When a KISS is not a KISS

The Kiss (Lovers) was painted by the Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt between 1907 and 1908, the highpoint of his "Golden Period", when he painted a number of works in a similar gilded style. A perfect square, the canvas depicts a couple embracing, their bodies entwined in elaborate robes decorated in a style influenced by both linear constructs of the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts movement. The work is composed of oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf, an aspect that gives it its strikingly modern, yet evocative appearance. The painting is now in the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum in the Belvedere palace, Vienna, and is widely considered a masterpiece of the early modern period. It is a symbol of Vienna Jugendstil—Viennese Art Nouveau—and is considered Klimt's most popular work.^[2]

Ahhhh, the kiss.  How fitting to begin meanderings about kissing for Valentines Day.  As a matter of fact, I do have a reproduction in my home and it is a favorite.  It sits outside our master bedroom, a subtle reminder of how wonderful the right kiss transcends love and validates "the one".

How you feel when you kiss ?

According to Psychology Today, one hypothesis is that the kiss has evolved as a mechanism for gathering information about potential sexual partners. A kiss brings us into close physical proximity with the other, close enough to smell and taste them. The face area is rich with glands secreting chemicals that carry genetic and immunological information. Our saliva carries hormonal messages. A person's breath, as well as the taste of their lips and the feel of their teeth, signals things about their health and hygiene, and thus their procreative suitability. 

Another hypothesis claims that the kiss functions primarily on the level of psychology, as a way to express and reinforce feelings of trust, closeness, and intimacy with another.

A kiss can seal the deal.

One thing I'm always thankful is having a position of trust with my girls.  As a mother, you have to guard the sacredness of having a relationship with your daughter in which she turns to you in moments of elation and devastation.  One can only hope that you can share her peak times and times of excitement.

In our home, it usually started with "I met a boy...." and would move on to the enrapture and description a daughter would go on to share in confidence while she would be exuberant with excitement and possibilities.

Imparting with excitement, as confidences go, I would be allowed into the secret world that women share when they are optimistic over the possibilities of meeting a great guy.

Of course, I would want to hear the details if she would feel comfortable sharing.  There is always a common thread in my line of questioning:

* how did they meet?

* was it a random meeting or among friends?

* did he treat her with respect?

* what did he do?

* were they drinking, at a club or a party?

* what did he do? (student, job, career?)

* where is he from? 

* how did his kiss make her feel?

Time does have a way of sorting out whether it was the joyfulness of being young, flirting, and being beautiful to the opposite sex.  Bias aside, all three of my girls are beautiful, unique to themselves, wired differently.  

Having external beauty and inner beauty is something I am always reinforcing to them.  I have always gone on about the fact that you can be beautiful on the outside, but your character is inner self is what exudes true beauty.  

They're all quite different and what is important to each is unique.  Yet with each one, I have asked:  "How do you feel when he kisses you?"  As though that is the secret to passion, life and longevity in relationships.

Movies have forever portrayed a swooning, toe curling kiss with fireworks to mean that you have found heaven with that connection.  It may not be as dramatic as all that.  

There is something to be said on whether it leaves one warm, safe, shared intimacy of that singular exchange.  Whether it holds the promise of discovery.  

I'm not talking about a saliva-sucking physical reaction of the moment that fools many unsuspecting ladies to think that the energy is a signal to yield all.

Nor does a friendly hug and peck depict anything other than just that.  More than a regular friend but not the deep connection that can be communicated by something as simple as a kiss.

A kiss can tell you whether he will guard your heart and not trample on it.  It can convey that he may be just as enraptured as you, while just as nervous of exposing his own heart and vulnerabilities.

A kiss is symbolic.

Many women who have been married for a while or for years can often reminisce about that first kiss:  how they felt, how they knew something was spectacularly special, that the exchange was deeply meaningful holding promise, some would say that it told them of a future with this person.

There are famous kisses that have withstood the test of time, even if the relationship was fleeting. The images rarely portray the feelings I've described or experts depict.  Nevertheless, they remain as timeless as the moment they were captured:

Image source:  New York Post

In August 1945, George Mendonsa was 22 years old, a Navy quartermaster on leave from the Pacific theater. He’d dropped out of school at 16 and worked with his dad, a commercial fisherman, in Rhode Island, enlisting in the Navy after the attack on Pearl Harbor: 

So on this joyous and unbelievable afternoon, George  grabbed the first nurse he saw, spun her around, dipped her and kissed her. 

The kiss did kind of bother someone else, though: the woman in the nurse’s uniform, Greta Zimmer, who wasn’t even a nurse. She was a 21-year-old dental assistant from Queens, who, having heard rumors about the end of the war, walked over to Times Square from her office on Lexington Avenue. George says he was so drunk, he doesn’t even remember the kiss. Greta says she’ll never forget it.

Greta Zimmer was born and raised in Austria, and in 1939, after much debate, her parents insisted that Greta and her two sisters flee to America. They were among the last refugees to make it out, and even on the afternoon of Aug. 14, as Greta read the illuminated news crawl declaring the end of the war, she had no idea where her parents were, or if they were even alive.

Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance in Behind the Scenes, 1916

Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in Red Dust, 1932

Clark Gabel and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind 1939

Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity 1953 

Disney's Lady and the Tramp, 1955

Breakfast at Tiffany's kiss with George Peppard and Audrey Hepburn, 1961

Great love story: Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton Cleopatra, 1963

John Lenon and Yoko Ono 1971

Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia ~ Star Wars 1977

John Travolta and Olivia Newton John in Grease 1978

Dirty Dancing starred Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swaze, 1987

Ghost with Demi Moore and Patric Swatze, 1990

Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet in The Titanic 1997

Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in The Notebook 2004

Madonna kisses Britney Spears during the 2003 MTV Video Awards

There you have it:  some famous and infamous kisses ~ some we may remember while others we may want to forget.  Most of the movies are favorites and come recommended as worth watching.

Regardless of who you may be kissing this Valentines:  make it memorable!

Awkward remorse

Most of us experience remorse at one time or another in our lives.  We women often feel  regret when we have gone and shopped a little more than we intended.  Cringing at the thought of the next credit card bill or looking at our bank statement.

re·morse

rəˈmôrs/

noun

1. deep regret or guilt for a wrong committed.

   "they were filled with remorse and shame"

   synonyms:

   contrition, deep regret, repentance, penitence,guilt, compunction,  remorsefulness, ruefulness,contriteness;

I am no different.  Yet, we have to stop the senseless guilt and put to practice some ideas to offset the remorse:

* keep the receipts so you can return the items? That is not always practical because that would mean a hassle or getting around to it before the return policy expires.

* give it as a gift to someone else?
Well, sure that means you are passing your guilt on to someone else (who doesn't suspect the reason behind it.)

* donate it to charity?
Not a bad idea.  Give to someone in need who may like it as much as you do

* juggle the bills to hide the evidence?
Postponing or setting aside financial commitments is not the right way to deal with it.

* tear the tags off and hide the receipts?
That was a trick that my former mother-in-law showed me when I was engaged and we went shopping.  Her imparted advice was: when your husband asks if you're wearing something new, you say:  "No, not at all" (because you make the heck sure you have worn it to work before)

True story to demonstrate the lengths we go to hide the evidence of our shopping excursion: 

A few years ago, my husband and I were relaxing in the family room when my stepdaughter came home and, like she usually did, came in to say a few words before she would scurry into the basement.  This time was a bit different because she was holding a shopping bag. She held it up and asked:  "did someone put this in the recycling bin?" 

1. One look at me and hubby said:  "busted!"  We all broke into a fit of laughter.  

Well, yes I was.  Guilty that is.  I had gone shopping and with intention of hiding the evidence when I got home, placed the bag in the blue recycling bin.  Later on, when hubby fell asleep on the couch, I would begin my covert operation of sneaking out to the recycling bin and bringing it in to the under the guise of darkness.

I would say I have relaxed the covert operations for the most part.  Recognizing that it was a form of nondisclosure and dishonesty.  It broke the rules of "practicing the Golden Rule" (treat others as you wish to be treated yourself).

Now, I will consciously put aside a small budget every month to allow myself to succumb to shopping fever minus the guilt.  It is a whole heck-of-alot easier.

LIVE :: from a TV or smartphone near you :::

As it happens from the renounced birthplace of Ted Cruz (Calgary)
I'll be goshdarned!  I wouldn't have guessed it: Sanders is beating Clinton AND soundly ::: if that is the case early on (multi-tasking aka watching as I write this for my three followers). If you looked at the preliminary numbers it was a fait d'accompli (french) ::: Trump is ahead 30% with Cruz in his dust.  

Yes'm folks, there very well may be a revolution and you will have to continue along with the media bombardment and (sometimes with the distortion of) the facts ::: organizations taking on the establishment ::: with broadcasts upon channels theatrically gifted anchors and guests acting like it is a return to the hay day of the Kentucky Derby or Vellenieve (oui, Canadian) in F1 racing.  

Food half way to the mouth stopping ::: before the populace is politics of all politicking to eventually come to a finish justifying heady predictions ::: statistics running across the bottom of the screen like a ticker tape, back in the days of old (those words scrolling across the bottom of your screen).  There they were, even to the untrained and nonAmerican viewer,  the early predictions coming true this time from the polls ::: based on what?  You got it:  1% of 1/10th percent!!!

Image source:  Wallpaperscraft ::: Dragon Fantasy (via Google Search)

Switching gears:
Ok, so who else loved the love story of a long time from "Game of Thrones"?  Jack Snow with gal with the foul mouth ::: remember her?

Now, who else was a little cheesed off when they killed that whats-her-name girl with the fiery red hair and Irish lilt?   I was kind of liking having some warm and fuzzies for a change after sooooo much brutality and heads chopped off or hanging ::: holy Hanna talk about violence!  

Well guess what friggin what!?!  The handsome Jack Snow is dating her in RL (real life).  Yes ::: her! 

Speaking of which, what a fantastic surprise from my hubby who almost never brings me surprises:  gave me a leather notebook with this stamped on the cover.  Unlined so I can doodle or write or .... whatever I want to think about or do.

So, as I often do when I write, I go to look for a photo or image that will make a SPLASH ::: say visually what I am trying to put into words :::

IMAGE SOURCE:  People

Well, shiver me timbers ... the first response from our friends from Google ::: when I searched for "Game of Thrones images"  and People.com was the first response.  On auto pilot, I click and then wowzers, upon splendor, Jack Snow and his little lady are in love in RL (real life).

Yah, I know, they are young, single (they better have been or I would withdraw my vote) met while filming and fell in love.  I mean what a set! Epically, appealing I would say and no wonder set the internet on fire faster than Trump's first Sanders insult ... outpacing Reality TV audience transfixed by watching the New Hampshire drama unfold ::: my husband is annoyingly flipping multiple channels that tell him the same thing, just different voices and faces.

I have to apologize for messing up their names ::: Game of Thrones costars Kit Harington and Rose Leslie.  Phew, sorry.  We so often get wrapped up by the truly talented best (cinematography, costumes, writing, direction, special effects and crew) assembled into a mesmerizing character we forget that they are very different, very real, people.

One last beef ::: People.com only "highlighted" the guys name:  Kit Harington.  That sucks.  It disappoints me gravely.  I dunno, I guess I thought that People was an establishment made up mostly by women.  BOINK :: BONG :: WRONG.  Then again, women don't often help other women.  Ever notice that?  Well, I'll leave that for another day.  Here's the quote that was embossed on the notepad:

--------------“---------------

I WISH I WAS THE

MONSTER

YOU THINK

I AM.  I WISH

I HAD ENOUGH

POISON

FOR THE WHOLE

 PACK OF YOU.

I WOULD GLADLY

GIVE MY LIFE

TO WATCH YOU ALL

SWALLOW IT!

               ~TYRION LANISTER

--------------”---------------

Source:  Game of Thrones 

Immortally memorable: Christopher Reeve

I admit that I had a secret crush on Christopher

Reeve and wanted to stumble onto​ his path 

when he was in Calgary filming Superman II in 

the 80s. Unfortunately, that never happened. 

Yet this unforgettable quote came from an 

ordinary movie star who became an 

extraordinary hero.

His life demonstrates to us that however much

we think of ourselves, we can be humbled by a

power outside our control to become our true

destiny in whatever form that makes us 

memorable forever.

Once a beacon of strength in character and out,

Christopher Reeve became a symbol of courage 

in his quest for a cure by spinal cord research.

Within us (sometimes disguised) is a powerful 

talent that we need to discover. It may not 

be destined as glamour or glory, it is not ours to

decide. It lies beyond our dreams to reach out,

to grasp, capture, and embrace it.

Stroll down memory lane with me in this clip from

Superman who is getting drunk in the East 

Village of Calgary. You will see some

of our landmarks (Calgary Tower, St. Louis) ...

In our days of pining for what we want or

dwelling on what we don't, we should remember

what we have. Be full of gratitude for each 

moment and extend forgiveness when it is ours

to give.



Thanks Chris.

xo

Telling you straight .... outta Compton

Granted, I'm Canadian, as many of you know.  What you may not recognize is that we do tend to pay attention to controversies, news and politics south of our borders.

My first reaction to the blasphemy gone amok everywhere would be the fuss over the white out of the Oscars this year.    I thought:

• let the best man or woman win.
• it is the academy, peers, who votes on the nominees
• color or gender should not sway nominees
• the best performances are recognized
• being nominated raises your value 
• movies you may not have heard of inspire you to watch 
• the big studios, i.e. most capital, gain the most attention
• above, except if you're Oprah Winphrey

I was wrong.  I watched "Straight out of Compton" last night and was really impressed for many reasons:

• I didn't know how RAP or HIP-HOP or GANSTA evolved until now
• While I was in my 20s in the 1980s, this phenomena was emerging
• The story itself is worth recognizing
• The evolving characters transformed into big names in the music business
• What they did for music was profound
• We need this kind of music in our world, as musical journalism per se
• There was a lot of racism, bias experienced these gifted musicians 
• They had to be dedicated and passionate to keep on no matter the struggles
• I like the music now (in the 80s I was probably tuned into David Bowie)

IMAGE COURTESY of http://www.hitfix.com

There was a grave oversight by the Oscar community to ignore this poignant film that is both historical and inspirational.  Although, I may not agree with the stand that black (that's what we call them in Canada since Afrocanadian hasn't been given as an option to African American) artists like Will Smith have taken by boycotting the Oscars.  By being there in person they ARE making a stand for artists of any color contribute to our entertainment.  Come on, we all have gone through days when we didn't want to go to school or work because we didn't agree with something, but we were forced to by our parents.  

You have got to be stronger than the issue at hand.  Don't align yourself with a statement that takes a side that you don't want forever to be associated with.  I vaguely recall Marlon Brando using his Oscar nod for creating sympathy for the cause of Native North Americans.  

Think about Leonardo Dicaprio's statements on Canada's oil just because he filmed at a location close to here.  All of a sudden, he is an expert.  Why not take a stand with class like Clint Eastwood did when filming his Oscar film "Forgiven" filmed close to my home in Calgary.  He captured the beauty and magnificence.  We aren't all roughnecks drilling for oil.  Some of us love where we are from and what that means.  We don't need a brief visitor like Dicaprio to insult the citizens of his host.

"Straight outta Compton" SHOULD have had some nominees for the Oscars.  It was breathtaking in its honesty and historical significance to how black lives mattered in bringing a whole new genre to our musical ears.  The cast transformed themselves into the heroes unfolded during the 80s, making a significant impact by its honest lyrics and reflection of the times.  Personally, the upheaval that groups like Led Zepplin and The Rolling Stones had on our older siblings, were lost until many years later.  We rode the short-lived disco wave but started the dance movement that allowed ABBA, David Bowie and Fleetwood Mac to be  forever iconic in our minds.  While many of us were watching those artist, there was a musical revolution going on that we were just too self-absorbed to have noticed.  Have a look at this brief trailer:

I'm really glad I watched this movie.  It brought so much reality to the bias, racism that these wonderKIDS plowed through and brought the gift of musical journalism:  a voice of what was REALLY going on around us.  I agree, it shouldn't have been acceptable.  While it is easy to glance back shamefully noting that we may have been more than ignorant to the plight of these citizens.

I  stand behind Paul Giamatti's portrayal of a sleezy white manager who filled his own pockets long before his clients ever did:  I can just imagine how widespread this was.  I like how the film brought into the fold how wrong it was.  Some of us may have been aware, but not at the same capacity that black musicians and artists were ripped off.  For that fact alone, this film should have more widespread recognition for its statement alone.

"Straight outta Compton" is definitely worth a watch.