Telluride

What an amazing town! Telluride is a small beautiful mountain town in Southwest Colorado. I feel in love with this city the moment I drove in.
The mountains!
The fresh air!
The cute homes!
I was impressed. I drove to visit my friend, Katy and her family. They gather together each year for the bluegrass festival. Little did I know what a production it is for the locals. Of course I didn't! It's a local secret. Apparently, if you want a spot at the front of the stage, you need to have "runners" spend the night in line to get a numbered ticket. That ticket is your chance to run like hell to the stage to rip open a tarp and claim your space.
This is serious business.
No joke.
It's a modern day Oklahoma run. I had no idea.
Fortunately for me, first time visitors are exempt.




It was a day of touring the city, riding the gondola up the ski mountain, strolling through a farmers market, browsing the shops and enjoying the music at the festival. Oh, did I mention Elvis Costello was playing?? My all time favorite!

Since the tarp runner did their duty, I was able to walk to the front of the stage to enjoy the performance.

Unfortunately for me, I caught a bit of altitude sickness. I drank a lot of water as instructed but for some reason, it still got to me. It sure didn't take away from the beauty. I would recommend a visit through this town. I know I will be back. Thank you Peggy Sue and Billy Bob for letting me stay in your beautiful home!

Happy Father's Day, Dad

I love and miss you.

Driving Therapy

There is something about driving that makes you think. Perhaps because your attention is focused on one thing...watching the road. When I go on a road trip, sometimes I feel the gas price is the cost of self therapy. What other time to you have to sit there focused on nothing but looking at one thing? Besides watching TV. You know what I mean.

As a bonus, there is no pesky homework.

I love it. I am taking a road trip this weekend to Telluride, Colorado to see the bluegrass festival with my friend Katy. It's a lively house with the kids and other members of her family with their kids. This town is so beautiful. I am still adjusting to the altitude and the fact that I didn't bring any other shoes but flip flops to wear. I will manage.

Along the way, I stopped at the Four Corners. It's where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah come together. For $3 you can wait in line with several other tourists to take a picture of a landmark in the ground. Very exciting stuff.

Off to the festival today...

A Little Tidbit

I'm gearing up for a new series of posts based on some fascinating reading I've been doing lately. I'm not going to spill the beans, but I will give you a little hint, from a paper written by Dr. Robert S. Corruccini, professor of anthropology at Southern Illinois university. I just came across this quote and it blew me away. It's so full of wisdom I can't even believe I just read it. The term "occlusion" refers to the way the upper and lower teeth come together, as in overbite or underbite.

Similar to heart disease and diabetes which are "diseases of civilization" or "Western diseases" (Trowell and Burkitt, 1981) that have attained high prevalence in urban society because of environmental factors rather than "genetic deterioration," an epidemiological transition (Omran, 1971) in occlusal health accompanies urbanization.

Western society has completely crossed this transition and now exists in a state of industrially buffered environmental homogeneity. The relatively constant environment both raises genetic variance estimates (since environmental variance is lessened) and renders epidemiological surveys largely meaningless because etiological factors are largely uniform. Nevertheless most occlusal epidemiology and heritability surveys are conducted in this population rather than in developing countries currently traversing the epidemiological transition.

In other words, the reason observational studies in affluent nations haven't been able to get to the bottom of dental/orthodontic problems and chronic disease is that everyone in their study population is doing the same thing! There isn't enough variability in the diets and lifestyles of modern populations to be able to determine what's causing the problem. So we study the genetics of problems that are not genetic in origin, and overestimate genetic contributions because we're studying populations whose diet and lifestyle are homogeneous. It's a wild goose chase.

That's why you have to study modernizing populations that are transitioning from good to poor health, which is exactly what Dr. Weston Price and many others have done. Only then can you see the true, non-genetic, nature of the problem.

Sedona

Sedona is an amazing place. My mother lives there so I am lucky enough to visit from time to time (I am sure not often enough, if you ask her). She lives in a ranch house on a hill that she calls "Edge of Eden." I took this photograph last November from her home. Next to it is my latest "scribble." I gave it to her as a gift. It's number 6 in my little watercolor book. I look forward to scribbling more.

Life Experiences

Do you ever wonder how you arrived to the place you are today? All of the decisions, changes, events, people met, people lost, moves, jobs, and crossroads in life. I think of it sometimes.

I am writing this in my 4x9 teardrop trailer that's sitting in my driveway. Why do I even have this little camper? It came about from a dream I had a a kid to travel.

I did a few things this week including taking Maggie's leftover food, toys and 4 beds to the animal shelter for other dogs to enjoy. It was hard. I looked at all of the animals up for adoption and found 4 I loved. One I can't stop thinking about. But I know maybe it's not the right time. But, when is the RIGHT time? I adopted Maggie when I lived in a small apartment and kennel trained her while she was alone all day with no yard. "We" eventually made money and moved into a house with grass. When I lived in the apartment, people said it wasn't fair to her, but I fell in love with her. I can't imagine my life without an animal.

I digress. I was lucky enough to be asked to participate in an Oprah magazine photo shoot to recreate the painting, Sunday in the park. It was an experience for sure. I blogged about my day a little over a month ago. Alas, the photo is now out on newsstands in O. Here is it. Can you find me? Squint...see me?


So, the life list of things I want to do before I die:
"Appear" in Oprah Magazine...check
What shall I check off next? One can only dream...

The Itch

I woke up in the morning to a scratch.

I didn't think anything of it. I am used to bug bites. Not sure if that is good or bad, but just a fact. After scratching a while, I looked down at my ankles. Ack! Fleas! To my dismay, they were covered in flea bites. Maggie gave me one more present, I suppose. The house has been empty for weeks while I was traveling so it looks like the fleas had a party in the house while I was gone.

Good thing I have a vacation home ("Trailie") in my driveway. So, I left the house and bought some foggers. Skimmed through the instructions and turned them on throughout the house.

Phew, all secured. In my hastiness to get that taken care of, I forgot that my vacation home doesn't come with a bathroom. Great. There is a starbucks nearby, so that'll do it! Got there. Tried to open the door. Locked. That can't be... tried again. Locked. Ok...I wait.

Waited. And waited. At this point, I picked up every mug in their "gift shop" to look at the price to pass the time. If someone was watching I am sure they are wondering why I would think that the price is different on the same mug in a different color. Blue mug $4.95? check... Green mug $4.95? check... Red mug...duhhhh...are they out yet? Waiting. Waiting. Click. Flush. Click. Could it be? Is it time? No...more waiting. Now I am getting annoyed. What the hell is going on in there and do I really want to enter at this point?

Click. Click. Flush. Door opens... of course I am now sitting down looking down at my empty table pretending not to look. I peeked. Ok, first of all...it was a MAN in the ladies room. I wait. I think, "should I go in?" I go in. I have no idea what this man was doing in there but it smells like he just washed and groomed a few dogs and left the scent behind. And somehow, I am relieved by that. Whew.

So, I return home and settle in trailie. I brought my water color set so I decided to start painting a little. I kept looking at my feet to see Maggie. I miss her there with me. So, the night sleeping in trailie, missing Maggie and painting was sort of therapeutic. Never mind the broken back from painting hunched over and forgetting how hard the mattress is. It didn't matter. I felt close to her and her fleas were sort of a sign to let me know it's ok to go back in the trailer. I have been avoiding it. Or maybe it was a sign to clean the house because that's all I did yesterday.

Here is a photo I took in PTown and the painting I did in trailie:

Provincetown Through My Eyes

I LOVE it here.

If it weren't for the cold winters, housing prices or lack of employment...it would be the PERFECT place to live. :) I suppose some people believe it's perfect because of this...keeps people like ME from living there full time.

I spent a week in this town wandering around, taking pictures, eating good food, riding my rented bike, enjoying a fire on the beach, drinking coffee, getting a massage and dabbling in watercolor.

What a perfect week. :)

I know I will be back. The colors are amazing here. If you have never been...I would recommend a visit.

Here is the week through my eyes:

Second Try

I love birds and dogs. Most of the art I have in my house are of birds or dogs with a scatter of landscapes and a couple of elephants. My second attempt at scribbling colors together is a seagull I named "gully." I am having way too much fun in PTown pretending to be a photographer and painter. I will post some photographs soon. For now, here's gully. LOL...

Inner Artist

I am not an artist.

Let me clarify. I am not an experienced or particularly good one, especially compared to Ronnie, Kellie and my Mom (click on their name for more). I try and manage a scribble here or there.

My mother is an artist and when I grew up accompanying her to shows and exhibits of her art, the question of the minute, hour, day was, "are you going to be an artist like your mom?" Maybe it was those moments where I knew I wanted to be an athlete because my initial reaction was to knock them down each time that question would come up. But alas, I politely (most of the time) said, "no."

I am now in Proviencetown. The land of the artist. So, why not pretend to be one? This is what I did yesterday. I took out the watercolors that Ronnie bought me for this occasion and started painting a photograph I took a day prior. I tried to quiet my mind during this process but I have to tell you...it's not easy! I had to laugh at my inner critic bothering me the entire time. After a while, I didn't care.

I am still laughing at it. I have some great friends that are telling me it's good. God bless them.

Perhaps I will attempt another. Here is my work of art and the photo that inspired the scene:

Boston

I've been away for a while.

Leaving your home can be a welcome experience or it can be one of pain and uncertainty. I choose the welcome one.

I have been out of the house for almost 2 weeks meeting new people. In fact, I stayed with complete strangers for almost a week in Jamaica Plain (suburb of Boston). I am not meeting up with familiar faces, so the comfort of the known isn't present.
Everyone I have met in the past 13 days is new to my life. How lucky am I? What better way to learn new things about the world and yourself.

Here are some of the highlights in Boston. I am going to try and convince the inner artist in me to come out and do a little watercolor painting today in Proviencetown. I will post the picture once completed. Or not. We'll see.

Birds in Chinatown

In Copley Square
Boston's Finest
The T Train
Inside the Train
My hosts, Janice and Laelia
The other hosts Soggy and Hazel
Ronnie and Bumper At Her Studio
Fenway Park
Artist Outside Of Park
With Ronnie at Sox GameForest Hills
Jamaica Pond