NCIS

What can I say about this T.V. show? It's not the stories, which are like cop shows you've seen before, it's the characters.
Abbey, who sleeps in a coffin and wears mostly black?
DeNoso, who knows old movies and asks, couldn't it be like this movie, what these criminals are doing?
Gibbs, whose steely stare makes his underlings stutter and stammer? Why does he hit his people on the back of the head, is it loving or just shaming or just abusing?
Kate, was she too beautiful and so replaced with an Isralei terroist who can't drive and whose mistakes with the English language make some of the best lines on television?
Is Denoso really the most beautiful man you've ever seen, or is it that he knows he is beautiful that makes it so funny when the women he works with cut him down to size?
Is Abbey a genius?
Isn't Gibbs proof that a much older man can be sexy?
Can't we let Ducky keep talking and rambling on like some academic history professor?
Is De Noso imitating Carey Grant? I think so.
Is there a better show than NCIS? Naw......

Jackson Browne

One of the benefits of getting old is getting those great recordings at a bargain price. I recently picked up some Jackson Browne and found him as great and sweetly sad as ever. What could ever compare to "Fountain of Sorrow" or "Jamacia, Say You Will".
I really love piano, and somehow songwriters who play the piano seem to write the songs I love the most. Screaming guitars I never liked, though a good rock'n'roll song I love. Us women from the sixties know quite well that rock sometimes reflects badly on women, we just never cared. I'm thinking now of the Rolling Stones. From "Stupid Girl" to "She's Under my Thumb" to "Bitch" to "Stray Cat', you're talking songs to make a feminist take up arms. It's rock tradition, sort of. I like the Stones. As Jagger sings in Wild Horses,
I know I've dreamed you
A sin and a lie
Anyway, Browne is one of those who respects women, which makes it easier for me to like him. He expresses himself as a sensitive man who is simply aware, not feminine himself. I heard a new song recently, (New to me)
I'm not sure what you think you see, I'm hoping you'll still know that it's me
Oh, if I'd only known
What your heart costs
Call it a loan
or a debt that I owed, or a bet that I lost

Cooking

I was taught how to cook by my husband after we were married. He showed me and then I was supposed to do all the cooking. I found this unfair. Why was this my job? He, after all, was fully able to cook. Anyway women are more likely to mop the floor and cook than men and I'm not sure I really want things to change and every man wearing an apron but I feel faintly abused. Anyway, my mom was Southern but couldn't make biscuits. Biscuits are a necessary part of meals, especially breakfast in the South and my mother's lack was due to 8 sisters. This made it difficult for her to even get into her mom's tiny kitchen and even watch her mom and sisters cook anything. I found biscuits to be made by my husband in an unconventional way. I failed many times at making biscuits, I made odd rocks and strange textures and flat little pancakes before using this method. I thought to share it with you.
Take self-rising flour and throw away your baking powder or save it for that banana nut bread. Add whole milk and stir until it is between thin and thick, anything between. Add one big blob of Crisco shortening, about 4 tablespoons. (Hmm....flour is about 2 cups I think) As you can see, I hate to measure anything. I don't know why, it seems so complicated and too much trouble. Melt shortening in a cast iron skillet, (why cast iron? It's traditional I guess) Pour lard into flour and milk mixture.
My biscuits were very bitter before, baking powder lends a bitterness for me otherwise. I know this is not how you are supposed to make biscuits.
However, if I do it the proper way, by slicing pieces of shortening with 2 knives into the flour until crumbly textured, I can make pie crust very prettily, (even if it is 2 inches thick) Cobbler however is easier and everything taste better soaked in berry juice or peach juice. Very forgiving.
Well, that is my cooking tip for today.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention. Sometimes, by complete accident because I never make biscuits that taste the same twice, I get this light and fluffy and delicious pastry that is ridiculously wonderful. I remember how my Aunt Lena Mae made wonderful creations out of flour, buttermilk and vegetable shortening. Her biscuits were so amazing she made them on huge cookie sheets and still had no leftovers. A well-made biscuit is better than baklava, better than chocolate eclairs, better with a homey goodness that tastes like childhood.
I think it is when I get the milk exactly right and when I stir very little. It's like a suprise to open up my oven.
I never know what I'm going to get.

Nancy Makin to appear on Oprah

Nancy Makin 51, once weighed 703 pounds. She is 51 years old and from Michigan. She lost a whopping 530 pounds and wore pants at 103 inches around the waistline. I find her unexpected.
For one thing, she is a very attractive lady. She talks well and is not anxious about being on camera and feels she has something to say. She makes her living now cleaning houses and presumably, appearing on television.
She didn't go out because people stared at her and were not friendly she says. Her sister gave her a pc and she said it gave her a chance to talk to people without them knowing what she looked like. She doesn't have anything to push and doesn't have a load of weight loss advice. She was lonely and she ate, once connected to the internet the weight just came off.
It is wonderful how supportive the online community can be, and how our worlds might be a bit larger now if we chose. I found her strangely fascinating.
Also, Betty White will be on Saturday Night Live this weekend! Hooray! She is in her eighties and as funny and bright as she ever was. I am looking forward to watching the show.

Lunar Return Charts

It is interesting that you can go to astro.com and have them do a lunar return chart for free. This horoscope only lasts one month. With Venus in the 2nd house, my money problems are going away one can be sure. However what most people want to know about is their love life. This calls for a Venus return.
I searched for Ephermis and found one online for free. Venus returns to my degree of Scorpio on January 7, 2011. I now have a Venus return.
Venus is in the 12th house of secrets and behind the scenes action. This suggests a secret love affair or doing something you love in solitude. This suggests that a person might be lying low for awhile, and since Venus also represents our attractiveness, perhaps a time when people don't see or appreciate my talents or gifts.
The 12th house is secrets, things you do alone. This could be the novel I am working on. It is secret as no one will see it until it is completed. Venus represents art of all kinds, a book, a painting, a thing of beauty or beautifying. I might get plastic surgery!
Synastry, or how your chart shows your relationship is a breeze at astro.com. Enter birth times and away you go.
Interestingly, my Sun is the same as my Hubby's North Node.
It means we are to help each other achieve.
The science of Synastry is one that everyone seems to be interested in.
Horary questions are a science of asking a specific question and hopefully the planets will show you the answer.
People have asked if there is life on other planets and also where did I leave my car keys?
In some way, I am to be like the person who explains our life. I am full of words and hubby has trouble expressing himself. I put things he feels into words for him. This I understand. The North Node being what he is trying to achieve is what I have already achieved with my Sun there. Weird, uh?
Astrology weekly is a site I recommend. Lots of answers there by people who all seem to live in Europe strangely enough.
May you all shine on.

Astrologers

I wonder if I could be an astrologer. I'm itching to get my hands on some poor guinea pig and talk their ears off. I thought it was interesting to learn about reality from Astrology.

For every point on your birthchart there is an Egyptian bound ruler and the ruler tells "the reality of that point". The trigon ruler tells you the spiritual expectations of that point. So, if you know your Ascendant degree you can see the lies you've told to yourself and how things really turned out if you know your planets.

For me, the Moon is my spiritual ruler. This is how, in theory, I think things ought to be. This is my ideal. The Moon is all about emotions and family and I want a loving family more than anything else in this world. I tried very hard to get my family to love me in fact.

Saturn is my Egyptian Bound Ruler. So, Saturn is the reality of the point that is my Ascendant. Saturn is all about rules and regulations and limitations. I wasn't able to spend time with my family because they seemed to always want to spend time with someone else! Saturn is contraction, coldness, and crystallization of emotions. I could say I've grown a cold cold heart when it comes to my old family, but for my own children I had high pie in the sky hopes. Once again, I had to work a lot and didn't get to spend as much time with my kids as I wanted to. There are constant money problems, vehicles that need to be fixed we can't afford to fix. I blog at my library because I can't afford internet. It is Saturn's way to place obstacles in your path. It isn't that you can't do something, it's that the something becomes very difficult to do. I have very strong Moon ties to my family, but we have problems. Money problems often accompany Saturn also. Saturn isn't always the bad guy, Saturn represents that you'll have to put in hard work to achieve anything. That is just the way it is for everyone has Saturn in their chart somewhere doing something. But then hard work is often good for us, as my father constantly told me growing up.

Another way to use this is for your Sun if you were born in the daytime and the Moon if you were born at night.

The moon is Bound to it's ruler Mars. This is the reality of this point. I sometimes feel like I am negotiating a minefield because people are always, constantly hurting my feelings. I want to be myself (and I'm a little wacky I suppose) but being myself constantly puts me where I'm angry. My Moon is emotions and with Mars that emotion is often anger. (Mars is also about drive and energy, not always anger) The Trigon Ruler of 5 degrees Cancer is Venus.

Trigon Ruler = Theory

Bound Ruler =Experience

My ideal would be that everyone would love me, easy to see that with Venus as a ruler

What I read says that if the bound ruler and the trigon ruler have good aspects between each other then all is well.

Mine too, but I suppose all that means is that I live well with ambiguity. We all live with it. We all wish things were different. I live with my angry Moon by being quiet and keeping my radical thoughts to myself. I try to agree with others, even when I don't. I try to be sympathetic, emphatic and helpful. I guess that's what they mean by harmonious aspects. I've sort of worked it out.

I found this interesting and I hope other people will too. We have seen our dreams fall by the wayside and tried to live with what we had. Most of us try to be better people, I believe that. Some of us have aspects that make us wonder why we have to have hard lives, and we don't know any answers. It is interesting that astrology at least knows what our questions are.

Friends With Your Readers

It has been said that everything we write is like a letter to someone we know. It doesn't matter if that person is alive or not. Stephen King that his constant reader is his wife. It is she that he wants to make life, it is she he wants to say that his story is good. I think that good writing implies this sort of innocence. Sometimes when I read rude things that people say on my blog I feel very much like never blogging again, but then I think that I must write with the idea that the reader is my friend, that this is necessary and inescapable. I saw Julie and Julia and I thought it wonderful. This woman had a blog and there was much gnashing of teeth among authors because the movie made successful writing appear easy. I read many blogs far better than mine, but we are who we are I suppose. You strike a chord for some and not for others, some people abhor James Patterson and some love him. I think his books read like an outline for a book not yet written, like maybe he is asking people to use their imaginations.

Putting it that way, his writing doesn't seem so bad.

I try to see things from differest views. I often visit a site called Absolute Write. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to be a writer. These are real people. I was so jealous when there was a writing convention and a bunch of them got to meet one another. I live in an area where no one would hold a convention or a concert, the town is so small you could drive through it in less than 60 seconds tops.

Anyway I had blogged that writers are thieves as a title then totally forgot what I was going to say. Here is the quote, "Borrow from one and it is stealing, borrow from many and it is talent." I had thought I had to write something totally original but from reading books I've discovered writers copy other writers all the time. The similarities are so strong I wonder if a little plagerism isn't involved. I don't have to be original to write, only serve up a recipie from many. I know that sound terrible but I think it also happens to be true. Many are not original, after all. I was watching Lethal Weapon one night and thought of something else that is true. People want the familiar, here we have a couple of guys playing cops and that is so old it's moldy. The twist is the suicidal Mel Gibson, a thing abandoned in the later movies. Is there a writer out there crying night after night over the loss of his vision because superstar don't like that part of the script? I imagine so. He probably wrote a novel instead where you can be your own boss. I missed that part. I think writers should be the boss of their creations, but it is one messy world instead, and movies get made, mostly bad movies. I read books instead, but cinema has it's own pull and magic, and sometimes that is compelling. Sometimes magic happens.

Anyway I think this is the recipie: Overall something familiar, then a twist. People want to feel like they could slip into the shoes of the hero or heroine. I think that simple also is best. I can't stand to try and figure out who a dozen characters are and seldom care about them. I think they should be exaggerated cartoonish and twisted. Now that's fun, like the nosy neighbor or the kindhearted boss who acts mean and always about to fire somebody. Then a dozen of those wacky people is alright.

Writing is best of all to me because there are no rules or recipies.