Today's Mantra

I pledge to see all challenges, joys and sorrows as the ground from which I grow. All things are interdependent, temporary, and empty of inherent existence. When it comes time to part, I will try to look back with joy. One cannot hold onto anything forever.

Chocolate Moose

Morris stood there swaying on his gangly legs, munching on whatever tasty morsels he could find. Occasionally he would cock his ears and toss a completely uninterested glance in my direction, mostly at my pathetic whistles. Typical male, eh? Well, serves him right to serve him up with chocolate. There ain't no better way to eat moose. Let's be quite frank here, most things do taste better with chocolate. Melt it and then drizzle it lightly or thickly, add cream, because most things taste better with cream too...and yes, of course, it has to be real. Someone really was dreaming when they dreamt up Dream Whip and thought they could pass it off for the real thing. Well everybody, let's hear it for Morris! Mmmmm Mmmmorris.

*Thanks for being such a good sport, fella. You're pretty yummy. Don't worry...if they don't catch on, we'll post the real pictures later.*

Chocolate Mousse

1C Sour Cream
1C Whipping Cream
1 1/2 tsp unflavoured Gelatin
2 Tbsp Water
2 Tbsp Milk
1/4 C Brown Sugar (firmly packed)
1/8 tsp Salt
6 oz of Chocolate Morsels (of course you can estimate...I personally like using a rich dark chocolate)
1 tsp Vanilla extract
2 Egg Whites

• In large bowl, combine sour cream and whipping cream. Refrigerate.
  
• Soften gelatin in water by heating.
  
• Heat milk with half the brown sugar, and salt until the sugar dissolves.
  
• Add chocolate morsels and continue heating until melted (be careful to not overheat...you may want to melt your chocolate first and then add to your milk/sugar mixture).
  
• Beat egg whites. Gradually add remaining sugar. Beat until stiff.
  
• Stir 1/4 of the beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture until blended.
  
• Fold in remaining egg whites.
  
• Whip cream mixture until stiff.
  
• Add chocolate mixture and fold until well blended.
  
• Spoon into dishes and chill until set.

Our Children Will Accuse Us

How much responsibility will we bare? Will we be able to forever get away with ignorance as a defense for our inaction? Should we not demand more for ourselves? For our children? The following is a short preview for the film "nos enfants nous accuseront." It's in French and English and subtitled. Heartbreaking, but worth the watch.

Blog Personalities?

I just ran my blog through Typealyzer a tool that calculates your Myers Briggs Type Indicator based on the content of your blog. So I'm guessing, that in actual fact, this is my blog's personality and not necessarily mine. We do often adapt a different persona in different situations, do we not? I suppose, however, at some level, this is who I am, at least in part.

I suspected that perhaps the "Typealyzer" was basing its analysis on my blog's front page. So as not to take things for granted, I took it upon myself to run a few different pages / years through the analysis. They all came up the same, so I guess I'm pretty consistent in my writing, either that, or this is actually my personality. I haven't yet decided. In any case, Typeaylzer declared me to be: ESFP or extroverted, sensing, feeling, perceiving. Hmm... So here you have it folks...me the performer. Run your own blog through and let me know how it all pans out.

ESFP - The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

Here are a few other characteristics of the ESFP:

• Lively and fun
• Live in the here and now
• Often find themselves in the role of peace maker
• Observant about other people
• Spontaneous and optimistic
• Love to have fun (who doesn't?)
• Likely to be practical, but hate structure and routine
• Have an appreciation for aesthetic beauty

Crazy Making

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

~Winston Churchill

Life Over 100

Perhaps some of you have already read this, but it is too beautiful not to share. This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News.

In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. I hope you laugh as much as I did.

---------------------

My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car.

He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.

'In those days,' he told me when he was in his 90s, 'to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it.'

At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
'Oh, bull!' she said. 'He hit a horse.'

'Well,' my father said, 'there was that, too.'

So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.

My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. 'No one in the family drives,' my mother would explain, and that was that.

But, sometimes, my father would say, 'But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one.'

It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.

But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.

It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts,
loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.

Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother.

So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. 'Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?' I remember him saying more than once.

For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.

Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage.

(Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)

He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.

If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests Father Fast ' and 'Father Slow.'

After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: 'The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.'

If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along
to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, 'Do you want to know the secret of a long life?'

'I guess so,' I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.

'No left turns,' he said.

'What?' I asked.

'No left turns,' he repeated. 'Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.

As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.'

'What?' I said again.

'No left turns,' he said. 'Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three right s.'

'You're kidding!' I said, and I turned to my mother for support 'No,' she said, 'your father is right.. We make three rights. It works.' But then she added: 'Except when your father loses count.'

I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing.

'Loses count?' I asked.

'Yes,' my father admitted, 'that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again.'

I couldn't resist. 'Do you ever go for 11?' I asked.

'No,' he said ' If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week.'

My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90.

She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102.

They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)

He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.

A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, 'You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred.' At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, 'You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer.'

'You're probably right,' I said.

'Why would you say that?' He countered, somewhat irritated.

'Because you're 102 years old,' I said.

'Yes,' he said, 'you're right.' He stayed in bed all the next day.

That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night.

He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said:

'I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet.'

An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:

'I want you to know,' he said, clearly and lucidly, 'that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have.'

A short time later, he died.

I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.

I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or because he quit taking left turns.

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.

So love the people who treat you right.

Forget about those who don't.

Believe everything happens for a reason.

If you get a chance, take it.

If it changes your life, let it.

Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.'

Lost Generation

This really is quite brilliant and gives us all reason to hope. We can put faith in those who will come after us.

Domination

An abuser only wields power over his victim as long as she agrees to comply with her silence

The Hired Help

Bentley has been after me for a formal introduction for quite some time now, so I figure I'd better oblige. Who knows what his humour would be like if I put it off for too much longer. So without further ado, I present Bentley, all bear, one hundred percent German mohair and glass eyes. Bentley, say hello, I'm sure that everyone is more than happy to make your acquaintance. If you somehow missed it, Bentley is a bellhop and if you ever stay chez moi, he will be more than happy to attend to your luggage. But really, he would rather shoot the breeze while slowly sipping coffee or better yet scotch.

Bentley is quite fond of Miss Maddie, which I am sure you all know is short for Madeline. He would love to parade her around for you all to admire, but she’s a little camera shy. In any case, she’s taken off for an afternoon of shopping with friends and will swing by Oso Negro on the way home for some coffee and cake. Yes, I know, it really is about time I do a post on the famous Oso Negro, and I’ll be right on it soon enough. In the meantime, I will leave you all for some friendly chitchat with Bentley. .

What Killed Die Katze

Curiosity becomes a heavy, heavy load, too heavy to hold, too heavy to hold. Do you really want to know? How much can you bear? Do you really want to know? How will you use what you find out? It will eventually all spill out. Curiosity becomes a heavy, heavy load.

Peaceful Meditations

All things in moderation with the exception of love and laughter; one can never have too much of those.

Things I Have Learned

"Air on the G String" will always sound dirty to grade 7 boys.



Isn't wonderful to know that there is always someone who can change your perspective on the way you see things?

The boys have a new appreciation for Bach. And I will never quite look at "Air on the G String" in quite the same way.

Imperia

Es ist alles eitel...

Oh, Madame Konstanz with your coy smile,
What does go on behind those steely eyes
You stand guard in the harbour
Looking out across Bodensee,
Flaunting your sex for one and all to see
A noble stance, for a mere courtesan
As you raise your hands with pride,
Naked prince in right and pope in left
Such raw display of sweet dominion over power.

Faith

Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is
still dark.
- Scandinavian Saying

When I was growing up, my Mutti had a cleaning lady, Wilma, who came once a week. She was a good Dutch woman and an impeccable cleaner, probably the only one who has ever cleaned to my mother’s standards. This woman could make absolutely anything sparkle and shine and I am sure dust quivered in her shadow, we certainly did. She was just that kind of woman.

Thursday evenings were an inevitable stress for us kids as we had to “tidy” before Wilma came to clean, because you see, Wilma only cleaned. She was not there to pick up after us. She was very strict about that. Those were her rules. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was to get in the way of her cleaning.

The tension on Thursday nights was such that at one juncture one of my sisters, in the midst of a meltdown, took a purple wax crayon and in her scrawly grade one printing wrote, “Wilma, I just can’t take it anymore,” on the inside door panel of my mother’s antique washstand. Those were sentiments that I am sure we had all shared at one point or another, but luckily for us, my mother found this message of distress before Wilma ever happened upon it. If she would have, I am not quite sure what would have happened, but I am sure it wouldn’t have been good. We probably would have been down one good irreplaceable cleaning lady and sentenced to numerous years of cleaning penitence. But that’s not really what this story is about. You see, when Wilma started, she made it very clear to my mother that this was not a long term affair. She would only clean for my mother until her husband returned. He had left her some years previous, but she was adamant that at some point he would come to his senses, change his mind and they would be reunited. Well, weeks turned into months and months into years, but just the same, as if it were her mantra, she would say, “You know, I won’t be here for long. My husband is going to come back to me and when he does I will quit. I’m only cleaning until my husband returns.”

I know many of you are probably now thinking that this is a story of some highly delusional and probably obsessive compulsive woman, and it certainly might seem that way. Wilma was our faithful housecleaner for a good ten years or more, just as faithful to us as she was to her mantra. Then one day, just like that, out of the blue, she phoned my mother and said, “I won’t be cleaning for you any more, my husband has just come home.”

Apparently it only takes the faith of a mustard seed to move a mountain. At present, I’m working on trying to move molehills while attempting to remember that thoughts become things.

The Nitty Gritty

It was just a matter of time...but I've been caught. I was caught and tagged by Pandave over at Odi and Amo. Now it's up to me to carry on the game. Here are the rules:

The Rules:
- Link to the person that tagged you.
- Post the rules on your blog.
- Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
- Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
- Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

1. I am a perfectionist. I believe that we are born with our personality traits. I was certainly born with this one, although I've worked hard over the years to try to mellow it out...but essentially it is who I am. My mother tells me that when I was a baby and learning to talk, that I could talk long before I would utter a word in front of anyone. She had placed a mirror in my crib and I would sit there and practice as long as I thought no one was watching. As soon as anyone would enter the room, I would stop. When I began speaking I essentially had a very good command of the language. I had the same struggle in Quebec when I was first learning French many years later. I hated the thought of making an error or talking like a toddler. Eventually I had to ask myself what was the worst thing that could happen was and just get out there and do it. Still, I tend to over do things. It's a bit of a stress.

2. I am also just a bit obsessive compulsive...another trait from birth. I have always loved books and I am told that from about the age of one, I would gravitate to my parents' beautiful coffee table books, which, of course, were at just the perfect height for me to reach. I would choose a page and then rip just the tiniest little bit...not even a millimeter. Sometimes I'd have more than one book going at a time. Every day, I would go back to those books, to those specific pages and rip just the tiniest bit more. It would take months for the rip to develop into a much larger tear that would eat its way to the centre of the page. When I would start on a page, my parents told me that they were never sure it was actually a rip, perhaps just a snag from wear, but when they would go back to those same pages after a space of time, that very same rip would be decidedly longer. Yes, I know what you are all thinking...I had a lot of issues. I was probably born with them. I am sure that Freud would have had a heyday with me.

3. I, and everyone in my family, have memories that go back to about the age of two or three. These aren't fabricated memories or things that I've heard people talking about and then adapted as my own, these are my actual memories. Memories from when I was younger are sometimes more of a visual memory and at other times I remember the situation or event because I remember specifically what I was thinking at the time when the event happened. I am always astonished when people tell me that they can't remember anything before the age of ten. That's a whole decade that is lost or forgotten. I simply cannot imagine.

4. I have never been able to sleep in moving vehicles, especially cars. When I was young, my family would drive to the coast several times a year to visit the grandparents. It's a long trip through numerous mountain passes. I had visions of the car driving off a cliff so I would force myself to stay awake and keep watch. I recently recounted this to my father who excitedly informed me that when I was a baby, I was in a vehicle with my mother who missed a corner and drove the car over the bank. We both wondered if this incident had somehow imprinted itself upon my cellular memory so that even though I don't consciously remember the event, somehow my body did.

5. I am a night owl. Always have been, probably always will be. There were at least a couple instances when I was young where I simply forgot to go to sleep. No, this was not when I was at university pulling all nighters, although that did happen much later. At sleep overs, I was always the last one awake and usually the first one up. Now, although I still tend to keep rather late hours, don't find it quite so easy to get up so early. I have considered that perhaps I was supposed to have been born in a different time zone, not sure how I would actually confirm that though.

6. Last but not least...I talk to myself a lot...or sometimes to people who aren't there. Okay, I usually don't do this when other people are around, or if I do, it's internal dialogue. I'm not an outright freak, at least not yet.

Now, who to tag, who to tag...eenie, meenie, minie moe, I choose Cheryl, JBelle, Fede, Pinks, Mone, and VE.

Risk

Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
~Helen Keller

Mysteries

Planning

There are some roads that we perhaps would never have ventured down if we knew where they were going to lead. At times there are unavoidable completely unpredictable twists. However, I still believe that the best way to get to where we are going is to know our final destination. After that we can decide how we are going to get there. Oh yes, it is perfectly normal at times when we are half-way there to decide that we'd rather be going somewhere else. We might do an about face or venture down some off the beaten path. Sometimes we are in a hurry and will hop onto the autobahn, and at times, we'd rather take the scenic route and enjoy the journey. But however we choose to get there, we must first know where "there" is.

moon rising over Kootenay Lake

~ Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.

Peter Drucker

House Keeping

Dear fellow bloggers, I can't believe how incredibly patient you are with me and that I haven't received more scolding. It's now been almost three weeks since "Lie Detector," and somehow I still haven't confessed. It's not that I didn't have intentions of telling you before now, but somehow life just kind of got away on me and here we are now, three weeks later.

So, the moment you've all been waiting for....drum roll please. Yes, that's right...Lie Detector revealed. Well, the truth is, that it was indeed the last statement that is not true. You know, the one about chocolate being my biggest vice. Yes, I love chocolate, but my biggest vice? Come on, how does one even measure that? A chocolate snob I would have conceded, yes. But vice? I don't even eat chocolate every day. I once had a roommate in university who needed chocolate every day, at least one bar. Ironically she was with me when I was flashed in front of that convent. Chocolate might be one of her vices, but certainly not mine. I rarely if ever touch the American stuff, too waxy and often sickly sweet. I do like the Swiss chocolate, the dark stuff preferably and it's even better if they are truffles. I did find a bar embedded with dried cherries and I quite enjoyed that. Yum. But biggest vice? I don't know. I'm going to have to ponder my vices for a bit. Perhaps that will make for another post if I get on the "confessions" train.

As for the rest, yes, indeed, I did get those Arab men to dance for me, scarves and all. I know, hard to believe, but when I was younger, I was able to convince many a people to do many a thing. The train, yep, happened right here in Nelson. How could I not get on? How often does an opportunity like that come around? The tornado? That was simply one sampling of a bizarre string of events that plagued me that entire trip. Workshops, planes, those places are fertile grounds for interesting events and misinterpretations. Life is an adventure. sometimes you just have to run with it. Chocolate, it's kind of like wine. I only take it if it's the really good stuff.

Lie Detector

I was recently tagged by Pandave over at Odi Et Amo. The rules are as follows:

• Post the rules before beginning
• List eight random facts/habits about yourself and post to your blog
• At the end of the post, choose eight people to tag and list their names
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and to read your blog

Now, because I am sooooo good at following rules, I’ve decided to throw in a little twist to make this a little more interactive. One of the things I list is going to be false. Your job is to detect the lie. These are more stories / experiences rather than facts / habits. Oh, well. Feel free to ask me any questions about any of the stories. Good luck.

1. I once convinced a few Arab men to put on some traditional Lebanese music, pull out some scarves, and show me how the women in their country danced. At first they were a little apprehensive, but eventually they all got really into it and I think actually enjoyed themselves. I, of course, was highly entertained.
2. Once while taking a shortcut along train tracks, a train came by. I moved to the side and waved at the conductors and then pretended to hitchhike. Much to my surprise, the train stopped and the drivers asked me where I was going. I hopped aboard and was taken to my destination. The traffic waiting on either side of the tracks was somewhat stunned when the train stopped (not a stop) and I climbed out. (As a side note, there are very few passenger trains in Canada and not a lot of stops)
3. A number of years ago at a conference down in Vancouver, I was facilitating a workshop called “Survival Activities to Add to Your Bag of Tricks.” When I arrived at where I was to present, I noticed that there was a typo in the workshop title. It now read: “Cervical Activities to Add to Your Bag of Tricks.” Of course it provided for a great opener. The room was packed and I had to question why there were so many men in the audience. I figure that either they thought they were at a medical conference or they simply stopped in to see the demo.
4. When I lived in Quebec City, I used to take a short cut beside a convent to get to the university. One day, right in front of the convent, I was flashed (I always found that juxtaposition quite ironic). I laughed at the guy and continued on.
5. I used to travel a fair amount for work. One day I was on one of those aqua velvet flights to Toronto. You know, those first flights out in the morning filled with men in suits and the permeating smell of after shave. Well, a nice suit sat down beside me and he smelled goooooood. I was thinking that the fellow I was with at the time could use a new cologne. So I turned to this guy and innocently asked him what he was wearing. He gave me a cheeky smile and said, “Actually, I’m going commando.” Me, never having seen that Seinfeld episode quipped back, “That’s great, cause I sure would like to get me some of that.” I’ll leave it to you to imagine the expression on his face. (And he thought he was shocking me!)
6. In Banff, there is a great restaurant that does a wicked fondue. While there, there was a couple at the table next to us, obviously foreigners. The person who I was with and I were having a friendly debate trying to guess what language this other couple was speaking. I said Swedish, my friend thought perhaps some Slavic language. Eventually we asked them (it was Swedish) and after a bit of discussion back and forth, we invited them to join us for a drink. After a fabulous dinner and much merry making, we asked for the bill only to be told that another customer had asked to pick up our tab and had paid our entire bill. This person was no longer there so I couldn’t even thank him and to this day I have no idea who it was.
7. While traveling in the mid-west, I was either chasing a tornado or it was chasing me. The air became very calm and all bird chirping etc, eerily ceased. Then there was a huge siren. I had just hopped into my rental car and put the key in the ignition seconds before the alarm. Having never been exposed to such things, I initially thought that I must have triggered an alarm on the car. After pressing all the buttons and searching high and low to no avail, I pulled the key out but the alarm continued. So I hopped out of my car and walked around it wondering why the alarm was much louder outside the car. Eventually it dawned on me that “oh, this is a tornado warning.” The siren stopped soon thereafter and I started on my merry way. By this time evening was starting to fall. The rains started, cars were pulling under overpasses and stopping. I continued on, but decided it would be prudent to turn on radio. I was heading straight for the tornado. I eventually got turned around and went back until I found a decent hotel…almost at my starting point. That was enough of an adrenaline fix for me for quite awhile.
8. My biggest vice is dark chocolate. Not the cheap stuff…good quality, usually Swiss, German or Belgium. But I recently discovered another company that does an amazing bar with dark organic chocolate and dried cherries. Mmmm….

Now, if the following would be so kind to play along, consider yourself tagged:
The Fool over at Relationalisms
Fede over at Strayed, Uncorrelated Thoughts
Jillie at Nurse Scratched
Dawn over at Colours of Dawn
Sirdar over at Sirdar Inc
Chani at Thailand Gal
Tracy at Mom the Minx
JBelle at Notes from the 'Kan Ewa

If you've already done this meme, that's fine. Anyone else who wants to play along, let me know, the more the merrier.