tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14036379577237286852024-02-20T13:09:45.110-05:00judyreeneWelcome to the private planet that belongs to Judy Reene Singer, part time alien, full time author, and devout animal lover. Bring some popcorn and stay awhile.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-54745681650195623992012-01-12T18:34:00.000-05:002012-01-12T18:34:03.085-05:00email meI have gotten, over the past few weeks, some wonderful email from fans of my books and have tried to answer through this blog, but being the technoboob that i am, i don't know how to respond to comments. Sooo - please go to my webpage, <a href="http://www.judyreenesinger.com/">http://www.judyreenesinger.com/</a> and email me through that. To the gal who sent me some lovely poetry and who knew Tusker, upon whom Inconvenient Elephant was based, yes i would love to send you a book. To the gal who wants me to join her in Thailand, i am considering it. To the gal who wants to sell me a horse, maybe. email me, folks, it's so much easier than rousing me from my sloth and actually making me write a blog. love to all,<br />
judyJudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-91980161359076110722011-11-02T13:34:00.000-05:002011-11-02T13:34:48.778-05:00oh my, where have i been?well, breaking promises to post frequent and entertainingly funny blogs, for one. and writing more books. and gloating with pleasure because my last book, An Inconvenient Elephant was chosen as one of the books to be advertised along with the Ipad and Iphone for a whole season. It was on tv and on big posters plastered all over subway stations and bus terminals and various phone service stores. what a thrill, really, to see it. <br />
I had some surgery, traveled a bit, wrote a bit, lost some weight, put it back on, lost it again, went blond (never fall asleep while an enthusiastic hairdresser is doing your hair), spent some time getting used to being blonde (more on that later- blondes really do have more fun) and wrote some more. i also made a promise to myself to do more things in new york city since i only live an hour away by car. one thing is to see warhorse. have you seen it?<br />
will write some more tomorrow.<br />
p.s. also happy because Bob Barker, of TV fame, along with some terrific animal rights people (like Pat Derby and Ed Stewart from PAWS) are launching a bill in Congress that will change the lives of circus animals for the better.<br />
talk to you soon.<br />
smoochies,<br />
judyJudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-6189154346095570702011-04-08T15:26:00.002-05:002011-04-26T18:49:04.797-05:00Go Daddy is GoneI am actually mortified for Bob Parsons, CEO of Go Daddy. His arrogance, his total lack of understanding of ecology, politics, conservation and the nature of animals, embarrasses me. His juvenile behavior and lack of respect for what was a majestic living creature, is disgusting beyond belief.<br />
Bob Parsons, for those of you who don't know, entertains himself with a yearly trip to Zimbabwe in order to kill a wild elephant. For fun. "It's just an old bull elephant," he proclaimed during the four minute snuff film he provided the media with, and then tried to justify his actions by adding that bull elephants were interchangeable and one more dead bull wouldn't have any effect on the social structure of the herd. Those of us who know elephants know this is bullshit. Old bull elephants teach young bulls how to behave. With aggressive behavior on the rise from these creatures, it is very important to keep their social structure intact. Who knows if the trauma inflicted from these untimely deaths could even be the trigger. <em>And</em>, according to Joyce Poole, Director of Research and Conservation at ElephantVoices, who has studied elephants for over 30 years under elephant expert, Cynthia Moss, the slaughtered elephant was <strong>a young female</strong>. That creates sort of a problem for Parsons who apparently likes to come across as the Great White Hunter, but was unable to tell that the elephant he slaughtered didn't have male genitalia. Whoops. And this is a double tragedy because elephants live in a matriarchal society,. There's no telling how far reaching this death will be. Next, Parsons tried to paint himself the philanthropist who is merely helping feed a starving village. When Piers Morgan, an interviewer for CNN asked Parsons why he, a billionaire, didn't just donate some money to educate and feed the village outright, Parsons blinked and replied that didn't see the link. <br />
Parsons just doesn't get it. The land is becoming very scarce in Africa. The elephants are being pushed out of their grazing areas and off their migration routes. Killing them one by one is not the solution. Maybe Parsons can put his gun down and use his head and come up with something that is sustainable and correct. Maybe help fund some kind of elephant proof farming, or help set up crop areas outside elephant migration routes. Standing with his foot and gun resting on an innocent creature, tortured and slaughtered, is beyond disgraceful. It shows a lack of insight, of humanity, of compassion, and unfortunately displays a lack of intelligence that leaves him far below the level of those animals he preys upon.<br />
My website has been removed from Go Daddy and will be up and running in a few days on another host. I salute all those wonderful people who have done the same. Go Daddy can go fuck himself.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-66027038762527005682011-03-28T11:34:00.000-05:002011-03-28T11:34:52.328-05:00I'm finally getting around to writing about procrastinationYou may have noticed that several of my posts are out of order because they had been half written waaay back when i injured my eye and was having laser surgery. I never finished writing them because i couldn't see very well. well, today, after deciding that i was going to straighten out all my posts, i finished them and published them, which meant, of course, they were put out of sequence to the original post. now, no one, including me, knows what i'm talking about, so don't worry about it. i don't think i can fix it, since i can't fix anything that has to do with computers. my advice is to use your imaginations and try to figure out what i meant, and i will do the same.<br />
and i promise never to do that again. <br />
sorryJudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-79409344216191845862011-03-28T11:29:00.000-05:002011-03-28T11:29:22.206-05:00Still HealingSo the eye is healing. the blobs that were bouncing around and obscuring my sight are receding back to blobland where they can be called upon to bother someone else. i'm told it's going to be a few months before everything is okay, but i am cool with that. I can drive, i can write, i certainly can eat, i can kiss my doggies and chat with my friends, so they are not interfering one bit with my life. <br />
And i love my new earrings. snicker.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-69621393520474064222011-03-28T11:27:00.000-05:002011-03-28T11:27:01.899-05:00Still Waiting for the EarringsAs pitiful as i tried to appear, my significant other did not come up with diamond or any other kind of earrings. He is not the kind of person who gets hints. Even if they are painted on billboards and say "JUDY WANTS THIS FROM YOU. BUY THIS AS A GIFT FOR HER!" he will not see it, if he sees it, he won't understand it, if he understands it, he'll forget all about it by the time he takes his next breath. Clearly I am going to have to treat myself.<br />
I'm getting tastefully big ones.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-89614314715271779222011-03-28T11:22:00.000-05:002011-03-28T11:22:27.690-05:00A High Price to PayChimps are cute. Baby chimps are high on the cuteness scale, up there with puppies and kitties. They don't do it on purpose, they are just cute because they are small and cuddly and our brains are hardwired to respond to that. And it's okay. The result is that we take care of our young and have long domesticated puppies and kitties. All of them, kids, dogs, cats, fit into our homes, our lifestyles, our beds. What doesn't fit are wild animals who are forced to give up their natural behavior by nutcases who think they can turn them into the cyootest pets around. The outcome is sooo predictable. The darling little chimpie, or tiger, or cuddly bear matures and becomes - well - what it had always been, a large, powerful, aggressive WILD ANIMAL! Sah-prize, sah-prize!! A chimp has the strength of five men, grows to about two hundred pounds (don't take my word for it, check out the <a href="http://www.discoverchimpanzees.org/">Jane Goodall</a> site) and has very specific needs to be a healthy, well adjusted animal. And i don't mean pink diapers and pizza for dinner.<br />
So, of course, some clodbrain raises a chimp and after years of poor diet and confinement, the poor chimp isn't doing so well. What does clodbrain do? Does she take the animal to a vet? NAh - that would be - gasp -<em> responsible</em>, but we know she isn't because she's house raising a chimp! So she gives him Xanax, even there is no veterinary evidence that it's even good for this species, and duh - the poor creature goes insane and eats the face off her good friend. Guess who dies in the end? Guess who pays for clodbrain's poor judgement.<br />
Hint: It wasn't clodbrain.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-20941932512408142602011-03-23T16:14:00.001-05:002011-03-23T19:00:47.313-05:00The Great Clam CaperI really want to be a total vegetarian, I really do, but occasionally I have been known to lapse. And when i lapse, it's because of clams. I love clams. I love them fried, in chowders, I love them stuffed, steamed or raw. I excuse it by thinking: of all the things I could cheat with, clams strike me as the most innocuous. Maybe because the no-face issue doesn't really apply to them, and I eat them once in a while without all the guilt and ethical dilemmas that the other stuff seems to present. So when they were featured in a local supermarket last week, big mesh bags of clams sitting resolutely and stoically in their black shells on mountains of ice, I dithered for a few minutes in front of the fish department before I finally bought them. <br />
The cashier put them in a separate bag, away from the skim milk I also bought, the butter substitute. the Greek yogurt, and the no-flavor-no-color- puffy wheat thingies-the-size-of-hubcaps-but-only-12-calories that i snack on, and home I went. I had visions of clam chowder, of stuffed clams, of fritters. After all, there were over three dozen, all waiting to be turned into a culinary experience.<br />
Except I don't know a thing about clams. <br />
I know nothing about keeping them - uh - <em>alive</em>- until you ate them. And i had been strictly warned by the fish monger to keep them alive or they would poison me, a sort of clammy revenge. Keep them on ice, I was told, until you are ready to cook them. Be very careful, I was told, because if they open their mouths, that's the end of it, it's too late. It all sounded quite nervewracking. I had never considered that there would be handling problems, but that was because i had never prepared clams. When i want clams, I just go out to a restaurant and order them and they appear a few minutes later, all done up with cocktail sauce and little round crackers and lemon. I didn't know you had to be a clam wrangler.<br />
So, I put them on the kitchen counter and stared at them. They stared back. Or at least it seemed that they did. I started to worry about them. I felt like I had brought home three dozen pets and I was responsible for their welfare. I decided they looked too dry, too <em>thirsty</em>, and put them into a big pot, filled the pot with water and went on the internet to find out how to keep them happy and healthy until - uh they were - uh - <em>you know</em> - cooked.<br />
The first thing i learned is that they are not fresh water animals. They needed salt water. What had I done! What havoc was i wreaking upon their poor little salt water bodies with my well water.<br />
"Oh no!" I shrieked and raced into the kitchen to quickly brew something more habitable.<br />
My daughter, Robin, was watching me. "Are you sure you're up for this?" she asked. "Remember the lobsters?" Indeed I did.<br />
When she was about twelve, her father brought home several huge lobsters for dinner. Following his instructions, i put them into a big pot and put the pot on the stove to boil. A few minutes later, they had lifted the lid and climbed out of the pot, leapt off the stove, a la Annie Hall, and were skittering across the floor, pissed as all hell. At least it seemed like that to me. I remember staring down at them too, like I had with the clams and feeling the same kind of sympathy and guilt. But dinner was dinner. I picked them up and put them back into the pot, they climbed out again. I had come face to face with a moral dilemma. Did I have the right to end their lives like this? It was cruel. I grabbed them around their waists and carefully put them into a shopping bag, ordered the kids into the car and drove to the Long Island Sound, which at the time, was a mile or two from our house. We stood at the water's edge as I opened the bag. The lobsters crawled out slowly, waved their whiskers in the air, maybe smelling the fresh sea air and dashed for the open water. My kids cheered. The lobsters were cheering - I'm pretty sure - and i was crying as some one hundred dollars worth of dinner disappeared into the undertow. We had spaghetti that night, but i knew i did the right thing. <br />
Which leads me back to the clams.<br />
They were looking a little peaked by now. Some of them had their mouths open. I poured the water out and filled a shopping bag with ice and picked them up, one by one, and put them on the ice.<br />
"They're pretty sandy," I commented to my daughter.<br />
"I think you have to run them through water," she said, "like giving them a bath. And you have to scrub them."<br />
I looked at them doubtfully. "Scrub them?" I repeated. <br />
"With a brush," she said. "To clean them."<br />
It was like a clam spa. I brushed them very gently, even their undersides, and patted them dry with my best fuzzy kitchen towel and put them on a bed of ice to nap the night away while I considered what to do with them. I put them to sleep in the fridge.<br />
The next morning they all had their mouths open. It was the end of them, it was too late. I had a mass clam passing on my hands. <br />
"Did you tie the plastic grocery bag shut around them?" my daughter asked.<br />
"Of course," I said. "I wanted to give them some privacy in the refrigerator. You know, i have about a dozen eggs in there. You know how eggs are. Nosy. They're into everything."<br />
"That's what went wrong," she said. "They suffocated. They need air."<br />
Clams need air? Is nothing simple?<br />
"You may as well put them outside for the raccoons," my daughter said. I did.<br />
Apologizing to them one by one, I tossed three dozen clams, over the garden fence so that the wild raccoons that live out there somewhere could have clams on the half shell, maybe with those cute little round crackers and coctail sauce. I had been responsible for the untimely demise of three dozen innocent sea creatures. It was awful. They had spent the night cold and airless. <br />
But at least they were clean.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-14592395309841436622010-08-03T16:24:00.002-05:002011-03-19T11:29:01.760-05:00The Friday Nite Movie gangIt started about five years ago.<br />
My Friday nights had been solitary ones. <br />
And Friday night, to me was always a night of anticipation. The end of the work week needs to be celebrated because a nice, fresh weekend is on the horizon. There is only so much creative juice one can manufacture in the course of a week, so writing another chapter for my book didn't appeal to me. I wanted to be entertained. Sitting alone Friday nights and eating the remains of lunch while watching telly reruns<em> </em>that I never liked in the first place, wasn't cutting it, so I grabbed the newspaper, checked out the local theaters and set off for the movies. I bought a medium popcorn and a bottle of water for my dinner and i was blissed out. It didn't matter what the movie was about, the screen could have been blank, for all I cared. I was away from my office, out of the house, and freeee.<br />
Two or three years passed this way and I was happy. <br />
Enter my daughter. "Mind if I come?" she asked. No problem. We hit the early show, she ate M&M's and shared a medium popcorn with me. We drank water and we blissed out together . <br />
Good things like this catch on. <br />
First, my friend Maria asked to join us. Then my friends Richie and Jackie, soon followed by Larry and Estelle, and Alex, and Gene, and occasionally my eighty-nine year old mother (who thought the actors looked very thin in Avatar. "That's Hollywood for you," she sniffed. "They have to starve themselves for their roles." I didn't have the heart to remind her that it was an animation.)<br />
Of course, things have taken on a little more structure over time. Evolved, you might say. There were a lot of us, and now I send out emails addressed to the Movie Gang, detailing the movie i have chosen for the week - my word is law - though I do consider special requests. I sign my emails "Queen of the Cinema" and add an ominous and unoriginal "Be there or be square" at the bottom. We have added dinner to the evening's activities, usually meeting in the food court next to the cinema, and happily stuff in on the awful junk food to be found in malls. Diets go out the window, our Movie Gang members (which have gone as high as nineteen) take up entire tables. After food, we troop off to the movie in giddy spirits. When the movie is over, we caravan to the local diner for post-movie analysis, drink buckets of decaf coffee and order diner snacks which rival food court food in its gastronomical incorrectness. Finally, tired, satiated and completely entertained, we bid each other adieu, head off in various directions for home and career, and wait impatiently for another week to pass. <br />
Anyone is welcome to join us. They are forewarned that they may get bombarded with an errant popcorn missile if the plot lags, chocolate snacks have to be shared, and an occasional snarky comment is not only tolerated, but encouraged. Maria howled through the entirety of the last werewolf movie, it was that bad. Shutter Island gave us all the creeps and we are still picking apart Inception, though the general vote is that he's still asleep and we all need to see it again. We loved Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and loved almost as much, discussing its symbolism. When you've got a writer or two (or sometimes three) included in the group, along with a pathologist and an internationally renowned forensics expert, an engineer, a doctorate in psychology and one in molecular biology, dissections are inevitable. <br />
It's now Tuesday night and I'm deciding on my next opus. As usual, I will let you know Friday morning before noon. You'll get the email, so<br />
Be there or be square.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-86121975873816004882010-07-28T11:22:00.000-05:002010-07-28T11:22:52.355-05:00AN INCONVENIENT ELEPHANTHello my dumplings,<br />
It's out. My new book, book number three, i'm happy, i love it, and i know you will, too. It's the sequel to <em>Still Life with Elephant</em>, although the new book stands alone as a novel. <br />
You'll meet Diamond-Rose Tremaine, a gal from the African bush who never quite gets the hang of domestication after she gets back to the states. And you will accompany her and Neelie on another rescue mission, this time a magnificent tusker (a male elephant) to its heartwarming conclusion.<br />
And if you order this week, i may get a chance to make it on the bestseller list. Now, wouldn't that be something!<br />
<a href="http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?store=BOOK&WRD=an+inconvenient+elephant+&box=an%20inconvenient%20elephant%20paperback&pos=-1">An Inconvenient Elephant</a>JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-67573464155460068522010-07-07T14:45:00.001-05:002010-07-07T14:47:54.973-05:00An eye for an eye and my new bookSo the eye is healing, thank you to all of you who wrote me an enote either on facebook or my email and wished me good vision. I am down to just a few lonely black specks floating around the nether regions, still lots of blurriness and one spider web. I've been good about taking care of myself, doing only the heavy lifting required of holding my new book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Inconvenient-Elephant-Judy-Reene-Singer/dp/0061713775/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278528721&sr=1-1">An Inconvenient Elephant</a>,</i> which is coming out the end of this month. How's that for a segue? the cover looks great and i am grateful to Robin Stears of WildAss productions for designing it and putting it together. My understanding is that Robin used to rescue wild horses and donkeys, etc and named her company after those wonderful creatures. It's a delightful cover of an elephant being ridden by a woman,you can check it out up there somewhere if i didn't mess up the URL.<br />
As you know, the weather has been beyond hot. I don't dare step outside my air conditioned office for fear of bursting into flames, it's that hot. I fully expect all those who poo-poohed global warming to immediately issue a full apology to the rest of us and jump on the band wagon to help do something about it. <br />
Hope all your eyeballs heal, the hot weather breaks and we can get on with summer.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-78339488827526761242010-06-18T15:37:00.001-05:002010-06-18T15:44:07.355-05:00A Laser Light Show Sans MusicThe eyeball adventure continues. <br />
I must say, when eyes act up, they are dramatic and insistent and you are wise not to ignore them, as i was trying to do. Having been reassured by an indifferent ER opthalmologist that black drapes, though possibly high fashion, were definitely not something i wanted to see, and that i had very little chance of my injury being that serious, i spent Sunday and Monday pretending that the four bazillion tiny black pindots that were floating around inside my eyeball weren't bothering me, and that i was actually having fun trying to make out shapes and faces in the black blobs that were also in there. It was a little like cloud watching, only internal. <br />
By Tuesday, i am thinking that perhaps this wasn't the best thing to ignore, so i got myself transported to a real opthalmologist who put drops in my eyes that turned my pupils into the Holland Tunnel. He took a look around. "You definitely need to see a retinologist," he said and while i mused on how specialized doctors had become - were there pupilogists? eyelashologists? - he immediately called one and made an appointment for the next evening.<br />
The retinologist was pleasant but insistent that I have laser surgery. <br />
"Do i have a choice?" I asked, planning, of course, to opt out. It sounded scary. <br />
"No," he said and popped eyeball numbing drops along with a hearty dose of atropine into my eye. We waited for it to take effect while i nervously emptied a box of gummi bears and orange flavored tic-tacs,only making myself nauseous and giddy from all the sugar. <br />
The retinologist explained how he was going to put a disc over my eye and then fire off a laser directly INTO MY EYEBALL to mend the tear. It sounded awful. <br />
"What are my options?" i asked. <br />
"None," he said. "Do it or risk a detachment and go blind." That sounded ominous.<br />
"Hmmm," I said, as i was loaded into the chair and put in front of what looked like a perfectly ordinary eyeglass examination machine. My chin was placed in a chin cup and a plunger blobbed over my eye. At least it felt like a plunger.<br />
The first shot was fired. A green laser with the power and brightness of what seemed like five suns combined. It made cute little beeping chicken- like noises, which didn't fool me, I knew it wasn't chickens, while it fired tiny micron-size beams around the retinal tear. After a while, I imagined myself being transported to another planet, the green light flashed away as i traveled through the space-time continuum, the beeping and humming became the nuclear fusion fueled engines of my late model space ship. The green lights were followed by red circles and black holes. Mostly painless, it was a spectacular performance of medicine and art. We were finished and i was totally blind in that eye.<br />
"Temporary," the retinologist reassured me. I could see nothing but black until he urged me to open my good eye and look around. I had forgotten that i had squinted it shut.<br />
I didn't open the bad eye until the next morning. Things looked pretty much the way they had before the treatment, though i am told that it will take about three months for the eye to form some kind of healing bond. The eye debris will slowly go away, i was reassured, and no bending, no lifting, no aerobics (ha, i hate aerobics), no hard work until the eye healed. And, I informed my significant other, I'll need a nice pair of diamond earrings to really feel better. <br />
i'll let you know if they work.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-23487404143723277392010-06-13T09:22:00.004-05:002010-06-18T14:57:09.406-05:00and the summer is just beginningSo Friday, my right eye, apparently not having anything better to do, and bored with coordinating with my left eye, decided to tear a little hole in the retina and fill my eye with a medley of interesting blobs. Nothing was discussed with me beforehand, which is the usual case with my body parts. They just decide to bollocks up what was a perfectly fine and ordinary day with something dramatic, and then sit back and snigger while i go dashing off to the emergency room to get things righted again. This time, though, my right eye had a little help. About three weeks ago, I contracted some weird virus that settled in my lungs (a repeat of last year) and gave me pneumonia (thank you, lungs. i wouldn't even know of your existence, if it weren't for that periodic pneumonia). It was the dramatic and violent coughing that created a jealousy situation in the right eye. It waited quietly until I went to bed, waited quietly until my next wretched coughing fit, then neatly made a little rip in the retina. I saw a flash of light, which is not uncommon for me. I generally view flashing lights as an entertaining sign from the universe that i am overworking. I pulled the pillow over my face, watched the light show for a while, said "Cool" and fell asleep. Next morning the lights were replaced by a weird black Halloween spider sort of configuration. Since we're mid-June, and Halloween isn't traditionally until October, this raised my suspicions. Still, I went off to perform some some Satur-ly weekend chores. There were more flashing lights, ominous clouds, weird blurs and fashionable black dots, apparently seen only by me. I may have mentioned it once or twice to whomever i was sharing the day with, after which i was whisked off to the emergency room at Westchester Hospital where i was given a sonogram of the eye. After peeling off the sonogram patch and most of my right eyebrow, the ER doc notified the opthamologist on call who immediately called me back, mostly to convince me that she didn't need to make the "it'll take me hours and hours" drive from Manhattan where she lived, to Westchester (for you non-New Yorkers, it's about half an hour) and proceeded to give me a phone diagnosis without even the benefit of looking at the sonogram. Talented, that one. But she did warn me to watch for a black curtain draping across the eye, black only, nothing flamboyant, no paisley, no tacky floral prints, just your basic black. This would indicate, besides impending blindness, that the retina was getting detached, and we didn't want that. Could she reccommend a retinal specialist? Um, not really, she didn't know of any. Could she reccommend an opthalmic surgeon in case the retina decided to secede? Um, no not really. Apparently she had done her residency in a total vacuum. We hung up and she went back to bed, firmly convinced she had elevated the art of practicing medicine to even higher than usual standards, while introducing new levels of compassionate healing. I went home, waiting in dread for black drapes while my eye, satisfied it had gotten its fair due of attention, lay there smugly in my head, flashing away until we both fell asleep.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-53772805581322681592010-06-04T16:41:00.000-05:002010-06-04T16:41:45.030-05:00LaterDamn, I've got to pull myself together. I have a list of chores to rival all the letters to santa laid end to end. i've got to update blogs, facepages, twitters, linkie things, lose weight, look up what time a movie is playing tonight, let the dogs out, wash my hair, pick up after the parrots, start reupholstering a cute little chair for the porch off my bedroom, train my four dogs to BEHAVE and maybe do some tricks, lose weight, answer twenty emails and tell everyone about my new book coming out in August. Filled with good intentions, i spend the day on the internet, researching stuff for my new book (the one after the august one). Ebay catches my eye, then an ad for an ipad. I order nuts for my parrots, my accountant calls to give me a little push to get some stuff to him, i make an appointment to get my poodles groomed. I am still filled with good intentions. A friend calls to check on the movie, my parrot bites a hole in my old comfy shoes, i need a haircut, my shih tzu gets the hiccups and needs to sit on my lap. I will get to everything. I will get it all done. I really will.<br />
later.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-53343038700494473302010-05-14T14:12:00.001-05:002010-05-14T14:13:25.677-05:00I'm baaack. Finally.I had the best trip ever about three weeks ago. Two dear friends of mine and I went to San Andreas, California to visit the PAWS (Performing Animal Welfare Society) Sanctuary that houses nine elephants, several bears, and a bunch of lions and tigers (yes, i deliberately mixed up the order to avoid the Ozian "oh my"). It was both a glorious and heart rending trip. Heart rending, because every animal there had to be rescued from circumstances that were related to us by Pat Derby who owns and runs the sanctuary, and her partner, Ed Stewart. Circumstances that made my skin crawl as I listened. In fact, there were several times that I had to walk away, because i couldn't stand hearing how awful these creatures' lives had been. Glorious, because Pat and Ed have given over their own lives to provide great comfort and sustenance to each and every animal in their care. <br />
My friends and I stayed at a quaint Victorian Inn, called the Robin's Nest, and had great food, lovely comfortable digs and crummy weather. Though we were all outside during what we New Yorkers would have called a nor'easter, none of us minded one bit. The animals, i might add, were quite comfy inside their state-of-the-art barns during the worst of it.<br />
What wasn't so fun was a car accident on the way home from the airport. But, we're all fine, and now that I've come out of my winter hibernation, i will tell you all about it. in coming blogs. In the meantime, there are links somewhere on this page, and I urge you do donate to PAWS so that Pat and Ed can continue their great work.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-43104863643570959942009-11-25T19:53:00.004-05:002010-02-23T15:28:34.043-05:00Happy ThanksgivingThanks.<br />
To all of you. To all of you who have read my books and have taken the time to write me such wonderful emails, thank you again.<br />
Thank you to the wonderful Dr. Rachel Colvin who saved my life when i walked into her office, gray of face and not feeling quite so right. She recognized a heart attack even if two previous doctors didn't and sent me off to the hospital where Dr. Lance Kovar fixed me up by double stenting a pipeline.<br />
Thanks to my wonderful daughters. Jamie and Robin, for being mine. And my smart, delicious granddaughters, Rachel and Sarah.<br />
Thanks to all my terrific, funny, irreverent, silly, outrageous friends who make me laugh.<br />
Thanks to my fluffhead pups, the two French poodles, Lola and FlashGordon, and the two shih tzus, Sadie and Mimsie, both dumber than my bedroom slippers, but highly, excruciatingly adorable. And to my cockatoo Samantha, who sings off key, and to my African Grey parrots, Tallulah and Zodiac, who function as my office help when i'm in a pinch.<br />
you've all made very happy. I'm glad to have you in my life.<br />
now, eat go your turkey.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-88311879353351649652009-10-15T15:51:00.003-05:002009-11-13T12:40:11.413-05:00First SnowI have to think about this. It means that i definitely do not have to lose the 30 pounds I was planning to lose before i get into my bathing suit. That's a good thing. It means that i won't be walking on the beach holding hands with a sweetheart and enjoying warm breezes wafting across the Long Island Sound, and that's a bad thing. It means pumpkins, and soon after that, turkey and soon after that, picking out just the right holiday gift for loved ones, also a good thing. It also means it has opened the door to winter. And more snow. And i hate snow. Hate. Snow. I don't ski, ice skate, exult in white landscapes or want anything to do with shoveling, scraping or sculpting them. When everyone is outside frolicking and building snowmen, i'm inside, brewing hot cocoa, maybe even baking cookies and impatiently waiting for them all to come back in. If i wanted to feel frozen, i would sit inside my refrigerator where there is at least a good chance of having a pile of food next to me. I never caught onto the fun of burning, frozen fingers, numb toes, ice pinched cheeks and hat hair. My horses get stupid in cold weather. They turn into broncs, and training them or my dressage students, turns into an endurance trial.<br />That said, I am going to glumly make myself a cup of cocoa, grab a dog or two to keep my lap warm and sit by the window and hope it all goes away.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-78643949209139224062009-10-07T11:56:00.003-05:002009-11-13T12:35:36.159-05:00TechnodummyThat would be me.<br />I have tons of people who want to be my friend on Facebook and I don't know how to confirm them. In fact, I have two Facebook pages, don't know how I got them - some folks are friends on one and some are friends on another and it seems never the twain shall meet. The pages are attached to two different emails, don't know how that happened either, and neither of them link up with my LinkedIn page or my Twitter page, though when I Twitter, it all seems to get lost in that great elusive etherworld that is out there.<br />I am constantly defeated by my computer. When I try to log on in the morning, it refuses. "I'm too busy," it tells me. "I'm doing something important here and you'll just have to wait." And so I get myself another cup of coffee and I sit down at my desk and wait. The computer is in front of me, filing its nails and humming, totally ignoring me. I politely tap a few keys. The screen snaps a message at me. "I am busy checking for security breaches because you were foolish enough to surf all over the internet yesterday and leave a trail of e-crap for me to clean up."<br /> "Sorry," I mumble. "When do you think you'll be through?"<br /> "Maybe tomorrow evening." It says. "Can't promise."<br /> I get annoyed. "But that's your <span style="font-style: italic;">job</span>! I bought you so I could go on the internet and find things and write books."<br /> "Ha!" The computer is starting to sound snarky now. "Write books? I see you were on ebay most of yesterday looking up earrings with blue stones."<br /> I feel I have to defend myself. "Because I lost those blue dangly ones that I love."<br /> "You're careless with earrings," my computer points out. "What happened to the little red roses pair that you loved so much, huh?"<br /> I sigh. "Lost them, too."<br /> "And you want me to make it easier for you to buy more earrings when you refuse to buy that terrific new music download for me."<br /> "You already have a music program," I say. Then it occurs to me that I shouldn't have to argue with my computer. I shouldn't have to beg it to work for me. My toaster toasts my muffin every morning without having to be reprogrammed. My coffeemaker brews me a cup of hazelnut coffee without being begged or tweaked. My appliances run like, well, appliances, and I consider my computer a writing appliance. Maybe I'm wrong, but computers shouldn't have a life span equal to that of a fruit fly, which is roughly a day or two of a good, productive life. It shouldn't become outdated while you are unpacking it from the box. You should be able to put a piece of bread in the slot and push the lever and watch it pop back out as toast, nice and brown and warm, without pausing to download a new program for another shade of brown, or visiting the toasternet site so you can redefine the parameters of bread. I just want to use my computer without stroking its ego or sitting and waiting for a half hour every morning while it goes through its beauty and exercise routine.<br /> "Are you complaining about me?" my computer asks.<br /> My hands jump away from the keys. "No," I say quickly. "Just wishing we had a better relationship."<br /> "I could use a new graphics card. A big fancy one."<br /> "They're expensive," I point out. The computer shrugs. "You have money for earrings and it seems to me, if you have money for yourself, you could at least....."<br /> I relent. The screen brightens, the logo comes on with a fanfare of music.<br /> I write my blog. Then I order a new graphics card.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-51011845881437638092009-08-26T18:57:00.002-05:002009-08-26T19:07:31.864-05:00The Paperback is OUTIt has a great new cover, which i love but it's Still Life With Elephant, less expensive and softer. The cover, that is, and it's available everywhere, even Costco, which, I'm told, has been selling out of it. Great news and thank all of you who have been racing off to get there with pennies clutched in fists to buy copies.<br />After a long, tough year, interrupted with health issues, family stuff and stars misaligning, i finished the sequel, to be called An Inconvenient Elephant, and that will be out, god willing, next summer, so be patient.<br />i am back in blogging form and spirit and will be tapping away on my new computer to titillate your sensibilities and tickle your fancies. Go buy another copy of Still Life and i'll be talking to you soon.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-82427136716025557332009-04-06T19:57:00.005-05:002009-04-09T20:46:46.524-05:00yecch to KNOWING. warning: movie spoiler ahead.I love movies, and i try to go every friday night. i go alone, i buy a bag of popcorn (medium size) which becomes my dinner along with a bottle of water, and i settle down for a nice evening. it's a great break from a week of working hard, and frankly, even if they showed a blank screen up there for me to stare at, i think i would be just as happy. it's mostly the idea of getting away from my computer before it drains my brains totally out of my skull. in other words, i'm not very discriminating.<br />along the way, i've seen some terrific movies (Wall-E) and some fun movies, (Monsters vs Aliens) and some clunkers. Sometimes the clunkers are just badly written, badly acted (Kevin Costner in Swing Vote, yechh) and i get what i deserve. (I also took my mother to that last one, because she wanted to see it, so it was an act of daughterly kindness that i sat through it). the bad ones do irritate me because they are so, well, stoopid, even if they do serve the function of getting me out of the house.<br />Last friday, i saw <span style="font-weight: bold;">Knowing</span>, starring Nicholas Cage and costarring a lot of cheesy special effects. And speaking of cheese, the plot had more holes than a piece of imported Emmanthal.<br />Nicholas Cage plays an MIT professor who has a young son whose school digs up a fifty year old time capsule. Each kid in his class gets an envelope from the capsule, nick's kid gets a creepy note filled with numbers. Then he starts to see creepy people in long black coats. It turns out, the numbers in the note forecast all the catastrophes that have befallen the world since the capsule was buried, ending with a prediction of a solar flare that will destroy earth. And, as we learn in the very anti-climatic end, it's not like the numbers on the note give any kind of solution to saving earth.<br />Also, the stock-kid-from-casting has a hearing problem, but we're told he's not deaf (? so what else are hearing aids used for, oh right, alien broadcasts)- it's apparently just a plot device so that nick and his son can do a few cute riffs from American Sign Language. The kid wears a hearing aid so that the aliens can talk to him, but apparently his little girl friend hears the aliens quite well without one.<br /><br />Okay. My first question is, why have the mysterious note predict anything if it's going to be buried for fifty years. It's not like anyone could have read it underground or done anything, so why bother? Secondly, why do aliens always wear long black coats? Isn't there at least one alien fashion designer in outer space who has a drop of creativity and originality? Of course, they shed their long black coats for the usual naked-body-gleaming-silver-streams-of-energy scene, just before they blast off, but are we to believe that they are so modest that they need to cover their non-genitalia owning bodies with the same coats that are worn by Hasidic rabbis?<br />thirdly, why do the aliens, who apparently have unearthly powers and can appear anywhere on earth, and whose mission is to BEAM CERTAIN KIDS UP, need to<span style="font-style: italic;"> steal a car</span> to get the kids to the space ship, huh? they <span style="font-style: italic;">drive a car</span>? a <span style="font-style: italic;">car</span>? In the end, Nick witnesses his kid getting beamed up, while all the mysterious black rocks in the area rise up and rattle (they are interspersed throughout the film but have no meaning whatsover). Apparently the strong gravitational field from the space ship lifts all the rocks up like a paving company so they can eerily float around, but doesn't lift nick cage, not one inch from the ground even though he is standing right under the space ship in a <span>hail</span>storm of floating black rocks.<br /><br /> Oh, I forgot - everyone dies in the end anyway (starting with New York. And why do they <span style="font-style: italic;">always</span> have to start with New York, for crumb's sake, why don't they start with, say, Boise, Idaho, or Middletown, Indiana? Just once, give New Yorkers a break?)<br />So what was the point of the whole thing? To scare the crap out of the little girl who originally wrote the numbers down and who eventually commits suicide (compassionate aliens, those!) or to scare the crap out Nick who gets to interpret the note fifty years later? Nick discovers what the numbers mean just in time for all of us to die together. The aliens didn't have a clue how to save us, or anything, they just came for the kids (no genitalia, remember?) We see the kids in th very last scene on their new home planet, frolicking through miles of what i guess is wheat, and you're left wondering what the heck are they going to have for dinner? Are they expected to chow down on grass tops like a herd of cows?<br /> My favorite lines: nick's girlfriend asks the kids, "How are these aliens telling you these things?"<br />Kids answer: "They whisper them to us."<br />Girlfriend: "And what do you call these people?"<br />Kids answer: " The <span style="font-style: italic;">- </span><span>(are you ready for this?)</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> -Whisperers</span>."<br />Well, duh! And all they apparently whispered to the kids was: Don't be afraid, but we're coming to get you.<br /><br />i have decided to set up my own rating system: it'll be called the skunk-o-meter, and Stinkbombs will range from zero to ten skunks, ten being the ultimate. I give this movie eight skunks and a set of whiskers.<br />save your money.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-33152821644722620932009-02-23T20:05:00.002-05:002009-02-23T20:09:00.271-05:00Join The FightHere's a link to fight <a href="http://www.aldf.org">animal cruelty</a><a href="http://www.aldf.org">. </a>It's important than every one of us do this on an individual l basis. Just take one minute - thanks.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-19286857874764603422009-02-23T12:03:00.002-05:002009-02-23T12:19:26.927-05:00A Night At the OscarsOf course I didn't go, wasn't invited, but i enjoyed every (almost every) minute of it while inhaling a bowl of Cherry Garcia ice cream and a handful of pretzels. (Gotta have the salty with the sweet.) And speaking of the salty with the sweet, i had tears in my eyes when Sean Penn won Best Actor for his nuanced, gentle performance of Harvey Milk, in that wonderful film. Yay for him. And yay for his acceptance speech when he pointed out that some of our citizens still don't enjoy their full civil rights. Civil is civil, and laws should not be regulated by exclusionary religions. That should have been taken care of years ago by the whole separation of church and state stuff. But, as Mr. Penn pointed out, those that voted against these civil rights will someday be very ashamed in front of their grandchildren. Nuff said.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-48552609671897349922009-02-19T19:24:00.009-05:002009-02-23T12:03:18.168-05:00Why Don't They Shoot the Owners, Too?Chimps are cute. Baby chimps are high on the cuteness scale, up there with puppies and kitties and your own kids. It's not on purpose, they are not trying to be cute but because they are small and cuddly and we are hardwired in our brains to respond to that, they are appealing and adorable. And it's okay, because we can enjoy domesticated puppies and kitties that fit into our homes, our lifestyles, our beds. What doesn't fit are wild animals who are forced to give up their natural behavior by nutcases who think they can turn them into the cyootest pets around. And the outcome is sooo predictable. The darling little chimpie, or tiger, or cuddly bear cub matures and becomes - well - what it had always been, a large, powerful, aggressive WILD ANIMAL! Sah-prize, sah-prize!! A chimp has the strength of five men, grows to about two hundred pounds (don't take my word for it, check out the<a href="http://www.janegoodall.org/jane/default.asp"> </a><a href="http://www.janegoodall.org/jane/default.asp">Jane Goodall</a> <a href="http://www2.blogger.com/www.janegoodall.org/chimp_central/conservation/issues/as_pets.asp">site</a>, and has very specific needs to be a healthy, well adjusted animal. And i don't mean pink nappies and pizza for dinner.<br />So, of course, some clodbrain raises a chimp and the chimp isn't doing well. Now, why would the owner actually use her clodbrain and take the animal to a vet? NAh - that would be - gasp - responsible, but we already know she isn't the r word because<span style="font-style: italic;"> she's house raising a chimp</span>! So she gives him Xanax, even when there is no veterinary evidence that it's safe for this species, and duh - the poor creature goes insane and eats the face off her good friend. Guess who dies in the end? Guess who pays the ultimate price for clodbrain's poor judgement. Guess who died for her stupidity?<br />First Hint: One victim is in the hospital with severe, severe injuries and deserves our prayers for her recovery.<br />Second Hint: It wasn't the clodbrain who was shot and killed.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-30933003475215095192009-01-28T14:32:00.004-05:002009-01-28T14:48:05.012-05:00I surrender!It's winter. It's snowing. Again. I'm trapped in front of my computer with four bored dogs, a cockatoo that is compulsively shredding my new phone book, a parrot who is throwing hot peppers at the dogs like a prince throwing pennies to the peasants, and which the dimwitted dogs are by turns, eating and spitting them across the floor, while I wait for spring. I know. It's gonna be a while. Why oh why do i live in the northeast? I'm not a snow person, i don't ski, sled, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">halfpipe</span>, ice skate, throw snowballs, or even scrape the ice from my windshield, preferring to let the defrosters do the dirty work. Winter is something to be endured, like a bad stomach ache, until it's over. I do make chocolate chip cookies and eat them. And I drink lots of coffee, so that the effect of the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">caffeine</span> is to make everything feel like it's whizzing by, giving me the impression that winter is passing so much more quickly. Not a great strategy, but one does what one can to cope. Gotta make more cookies.<br />eat and be warm,<br />judyJudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1403637957723728685.post-13677687450746214712009-01-20T18:31:00.003-05:002009-01-20T18:52:03.873-05:00Congratulations to us allToday is Inauguration Day and it was glorious. Today is the day that America finally grew up, showing the rest of the world that we can see past race and choose a president based on his intelligence, his strength of character and a platform that supports a unified people. Hopefully, we will see scientific fields flourish once again, companies using a domestic workforce and our economy stagger back onto its feet. Bringing our troops safely back home wouldn't be such a bad idea, either.<br />I am very proud of us all.JudyReenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15769823968233428490noreply@blogger.com0