Heatis Envy: Don't Be a Hater

I just rolled in this morning after a red-eye back from California. I was there for a family issue (not vacation), but it didn't hurt that I inadvertently picked the one week where my home town had at least a cumulative 12 inches of snow, with temperatures so fah-rrrrreeeezing people were whimpering as they ran from their parked cars into the grocery store and back.

And as much as I've hated it when friends or family down south or to the west taunt me with their lazy, hazy, crazy summer-like temperatures during our coldest days, I must confess I fell right into the trap. I bragged. I was obnoxious with my superior heat. I reveled in the knowledge that I was wearing sandals and sunning on a terrace when I knew that my pals in the east were shivering, booted, padded, gloved and hatted. I liked knowing that we could - think of it! - jump in the car in the morning without defrosting the windows.

But know this: I got my comeuppance. While I was enjoying the warm kiss of San Francisco climes, a pipe burst in my house in Maryland. Yep. That's one of those things that offer perfect "gotcha" symmetry, and in my youth such a cosmic smack-down would have been met with my mother's standard phrase: "God is punishing you." I am chastened by the experience, and I swear I won't show anyone my tan lines this week, lest more pestilence rain down on me. But if you want to see my daily pictures of the 70+ temp on the outdoor thermometer, just let me know. What could possibly happen?

© 2015 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

Bless Me, Father... and Could Ya Hurry it Up?

I'm what I call a recovering Catholic. Don't ask. Just know that I fully appreciate the tradition with which my younger years were shaped, I'm glad I was initiated into the important early rites of the religion, and I sure benefited from all the memorized catechism and lengthy sermons when I became an English major and was able to find the Trinity symbolism in record time in all the major works of literature.

So because I'm a bit of a fallen-away type, please excuse me if I'm coming late to this ashes-to-go phenomenon. I'm amazed! Tomorrow's Ash Wednesday, and if I want to go Episcopalian (known as "Catholic Lite – same rituals, half the guilt!") I can find a drive-through where I can get ashes and free coffee (a bona fide ash-'n-dash) and still get to my destination without missing a beat! Does that mean that we can soon compress confession into a McDonald's-type lineup, where we speak our sins into a receiver and by the time we get up to the window, we are handed our penance and just drive on out? Will they have "value confessions" we can pick from posted as we weave through the line, so if we don't have our thoughts together, or we don't like the sins we came with, we can just pick a set that seem like a fit?

I'm going to give that some thought while I'm waiting for my hot coffee and ashes. (I sure hope that adjective is in the proper place, or I'll have to write another post from the emergency room.)

© 2015 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

I'll Take Natasha and Boris Any Day

Remember just about a week ago, when I was waxing poetic about my new office? Well, it's still perfect. I still love it. But something has come to my attention since taking up residence in my new space.

I was hearing, now and then, the pitter-patter of little feet above me, and since no small children made their way down to my office at noon to ask for tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches cut into strips, I had to investigate. My attic isn't one of those pull-down contraptions with rickety steps up to a jumble of forgotten treasures. It just has a little baby door at the top of a carpeted staircase. So innocent and homey and Alice-in-Wonderlandish. Until I saw the fluff of insulation peeking out from under the door.

I banged on the door like an impatient UPS driver to make sure there was no movement behind there, and then opened it a crack. That's all I needed to see the utter destruction of poor Alice's secret hidey-hole. I slammed it shut, called the trusty pest control company everyone I know uses, and confirmed what I thought (squirrels) with one exception: I have since learned that mine were FLYING squirrels. Like Rocket J. Squirrel, of Rocky and Bullwinkle, only I don't think mine were wearing that cute little aviator cap or the goofy smile. But I do think they have homes and clothes and wigs and probably cars and boats made out of the insulation from my rafters, because there sure isn't much of it left up there.

So say what you will about the evil Natasha and Boris - and for that matter, the perpetually magic-trick-challenged Bullwinkle - they are okay in my book, because they have very politely stayed out of my home. But to Rocky, that dastardly scoundrel, I offer his favorite oath, "Hokey smoke!" Not cool, brutha. You owe me some insulation, and some restored childhood faith in cartoon characters. But if I can only have one, I'll take the insulation.

© 2015 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

How I Found Feng Shui Quite By Accident

Author Christopher Hitchens said, "Everybody has a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay." What does he know? Mine's giving me contractions, and they're coming every month now. This baby wants to be born.

Early this year, I made a big pronouncement: I'm going to tackle my book in 2015. After all, I already have my author photo ready. Now I just need about 65,000 words, charmingly rendered and placed in the proper sequence, and I'm done.

But first, I needed to re-seat myself, home-office-wise. My traditional office is in a great loft space in my house; I have always been able to work there easily. But for some reason, it didn't feel like the best setting for a book project in addition to my business writing. So I picked a spare bedroom, one that has been the repository for all things without a resting place, that was quickly heading toward becoming an extra closet. I'm pretty sure Jimmy Hoffa was in there at some point.

One week and one new desk later, I am cheerfully ensconced in my fresh and sunny office. Seriously: the paint color is named "Sunny." (These things aren't coincidences, you know.) It's got great natural light, and good juju. It has even been blessed by Peaches, the walking definition of feline bitchiness who doesn't like anything, but who has joined me to sleep hours away every day on the big sage ottoman I almost gave away—but which, of course, fits perfectly in this new place. (These things aren't coincidences, you know.)

It feels incredible. I can't wait to be in here in the mornings, and I haven't been this kind of happy in a very long time. And then I realized: I feng shui-ed myself with my office and I didn't even try! I have created a harmony between myself and my environment that is completely organic. (Aha! I've been wanting to use "organic" in a sentence unrelated to spinach, and I have done it!) 

So now I have my author's picture, and the perfect place to write, and if I can find a way to work this blog content into my book, I only have about 64,600 words more to go. (These things aren't coincidences, you know.)

© 2015 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

MRI Yi! Yi!

"Do you have metal implants, tattoos, allergies, asthma, claustrophobia?" Those are just a few of the questions Earnest, my technician, asked before my MRI this morning. (Let me take a moment here to say that I always LOVE meeting a guy named Earnest. Because he usually is.)

But back to the subject at hand: Who isn't claustrophobic when they put a rack over your face and pack you in a tube and tell you not to move or it will take longer than the 30 minutes they promised? Not only that, even if you just had a bio break 20 seconds before you were put in place for imaging, all you'll be able to think about is how much you need to pee.  (Even though Dr. Oz says that from the time you think you have to pee and when you are really in trouble, it's about two hours, give or take. But that's no comfort in an MRI.) Oh - and your hands will surely fall asleep. And your nose will itch like crazy.

It's REALLY LOUD in there - that's why they give you earplugs; the squishy kind that look like candy, only don't be fooled! They're not! (And yes, I know about open MRIs, but my doc needed the type of sharp image you can't get from the airier version of the instrument.) It's kind of like being put in a big metal trashcan, and part of the time someone is drilling concrete right next to it, and part of the time it's being zapped with a taser, and from time to time your trash can is being pounded with a rubber mallet. In fact, I bet Earnest was sitting in his little control room during my procedure pressing buttons labeled "TASER" and "MALLET" and "DRILL" just to make the time pass. Because it's probably a pretty boring job to put someone inside a tube and just take a regular old x-ray.

At the end, Earnest gave me a CD of my images, similar to the way a couple would give you the favorite songs from their wedding as a party favor. Maybe I'll even make a label for it: "Anita and Earnest, January 20." I'm supposed to bring it to my doctor, but I might slip it into my laptop before then and take a look. It will be like me looking under the hood of my car - I know there's something wrong there, but I'll never find it.

First things first, though: I'm going to the bathroom, and then I'm going to scratch my nose as much as I want to.

© 2015 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

Who Will You Call?

Around the middle of last year, a friend called with the sad news she had terminal cancer, with only months left to live. And then she said something that went straight to my heart: "I wanted to tell you that I loved knowing you." It was one of the most powerful and caring actions I've ever experienced. 

She made it easy for me to tell her what she'd meant to me as well, and though it might have been an awkward conversation for some, it was anything but that between us. She said she had lived a wonderful life and had been, and was, happy. She was one of my first role models in business, and though we were on separate coasts and didn't see each other often, ours was a friendship that picked up readily when we connected. It made me wonder who I would call if I were told my life was going to be shorter than I expected.

I have friends who make me laugh, who make me think, who startle me with their kindness, who are remarkably intelligent and talented, who have educated me and learned with me, without whom my life would be less colorful and mindful. And now I know: I will call them all. 

Thank you for this lesson, my sweet friend, for teaching me how to say goodbye with grace and peace and happiness. And let me say this once again: I loved knowing you, too. 


© 2015 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

Why I Need Two Suitcases

It's fun to get away. I like the simplicity and predictability of a hotel room, or the interesting not-mineness of someone's guest room. I have even learned not to take 20 pairs of shoes when I travel, which was a big change for me, requiring hours of therapy and a Zappos patch to ease out of the addiction.

But even after kicking the shoe habit, I can't stop taking two suitcases with me on a trip. And here's why: I keep thinking I'm going to live the life I don't lead at home out of my luggage on the road. I take a friend's manuscript I've been meaning to read and comment on. I take that four-step skin system I bought from my dermatologist that I stopped using after a week or two, so I can get in the habit of doing it. (I don't. Ever. I'm stuck at the cleanser stage.) I take the yoga video I don't watch in my own living room but somehow think I will pop into my laptop and pose with, quietly, in someone's home before they wake up.  And a few other things that guilt me out in my own habitat and give me the sense I'm making progress if I bring them with me. Oh, and since there's usually a little space left, a few more pairs of shoes. (Recovery is a process, after all.)

Well, I'd better go. It's time to pack again, and I have to figure out how to get my sewing machine and fabric in my second suitcase. You know, to make those pillow covers I can't get to at home.

© 2015 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie