Grace in Glasses (Again!)

My admiration for the beauty, elegance, and class (or I suppose grace is the best way to put it) of legendary actress and princess Grace Kelly is well-documented.  When I wrote my first novel, I named my main character (a shy, not especially beautiful young girl) after her. And I've blogged about her once before as well, pointing out that when she wore her eyeglasses, she had a way of making them seem like an attractive fashion accessory. (You can read that post here, if you'd like.)  Grace Kelly was not afraid to don her specs in public, even daring to wear them at the Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood, where physical flaws of any kind are rarely exposed, and that's one of the many reasons I admire this iconic beauty.  She put the proverbial kibosh on the notion that men would "never make passes at girls who wear glasses"!

I recently came across this photo of Grace Kelly from the cover of a French magazine.  It appears that she is in the early days of her reign as Her Serene Highness, Princess Grace of Monaco here.

I love this photo!  In spite of Grace Kelly's breathtaking beauty--how I envy the perfect bone structure of her lovely face!--there is a sweet humility about her, too.  Reaching up to adjust her specs with a gloved hand, as she sits there looking resplendent in her lavender gown, regal sash, sparkling jewels, and silver crown, she reminds me a little of my book's humble heroine.  Did the princess have a habit of nervously adjusting her glasses, even when they didn't need it, like my Grace?

I did go through a phase, from college until after the birth of son #3, where I wore contacts; but I've spent most of my life (since the age of 11) wearing glasses.  They are as much a part of my face as my nose or my chin.  I feel, in fact, like I look a little weird without them. When I see pictures of Grace Kelly wearing glasses, too, I feel a kinship.  (Not a real kinship, of course; because I would hope if we were true kin, there might be more of a physical resemblance between us!)

Three cheers for Grace (as well as grace) in glasses!

Postcards from Barcelona

Here are my postcards from Barcelona--or more accurately, some of the pictures I took while my husband and I walked around the city on Friday afternoon.  What I loved most about Barcelona--and what I love most about all of the European cities I've been fortunate enough to see in person thus far--is the way the Catholic Faith plays such a big part in the art and architecture.  There is so much faith-inspired beauty over in Europe!  And so many places where modern city structures have grown up around historical little churches.  There is nothing--I repeat NOTHING--so beautiful as the churches you'll find there.

Here's a relatively small Catholic church, tucked so tightly between
the buildings that sprang up around it that you could almost miss it entirely.

And here's a grand cathedral (La Seu, pride of the Gothic era), which it would be very hard indeed to miss!

The architecture in Barcelona is amazing...

...especially because it often includes details like this one, a lovely statue of  Madonna and Child--
and this building wasn't even a church.

Here's the main drag, a walking street known as "La Rambla."

And halfway down La Rambla you can stop in at the Placa de la Boqueria (a huge marketplace), where you can
get some really fine--and really expensive!--locally-made chocolates.

You may have noticed that some of the italicized words I'm using seem more French that Spanish, and that's because Barcelona is the capital of the province of Catalunya (Catalonia in English), and the Catalan language is a mixture of the two languages.  Ramon, the older gentleman who sat beside me on the trip over the ocean Thursday night, said that his first language was Catalan, although he was also fluent in French and Spanish and could speak passable English.

Well, I really hope mi amigo Ramon would be happy with the effort my husband and I made, during the one day we had available, to enjoy his beloved hometown, of which he was so obviously very proud.  I'm going to leave you with one final image, the statue of Christopher Columbus that overlooks the Port de Barcelona.  To me, it looks like he's saying, "That way to America!"

Warning: I'm About to Brag about One of My Kids!

If you read my blog often enough, you know that I have five sons and they all have a good deal of artistic talent.  I showcased dinosaur drawings from their boyhood days during a 5-day extravaganza called "T-Rex Week" back in June of 2011, if you need proof that I'm not just an over-proud mama.

While they all were endowed by their Creator with a great deal of natural talent, most of them stopped doing much artwork once they got to a certain age.  But son #4 (who recently celebrated his 25th birthday) continues to amaze everyone in our family with the imaginative artwork he creates.  He's always been a maestro using nothing more than a pencil, as evidenced during "Crazy Creatures Week" in August of 2012.  And he's no slouch when it comes to wielding colored pencils, either--as you can see by feasting your eyes on this detail-filled drawing he did for a co-worker as a Secret Santa gift in 2011 (which I first showcased in a post called "Lazy Saturday Mornings and Active Imaginations").

But in the past year or so, my uber-artistic boy has been fiddling with a computer drawing thingamajig called a Wacom Bamboo "Create" Tablet, a birthday gift he received from one of his older brothers.  This device lets him draw his artwork onto an electronic pad rather than actual paper (using a program called Sketch Book Pro), and then everything is magically transferred onto his computer screen.  Using this state-of-the-art gadget, he can then color and shade his work--without the mess and expense of paints and brushes.  In the hands of someone without true artistic talent, this newfangled device would be well-nigh useless; but with my boy's kind of talent, the possibilities for creating truly professional works of art are endless.

Yesterday, my son texted me a picture of the latest piece of artwork he had created using his tablet.

He actually entered this design in an on-line t-shirt contest--and though he didn't win, I told him he ought to send it out to Notre Dame to see if they'd be interested in making up some t-shirts with this image on it to sell at their bookstore.  I love my creative boy's original spin, combining the Four Horsemen with Irish leprechauns--and then giving the whole crew the look of the Ring Wraiths in Lord of the Rings.  It's pure genius (said his mommy!).  Don't you agree?

The Accidental Beer Drinker

I don't much care for beer, and I rarely drink it.  This makes me a bit of a social outcast in my husband's Irish American family, where the beer flows like wine--as Lloyd Christmas would say--at Notre Dame football tailgaters and other events of equal importance.  (Events like the clock striking 5:00.  Or noon maybe, on a sunny summer day by the lake--but then again, it's always 5:00 somewhere.)

Just kidding about the social outcast part, by the way.

It's so strange, though: when I'm an accidental tourist in a foreign land--meaning that I've come along for the ride on one of my pilot husband's overseas flights to Europe--I become an accidental beer drinker as well.  And the crazy thing is, when I'm over there with my hubby seeing some awesome European city for the first time, for some inexplicable reason beer tastes like Heaven to me.

The first-ever trip I took with my husband (with him up front, driving the airplane) was to Nice, in December of 2011.  At the end of our second day of sightseeing there on the beautiful Cote d'Azur, we bought two tall cans of Heineken at a little grocery store and went down by the water to drink them at sunset.  I don't believe life gets any better than that, and I don't believe I've ever tasted anything so wonderful as that ice cold can of beer I drank as I sat with my favorite person and watched the sky turn orange over the Mediterranean.

You can't see my can of Heineken in this picture; but it's there, believe me.

When I was an accidental tourist once again, in Athens back in March of 2012, my husband and I drank Greek beers at sunset, sitting atop a hill with a panoramic view of the city.  That bottle of Mythos tasted delightfully delicious to me--on that particular night, anyway, with that particular person, in that particular place in the world.

So it's no surprise that the beer in Barcelona this past Friday was surprisingly tasty, too.  I told you yesterday that we saw several Irish pubs during our walk about the city.  After watching the sunset at the Port de Barcelona, we ended up at one of them--Flaherty's, a pub my husband remembered visiting before, as they offered 1 euro beers during happy hour.  Even though they'd gone up to 1.30, we stopped in and each had two bottles of one of the local brews.

There just isn't anywhere more fun than an Irish pub, is there?  My daughter-in-law said that when she was studying abroad in Italy during college, her favorite place to meet up with friends was--where else?--an Irish pub!  (Who has ever even heard of an Italian pub?)

A.K. Damm: good stuff!

You can't get me to drink two bottles of beer at one sitting back home, so I don't know what happens to me when I go across the pond.  Perhaps it's a good thing I don't get to do it too often!

A Sweet Reminder of Home in Barcelona

I'm in a WiFi hot spot at a rest area in VT--so I thought I'd take advantage of the free Internet and spend a few minutes blogging.  It not only breaks up my 4 and 1/2-hour trip, but it also ensures that I'll be able to post something today.  I'm en route to Upstate NY, where I plan to spend a few days with my mom and dad while my husband is out of town.  This morning, he left to fly a trip to London (and yes--he just flew a plane back from Barcelona yesterday, and had only one night's sleep in his own bed, before turning around and heading back to the airport!  A pilot's life is exhausting!), so I decided to take a drive up to see my parents. If I remember correctly, their Internet password is so complex that even they don't remember it, and you'd have to be an expert computer hacker to get on their system.  This may be my last post until Wednesday!

After this rest stop, it's over 70 miles to the next one.  And after having a few cups of coffee at home this morning, and then picking up a large Dunkin' Donuts "road coffee" two hours ago, it was imperative that I stopped now--if you get my drift.

Speaking of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, I was so amused to see that they even have it in Barcelona.

I haven't been to very many places in Europe yet, especially compared to my globe-trotting husband.  But so far I've been to Nice (and Monte Carlo in Monaco), Amsterdam, Athens, and now Barcelona, and in every single one of these cities--even hoity-toity Monte Carlo!--I've been able to find a McDonald's.  (And often a Subway or a KFC as well.)  But this is the first time I've ever seen a Dunkin' Donuts!

You'll be proud of me, though.  I didn't get a coffee at this "Dunkin' Coffee."  I tried to stick to local-style cafe au lait instead.  But I was still tickled to see this sign, which was a sweet reminder of my New England home.

The other thing I've found in every European city I've visited is an Irish pub.  As we walked around Barcelona, I counted 3 or 4 of them.  But more about that tomorrow.  I must get back on the road now--I've got 2 and 1/2 hours left in the car, and I want to arrive at my folks' while it's still light out.

Hola from Barcelona!

It's about 8:00 a.m. (which is only 2:00 a.m. back home), and we're getting ready for a 9:00 shuttle to take us over to the airport for the trip back to NYC.  My bag is packed, I'm dressed, and I'm ready to go, so I thought I'd just post a few pictures from our walking tour of Barcelona yesterday.

I have lots more, which I'll post later; but for now, I've got to mentally prepare for another trip across the ocean--which was actually less than 7 hours long on the way over (I was wrong the other day when I said it was a 7 and 1/2 hour flight).  We hit a patch of pretty violent turbulence getting here, which had me a little freaked out--and which even my husband the pilot, who flies across the Atlantic on a regular basis, said was a tad unusual.  So I'm praying for a smooth ride back.

The colorful older gentleman who sat next to me on the trip over was a resident of Barcelona, and he did his best to convince me that I should stay behind and tell my husband to work the return flight back to the States and then come back and get me.  One day was not enough, Ramon said, to appreciate all there was to see.  He promised in his heavily accented English that he and his wife would show me around and make me fall in love with his hometown.  When I laughingly said I couldn't do that, he gave me his business card and insisted that if the two of us ever come back, we must look him up and plan to stay (for at least five days) with him and his wife at their place.  The people you meet!

I do wish we'd had more time to sight-see, but even though it was a bit of a whirlwind trip I'm so glad I decided to come along.

"7 Quick Takes Friday" #3: A Tale of Two Travels, etc.

--- 1 ---

First of all, when you finish reading this (if I don't lose you before you even get to #7), you should take a moment to click on the link to Jennifer Fulwiler's "Conversion Diary" located at the end of this post.  Jennifer is absolutely wonderful, and so are a lot of the bloggers who post "Quick Takes" at the end of her blog each Friday. I have discovered some gems very much worth reading--and even "met" some very interesting women--since I started participating in this weekly blog-sharing event two weeks ago.

--- 2 ---

Secondly, my iPhone is still hanging in there!  It's nothing short of a miracle, considering what happened to it back on January 16.  Word to the wise: if you happen to drop your cell phone into a swimming pool, or a lake, or the ocean, or any sort of tank filled with water, try the old rice trick--stat!  After I dropped my phone into..into a swimming pool (yeah, that's it), I immediately submerged it in a bowl of rice and left it there for a day or so; and although some of the minor functions aren't working perfectly anymore, for the most part my phone seems to have survived its near-drowning. 

Not that I'm extremely attached to my iPhone or anything...but to say I'm relieved that it's still working is a huge understatement.  

--- 3 ---

If you haven't entered the ornament giveaway contest on my blog, you can still go to the January 28 post to join the fun.  All you have to do is leave a comment with a guess as to how many Christmas ornaments I had on my tree this year, and you could win a hand-crafted wooden Santa ornament.  (On January 29, I posted a photo of my decorated tree, just to give you a leg-up in the guessing department.  There are a lot of ornaments on there, as you can see.)

This is my second contest/giveaway at "String of Pearls."  I decided to be a total copy-cat and try it, after seeing this sort of thing done on some of the blogs I enjoy reading.  I have never won anything when I've entered them; but take heart, dear readers: when you enter a contest on this blog, the number of participants is bound to be pretty low, so the odds of winning are in your favor!

The prize!  (He's 5 and 1/2 inches tall, made of sturdy pine and hand-painted.)

--- 4 ---

I am writing this post days in advance. because I'm going to be a little busy on Friday.  (It's really only Tuesday the 29th as I write this--fooled ya!)  The reason I wanted to get my "7 Quick Takes" finished ahead of time, so that all I'll have to do is push the "publish post" button on Friday morning, is that on Thursday evening I will be boarding an airplane piloted by my better half and headed for Barcelona, Spain.  My husband is a commercial airline pilot who routinely flies to European destinations, and as an empty-nester, I have finally gotten to the point where I can be convinced to accompany him on some of his trips across the great big ocean.  (If you read my blog on any kind of regular basis, you've probably heard me talk about my fear of flying and my efforts to overcome it.)

I saw a news report recently that said many people who frequent Facebook are beginning to have self-esteem and jealousy issues because of all the pictures their friends post on there--especially pictures of awesome vacations taken to exotic locales.  So before you think I've got an oh-so-glamorous life and start to feel the green-eyed monster taking hold, keep this in mind: I will spend about 7 and 1/2 hours on an airplane, which is nothing short of punishment for me; then my husband and I will take a nap for a few hours, get up and sight-see in Barcelona for one day, have a nice dinner, and go to bed early enough for him to be well-rested for the return flight; and the next day, I will spend about 7 and 1/2 hours on an airplane again.  I'll be in the air over the Atlantic more than I'll be on the ground in Spain.

That being said, however...I did go shopping at Barnes & Noble with my husband today (Tuesday), and we picked up a pocket-sized Barcelona guide book, which we've been poring over.  So I must admit, I'm getting pretty excited about the trip!

--- 5 ---

Speaking of travels to exotic locales, my middle son (26) and his lovely girlfriend are on a 5-day Caribbean cruise* as I write this.  They flew to Miami last Friday and boarded the ship on Saturday, and right about now they are living the life, I'm sure.  On Saturday they texted me a couple of pictures, right after they'd gotten settled on board, and shortly after the texts came through my son called, sounding very excited.  (In the middle of our conversation, he had to pause to speak to a waiter who'd come by to ask if he or the lady would like a cocktail.  When the drink came I said I hoped it had a little umbrella in it, and he laughed and said it did.)

The really sweet thing about this son is that while beginning the awesome experience of his own first-ever cruise, he was actually thinking of his father and me.  He asked if either of us had ever been on a cruise, and when I said we hadn't (because I figured my husband's time aboard Navy ships didn't really count), he said, "We should do this--the whole family--with you and Dad on your 35th anniversary!"  How thoughtful and loving that boy is.  I just adore him!  (Our 35th is about three years away, so that gives me some time to contemplate being on a boat way out in the middle of the ocean--a fear that on my long list of phobias ranks second only to flying!)

*(They are a CatholicMatch.com couple, so no worries--it's all on the up and up!)

--- 6 ---

If you'd like to order a copy of my novel Finding Grace, I am able offer it to my blog readers at a discounted price.  On Amazon, the cost is $17.99 plus shipping & handling; I have a number of copies and I can send you a signed one for $15.99 (and that includes s & h).  To contact me about making a purchase, just click on the "Email me" link, above right.  (You're probably thinking, "Another plug for her book!  She's shameless!")

--- 7 ---

I hope I'm going to get some beautiful photos while I'm in Barcelona, and I will be sure to post them on my blog next week.  In the meantime, here's a picture of the La Seu Cathedral (found on-line, pre-trip), which I hope I'm actually seeing in person as you're reading this on Friday.

Adios, amigos!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!