AynE

Just a Note: My 11 year old daughter ended up in the ER with a heart rate of 180. She has had a couple more "events" and we are supposed to be getting the heart monitor today, October 26. Because of the stress and concern of what is going on with Maya, I have been a little distracted lately and not on Swap-bot as much. Hopefully things will get back to normal for us soon. I appreciate all your prayers.

I write what I call fractured fairy tales or fables. I also write poetry and have been published in England although I live on an island in the Gulf of Alaska. The first five minutes of the movie the Guardian shows where I live or the reality show, The Deadliest Catch is based out of Kodiak.

I am first generation British American. I am married with three children, a grown daughter who lives in Chicago, one in who just graduated High School and one in elementary school. No empty nest for me!

I also have a Belgian Tervuren named Griffin, sort of a large, gorgeous, long haired, pointy eared dog with a great sense of humour. He is very laid back so if they need a dog for the local theatre they call on Griff. He actually played Sandy in the local production of Annie! He has one very bad habit though, he likes to goose people. Since he weighs 90 pounds he can get a good lift on most folks, then he likes to sit back and watch them react. I warn people about him, and if someone catches him sneaking up on them and shakes a finger at him then he sort of grins and gives up but oh how much fun it is when he actually connects! At least he thinks so. I also have a Pomeranian, named Mrs. TiggyWiggle, (Tiggy for short) who thinks she is a large, gorgeous, long haired, pointy eared dog and has no sense of humour and is full of her own very important self. She runs with the big dogs though through forest, meadow and beach so she is really a tough dog. Being a bit on the large side, 18 pounds and probably most of that is hair, probably helps her be a real dog.

I also have 4 cats, a tortiseshell named Madelyn Rose, she came to us as a declawed lady and has absolutely no fire power. But she has the vocabulary of a dock worker and is not afraid to use it. I am just glad I am not fluent in cat because I don't think Rosie is a lady at heart. A Siamese/Himalayan cross, Sweet Clementine who is the scourge of the neighborhood and takes delight in tormenting magpies because as she tells me, they started it first! We recently added Ivy Lucretia Lovestone, a petite cream coloured half Persian lady who does not like baths but loves cuddling and Sebastian T. Wrecks, a large, auburn coloured, long-haired ex-street cat with a out of control catnip addiction. He is actually the same size and colour as Tiggy, and Her Royalness is not amused. Sebastian is also affectionate, playful and has the strangest purr I have ever heard. He will be purring and then suddenly have a pop like a backfiring engine but sometimes I think he does it on purpose.

Crafts: Paper, I love the feel, smell and sound of paper. I also dabble in watercolors, chalk and pen. As well as altered books, collage, stamping and needlepoint. I love to make altered composition journals and altered art booklets. It justifies all the bits and pieces of paper, lace, broken jewelry and fabric that I have collected over the years.

Colours: Anything French Country or French Provencial. I love creams, blues and yellows for decor, but in my wardrobe tend towards deep garnet reds, browns, blues, greens and creams. I like muted colours of any type. I am not a big fan of neons or brights, although I have a friend who is trying to reform me. I lived through the 60's and 70's, incense burning, bell bottomed, long haired, flower powered hippie, once was enough. Lots of fun, but enough!

Things I like: I have collected China Cat figurines since I was 9 years old. I also collect teapots, creamers, etc in the shape of English country cottages. I love daisies, sunflowers, violets, irises, lilacs, hollyhocks and English Cottage Gardens. I like dragonflies, moths and bumblebees. Crows and foxes are also motifs that I like. My favorite artist is J.M. Strudwick who is a contemporary of J.W. Waterhouse, I also love Beatrix Potter and Mary Engelbreit illustrations. I have a friend who climbed over a railing and got a picture of David's butt when she was in Italy, so I am not opposed to Roman sculpture (yes, she got invited to leave the museum)

Favourite Stuff:

Books: M.M. Kaye, James Michner, C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Neville Shute, Jane Austen, Diana Galbadon's Outlander series. I collect children's books and love Hans Christian Anderson's stories and the Andrew Lang Fairy Tale Books. Grimm's Fairy Tales are just that, grim. The Diary of Anne Frank pierces my heart. Favorite poets are Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Kahlil Gilbran. Yes, I know, my tastes are rather eclectic.

I read the dictionary because I love words and their meanings and I read encyclopedias for the miscellaneous and other bits of knowledge and facts that are tucked between the covers. My kindergarten teacher told my parents that I was full of bits of general knowledge. Probably so...

Music: I play guitar and flute, my favorite song is Solveg's Song from the Peter Gynt Suite by Edward Grieg. I listen to Israeli folk music. French Cafe music. Celtic music. World War II era music as well as Sing Along with Mitch Miller. I also like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Judi Collins and Rod Stewart.

Movies: Australia, Chocolat, Neverwas, The Kingdom of Heaven, Under the Tuscan Sun, LOTR, Chronicles of Narnia both of them, Elizabeth, Chariots of Fire, The Last Samurai, old 30's and 40's musicals as well as WWII flying movies. My father was a glider pilot for the RAF so I was raised on stories and movies like the Battle of Britian and 12 o'clock High. My dad thought Spam and ketchup sandwiches were wonderful, blech :-{ !!! My favorite actor of all time is Danny Kaye. My favorite actress is Katherine Hepburn.

TV shows: British TV, All Creatures Great and Small, Rosemary and Thyme, Foyle's War, The House of Elliott, Inspector Lindley, the Sharpe's series (Sean Bean, Napoleonic Wars, good music and great scenery, what could be better) and Robin Hood, yet I never miss StarGate SG1 or Atlantis and I think Eureka is smart and funny, so I am not totally living in the past.

Edibles: My Nan lived in Yorkshire and every holiday season she would send boxes filled with chocolate and candies from England, Callard and Bowser butterscotch and licorice toffees, Cadbury chocolates and Smarties as well as Ginger marmalade and Lyle's Golden Syrup. I also have a weakness for maple sugar candy and MacIntosh apples. I love Chai tea as well as some herbal teas.

I love the smell of lavender, lilacs, violets, cinnamon, ginger, tarragon, basil, rosemary and oranges. My favorite spice is Nutmeg and I have an awesome recipe for nutmeg cake.

I don't like flowery perfumes or candles, it has to be the real thing or I get bad headaches but for some strange reason I have this incredible collection of candles shaped like fruit, I cannot explain how it happened but I have apple, pear, apricot, plum and even avocado shaped candles. One of those things that you don't realize you are doing until you start to list it on Swap-bot...

I am addicted to old costume jewelry, rhinestones and all, especially brooches/pins and dangly earrings.

Things I don't like: Put-down humour and mean spirited humour is not funny to me and can make me cry when I see or hear it, not because it offends me but because it is usually directed at someone and hurts them. I am not a modern kind of lady, nor do I like anything dark, gory, goth, scary, evil or mean type of things. My mother loved Edgar Allen Poe and so does my oldest daughter, but I am more of a Beatrix Potter/Pollyanna kind of gal. May have something to do with the fact that my parents took me to see Vincent Price in the Pit and the Pendulum when I was six years old, scarred (scared) me for life...I have a hard time watching Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds without major burying my head in the pillow sessions and I do not watch Stephen King or any type of horror movies.

Other stuff: I like Victorian emphera, Art Deco, Arts and Crafts style. I do like Frank Lloyd Wright's Praire Style because it is simply breathtaking in it's elegant simplicity and dream some day of decluttering and living in a Japanese style, clean-lined, austere, ordered house, not!

I love the alphabet in all types, fonts and sizes. As well as words, new words, old, fallen from use words, forgotten words, words 25 letters long in different languages. Did you know that one of the prettiest sounding words in any language is l'arc en ciel? It's rainbow in French, amazing, n'est pas? The prettiest sounding word in the English language is cellar door, it is a lyrical fluid sound, even if the meaning is not quite as pretty. Although a cellar door surrounded by vines and flowers could be very pretty visually.

Buttons, wooden spools of thread, and old game pieces, broken jewelry, stamps, pictures cut out of magazines, bits of ribbons, fabrics and lace. Silk embroidery thread.

Pictures of doors and windows or pictures of scenes with empty chairs in them. I like to imagine me, sitting in them, looking out over the beach, or garden...

I grew up in a small town in Western New York that, in my opinion is the prettiest town in America, beautiful landscapes, incredible architecture, just enough of each season, the one I like best being from late August through late November because of the fullness, richness and sense of completion during that time. Piles of pumpkins and baskets of apples at roadside stands, red maple leaves, Canadian geese overhead, huge orange harvest moons rising over the hills.

I miss western New York so much...ah well... to quote Joni Mitchell... don't it always seem to go that we don't know what we got til it's gone...

Because so many of you have asked or wondered where you could read one of my stories, I decided to put one of them on my profile. I may change them out every once in a while.

The Rescue - A Modern Fable

"This is not the way things were supposed to happen!" Zel fumed to herself "It is totally unfair. I did everything I was supposed to. I read the manuals, all of them from Lang's Fairy Tales, Black straight through the spectrum to White. I memorized all the relevant parts of the Brothers Grimm."

Zel checked her face in the mirror. Rosebud mouth - check. Limpid blue eyes - check. Pert, upturned nose - check. Milk white skin - check. Long golden blonde hair - check and check.

Zel recrossed her ankles, pushing the carefully packed valise to one side. She had considered thoughtfully what to pack - her best gown, suitable as a wedding dress, rolled and folded into a small bundle along with appropriate jewels and slippers. The valise was small enough to be fastened to a saddle without hindering either riders or horse in their flight through the forest.

"There was only one thing missing," Zel thought glumly to herself, "Prince Charming."

"But all the books said that if the damsel in distress was nice to the old crone at the well, cheerful while scrubbing floors, kind to the evil stepmother/witch and loving to all bears, frogs and birds then eventually the bear would shed its skin, the frog would change and Prince Charming would appear in all his broad shouldered, cleft chinned, dreamy eyed glory.

So far - zip, zilch, bupkis.

Zel had been waiting patiently in this forest without seeing or hearing bear, frog, bird or horse hooves coming to her aid. Her only visitor was the stereotypical evil and wicked.

E.W. showed up every Thursday afternoon like clockwork and every time just chortled to herself while gloating, "So my pretty, you are still here", and looking pointedly at the valise. E.W. brought the week's shopping, spent the regulation time brushing Zel's hair and then left saying, "See you next week, most likely."

It was very frustrating, Zel thought running her hands through her hair. "For two cents, I'd..."

Next Thursday when E.W. arrived groceries and hairbrush in hand she found a nicely lettered note dangling from a hair ribbon.

 Dear E.W. and/or P.C.;
  Got tired of waiting, I rescued myself.  You can keep the hair.  

                             Rapunzel