Tag Archive | sisters

Foot Fetish

Sep10

TRAVELS

We had a simply mah-velous time in Greece and Italy, despite the various setbacks we encountered. Okay, so it’s a little strange for me to have taken so many pictures of feet.

Feet at the Acropolis, Athens Greece
This foot was at the Vatican (why can’t I get it to load properly? Please touch your right ear to your right shoulder to view this photo!)
Tired sideways feet at the Spanish Steps, Rome Italy

Even feet need feeding in the Greek isles!

Very, very, very tired feet at the oracle of Delphi, Greece (no, I didn’t get my fortune told, the priestess was on break) Left ear to left shoulder, please.
Famous pigeon feet of Piazza San Marco , Venice Italy

These feet were big enough for a person to sit between (if we could have hoisted ourselves up!) Florence Italy

Young, happy foot (presumably the other one is too) Pompeii, Italy
Extremely old, extremely unhappy feet, Pompeii
Sleepy feet, Coliseum, Rome Italy
Balancing feet, Venice Italy

Foot of the goddess, with mortals

 

Mothering

May6

DREAMS AND MELANCHOLY

It isn’t always a mother who does the mothering in a family. Sometimes it’s a father; often it’s an older sister who fills in for an absent or lacking parent. In this scene from PERSEPHONE IN HELL, Penny wakes from a terrible nightmare. She’s dreamed her little sister Kit is dead. She hears noises in the dark, and follows them into Kit’s room. Young Kit is crying, perched on the edge of her bed in her favorite green nightgown, herself having just awakened from an awful dream.

“In seeing Kit, it was as though a great weight lifted off Penny’s shoulders. She had never, ever been so happy to see her tiny sister. She held out her arms to Kit, who was miraculously unhurt and alive and safe. She gave her the hug of a lifetime.

Rubbing her eyes, still waking from her dream, Kit cried, “Penny, I’m all alone. No one cares about me. I could be dead and no one would even notice.”

Penny didn’t know why Kit felt this way or why she said the things she said. They were Kit’s feelings, and couldn’t be denied. But she knew that Kit was wrong. There was at least one person who cared that she was alive. She was not alone.

Penny stroked her small sister’s teary cheeks. She rocked her back and forth and softly hummed a favorite tune. “Greensleeves was my heart of gold, and who but my lady Greensleeves?” She sang the words over and over, calmly and sweetly, until Kit returned to the bliss of a young girl’s deep sleep.

Then Queen Penny the Good closed her eyes, and slept like a child until the morn.”

To mothers everywhere, real and imagined, young and old, perfect and not. I wish your families the wisdom to understand that you are trying your best, you are working so hard, you need their love even if you are flawed. Mothering is not easy. I want the world to understand.

Happy Mothers Day

 

Ancients visited

Oct5
TRAVELS
I had the most fabulous time on my trip to Greece and Italy! Not without some issues (okay, we got robbed, missed a flight, had to sleep on the airport floor, lost my sister’s luggage forever maybe, missed almost a day in Venice, slept through an entire day in Florence, and my ears got boxed by a flight attendant – but who’s complaining?)
The Coliseum, Rome Italy – most beautiful sports arena ever
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The Parthenon at the Acropolis – Athens, Greece. There is nothing that can top this sight. I had the privilege of visiting this and many ancient sites in Greece and Italy. What a fabulous trip!

Ruins of ancient temples are everywhere.
Greek restaurants needed our business so badly, they offered free wine with dinner! Who am I to pass it up? Here I am (on the left) with my sister who generously sponsored this amazing trip. We ate well, very well – an understatement. Greek food is delicious!
Beautiful Greek island of Aegena.

Fun and games with Al Italia

Sep9

TRAVELS

So you’ve all heard that we got robbed on the Athens metro, right? And another adventure we had was even worse. Here’s what happened: We were flying from Athens to Venice via Rome. We had to stop in Rome and change flights. Well, through no fault of our own (I swear!) we missed our connecting flight to Venice…

We were waiting at the gate that was listed on the overhead board and also on our tickets. We got to the gate an hour in advance of the flight. So we (my sister and I) were hanging out in a super noisy terminal, eating bad airport pizza and the absolutely WORST French fries imaginable. You couldn’t even bite into them – literally! You had to gum them! hahahaha They were bad, really bad…inedible…

Then we stood at the gate for our flight and got to the ticket taker, who told us that we were in the wrong line and furthermore, our plane had already taken off! This was bad, very bad. He told us to go to the Al Italia ticket counter. We went there, and the agent said, ‘We called you but you didn’t answer, you missed your flight, we had to delay the plane a half hour to get your bags off. No, you can’t just take that flight that you were in line for. You have to retrieve your bags on Belt 16. There is no way you will make that flight. And furthermore, there are no other flights until tomorrow morning at 8:30am. Furthermore, there are no trains from the Rome airport into the city, they’ve stopped for the evening (9pm!) You’ll have to get your bags and wait until the morning.’

So after insisting that we never heard anyone calling us, down we trod to the hell known as Belt 16. It was at the farthest end of the terminal in the bowels of the building. We looked and waited, looked and waited some more. No bags. We checked in the lost baggage storage room – shelves and shelves filled with bags that no one had claimed. We looked and looked. No bags for us. (Seinfeld soup Nazi episode springs to mind!)

Now we’re getting mad. We’ve (haha – I give myself too much credit here, it was my sister) prepaid for the hotel in Venice, and it’s clear we are not going to make it to Venice anytime soon. This is pitiful beyond reason. Terrible, our (her) hard earned dollars going to total waste. So we went to the Baggage Customer ‘Care’ line and stood with dozens of screaming Air France customers. Air France had lost everyone’s luggage, a whole planeful of luggage! There was a screaming Italian whose specific words we could not understand but the intent was clear. There was a Chinese woman saying ‘I’m here for 3 weeks. I missed my connection, and so you did what? You sent ALL my luggage back to China?’ There was a proper British couple at the counter, reserved but turning red with steam coming out the ears, mumbling bad things as they turned to leave. There was a woman of indeterminate nationality (maybe French) saying ‘I have a wedding tomorrow! My clothes are in my bag!’

This was a bonding experience for everyone in line. We were all like best friends whose common enemy was the airline we had had the stupidity to pay money to for transporting us and our bags. Al Italia – you are rotten! We despise you! Good – I said it in writing!

What happened next was like a nightmare…