters and posters and political bowling-themed propaganda. There is a workable alley.

The piece de resistance, however, is their gallery of womens’ champions, where a series of sizable oil-based portraits dangle from the ceiling. There must have been about 100 of them; their cat’s-eye bespectacled grandma faces follow you everywhere.

After this last glut of ‘culture’ tucked under their belts, the vonB’s thought there were forever sated .

Silly billies. The Culture Minister of Weirdness never rests.

Enter Venice Beach’s “Museum of Jurassic Technology”. This gem caught my eye while I was doing a quick read-through of a Southern California tour guide. The write up stated that the museum had nothing to do with either dinosaurs or technology.

My spidey-senses tingled.

This was a must on our "To Do" list.

It all started innocently enough.

The museum has a very unassuming storefront in muted colors; you would miss it if you drove past quickly.

Once inside, the tone goes from reasonably normal to uncomfortably awkward with lightening fast speed. We knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore when we quickly perused the mini-brochure given to us when we paid our donation fee:

“The learner must be led always from familiar objects toward the unfamiliar, guided along,

as it were; a chain of flowers into the mysteries of life.”

“Like a coat of two colors, the Museum serves dual functions. On the one hand, the Museum provides the academic community with a specialized repository of relics and artifacts from the Lower Jurassic, with an emphasis on those that demonstrate unusual or curious technological qualities. On the other hand, the Museum serves the general public by providing the visitor a hands-on experience of ‘life in the Jurassic’.”

Wowza.

Rather than exhibit their wares under ‘conventional’ museum conditions, all displays here are surrounded by near blackout conditions, with small diode-like light sources highlighting the wares. Dark, thick, velvet curtains cover the walls to muffle any ambient noise, and great care is taken to ‘frame’ some of the smaller pieces. Most everything is interactive, and there are slideshows going almost non-stop in the various nooks and crannies around the convoluted floorplan. I cannot be certain that the ghosts of Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price are not lurking about. Althought it's been 2 weeks, I am still trying to process all of the sensory overload we experienced. It was exciting, enthralling, unnerving and puzzling all at once. Some of the highlights included:

. The mini-theater that shows obscure European documentaries

. The Tea Room, serving ‘tea’ out of a fantastic-looking samovar, with pre-fab cookies slapped onto a serving plate.

. The extensive exhibit of the life, times and works of one Geoffrey Sonnebend, “Oblescence:

"Theories of Forgetting and the Problem of Matter”, which takes the process of memory and applies it to something mathematical with Cones of Oblescence and dissecting Planes of Experience.

. Amazing figures carved within (!) the eye of a needle

. The skull of a wolf, fitted with a special lens that makes it appear as though a little man is sitting in the wolf’s mouth, making howling noises.

. The Micromosaics of Henry “Harold” Dalton, mosaic artwork so minute it can only be seen through a microscope.

And my personal favorite, “Garden of Eden on Wheels”, a series of dioramas of various trailers in trailer parks, along with ‘collections’ culled from various solicited US recreational and mobile home trailer facilities (i.e. the shit that people left behind – why it was ever kept defies logic. Even my logic.)

A quote from this series comes from the book “The Movable Dwelling and How It Came to America” by JB Jackson:

“Nine times out of ten, the deserted dwelling is a chrysalis from which its inhabitants have happily escaped to some brighter or more alluring prospect”

What an articulate summary of the absolutely obvious.

Several times during our visit, the Dukes would come up to me, desperate, panicked, repeating their signature phrases, over and over:

“This is seriously creepy” , rasped Duke 2.

“Are we going soon?”, pleaded Duke 1.

It was finally when the Baron sidled up beside and whispered in my ear that my heart went pitty pat with glee and I knew this had been yet another successful foray:

“This is the weirdest f*&king place you have ever dragged us to”.

Mission accomplished.

Next cultural mecca?

Two blocks down.

In and Out Burger.

All hail the Cultural Minister.

Thoughtful Thursday

Remember when, as a child, you sat and fidgeted during some extremely tedious and boring (to you) event, and you were admonished - "Sit still!" ?

Remember when your mom was trying to pull that sliver out of your finger when all you wanted to do was get back into the action, and she would plead, "Be still" ?

Well, according to today's TT, there was a wisdom within those words; stillness - though in short reserve these adult days - is an activity we should try to engage in with some regularity.

Brenda Ueland was quite the woman: writer, feminist, animal activist, hand-stand master.

As I sat alone in my quiet house early this morning, listening to the pug snoring on the couch, and sipping that sacred first cup of coffee, I quickly scanned the various candidates for today's post. How odd that, out of all the quotes I could have found in "The Quotable Writer", I would happen upon today's, written by an author born in the same place as my current houseguests.

Vierd, yah.

Or maybe not so weird at all.

"I learned...that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.

Brenda Ueland

3 Things

Number 1: Apologies for being off the grid for a week; traveling with my family and trying to cram as much stuff into the day as possible. No offense to the blogosphere, but I find this almost more satisfying than sitting in front of my computer.

With more fresh-ish air.

Number 2: Blog fodder potential - amazing.

No, strike that.

Stunning.

Number 3: I am cheap. And lazy.

There is no f**king way I'm spending $20/day for internet in my room (when I could instead buy myself an awesome breakfast at Hob Nob Hill), nor will I lug my laptop down to the lobby for 'free' (i.e. intermittent and dodgy) service.

And as the family's unofficial sherpa, forget the WiFi cafes - I refuse to lug anything out of the hotel that isn't snack-related.

I have been checking in periodically on facebook on my phone, but texting is problematic for me, as I am having occular issues (that strangely relate to the length of my arms), and the keys on my phone are beyond microscopic.

Back on Tuesday. Love to you all.