Are you all aware of a local community radio show called Local Matters? It runs on Thursday evenings from 6-7 pm, WSLR 96.5 LPFM, with live broadcasting on the Internet, as well.

Tonight, the program’s host, Joe Hendricks, is interviewing Democratic State Attorney General candidate Dan Gelber, who will share his views on the state challenging the federal health care bill, his thoughts on an Arizona-style immigration bill and tell us what separates him from Republican candidate Pam Bondi.

During the second half of show Democratic County Commission candidate Mark Hawkins who is challenging incumbent Republican County Commissioner Nora Patterson will be talking about job creation and the use of local labor, the county’s role in economic development, the county budget, the spring baseball fiasco and more.

Hendricks is doing very interesting stuff on his Local Matters program — lots of local folks talking about local matters that matter. I think his show takes calls as well from the listening audience — check it out and call in with your questions for these political folks to the studio line at 941.355.4540.

If you read my July Cappuccino Chez MC column, you might recall that I’m slowly transitioning from outsourcing my meals to insourcing them. Meaning — yup, that’s right, I’ve got to feed myself at home!

My desire to transition is based on a lot of ideals — I don’t want to waste my time in always running out someplace in search of sustenance; I want to save money; I want to reduce my impact on my Earth by reducing my reliance on packaging and my use of fossil fuels expended in the going-after of things like early-morning coffee or mid-day smoothies; and I want to have more control over what ingredients are actually going into my body.

While my efforts might seem tortoise-like, my energy is increasing to rabbit-like levels.

My new breakfasts at home have dramatically curtailed my intake of sugars and my day starts off quietly and contentedly. I don’t have that mid-morning energy crash anymore, either.

So, next up was the desire to reduce — actually eliminate — my near-daily mid-day smoothie from Whole Foods. At slightly over $5 per smoothie, several times a week, I was throwing tons of cash out the door each year. And, it totally made me feel ashamed every time, after slurping to the bottom of my plastic cup, using my plastic straw, I’d toss out the plastic to pollute my Earth (even though I recycled them when I could). Also, just thinking about the fossil fuels expended for my fruit-filled lunch felt like extreme folly, especially when I think about the men and women fighting wars over this kind of stuff. Not to mention the time waste — even when I coincided my smoothie stop with other errands, there’s the parking, the standing in line, the waiting, the paying.

Just craziness to live like this. Consumerism at its worst. Laziness at its best.

So, my Mom gave me her blender. I looked up a couple of recipes; bought the ingredients and voila — am making homemade smoothies every day for lunch.

Minimized packaging; gas reduced to about one trip a week to the grocery; time saved is wicked great, and I’m in control of the ingredients that go into my body. Next, I might try buying all the ingredients only from the Farmer’s Market so that I’m buying local and eliminating the use of fossil fuels even more.

I’m guessing the yearly savings is well over a thousand dollars when you factor everything in. And, I feel, again, more calm, sane, responsible, and smart.

YUM!

Encore of Sarasota, Inc., has kindly booked me for my first fall season speaking event on Thursday, September 9th. I’ll be talking about facing aging with guts, gratitude, and grace …. yikes … guess I better figure out how to do all of that since usually, I just facing aging with a Grinch-like grumpiness.

Encore, which was established in 1989, serves as a kind of extension of the friendships that are established in the Sarasota Newcomers Club. Anyone who’s completed three years of membership in the Newcomers club, or who has lived in the local area for five years — whether or not they’ve ever belonged to Newcomers, is eligible for membership in Encore.

The meetings are only open to members, to learn more, you might want to check out this link.

And, if you’re interested in booking me to speak to your group or organization or school, or whatevah — check this link out to learn a bit more. Or see where I’ve spoken in the past by going here.

If you have no idea who you are anymore, try to recall a time when you did. When you knew who you were undeniably. When you moved with a sureness that came from presenting yourself in the truest way — whether people liked you or not, whether someone hired you or not, whether you could avoid an argument or not.

The you you were when belly-laughing was something that happened often. When seeing someone you cared about made you feel excited rather than obligated. When just being outside in the sun or in a coffee shop reading left you with the undeniable buzz of being alive.

A time when you thought and felt, hell, you knew, the whole world was at your feet. Your whole life was in front of you, figuratively or literally.

The first lesson I received — and then promptly ignored — in how not to live my life, how not to be who I was, came when I was dating my future husband. We’d been out to dinner at the Chart House in Boston. When we left, it was raining. I grabbed his hand and tried to pull him a few feet away from the restaurant door toward the edge of the wharf that looked across the water to Logan Airport.

I wanted to dance with him in the rain. I wanted to turn my head up to the night sky and feel the drops falling from the heavens. I wanted to shake my limbs and act goofy and maybe take a waltzy/schmaltzy turn around the brick area that looked like a dance floor to my eyes. I wanted to laugh and have him kiss me in the pouring rain. I wanted to press my body next to his. I wanted to get soaked to the skin and shiver all the way home and then warm our bodies the best way two humans can.

He wouldn’t come with me.

I hesitated for a moment, let go of his hand, and then went to the water’s edge by myself. I stood just for a moment, in the rain, and stared at Logan, stared down into the water. I didn’t dance. After a moment, I heard him call, “Let’s go.” I turned and walked back to him; we caught a cab, I think, and went home.

I knew then, really, in my heart, that I was putting a piece of myself by the wayside. A vital part of me. The part that will be 70 and still want to dance in the rain. Even if I catch my death of cold and die as a result. And there are some people who never want to dance in the rain. Nothing wrong with either approach to life.

But you have to know who you are and not let the person that you are fall or get pushed to the wayside. My husband didn’t push my rain-dancing self to the side — I did. And it was the first in a long line of mistakes I would make in my desire to create and sustain a relationship with him.

I still am struggling with this whole concept — the concept of being wild at heart and and yet still creating a life that offers more than just eking out a living, taking photos of three cats, and spending holidays alone.

Is it possible to be married and still maintain that wildness? Is it possible to find a partner who will not be bothered by my desire to traipse off to Italy alone? Is it possible to have a relationship in which love and sex and passion and romance and being your own, independent person, does not get sucked into the desert of familial obligations, trash that needs to be taken out, questions about what we’ll have for dinner, what television show to watch, and arguments about what time to go to bed and who’s going to pay what bill?

Is it possible to be in love and not let that romantic, goofy part of you that dances crazily in the rain be sacrificed to your partner’s practical — and quite sane — desire in wanting to get home dry and without the sniffles?

A while back I posted a blog about Word of Mouth — and in it, I was coming down hard on the service — the manners of the wait staff mostly, and then I followed that up with a blog called Heads Up, where I came down hard again on people whose dining manners left some to be desired.

Well, all I can say is that my readers are MUCH more polite than I (sheesh I hope that’s the right use of I!). Because several of them wrote to me OFF the blog — to my email address — to point out my own very poor grammar when I wrote “the server greeted my guest and I.”

Yikes!

And they’re absolutely correct. I actually do know this rule of grammar, but it got past me when I was writing — but I’m sure I also make the mistake more often than I’d like. Here’s how one reader explained proper usage: “The server ‘greeted my guest and me’ is correct, but “my guest and I” is not. You wouldn’t say, “greeted I and my guest.” In this case you are the object of the greeting and the pronoun has to be in the objective case.”

I do wonder if this reader is or was a former teacher — she explained it so well! But truly, several readers wrote to me outside of the blog and I was struck by how sweet they all were — none of them wanted to post a blog comment pointing out my error. I think they were all too polite (not like yours truly!).

I really appreciate it when readers catch any kind of mistake I make — or when they disagree — it all helps me become a better writer. (I hope!).

If anyone else out there, besides me, is grammatically challenged from time to time — here’s an online quick check site: http://www.drgrammar.org/faqs/

And, big thanks — from me, myself, and I — to those of you who set me straight, grammatically-speaking!

Clearing out a folder of photos and came across these. Just goes to show the fact that at least in 2008 and early 2009, I actually did get out of my house and into “da house!” Read more »

I voted no on Tuesday — against giving our local government leaders the right and power to decide whether some new or growing businesses will be eligible for property tax exemptions for as long as the next decade. Proponents of the Economic Development Ad Valorem Exemptions call these tax breaks “incentives.” I just call them kick-backs. Read more »

I’m voting no tomorrow, August 24 — against giving our local government leaders the right and power to decide which businesses will be eligible for property tax exemptions for as long as the next decade. They’re calling the tax exemptions “incentives” to attract businesses, ostensibly to create jobs.

I’ve never believed in paying somebody off, bribing somebody, or giving something to someone to encourage them to do business with me personally, and I don’t believe in doing it as a city or as a county. Really, bottom line, if it wouldn’t be okay behavior for you personally, or for yourself professionally, then why is this kind of behavior okay when a government does it? Read more »

Signs come at you in little ways at first, right?

Someone mentions their timing belt blew out on a drive to Orlando. You pass by a car on the side of the road with it’s hood up and a guy standing beside it with his cell phone out, looking hot and late for wherever he was headed. Later, you hear an ad on the radio for a discount on oil changes. Damn, you think. I’m definitely taking the car in on Friday to check out that rattling in the engine. But you don’t.

The weekend arrives. You’re at Publix and your car won’t start. You have to pay to get it towed; you have to call friends for a ride. And your borrowing your Mom’s car for work on Monday. Read more »

I know, know for sure, I’m going to alienate some friends, family, maybe even a paramour or two with this blog.