Pet Monologues

Pet Monologue has been memed. Knowing the creator, it’s an honor.
That said, we pass it along!

pet monologue’s message

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In a Bottle across the Blog Ocean. Leave a message in the sand or on the bottle. Write anything you wish. Be a pirate or a poet. Serious or silly. Anonymous or not.
What message would you like to send out to the universe?
Mimi’s Message In a Bottle Meme
1. Compose a message to place in your virtual bottle.
2. Right click and SAVE the blank graphic below

Hi Mimi!
3. Use a graphics program of your choice to place the message on the picture
4. Post the Message In a Bottle meme and your creation on your blog along with these rules
5. Tag a minimum of 5 bloggers - or your entire blogroll - to do the same. Notify them of the tag.Your virtual bottle will remain afloat in the blogosphere ocean for all blogernity (That’s a Mimism for blog + eternity.)

Mimi says: “ADD your site to the Mr. Linky list and place your blog’s name and url in a comment HERE TO LET ME KNOW YOU’VE COMPLETED THE MEME. I will add it to the master list of message bottles. Email mimiwrites2005 at yahoo.com if you have questions.”

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Mimi’s tags…Sandee at Comedy Plus, Dating Profile of the Day, Bond’s Big Leather Couch , Crazy Working Mom, Coffee2Go, Hammer , Julie’s Jewels and Junque , Lyn’s’ Last Minute Life , Speedcat Hollydale Page, Gill’s Jottings, Lee at Tarheel Ramblings, 1 Million Love Messages, A Word In Edgewise, Airhead55, Turnbaby, Bud at WTIT, Are We There Yet? And Miles To Go Before We Sleep, Anndi’s Luggage, Anyhow Blogs, Asara’s Mental Meanderings, Matt-Man, Carver’s Site Or Is That Sight?, Colloquium, Daisy The Curly Cat, Desert Songbird, Diary of A Heretic, Dixie’s Heart and Soul, Dr. Anonymous, Duward Discussion, Everything and Nothing, Frank’s Honk ‘n Hollr, Friday Night Fish Fry, Hahn at Home, Happy Tiler, Here Comes A Storm, Home In France, I Am Woman, See Me Blog! It’s a Blog Eat Blog World, Julie Pippert, Late Bloomer Boomer, Meowers From Missouri, Miss Maggie Moo Talks 2 U, Empress Bee, My Life Is Murphy’s Law, My View Of It, Nick’s Bytes, Nola Dawn, Odat Mumbles, Olga The Traveling Bra, Queenie’s Random Ramblings, Screw Perfection, The Starr Ann Chronicles, Trav’s Thoughts, Wading Through My Stream of Consciousness, Wonderland Or Not

Speedcat tags…Catsy Carpe Diem, Catsy Carpe Diem Blogs, Out of the Blue, Getting a Grip on Grace, Just Love the People, Shiphire Dustbin, Daily Widget Blogspot, Amel’s Relm, From My Desk,Rusin Roundup,WorldGolf Blogs, TravelGolf Blogs, Ping Golf Clubs, Thess!, Inspiration 101, A leaders Journal, Our Journey to Forever, Pinoy World, TOP PICK,SEO GURU’S TIPS, DAILY HEROES, EARN ONLINE PINOY, Dat Curious, My News Reviews / Pinoy, Google News, Josey’s Silly go Lucky!, Dat Money, Franchise Talk, Stacie’s Blog, Learn How to Blog for Money, Paradise Philippines, Pet Monologues, Deep in the Forest, No Direct On, The Painted Veil, Monday Morning Power, Sugar Queens Dream, Kanani/Easy Writer, The PoliStew Cafe, Ev Nucci,Nascar Site, Worn Out Woman, Drowsey Monkey, Frog Bog, R Playground!, Cat’s are Crazy, Polliwogs Pond, Blog Elf, Ordinary Folk, Julie’s Blog, Mighty Morgan, Erina Hart’s Into the Inkpot, Robin Lee Sardini, Blue Izzy, Outta the Coop / the Chick, Observations fro the Back 40, Backwoods Drifter, Ms. Q!, Olga the Traveling Bra, Bobby’s Revellian, LA Times Pressmen, Traci in the Swamp, A Nice Place in the Sun, Pinoy Biker Rural Adventures, Grottynosh Life / Colin, Aaron Cook, Golf Girl, Mariuca, Sarcasm Abounds,Santa’s Mail Box, USA Trends Today, Laketrees / Kim, Predator Press, Mad Tomatoe!, Netster, Tarheel Ramblings, Six 4 Paula,

Pet Monologues is tagging…
10,000 birds
a blog around the clock”
amori, poesie, arte, chat by hanna
andy beard
animals as friends
ascender rises above
a side of cartoons
at your service
balloon juice
bark bark woof woof
blog d’ellison
catsynth
chicago history
comments from left field
diane clancy
diva marketing
dragonheart’s domain
echidne of the snakes
euro puppy blog
fishalicious
himalman
into the inkpot
instaputz
joy ito’s web
kiwipulse
lady banana
lady omega
laketrees
life from a cat’s perspective
mercury rising
michelle allen
michelle wrighton
mind of mog
movie cat
my only photo
monologue blogger
musings at windyridge
nature shows and dreams
nocturnal blogger’s introspect
only in the apple
perfectly parker
petopia
poems4children
ravens roads
rennyra’s terella
rosehaven cottage
saving lives one at a time
sisu
tacjammer
texas oasis
the dog log
the dreaming tree
the green blog
the greenbelt
the green fingered photographer
the laidback buddhist
the modulator
the poor mouth
the reality of what humans do
theriomorhp
the scratching post
the social custom manifesto
the velvet violin
the webrunner
watermark

We came across two provocative commentaries concerning time, a very limited quantity these days, and the power of story telling:

1) A book introduction…

Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don’t do that so much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us live a life worth remembering. Despite the awesome powers of technology many of us still do not live very well. We may need to listen to each other’s stories once again.

Most of the stories we are told now are written by novelists and screenwriters, acted out by actors and actresses, stories that have beginnings and endings, stories that are not real. The stories we can tell each other have no beginning and ending. They are a front-row seat to the real experience. Even though they may have happened in a different time or place they have a familiar feel. In some way they are about us too.

Real stories take time. We stopped telling stories when we started to lose that sort of time, pausing time, reflecting time, wondering time. Life rushes us along and few people are strong enough to stop on their own. Most often, something unforeseen stops us and it is only then we have the time to take a seat at life’s kitchen table. To know our own story and tell it. To listen to others people stories. To remember that the real world is made of just such stories.

Until we stop ourselves or, more often, have been stopped, we hope to put certain of life’s events “behind us” and get on with our living. After we stop we see that certain of life’s issues again and again, each time with a new story, each time with a greater understanding, until they become indistinguishable from our blessings and our wisdom. It’s the way life teaches us how to live.

When we haven’t the time to listen to each other’s stories we seek out experts to tell us how to live. The less time we spend together at the kitchen table, the more how-to-books appear in the stories on our bookshelves. But reading such books is a very different thing than listening to someone’s lived experience. Because we have stopped listening to each other we may even have forgotten how to listen, stopped learning how to recognize meaning and fill ourselves from the ordinary events of our lives. We have become solitary; readers and watchers rather than sharers and participants.

Taken from “Kitchen Table Wisdom” by Rachel naomi Remen, M.D.

2) A newspaper article…

Steven Bochco has seen the future of television, and it doesn’t include the twenty-somethings marketers covet.

“It astonishes me to the extent that young people don’t watch TV anymore,” said the Emmy-award-winning writer and producer of groundbreaking dramas “Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law” and “NYPD Blue.”

Those young people still watch some television, of course, but at the same time they check out profiles at Facebook, watch last night’s opening from the “Daily Show” on YouTube or engage in multiple instant-message chats.

It’s a trend called “content snacking,” and it is wreaking havoc among traditional media providers. So, like a showman of another era, Bochco’s going to where the audience has focused its attention: the Web.

His newest project, Cafe Confidential, launches Monday at video Web site Metacafe.com. The premise is “deceptively simple,” he said. It is just someone in front of a camera telling a story. There are no whiz-bang graphics or background mood music. The only embellishment: hand gestures and facial expressions. And while the roughly two-minute clips lack the emotional punch of Bochco’s ensemble television dramas, they are far from dull.

Bochco simply lets the young adults talk. They chat about their first sexual experience, their weird families, the times they had too much to drink, and how they’ve screwed up at work.

“For the last 10 years, there’s been a pretty consistent reaching out to the entertainment community to do something” on the Web, he said. “What always struck me about those conversations is that they looked at old models of TV shows,” like a 30-minute sitcom or an hourlong drama.

“That’s not what young people are looking for today. They are looking at the Internet for a distraction. In between homework assignments, they may say `I’m going to spend five to 10 minutes on the Web.’-”

“It’s a sea change,” said Bochco of how open people have become online, calling it “a significant cultural shift. People are willing to tell you anything.”

If there’s one aspect of Bochco’s project that intrigues him besides the willingness of ordinary people to be so open, it is that the videos reflect a tradition the Internet is not good at preserving: storytelling.

“I grew up in a generation of storytellers,” said Bochco, born in 1943.

For more details chicagotribune.com ©2007 Chicago Tribune. Story by Eric Benderoff.

Poet and Storyteller

Passing for Normal. Stories and Poems—published 2004 (available for purchase)
Navigating the Night. More Poems and Stories—published 2005 (available for purchase)
CD—Sounds Like Lucia—produced 2007 (available for purchase)

Back to Creation. Free performance. Who was Harvey Crane. Washed up.

Lucia Blinn’s poems have been described as savvy, wry, truth-telling, hilarious, and, occasionally, rueful. Her stories are a rich stew of characters and images that stirs the reader’s or listener’s own remembering.
A quote on her first book: “Lucia writes of things you know then shocks you into really knowing them for the first time. Suddenly, what’s funny or sad, or annoying or powerful, feels fresh and newly observed.”

Her program runs 30-60 minutes, and books are available for signing.

In a previous career, Lucia was a creative director for advertising agencies in Chicago and New York.

Performances:

WBEZ/Writers’ Block Party/returning guest
Brandeis Book & Author guest/Sarasota 2007
Chicago Humanities Festival/2001
Guild Complex Gwendolyn Brooks prize winner/2003
Nat’l Foundation for Jewish Culture Literary Salon/2004
Heartland Spa—Gilman, IL/returning guest
Longboat Key Art & Education Centers
Bookshops and charity events in Chicago & Florida

For pricing/availability on books or CD contact: luciablinn@aol.com

South Beach, Florida. We were lucky enough to be in town for the 31st Annual Art Deco weekend.

ocean drive and 10th with over 50 antique cars

albino phython

collins avenue and 14th

collins avenue and 13th

Here is an official release: Art Deco Weekend—1/18 thru 1/20. Just when you thought South Beach was only for Eurotrash tourists and low-rent hip-hop clubs, culture comes to town: Art Deco Weekend is here, still running strong after 31 years. The weekend celebrating architectural history kicks off tonight with the Light Up the Night parade at 7:30 on Ocean Drive, and continues through Sunday.

Live music hits the stage at 13th Street, and there’ll be food all over the place, historic films screened at various venues, and a street fair lined with booths selling the same tchotchkes you have seen every single year.

Photo by Elvis Santana

But there are some new events this go-’round, including the first annual Little Miss Broadway Deco pageant—with a $250 prize! And in case there aren’t enough reasons for gay men to flock here, there’s the Arf Deco Dog Promenade, where attendees are invited to dress their pooches in Broadway-theme costumes. Do ruby slippers come in dog sizes?

All that aside, people really come to Art Deco Weekend for two reasons: First you buy the limited-edition souvenir poster, and then you take one of the fascinating history tours through the city. There’s so much going on it’s best if you just call 305 672 2014, or go to artdecoweekend.com to look at the schedule yourself.

mango’s dancers on ocean drive and ninth. we digress. check out Arf Deco Dog Promenade

New year’s resolution? Get your butt in shape. Animal inspired—of course.

Dog scooter. Produced in Bend, Oregon

Healthy body. Healthy mind. Fitness for man or beast. PM sees a lot of these Kanga boots lately and I need something that takes the strain off of these old bones. Check them out at kangoojumps.com

A Bend, Oregon manufacturer—possibly extreme terrain cyclists capital of the world—sent us info about their new product—for big, hearty animals only! Watching joggers run their companions on hot days or pulling the master who is on rollerblades raises a red flag. Play close attention to your animal, they would run themselves to death for you. dogpoweredscooter.com Read the rest of this entry »

I am snug as a bug in a rug working at home today. On the lakefront in Chicago with the sun shining and no wind and the lake keeping the air temp a warm 5 degrees F. The walk to get my vente triple non-fat white moca at Starbuck’s is treacherous.

Andi, thank you for the photo today. Timing is everything.