Noury's Creative World…

I was going through some of the many lists I have been making for a long while already.

To my surprise, most of the things on the list of “Things to Do” I realized I have accomplished.  This always happens.

In my “Dreams” list (remember I do not like the name of a “bucket” list), even that one, I have accomplished most of the things, but I keep on adding to that list on, let’s say, a weekly basis.  Once a dream gets accomplished, a new one needs to replace that one.  Besides, sometimes our dreams of six months ago, become obsolete, because we are changing and growing intellectually on a daily basis.

One thing leads to another.  Learning French…I am considering the possibility of going to France to stay there for maybe six months.  That’s not that far-fetched anymore, because we are becoming an international village.  A friend of mine just returned from Germany, and she told me she is going to sell her home, rent a smaller apartment and go to Germany and stay there for six months of the year.  She has relatives there, so there is a powerful reason. Maybe that will become an opportunity for me to go and visit with her and get to know another European country.  Need to travel while I can move my legs and my arms and go to the bathroom when I want, not when it happens on you.  You know what I mean.  Things happen.

Well, the power of lists is like listing your dreams and objectives and watching them happen.  But there’s a secret to that.  You must read your list on a daily basis, so your neurons remember to scan anything and everything related to your dream and make it more obvious to you.  Sometimes we miss a lot, because we are not focusing on anything in particular.  Thereby lies the power of making lists.  And of course, you need to take action!

So…it was today…20 September, 2011…a day of checking my “Dreams and To Do” lists.

Your Happy Contessa

“I’m making a list of things I must say for politeness, and goodness and kindness and gentleness, sweetness and rightness:
Hello
Pardon me
How are you?
Excuse me
Bless you
May I?
Thank you
Goodbye
If you know some that I’ve forgot,
Please stick them in your eye!”

From “Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein, American writer, poet, singer, screenwriter, cartoonist and author of children’s books.  25 September, 1930 – 10 May, 1999.

Today, during the process of doing my mundane chores, I stopped at a red light.  There I pondered about the pesky little cameras waiting to suck it to a careless driver and to the ones that are careful also.

We live in a society where the state derives pleasure from setting up its citizens for failure.  It does not matter what it is.

Food, environment, taxes, even after you die, there is more manure to deal with than you will never imagine.

So while I was at the red light, one of my favorite songs came into play from my very selectively made c/d.  Right there and then, my mood changed.  I became content, singing along the words (about being in love so beautifully) and even I tried to dance a little as much as I could with my hands and arms and head.  I was in a very, very good mood.

I thought, to heck with the state, the taxes, the traffic cameras, the FDA and all of them better known as big brother, big sister and big mama too.  Suck it to them!  Am I getting too loose with my language?  If so, my apologies.  Just feels good to send the manure back to them, even if it is in my mind.

I feel better already!

So…it was today…19 September, 2011…a day of reckoning to the higher authorities, whomever they may be.

Your Happy Contessa

“And that,” put in the Director sententiously, “that is the secret of happiness and virtue-liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny.”
– Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 1

Just yesterday I learned something that has left me surprised and disappointed, but really, after the initial shock, I am back to being my old self.

I have been training myself not to let anything, too good or too bad to surprise me or shock me.  After six + decades, what gives.

I learned, thanks to my ever investigator friend, that a food chain, one that is very famous for being an authority in organic food was packaging organic frozen vegetables from a country in the far East, the one that is making most of our housewares, clothes, and everything else, and making the vegetables look from the image in the plastic bag as if they were a product of the U.S.   What a let down!

I will not be caught in high suspense surprise if one day a baby will come out of the mommy’s womb with scanned numbers printed on its butt and a label that would read “Made in China.”

Going back to the supposedly “organic heaven,”  the food in the salad bar and food that you can purchase ready to eat (hot) were or are not organic.  So much for my good feeling whenever I went to eat to give myself a treat at this organic authority.

So is life, what we see is not necessarily what we get.  But using logic, isn’t that the case with everything, even human relationships.  So…in conclusion I have decided to give myself an extra half hour to READ labels and make sure (or give myself the illusion) that I am picking up the right product.  Wishful thinking!

So…it was today…18 September, 2011…a day of feeling the little wooden knife stabbed on my back once again by “them.”

Your Happy Contessa

One definition of chemicals:  “Noxious substances from which modern foods are made.”  Author unknown.

Today the element of magic has been eluding me all day.  This is the corner of my residence where my neurons meet the keyboard and the brewing of words takes place on a daily basis.

It is a very special corner.  I feel I am surrounded by the muses that maybe have been knocking on my Florida door recently.  I really do need some inspiration, because the well is running dangerously low.  As you can tell, I am writing about nothing much.  Can you tell I am just making time to see if my sleepy neurons come to my aid and help to make this a decent post for the weekend.

Trying hard as I am doing right now, nothing is happening.  Maybe the probability is that I have NOT studied my French lessons all week and now cramming time has come.  My French is getting mixed with my English, Spanish and the silent language of stress speaks.

I have questions for the teacher, but I am embarrassed to email her so late to do that.  My sister told me to tell the teacher that I didn’t have time to study and just leave at that.

Can you imagine an old woman, who voluntarily went and paid some good money to learn how to speak one of the most romantic languages in the world, would look to this young teacher.  Probably I will lose all credibility and respect.  I may have to stay late tonight and tomorrow night conversing with myself in French.  Parlez vous Francais?  The verb du jour is parler.  Je m’appelle ________.  At least I know how to say…my name is___________.  You should be so happy,  because you are learning French with me.

Blessed dear muses…welcome back, if even for just one second.

353 words…So it was today…15 September, 2011…making it by a thread.

Have a lovely weekend!  I will be back on Monday, if I make it through my French class.

Your Happy Contessa

“The crisis of yesterday is the joke of tomorrow.”  H.G. Wells, English author, better known for his works in the field of science fiction.   21 September, 1866 – 13 August, 1946.

It has happened again…the pleasure of an unexpected visitor.

What do you think it is…the water or just the alluring Florida name.  This time is my baby sister.  I am nine years older than she is and she is visiting from the Dominican Republic.  Do we have a lot to catch up.  And in Spanish!

But dinner for her was a hamburger, fries and a soda.  So unvegan…and so unDominican.  This is becoming harder by the minute.  Everything and everyone that surrounds me is trying to keep me a carnivore.  One of my Face friends told me he was having a juicy steak.  Yeah, right.  Enjoy the hormones and the cloned corn that those poor cows have to eat.  No grass apply to the steaks that are readily available from most groceries stores.

My sister bought chocolates (milky ones that I do not eat), cheesecake, ice cream, all kinds of cookies, and here I am chewing on mostly grass and some fruits.  But frankly, I feel good about passing up all those goodies.  I don’t try to save her from all those arteries clogging material.  She is younger and can take it, and besides I do not want to spoil her having a good time with the oldest sister.  This is about having a fab time without trying to discuss our aging issues.

What aging issues?  We are chic and look really good.  At least that’s what we tell each other.

Oh, the blessings of sisterhood!

So…it was today…14 September, 2011…a day of enjoying the privilege of having a fun sister,  practice Spanish and remember good younger times.

Your Happy Contessa

“One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.”  Francoise Sagan, French playwright, novelist and screenwriter.  21 June, 1935 – 24 September, 2004.

Yesterday was a day of venturing out…I walked around where I reside.  Kind of apprehensive, because I was by myself, no walking partner and no stick to keep intruders away from me.

Went out before even having breakfast, to get it over with.  Nice going…taking a picture here and another one there…

The gardens are beautiful, so many old trees, pond with ducks and their ducklings, and also saw something moving under some dark spot of the water, but was able to see only bubbles, and after a while, I decided it was better not to be too inquisitive.  Gators do swallow contessas, you know.  They don’t know better.

Then in the evening I decided to go to my first HOA meeting to meet other people.  It was a long meeting and when we were leaving, my nine decades old friend and I, one of my neighbors, probably mid-eight decades invited us to ride with her.  She had driven her car.  Probably no more than 100 steps.  To humor her we decided,  why not.  That’s when the fun began.  My ninety something decided she was going to ride in the back seat, so I could keep an eye on the eighty something doing the driving.

The passenger’s front seat would not move, so my 90’s friend, in her skinny jeans, just decided to squeeze into the back seat.  Just imagine.  The seat belt almost sliced her neck off.  But you know how “we” older chicks are.  We just push and shove ourselves into places that only a razor blade would be able to.

So we rode for a few seconds and then the time to come out from the back seat arose.  We were laughing so hard that we thought she may have to sleep on that back seat.  But another pushing and shoving and there she was, out.

La vida loca.  I am living the crazy life with all these wild women.  I cannot wait to get into my nineties and find out how much crazier my life is going to get.

So…it was today…13 September, 2011…making it through my sixties and anxiously awaiting for my nineties.

Your Happy Contessa

“Getting older is not for wimps.”  The baby boomer generation.

This is harder than I had envisioned.  I forgot…there is no vegan fast food…it is either you cook it or is back to eating unwanted hormones, fat and all kinds of other unmentionable stuff.

The good thing is that when I cook, it lasts for at least three days…that’s the same thing that is not good…you eat the same thing for three days in a row.  I have been looking at recipes, because between my being lazy and not liking to cook and having to cook or starve, the option is obvious…I like to eat…a lot.

This was the end result of my steaming veggies and making brown rice.  It does not look that hot, does it?  But it keeps me chewing and fooling my stomach that something is going down the pipes to make it feel full.  I had some onions, for the first time in over 20 years, and they don’t taste that bad…it is the aftermath that made me be onion free zone again.

This was last Saturday’s lunch, after my French class.  Class went well…my aging neurons are somewhat slow to catch on, but it is only two students.  A young woman in her twenties and myself.  That’s where the problem may be.  She is fast and furious and I am slow and not so on the ball.  But, teacher is a nice young French woman and very understanding.  I think we covered half of the entire course just last Saturday.  Man, I am going to be fully fluent in French by probably next weekend, it she keeps the pace.  My brain may explode, but at least it will be pretty, in French.

I better hit the books and study.  I can not get younger and faster, but I can become a nerdy French student.  That will do.

So…it was today…12 September, 2011…trying to be vegan-a-la-French.

Your Happy Contessa

“C’est la vie!”  Some smart French person.

This was a phrase in the final episode of one of my novelas.  It caught my attention and I hope nothing was lost in the translation.

What a beautiful thing to say to the person you love…Of course, the moment has to be absolutely the right moment and in the right frame of mind to say something like this.  I have had moments where I felt that way, but there were other moments when the total opposite was the feeling.  I guess if you are a normal human being, you have moments of total elation and moments of total frustration.  Cannot imagine a couple being in total love and admiration all the time.  Shrink material, please.

Love is an interesting subject.  Different kinds of love for different kinds of people around you and for different scenarios.  Can you transmit love to someone you have never met?  I think so.  Love does not have limits and frontiers.  Love is beautiful energy that is constantly surrounding us, but the choice is ours to embrace it or put it on hold or totally disregard it.

When we were born, we were the essence of love.  Just look at a baby with its innocence and purity.  That’s ultimate love.  I believe that when we touch a baby, that’s the closest that we will ever get to touching the love of God.

So…it was today, 11 September, 2011…feeling the energy of love surrounding me.

Your Happy Contessa

“Love, compassion and understanding are the answers to all.”  Your Contessa

In gratitude to all the innocent victims and their families for their sacrifice…

I am going back to school…to continue learning one of my favorite languages…French!

This subject matter is on my list of things to do…five languages before I evaporate into energy.  Spanish, English, French, Italian and Portuguese.  I am on two and a half…same amount to go.

As Martha Stewart once said “When I am through learning, I am through.”  I will always be looking for something new to learn, to do, because it makes my life more interesting and very important, I meet interesting people!

I will be attending classes at the Alliance Francaise where I will be receiving my lessons from a native French woman.  Can’t wait.

I will keep you posted as to how my first lesson on Saturday went.  With that being said, I must say “A bientot! (See you later, meaning, next Monday).

Make this a peaceful, and lovely weekend.

So…it was today, 8 September, 2011…a day to start getting my nerves ready to go back to school.

Your Happy Contessa

“We need time to dream, time to remember, and time to reach the infinite.  Time to be.”  Gladys Taber, American writer.  12 April, 1899 – 11 March, 1980.