Some of my photography

Hello Visitors -

For those of you not from Milwaukee, you might enjoy this video I made of photos and video, many of which are from the little big city that I know and love -- Milwaukee.

There are also shots of San Diego, Arizona, Northern Wisconsin and Italy.

You can watch it here by hitting play or see the video on youtube at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyAqoZ0Yz5w

Sunday in the cafe

A cup of Starfire tea steaming
with the fragrance
of someone on my mind
still steeping

Someday soon on my guitar

I teach myself the notes to this KT song

...And as I put my words away
The flow slows
See this penny in the stream
Pickin it up is easy

Follow the shape of it
Jump in
Swallow it whole
Jump in

Even though I know my way around
Possibly there's something that I found
Holdin on for findin' solid ground
Someday soon, someday soon

Strangely comforting

There is a reason some are not in my future. I can deal. All I can do is just be myself and experience the positive energy from those who have so much to share.

There are angels that have come to into my life recently, I know that now. In the most painful of times, I am grateful and comforted with their love and strength and pure kindness. I know that I will do better than survive. I will be ever more stronger and kind for them when they need me most.

Cleaning House

The dirt is out now

it’s on the street

courage shakes up the old rug and

discards hidden broken glass underneath

shards of what perhaps was never whole

and in the shine of the hardwood

my reflection

to no longer hold my breath

or sweep away arrogance

open the window for fresh air, light

taste the wind if I want to

scrap old notions

fix a broken frame

to hang the true picture you took down

dispose of your powerless daggers

recycle pure kindness of new friends

you can’t turn that dial on my radio

its sound resonates in my kitchen

where I’m cooking up fresh beginnings

clear away cobwebs and

eliminate your muddy footprints

across my welcome door mat

the spirit you can no longer snuff

sparkles with optimism

in a room of my own

-- Julia

Word for the day

This word just seems to fit today

Insidious

adjective

1.

intended to entrap or beguile: an insidious plan.

2.

stealthily treacherous or deceitful: an insidious enemy.

3.

operating or proceeding in an inconspicuous or seemingly harmless way but actually with grave effect: an insidious disease.

Happy Birthday Fia

3 years ago my baby, you entered my world! And our lives were changed forever. You are a smart and funny and gorgeous little person.

I love you.

The H word

Hate less, live longer. ~Ivy Culler

Like the song says

Love love is a verb
Love is a doing word

Help the people of Haiti

Have you donated to the Haiti relief fund yet?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/13/help-haiti

Something resembling gumption

Love this! (especially the very last scene)

and have I mentioned...I absolutely adore Jack Black? Why? Because he's so genuine.

Do it yourself

Recent lesson: Yes I can do a lot myself! I get kind of a rush when I fix something or figure something out that is mechanical or electrical. If it doesn't require too much strength, I'm up for the challenge.

And now, I'm envisioning a new space with things to put together, new pictures to hang, furniture to arrange. Hmmm which leads me to thinking that I better buy a cordless drill and hammer and refresh myself on the art of feng shui so I'm ready for when the time comes.

If I may borrow the words of Tori Amos for a moment: I'm not like other girls you've known, and yes I do believe I'm worth it.

Confuscious say

My very recent fortune cookie: Only the person who risks is truly free

The road not taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. -- Robert Frost

Looking for truth...

...where there is none


I am 32 flavors and then some, I'm nobody but I am someone, someone...
I'd never try to give my life meaning by demeaning you
And I would like to state for the record
I did everything that I could do

Curiosity

Like the song playing here says, in 6 words:

It takes courage to enjoy it.

Driving in October Sun

I was stunned by such beauty today. I try to look at things with fresh eyes which is essentially the thing (I think) that keeps me feeling young and alive. The bottom photo is something I see every day on my drive to work -- some days in rain (very romantic), sometimes in sun and it always looks inviting to me. It makes me want to walk the path and then discover a secret garden way beyond the trees...

Friends with nice surprises

Thanks to a friend who pinged me about it (thanks Brian), I watched a live broadcast of U2 at the Rose Bowl tonight. And it was sa-weeeeet!

opening with Breathe...

Every day I,
have to find the courage
to walk down
into the street,
with arms out
gotta’ love you can’t defeat
neither down or out
there's nothing you have
that I need,
I can breathe
Breathe now

I couldn't have said it any better

Messages of peace

I've recently checked out the sound of Fox Elipsus. In a similar vein as John Lennon, Elipsus claims to bring songs of peace. He is currently visiting my city.
http://www.elipsus.net/

Them Crooked Vultures Announce Debut Album at Long Last

Them Crooked Vultures Announce Debut Album at Long Last

Read more by clicking on the link above!

What's in a name?

"That which we call a rose,
by any other name would smell as sweet"

Since more than one person has commented recently on my name (on this blog and elsewhere) I thought I would clarify. My birth name is Julia. My first family (parents, sisters) call me Julie which is not my preference at all but hey what ya gonna do? My co-workers call me Julia. My close friends call me Jules, Jule, Julia, J, J-ness, tini, tiny, foodie, word nerd and dork.

Oh and I also go by mama, mommy, mom and "God Mom" -- as in, "God Mom! Why can't I go? It's not fair!" : )

waiting for the light

The tea bag sticks to the side of my cup
and a kitty caresses my kneecap, happy
I am home
again.
The weather of the day - it can't decide
whether to be sunny or gray
still I feel a lightness of being
even without the warm promise of May
and the way in which a wet
tangerine colored leaf clings to my window
thinking it may get tossed to the wind
or if not
linger awhile there, waiting
for the sunlight to return

A poet is the shaman of the heart

I went to a poetry reading on Friday night and heard some very amazing work. Poets who put themselves out there with bravery thrill me...they are such gifts to the world. I enjoyed every second and felt that preciously fleeting but sweet inspiration. I'm going back soon and will read my own stuff too.

an excerpt from one (untitled) I heard Friday night:

...Winter melts, she shys away,
quiet like the silence a dying star makes.
I'm a jailbird to your music,
a criminal in your prayers,
I watch you when you're sleeping
even when you're not there...

-- C. Reiss

The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to ocean -
holding the curve of one position
counting an endless repetition

Robert Frost

Crumbs

And you speak of signs and wonders
But I need something other
I would believe if I was able
I'm waiting on the crumbs from your table

On the menu this week

This week I will make Cashew Chicken and Pork Tenderloin with Morel-Calvados sauce. I have never cooked with Morels before - should be fun and interesting. And Calvados... mmm I can't promise I won't drink some :)

I have made some discoveries recently -- I am preferring French cooking lately and I think it's because of the buttah...it's my weakness.

I'm craving long rides on my bike like never before but the weather isn't cooperating so much. And man, that sun goes down fast now.

For some odd reason, I've lost weight without doing anything different in my normal workouts. I like it when that happens.

I've added a couple of tunes by Til Tuesday - an old band from the 80s. I'm really digging Aimee Mann's voice. She's doing some good stuff on her own these days.

There is Another Sky

There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!

-- Emily Dickinson

Honing in

As the days shorten, and the nights grow long, I consider goals to accomplish before the snow falls. One of those few important goals is to maintain my focus on finishing the book editing. Focus focus. Get er done!

I must finish it because I have something new and very fun that I really want to write! No, I'm not telling...

Bedazzled

The boys were brilliant and magnificent in their glory last night.

They brought us a spectacular show of rock, funk, and even some hippy hoppy groove under a gorgeous Chicago sky and a four-pronged, 90-foot-tall canopy they called “our spaceship.” In fact the high-tech mega stage was flippin' unique and a monstrosity that couldn't be denied. They brought us the newly loved songs, the beloved old songs, and songs they have never played before. I was taken by the rare acoustical version of Ultraviolet, elated with Elevation, touched by Where the Streets Have No Name, in awe with No Line on the Horizon, moved by Magnificent and Surrender. For an encore, they played ONE and the crowd, for a short while...seemingly was. There wasn't one of the many others I didn't like.

The weather was perfect! I stood the entire time to honor the occasion, dancing and singing to the sounds of four men who brought me inspiration and joy for over two decades of my life.

One thing that never escaped my mind as I enjoyed the moments last night was that I will drink this all in, every last moment and every song with passionate love, for it is unknown if this is the last time. I don't, nor shall I EVER, take ANY of it for granted.

U2 360 Tour

Only 4 more days!
Only 4 more days!


So excited to see the dudes on stage and in CHICAGO! I'm so flippin' excited I'm flippin.

So of course, U2 tunage takes precedence lately.

Raspberry Bavarian Cream

This girl is in a cooking and baking mood! Besides my thoughts of home baked bread, home made soups, ratatouille, shrimp scampi, crab cakes and what not - I have my sights set on making a gorgeous and velvety Raspberry Bavarian Cream - which incidentally was featured in the recent foodie movie, Julie and Julia.

I'm part Bavarian so it only makes perfect sense, right?

only kindness makes sense

As I say adieu to a kind friend, I thought of this poem. The poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, actually read it once in front of me. I never forgot it.


Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the
Indian in a white poncho lies dead
by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night
with plans and the simple breath
that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Musicians of late summer

There really is nothing like late August. I speak of the orchestra of cicadas, crickets and katydids.


The stillness of that summer buzzing: it has the power to transfix one sitting on a porch in the hot dandelion sun or silver spoon light of a new moon.

Gymnastics for the tongue

Of course I am a word nerd. I love words nearly as much as some other fun past time that doesn't involve words at all.

OK, I enjoy words nearly as much as I enjoy...

nibbling, munching, devouring


...fine...







...FOOD! hee hee


Speaking of words, this is a cool one:

Sibylline
adjective

1.	of, resembling, or characteristic of a sibyl; prophetic; oracular.

2.	mysterious; cryptic.

Surprises

So I had lunch with an old friend from college today. Well, to be clear, he actually stopped over at my table and asked if he could join me. :)

He used to be kinda geeky and he had his own computer service company back then. Now he's married, and not surprisingly - even more successful. It's interesting how people change and sometimes, for the better.

Word to those young single women who read this blog (and YES you know who you are) -- don't discount those smart, geeky ones. They might surprise you.

Diverse music, all the time

There are many reasons why I really dig the radio station 88.9 Radio Milwaukee.

One reason is because this station makes it all about the music (and some cool local community/artist stuff) -- but mostly music.

When I turn to some other stations (in the morning especially) they are usually talking and it isn't music talk. No, those other radio stations are often babbling about TV shows, Hollywood, celebrities, and what worse - more drama queen stuff pulled by some arrogant drama queen football player, who shall remain nameless and uncelebrated on this blog. No thank you - I've heard and seen enough of all that jive.

Thanks 88.9 for making it all about what I turn the radio on for in the first place.