I had a wake up call last week and it has stayed with me these last ten days.......
During a fitness class on a Wednesday morning, a charming woman whom I'd just said hello to for the first time, sat down suddenly, looking pale and a bit distressed. Her friends gathered round and put her in the recovery position. She was nauseated and had pain in her head. Soon paramedics arrived and she was taken to the hospital......... she died. It was a brain aneuryism.
I can't stop thinking that I witnessed her last good half hour on this earth. That morning when she got up she donned a cheery red t-shirt. She might have had dishes in the sink ready to finish when she got home, maybe she had to get ready for work, all plans that did not matter any more. We just don't know do we......... be grateful for every minute you have.
My dad was a physician and he used to say that life was really like a roulette wheel, you never know where the ball will land. People who look after themselves can go suddenly and those that abuse can live long lives. Live your life in moderation, do the best you can, and if you really want that cupcake, go for it.
Since my first iPhone, I've never had any issue with its battery life. As long as I get access to the charger by the end of the work day the battery life on the iPhone 2G or 3G have been perfectly adequate. That is until I started working on a project down in Atlanta and my weekly commute now extends to around 6-8 hours, depending on flight delays.
Fun fun fun! Neville MacKay, Melanie and Gail, two of the gals on the Halifax Chicks BustaMove team, posing with our mascot and fearless leader....Richard Simmons! Thursday night there was a rally/info meeting for Bust a Move
at one of the local hotels and it was a great event. We even got a mini
preview of what to expect for those six hours in January, all of us
moovin and groovin to the beat. Zumba was the highlight. Actually,
winning a gift certificate to Lululemon was the highlight for me, I was
so surprised:)
Our team had been asked to come up and speak
about fundraising. What we have done so far and have planned for the
next two months to give people ideas about what they might do. Hope it
helped. I was nervous. People were just starting to arrive in this
picture.
It
ended early in the evening and I dashed over to Fred to see the
"Mystery Art Sale" for Adsum house. I was wondering if my picture had
sold. Evidently it was one of the first to go:) Yay. I hope they did
well. There were still quite a few people around when I got there.
I haven't updated this in quite some time but I felt I really needed to take time to show appreciation for everything. My friends first and foremost but also my health and the richness of my life.
I ate more than I have in a long time today starting with breakfast. Then one of my friends dropped off a dinner package for me to cook later in the evening because she was appalled at my Thanksgiving taco tradition. (It was absolutely delicious.) I had lunch with one of my good friends as well so despite the cold and rain all seemed right in the world though I did have to turn my heat on for the first time this season. The outside temperature is 1C (34F). Still I was able to enjoy a bike ride and a lakefront run.
That is my palette! Hard as a rock:) Fun to think about how many paintings are represented here. I've been so busy with other things lately not much of that getting done.
Thursday night is the Mystery Art Night for Adsum House. Mystery Art is a swanky cocktail party at FRED. with sparkling wine, hors d'ouevres and live music, during which we sell the 5 x 7" art on the walls... the art will be up starting Monday Nov 23 at FRED. First in line at 6pm on Thursday Nov 26 gets their pick, all for $100. The sale lasts from 6-8, at which time we reveal the artists. Which artist did you buy? A Tom Forrestall, or a B list Hollywood actor? A Michael Martchenko, of Robert Munsch book fame, or is it a David Cowles (illustrator for Esquire, Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times)... or any number of beautiful local artists. I have a painting in there too:) I'm trying to decide whether or not to go. Tickets are $20.
My arm is a wee bit sore today but not bad really. I am just so glad I finally got the H1N1 shot. Picked up a chocolate lime cupcake at FRED on the way home to cheer myself up afterward. Cupcakes make everything better:)
Pop over and visit my friend Pat in New York, she is giving away a gorgeous Lenox china holiday teapot! She writes the most wonderful and informative posts about her city. A couple of my favourites were about the secret gardens in New York, absolutely fascinating. Three about Central Park had me wanting to jump on a plane immediately!
Also.......Thanks so much for purchasing my calendars!! They are sold out!!!!
I am wondering whether I should order any more. If you are interested, please let me know ASAP so I can get them ordered. I might get some to put on Etsy.
One
day last week I treated myself to a stop here. I was in Dartmouth
picking up some permits and on the way home, just after crossing the
bridge, on North Street, I could smell coffee roasting. Heaven.
Java Blend Coffee
has been in business since 1938. A small family operation that has
managed to hang in there through hard work, great coffee and lovely
personalities. They even have a blog
(check the bottom of their page). A neighborhood favourite, Java Blend
has been licensed by TransFair Canada since 1999 to roast and
distribute Fair Trade Certified Coffees. Many of the restaurants around
town get their coffee here.
It
was a gorgeous late sunny afternoon. People were even sitting outside
at a few tables sipping and reading, in late November! I popped in for
an Americano, my current fave.
Ha,
this pic makes my coffee look like a giant cup of Joe but it was really
just a regular:) It is not a place I get to very often because it is
out of my normal path but everytime I visit I think, must do this more
often:)
Thanks to everyone who has purchased calendars:) I've been wanting to do one for ages.
I only have a few left in this order so if you are interested....act soon.
Getting the flu shot today.
Like the third estate, the Third World has nothing, and wants to be something.
-French economist and demographer Alfred Sauvy in 1952
Early this morning before work I finally finished Vijay Prashad's 2007 comprehensive history of the developing world, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World. This was yet another book I saw on display at my local bookstore that caught my eye. So, while I was rooting around the shelves at main branch of my public library not long ago I decided to finally take a chance and grab it. Well, I'm glad I did.
Prashad, a professor of South Asian History at Trinity College in Connecticut, takes the Howard Zinn approach to a history of the world-from the perspective of the Global South, known also as the Third World. Starting with the 1927 conference in Brussels of the League Against Imperialism, Prashad traces the evolution of the NAM, (or Nonaligned Movement of nations) through the throes of decolonialism, the Cold War, the collapse of the Eastern Block, the ups and downs of "neoliberal" international economics, the late '90's Asian economic meltdown and ending with the failure of Pan-Arabism opening the door to Saudi-sponsored politcal Islam.
Like any historian's text on history, Prashad the tells the story on his terms. Prashad's analysis of the last 60 years of the Third World is truly a leftist one, and all the good, bad and otherwise that comes with that. But Prashad is good. Damn good. Despite Prashad's biases his analysis of not just what happened but why things happened is quite impressive. While I feel he neglected a number of key things, (the rise of China as a world economic power due to its embracing of capitalism is completely neglected as is the Iranian Revolution as well as the emergence of regional powers India and Brazil) everything else he addressed in his book impressed me greatly. And perhaps above all, his research should not be taken lightly.
Unless I come across anything better, Prashad's book is the definitive history of the Third World.
This rather beautiful books tells the story of three women, two of whom – Aibileen and Minny – are black maids working for white families in Jackson, Mississippi, in the 1960s, when racial segregation meant that black and white people could not mix socially, could not use the same restaurants, and could not go to the same hospitals or churches. The third woman is a white girl named Skeeter, who comes home from college with dreams of becoming a writer. She eventually decides to write a book about what it is like to be a black maid working for a white family, and she, Aibileen and Minny become embroiled in an exciting and potentially dangerous project.
I’m not sure I can accurately put into words how much I enjoyed this book. The three narrators’ voices (Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter) come through beautifully and each character is distinct and wholly believeable. We see each character’s life through their own eyes, and watch as they cope with their own problems (Aibileen is still grieving over the death of her son, and trying hard to make the young child she looks after grow up to be a nice person; Minny lives with an abusive husband and several demanding children; Skeeter has an over-bearing mother who won’t explain the sudden disappearance of Skeeter’s beloved childhood maid).
As well as the three central characters, there are a multitude of other people of great importance to the storyline. Hilly Holbrook is a long time friend of Skeeter’s, but the bond between them is pulled very taut as the hypocritical and bigoted Hilly dislikes Skeeter’s desire for awareness and change. Their other best friend, Elizabeth Leefolt, is Aibileen’s boss and it is her daughter who Aibileen cares for (seemingly far more than Elizabeth does). However, my favourite of the ’supporting’ players is Celia Foote – Minny’s boss, who herself feels an outsider, as Hilly and her friends consider that she is not good enough to associate with them.
Historical events such as the death of JFK and Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream” speech are covered here, adding to the already very real sense of the time in which this novel is set.
One of the things I most admired about the novel is that the author does not just show the characters as either good or bad. She shows them as totally believable people. Some of the nicer people sometimes do less-than-good things, and some of the not-so-nice characters in the book can show that they have a heart.
I loved this book, and would say it is definitely my favourite book out of all that I have read this year. It’s thought-provoking, funny in places (look out for the scene with the toilets), and it made me cry in other places. I was riveted throughout; my attention was grabbed on page one, and was held right through to the last page.
Utterly fantastic read, and very strongly recommended. 10/10
The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West is one of those books I started, then set aside for several months before restarting it. Written by Lee Harris, a frequent Wall Street Journal contributor, this 2007 book is part philosophy of history and part extended op-ed piece. Harris challenges the Western assumption that all peoples around the world aspire for democracy and are slowly moving towards it. If anything, Harris believes that democratic regimes are relatively speaking rare in the world, and are mostly found in Anglo-American nations or nations directly shaped by them. While I'm not sure I bought all of his arguments, this book did raise some interesting points. And it did get me thinking, which is never a bad thing.
Ever since I read The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria I've been wanting to read more by this talented editor of Newsweek. His latest book The Post-American World, is quite good. Zakaria is a fine writer and thinker,(not long ago he was a guest speaker here in Portland and spoke for over an hour and a half without notes or a teleprompter) and does a superb job looking at the "big picture" when it comes to the state of the world. According to Zakaria, while some might say that America is in decline, what we are really experiencing is a "rise of the rest". Other nations, especially China and India are experiencing incredible economic growth. As these upstart nations of the world grow economically, the US must respond to their newfound political clout and respond appropriately. I highly recommend Zakaria's book.
Next up are two books dealing in way or another with Islam. Carl W. Ernst's 2003 book Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World is an attempt to show the rich and multidimensional world of Islam. Ernst, a Professor of Religious Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, tries to break the stereotype of Islam as being a terrorist-promoting faith practiced by puritanical Arabs by showing the reader that in fact, with the largest Muslim countries being Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Iran and Nigeria, most Muslims aren't even Arabs. Egypt, with about 60 million is the only Arab county with a significant Muslim population. According to Ernst, "Saudi Arabia, despite its economic and political prominence, has only about 15 million people." Ernst goes on to give the reader a brief outline of Islamic history in hopes of proving that today's Bin Ladens are the exception. Moreover, they dream of an early period of Islamic purity that quite frankly, never really existed.
I found Ernst's book an OK book at best. He came across a bit dry at times. And to be honest, I wonder if he needs to be a bit more critical in assessing the tensions that arise when those who adhere to pre-Enlightment/secularist viewpoints encounter our "Western" world. With some reservations, I might possibly recommend this book as a introductory text, but only in a supporting role.
The other book would be Samir Kassir's brief 2006 book Being Arab. And yes, it was yet another one
of those books I saw languishing unread at the public library that
caught my eye. Kassir was a respected Lebanese journalist who was
assassinated by a car bomb in 2005. His short book could be considered
a manifesto looking at why the Arab world lags behind the West in
political freedom and economic potency. It too could be considered an
extended op-ed piece. Will Hobson must have done a great job
translating the book from Arabic into English because I enjoyed reading
Kassir's book. On the whole, I found it pretty good.
