Too Much Shameless Self-Promotion

A writer friend sent me this rant. Facebook users: Read it and take note!

Here's something I wish authors would think about when they're seeking publicity via Facebook: That they can drive their friends crazy with WAY too many status updates and way too many mentions of the subject of their book.

Anyone who uses Facebook should know that if they clog up people's screens with too many crappy posts that their frustrated friends might well click "hide" and see none of their posts. Just because someone has a ton of Facebook friends doesn't mean that 90 percent of them haven't clicked "hide" to make their posts go away.

Wild Gem

Jewelweed, Fort Point State Park, Stockton Springs, Maine.

A few weeks ago I got into a discussion about poison ivy with Dirk, founder & spectacularly gifted massage therapist at MassageSpecialists.com.

I mentioned that jewelweed, which often grows near poison ivy (in the East, anyway), is a natural antidote to it. My stepfather is, in medical parlance, "exquisitely sensitive" to P.I. and would get it all over himself, just from petting the cat. My mom used to collect masses of jewelweed and boil it down into a tincture, in which he'd soak in the bath. (I changed his life by giving him a bottle of TecNu Poison Ivy Cleanser, but that's another story.)

Dirk had never heard of jewelweed. Last week I backed into a patch of it while taking the 2nd photo in Bella Everywhere. So I picked a sprig, meaning to press it in a book and take back to Denver to show Dirk. But within 15 minutes, the flower had collapsed into a little wad and the leaves had withered into dust. That's when I thought of taking a photo (DUH!) of a living stand of jewelweed. Being a few minutes early for my lunch date at the Royal River Grillhouse, by the Yarmouth marina, I walked the perimeter of the parking lot till I found a section of trickling brook shaded by trees. And voila! a bunch of jewelweed, which thrives in damp shade.

I took some photos, but they didn't look so hot. Two days later, I was at Cape Jellison in Fort Point State Park, where the woods were full of gorgeous stands of jewelweed.

Look out, Georgia O'Keeffe!












Sometimes Nature makes the best floral arrangements.
Asters & jewelweed, Fort Point State Park.

Picture Perfect

Neatness counts when selling one's Gracious Home, as I'm attempting to do now. But then, so does editing. One of the precious objets in the photo above (from Fail Blog) seems out of place in the kitchen. Or not...

One memorable Christmas Eve, Darling Husband and I dined at the home of an old friend of mine in a not-too-savory stretch of San Francisco's Tenderloin. "D" is now an avid leather daddy, and items even larger than the one circled above stood sentry on various shelves about his apartment. One that was easily the size of my forearm sat maybe 6 feet from my face all through dinner.

After a while I blurted out, "Do you actually use that thing?"

"I've been known to," he replied mildly.

DH and I glanced at each other, aghast, then quickly returned to shoveling food (prepared by D's near-naked "boy") into our mouths.

Apostrophe's on the Move

An eye-opener in the food court at the Denver airport. Two days later I found Martini's on the menu at the Tugboat Inn, Boothbay Harbor, ME.

Bella Everywhere

Here are some souvenirs I picked up on my trip to Maine.





Cosmetics shop, Denver airport.








Off South Street, Freeport, Maine.