A work in progress: Operatic Divas and Naked Irishmen: An Innkeeper's Tale by Nancy Hinchliff

Exerpt from my new memoir:

Demanding operatic divas, naked Irishmen walking in their sleep, and honeymooners leaving remnants of an unforgettable wedding night are all part of the flamboyant and interesting guests who came in and out of my life as an Innkeeper; each bringing his or her own unique personality and quirkiness to the table. Although the percentage of high-maintenance, demanding guests we had was pretty low, there were several who really stood out in my memory.

One of the most memorable was an eccentric opera singer who wore the more flamboyant and outlanddish costumes I have ever seen. She must have thought she was still on stage because, in addition to her colorful costumes, her daily entrances into the dining room were breath taking.

I remember the day she arrived to stay for an entire week. I opened the door to a barrage of people, having no idea who they could be, since I had only one more check-in that evening, a single lady.

"I am Madame Rosalina Capriani!" the woman announced "and these are my suitcases".

 I scanned the four men accompanying her and, sure enough, each one was carrying a suitcase. She stood still while one of the men walked around her, through the front door, and planted a suitcase at the foot of the stairs. He turned toward Madame Caprini and beckoned her inside. She reached out a long, well rounded arm, covered in a silky, flowing, red, purple and green cape encircled in Majenta fringe. I stood there, in awe, as she flamboyantly glided through the doorway.

"Excuse me a moment" , I said. "Let me get my housekeeper to help you to your room"

I hurried to the kitchen, anxiety reeking havoc in my stomach. I knew I couldn't handle this on my own. I thanked God that Eric, my house-keeper, was there  that day to help me. I had a suspicion that this was going to be a "high maintenance" situation, as we say in the business. Eric had been working for me for several years. He was great with the guests and, if it looked like they were going to be "high maintenance', I would turn them over to him.

Madam Capriani's four henchmen left her over-sized suitcases for Eric to carry up to the guestroom and retreated. I never found out who they were, nor did I ever see them again. As she and Eric climbed the long staircase together, she was giving him a litany of instructions concerning what she would need during her stay at my Inn. The requests were so over the top that I decided to let Eric be the one to break the news to her that this was indeed not the New York Hilton hotel. This was a simple little bed and breakfast in Kentucky with no room service and no concierge.

Now I love opera. I had been a vocal music student myself in college. But Madam Capriani was little too much drama even for me. Every negative thing I knew or had ever heard about artistic personalities and divas applied in her case. First of all, she was almost totally helpless. She couldn't figure how to work the TV, the DVD, the VCR, the telephone or the spigot in the shower.

She demanded a hot pot of tea be delivered to her room every few hours or so, and she wanted breakfast in bed. I tried to tell her we didn't offer room service. But she would have no part of it. Eric stepped in and offered to take care of her needs. Mind you, Eric is gay, so she would have to go elsewhere if she expected more from him than help with complicated electronics and bathroom fixtures.

As the days went by, I retreated further into my own little world and let Eric take care of the diva. He brought her tea, fixed her TV and cleaned her room every day. A couple of times I heard her practicing Musetta's Waltz from La Traviata, but for the most part, she was pretty quiet. As it turned out, I came more and more to depend on Eric whenever there was a guest who was a little difficult for me to handle.

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Romeo Must Not Die– Why Barack Obama Is Still the Man for the Job

Guest post by jenne andrews

Please click here to go to Jenne's blog

I would go back to bed to try to deal with my wearying insomnia and grab an hour or two before dawn, but we are at an ungodly hour in this country. With the pernicious abandonment of a prairie fire, the Obstructionists and disillusionists we once knew as the GOP are criss-crossing the country making things up, aided and abetted by Sarah Palin and the cluster Fox. They want everyone to believe that we made a huge and irremediable mistake in electing Barack Obama in '08.

I'm asking myself what I know, at this hour, without looking anything up or organizing this post into a series of links to Wikipedia et al.

When he became the Dem nominee, Obama went abroad to connect with those who had come to mistrust us-- as a matter of principle and vision. For that he was later to receive the Nobel Prize.

Faced with the near collapse of the economy, he commandeered the bail out and the stimulus packages. It's my impression that there were few alternatives and that this was the only way to keep the country from falling apart.

Then came health care reform. Obama aggressively reached across the aisle, including last winter's breakfasts on Capitol Hill where his efforts at dialogue were repudiated by snide posturing GOP boors framing questions as accusations and blame. He stood in front of the country and alluded to numerous concessons to Republicans written into the Bill, and yet on every network is the word "Obamacare", cast as everything scarey and wrong and nothing good and right to the American people. Right wing pundits would have you believe that he didn't listen to them or try to work with them-- but remember when they called him a liar to his face?

After that, he came back and rallied the Democrats to pass an immensely important and historic measure--something like Health Care Reform-- most assuredly a boon and a victory that no one else has been able to effect.

He was wrestled to the ground by his Joint Chiefs and would not otherwise have sent more troops to Afghanistan. This was surely far more than an olive branch to the conservatives. Bob Woodward's book Obama's Wars reveals a troubled President left high and dry by the Joint Chiefs, who refused to give him alternative scenarios or give him a staged withdrawal plan. He drew it up himself sweating bullets.

In the wake of the Deep Water Horizon crisis he sat BP execs down and wrested a commitment of 2 billion from them-- as real money deposited in real banks then and there, to help the beleagured.

Most recently Obama reinstituted peace talks between the Israelies and the Palestinians-- a huge accomplishment.

He has conducted himself like a true statesman, traveling to and holding summits on pressing issues. He has responded to the bashing he has taken including the absurd claims made about his religion and his citizenship with far more equanimity and dignity than most of us can even fathom.

In short, Barack Obama hit the ground running and he hasn't stopped even though, time and perspective will demonstrate, the price of being the first African American president is to be the victim of racism as it routinely spews forth from the mouths of the Right. We would not have done to Hillary Clinton what we have done to this man, crucifying him daily.

Presidents don't become presidents without politics and becoming politicians themselves. We didn't elect God to the presidency; we elected a mere mortal, with feet of clay. But many of us demand perfection, and are immensely unforgiving-- especially white middle-aged men who project their own self-hate and moral failings on Obama.

George W. Bush sat around in the Oval Office for eight years doing nothing, because he didn't know how. We elected an oilman puppet to lead us, whose puppeteers were Karl Rove and Dick Cheney-- the two hidden presidents and master blacksmiths of their era with their ability to turn the hot metal of the truth into horseshoes. Running the country was their game.

If the GOP gets Congress back, they say they'll repeal "Obamacare," and the right to health care, those things like doing away with preexisting conditions clauses and kids being on their parents' policies until they're twenty-six and other measures in the bill to insure the uninsured, when the insurance companies underpinning the capitalist system, in collusion with Wall Street, refused to step up.

If you see an ad contending that "Obamacare" entitles convicted rapists to free Viagra, research that. See if it's really true.

Before anyone buys into the spew of rhetoric coming out of the mouths of the Republicans and their first cousins the Tea Party, he should do exactly what I've done here-- see if he can come up with anything Barack Obama has done for America.

You might have to put up a blog, get up at three a.m. foaming at the mouth, a silly headline dancing in your head.


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Some Men Who Loved Nature: Part 3

Guest post by Jerilee Wei
(click here to view Parts 1, 2, and 4)

Great naturalists are also great spokesmen and great conservationists, long after their time on this earth. Three of those naturalists that contributed the most to the American public are John Macoun, John Muir, and John Burroughs. They are naturalists who are still making a difference today.

Let's Take A Look At Their Lives And Contributions

John Macoun

John McCoun and son

The distinguished Canadian explorer and naturalist, John Macoun (183201920) was born in Ireland, but migrated to Canada when he was eighteen. After a few years of farming he became a school teacher, at a salary of fourteen dollars a month. In his spare time, he studied the different sciences, but his special love was studying plants.

When an expedition was sent across the prairies and the Rocky Mountains to find a route for the Canadian Pacific Railway, Macoun went along as a botanist. In the following years he made journeys of scientific exploration all over Canada from the Yukon to Nova Scotia.

His two sons, William and James, were often his companions and scientific co-workers. Macoun's collection of animals and plants were the foundation for the Victoria Memoral Museum in Ottawa. Other scientists honored Macoun by naming species of plants, insects, and fish after him.


John Muir
One of the policies of which both the United States and Canada are most proud is the establishment of national parks to save some of the marvelous beauties of nature for the people of all time to come. A great fighter in this cause was John Muir, born at Dunbar, Scotland, in 1838.

When he was eleven years old, the family came to America and settled on a backwoods farm in Wisconsin. John plowed, chopped down trees, and did all the other kinds of farm work, and enjoyed it. However, even while plowing he was also enjoying the beauty of wild flowers and trees, and the antics of wild creatures. John was the best plowman in the neighborhood. Once he dug a ninety-foot well without assistance.

John Muir

John's father had very different notions about reading from those of other Scotsmen, like the father of William Dawson. Muir's father objected to his boy's sitting up late at night to read. However, he finally told John that he might get up as early as he pleased and read then. So John would get up at one o'clock in the morning and read, or work on mechanical inventions until time for the day's work to begin.

When John entered the University of Wisconsin, he had to provide his own living expenses. He often lived on fifty cents a week. An accident nearly blinded him after leaving the university. This determined him to travel and see as much of "God's beauty" as he could before what was left of his sight was completely gone. Fortunately, he did not lose his sight.

In his travels Muir wandered through thousands of miles of prairie, mountain, and forest. He tramped the Sierra Nevada Mountains until they were as familiar to him as the farm where he was raised. Muir's journeys were made for his own pleasure, not to get material for books.

After his marriage to Louise Wanda Strentzel, the daughter of a Polish revolutionist, he took up fruit farming. Near the end of his life he began to write books that make all nature lovers want to repeat Muir's wanderings.

Muir Woods, a forest of gigantic redwoods across the bay from San Francisco and Muir Glacier in Alaska are named for John Muir. It was largely due to Muir that the Yosemite Valley became a national park.

Muir did not dislike city life, in fact, he had considerable inventive genius and liked the turmoil of factories. It was simply that he loved nature more. Several universities invited Muir to accept professorships, but his reply was always that there were already too many men teaching things that they had learned out of books. He died in 1914.



John Burroughs

When President Theodore Roosevelt took a trip through Yellowstone National Park, he chose as a companion, one of America's best loved students of nature. This was John Burroughs, called "John o'Birds" by his friends.

Burroughs was born near Roxbury, New York, in 1837. In his youth he tried farming, fruit raising, teaching, journalism, and then for nine years was a clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington, D.C. During all these years he spent his spare time in studying nature and in writing about it.

In Washington, he became friends with Walt Whitman, and his first book was Note on Walt Whitman As Poet and Person.

John Burroughs and Teddy Roosevelt

Beginning with Wake Robin in 1871, Burroughs published a series of books on flowers, birds, and other wildlife that have caused him to be regarded as the successor of Thoreau as a writer on nature.

Later in life, Burroughs engaged in fruit farming at West Park, New York, where he worked in a cabin built on a hill near his house. This cabin, Slabsides, became a center for visitors from all over the world. Burroughs died in 1921.
If You'd Like To Know More!


* Best American National Parks
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* Best Hiking in California
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* Best Yosemite National Park Sightseeing
Yosemite National Park contains some of the greatest sightseeing opportunities available in the United States. Yosemite was a centerpiece and main arguing point for bringing about the National Park Service,...
* Hiking Rae Lakes Loop - Sequoia & Kings Canyon Natio...
The Rae Lakes Loop is one of the most popular backpacking trips in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California in Kings Canyon National Park. This loop hike is 46 miles long, and climbs from 5035' (1535m) at the...
* The 5 Best California Weekend Getaways
Looking to get away for the weekend in California? Here are my five best recommendations for California weekend getaways: Tahoe, San Diego, Hwy 1, Yosemite and Northern California hot springs.
* Winter Driving Tips in Yosemite National Park
Yes, Yosemite National Park is open in the winter! The road conditions can change hourly, and chains are often required, so read this article for information on how to be prepared for your winter trip into Yosemite.
* Yosemite National Park in California with Pictures o...
Several years ago a friend and I spent several days hiking and exploring in Yosemite National Park in California. Many pictures were taken and a good share of them will be shown in this hub about our...
* Yosemite National Park Travel
Yosemite National Park is a national park in east California, United States. The park is spread over almost 800 000 acres of land. In 1984, it was designated as a World Heritage Site. The park is globally...


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Stars without makeup

.....but are they really?

Guest post by Frieda Babbley

A couple of weeks ago, there was a big to do about celebs going without makeup. It all started with Jessica Simpson who did an au naturale photo shoot for Marie Claire, saying, basically, that she was confident in her own self and didn't care what other people thought. Personally, I think she is soooooo much better looking without her makeup.

The Today Show decided that they would go bare-faced for a day. And of course other celebrities have been sporting the natural look as well. Now, sure, this is not really a new thing, the going without makeup, but those who just simply wouldn't (because of their television status) did. Kudos. Awesome. They handled it well. It was wonderful to see. And they got more and more comfortable as the show went along. And they also talked about other female celebrities that were and had been, doing the same and why.

Now, unfortunately, it seems to me that they didn't exactly follow the rules all the way. The eyes and the lips told a different story to me; and in some cases I questioned skin tone. Now it could have been that they've been wearing makeup for so long that their eyelids and lashes and lips were stained. Or maybe their lips, lids, and/or lashes were tattooed (can you tattoo lashes?). Doesn't really matter, and it was sort of sad to me that some of these women (one in particular) couldn't seem to show her all the way bare true self, even for a morning.

What do you think? Am I just seeing things?

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Creative environments

There is virtually no problem you cannot solve, no goal you cannot achieve, no obstacle you cannot overcome if you know how to apply the creative powers of your mind , like a laser beam, to cut through every difficulty in your life and your work.

Creativity defined

A new idea is often a combination of old elements. Creative people are able to devise new combinations depend on your ability to discern relationships between seemingly disparate items; to fine the juxtaposition of ideas which were previously thought to be unrelated.' They have the ability to combine ideas in a unique way or to make useful associations among ideas.

Work in a creative environment
The perception of creativity itself is slowly but surely transitioning into a mutated and adapted life form. In the traditional world, a “creative” person usually meant someone with talent excelling in a specific creative discipline defined by fairly concrete parameters. Copywriters write copy. Art Directors direct art. Talented visual designers who can make anything look good. Brilliant copywriters who can come up with that magnificent tag line which stops you in your tracks. And don't forget Information Architects who devote their existence to usability and being an advocate for the end user. To be around other creative people who understand where you're coming from, is exhilarating. Creative people need stimulation.


Design schools offer a variety of specialties in creative arts

Just about all reputable and accredited design schools offer on-line programs. If you're serious about becoming a professional in a creative field, you can find yourself with a degree within a couple of years, depending on the amount of time you have available to spend learning. Taking classes from home definitely has its advantages.

Finding a way to make this happen

One of the things to consider when searching for a new education program is the cost. Most online colleges offer the same financial aid programs as traditional colleges, so make sure to ask about these. They will assist you in securing the financial support you need to move ahead with your education. Regardless of your income or financial situation, you may qualify for financial aid programs that can make your education affordable. Another consideration is the time involved.

Making an informed choice

There are a wide variety of design schools that offer on line programs. Before picking one, you should spend some time comparing some of them to get an idea of differences in terms of tuition and programs. It's fairly easy to find schools on line that can offer you a high quality education, so be sure to request information from more than one. If you take classes on line, it doesn't matter where that college or design school is located, so you can select one of the best. Be sure that the schools you check out and consider offer the kind of programs and classes you're interested in.

A smattering of the kinds of design specialties most design schools offer

If you are creative, you probably will do well in any of the following areas.  Most design areas are pretty closely related, and it's possible to cross over from, let's say graphic design to fashion design or vice versa, making finding jobs a little easier. If you are passionate about one particular area, then go for it. Talent and skill combined with passion is a win-win situation.

• graphic design
• web design
• fashion design
• Interior design
• multimedia and animation
• professional photography
• film and video

10 Tips for Managing a Creative Environment

View more webinars from Sarah B. Nelson.

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Summer reading

It seems like half of the country is steaming in the extreme summer heat this year. Here in Kentucky, we have had day after day of temperatures in the high nineties, with heat indexes in the hundreds. Everyone is looking for ways to stay cool.

Yesterday we had a power outage. Fortunately it only lasted for three hours. I was scared it would be longer; it's happened that way in the past.  It's especially bad for me because I run a bed and breakfast. What are you going to do with 8 guests, no light, no TV, and no air conditioning? Well the answer is "creative problem-solving" and the remedy is exhausting.

First thing I do is gather up all the candles in the house and some matches, enough so that every room has one of two. Then make a giant pitcher of ice cold lemonade, which I keep in the frig as long as possible. Then I tell my guests to sit quietly, if possible or go out to dinner or lunch, depending on the time. If they decide to stay here, and have a computer, they can watch a movie which will make the time pass a little faster.

Thank goodness the power outages don't happen too often cause, of course, reading during one would be next to impossible unless you like to read by candle light.  But staying cool in ninety degree weather, although requiring a little thought, is possible. I find that if I stay inside...no errands....no visiting friends, and sit or lie in one place, I can stay a lot cooler. To entertain myself I have my computer, my TV, my CDs and DVDs, and of course lots of books.

Reading a good book can be a joy. We've gotten so used to our TVs and computers it seems, that book reading is usually the last thing we think of. However; Amazon and other online bookstores advertise a fine selection of books for summer reading. I put together a great group that just may have some appeal to you. See the carousel below.



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Sanctuary: A guest post by Rebecca Rasmussen

Rebecca Rasmussen is the author of the novel The Bird Sisters, forthcoming from Crown/Random House April 19, 2011. She lives in St. Louis with her husband Hans and daughter Ava Lily, and teaches writing and literature at Fontbonne University. Visit her at http://www.thebirdsisters.com/ or at http://thebirdsisters.blogspot.com/

Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary in New Mexico offers an alternative to euthanasia for the captive-bred wolf, an animal of grace, intelligence and mystery; a symbol of what is wild and free, yet forced to live in captivity in a world obsessed with possessing a part of that wildness.

*note:"If you’re interested in helping wolves –today’s topic – please visit this wonderful organization"  http://www.wildspiritwolfsanctuary.org/

As a guest writer, Rebecca tells us about her new novel, Sanctuary: "The reason I began writing this second novel about wolves is because sometimes I think we, as a population, are so focused on protecting our families – Are the kids reading enough books and eating enough leafy greens? Is my husband taking his cholesterol medicine? What time is soccer pick-up again? Are the kids looking both ways before they cross the street? – and we often forget (I do this all the time! Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.) that there is an entire world that would benefit from that kind of staunch protection. 
I wonder what would happen if we took care of our animals and our earth, if we asked of them half the questions we ask ourselves and our families on a daily basis, whether or not the precarious state of our wild animals, our old growth forests, our rivers and lakes, would be any different than it is today."

Excerpt from Sanctuary: A novel-in-progress

by Rebecca Rasmussen

     Chana turned up in our vegetable garden on a cool June morning. Her stunning Arctic coat was blackened by old blood. At first, we thought her wounds—the blisters and lesions on her hind legs and buttocks, her exposed ribs—had been inflicted in the wild. But when Chana finally allowed Lee to come into the garden, on his hands and knees, he saw the spiked collar embedded in her fur, a cardinal sign of domestication and abuse. What we didn’t know then was that she’d traveled nearly two hundred miles from her home in Elk Springs or that her owner had kept her on a two-foot chain since she was a pup and visited her with his steel toe boots each time he lost his temper. The way he figured, or so he said in court: beating a wolf was better than beating his wife.

     After we’d successfully adopted Chana, Lee and I heard about the others. There was Bruno, whose owner had struck him with a tire iron at a trailhead in the Medicine Bow Mountains because he wouldn’t get in the car. There was Stella, who’d been tranquilized by an aerial hunter in Alaska and brought to an irresponsible breeder in Colorado. There was Mr. Shyloh, Coco, and Whitney—all awaiting euthanasia at Animal Control in Fort Collins—and hundreds of wolves and wolf dogs just like them all over the country. And there was Ishi, a skittish Timber/Malamute hybrid, brought to us by a man who said if we didn’t take her, he would drive Ishi down the road and shoot her. We did what we could.

     Neither of us had experience with wild animals, though Lee was much more of an adventurer than me. I was the kind of person who read books about bears and mountain lions, but did not welcome the opportunity to encounter either on a hiking trail. As far as pets went, I’d grown up with the usual: a cat, a dog, a fish, and a hamster. Unusually, however, each of our pets was eventually “liberated” from its enclosure. When I was eight, I remember my mother taking Henry, my hamster, and me to the forest preserve and convincing me to let him go.

“You want Henry to be happy, don’t you?” my mother said.
Yes.
“And want him to be free, don’t you?”
Yes.
“And you love him?”
Yes. Yes.
“Then you know what to do, Adie.”

     In one graceless motion, I took Henry out of his cage, kissed him ceremoniously, and sent him to his death.
When I was old enough to understand what had happened, I was also old enough to understand that, in Henry’s case, I was as much to blame as my mother. I loved Henry because he was cute and fluffy and little. I loved him because he drank water out of a bottle, like a baby. I loved Henry as though he was a stuffed animal, which, along with my mother’s loathing to clean his cage, sealed his fate, for which I have always felt sorry.
He was just a hamster, people have told me.
They were just wolves.

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