31 December 2008

Today is New Year's Eve, the last day of the year.

In Mexico, people eat one grape with each of the 12 clock chimes at midnight, and make a wish for the coming year.

In Venezuela, they wear yellow underwear for a year of good luck.

In Japan, people eat soba because long thin noodles symbolize longevity, and at midnight, temple bells ring 108 times, matching the 108 attachments in the mind that need to be purified before the New Year.

At midnight in Greece, families cut a cake called a vasilopita, which has a coin baked inside; whoever gets the coin will have a lucky year.

In this country, the most famous celebration is in New York City's Times Square, where up to one million people gather each New Year's Eve to watch a ball drop. (From Writer's Almanac.org Image from Flickr)

30 December 2008

Sometimes, This is How I Feel

This is what happened to the kitteh who couldn't quite "Hang In There."
{Image From Cute Overload.}

Who Do They Think I Am?

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: incredibly gorgeous images from here:Proposals by Cecilia Woloch

Mistaking me for someone else,
he asked me to marry him. This has
happened more than once. The first time,
I was eighteen and the boy had
a diamond ring in a box.
It was the Fourth of July,
it was dark, he said, Happy
Independence Day. Of course,
the ring was too large and
slipped right off my finger
into the grass.
(It belonged to someone else:
the woman he married, eventually.)

And when I was twenty-one, that redhead,
sloe-eyed and slinking out of his grief,
said he'd imagined I'd be his wife. But he was
mistaken. It wasn't me.
Then a drunk who drove too fast,
who threw the proposal over his shoulder
like some glittering, tattered scarf.
I staggered out of his car, saying,
No thanks, No thanks, No thanks.

And the man over eggs one morning,
in the midst of an argument, saying
he planned to wait for spring to
ask for my hand, then he never asked.

(So of course, I married
that one for a while; spent years convincing him
I was not his cup of coffee, not his girl.)

And in Prague, on a bridge called the
Karluv Most, a stranger, a refugee,
who mistook the way I stared at the
river for thinking of suicide.
Who mistook my American passport
for his ticket out of there.

And others-the man whose children
grabbed the food off my plate, called me
her; the man in Chartres Cathedral
humming the wedding march into my
ear. And tonight, at dinner with friends,
happy, discussing their wedding
plans, a man I've known for a couple of hours
turning to ask me to marry him.

I don't know who they think I am.
Do I look like a bride in these rags
of wind?
Do I look like the angel of home and hearth
with this strange green
fire in my hands?

{from writersalmanac.org dec. 30, 2008}

29 December 2008

Literary Jewelry and Yes!






From Lioness Den Jewelry's Etsy shoppe. Famous last works from fine works of literature. My heart beats so that I can hardly speak.