The Little Pink Dress

June 8th, 2010 Posted to Family, Looking Good, Mysteries in Life, Parties and Fun, Photos, Relationships, Wierd Stuff, Words from Venus

“THE LITTLE PINK DRESS”

(Hanging In My Art Room Minding It’s Own Business.)

I’m having a family party at my house. My sister, sitting in a chair on the patio, leans over to me sitting on the chair next to her and says, “Venus, someone has to tell you. Never wear that dress again. Go look in the mirror at your butt.”

I look at Polly, agast.

“That dress ripples all up your butt. Go look. You’ll see.”

I run madly into the house and look in the Magic Mirror, the one who lies to me and always tells me I look 10-15 lbs lighter than I really do.

I turn around and look at my butt. The little pink patterned dress is riding high, but cute, I think.

I’m mystified as I return to the front porch where most of us are gathered, eating potluck and cake.

“”Ummmmmm,” Polly says. She nods her head at another sister. “Look at Barbara. Now that’s the kind of top you need to be wearing at our age.”

I look at Barbara. It’s a nice pale yellow top, but it’s tucked up under her breasts and flounces out and around over her stomach and hips down to her mid thighs. To me, it looks like a yellow boy scout tent. Barbara is a pretty girl and can wear anything, but I have always seen myself as a Looker with a tiny waist that I like to emphasize.

“These tight dresses,” Polly says as she looks at my middle, “show off the rolls around our waists.”

She draws back in her chair, narrows her eyes, looks at me and says, “Are you wearing a bra?”

I look down and imagine that my ‘huge’ breasts must be dragging low, placidly curled up on my belly ball stomach.

Another sister or sister in law backs Polly and her observations about me in this dress. Another woman chimes in to mention another fault of mine in this little pink stretchy dress and tsk tsk, I should have thought a bit more before I put it on.

Another woman from down the mountain adds that I usually dress like people dress in my little town, kind of like a hick.

Their comments are all meant to help me, they assure me, with sympathy in their tone, but I am kind of confounded and crushed. I seem to be ‘It’ today. All the Lady Chickens are picking on and pecking at me.

“Someone has to tell you,” Polly reiterates. “It’s a kindness.”

I sigh and hang my head.

Later, I corner my son-in-law Charles and my ex boyfriend Bill, in the kitchen.

“Do I look awful in this dress? ” I ask.

The two guys look surprised.

Charles says, “You look great! Remember, I told you earlier in the hall how hot you look, that you look even better than you did years ago.”

Bill seems puzzled and adds, “I think you look real good. Why?”

Why? Well my friends…here’s why I asked the men for their opinion of my dress.

It’s because women see other women differently then men see women. And, that is the truth. We women hold ourselves to high and impossible standards of beauty.

But..Most men honestly don’t seem to see our flaws.

Can you imagine? Yes. It’s true. Men by and large are very simple and sweet. They don’t notice our flopping thighs, our meandering butts or the flapping, dimpled fat on our arms. If they find us as a woman attractive, they find us attractive. If they don’t, well frankly, they don’t even see us.

A few days ago I went to a small store in town that I frequent a lot. It is run by a very religious couple with five kids. The father is around thirty five or forty and he is quite handsome.

As I was trotting up the steps to their store, he happened to come out on the stoop. He looked at me and obviously without thinking, shouted, “Hi, Hot Stuff!”

I almost swallowed my spit backwards. I’m still Hot Stuff??

Grinning all the way home I also laughed out loud. Sang along with the radio. Swung and shook my sweet little body on the car seat.

I am thinking of that man now and of my son-in-law and my ex-boyfriend and I am elated. Thank gosh men see us differently than we women have been trained see each other!

Men are visual and they are attracted to a woman visually, but obviously, they see what they want to see and I say ‘God Save The Queen’ and ‘Thank you God’ and ‘Pass the beans’. I love men’s simple acceptance of what physically is, and I love  their blind eye, and I am so relieved that I only need to look perfect around my lady friends.

But hey…just to cause trouble, I am gonna’ wear that little pink dress, no bra and a party hat to the next family gathering and we’ll see what kind of hell breaks out with the women.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

God In The House

“GOD IS IN THE HOUSE”

This is one of my ART MOJO PAINTINGS….where I put Energy into my art as I am painting it…to fill your house with Good Energy of whatever kind you ask for.  When you purchase paintings you email me the Mojo you want in them and why, and I write a special, extra Mojo on the back, just for you and ’slap’ it into the picture along with the others already there. To see all the art work or to purchase please see:    http://www.artmojos.com

THESE ARE ALL ORIGINAL PAINTINGS (not prints)

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Phone Sessions With Venus

“I have been to lots of readers, but you are the best, Venus. You are honest and tell the truth and give good advice. You also really do read minds, talk to dead people and move good energies in our favor. Just wanted you to know I appreciate you. Penny D.”

To see how I work, testimonials and my rates please go to: http://www.godisalwayshappy.com

(PS  You will notice I made myself look 25 with red hair in my painting. Oh well, an artist has free rein with their creativity, right? x Venus)

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

*You may have also noticed that I have finally learned how to put photos on my blog! Yes, it’s taken me several days and I have worn myself out but I am so excited I feel like I am spinning with some kind of formerly unknown and under used brilliance. I must have had the technical type of brains all along, but where were they?

Just wait until I start putting photos up of my mother and siblings! Good thing they don’t read my blog.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

WINNER

Winner of  a 10 minute free phone session with me:   Stacie Prince This offer is valid through June 14th, 2010, after that it is null and void.

To have a chance to WIN, please sign up for this blog where it says ‘FEED’ and sign up on my website for the Newsletter. http://www.godisalwayshappy.com

I draw a name every week on my Tuesday ‘Dear Venus radio Show’ ( http://www.contacttalkradio.com)

and with every new Blog and whenever I send out an Email Newsletter

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
8 Comments »

A DISGUSTING CONVERSATION

May 9th, 2010 Posted to Family, Relationships, Stories about Mother, Wierd Stuff, Words from Venus

My brother has just finished telling us about the massive gray polyps in his colon, found with a colonoscopy, polyps that, according to Jim “Had their big heads waving around in there on long skinny stalks.”

My sister Candy, my brother Jim and I are sitting in a booth with our 87 year old mother in a Denny’s Restaurant. We’re having breakfast; a Senior Special, one waffle, eggs and bacon and something that sounds like “Eggs Over Hominy.”

We’ve been ‘enjoying’ Jim’s graphic description of what he had to do to clean his bowel the night before the procedure. I’ll save you from all of it except to say that Jim had to buy his laxative supplies at the drug store and he swears that one of them was called “Move-A-Quick,” or something like that,” and he swears it lived up to it’s name.

My mother, my sister and I start clattering our silverware on the table and making little squeeking noises so Jim abruptly changes course.

“So,” he says, “my daughter told me yesterday that all her friends at school think I’m gay.” Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
3 Comments »

Blessings Of An Unusual Kind

April 6th, 2010 Posted to Art and Beauty, Family, Looking Good, Photos, Relationships, Stories about Mother, Wierd Stuff, Words from Venus

My mother, who is 87, has been talking lately about the tea kettles.

“The tea kettles are doing this, the tea kettles are doing that.”

It took me awhile to understand that she is talking about the recent American political group, The Tea Party! I had been thinking, ‘Why? Why are tea kettles out doing things?’

My mother and I are sitting on her deck, watching the cars go by on the road on the other side of her wide field. My mother smiles broadly and her white hair glistens in the sun. She’s wearing her little red, dog-hair decorated sweater over her blue, green and purple top with the coffee stains on the front, with hot pink sweat pants and high rider tennis shoes.

“You look good, Mom,” I say. ”I’m glad you stopped that cancer medicine. You don’t look terminal to me.”

This is the medicine that cost $4400.00 (!) a month and caused Mom’s nose to swell to the size of a small potato.

I had come over to visit her after she had been on the medicine for a few days. I kept looking at her face. Something wasn’t right, but what was it? She didn’t look like my Mother. I had studied her, carefully.

“I think your lipstick is wrong,” I said. “It’s going up over your top lip somehow and it seems odd.” Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
3 Comments »

LEXI COOKS DINNER oh my

October 30th, 2009 Posted to Family, Relationships, Wierd Stuff

Tuesday 7PM:

Bill returns from a full, late day at work. How glad he is to find that Lexi, (six) has laid out a full course meal for him in his studio. The courses sit on 3 chairs lined up in a row. Each chair has a place mat and silverware.

The first chair hosts a large bowl of garden greens with carrots, tomatoes, hot marinated red and green Spanish peppers, orange seasoning, salt and pepper and liberal amounts of tabasco sauce.

On the second chair we have a banana pudding. The bottom layer is an intriguing mix of a (very) ancient smashed brown banana mixed with a small, raw chopped potato and over that is sliced the last perfect banana from my kitchen counter.

The third plate holds a long medium sized loaf of French bread, cut in half. It is covered in raspberry jam.

There is also a cup of water with lime juice squeezed into it.

Bill is surprised to find his dinner waiting. I don’t tell him that it has been waiting out for him since noon. I don’t see anything that will kill him without refrigeration, so I let that knowledge be unsaid. Why upset him?

He makes appreciative sounds as Lexi ushers him to his table and begins to serve him. He starts with the tabasco and hot pepper salad.

I watch intently. He eats it, doggedly.

His eyes water. He looks at me like he might die but he keeps eating. Lexi points out each pepper and details how she collected all the vegetables from the garden and what went into the dressing.

Suddenly, I say, “What’s all that green stuff?”

“Lettuce,” Lexi answers.

“But…we don’t have any lettuce in the garden.”

Bill looks up at me and stops chewing. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
4 Comments »

WEED WHACKERS AND CIGARS

October 15th, 2009 Posted to Family, Relationships, Words from Venus

The trunk of my car pops open and I peer into the cavern as I start to toss in my groceries. Yikes and eeeeh gads! There’s a small black snake in the trunk, a little snake with white spots, an open mouth and wide eyes. It’s looking at me.

I jump back, reach to the ground and pick up a little stick. Carefully, I dish up the snake and turn it over. I know it’s not a real snake. I know it’s a plastic fake because my grandkids, Loch and Lexi are here. I know the fake snake was left in the car trunk when I hauled all their clothes and toys out of here a few days ago…but still, a snake is a snake and I need to make double, double sure.

It’s been three days with Loch and Lexi and here’s how it’s going.

My ex-boyfriend Bill, still lives in my studio and is what we call the kids Extra Grandpa. They love him and he loves them.

Tonight, he huffs into my bedroom at the back of the house and says, “I can’t find my cigars. I just went uptown and got them several hours ago and they cost me $20 and I can’t find them!”

He looks at me, meaningfully.

I rush to defend myself. “I don’t have them!”

Bill says, “Lexi says she saw Loch take them out of my desk drawer and they aren’t there now.”

“I can’t believe that,” I say. “I didn’t see him with any cigars and Lexi doesn’t always get her facts straight. She’s only six.”

The Drama unfolds. Bill asks Loch where his cigars are. Loch says he doesn’t know. Lexi says “Yes, you do Loch. You took them out of Bill’s drawer.”

Loch shakes his white curly hair indignantly and says, “I did  not!” He looks affronted.

Lexi rummages through all the trash cans, Bill checks Loch’s bed and toy bin. He scouts his house and mine looking under books and behind pillows. This continues for at least half an hour with much yelling between Loch and Lexi while Bill huffs and puffs and bangs a few doors open and shut.

Lexi continues to insist that she saw Loch take the cigars while Loch vigorously defends his honor.

I continue to say Loch is not guilty. After all, if a three year old boy found some fresh cigars don’t you think he would be doing something with them? Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
2 Comments »

COLLECTING A LIFE

September 25th, 2009 Posted to Family, Parties and Fun, Pets, Photos, Relationships, Screaming Hysterics, Stories about Mother, Wierd Stuff, Words from Venus

A letter comes in the mail. It’s from my daughter Summer and there is a note stuck on the folded letter inside. It says, ‘Mom, Lexi couldn’t sleep last night so she stayed up late, secretly writing this to you. All by herself! It is adorable. XO Summer.’

I unfold the lined paper and read:

“Hi BABA how are you and Bob and Bill. (Bob is the dog and Bill is the Ex-boyfriend. Lexi is my 6 year old granddaughter.)

“I hav sum great plans for October.

“I am going to hav a lot of fun.

“I will hav a lot of fun with you, Bill and Bob of cors. I am gowing to hav a Super dupr jollygood time.

“Here is a poem I made up.’

(Here’s where I get scared. It’s a poem about me, and oh boy, Lexi is always totally honest in her evaluations of people. I have already heard about my hanging flesh and a few other things so I take a deep breath and resolve to take it like a Good Grandmother would. With pleasure, whatever she says.)

‘Yore eyes are brone.

Yore hair is blond.

Yore teeth are wite.

Yore lips are pink.

That was it.’

“See you in October. LoveLexi. (heart, heart, hearts etc)”

Oh my gosh. I breathe relief. What do YOU think that last line could have been? I know what I think and am so glad I don’t stink. Lexi would have told me if I do. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
1 Comment »

Mother and the Plumber

September 11th, 2009 Posted to Family, Mysteries in Life, Stories about Mother, Things I'm Not Good At, Words from Venus

I’m sitting outside on the patio under a leafy tree at my favorite coffee shop, talking with Alan.

Alan is an architect who has been helping my brother Jim with his restaurant project. Alan has long gray/blonde hair that hangs in a messy horse’s tail down his back. He flicks the hot ash from his Camel cigarette and says, “When Jim was at my house one day, the water in the kitchen faucet turned on by itself and I said, ‘What the heck?’

“Then,” he continues, “awhile later another faucet downstairs turns on and starts a flood and again I said, ‘What the heck? Are there spirits around here trying to tell us something?’”

Alan pauses and sucks his white Camel like a doobie.

“I thought, ‘Does this mean this whole project with Jim’s new restaurant is big money down the drain?’”

“Hmmm,” I say.

Jim and Alan, after a year of trying to get a loan and borrowing money from friends and family to build a new restaurant, have been denied. The banks tease but they just won’t loan. Jim is caught up in the collapse of the economy. He’s now at home with the cotton blankets pulled over his head, in the musky dark and in despair.

Alan breathes some smoke and I breathe some smokey air.

We are both silent. Because of his illness and the economy, my brother Art may lose his jewelry shop which is right next door to the coffee shop and the coffee shop itself is teetering on the edge of extinction.

When I go home, I tell my ex, Bill, about Jim.

Bill says, “Sometimes I wake up in the night and I wonder who I am. I wonder where I am. Am I back in my childhood or am I forward in time somewhere? Am I on another planet? It takes me awhile to remember who I am and what part of my life I’m in. It’s hard to get re-oriented, but once I do, I’m OK.” Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
6 Comments »

MOTHER HAS A PLAN

July 11th, 2009 Posted to Family, Mysteries in Life, Relationships, Stories about Mother, Things I'm Not Good At, Wierd Stuff, Words from Venus

Polly calls.

“We have to do something! Mother got up this morning and there was a big rat swimming around and around in her toilet bowl and she couldn’t get him out and then she did get him out with the toilet brush and then her dog grabbed him and ate him and Mom says that somehow the toilet seat got dismantled and torn up and she feels really bad about the rat getting eaten, he was trying so hard to survive.”

Polly sucks air and goes on. “She has lost her blood pressure pills for three days now and that’s very dangerous and you can’t find anything in that place it’s such a mess and there are vast dangling cobwebs on her windows, have you seen them, her housekeeper is no good but Mom won’t fire her because she likes her and Becky has ripped up all the rugs digging for squirrels under the house and we need to replace the floors with vinyl, Mom agrees and Mom just keeps eating that same crock pot soup that cooks all the time and she never dumps it and starts over and you have to do something and right now, Venus.”

I say, “I’m not coming over there and clean that house. I am not cleaning up all the blood and guts from all the dismembered field creatures that her cat brings in. I am not. ”

I know my abilities and housecleaning is not one of them.

Polly jags off onto another topic about how she, Polly, fired her website person and she is now doing the site herself and how she was talking to so and so this famous person and her grandkids are always over at her place and she can’t get anything done and she keeps jigging and jagging from topic to topic and I can’t stand it. Trying to follow her mind makes me feel crazy and I finally  yell, “Shut up! Shut up!”

“Arrgh?” she says.

“What’s wrong with you, are you ADD?!!  You never stay with one line of thought. I can’t stand it,” I say and I am not kind about it.

And later that day the results from the CAT scan our mother had a week or so, come in. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
12 Comments »

LEXI’S WORLD

June 25th, 2009 Posted to Family, Mysteries in Life, Relationships, Wierd Stuff

Lexi, my six year old granddaughter, is in trouble, again.

Her mother tells me, “Lexi is at the age where she is fascinated with people’s rear ends. And, she has her own computer. Not a good mix. The other day she came running into the kitchen and asked me to come and look at something.

“I went into her room and she led me to her computer, pointed at the screen and said, “Why are they doing this?”

I peered closer and oh my gosh! I said, ‘Lexi! Where did you get this?!’ She said she had gone to Google and typed in something like BumBums.com!”

“Mooom!” Summer wails to me, “It was some Butt Fetish website and there were all kinds of weird things sticking out of people’s bums! And I had to explain to Lexi why people would do this and what the meaning was!”

I’m laughing. I can’t help it.

“Mom, Lexi is coming up to visit you for awhile and I want you to watch her on the computer. I don’t know what she might think to look up, next.”

“Gee,” I say, “I never would have thought of looking for something like bum bums on the net!”

Last time Lexi stayed with me for awhile, it was interesting. Of course.

She looks at me one day and says, “You’re looking a little old, BaBa.” Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , ,
3 Comments »

VENUS GETS HIT BY ‘LIGHTENING’ AT LUNCH

June 9th, 2009 Posted to Art and Beauty, Mysteries in Life, Parties and Fun, Relationships, Screaming Hysterics, Wierd Stuff, Words from Venus

We’re watching lightening fritz through the sky and hammer the hills around us. This is Southern California and a lightening storm is a novel sight.

Eight of us Art Guild Girls are sitting outside on a stone terrace, next to a undulating golf course, having lunch. The sky may be full of danger but as I am soon to find, there is more emotional danger at the  table.

We ‘girls’ range in age from 40 to 80 plus, years old. We are the President of the Guild, on down through the ranks to The Sunshine Girl, which is me.

We do all the work that keeps the art meetings happening in town, we bring the demo artists that perform for all the local artists once a month, we bring in money, award scholarships to High School kids, keep the Art Library going, put on art shows and etc. We deserve a lunch at the end of the fiscal year and I have finally convinced my Guild friends that we do indeed need one.

The ladies ask me to order the wine. I order a bottle of red shiraz named ‘Layer Cake.’ How can one not order something with a name like that? And, I order a nice chardonnay.

We’re having a fun time. Oh sure, one lady has to tell us a story about a cat that she took on a trip that kept disappearing and we have to follow that darn cat through almost every state in the union. I keep saying, ‘So did it all work out OK?’ and she keeps saying, ‘I’m not through with the story yet,’ and everyone rolls their eyes and takes another lick of ‘Layer Cake.’

We’re eating and drinking and laughing and I’m thinking, ‘Oh, this lunch was such a good idea. We are all so happy together.’  Suddenly, ‘Ardath’ who is lost in her 70’s somewhere, looks at me and says says in her high-pitched wavey voice, “Oh Venus..you have such a won-der-ful personality! You have a fab-u-lous per-son-ality!”

I’m grinning and thanking her, “Thank you Ardath, that’s so sweet, thank you..” when she adds loudly, ‘But, that’s all you’ve got!”

“Whaat?”

“Are you always this way?” she asks.

“Whaaat?”

Then, Ardath leans across the table and looks at me intently, as she shouts, “Are you Bi-po-lar?!” Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
13 Comments »

« Older Entries