next year on our troubles will be out of sight

my favorite Christmas song

Have you ever read the history? I looked it up when I noticed that the original song in Meet Me in St. Louis is different than the versions played on the radio today. Turns out the song had to be reworked to be more happy. From wikipedia:

Some of the original lyrics that were penned by Martin were rejected before the show began. They were: "Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last/ Next year we may all be living in the past / Have yourself a merry little Christmas / Pop that champagne cork / Next year we may all be living in New York." When presented with the original draft lyric, Garland, her co-star Tom Drake and director Vincente Minnelli criticized the song as depressing, and asked Martin to change the lyrics.

 Though he initially resisted, Martin made several changes to make the song more upbeat. For example, the lines "It may be your last / Next year we may all be living in the past" became "Let your heart be light / Next year all our troubles will be out of sight"....

In 1957, Frank Sinatra asked Martin to revise the line "Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow." He told Martin, "The name of my album is A Jolly Christmas. Do you think you could jolly up that line for me?" Martin's new line was "Hang a shining star upon the highest bough." Martin made several other alterations, changing the song's focus to a celebration of present happiness, rather than anticipation of a better future. 

The original is still my favorite, and Judy looks so beautiful.

30

30 is the largest number such that all coprimes smaller than itself, except for 1, are prime.

The total number of major and minor keys in Western tonal music, including enharmonic equivalents

The minimum age for United States senator.

In years of marriage, the pearl wedding anniversary.

The number of tracks on The Beatles' eponymous album, usually known as The White Album.

In 'The Myth of Sisyphus' the French existentialist Albert Camus comments that the age of thirty is a crucial period in the life of a man, for at that age he gains a new awareness of the meaning of time.

spirit animal

After New Year's Eve at the lovely Gigi's place, my sugarpie and I had a deep discussion about our spirit animals. 

According to wiki, a power animal "represent a person's connection to all life, their qualities of character, and their power." 

hello darling

 It seemed obvious- it had to be a water dweller for one thing. But I couldn't decide on a fish or dolphin, etc. Then Ry  suggested an otter, because they are cuddly. When I thought about it I loved the idea! Sea otters can live on land but love to be in the ocean. In fact they don't make dens and can live their whole lives in the water if they choose. They have very fashionable fur pelts! And they hold hands to avoid drifting apart when they sleep on the water. 

practical and lovely!

I decided that a sea otter was my spirit animal.

Then I did some research and guess what? In actual Shamanism, having the otter as a power animal represents  woman’s healing wisdom, sensibility without suspicion, guidance in revealing ones talents, psychic awareness, and faithfulness. 

a mama otter with her baby

I'm cool with that. So what is your spirit animal? 

A leap of faith

Legend has it if a woman proposes on Leap Day a man cannot refuse. 

Go get 'em, les filles! 

The Barefoot Contessa

I love Ina Garten-- she is one of my heroes! 


Ina Rosenberg Garten (born February 2, 1948) is an American author, host of the Food Network program Barefoot Contessa, and former White House nuclear policy analyst. 

At 15, she met her future husband, Jeffrey Garten, on a trip to visit her brother at Dartmouth College. After a year of exchanging letters, they began dating.


On December 22, 1968, Rosenberg and Garten were married in Stamford. She began to dabble in cooking and ... she also acquired her pilot's license. After her husband had completed his military service, the couple journeyed to Paris,France, for a four-month camping vacation that Garten has described as the birth of her love for French cuisine. On returning to the U.S., she began to cultivate her culinary abilities by studying the volumes of Julia Child's seminal cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.Her weekly dinner party tradition began taking shape during this time.

Ina's amazing herb garden

In Washington, Garten worked in the White House and took business courses at George Washington University, eventually earning an MBA, while her husband worked in the State Department and completed his graduate studies. She climbed the political ladder to the Office of Management and Budget and was assigned the position of budget analyst, which entailed writing the nuclear energy budget and policy papers on nuclear centrifuge plants for Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

Garten left her government job in 1978 after spotting an ad for a specialty food store in New York. The store was named Barefoot Contessa. "My job in Washington was intellectually exciting and stimulating but it wasn't me at all," she told The New York Times four years later.

After the success of The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook and Barefoot Contessa Parties!, Garten was approached by Food Network with an offer to host her own television cooking show... Garten was reportedly awarded the most lucrative contract for a culinary author to date, signing a multimillion dollar deal for multiple books. She has also been approached several times to develop her own magazine, line of furniture, set of cookware, and chain of boutiques , but has declined these offers, stating she has no interest in further complicating her life. Between 2004 and 2005, Barefoot in Paris sold almost 400,000 copies and rose to number eleven on the New York Times bestseller list.

Ina's simple kitchen

Garten is known to guard her private life closely, and declines to take part in Food Network charities and activities. Her husband, Jeffrey Garten, went on to become the Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade and dean of the Yale School of Management. He is now the Juan Trippe Professor in the Practice of International Trade, Finance, and Business at Yale. He can also frequently be seen on her cooking show, assisting his wife with simple tasks or sampling the dishes she has created. They divide their time between Manhattan, East Hampton, and Paris.

"You can be miserable before you have a cookie and you can be miserable after you eat a cookie but you can't be miserable while you are eating a cookie." 

— Ina Garten

punk love

I watched Sid and Nancy recently. 

Did you know Nancy started college when she was 16, and she was only 20 when she died/ was murdered by Sid?

When Sid died of an overdose he had a note in his pocket that said:

We had a death pact, and I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. Goodbye.

This stuff wasn't in the film but it was pretty good anyway.

Oh, young punk love. 

“I am a woman who enjoys herself very much; sometimes I lose, sometimes I win.”

Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Geertruida "Grietje" Zelle MacLeod.


Margaretha Geertruida Zelle was born in Leeuwarden, Friesland in the Netherlands, the eldest of four children of Adam Zelle on 2 October 1840. 

At 18, she answered an advertisement in a Dutch newspaper placed by a man looking for a wife. Margaretha married Dutch Colonial Army officer Rudolf John MacLeod They moved to Java in the Dutch East Indies and had two children.

The disenchanted Margaretha abandoned him temporarily, moving in with Van Rheedes, another Dutch officer. For months, she studied the Indonesian traditions intensively, joining a local dance company. In 1897, she revealed her artistic name: Mata Hari, Indonesian for "sun" (literally, "eye of the day").

In 1903, Margaretha moved to Paris, where she performed as a circus horse rider, using the name Lady MacLeod. Struggling to earn a living, she also posed as an artist's model and exotic dancer. 

Promiscuous, flirtatious, and openly flaunting her body, she captivated her audiences and was an overnight success from the debut of her act at the Musée Guimet on 13 March 1905. She posed as a Java princess of priestly Hindu birth, pretending to have been immersed in the art of sacred Indian dance since childhood.

Although the claims made by her about her origins were fictitious, the act was spectacularly successful because it elevated exotic dance to a more respectable status, and so broke new ground in a style of entertainment for which Paris was later to become world famous. Her style and her free-willed attitude made her a very popular woman, as did her eagerness to perform in exotic and revealing clothing. 

On 13 February 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in her room at the Hotel Plaza Athénée in Paris. She was put on trial, accused of spying for Germany and consequently causing the deaths of at least 50,000 soldiers. Although the French and British intelligence suspected her of spying for Germany, neither could produce definite evidence against her. 

Secret ink was found in her room, which was incriminating evidence in that period. She contended that it was part of her make-up. She was found guilty and was executed by firing squad on 15 October 1917, at the age of 41.

The fact that a former exotic dancer had been executed as a spy immediately provoked many unsubstantiated rumours. One is that she blew a kiss to her executioners, although it is possible that she blew a kiss to her lawyer and former lover Edouard Clunet, present at the execution. Her dying words were purported to be "Merci, monsieur". Another rumour claims that, in an attempt to distract her executioners, she flung open her coat and exposed her naked body.

"Harlot, yes, but traitor, never," she is reported to have said.

The idea of an exotic dancer working as a lethal double agent, using her powers of seduction to extract military secrets from her many lovers fired the popular imagination, set the legend and made Mata Hari an enduring archetype of the femme fatale.

for more awesome people explained on wiki, click on the wikipedia is amazing link

28

Twenty-eight is the second perfect number. As a perfect number, it is related to the Mersenne prime 7, since 2²(2³ - 1) = 28. The next perfect number is 496, the previous being 6.

The revolution time of the surface of the Sun on itself is 28 days while its core is revolving in 33 days.

In Gematriya, the system of Hebrew Numerology, the number 28 corresponds to the word koakh, meaning "power", "energy".

The number of dominoes in standard domino sets.

The postal code of the province of Madrid, in Spain.

today's inspiration

Tallulah Bankhead was born in Huntsville, Alabama to William Brockman Bankhead and Adelaide Eugenia "Ada" Bankhead (née Sledge). Tallulah has been described as "an extremely homely child", overweight and with a deep, husky voice resulting from chronic bronchitis.

In her autobiography, Bankhead claimed that her "first performance" was witnessed by none other than the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur. Her Aunt Marie gave the famous brothers a party at her home near Montgomery, Alabama, in which the guests were asked to entertain. "I won the prize for the top performance, with an imitation of my kindergarten teacher," Bankhead wrote. "The judges? Orville and Wilbur Wright."

She began to use cocaine and marijuana, going as far as saying "Cocaine isn't habit forming. I should know – I've been using it for years." However, she did not consume alcohol to any great degree. She became known for her wit, although as screenwriter Anita Loos, a minor fellow Roundtable member, said: "She was so pretty that we thought she must be stupid."

Once, at a party, one of her friends brought along a young man who boldly told Bankhead that he wanted to make love to her that night. She didn't bat an eye and said, "And so you shall, you wonderful, old-fashioned boy."

She was famous not only as an actress but also for her many affairs, infectious personality and witticisms like "There is less to this than meets the eye" and "I'm as pure as the driven slush."

today's inspiration

Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley in Darjeeling, Bengal Presidency, British India to Ernest Hartley, a British Officer in the Indian Cavalry, and Gertrude Robinson Yackje.

Hollywood was in the midst of a widely publicised search to find an actress to portray Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind (1939).  Myron Selznick took Leigh and Olivier to the set where the burning of the Atlanta Depot scene was being filmed and introduced Leigh, telling his brother, "Hey, genius. Meet your Scarlett O'Hara."  The director, George Cukor, praised Leigh's "incredible wildness"; she secured her role as Scarlett soon after.

 Leigh was filming Ceasar and Cleopatra (1945) when she discovered she was pregnant, but she suffered a miscarriage. She fell into a deep depression that hit the low point when she turned on Laurence Olivier, verbally and physically attacking him until she fell to the floor, sobbing. This was the first of many major breakdowns she suffered related to bipolar disorder. 

After 326 performances, Leigh finished her run in the theater version of a Streetcar Named Desire. However, she was soon engaged for the film version. Leigh found the role gruelling and commented to the LA Times, "I had nine months in the theatre of Blanche DuBois. Now she's in command of me."

In January 1953, Leigh travelled to Ceylon to film Elephant Walk. Shortly after filming commenced, she suffered a breakdown; and Paramount Pictures replaced her with Elizabeth Taylor. David Niven said she had been "quite, quite mad"; and in his diary Noel Coward expressed surprise that "things had been bad and getting worse since 1948 or thereabouts."

In 1960, she and Olivier divorced; and Olivier married actress Joan Plowright. In his autobiography, he discussed the years of problems they had experienced because of Leigh's illness: "Throughout her possession by that uncannily evil monster, manic depression, with its deadly ever-tightening spirals, she retained her own individual canniness – an ability to disguise her true mental condition from almost all except me, for whom she could hardly be expected to take the trouble."

You know the passage where Scarlett voices her happiness that her mother is dead, so that she can't see what a bad girl Scarlett has become? Well, that's me. -Vivien Leigh