Photo quote de jour
"We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we two."
~Walt Whitman

Spring may not be in the air, but love is, and will be all week. Every day until Valentines' Day, the Boomer Muse will be sharing all kinds of love, not just the smoochy stuff.

For this week's mandala, I've enjoyed playing with the circular nature of romantic love. I drawn a ring of ivy leaves, the symbol of everlasting love, except these leaves have spaces in between. A ribbon weaves in and out holding the ring together. There are elements of the seen and the unseen. There are the parts of romantic relationships we show to the world, and parts we hide, sometimes even to ourselves. At the core, there is the heart center on a green sphere chakra of love. Love is always at the core of everyone, whether we know it or not. It's easy to forget our true nature when it gets buried under fear and doubt, anger and hate. Take a closer look and see what else you notice. The mandalas I create, reveal different things to different people, much like a Rorschach test. Love really does make the world go round. Enjoy your week.
Love,
The Boomer Muse

        

Quote de jour

 This is a mini version this week. It's days like this (Super Bowl Sunday) when I feel more alien than usual. Am I the only person watching the Super Bowl for the ads? Kudos to Doritos. No matter how many times someone explains the rules of football to me, I go blank. Glazed eyes, cotton wool brain, drool worthy blank. The best part of the game so far is my molten blue cheese dip, and my personal half-time to do this blog. Go Saints!

I'm still reading Mary Karr's third memoir Lit in gape-mouthed awe of her poetic and masterful prose. How much do I love it? I'm posting another pic of the cover. That's a first at this blog.

How did I miss her other two memoirs?  Must remedy that oversight posthaste.

My brother's family put their nineteen-year-old cat to sleep yesterday. R.I.P Whiskers. He'll be in heaven if psychic Sylvia Browne is correct. I'm eager to read more of All Pets Go to Heaven.


http://www.sylviabrowne.com
If you're thinking of having a reading with her, you'll need patience; she has a three year waiting list.

Another psychic, Laura Day has a new book out with the clever title How to Rule the World From Your Couch. (how I wish!) I've enjoyed her previous best sellers especially Practical Intuition for fine-tuning my intuition, but this book is same old, same old, at least for me. Maybe it's it's time I wrote my own book on intuition.

Magazine this week include the brilliant in-your-face Rolling Stone cover.

        

Photo quote de jour


Winter is taking its toll on both the indoor and outdoor cats. I heard unearthly caterwauling on the porch again. Ferals Domino and Rambo squared off in a slow motion Tai Chi dance without bloodshed. I captured them through the window and thought of the old disco song "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor.  Rambo retreated with the grace of a ballet dancer. Domino is looking scruffy and can be found most of the time in his "cave".

Domino has completed a round of antibiotics. His eye is healing well, but he's not a happy camper. He does love his cave on the porch made from a shearling coat and blankets on top an electric heating pad. (Below) Domino is questioning his need for freedom. Meanwhile, pampered indoor kitty Merlin's only complaint is a bad case of cabin fever. The snow melted leaving yummy new scents. The other morning the sun felt warm enough to sit outside. Merlin sunbathed while I read the paper.  Alas, the cold snap is back and maybe the tail end of the big snowstorm.



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Link of the Week

Crystals can be used for healing pets, along with other alternative energies like Reiki. To learn go to http://www.catanna.com
a most delightful universe for cat lovers. If you know a kitty who needs some healing, scroll down to the free link Circle of Healing Purrs.
Purrs of love are coming... we will be celebrating Valentine's Day all next week and an extra special Cat Saturday!

        

Photo quote de jour

This is one of my favorite poems by 13th Century Persian mystic and poet, Jalaluddin Rumi. It's the ultimate "wake-up and smell the coffee" poem of insight and illumination. It begs to be entered, sipped slowly, before swallowing and sipped again.

Thanks for the behind the scenes words of concern. Yeah, I disappeared yesterday. No progress retrieving a lost archive of photos. After losing precious files when my computer crashed a few months ago, I smartened up and backed everything on an external hard drive. But, like all marvels of technology, they only work, when they work, and that baby stopped working. I could have burned a CD of my photo files but did I? No, and self-flagellation won't help, but waking up will.

        

Photo Quote de Jour

Okay, so my accidentally deleted files weren't in my recycle bin. My computer guy will hopefully pull a rabbit from his magical hat. Meanwhile, I found this photo of me from the carousel at the Santa Monica pier. So, why shouldn't a grown woman enjoy a dizzying ride on horses or mythical beasts with tinny, klinky calliope music whizzing by? As a child, I remember the undiluted joy of being old enough to ride on the animals that moved up and down. I felt sorry for the poor kids stuck on the stationary beasts. There was no going back on those stagnant creatures, ever. But what about now?
As adults, it's easy to forget the the simple exhilerating joys we experienced as children. Are you living your life, stuck on a stationary beast? Perhaps it's time to get back in the saddle and ride high and free. Feed your inner child. Yipee Ki Yay...

        

Photo quote de jour


I'd designed a different (far better) variation of this card yesterday, but accidently deleted my entire catalogue of collages from Picasa. Hundreds. All my recent work. I beyond upset and don't want to think about it. Hopefully, they can be recovered. Any suggestions welcome. For some reason, this design was saved in another file and will have to do.
If you want to know the real origins of Groundhog Day go to www.groundhog.orgWhether the groundhog saw his shadow or not (there are differing opinions today), it's six weeks to spring in any case. The light grows stronger day by day, and that's good enough for me. Enjoy!

        

Photo quote de jour

Normally, I take down and store this hammock for the winter. This year, I left it to remind me of summer. It's finally February, and though we're months away from summer, we've turned the corner. In fact, tomorrow marks the mid-point between winter and spring. I can already feel the seasons sway and tip towards melting warmth. Iced tea anyone?

        

Quote de jour
Thomas Jefferson once said to John Adams, "I can not live without books." I agree. Hell, for me would be stranded on a desert island without books.
I'm nearing the end of last week's memoir: Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert.  With millions of fans waiting for a follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love, it's no surprise Committed debuted last week at #1 on the NY Times best seller list. The reviews are mixed. Ms. Gilbert was correct in lamenting the Herculean task of pleasing millions of fans. It simply can't be done. That said, what remains is a choppy work with some good bits. The book shines when she talks about the trials and tribulations of her relationship with her husband. She could have made better use of the exotic travelogue-like locales like Laos. The book sinks into leaden boredom when she spouts corny quotes on marriage and journalistic asides.

I'm ready to jump feet first into a new crop of memoirs. The hunger for memoir genre keeps growing. I hope it continues since I'm working on one of my own. Some writers, like Mary Carr make careers of writing one memoir after another. Her latest is the highly touted, seen everywhere Lit of how she exchanges alcohol for Jesus. Why are we as a culture so hard-wired for redemption stories? While the subject matter is old hat, her writing is lyrical and wise. The first line reads, "Any way I tell this story is a lie."  She has this to say about writing memoirs. "...Also, at this point in literary history, it's understood that memoir is not an act of history but an act of memory, which is innately corrupt. That said, I believe a writer makes a contract with the reader to tell the truth. I try to stick with the stuff that's stuck hardest with me."

After seeing and the film Julie & Julia, I thought I should read the book that it's based on. I'm about to gorge on two books by Julie Powell.The book Julie & Julia, based on her blog about cooking her way through Julia Child's classic cookbook. It's no surprise that her marriage experienced some bumps along the way. The extent of these bumps are catalogued in her new memoir Cleaving. She continues to blog at http://www.juliepowell.blogspot.com

This lovely example is why I like to photograph the front and back covers. The retro design below, not so much.



A juicy week for magazines in the shake-your-head-can't-make-this-up kind of way. I don't think we've seen the end of the  John Edwards train wreck. His mistress Rielle Hunter, who calls herself a witch, gives us genuine New Age witchy types a bad name. My prediction? She's going to write a book. I did a double-take and silently screamed nooooo when I saw this weirdly filtered shot of Oprah. It's the kind of flattering lighting reserved for ninety-year-olds. The Oscar race is on. Yay. Speaking of films, I went to see "The Lovely Bones" with trepidation in my bones. I loved the book and, it's rare for a film to improve on a beloved book. Even with Peter Jackson's phantasmagoria of directing and Middle Earth kind of special effects, the film falls short. The lead, played brilliantly by Saoirse Ronan holds the film together, but it's not enough. She did a terrific job in "Atonement" and I see a wonderful acting career ahead for her. If you haven't read the book or have low expectations, you'll enjoy the suspense. If you have read the book, don't expect a faithful adaptation of plot points from the book.


I think the reign of Lady Gaga (gracing yet another cover) has just begun. May long she reign.

        

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"Cats don't bark and act brave when they see something small in fur or feathers, they kill it. Dogs tend to bravado. They're braggarts. In the great evolutionary drama the dog is Sergeant Bilko, the cat is Rambo.
~ James Gorman

We begin Cat Saturday this week with NEWS & MEWS.

I'm proud to announce The Boomer Muse has received another blogger award from
Crystal Clear Proofing via The Conscious Cat  Purrs of thanks!  

The feline Rambo I've been blogging about for the past few Saturdays is back. After beating Domino up to a pulp, he came back for round two yesterday. Domino has mended nicely thanks to antibiotics, but my heart jammed into my throat when I heard the distinctive sounds of kitty warfare on the porch yesterday.
(Domino on the mend.)
I managed to get this shot before the fur could fly. Domino chased Rambo into submission. I happy to report no bloodshed, this time. Rambo is the black cat (seen here channeling Dirty Harry).
The coyotes are back. A woman was attacked this week by a coyote on a nearby walking trail.  It's especially worrisome for the outdoor cats. The wake-up call came a few months ago, when two coyotes loped a few feet past me in the garden. After that, I didn't dare leave Merlin and Coco outside unescorted, but what can I do about Domino who insists on being an outdoor cat?

Merlin, oblivious to the outdoor machinations, is a lover not a fighter. He is an aficionado of my art, and the art of sunning himself, while becoming a work of art himself.


Merlin and Domino like to hang out on the porch to shoot the breeze...


 

Cat are an eternal source of inspiration for artists and writers. I'm was thrilled to come across the work of Bernadette Kazmarski. She is fellow multi-hyphenated artist/writer/blogger/photographer, but she does something can't. While I know how to paint the human body, painting cats is so difficult, I've given up. I am in awe of her stunning portraits of cats. Bernadette's cat Stanley was her first inspiration (pictured in pastel on paper drawing below). Check out all her amazing work and tempting marketplace. The cats are under the link marked "The Creative Cat" http://www.bernadette-k.com/

Link of the week
Some animal shelters and rescue groups do little videos for individual cats up for adoption. I think they are better than just a photo, and I hope this trend catches on. This is a recent video of Sumana a Siamese from Cat Adoption team in Sherwood, Oregon. They have one of the best cat adoption websites I've seen too! http://wwwcatadoptionteam.org/
Until next time, love a cat or two or three...

        

Photo Quote de Jour

Some may find hope at church, temple or mosque; some may find hope in the evergreen of ivy, but I found hope this week in a green leaf in the dead of winter. Hope is the belief that whatever troubles we're going through, are not forever. Ultimately, hope is whether we find it. Where do you find hope?