Adieu Zolo, Hola 20!!

Oh I just love a good New Year’s mystery. Groom and I perambulated this afternoon with our cameras and these photos were taken today, the last of 2010. When we arrived at the post office, there was a package waiting for us. Inside was a book titled The Art of Good Living by Svevo Brooks.

The manila envelope displayed an unfamiliar address and no name, nor did it have any kind of a note. We have no idea who sent us the book, but we’d like to thank you. The interesting thing is that Groom and I were talking about the kind of year we’d like to create if 2011 came with no limits. We were discussing the “art of good living,” and then, as we walked back toward home, amazed by the mystery book, we saw God’s name written on the sidewalk.

I just wrote a couple of days ago about how quickly time flies, including a video of a cartwheeling clock, so I won’t spend any more words today concerning that aspect of the current year ending and the new one arriving.

To briefly recap, 2010 became known as Z0l0 when a friend misinterpreted my handwriting. Sad to see the year of Zolo passing, it occurred to me to give thanks for all the blessings that occurred within it and instead of giving 2011 the cold shoulder because it’s new and hasn’t proved itself yet, to actually set an intention to be more welcoming and anticipate the adventures that await.

Inspiration floated in the other day while considering the possibilities for 2011. Suddenly I saw its potential expressed as 20!! and have decided to spell it by substituting two exclamations at the end instead of using the traditional symbol for eleven. Coincidentally, the exclamation point and the number one is located on the same keyboard button, it just requires a simple shift.

Hmmm, a simple shift. Shift happens.

In our household, we don’t make resolutions. I mean, I could say that I’ll lose the extra 10-pounds, join a gym, promise to be a better human being (we heard a cockney accent pronounce it “hoo-man” the other day), and be more generous of spirit, but why lie?

I’ve discovered that starting out the year listing all my faults is not a good incentive for change; it just makes me feel bad. Instead, Groom and I started a new tradition last year and this evening we get to continue it.

A year ago on New Year’s Eve, we took some time by ourselves and wrote out a list of things we either wanted to achieve personally, see or experience. I don’t know what Groom wrote and vice versa. We agreed that a year from then, which is today, we’d pull out our lists that we kept in a very special place and take note of how many of them came to pass.

Then, we’ll write out another set of intentions and see how our lives grow, develop and expand by the end of 20!!

We hope all of us, you most definitely included, are here together next year. We extend our blessings that it is a year full of good health, safety, humor, fun, joy, bonding, prosperity and well-being.

Thank you ZoLo and we bid you adieu. Hello 20!! Welcome.

Happy New Year!

Welcome To ZOLO

I wrote a New Year’s card to a friend recently and when he stopped by the booth he said, “So what’s Zolo?”

“Zolo? I dunno, what’s a Zolo?” I asked, thinking this was a lead-in to a joke.

“I have no idea, Kid, it’s something you wrote about in your note.”

We argued back and forth good-naturedly, me telling him that I had no idea what Zolo was, therefore I couldn’t have written about it and he insisting that he had the letter, and therefore the proof, at home.”

“Well, I guess you better go get it,” I teased him, knowing good and well I didn’t know nothing about no Zolo.

The next day, he reappeared looking a little sheepish. “Girl, I am so embarrassed to tell you this, but when I looked at your letter again I realized my mistake. I read your date of next year, 20l0 as zolo. Your 2 kinda looked like a ‘z’ and the1 a lower-case ‘l.’ I even showed it to my neighbor and asked her what it looked like to her and she told me ‘2010.’”

We both stood there at the booth laughing. After nearly a decade of living in the 21st century, a universal agreement has yet to be made about what to call the first years of the double aughts and yet just days before the new millennium turns 10, a handwriting blip and a pair of bi-focals provides a fun name for the impending New Year. ZOLO.

Christmas has come and gone and preparations are now underway for the big calendar change.

As the planet swiftly approaches another birthday, we decided to post some of our favorite photos taken in 2009. When we look at them, we are seeing them in their enlarged capacity, yet when you view them through this format, unless you click on each one, you will be seeing them in their miniature capacity. To return to the blog after you’ve taken a moment to enlarge, simply click on the back arrow and voila! here you are again.

For us personally, 2009 has been one of those interesting years that has grown on us. It was a difficult year to get to know at first, not nearly as open and friendly as 2008, but once I accepted that it was a new year and therefore a different personality, I began to accept it for who it was and it began to reveal its beauty.

Our biggest excitement for 2009 was traveling to Japan, finally investing in some real cameras, and making a decision about our jewelry, but that last part might be a better topic for next week.

There’s been some personal growth, some painful losses (I guess those two are not mutually exclusive) and some peaceful, perfect moments in between.

We invoke the possibility that we all have a lovely, healthy, prosperous and safe New Year.

Welcome to Z0L0!

Frida’s Favorite F-words

Bonjour! As 2008 fades into the annals of history and 2009 is ushered in with colorful confetti, hiccup-inducing bubbly, midnight kisses and the famous ball dropping in Times Square, it’s easy to feel like little pieces of the sky are falling with it.

Since it’s New Year’s Eve, we could prattle on about resolutions, no-interest payments until 2010, or the Inauguration, but I think those angles will get coverage-exhausticus.

Let’s talk about something new and fresh, such as politely reminding all you holiday decorators out there to please throw away your Halloween pumpkins, for crying out loud! Moldy jack o’lanterns and December wreaths don’t go together. FYI: rotting orange and mildew drab are not the new red and green. And while we’re on the subject of things past their expiration dates, the election is over people, so you can remove those decomposing campaign signs. Sheesh.

What else to discuss - weight loss, the economic forecast, global cooling? Nah, too bloody depressing. Oh, I know, how about satan? I saw a man at the Holiday Market in a T-shirt bearing the message, “Everybody is satan to someone.”

Thank goodness I was wearing my John Fluevog boots, made for stomping out evil (yes, they are actually “satan resistant”), because Boogie monsters from my past momentarily loomed large as I nodded in agreement with the cotton billboard’s sentiment and gave a sinister snortle. “Sure are,” I mumbled to myself, quickly running through my highly prized list of grievances.

Even though I wake up at the crack of Don every morning (private joke unless you worked it out that I have a bird’s eye view of a human thusly named), this one dawned slowly over Frida County. Who did his T-shirt say satan was again? Everybody to somebody? What in the blazes does that mean?

If by “everybody,” that includes moi, I think the T-shirt is sadly mistaken. I could not possibly be a satan or even one of his little elves to anyone. Well, there was that one time. Crikey, I just thought of something else. Ooh, and that was naughty, too.

As I began to think of the few unkindish words I’ve softly uttered, the discernment I’ve exercised, grudges I’ve gently nurtured, it occurred to me that the casually worn slogan might be a fair assessment after all. It’s easy to recall the injustices done to us, but it takes a bit more effort to acknowledge the ways in which we’ve played the Villain in other people’s dramas.

So with the New Year in the forefront of our minds, let’s make a group resolution that we blah de blah flowery rainbows fairies and Kumbaya. Ha, you thought I was going to get all sentimental, maudlin and preachy, didn’t you?

Pssst, when it comes to our mistakes, may I suggest allowing bygones be bygones? What say we let ourselves off the hook? Let’s put all unpleasant emotional sensations behind us, let it go, man, no need to hold on, history is history, what’s done is finished, am I right?

In the spirit of forgetting the past and moving forward, let’s frolic through a few of Frida’s favorite F-words. Fluevogs? Absolutely. I’m a proud wearer. Forgiveness? Yep, we can check that off our list. How about all things frenchy, food and fashion? Oui, fa and la.

Now that my appetite is whetted and I’m in a très good mood, I must wax poetic about friendship. Years ago, when I met my bon ami, Christine La Bean for the first time, she introduced herself as being “emotionally French.” She described liberating her mother’s shower cap, placing it on her head at a jaunty angle and pretending she was wearing a beret in her make-believe Paris.

Christine La Bean never made it to Paris before she died. Drats. There are many of us out there missing loved ones, or frustrated at times by the ones still around. Too bad there’s not a celestial swap meet we could go to once a year, say on New Year’s Eve, where we could make a deal on our satans in exchange for the angels who have already passed. “I’ll trade you two sotted uncles for one slightly used Grandma.” Oh, don't act so shocked, you know what I'm talking about. Wait a minute, what if somebody invites us to the swap meet?!

One final F-note before Auld Lang Syne: Food. Props to Fleur De Lis, a Patisserie & Café in Cottage Grove, Oregon for their Quiche Lorraine, Fraisier (strawberry pastry) and Mexican mocha (mai, bien sur) and beautiful mural of Notre Dame. On this magical day, while stuffing our faces, it was easy to imagine sitting at an outdoor café and staring at the Seine. Planting a seed in the ethers of visualization.

To feed and water this seedling, Chakra Mom (a former French teacher and foodie tour group leader to Provence), cooked us Poulet en croute and Bûche de Nöel. Merci beaucoup.

Even so, Chicken Little, whether wearing polished horns, a rusty halo, or a plastic shower cap beret, Bonne Annee!