Godspeed, Seth Carey

My friend Donia Carey's son Seth passed away Friday. If you'd like to know more about Seth and ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), click this link and read one of Seth's essays. This particular one was broadcast on NPR. http://www.wgbh.org/cainan/article?item_id=1826538

For Seth and Donia

Some spirits transcend restraints,
Choosing to experience life
According to their own terms.
They innately understand
The freedom offered here --
Freedom to think independently,
To make a difference,
To love fully, to live fully.

These spirits accept the Truth
And expand their boundaries,
Living life to its fullest extent.
While others mourn limitations,
These special ones embrace
The wider margins of experience
And love with all their hearts.

Today I celebrate your life, Seth,
And wish you Godspeed on your
Journey to the next dispensation.
Thank you for sharing your life
With me, and thank you, Donia,
For introducing me to the
Special spirit of your son Seth.

Renovating, Repainting, and Buying A House

Lately I've been caught up in the dream of renovating and buying a house. I've spent hours devouring home improvement shows and surfing the web watching how-to films. Tonight I concentrated on researching the original floorplans and sketches of craftsman bungalow houses from 1890-1920, concentrating on how the original trim and woodwork is supposed to look.

That led me to thinking about paint color choices, which led me to a site where you answer some goofy questions and it spits out the "ideal" paint color for your personality. The site declared me to be "Sherwin-Williams "Burnt Steer Manure" exterior semi-gloss enamel - Suitable for window frames on a stained wood or shingle building." I figured I was a little more colorful...

Take the test to see what paint color you end up as. You may be drabber than you think!

Which house paint are you?

Herstory Anthology

Here's the cover of the very first anthology I'll be published in. Herstory - What I Learned in My Bathtub...and More True Stories on Life, Love, And Other Inconveniences is due out October 1, 2005. The story I wrote is "Hair Today," a nonfiction tale about my adventures with baldness as a result of breast cancer treatment.

You can pre-order Herstory on Amazon.com, effective today.

 

Flash Floods

Memories come "flooding" back to me this time of year (scroll down two posts to an excerpt from my memoirs. My family survived a deadly flash flood in 1961 in which many people perished).

You've probably heard that a flash flood occurs within mere seconds, turning a creek into a raging muddy river, and thought it was an exaggeration.

Here's an amazing real-time video clip. Keep one eye on the timer as you watch and see what happens within one, and then two minutes. Wild stuff.

http://stormscenes.com/reels/wvf-080605a.wmv