TAMARA FOR DUMMIES Ch III (or , in a really deep and pompous voice: “What we prepare for man we should be saving for God”).

Dedicated to all of my Golden Friends

OK. Stay with me. I know the Chapter intro sounds really stiff and stodgy....but hang in there with me. For today I am rejoicing! I am the child of a prodigiously loving Father who has widely opened His arms and is today enveloping not only me but also two of my “sisters” into His more than ample arms and is giving us this like awesomely great big huge hug....(lingo inspired by "Abs")....Anyway, for me, This is the best entry yet.....!!!!

[Technical Matter: OK, for those of you who are in some way shape or form perfectionistic (wait- is that last phrase an oxymoron? English experts...you never answer my questions!...where are you?) Mark (see below) is on Chapter II at this point in his journeys but I am in Chapter III of mine. Let's just put this down to the fact that Mark (see below) is much smarter than I and it takes me more time to get things done. I'll just have to live with that.]

Last night I was rather glum and down due to matters which are not so vital to today's commentary other than the matter of not my not having inspiration for my next “blog". And Mark......

[Reminder: Okay, here's the "(see below)" part. “Mark” = “Twain”, for those of you who have just picked up my story line. Do you mind if I call him Mark? I don't think he minds...I don't want to call him “Sam” as that is my earthly dad's name and a lot of talk about “Sams” and “Fathers” all in the same passage would make my head swim as I'm sure my dialogue makes your's. And Mr. Twain sounds so formal in light of the fact that he and I are about to commence on quite a long journey together.]

…......OK, so Mark who had been in great anticipation of this trip was mentally floating about The City proud that he had been one of “The Elite & Chosen” to board upon this auspicious three-month long journey to ALL parts of Europe and the Holy Land.... a journey such as anybody who was anybody would that very season be taking either with his or with another tour group. And please note that HIS group was very especially scrutinized and very especially handpicked. Le crème de le crop.

However, Mark was to be but a “minor passenger” (no, not mining....minor! We're talking about intangible matters here...) among many “Imposing Dignitaries” and had resigned himself to being “in” but having to take a back seat to those who were renowned and generally acknowledged to be most important personages. If you believe me not, here are his exact words! “I had carefully prepared myself to take rather a back seat in that ship because of the uncommonly select material that would alone be permitted to pass through the camel's eye of that committee on credentials.” Wow and sigh! Did he have the gift of the pen or what?!

Alas, by the end of his chapter II we are left aghast! For not only had all of the most select of the group dropped out of the expedition for “other and sundry” reasons (I have seen that remark before somewhere) but by the time the ship left port it was raining cats and dogs, therefore not only gloomy, but in the way of having put a damper on the festivities of their Bon Voyage Celebration, the ladies having lost their beautiful freshness and the men having lost their noise toys which were too wet to pop. To top it all off, the ship having left dock, ended up having to drop anchor and lie still in the calm of the harbor mouth until the fierceness of the storm abated. It would, in our not too distant past, be like preparing for take off in the Concorde for a trip of a lifetime to Le Paris and then being put in a holding pattern until the fog clears enough for the pilot to have visual and the passengers not to fear imminent death.

Now understanding, we believe, the great understated wisdom of where Mark is leading us, with the following warm words he ends his chapter II: “However, there is always a cheering influence about the sea; and in my berth that night, rocked by the measured swell of the waves and lulled by the murmur of the distant surf, I soon passed tranquilly out of all consciousness of the dreary experiences of the day and damaging premonitions of the future.” (Have I yet said, “Wow, he's good!?)

And here is where I take my first (???) aside...

[Tip: If you believe that last phrase of mine, I have some nice swamp land in Florida....]

...and to quote another wise man, a one St. Augustine who confessed these words in the year....huh, it was...well....well..sometime well before last year: “Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.”

And today, the day after the night I worried about “blogly” inspiration for Mark's Chapter II, knowing that a path is usually opened if I but wait and not fret, I heard from a long lost “sister” with whom I and another dear friend had been parted many a year and under mysterious circumstances (which we later learned were caused by “nothing more” than combined stresses of the sorrows and joys of life.) And I realize that human nature is to give up on others at some point and that this giving up is really giving up on ourselves due to feelings of unworthiness.

And all these matters tied together in my mind with the running thread of man's tendency to look for validation from others when it actually God who gives the blessings and it is for Him to hold them safe. If we were to but look around us at God's creation, as is to be seen not only in our own environs but in those across the far reaches of the globe, we could not help but know that we have been putting our eyes on the wrong focus. And cheesy as it may sound, God reminded me, as perhaps He reminded Mark during that time he was hunkered down in the mouth of the harbor, that He is the one we should keep our eyes on because He always keeps His eyes on us! And that's a good and remarkable thing!

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES II a serious amendment to....

I am inconsolable. I made a serious error in judgment yesterday. The gondolier should have sounded like Pavarotti, not the aforementioned David Cook. I love you David, but you don't have the right accent for the part. I'll get you fit into my (blog???) somehow though.....Or get back with me if you already know or have picked up Italian with the proper sexy accent. I may perhaps reconsider.

TAMARA FOR DUMMIES PT II or AM I CRAZY?

Dedicated to my first visitors in my new home: Sharon and Sarah- two more beautiful, gracious and kind faces the likes of which I have never before seen
Okay, I rolled up my sleeves the other day, licked the tip of my pencil (why do people do that?), expounded on at length of great and lofty expectations of current and future grandeur and enlightenment to be given to me through the gift of the pen pencil.... and then I.... I …....still had to move. I mean big time move. Bret & I from one 4-bed 2-bath 2-story home lived in by up to 5 people at once, occupied by three different family dogs (never all at once) and one foster dog wilder and stronger than any amiable fire-breathing dragon which ever existed, our house having been filled with tons of treasures and junk accumulated over...let's see...what 's it been? 13 or 14 years of my family's life AND figure out what to keep and how to fit what we need into a studio apartment.
[Reminder: Have my sentences become longer than Hawthorne's yet?]
So, as I gaily skipped and sang my way back from our “computer station” at our parent's home (alas, I have no cell camera to snap a picture of this cute little nook) across the gravel drive (OUCH! THAT WAS A ROCK I STUBBED MY TOE ON WHILE SKIPPING!!! Bret- Do we know where we packed the bandaids?) and over to our new apartment I could hardly breath in happy anticipation of reading the first chapter of Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad.
[Tip and Possible Reprimand: Ok, I now officially owe a cyber you-know-what to anyone who's already read “Tamara for Dummies Pt I. I just gave away the whole kit and caboodle to any one dumber than I who had not yet figured out the author and book of my chosen tome. I mean, come on now, if my clues weren't enough for you, would I really have known if you had used a search engine to earn your brownie? Do I really appear to be that computer saavy?]
[Technical Stuff on the Tip and Possible Reprimand: Is it redundancy to put the two words “already” and “read” next to each other in the same sentence? Think about it and all you wise English experts can let me know.]
Now, this is the really good stuff. Because in Chapter I of Innocents Abroad Mark Twain spends innumerable amounts of time, letters, words, wit and ink describing this to-be-taken 3-month-long tour over all parts (I mean ALL parts) of Europe and the Holy Land, jumping on and off ships, boats, trains, airplanes and other and sundry 19th century conveyances. So now, not only am I moving homes in the real world here but I'm also traveling hither and yonder over all parts of “who-knows-where” and “you-know-where I wish I could be”- in Italy surreally floating on a canal listening to the golden voice of a gondolier who looks remarkably like Colin Firth and sounds like David Cook, in Paris strolling the Avenue des Champs-Élysées with an no-limit Visa card the bill of which is to be paid for by the estate of my never-known-existed before Uncle Cosmo who just passed way from a painless death, leaving me as the sole beneficiary of his entire estate or in Israel experiencing my closest ever to God as I frantically dodge terrorist bombs and remind Him that I'm not quite ready to go yet....and yes, I'm mixing my and Mark's time-lines together...but this is MY imagination, not yours and I think I have A.D.D. so hush up!)
And to be really honest, I CAN'T MOVE ANYMORE! I'm tired and I want my mommy just need to get some rest! Well, thankfully I finally was able to unwind a little last night and got maybe six hours sleep, so that was good. And Mark's still there for me waiting to actually commence on our trip together.
[Reminder: So far Mark & I have just been writing about the pleasure trip we WILL take. We haven't even really started yet....it just feels like it.]
And I'm thankful that good ol' Mark just happens to be patient enough with me to pick up our journey together after I get however many zzzzz's I think I need to be fresh and perky for the trip.
So, how's 'bout I catch up with you and Mark in say, 36 hours when I wake up from a quiet afternoon nap, and I'll be rearing to go. See ya then!

"TAMARA FOR DUMMIES" Part I (a potential mini blog along the line of the one from "Julie and Julia" or "Julia and Julie" but not so many installments

Dedicated to: (You may skip this part but then you may be one of the people I'm thanking and then you would feel really bad if you never knew that I was thanking you, wouldn't you? ) Don't worry, I'm confusing myself too. Anyway, dedicated to by secret catergory and in no particular order of gratefulness: My mom and dad, Rachel and Lori Jo, and Sandy.

From a precognitive age (as my parents are both bibliophiles) I have loved books. However, over the last several years or so due to health issues or a self-suspected case of late onset A.D.D. ............................. (oops, sorry, I'm back now)... or perhaps some other unknown factor, I do not know, I have not been able to read much more than my friends' and family's Facebook profiles, a wikipedia paragraph or my completed Crosstics puzzle quote before I lose interest and put the reading aside.

[Techical Stuff: Yes, part of that last paragraph has an infintisimal little bit of a Jane Austen feel to it, I detect that. I do confess to very easily succumbing to the perhaps most romantic of the classical writers...but I jump ahead of myself.]

[Technical Technical Stuff: Yes, the irony of my confessing a short attention span and then asking you to keep with me during this lengthy introspective is not lost on me.]

One day it suddenly occured to me that I am a couple of years shy of 50 (sigh and sssshhhhh) and there are so many classic books out there with which I've always assumed I would "get around to" reading that even if I read nonstop between now and my eventual death at a very sagacious 110 years of age I could barely put a dent in all the great literature that may perhaps still intrigue, stimulate or edify me if I could/would but only push myself to read past the first chapter or two.

[Remember: (Sorry, cat's out of the bag. I have read more that just one paragraph or two at a time in recent years. Let's upgrade that to a page a two at a time.)]

[Technical Stuff: And Yes, that last nonbulleted paragraph was probably just a really really really run-on sentence, but fess up. Some of the old guys like Dickens did like to put together lonnnnnng sentences. You could fall asleep and take a nap a wake up two hours later if someone was reading but one Hawthrone sentence to you during story time.]

And you guessed it (being as intelligent and preceptive as you are)- I am going to start reading (but not here to you) of the abundance of dried ink but not dried-idea treaures called "classic literature" (novels primarily) and just see where it gets me by that time 60 something years from now when I joyfully and with full attention enter the Pearly Gates. (A.D.D is not a factor up there.)

And so this morning, picking up seemingly at random off the bottom corner-shelf of my mother's room-size much labored-over personal library, I come across a tome with the following dedication- a sure sign that THIS is the book to start with! "TO MY MOST PATIENT READER AND MOST CHARITABLE CRITIC, MY AGED MOTHER, THIS VOLUMN IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED" Ah, now this is a well-written dedication, is it not?

[Tip: (If you can guess who/what it is without using a search engine of any sort, consider yourself the recipient of a cyber brownie)]

And this particular tome has these opening lines in the preface: "This book is a record of a pleasure trip. If it were a record of a solemn scientific expedition, it would have about it that gravity, that profundity, and that impressive incomprehensibility which are so proper to works of that kind, and withal so attractive." Now, THIS is great stuff. This dude is really drawing me in (oops-gave a clue towards that cyber brownie).

............... Okay, I'm back now. THAT was my daughter's fault. She ousted me 30 minutes ago from the computer so she could take 5 minutes to send a quick e-mail......

And, anyway gotta go. I'm taking a CD sleeve being used as an impromtu bookmark out of ch. 1 pg 1 and am starting on my quest for the classics. My first trip is a date with "Markie Babie". He wasn't the cutest of authors but you gotta kinda love those funny guys. It's a charm thing. See ya!