A Good Year

"A Good Year", 12x16, oil on Raymar panel

I realize that I haven't made any entries in this blog for a very long time, but that hasn't precluded me from thinking about my friends that I once had here. I hope that almost everyone's doing well (though I do know that some of you are not) and blogging away happily still. Today, I decided that I could probably still write better than a 5th grader, so here I am back on my old blog, where I once incessantly wrote my heart out. If you have ever wondered what happened to the Globetrotter, she's been painting her heart out and posting regularly over on her paint blog at PaintDance.

Hopefully an old friend or two will still remember me and possibly drop a line to say hello.

Back in March, the hubby and I took a fun trip up the coast of California, which included a visit of course to wine country! There were so many wineries in Napa and Sonoma Valley that it became difficult to determine which to visit and which ones to pass over. We found 2 fabulous finds that day, but I'll save #2 for another day. We totally enjoyed the winery of August Briggs in Calistoga and have wine in our rack to prove it. This is one of the very few wineries in California that does not charge a tasting fee, and the education that accompanied our journey into that very special wine cellar was almost as stellar as the samplings we enjoyed. I highly recommend this winery for many reasons, and that is why I decided to include one of the August bottles in one of my very rare realism paintings.

Over the weekend I determined that it was high time to invest another effort into my realism painting. Although I find colorist impressionism much more fun to do than realism, I truly appreciate the paintstaking efforts that go into realistic still life paintings. One of my biggest problems in attempting realistic still life paintings, is a total lack of north light indoor lighting in my home. So, instead of fighting against confusing light sources, I finally decided to take the setting out to my front porch, where I was able to catch a very nice north light (albeit outdoor) on my bottle of August Briggs cabernet. I also pulled out a tablecloth that I'd purchased in Heidelburg, Germany, and a lovely ceramic carafe that I'd purchased in Strasbourg, France, and the overall composition seemed as ripe and lively as the grapes that most certainly went into that cabernet sauvignon.

I titled this painting "A Good Year" after Peter Mayle's book and the delightful movie starring Russell Crowe, (which incidently had little resemblance to the novel itself). The title will hopefully also serve as a swan song to my endless drivel about the benefits of living in Pennsylvania over Florida. Yes, for me, it's been a very good year in Gatorland.

If you'd like to see what else I've been up to over the past 6 months, just check out my art website here. Otherwise drop me any email (as some of you still do), and let me know what's going on in your lives.


a Painting a day, Daily painters, original art , affordable art, still lif paintings,home decor paintings,Napa Valley Art Art,gardens and florals,colorist art,California Art, Calistoga Wineries, August Briggs winery.
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My God can beat up your God

The other day I was sitting at Farlows sipping Chardonnay with the hubster and the guy at the table behind me suddenly said, "Well, it seems there IS a God after all!"

"Whaddaya mean?" asked someone at his table.

"Well...The Dems have regained control of the House, and the Senate, and Rumsfeld got canned! Yup. There is a God after all!"

I turned around to him and said, "Amen,brother!"

I couldn't believe my ears. I was sitting smack center in the heart of Red country and yet the tide had somehow turned purplish. Yes, I am still quite upset about the problems down here in my district, where Christine Jennings got screwed out of her seat in the House of Representatives by a sleezy car dealership owner who reportedly has billions of bucks sequestered in offshore accounts. If I believed in conspiracy theories I'd be certain that those damned paper-trail-less e-voting machines had been tampered with. But I'm too upbeat these days to go there right now.

Sadly, some of my friends who laughed their hynees off at me in 2004 are now having their own little hissy fits now. As one male GOP friend of mine whined like a woman on the phone to me the other day with dire predictions of doom and gloom, I felt like saying:

Yeeeeees. There definitely IS a God!

Well,aside from THAT, I guess some of my blogging friends have given up on me. I don't blame them for taking my gilded cage out of their sidebars. In case anyone's been wondering where I have been, I've been painting. Yup. That's about it. The days when my life was wild and crazy are pretty much over. I suppose I'm thankful for that, although at times I miss some things about my old life, especially the years when the kids were young and I had my dance school and company. My new life is so boring that it's rather doubtful that I could ever again entertain anyone with the type of amusing anecdotes that I used to write about here. I suppose that's one of the big reasons that I've lost interest in writing. I've simply become a huge humdrum bore.

At any rate, I finally bought a new computer this week and it's fast as hell! Yay! So now I no longer have any excuse for not visiting my friends' blogs because of a slow, sick computer. However, I must admit that I do still post pretty regularly in my art blog, since it doesn't involve any writing skills to post a painting, so if you haven't checked it out yet, just go here.
to see what I've been up to with my paintbrush.

I was also interviewed on Monday for an article in our local paper, so if you want to see a picture of me in action with a paintbrush, you can just click here.

Other than that, I must admit that I feel a need to paint all the time because I guess I'm trying to catch up for lost time. I know that relatively speaking I don't have a lot of time left on earth to paint, and since the body and eyes are already giving out, I am doing my best to make up for lost time. Some days I regret not having had the opportunity to have attended art school, because it's tough trying to learn to paint in one's old age. But I know things turned out the way they should have, so I don't fret about things like that for very long.

My 3 sons are doing well, thanks be to God. The youngest is still happy over the success of the Lieberman campaign , where he worked over the past 6 months. The middle one just finished his law school applications today, and is probably going out tonight to get shit-faced. The oldest is already over the fiancee-from-hell fiasco and grazing in much greener pastures these days.

So now that you've all caught up with my boring life, it's time for me to come and visit YOU! I promise that I'll try...

Press Release, Broad voting problem in Sarasota County

Okay, I haven't posted in this blog in a few weeks, but I am furious! So I'm going wherever I can to be heard, including here!

SUBJECT: Inexplicable undercount in Sarasota County, Florida

To the Press and whom it may concern,

Before you read what I have to say, you can go to today's article in the Herald Tribune for more info by clicking here.

I am outraged by what is happening here in Sarasota County, Florida. There is a very mysterious undercount in Florida's 13th district, which is ironically the former Katherine Harris district. Results indicate that Christine Jennings (D) would have definitely beat Vern Buchanan (R) in the 13th district of Florida AND WON THE ELECTION had these broad problems in certain Sarasota County precincts not occurred. She lost by less than 400 votes, although absentee ballots have not yet been counted. She strongly beat Buchanan in other Sarasota County precincts where these irregularities did not occur. Think about it: People do not go to a mid term election poll and vote for a Hospital Superintendent and NOT for their congressional candidate!!! There is an 18,000 undervote for congressional candidates in this 13th Sarasota County district that is NOT explainable!!!

In my opinion, Kathy Dent, Supervisor of elections, is a biased official, not for the people, as well as being unprofessional and unethical. (I can cite instances, press, if you wish to email me). She pushed for the e-voting machines here, designed the ballot in the 13th district, and her own people PROGRAMMED it. Why is it that in my precinct (#134) the choices for the candidates for congress (to replace Katherine Harris's seat) appeared in a prominent position right on the middle of the first page where I voted, yet the position for the candidates CHANGED totally on the ballot in other precincts that used the SAME voting machines? A friend of mine, whose name I'll give the press if you email me, was a Democratic poll worker in the 89th precinct on Tuesday and at the polls she was called over to assist someone who was unable to find Christine Jenning's name on the ballot. When my friend went over to assist that person, at first she couldn't find Christine's name either! It seems to have been hidden on the top left hand corner of the second page as a result of the way the screen view had been set up. The only way to know that Jennings was even on the ballot was to wait until you got to the very end review, where you would see that you hadn't voted for the candidate of your choice and it had been left blank. There were dozens of people that day who complained that they could not find their candidate!Unfortunately they left the polls unsure and confused about what to do. In addition, I'm told that Kathy Dent was alerted to the problem during early voting over the past weeks and did nothing to REMEDY IT! Kathy Dent even had the nerve to warn people that the candidates name was hard to find in the congressional race. Unfortunately, she waited until the night before elections to post the warning and many people didn't receive the warning until it was too late! What people around the country need to realize is that the people in some of these districts are VERY, very elderly. In addition, in some of the poorer trailer park districts they are also woefully under-educated in the workings of technology, and could easily have voted without reviewing their choices. The fact of the matter is that Kathy Dent needs to be removed immediately, and her group should not have been given the opportunity to program these computers in the first place. Something definitely needs to be done about this anomaly and since Kathy Dent is the one responsible for these miserable voting machines, she needs to be held accountable. If you are reading this or are a member of the press, please spread the word! A recount will probably not help. The matter needs thorough investigation as do the machines, as I , and many other people I know, believe that there was tampering of these machines!

Any help to get the word out by press or individual would be greatly appreciated!.
You can email me at globetrotter2u@aol.com@aol.com, if you have any questions.

voting irregularities in Florida,
Katherine Harris district voting problems, Christine Jennings, Vern Buchanan , Kathy Dent, voting machine problems,

NO DSL IS WORSE THAN PMS

"The world is your kaleidoscope, and the varying combinations of colors which at every succeeding moment it presents to you are the exquisitely adjusted pictures of your ever-moving thoughts." (James Allen)


I have been a vewy, vewy bad blogger, basically because I haven’t had any DSL service for a couple weeks. Uploading pictures has become Chinese torture for me, and even waiting for other sites to load makes me nuts. So until I get my DSL working again, I’m simply not going to waste my time looking at an hourglass spinning.

I have been painting a lot, though.

On Sunday I decided to skip my class at Ringling and join the Plein Air painters in my area for the first paint-out of the season. I had never painted outdoors in late afternoon before, so was I ever in for a treat! We ended up at the Casperson Beach Park and another painter and myself chose to paint the park’s canoe launch into the Intracoastal. I finished it today and am satisfied that I was able to capture the luminous light quality of that late day Florida sunlight.

Casperson Beach Park, oil on gallery-wrapped-canvas, 12 by 16


Here is the photograph that I took of the spot that day.

After viewing the photo it’s easy to see why so many landscape painters elect to paint outdoors instead of using a reference photograph. There is absolutely no way that my camera could capture that incredible light quality and the way in which the foreground was literally “lit up” like a jewel!

I'm still hoping the hubby's contract will end soon so I can take a road trip north to see some autumn foliage in the next few weeks. I’ll try to catch up with everyone’s life when Comcast hooks me up to high speed again. (Scheduled for Friday!Yay!)

Hoping all is well with my blogging friends,
Maryanne

No food fight here

It came over me insidiously.

I’ve gone and become a food addie. Or should I say faddy? Yeah, watchin’ all these food networks and food channels sure makes me feel hungry all the time.

Chris started it. He got me hooked on Hell’s Kitchen. That’s when my life started to revolve around every episode. Even the hour-long weekly re-runs! Well, thankfully that ended quickly, since I tuned in late in the season...

Then, thanks to Waterboy and his food fight, I started watching The Food Network. Now I’m hooked on The Iron Chef. These chefs concoct recipes in that kitchen that’ll either have you salivating or give you indigestion. The secret ingredient one week was pork. I personally hate pork, but nonetheless I sat there for a full hour watching pork being made into appetizers, entrees, soups and even desserts. You heard me – desserts! Iron Chef Cat Cora actually made a gelato with pork rinds in it. I thought I’d puke. I’m glad she lost that night against her challenger, because I’ll never eat gelato again after thinking about ice cream with bacon in it. LAst week the secret ingredient was eggplant. Cat Cora made some cotton candy, dipped it in red pepper and stuck it in her eggplant soup. Creative-yes! Delicious=?????????

A couple weeks ago I finally got to meet the sensuousG-I-A-DA. A goddess to some, a cheesy smile to others, if you ask me. I watched intensely as She whipped up a quick meal using- you guessed it- pork again! My least favorite ingredient. She took a pork roast, gave it a good rub, (Paul and company were you watching?) and drowned it in some puréed figs. Worse yet, she took some fennel and cooked it in olive oil and parmesan cheese, and that was all there was to the rest of the meal. Well, I figured if food like that could give Giada those perky boobs, then I sure as hell better try some too.

So I went out and bought all the ingredients, even though I wouldn't have known a fennel if it introduced itself to me. Luckily, I made mashed potatoes with the meal. The husband took a couple nibbles of Giada's masterpiece and told me that the Italians can have their fennel and their figs. We liked the potatoes though. Last weekend Giada took her viewers on a whirlwind tour of Italy. The hubby came into the room while I was watching and I told him he could thank the cutie with the “It’s sooooooooo good!” smile for last weekend's pig roast. He stared at her awhile and I waited to see if he’d walk closer to the TV and try to look down her blouse. He didn’t. He looked kinda puzzled, and then turned and said to me, “You really think she’s attractive?”

I said noooooooo, but some people do.

His verdict? She’s way too perky for him, and exceedingly unsexy. He does like Cat Cora though. I guess he's into kinkiness.

Go figure...