• For fun.

    Was Professor Trelawney a Hipster?

    January 9, 2015 - By 

    According to B, my new glasses make me look like Professor Trelawney. Decide for yourself: Of course, this fact, when mentioned to one man last evening, caused him to throw his head back in laughter. Sigh. If you somehow have missed the Harry Potter culture, Professor Trelawney (shown here played by Emma Thompson) was a professor at the magical Hogwarts boarding school attended by the iconic underdog-hero Harry Potter.   She was a professor of divination — the art and act of predicting the future, unraveling the past and puzzling over the present.    She lived and taught in the…

  • Uncategorized

    As a writer of book & narrative, a painter of canvas & an almost-thirty-years’ helper of folks — she takes herself far too seriously.

    January 9, 2015 - By 

    Raised in Chicago, Leslie has spent the past million years practicing Traditional Asian Medicine, raising children, writing, teaching and painting in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Atlanta and now Madison, Wisconsin. She believes, as does Hamlet, that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

  • Childhood - Hope - Light - Loss

    Gleaming gone.

    January 7, 2015 - By 

    When my son was very, very small, there was a book we used to read to him. This book told the story of a mother and her a little boy who walked to a beach, across the dunes to the resting of the waves. They looked for starfish; they had a picnic of sandwiches and pink lemonade. Lying on their blanket, they had a nap. At the end of that afternoon they walked home. And on the way, the book said, they saw the sun low in the sky, gleaming, a huge orange ball. Then it was gone. When we…

  • Being Human - Food - Hope - Uncategorized

    “Everything is pretty”.

    January 7, 2015 - By 

    Once someone came to my dinner table and pronounced “everything is pretty”. I suppose that they might have been referring to candles or food or plates or napkins or setting sun or warmth or, or…. Any one of many things which might seem pretty to one or not-quite-noticed by another. Everything was pretty. Apparently. I cannot for the life of me get those words out of my head.  Now a few years later I think ‘everything is pretty, everything is pretty’.  It is not pretty in my world because I need to make everything pretty but because it is just…

  • Food - For fun.

    Fifty shades of glitter…oooooo it’s snow good…

    January 2, 2015 - By 

    It was a dark and snowy night and I was elbow deep in disco dust. It seems that there is seduction in sweets.   Not the diabetic coma that follows indulgence– but the colors and the shine and the sparkle of the processed cane – it’s so freaking shiny. My new thrill is touching it.   Not one pinch passes over my lips – it’s fine chemistry between me and a cupcake.   Not to eat, no no no. But to color. But to caress. And oh, oh, oh, I want to sugar sext. As I cream the buttercream I am fondling the…

  • Being Human - Blessings - Hope - Light - Travelling

    Singers at Siesta

    November 1, 2014 - By 

    It was on the first day at the park when we saw him playing the guitar, sitting between statues. He had put his empty red canvas case on the ground — so as to collect euros. His voice was lovely and although we were walking, we stopped and sat. When he sang – and when he sang – we were moved. Such a low and sweet and quiet tone. Dulce. We listened to one song and then another…and another. Beautiful, really. I sent her over with a coin and to ask him if it was his own music – her…

  • Being Human - Blessings - Darkness - Difficulty - Family - Fear - Hope - Light - Loss - Safety

    Chaos, Kindness & The Flood of Garlic.

    October 25, 2014 - By 

    To write this, I wrote it five times — and then a sixth.  It was still a mess. I printed it out and with my green pen. I scratched out everything. Well, almost everything — so I could start again. I haven’t been able to think straight – too much on my mind.  I needed a little something. Then I woke this morning thinking of garlic. If you use a little garlic it is amazing.  It adds that special something to everything you eat.  It is almost magical the way it transforms a dish. For some, garlic is their favorite…

  • Being Human - Fear - Travelling

    Call Me Sudsy Malone.

    October 21, 2014 - By 

    Usually this time of year — as the darkening begins – I feel myself beginning to withdraw. Although I do realize that this is the normal time of year for melancholy, I find myself spending a little more time at home, sorting out closets, cleaning drawers, etc. I have come to realize that I have SAD: Shampoo Accumulation Disorder. My life is abundant. I am wholly blessed with teeny little bottles of personal cleaning products. My illness began years ago, when we were students. Back in the time when the call of “Free Pizza” could tempt us from three counties…

  • Being Human - Hope - Light - Travelling

    On the Sixteenth.

    October 16, 2014 - By 

    We wanted to see Picasso’s Guernica one more time so we headed out early, after breakfast, to the Museo Reina Sofia. But, alas, it was closed.   We sat a bit in the sun, watching other tourists who, like us, didn’t pay attention to the museum hours, react — and then regroup — as they decided what to do next. After a bit we began to walk up Santa Isabel — a happy accident. We passed little bookstores — some markets — and we went in. NOTE TO SELF:  When traveling, find the groceries first — before eating out —…

  • Food - Travelling

    Madrid ‘sin gluten’… Celicioso!

    October 15, 2014 - By 

    People seem to want to give me cake. Now I don’t want you to misunderstand. I like cake, truly I do. In fact, I love it. Cake always makes me think that it is my birthday and that it is ‘all about me’which I am foolish enough to believe, even now. Perhaps it is the chemistry that I like in cake: adding dry ingredients to wet and then something to create a lift and heat — and well, that sort of begins to sound like one of my hair appointments…. But ah, I digress. For a long time it has…

  • Being Human

    I fell on my face.

    October 8, 2014 - By 

    A few years back, when I had my Atlanta practice, a man came to see me who was a singer… Kind of a famous guy — been in the business about fifty years. I was kind of touched that he came to see me.  I asked him…how did you find me?  He said — I looked on the internet — I googled ‘the best’. Ah, flattery, flattery. So now he is in my office. Try as I might to act as professionally as I know how after about a million years in practice, I stumble over my words. I am…

  • Being Human - Fear - Hope

    I am not afraid of Hell.

    October 3, 2014 - By 

    If the worst thing we can be is to not be ourselves; If our greatest sin is despair… If Dante could describe two souls in Purgatory as doves — then he has not yet decided that they are guilty. If beauty can move us to tears… If we are, none of us, perfect — and we all understand that none of us are… Then we are, ultimately, all together. And as for the fire and brimstone….I, for one, will be okay. Because I have marshmallows.

  • Being Human - Darkness - Family - Fear - Hope - Light - Loss

    Fishing & The Hospital Bed

    September 20, 2014 - By 

    Yesterday they brought a hospital bed into my father’s house Of course, in the past few weeks he has been declining and now he doesn’t have the strength to get up. But he did try, anyway. And of course, he fell. Dad has always been so independent…wanted to do things his way….so now he is being offered containment. With high rails on the sides, it is his worst nightmare:: a hospital bed. The guys from hospice took apart his own bed–the same one that I crawled into when I was young and had nightmares. The same bed where I slept…

  • Being Human - Blessings - Differences - Difficulty - Hope

    Spam & Pomegranates

    September 15, 2014 - By 

    Today I take off on a flight of fancy. So…. Spam, you know, is more than just unwanted email. At one time, and still – and forevermore, it was and is Mystery Meat, arriving as a gift in a blue tin package. And so it was on the same radio show where Martha Stewart talked about pomegranates that she also explained a great way to prepare Spam. Martha Stewart was, as you may or may not know, raised in a family of six children. So, she said, she knows a lot about Spam. First, she suggested, find some really, really…