The word brassiere and bra have a different feel. Brassiere seems so 19^th century with visions of formality: ladies in corsets etc. “Bra” (short for brassiere) is so modern and bland. There must be a better name? Over the shoulder boulder holder is good but so passé .

When I was young lass, before I even had a bra, my friends and I stuffed (maybe taped) waded Kleenex in our shirts to give the look of maturity. We went here and there like that. One afternoon our vision enlarged; We decided to put oranges in our shirts. There weren’t any in the house so I went next door and asked our neighbor. I told her I’d return them after. Now I wonder what she thought I was up to. Somehow we adhered the citrus to our flat chests and walked to the movie theater to watch Pollyanna, my favorite movie. But while standing in line to buy tickets, one of my oranges slipped out and rolled. This red faced Jane Mansfield in training was beyond embarrassed!

I got my first bra in 6^th grade in Berkeley. Even though I hadn’t developed much yet, I told my mom I wanted one. She replied, “Is that what the girls are wearing now Dear?” She took me to Hink’s department store where a warm middle aged stout veteran fitter brought me a training bra! That was very disappointing.

Mass developed and life in the undergarment world seemed fine until the age of 13. I had another embarrassing, rather mortifying experience. My brother, 9 years older than me, went away to college in Vermont. While visiting him, we went out for dinner. He brought some of his cute friends. Around the table the guys started laughing but I wasn’t in on the joke. I began to feel self conscious and went into the ladies room. In the mirror I saw that my very stiff pointed cup bra (think Madonna) had one cup pointing to the north and the other dead south! Oh those were the days!

Nowadays many women are having breast implants. At this time in my life, that doesn’t appeal to me at all. I have that all out of my system!

I’m glad to laugh at all this now. I’d love to hear some of your adventures while growing up.

Blues Stay Away From Me from Kyle Abbott on Vimeo.

Have you ever been told to pull on your tongue? I had a singing teacher tell me to do that. When Luke and Kyle were little, Carl and I knew we wanted to play music as a family. I thought it was a good idea to take some singing lessons. Perusing the phone book I found a woman teacher and called. I didn’t know what to ask besides the price at that point. I arrived at her home and an opera student was singing with her. I was feeling insecure and wondered what was in store for me?
After the opera singer received kudos and was shown the door, she called me in. The view from her enormous window was of a creek and birch trees that served to calm my nerves a tad. She asked what I wanted to sing. “Folk music”, I replied.

The next thing I knew I was singing arpeggios: “eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, ah, ah, ah, ah, and so on and on and on. I went home feeling alright and returned the following week. But as weeks went by she gave me more and exercises to do. And as weeks went by I had less and less desire to sing. It was a grind and no joy. I taped the exercises and sang along with them at home.

On several occasions she told me I wasn’t doing things right. I cried there and on the way home a few times. I felt like I never wanted to sing again.

The last straw was when she told me to pull on my tongue. So unpleasant! I feel like an idiot now, staying as long as I did.

Now don’t get me wrong. There are many good singing teachers out there. This woman and I were just not on the same musical page.

We parted ways. I kept the tape of the exercises. Luke and Kyle imitated them and we all got some good chuckles. That made it almost worth it.

In time, the desire did come back. The family and I started singing and playing. Over time it’s just fallen into place. If I’m singing and I choose a key that fits my voice for the song, it’s just a matter of listening, singing out and feeling what I’m saying. I’m no “great” singer but this is “people music” and isn’t about being “great”. It’s about playing together and enjoying what you’re doing. If you listen, you will pick up things along your journey that make you a better singer. I am a much better singer then I was back then

.
Many folks have been told by someone that they are tone deaf and can’t carry a tune. Sometimes it comes from a parent, partner or sibling. That can be hard to overcome. We just say, “it isn’t true!”. Let’s find a good key for you for a particular song and low and behold, you can sing. It may not be as pretty or good as you want it but that is just a matter of time. Singing is a true joy!

The other night I had total insomnia. It happens from time to time. I took pen to paper and filled some of my wakeful night with this…

RESTLESS

I find a pillow to lay my head
And glide into the sleepless bed
Roving pillars in the winding mind
Won’t stand still or drift in kind
The restless state holds me to a mast
Taking me through a play miscast
The dark night is an endless day
Respite fails me, awake to stay
Let this mind and body recoil
Rest it deep into the soil
Revive me at the morning light
To live the day with no left spite

I’m on facebook. Are you? As we long ago lost our real village life, this is a way of feeling part of one, in some ways. Luke couldn’t believe I was joined at first. I like to read what “friends” say and be able to respond or write some things others may see. I put “friends’ in quotes. Most of my “friends” really are friends but there are a few I haven’t met in person. They may have “met” me through a friend and asked me to confirm them as a friend or visa versa. I have friends from high school, the neighborhood, home school days, but most of them are through a musical connection.

The other day, coffee in hand, perusing my facebook, I saw a reply to a post by a quite well known bluegrass musician, Laurie Lewis. It was from Steve Martin! Wow! He does play bluegrass banjo so that makes sense. His response to her was off the wall and very funny. So I think, “What have I to lose? I’ll see if he’ll confirm me as a “friend”.”

A few hours later, “Steve Martin confirmed you as a friend” popped up. I’m tickled. I spend time that day interested in his musings. He is dang funny. Here I am in my house reading what Steve Martin is thinking about. Wow. At one point I think I’ll say “ You’re so funny. You should be a comedian”. How original”¦I bet he’s never heard that. Lame!

Fame has an interesting effect on people. I’m feeling a little privileged, as pathetic as that is. For a moment you’re hood-winked into thinking you’ll get some power just by being associated with them. Of course anytime I have gotten to know someone “famous”, I find that we are all here with the same insecurities, needs, joys and sadness. It’s funny how we even think it is different.

I sent a note to a friend via facebook. “You aren’t going to believe who confirmed me as a “friend”.!! She said “OMG!” . My husband is going to be so envious. She wrote back to say her husband wants me to ask him to join the California Bluegrass Association. I didn’t want to do that.

Night fell and as I lay in bed, I thought, “Wait a minute! Didn’t it say his birthday is in 1955. This guy is 2 years younger than me. I’m pretty sure when I was a teen watching Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live, he was older than me. And wait another minute. I never looked closely at his picture.”

You got it”¦. different Steve Martin.

I’m thinking how silly the whole thing is anyway. You probably are too!

Does that mean I’ve changed my mind as to keeping him as a “friend”. No. Although I don’t know him, I am thoroughly enjoying what he writes, have responded to his posts and he to mine. It’s fun. The village just grows. I also found out he is already a member of the California Bluegrass Association so I’m off the hook there with my friend.

Life can be silly (or my thinking can anyway).

Luke thought I shouldn’t post it because I should save it for someone special to tell in person. That really got me laughing and I thought of the scenario.

I’m sitting on the grass in a park with a special friend. I say, “You’re very special to me. Let me tell you my favorite graffiti that I saw in a bathroom in Paris.”

But since that isn’t going to happen anytime soon (or ever) I will tell you. So anyone reading this, know you are very special.

Picture this. You’re sitting on the throne in a stall. You look up and on the wall is written:

“Anything weighing more that 10 pounds, please lower by hand.”

That’s it.

If you have found any graffiti in a bathroom that made you laugh, let us know.

Carl and Luke don’t care about fashion. In fact I would say they are oblivious to it. For them clothing is about comfort. Kyle is the same but with a twist. The three of them wear shorts, shirts, and vests which I pick out at the thrift store. Biology supplies the skin for their ‘shoes’.

Kyle is a man of tradition and doesn’t care for change. The clothing he likes, he wears until it’s nearly transparent, worn thin and tattered with holes.

I want to be comfortable too, but I care more about looks than the guys generally. Perhaps it’s a female thing. Although, I know many men who care about looks too, so who knows?

I read on a CD insert where the female singer thanked her daughters for their wardrobe consultation. That was a sweet image. That reminded me of a day when Kyle and Luke helped me with my wardrobe.

Last year we were to play at the Santa Cruz Bluegrass Faire. Per usual before such an event, I don’t feel I have anything to wear. I hit the thrift store and then Ross. I found something cheerful, comfortable and not too bluegrass cliché. Entering the living room wearing my new outfit the boys cried out , “You’re not wearing that!”. I couldn’t believe my ears, and Carl was floored by their reaction!

“Okay”, I said. “You look through my closet and fix me up.” Running back and forth with clothes, the energy was high. Luke found in his opinion, the ‘perfect’ skirt and top. It was a floral print skirt with a paisley shirt. (He’s not into “hip” so the fact they didn’t match didn’t mean cool) He didn’t see them as not matching. Needless to say, Kyle’s choices weren’t any better. While for me their suggestions proved worthless, their entertainment was priceless

Here we are playing at the Santa Cruz Bluegrass Faire.

It can be odd to open your mouth and not know what is coming out. I’m learning Chinese. The words can be problematic. As you may know, Chinese is a tonal language. Tones rule. In English, if we say “good”, it doesn’t matter what our accent is; we all understand what it means. This isn’t the case with a tonal language. The same word has countless meanings and it depends on its tone and the context.

Yo Mama

The most common example is the word “ma”. Each word can be either Tone (I) high level, (2) high rising; (3) low rising, (4) high falling to low. ma means in tone one “mother,” ma² means “hemp,” ma³ means ”horse,” and ma⁴ means “to curse.” Oy vey!

I get together once a week with two Chinese friends at different times to practice my Chinese and help them with their English.. Sometimes there is a look on their faces like “Huh??” They get some good chuckles too. Recently I thought I was telling Hua it’s “the same” which is “yiyang.” I didn’t use the right tone so he thought I was saying “It’s a sheep”. I have had some good laughs too. Last week LingLing told me, “I prepare dinner in the chicken”. As that might be true, she meant “I prepare dinner in the kitchen”. Good clean fun!

Cannes France

While living in France I got a job as “au pair” which is basically a live in baby sitter. I met the parents for dinner and then was flown down to be with the grandparents. They were very wealthy. Their enormous summer villa was near Picasso’s home. Grandma and her grandkids picked me up from the airport. I wanted to make a good impression and she was rather formal. I decided to tell a story about meeting her daughter. I said, “Your daughter made a delicious duck”, in French. Votre fille a fait un canard délicieux . But instead of saying “canard-duck” I said “connard” “Your daughter cooked a delicious “bastard”. Mon Dieu! That was a good start.

For some more romance I studied some Italian and Spanish. In Pisa, Italy, I saw a traffic accident. They’re some crazy drivers! I wanted to describe the accident to my roommate. As you know, many words sound like English but with an “i” or “o” or “a” at the end. I proceeded to talk about the “accidenti” over and over. Turns out that “accidenti ” in Italian happens to mean “Damn!”, although you might be yelling that after an accident.

Many have made the mistake of saying in Spanish,”Soy embarrassada” when wanting to say”I’m embarrassed”. .It could lead to a little red faced moment and a good laugh. Men, look out especially for that one! It means”I’m pregnant”.

I bet you have some stories too. Let us know.

I loved to eat from an early age.

This blog is about weight. I have been slim, medium and fat in my life. Most of us have one addiction or another. Some of us are addicted to nicotine. I could have a cigarette and have no desire for another. I tried to smoke at a younger age but the desire just wasn’t there and I didn’t do it long enough for any real physical addiction. Some of us are addicted to alcohol. A glass of wine in the evening suits me fine and I stop right there. But food is a different story. You put anything rich in front of me like chips, French fries, pastry, lasagna and I can’t stop myself. It’s like the alcoholic who can’t stop at one glass. I want more and more.

Growing up, there was always plenty of food around. Veggies weren’t a big item on the menu. Breakfast was cornflakes or eggs, bacon and toast: dinner usually a pork chop or some other kind of meat, a salad and starch. No dessert. I used to be envious of my best friend because ice cream was waiting for her after dinner. I laugh now just to think about it because anytime I wanted I could have chips, salami, Oreos, or Sara Lee chocolate cake in the freezer that sliced off as easily as it went down. In my lunch bag my mom put a bologna sandwich (I’ll never forget that smell), a bag of potato chips and two packages of Hostess cupcakes (one for me and one for a friend). Bless her heart. I’m guessing my friend didn’t always get one. This wasn’t the best food to have around for someone like me.

Nagging gets us nowhere but that often doesn’t stop me. Hope springs eternal. I have an older sister who has never been overweight. At a time in my life when my haunches were hefty, I can hear her say, “Stop eating so much!” It didn’t work. But I know where she was coming from. Our other sister is very heavy. I used to nag and plead with her to, “Stop eating so much!”. Of course it didn’t work either. It only made her feel worse. It’s easy to look outside and tell someone else what they need to do. I realize I barely take care of my own business. Carl used to smoke. I nagged and nagged him to stop but to no avail. He stopped when he was ready. He had to reach the end for himself.

And nagging myself doesn’t serve anything either. It only makes me feel worse and seems to perpetuate whatever I feel the problem is. I make whatever changes when I’m ready to. When we have 2 opposite desires working at the same time we have stress. For example, if I want that big piece of cake and chips and I don’t want to be overweight there is conflict. When I’m overweight it is that the desire to eat whatever outweighed (pun not intended but not bad) the desire to not gain weight. The stronger desire wins out. I’m not talking ideals or shoulds here; I’m talking deep desires that are beyond the intellect.

I eat more when there is something emotionally challenging going on. Or sometimes it’s just that I’m not using the energy doing something else. The mind is willing but the flesh is weak, as the saying goes. When an autoimmune disease (joint and muscle related) hit me 18 years ago I was very motivated to make a change. I started eating different foods. I eat mostly vegetables, fruits, grains, beans, nuts, very little cheese or high fat foods. It doesn’t mean that I can’t gain weight.

We are set up to want sugars and high fat foods because in the wild that would be what would keep us going. Most of us here have all the food we want and it’s easy to over do it. Thirty three percent of American adults are obese and there are 300, 000 obesity-related deaths a year. The incidents of diabetes and heart attacks are higher than ever.

P.B.S., I believe, aired a show a few years ago. It told the story of four people who are obese and not happy with their situation. Each person had a touching story. They had all tried to lose weight but couldn’t. The people were each asked to go out for dinner or prepare something at home for several days and to tell how many calories they were consuming. They were honest, not trying to fool anyone. It turned out that all thought they were eating a lot fewer calories than they actually were. Everyone in the group had a blind spot. They honestly didn’t know how many calories they were eating. One woman thought she had eaten 400 at a meal and it turned out to be well over a 1000. I thought about it and realized how true that can be for me too.

Over the Christmas holidays, my blind spot appeared as did 5 pounds. I need to stay present when I’m eating or I throw caution to the wind and eat too much. I didn’t stop at one cookie, that’s for sure.

It is the calories. I decided to keep track of what I ate. I don’t want to “diet” as I’ve done that a lot and found the weight always came back. It’s more a matter of being conscious and eating well. Also if I’m upset I try and find other ways of dealing that don’t end up hurting me. There are many places on line to see how many calories you need to have to maintain or lose weight for your body. Here is one. http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/calneed. Weight Watchers is great too as there is the support of the group too.

I hope no one feels that I am saying they should lose weight. That isn’t my business and whatever weight we are is where we need to be at this point in time. But if you are wanting to and you come to that place inside, you will lose it. Just keep your mind’s eyes wide open.

I’m attracted to statues of the Buddha and over the past few years have bought three. They evoke an emotional gateway to a place inside. Of course the image is of an ideal. The first one I got, the Buddha is sitting in lotus position and represents to me peaceful surrender. I got it at a stressful time. I obtained the big bellied laughing Buddha when everything felt too intense.The smiling Buddha is historicallyconnected with prosperity and wealth but that is not my attraction. For me it’s “Lighten up Leslie!”.

I think of different things that attract or affect us. Whatever is at work is deep and biological. I’m sentimental. Seeing pictures of Kyle and Luke when they were little always transports me. But I guess any time we’re thinking, we’re transported out of the deep present reality we all sense. But I digress.

Like most people, women especially, we feel a warm peace inside when seeing a picture of a sleeping baby. I wouldn’t be surprised if endorphins are kicking in. Seeing a sports team’s logo on a cap may start the pheromones kicking for some people, I’ll guess more often men. Images of the Hawaiian coast sell so well for calendars because that azure water conjures up feelings of a certain heavenly bliss and freedom. Of course there are zillions of symbols we unconsciously are affected by every day.

When peaceful surrender isn’t there for me, I’m feeling empty or upset, I want comfort so I may go eat something or buy something that emotionally fills a need temporarily. I’m not putting a virtue judgment on this but I do feel better if I take that energy and instead take a walk, do inquiry, play music, take care of business, call someone to see how they are doing or whatever. I’m sure I’m not alone here.

When I am being mindful, in essence meditating, I don’t look at the Buddha as separate. I don’t think of anything as separate. When I am feeling happy I don’t look to Hawaii to be some place I “need” to go, etc. It all is a projection from what is going on inside me. Of course the objects that are symbols are not what they appear. This Buddha statue here is a block of resin (not that that’s nothing but you know what I mean) It’s just the power of imagination and attaching definition to whatever it is.

By the way, I don’t equate the statues with the 4 Noble Truths from the Buddha. I think eternal truths are not connected with objects. I find so true that what Buddha said. http://www.centertao.org/essays/buddhas-four-noble-truths/

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Going to the ocean is attractive to most people, I think. I feel I’m returning to the “the mother” or before her, eternity. I go as often as we live a 5 minute bike or 15 minute walk ride away.

I especially like to walk along the shore when there aren’t many people there. I think about things but also attempt no to think and just take in my surroundings. Each breaking wave is unique but the rhythm is constant which is assuring.

Doing Tai Chi gives me a similar feel. The breath is like the waves going in and out. Breathing with the waves going in and out is deeply satisfying. It’s like

“it’s all working together.

There are days I don’t go to the beach. I tend not to do my Tai Chi those days. I want to change that. A few weeks ago I had it in my mind buy an indoor fountain to hear the sound of water while doing it at home.

I looked in stores and found some attractive ones

but didn’t want to fork over the shells. Many are illuminated and I’m not interested. There was one l liked but the air sending out the waterwas very predictable but not in a good way. I can listen to a clock ticking for that.

A friend of mine told me of an inexpensive one she saw ata nearly store. Two pluses. I could walk there and it’s cheap. I went and saw the one she was talking about. It’s on the video here. I brought it home, filled it with water and turned it on. Wow Man! I felt I was back in the 60’s at a concert or in a room with the cousin of a lava lamp. The “crystal” ball turns on the top of the water and different illuminated colors change moment to moment. I know I said I didn’t want an lighted one but it was in a box and I didn’t notice that. Well I found it entertaining… but it wasn’t the ticket.

I didn’t have the heart to return it and thought how Luke and Kyle liked that kind of thing when they were young. I drove it up to my friends Hua and Karl’s home. They have 4 beautiful children. The 2 youngest took right to it. They don’t do Tai Chi but who knows, maybe they’ll start now.

I think I’m over needing the water sound to do Tai Chi at home thing. Oh! Carl is running the bath. Must do Tai Chi… must do Tai Chi.

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