Charlotte’s Younger Man

Coming this spring to Liquid Silver Books.

Neither “past life experience” nor “pretty, pierced twenty-something” are on the agenda for legal aide Charlotte Kelley’s 35th birthday. She’d planned dinner with friends, opening of gifts, a few hours’ work investigating potential trademark violations at an area snuggle party, and a quiet moment with her vibrator before bed.

Journalism grad student and features reporter Heath Breck is working on an assignment, not scouting for an MILF. Women who attend snuggle parties are not his type and women who shop at Jones New York instead of Old Navy are totally out of the question—too expensive, too high-maintenance, and too intent on bedtime by 11 p.m.

A token from Charlotte’s childhood and a circle-of-friends ritual, however, make for a significant change in both partygoers’ plans.

Click for an excerpt!

Thirteen Volunteer Opportunities

One of the things that the recent austerity measures in our home has caused is some reconsideration of what giving means. Obviously, you can give to charities in the form of cash – which is a much-needed and very useful commodity.  You can give your stuff – things you have that you don’t need or want any more. Or you can give your time and talents.  In a tough economy like we have now, sometimes that’s all you can afford to give, so it pays to give them more freely.  Here are some of the ones on my list.

1.  Pick up litter in a public space.  Munchkin is a mad fiend for picking up litter. She hates seeing trash on the side of the road or in a park.  This week we took trash bags and went out to a little wooded area in our neighborhood along a main road and picked up the trash.  It doesn’t have to be a huge effort. Every little bit makes a difference.

2. Volunteer at a local school. They may need someone to help kindergartners in the lunch room or high schoolers on a field trip, or they may need your particular talents more directly – can you teach the kids something they didn’t know?

3. Habitat for Humanity. There are a number of ways to get involved with Habitat, including calling them directly to find out about builds in your area. We happen to do Habitat through our church, but you can organize schools, community organizations, clubs, or go by yourself.

4. Help at a food bank. Food banks often need people to help them organize and stock the donated items, or to create food boxes for the clients.

5. Volunteer with your local political party – whatever party strikes your fancy. They may need people to man the phones or drive people to the polls.

6. Speaking of polls, you could volunteer to man the polls for your district. How this works varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but your county board of elections should be able to point you in the right direction.

7. Volunteer at an animal shelter. No, cleaning cages isn’t glamorous, but it is helpful. If animal charities are your passion, this is a wonderful way to help. Fair warning: you might want to take the locals home with you.

8. Volunteer for the local religious organization of your choice. Most religious organizations need a lot of volunteers – ushers, people to fold bulletins, people to help keep the grounds, people to do routine filing or office work, people to help with youth trips or home-bound visits. Find out what your organization needs and see if something fits.

9. Volunteer at a hospital. You can volunteer to help direct people to the right place, to help in various wards, or any number of other places. Most hospitals have a volunteer coordinator you can contact.

10. Volunteer with Boys and Girls Clubs. Mentoring can be highly rewarding for both the mentor and the mentee. Sometimes a good role model makes all the difference.

11. Volunteer to teach someone to read.  There are literacy organizations nearly everywhere. What a gift to give to someone: the ability to read.

12. Volunteer for a local charity event.  Is there a fundraising walk or event in your area? Volunteer to man the registration tables or hand out water along the way.

13. Volunteer at a shelter. A homeless shelter, a battered women’s shelter, whatever. Even going in to help cook a meal or two each month will spread the burden for the people in the shelter.

If you don’t have something in mind, how do you find the volunteer opportunity that’s right for you? Start here: http://www.volunteermatch.org/

Go on. Do something. And it doesn’t have to cost you a cent.

Thirteen green things around my house

Yes, I know. St. Patrick’s Day was yesterday.  Still, it has me anticipating Spring – and so does the weather here. Definitely warmer, but still a bit damp.

So, Thirteen Green Things.

1. The Great Room walls.  We don’t have a living room or den. We have a Great Room (which sounds much more pretentious than it actually is). The Great Room opens into a loft above, the entry hall, and the dining room to one side. When we moved in, I chose a paint color that would make the space feel, well, garden-y. It works beautifully.  So, the core of our house is painted a lovely medium pale green.

2. The daffodils. They haven’t bloomed yet, so they are still little more than green stalks spearing from the winter ground.

3. My daughter’s crocodile piano. It’s a toy (obviously) with the exceedingly obnoxious feature of playing a tinny sample for each key you hit.

4. The fruit trees out front – which have leaf buds that are actually visible now. One of the great joys of spring for me is when those trees bloom. Gorgeous.

5. The guest bedroom bed.  It’s a dark green finished metal frame with curling vines and trellis theme. There are posts and rails to make it a canopy bed, but that would be ridiculous in the guest bedroom, so it’s just the four poster. It’s the bed I bought when I moved out to the East Coast for grad school.

6. The hyacinths.  Again, no blooms as yet (they tend to trail the daffodils), but just knowing they are thinking about blooming makes me happy.

7. My daughter’s Lincoln Log container – a nice kelly green that says all things childhood to me.

8. The rose bushes.  The leaves are a mix of red and green as they form, but the anticipation of the roses is almost as good as the roses themselves. But not quite.

9. Leafy vegetables in the refrigerator.  I’m looking forward to farmer’s market season. In the meantime, we have leeks, spring onions, lettuce. We had cabbage, but ate that yesterday.

10. The Audubon print on the wall of the Great Room.  It’s a gorgeous print of Carolina Parakeets (now extinct).

11. Clover – which, I must admit, probably outpopulates the grass in our yard. I know for sure the chickweed outpopulates the grass.

12. My husband’s truck. It’s an absolutely gorgeous deep, foresty green. I love the color.

13. The front door.  I read somewhere that houses in the Southwest often paint doors green so hostile magic can’t pass into the house. Our doors are all green, but I can’t say that’s why I did it. Instead, I think it’s fair to say that I love green – and it seemed appropriate.

What’s green around your house?

Thirteen Interesting Bible Facts

As you may have gathered from previous posts, Trusting Destiny involved a good bit of research about the Bible (not so much content as the physical books and printing history of the Bible).

I shared before some of the interesting facts specific to the Gutenberg Bible, but I thought I’d share a few other interesting factoids I learned along the way.

1. While the Bible mentions dogs, livestock, lion, game animals, and various other animals, it does not mention the domestic cat at all.

2. Three words appear only once in the Bible: Reverend (Psalms 111:9), eternity (Isaiah 57:15), and grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5).

3. The Bible wasn’t divided into chapters until 1227 AD.

4. There are 16 “deuterocanonical” books of the Bible – books not included in some (Protestant) sanctioned versions of the Bible, but included in others (mainly Vulgate). Only one of these is from the New Testament. These were primarily purged during the Protestant Reformation.

5. There are a number of other texts of disputed merit which are not included in sanctioned Bibles. These are collectively referred to as the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.

6. The Bible was first divided into verses by two people. R. Nathan divided the Old Testament into verses in 1488, Robert Stephanus divided the New Testament into verses in 1551.

7. The number 40 appears over and over in the Bible. 40 days in the wilderness, 40 years in the desert, 40 days of rain in the flood.

8. The Bible was written in three languages – Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

9. The oldest, most complete Biblical manuscript is owned (naturally) by the Vatican and dates from the 4th century AD.

10. The word “God” appears in every book of the Bible except two: Esther and the Song of Songs (Song of Solomon).

11. While the Bible is the world’s best-selling book, it is also the most shop-lifted (now, that has to be some kind of strange karma right there).

12. The longest intercontinental telegram ever sent was the text of the New International Version of the Bible, from Geneva to New York (it was translated in Geneva and printed in New York).

13. A Bible in the University of Gottingen is written on palm leaves – over 2400 of them.

These facts were gathered from various internet sources, so I won’t vouch for the absolute validity of some of them, but I checked several myself, and found them to be accurate. Additionally, several are indicated in multiple sources.

Thirteen of my favorite paintings

This week I thought I might share another of my side interests. Its an interest, not a hobby or a passion, just an interest. I like art – a lot. I appreciate it. But I’m not, by any means, expert. A couple of art history courses, you know. And absolutely no artistic talent. At. All.

But I like art, so here I am going to share thirteen of my favorite paintings. I hope you like them too. Be aware that some paintings include nudity (it’s ART, after all).

1. Slave Ship: Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying — Typhoon Coming On by JMW Turner. Aside from the fabulously long and evocative title, I love the clash of angles in the painting, the intensity of the color and the way the sea and sky merge, and the sheer power Turner evokes.

2. Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Gericault (a zoom-able pic here). Here it’s the overblown Romantic figural details I love. The exaggerated musculature, the dramatic poses. Good stuff.

3. The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard. This bit of Rococo loveliness makes me happy. The swirls, the sheer froth of it just makes me smile.

4. Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David. The quintessential horseback portrait. The colors, the form, the amazing way he renders skin. This close up of the face just astounds me.

5. Interior Court of the Doge’s Palace by Giovanni Canal (Canaletto).  The architectural detail is astounding – the nearly photographic quality of the lighting on the stone is just amazing.

6. Laocoon by El Greco. El Greco’s signature elongation of the bodies and the distortion of the musculature that requires works really well with the serpents.  Plus, if you look closely, there’s a totally random horse in the middle of the painting that must have some symbolism, but really just baffles me.

8. Self Portrait as a Mature Man by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. I admit to being a Bernini fan-girl. I think his version of David is ridiculously underrated (not to mention a self-portrait), and there isn’t a piece of sculpture or architecture he did I don’t think is gorgeous. But in this case, it’s the man himself who is compelling. Such beautiful bones. You just know he was a rock star.

9. Annunciation by Fra Angelico (1450). The otherworldly beauty of the subjects combined with the wonderful wings make this a favorite of mine.

10. St. Matthew and the Angel by Caravaggio. I love the expression on St. Matthew’s face. The total OMG!WTF! that you know you’d be wearing too, if an Angel of the Lord popped in on you. Plus, the lighting is beyond fabulous.

11. Sleepy Baby by Mary Cassatt. I’m generally not a huge fan of Impressionism (yes, I know, shoot me), but Cassatt’s work is just gorgeous. In this one, the expression on the mother’s face is everything.

12. Bocca Baciata by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I enjoy the pre-Raphaelites, particularly Rossetti, and I love this one for the lighting on the face and the abundance of fab hair.

13. As I Opened Fire by Roy Lichtenstein. I like Lichtenstein – the enforced melodrama and the odd comic book pop-art thing. I actually own the three prints for this one, and though they are matted, I haven’t yet framed them. I keep saying I’m going to frame them and have them along the stairs. It seems just the place for the panels.

So, there you have several of my favorite paintings. What are some of yours?