I'm Clark Smart

Dave knows that I have little crushes on some other men.  He's OK with it.  One of my favorite radio guys is Clark Howard.  His show is syndicated out of Atlanta.  He's also on HLN TV.  I'm a proud student of the school of Clark-o-nomics

Clark's a consumer advocate.  He wants us to "Save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off."  Also, after listening to him for years, I know he's a really nice guy who does wonderful work for all kinds of folks who need help.   He flies all over the world but has never checked a bag.  He eats lots of fast food.  He builds houses for Habitat for Humanity.

He says he's cheap.  But I like to think he's more like me and Dave.  Frugal but generous.

Today, when we went for our regular Saturday morning walk on Park Avenue in Winter Park, who do you think was there?  Clark Howard!  Wow.  It was "Clark in the Park" day.  He was doing his show from the band stand. 

We talked.  I was thrilled.

Check him out.  You'll spend less, save more and avoid getting ripped off.


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Good Advice

I like good, straight forward advice.  But the best is when it makes me think so I can make my own decision. 

A few years ago I talked with my minister about my big romance with Dave.  I told my minister that I didn't think I wanted to get married because Dave was older than me and might get sick.  Then what? 

He didn't yell at me or laugh at me.  He simply said, "What are you planning to do if he gets sick now, Cess, leave him? "

That was all it took.  I went right home and asked Dave to marry me.  And now I can't imagine being away from him for very long - ever.

Carolyn Hax is a newspaper columnist I really like.  She's a "Dear Abby" type columnist but with much more depth.

In this morning's column her question came from a  20 something woman who is sleeping with her guy friend (friends with be benefits.)  Her girlfriends are telling her that this situation will end in sorrow.  She asks Carolyn, "Do you think my situation will end in sorrow, or is it possible to have benefits without feelings?"

The beginning of Carolyn's answer is great.

"It could end in sorrow -  in marriage -  in an infection - in parenthood -  in court - or in July."

She's right.  We don't know how things will end.  (Just for the record, I prefer benefits with feelings.)

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"The Getty"

Last Wednesday Dave's kids took us to the Getty.

The Getty Museum, close to Los Angeles, is full of art but is also an amazing work of art itself.  It was designed by Richard Meier and paid for by J. Paul Getty.  

It's built into the side of a mountain.  

Both J. Paul Getty and Richard Meier were and are fascinating guys.

J. Paul Getty was a billionaire back when that was a lot of money.  He's the guy who refused to pay the ransom when his grandson was kidnapped until the kidnappers mailed him the grandson's ear - and promised more body parts would come.  Still, Getty negotiated the ransom down a bit.  The grandson was rescued but never really survived the trauma.

Getty's also the guy who had a pay phone installed in his mansion. 

But he did some good things as well.  One of them was to fund the arts. Hence, the Getty Museum.

Richard Meier is famous for designing white buildings.  I've seen several.  All stunning. Last spring we toured his museum in Rome.  While it's magnificent, I didn't like seeing this contemporary stark white structure in this ancient city. 

But the Getty is his greatest.  And it's free.


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Molecular Gastronomy

We just returned from several days in Los Angeles.  We had a grand time.  Our hosts knocked themselves out to entertain us. 

Here's a highlight.  They took us to a restaurant that specializes in molecular gastronomy, The Bazaar by Jose Andres.

Fortunately, I'd recently read an article about the concept.  It's sorta like breaking food down to essential elements and reinventing it.  Very cool and somewhat scary.

The Bazaar served tapas, i.e., each entree was one bite each.  We had several.

Dave's son ordered a smoldering cocktail with the consistency of a slushy, called a Liquid Nitrogen Caipirinha.  It's a mixture of lime juice, egg white, green tea, and vodka mixed in a bucket of liquid nitrogen.  Yummy.

Our appetizer was "Olives, Modern and Traditional."  One regular olive each.  Then one olive each that had been deconstructed and reinvented. 

And so on.  Quite an experience.  And while we were eating Halle Berry arrived and sat a couple of tables away.

I know you're dying for more info so here it is.  First, many chefs who are into this don't like the term "molecular gastronomy."  They prefer  "modernist cuisine" or "sous vide."  It means "under vacuum."

Or you can buy "Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking." It's 2,438 pages and costs $625.  The writer, Nathan Myhrvold, is  the former chief technology officer at Microsoft. 

Or you can fly to L.A. and visit this restaurant.  Take money.


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Are Gnomes Taking Over?

I'm not exactly afraid of gnomes.  I just think they're kind of creepy.  Always have. But now I can't get away from them.  They're everywhere. 

Due to the phenomenal success of the film "Gnomeo and Juliet" they've become movie stars.  Who would have thought they'd do Shakespeare?

But then who would have thought that a roaming gnome would be the official Travelocity mascot? 

And now I read that a woman in England has 2,000 gnomes, all named.

And that in 2009 a German artist posed 1,250 gnomes in a Nazi salute in protest of modern fascism.

 No wonder I'm afraid of gnomes.  No, wait I'm not afraid of them.  Really.


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Will We Be Limitless?

A while back I wrote about the movie "Limitless."  It's about a guy who takes a pill to make his brain work on all 8 cylinders at once, thereby making his intelligence limitless.

A couple of nights ago we saw Ray Kurzweil, renowned futurist and all around smart guy on the Corbert Report.  (No, we don't watch the Report at 11:30 PM.  We watch a day later at 7:30 PM.)

Kurzweil said a couple of amazing things:

- Right now a kid in Africa with a Smart Phone has more information available to him that the president of the U.S. had 15 years ago.  (That president would have been Bill Clinton, another really smart guy.)

- Thirty or so years in the future our minds will merge with technology and we will be on billion times smarter!

You may remember that my big problem with the guy in the movie "Limitless" was what he did with his new intelligence. 

I just hope that when we become one billion times smarter we don't become one billion times greedier.  I hope we become one billion times more loving, generous and altruistic.


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The Ethicist Says Goodbye

You already know that I love the New York Times Sunday Magazine.  After reading it himself, My Mr. Oldie used to hand it over to me on a timely basis.  For the last couple of years I've been getting the magazines from the library. 

By the way, the price for magazines at the library has gone up from 10 cents to 25 cents.  That's a one hundred and fifty percent increase, but I'm not complaining. 

So I'm probably the last to know that, after writing his excellent advice column for  12 years, The Ethicist has retired. 

So now how are we to know:

- If it's OK to sneak our own popcorn into the movies.

- If  I should tell my observant Jewish brother-in-law that the food he's about to eat isn't kosher.

- If it's OK to move to the closer, higher priced empty seats at intermission.

- If I can load up on fancy hotel soaps and shampoos even if I'm giving them to the homeless.

- If I should tell my friend I saw her husband having lunch with a blond.

But the thing is, if we have integrity, we pretty much know the answers for ourselves.  On the other hand, as former The Ethicist columnist Randy Cohen says,

Ethics is a subject about which honorable people may differ.  

So thanks, Randy Cohen, for 12 years of thoughtful, sometimes funny and always humble sharing.  I feel kinda bad that I never subscribed to The New York Times and read your columns the legitimate way.  I guess that would have made a good subject for the "The Ethicist."


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The American Dream

American Dream - A phrase connoting hope for prosperity and happiness, symbolized particularly by having a house of one's own.  Possibly applied at first to the hope of immigrants, the phrase now applies to all except the very rich and suggests a confident hope that one's children's economic and social condition will be better than one's own. - Dictionary.com

In reality, the American dream is hard to define.  The one above seems to be the most common, i.e., achieving prosperity and wealth.  In the beginning it was expected that the dream would be achieved by thrift and hard work.

Is the typical American dream still viable?  Some experts say that the boomers will be the first generation whose children won't do as well financially as their parents.

But then that concept has always been around.  Do you know this old saying?

"Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations." The first generation makes it.  The next generation blows it.  The third generation starts all over.

During this time of Lent I've been reading about people throughout our history who's predominate dream was not the one above.  It wasn't my dream or my husband's.  We did want our kids to do better - but not necessarily monetarily.  We wanted them to follow their highest dreams and passions.

Lots of folks in our church have been reading Richard Stearn's book "The Hole in Our Gospel."  Stearns is the president of World Vision.  This week, in Stearn's book, I read the Millennium Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2000.  Here they are:

Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
Achieve universal primary education
Promote gender equality and empower women
Reduce child mortality
Improve maternal health
Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Ensure environmental sustainability

We all have dreams.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great American.  He had a dream.

I think that, when I have dreams and goals over and above my and my family's material wants, it makes me a better person - and happier.


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Casey Anthony Influence

Every day Dave comments on the daily local Casey Anthony news coverage.  He doesn't get it - and I can't explain it to him.  And he wasn't even here in the beginning when reporters and others from all over the world were camped out in the Anthony's front yard for several months.

What are the significant elements for news?  1. An attractive, young, white mother with long hair accused of killing her beautiful, white toddler.  2.  Her attractive, white but strange parents -although they may not be any stranger than the rest of us.  We just know everything about them.  I don't know if I could stand up that kind of scrutiny.

Casey has groupies all over the world.  As you know, there is a Casey groupie inmate in a men's prison who has even tried to have one of her attorneys removed.

Of course, it's very, very sad that the hundreds of other little ones who lose their lives at the hands of family members don't merit this meticulous attention. 

The other day I read a list of items Casey had bought from the prison commissary.  Along with Jolly Rogers and pony tail holders, she paid about seven dollars for volumizing shampoo and conditioner. 

My hair could use some volumizing so yesterday while I was in Walgreen's I bought some for myself. 

I hope this doesn't mean that Casey is influencing even me.


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LIMITLESS - The Movie

A friend wrote me today to tell me he was surprised that I wasn't offended by the R rated  movie "Paul" with its bad language and pot smoking.

But on the same day we saw "Paul" we also saw the PG-13 rated movie "Limitless."  It offended me.

Actually I liked what I saw of it.  Bradley Cooper plays an out of ideas writer who takes a designer drug that makes him a super brainiac.  He's then able to use 100% of his brain all the time.

A very cool concept.  He cleans up, looks great in his expensive clothes and, with his big brain, becomes super successful.

But there are side serious effects.  One is the rapid escalation of greed.  Another is blackouts during which he may or may not have committed murder.  And he does end up killing some bad guys.  Oh, and he puts his innocent girlfriend in serious jeopardy.  But I was still enjoying this exciting movie and wondering how Robert De Niro was going to scare him straight.

But then - SPOILER ALERT - the movie ends. 

There are no repercussions for the havoc he's raised.  I found that morally reprehensible and extremely offensive.

I hope Charlie Sheen doesn't see this movie.


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PAUL - The Movie

As I said earlier, our power went out on Wednesday.  Thursday was a pretty miserable day because the weather was awful and it was so dark in our condo that we couldn't even see to walk around.

So we went to the mall, then  to the movies.  When we got home it was noon!!!  All this is my excuse for going back to the movie theater to see "Paul."  We'd seen the preview several times and couldn't imagine anybody seeing it, especially us. But we were desperate.

It's about two nerds from England who go to Area 51 in Nevada and stumble across an alien named Paul.  I don't know the actors who play the two guys or the alien - but I'm sure folks 50 years younger than me do. 

The movie is silly and if you're offended by really, really bad language, pot smoking and gentle gay jokes don't see it.

But I liked it.  Despite all of the above, it is a sweet, loving movie with excellent values.  I'll go so far as to say that Paul becomes somewhat of a Christ figure toward the end by risking his life to save a person. (Can't say "another person" because Paul isn't human.) Despite being totally gross and silly, the dialogue is clever. 

While I didn't know the main actors, I did recognize two SNL performers.  And Jason Bateman is terrific.  Blythe Danner (Gwyneth Paldtrow's mom) is terrific.  As is Sigourney Weaver who plays the only bad guy. 

And I learned something.  I did not know the definition of the word "Fanboy."  So I looked it up.

Fanboy - Young (teenage to 20s) passionate fan of various elements of geek culture.  

So there you go.  "Paul" broadened my education.


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Mrs. Justin Bieber

Have you been reading about the 20 inch long, pencil thin Egyptian cobra that went missing from the Bronx Zoo?  They eventually found the snake close by, hiding in a pile of wood shavings in the reptile house.

But during the short escape the snake opened, among other things, a twitter account.  Following are some of her tweets.

Don't even talk to me until I've had my morning coffee.  Seriously, don't.  I'm venomous.

Yesterday was the Yankee's opening game.  Apparently the snake was spotted taking a bicycle taxi to the stadium. She sent the following tweet.

If you see a bag of peanuts inexplicably moving along the ground at Yankee Stadium today.  Just ignore it.  It's probably nothing.

The snake has no name and this is a problem.

Funny how all the cute animals like pandas get names.  It is clearly just another case of notcuteenoughism.

I'm a girl cobra.  If I could choose a name?  Mrs. Justin Bieber.


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Haves and Have Nots

On Wednesday we had stormy weather with high winds.  The power went out.  Dave was locked out of the condo because the garage door wouldn't  open so I quick drove home to let him in.  Then we spent the rest of the daylight hours picking up tree limbs with our neighbors.  Lots of laughing and gratitude that things weren't worse. 

Three days later our next door neighbor and others on the block are livid.  We still have no power.  Across the street they have power.  We can look into their air conditioned living rooms and see them watching TV on their flat screens.  Their street lights are on.  It's cheery over there.

Dave and I have kept our sense of humor.  Yesterday we saw two movies.  Here's a clue as to how desperate we were.  We saw "Paul."  I'll review "Paul" for you another time - when I'm not plugged into Parena's Wi-Fi.

Today is the cut off for the contents of the fridge.  It all goes.  Thank goodness we have only about four items in there.

The only serious thing going on with me is the flash backs to 2004 when my husband, Ken, died at home in the middle of Hurricane Charley. 

The fact is, we live in Central Florida, the lightening capital of the world.  Some of our neighbors say we live in the 3rd World section of our condo community.  But they're just teasing.  Many of us know very well what the 3rd World is like - and this isn't it.

We're well aware of how fortunate we are.  However, we may check into a motel this afternoon.  Because I think the folks in Central Florida would appreciate it if we had a shower.


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