See the Michael Moore Movie, See the Michael Moore Movie, See the #Michael Moore Movie

Movie title: “#Where to Invade Next.”

Don’t be misled by the title. The idea is that we invade other countries to take what we want. This time, Moore  has “Invaded” various countries to find valuable philosophical attributes and bring them back to the US.  Astounding. Wonderful.

The film was playing at the #Bijou Art Theater in Eugene, Oregon, not in one of the “big” theaters. They will wait to see if it is a blockbuster. Maybe if Moore is nominated for an award, then they will show it. (My seven-year-old grandson has gotten sarcasm already, guess I have taught it to him.)

I missed an opportunity to be involved in a discussion that was happening outside the theater. A few people were standing in a group talking. As my husband and I walked past I figured they were friends visiting, but on second thought, I said, “I bet they were discussing the film.” I should have poked my head in. Opportunity missed.

And then I read that theaters are having a hard time clearing people out of the lobby after seeing the film, for they want to discuss it. Imagine.

I don’t want to be a spoiler for the film, but some things sang to me with such vigor I have to say something.

Imagine, a school with no homework. “Children should play,”  the principal said. “They have other things they need to do when they go home.” I have said for years that if a school can’t jam enough information into a child’s head in the 6 hours they have them, they aren’t doing their job. For heaven’s sake, why send work home? Remember endless pages of  long division we had to do at home? Educators then thought that children learn by rote when people learn better by discovery.

The school system implementing that philosophy ranks the highest in education. Their advice to us,  “Stop teaching to the tests.” And I won’t even mention that a gourmet kitchen Moore found was, in fact, a school cafeteria where children were seated at tables set already with china plates, then served a healthy appetizer, main course, a cheese dish, and dessert, and they drink water. This was not a private school—no private schools there.

I had to say it. But I can’t steal any more of Moore’s thunder, you must see it. Don’t take the children, though, a few scenes in American prison’s are brutal. Generally, however, it is impactful and upbeat.

A lady in Iceland looked us straight in the eye and said that she wouldn’t live next door to an American, they don’t take care of each other. They think in terms of Me instead of We. And they don’t care.

Moore said, “I do.”

 Me too.

 How about you?

Oh The Places We’ll Go

Danielle Steel is my mentor. Rosamunde Pilcher is my inspiration.

Why Steel? Because she weaves description, character development, dialogue, and backstory into one seamless flow, and she is so prolific she has kept me reading for months. Pilcher because I just love her. Her writing is exquisite, and her first best seller was The Shell Seekers, about a painting.

My novel, The Girl on The Pier, too, is about a painting.

After completing a novel titled Song of Africa I saw that one publisher was offering a two book contract (not to me), but I thought, my God, two books? How could I ever write a second? 

Whap! A thump on the side of the head.  “Write about the young namesake from the Africa book, and about a canvas featured there painted by her uncle.

Sara Andrews, 22, fresh out of Parsons School of Design, and now with a job as a curator of a gallery in SoHo New York, meets the love of her life on page one of  The Girl on the Pier.

The following day Sara receives a call from a customer wanting to view the painting The Girl on the Pier, painted by her uncle, Clyde Dales. When the customer sees the painting, however, he says, “That isn’t the painting.”

Sara didn’t know there was another. Two paintings by the same name?  When the customer offers two million dollars for it, Sara acts as though she sells two million dollar paintings every day. Uncle Clyde’s paintings have sold for thousands, but never millions. 

Something is fishy.

Sara’s search takes her and her new love from New York to Los Angeles, to Seattle, to Gambia West Africa, to Kenya, to Paris, and with Paris comes my reason for writing  this…

Not knowing Diddy squat about Paris, I needed to find a museum there—not the Louvre, and so I searched and found Muse’e d’ Orsay. And within that museum, I stumbled upon a collection of Vintage American Photographs.

Shirley temple signing her first movie contract

I had to show you a few:

JFK and Jackie, 1953, in a photo booth

Girls at soda fountain 1940's

1939

Hawaiian surfer. The missionaries outlawed surfing, luckily the Hawaiians didn't listen.

Live Wild,
Joyce
P.S. See link below

Live Wild

Island Lilikoi* iced tea, El Yummo

Come sit a spell...I'd pour a frosty glass for you if I could,

We live on earth is experience life.

We write about it to make sense of it.

I tried to be wild once but gave it up in favor of ice.

We lived on the island without a refrigerator—well, we had an ice box, but it didn’t make ice. Strange how something as simple as ice can mean so much when you don’t have it.

Happy times on the Island were going to sleep to the tune of the #Coqui frogs, and awakening in the morning fresh as the #Lilikoi Iced tea pictured above. My computer was in front of a window and as the sun came up it enlivened the green outside my window as though the Morning Goddess was turning up her rheostat.

We saw no sunrises or sunsets where we lived on the island for the trees stood in the way of them, but when we were on the West side of the island we stood in reverence watching the sun sink into the sea. Fascinating again how exquisite a daily occurrence can be when you do not have it daily.

I said my mission statement is “Live wild.”  That doesn’t mean running away and living on a tropical island—although one can, and that sounds good--Swimming in a bath-tub warm sea, and being able to go to luxury hotels when the urge and pocketbook collide.

When I say “Live Wild,” I don’t mean going to #Waldon’s Pond as Thoreau did where he wrote 

I mean, follow that wildness that is buried deep in your solar plexus. You know the feeling. It burns with a desire to break free, to live the life you’ve always wanted, to have the courage to follow your dreams. It’s not coming to the end of your life and realizing that you have not lived.

What might those dreams be? And what are you willing to do to accomplish them?

Live wild,

Joyce

P.S. What really pushed us off the island? I have written rewritten, contemplated and journaled about that experience for what, about five years now? Maybe one day One Year on the Island will be a book. Hope springs eternal.

P.S.P.S.  This blog isn't about it being a business, I love you guys too much to enter that into the equation. I'm going to carry on as I have always done--rambling, contemplating, urging all readers to greatness. Whew! That releases the stress.

Ta Da

Lilikoi blossom. Isn't that exquisite?             Lilikoi passion fruit

Mission Statement

You know how mission statements can be boring, run too long, sound like they are God’s gift to the consumer, and promise to heal the ills of mankind? Sometimes when you look at a company and compare it to their mission statement you wonder if they live on the same planet.

I Googled, “#Mission statement” —you know the first place we go these days for information.  Google’s advice was, “Keep it short.”

Viola’ this popped into my head. “Live wild.”

That’s it. That’s short. That’s my mission statement.

Live Wild!

Perhaps a tag line could be: “Help people improve their lives.”

Yes, yes, I know, “Physician heal yourself.” I’m not a physician a psychiatrist or have any such illustrious job titles. Remember the old Bible story of the man on the road to Damascus and saw a fellow traveler lying wounded? The Good Samaritan stopped and poured oil on his wounds. The prevailing joke in college was, “Maybe the man didn’t want oil on his wounds.”

If you do, ask for it.

I’m asking this: If you would like to help with the direction of this blog, it would make me happy as our two pups running around the living room, circling the coffee table, over the couch, into the bedroom, over the bed…

Here are the questions:

1.                 Who are you? _______________________________________________

2.                 What are your hopes and dreams?______________________________

3.                 What is getting in the way of achieving those dreams?

                  __________________________________________________________

Copy, paste and send to my personal email jewellshappytrails@gmail.com

I won’t promise a perfect solution. I won’t always be upbeat because life isn’t that way all the time. I won’t try to be someone I’m not; even wild horses get pissed sometimes. (But that doesn’t remain a permanent condition.)

I’m staying with my title “Wishing on White Horses, www.wishingonwhitehorses.com as that is the title of this blog,  I’ve had it so long it is ingrained in my consciousness, it has a dot com, and I have some dear, wonderful, stupendous followers. Are you one?

How about a sign-up?

See, I’m learning to ask for what I want.

 How about you?

I can’t wait to see/read what is going to happen here. I’m jazzed.

Live wild,

 Joyce

P.S. If you want a personal answer to a question that’s been stuck in your craw, 

  Click here
livewildwithauntjo.blogspot.com

Now 15₵ (Price of living increase you know.)

The answer might be pertinent, or it might be “Go home and eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”  It depends on my mood, my mental capacity, or whether or not Mercury is in retrograde.

Live long and prosper.