The Heart Whisperer:

I've been holed up in my room upstairs, keeping warm, painting A LOT, and listening to Christian Scott who fills my brain with energy and makes the hours fly. A song I love, love, love is Like This off his "Rewind That" album.

Along with being an amazing trumpeter, Scott is an artist, athlete, composer, fashion hound, Grammy winner, philanthropist, and twin. Born in New Orleans, Christin Scott has been heralded as "the architect of a new viable fusion." And not since Miles Davis have I been so taken in by a musician.

"By manipulating his breathing temperature and articulation, he can procure a sound unlike the trumpet and more like a whispering human voice." JazzTimes magazine

Can't wait for the February 2010 release of his new album, "Yesterday You Said Tomorrow." I'm sure it will be an 18-karat, barn burner!

Globalization:

I cannot comprehend what life must've been like for my great-great-grandmother Caroline. She was born in 1854 -- one hundred years before me.

She was born before the light bulb was invented, before the refrigerator, typewriter, chewing gum, telephone, automobile, ballpoint pen, zipper, radio, tractor, washing machine, bra, parachute, stainless steel, antibiotics, and insulin. She died before nylon and the helicopter were invented. Heck, the laser, jet engine, birth-control pill, integrated circuit and the computer weren't invented until after I was born... not to mention, pocket calculators, and videocassette recorders. Within the past thirty years, the personal computer, email, the mobile phone, the artificial heart, the internet, the world-wide web, GPS (global positioning system), DNA fingerprinting and human genome sequencing have been invented. It boggles the mind.

Caroline probably only knew, or knew of, less than 100 people in her life. And I bet she traveled less than a fifty-mile radius from her home. I think she could read and write, but I'm sure her reading was limited to a few things like the Bible and Jane Austen's books.

Today everywhere I turned, there it was... in the newspaper, on television news reports and on the computer screen... hundreds of images of a place called Haiti.

I'm thinking I'd like to live in 1854.

Found An Old LP:

My brother was born in 1948 and my sister in 1950, four years later I came along. As teenagers, they introduced me to the music of The Sixties. And because I was only eight-years-old and was outnumbered two-to-one, I listened to whatever they listened to. The car radio was set at 50,000-watt KOMA 92.5 for "Top-40 Rock & Roll." In the bedroom I shared with my sister, phonograph albums of pop musicians were stacked on a turntable that played endlessly. Needless to say, that music was the soundtrack of my life!

While cleaning out a closet the other day, I found an old LP... all by itself, no jacket or sleeve, just the big black vinyl record with the oh-so-familiar Capitol label in the middle. After putting on my reading glasses, I discovered that it was an album by Cilla Black. Talk about being thrown through a hole in time! I can't tell you how many times in my youth I played this album over and over and over again. But how I ended up with the LP, I'm not sure. One day long ago, my Mother was probably getting rid of "junk" and said, "Who wants this?" I must've grabbed it.

Interesting tidbits: Cilla Black was discovered by The Beatles (uh huh, you knew there would be a Beatles connection, right?) She was the only female client of Brian Epstein (John Lennon convinced him to take her on). Her first record was produced by George Martin and was written for her by Lennon/McCartney, "Love of the Loved." Her first Number One hit was a Burt Bacharach/Hal David tune, "Anyone Who Had A Heart." Other hits of hers included: Alfie, It's For You, You're My World, Is It Love, Love Letters, You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (before The Righteous Brothers and Maverick!), and tons more. Dionne Warwick did a lot of cover songs of hers. I don't remember hearing much about her, but she was popular at the same time as Lulu, Dusty Springfield, and Petula Clark. She was the first female to have her own television show in the U.K. and from what I gather, she continues to entertain today.

Neon Orangeness:

I love Cheetos. Not going to apologize for it.

I love Crunchy Cheetos. I don't like the puffy ones. I don't like the flamin' hot ones. I don't like the big ones. I don't like the baked ones. I don't like the paws, twists, balls, nor whirls. And I don't like Chester.

In 2010, I am striving to eat healthfully, generally make sure that my food is indeed made out of food and not supremely processed, over-salted and preserved food-like substances. I love lentils and brown rice and have put away a fair amount of tofu in my time. But then there are Cheetos. I cannot explain my love for Cheetos. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Maybe it started in grade school when I would pull apart my PB&J and load my sandwich with the crunchy, cheesy pieces. Or maybe I got hooked by the vending machine in high school which provided my daily kick of the neon sticks. They are so good in such a bad way.

The last time I splurged on the dietary horror that is a bag of Cheetos, I did what I have long since trained myself not to do –- I looked at the ingredient list. YIKES! What I want to know: What is all that chemical garbage is doing in my food? Why is it there? What role does it serve? The internet came to the rescue of this miniature chemistry lesson. The following is the (almost) complete ingredient list from a bag of Cheetos:

Enriched corn meal -- with all usual vitamin supplements
Vegetable oil
Salt -- the third ingredient on the list (No wonder I love Cheetos!)
Maltodextrin -- polysaccharide produced from starch (rice, corn or potato); easily digestible and absorbed as easily as glucose
Sugar
Monosodium glutamate –- an amino acid that acts as a potent flavor enhancer. MSG triggers the umami taste receptors, making food taste more savory
Autolyzed yeast extract -- often contains free glutamic acids and is, for that reason, used as a supplement to MSG. “…consists of concentrations of yeast cells that are allowed to die and break up, so that the yeasts’ digestive enzymes break their proteins down into simpler compounds.”
Citric acid –- used for tart flavor and as an antioxidant
Artificial color –- apparently, neon orange doesn’t come easily, Cheetos are colored by no fewer than four food dyes!
Partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil
Hydorlyzed soy protain –- “…Soy protein is used for emulsification and texturizing. Specific applications include adhesives, asphalts, resins, cleaning materials, cosmetics, inks, pleather, paints, paper coatings, pesticides/fungicides, plastics, polyesters and textile fibres.” (Ok, I am sure that soy protein isn’t as scary as that passage just made it sound, but it sure does give a girl pause!)
“Cheddar cheese” –- I'm sorry, I couldn’t help putting cheese in quotation marks!
Whey -– “Whey proteins primarily consist of α-lactalbumin and β-lactoglobulin. Depending on the method of manufacture, whey may also contain glycomacropeptides (GMP).”
Onion powder
Whey protein concentrate –- often used in body-building supplements, this is basically pure, milk-derived bioactive protein (Why it is included in my most favorite of bright orange “foods,” I can’t seem to figure out. It doesn’t sound terribly sinister, so I will forgive its inclusion.)
Corn syrup solids –- sweetener and thickener, dried corn syrup consisting mostly of dextrose. “Corn syrup contains no nutritional value other than calories, promotes tooth decay, and is used mainly in foods with little intrinsic nutritional value.”
Natural flavor –- huh?
Buttermilk solids –- analogous to dried milk as far as food additives are concerned. “Buttermilk is the liquid remaining from the cream after the butter has been removed from the churn. (This buttermilk should not be confused with the fluid buttermilk sold to consumers, a cultured lowfat milk that resembles buttermilk.)”
Garlic powder
Disodium phosphate –- “Disodium phosphate is a sodium salt of orthophosphoric acid and is used as an antioxidant synergist, stabiliser and buffering agent in food. It is also used as an emulsifier in the manufacture of pasteurised processed cheese. Disodium phosphate is added to powdered milk to prevent gelation.” Note: harmful if ingested in quantity. (Oooook, limiting Cheeto intake starting... NOW!)
Sodium diacetate –- basically vinegar in solid form, this additive is used as an antimicrobial/preservative and to add a tangy flavor to foods
Sodium caseinate –- milk protein conjugate used as a binder, emulsifier, or thickener, likely used in the “cheese” in Cheetos
Lactic acid –- “…fermented from lactose (milk sugar), most commercially used lactic acid is derived by using bacteria such as Bacillus acidilacti, Lactobacillus delbueckii or Lactobacillus bulgaricus to ferment carbohydrates from nondairy sources such as cornstarch, potatoes and molasses. usually either as a pH adjusting ingredient, or as a preservative (either as antioxidant or for control of pathogenic micro-organisms).”
Disodium inosinate –- disodium salt of inosinic acid. (That clarifies everything, huh?) Used in concert with MSG to trigger the umami taste receptors
Disodium guanylate –- “… often added to foods in conjunction with disodium inosinate; the combination is known as disodium 5’-ribonucleotides. Disodium guanylate is produced from dried fish or dried seaweed and is often added to instant noodles, potato chips and snacks, savoury rice, tinned vegetables, cured meats, packet soup. …The food additives disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate are useful only in synergy with MSG-containing ingredients, and provide a likely indicator of the presence of MSG in a product."
Nonfat milk solids
Sodium citrate –- sodium salt of citric acid, added for tartness and to balance pH
Carrageenan –- obtained from seaweed, indigestible large protein used as a thickening, stabilizing and gelling agent

Whew! What I found most interesting in this chemical roster is the amount of MSG and MSG analogs -– no fewer than four separate chemicals to trigger that sought-after umami flavor. Cheetos also contain a fair number of preservatives and stabilizers, all chemicals with natural derivations, but chemicals nonetheless. My conclusion? You probably won’t die from eating a bag (or two or three or eight) of Cheetos every once in a while, but perhaps it’s best not to make a habit of it!

Roxanne:

Twenty years ago this morning, I was lying on a hospital bed waiting for the birth of my third child. My husband had left with the nurse to put on his scrubs, and I was left alone to think. It was a moment I'll never forget. For various reasons, my husband and I had decided that three children was enough. I was going to have my "tubes tied" after the baby was born via scheduled C-section. But, secretly, I had always wanted six children -- so, even though I knew getting my tubes tied was the practical thing to do -- I was sad.

A soothsayer once told me that he'd never met "a true earth mother" till he met me. I don't know about that, but I do know that I loved being pregnant. I'm wierd, I know, but I did. I loved the nurturing and nature of it all. I loved the movement in my belly. I loved the closeness that only pregnancy can offer, that unique closeness with another human being. And this would be the last day I would ever feel that kind of closeness.

We wanted a boy but loved our two daughters so it didn't really matter what we had. "We just want it to be healthy." If it was a boy, he would be named James Marshall Cook III and we would call him Trey. If it was a girl, we'd have to decide between the twenty or so names we'd narrowed down.

On the operating table, I felt them tug and pull and then out came a beautiful baby girl! She was healthy and strong and, did I mention that she was beautiful? Then the doctor asked if I was sure I wanted my tubes tied. "If you're only 99.9 percent sure, then you shouldn't do it." My husband was at my side and said, "If you don't want to, you don't have to." I knew he knew that I knew what he was thinking, so I said, "No, don't do it." I knew he wanted to try again for a boy... fine by me.

After they had finished with me and cleaned up our new daughter, my husband and I shared a few moments together just looking at her. She was so beautiful! We couldn't wait for her sisters to see her. We were over-the-moon happy! He left to tell the good news to those who had gathered in the waiting room. They told me he entered the room singing, "Roxanne!" My best friend was the only one who understood the meaning of his song -- "It's a girl!"

No, we didn't name her Roxanne (!) and, no, we didn't have any more children. We thought about trying again a few years later and even read literature about "spinning sperms," but we loved our family just as it was and decided that it was the way it was meant to be. Thank heaven for little girls!

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step:
Today is an important day. It is the start of what will probably be a very long and complex search. I am going to find myself. You see, up to now, my life has been full of compromises. I have no idea who I really am.

Hope you will come along for the ride!

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry:
Thanks for caring. Thanks for your notes of concern. Thanks for missing my musings!

I was forced to take a break from this blog. I'm fine... just super-uper busy. I'm trying to complete a commission for 8 paintings -- 8 LARGE paintings -- for my brother's restaurant. They are almost finished and I will soon get my life back.

My daughter lands on U.S. soil today at 12:30 pm. Praise God! (My son-in-law returned the Monday before Thanksgiving.) Along with their return is the upcoming separation from my granddaughter, Little Miss M. I have been her sole guardian for the past 12 months. It will be bittersweet and my blogs in 2010 will probably contain lots of issues dealing with my loneliness -- so get ready!

In the meantime, "...have yourself a Merry Little Christmas." See you again in the New Year!