Chanel Cousin

July 31, 2008 By

Cousin Mary is coming tomorrow for a short visit.

I looked for the old photo of the two of us at five years old sitting and fitting into one lawn chair.

Her little ankles were crossed very ladylike and my stance?

Think Heidi Fleiss age five. My legs couldn’t have been further apart dangling akimbo from the chair. You could have driven an 18 wheeler between my knees.

She has tried to bring me some class all our lives. Today she sent me a Chanel wallet which she knows I won’t use. Also, various beautifully wrapped presents arrive throughout the year with jewelry she thinks would look good on me.

In this photo, the only one I could find, it is her 5th birthday (standing with two dolls looking in my direction (holding some type of stuffed animal, looks like a big cat) and according to her adult interpretation she was keeping an eye on me to make sure I didn’t take any of her birthday presents home.

My late brother is center in the back, smiling, with the bowtie. Aww….

She’s my cousin but also one of my best friends.

We got over that phase where she thought I was stealing her bling.

Now, she sends it to me.

Aww…

©Pat Coakley 2008

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

Filed Under: blogging, Blogs, Family, Friends, Humor, Life, Love, Personal, Women Tagged With: , , , , ,

Ballad of a Blogger Finch (Female)

July 30, 2008 By


The Ballad of the Female Blogger Finch:

Eat, Fly, Blog, Swear, Die

A cute little finch. A female finch according to my neighbor bird man.

This coincides with an article in last Sunday’s New York Times about the annual conference sponsored by BlogHer which began in 2005 to promote female bloggers. The article was titled, “Blogging’s Glass Ceiling”.

My darling cousin, Mary, a retail wizard in her own right in Palm Beach, sent me the article fedex with “PATRICIA” scawled above it and an arrow pointing to the article.

If you see me and I have a nice piece of jewelry on, Mary gave it to me. If you see me with my blue and white striped jammies on, which I wear winter and summer, Mary gave them to me. If you see me with a pale blue cashmere thingy wrapped around my neck in winter, yup, it’s Mary.

In other words, the girl tries to keep me on the right side of presentable. It’s been her role all our life. But, well, it’s a big job and about to get bigger.

Anyway, the article says that men and women are creating blogs in almost equal numbers but that women at the conference feel they are not taken as seriously by their male counterparts nor are they making as much money even though corporations are making money from them. That’s almost word for word from the article.

Okay. We can have our opinions about this. I’m sure we do. I have thoughts about doing more with this blog, I bet some of you do, too. And, I’d love to hear them.

But, this dead female finch AND this article from the New York Times also coincides with the return (I think) of a blog I had started to read before she signed off abruptly last month. The blog was called, “Okay, Fine, Dammit” written by a very talented woman who signed off saying that although she loved blogging, it was taking too much of the time she needed to devote to making money for her family.

She also suggested that the popularity of her blog (and indeed she had some very loyal followers) was not reflecting the real world opinion of her and suggested that some in her real domestic and professional writer’s world might be casting doubts on its value and merit, and add it all together–need for money, doubts surrounding her about how valuable it was in the first place–she was packing it in to write more for the print media, which she also despaired seemed to be dying it’s own kind of death.

Tysdaddy also read this blog and I’m hoping when he gets back from vacation if he reads this post, he can affirm my version of this or add to it.

Any whooo, here’s the real reason for this post.

Suddenly, she’s back saying one of her old blog entries was being featured in a new online magazine called BlogNosh and that she had agreed to open her old site up for a few days to entertain the notion of returning.

She was taking the steps to host her site independently. She was going to begin a revenue stream by accepting ads from “Blog Her” ( the sponsor of the conference in the NYTimes article) but she needed to change the name of her blog because they don’t put their advertising in blogs that have swears in them, but ok, she didn’t want to change it but she would cuz the real world you know.

Ah, this is where I stopped reading and did some serious chain swearing.

Let me summarize: the organization that supposedly is devoted to increasing exposure of women’s blogs decides this woman’s blog “inappropriate” for revenue because of the word, “Dammit”?

Yes, that is the situation.

And this talented woman has agreed to do it?

Apparently, yes. (I left her my lucy five cents but that won’t help pay her mortgage.)

The article in the NYTimes quoted Gina Garrubbo, the executive vice president of BlogHer, “Take the money. Build the business.”

Welcome to the real world calculations.

So, what if the name has dammit in it?

So what if it absolutely reflects the true edginess of her blog?

So what if the name suggests what she has long felt and found many readers of like mind.

“Okay, Fine, Dammit”…in other words, so what if the title of the blog suggests capitulating to others and not liking it one bit.

This is what happens in the real world, right?

“Okay, Fine, Dammit,” I can hear Maggie, dammit say. I’m gonna change my name cuz these fearless pioneers of women’s blogs don’t take swears.

Putting up and shutting up (female version) has a long tradition, people. Now, we’ve got the BlogHer version.

Are you fucking kidding me, BlogHer execs? Now, that’s a swear. (Sorry, Mary)

And, now you understand the real reason for this post.

Cue music for Ballad of a Blogger Finch (Female):

Eat, Fly, Blog, Swear, Die

I’ve made Ballad of the Bogging Finch (Female) greeting cards, mousepads, and shopping bags. Order them here first. They are going fast.

©Pat Coakley 2008

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

Filed Under: 1, blogging, Blogs, Culture, Frustration, Gender Inequalities Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Dinner With Friends I’ve Never Met -#4

July 29, 2008 By

Ok. Now what?

I’ve got the paints. 26 dollars later for five tubes. Cough. Cough. Choke. Anything for BonnieL. Gasp.

My tomatoes are in. Good thing. I can’t afford store groceries till next week.

What’s in these paints anyway?

Rare Truffles?

Jesus. 26 dollars.

Okay. I’m over it.

Now, blank canvas.

I just put on a beret to help my confidence.

PS. People, BonnieLuria is a painter for real. She inspires people to think they can do things they’ve never done before, too. Go and visit but be forewarned. All of sudden you might feel like…well, swimming in a 3000 foot Atlantic tidal pool, for instance, even though you are afraid of depths, heights, and everything inbetween.

©Pat Coakley

PHOTOGRAPHS MAY NOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

Filed Under: blogging, Creativity, Humor, Life, Personal, Random Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Who Said?

July 28, 2008 By

Who said?

Who makes the rules?

Are they ever wrong?

Give me an example of your exception to these rules that run our lives.

This is mine. Have you ever seen a cuter butt in all the world?  Ok. Ok. One that has a tail to match?

©Pat Coakley 2008

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

Filed Under: 1, Blogs, Culture, Humor, Life, Personal, Random Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Eat, Read On Line, Blog, Die

July 27, 2008 By

The NY Times this morning has a short video on a family of readers. Parents are voracious print readers. Children are voracious on line readers.

I used to be like the parents. Now, I’m like the kids.

Went from three newspapers a day at my door to none.

Laptop computer did that. Not the desk model. Can’t sit in bed with desk model. Don’t read newspapers anywhere else.

My grandfather had a middle name that began with the initial “H”. My father joked that it really meant “horizontal” because he used to do everything lying down: reading, talking on phone, entertaining visitors, writing.

Based on this behavior, I am a direct descendant.

Here’s my worry.

Newspapers are crapping out due to this little online switch millions of us have made.

I used to read one book at a time, one magazine at a time, and finish each one. I would come home after work on a Friday and take one big fat book and read it non-stop all weekend until I was finished. Loved it.

Now, I read several at a time. It takes me much longer ( I spend less time reading books as I have increased on line reading) and I don’t always finish them.

I wonder could I even sit down and read something straight through any more? Without checking email? Without writing a blog entry? Without perusing the net?

Is reading, as I once knew and loved it, dead like Mr. Mouse? Flies circling?

What about you? Are the flies buzzing around your reading habits, too?

©Pat Coakley 2008

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

Filed Under: 1, blogging, change, Culture, READING, technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Dinner With Friends I’ve Never Met

July 26, 2008 By

Giraffe for dinner anyone? Not just as an entree but as a guest at the dinner table?

Excuse me, could you pass the branch, please?

Dinner at Sanityfound’s house requires some preparation on the part of the guests. Please read this post on Modern Day Recipe for Insanity and then you’ll discover what you need to bring as well as why you should read more of this woman’s blog.

I’m taking pictures of my plate. I don’t care what they do.

©Pat Coakley 2008

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

Filed Under: 1, Humor, Life, Personal, Random Tagged With: , , , ,

Bottom of the Barrel

July 26, 2008 By

Seriously.

I had no idea.

None whatsoever.

This is a picture of the bottom of the barrel. No Photoshop. No tricks.

I was doing an art project with two kids that involved acrylic paints and using their hands as brushes. They had to wash their hands of the old color in order to smush them around in a new color. I emptied out the water at the end of the project and this is what I saw.

Unbelievable.

My goal now is to aspire to be at the bottom of the barrel.

First step toward my goal: Create a new series called, yes, you guessed it.

“I had no idea”

Have you ever used this phrase?

Tell us. Do. Better yet, show us. Have your people call my people. You know the drill.

©Pat Coakley 2008

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

Filed Under: 1, Art, blogging, Creativity, Humor, Kids, Random Tagged With: , , , ,

Rest In Peace, Andrea Doria

July 25, 2008 By

Today is the anniversary of the final day of the Italian liner, Andrea Doria. She collided with another ship, the Swedish ship Stockholm in the fog off Nantucket at 11:10 PM on July 25, 1956. She sank a little under 12 hours later on July 26 1956.

This photo was my first Polaroid Image Transfer made from a slide my father took of the Andrea Doria coming into Naples, Italy (Genoa, maybe, I forget exactly) to pick up New York bound passengers. The four of us in my family- mother, father, brother and moi-were returning from Europe and boarded the ship on what would be its final complete trip to New York. We made it back to New York in June of 1956, but the next time passengers were picked up in Italy to go to New York, they ended up being rescued from the Atlantic, many by the French liner, Ile de France. It was a different era–the final years of truly great ships carrying transatlantic commercial passengers.

I was eleven years old and my brother was fourteen. My father was a lifelong hobbyist ham radio operator and had a radio next to his bed in our house in Buzzards Bay, about 50 miles from the crash site. He had heard the distress signals from the ship shortly after 11 PM and stayed up all night listening to the radio traffic. (There were no 24 hour news channels back then, of course.)

He woke us all up at dawn and we went downstairs to the television set which by now had some early morning black and white film shot by news station photographers in small planes who had made the quick flight from Cape Cod or Boston out to the crash site and then returned to bring the film to the TV station. This relay went on until the ship sank.

Recently, I wrote about “Where Were You?” a post about those memories of events, non family events, where you remember exactly where you were when you heard the news of some historical national or international event. I remember this as a family loss.

After the ship disappeared totally into the water with a final, sickening twist and roll that had the ship and its pool (where I had spent the entire trip when not eating spaghetti) facing the bottom of the Atlantic instead of the endless blue skies that I remembered, we all sat in total silence.

After a few minutes, my father got up and left the room. I looked out the window and saw him raising the flag on the flag pole but this time, raising it only half way. He explained to us what that meant when he came back inside. Someone had died, usually a national figure. But, in our case, he said, the way we are all feeling, a family member had just died.

He got it right back then. If I had a flag pole, I’d still be raising it half way today. (Those days are over, too!) The rest of my family and many of the survivors of the Andrea Doria (50+ died) are now dead, but some of us still pause hearing this date.

So, I post this photo on my blog, using my ID, W1KKP, the call letters that my father used for 65 years as a ham operator.

Sweet, people. Sweet sadness on this day fifty two years ago.

Filed Under: 1, Events, Family, Life, Photography Tagged With: , , , , , ,

THE MORNING AFTER? SPIDERMAN LURKS

July 24, 2008 By

I’m not kidding.

I slept in my clothes.

A long night of torrential rains, biblical thunder and lightning and white caps on a sheltered cove had finally given way to only a continuing southwest gale. The sun was out. I opened my eyes and then the door.

Spiderman was lurking. Wondering. Waiting.

I need coffee I said to Spiderman.

And, my camera. I went back in and took it out.

Spiderman craned his neck to see what I was doing.

What Pappy always does, sweet spiderman.

Click.

©Pat Coakley 2008

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

Filed Under: blogging, Family, Kids, Life, Personal Tagged With: , , , ,

I Wuv Apple

July 23, 2008 By

This is my dahlia. Big whoop. I hear you. But my grand niece saw it and said, “Pappy, this flower is so sweet!”

How sweet?

I took this picture with my IPHONE!!!

Ooooooo…. sweet.

I was going to do a post about sleeping in the nude..

How more men prefer it than women..

And how it’s actually healthier for your private bits….

But I said Nah!

They want to see my dahlia posted on the new WordPress app for Iphone!

More info on nudie sleeping over at:
ambermoon.wordpress.com

photo

Filed Under: Personal, PHOTO BLOGGING, technology Tagged With:
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