mermaidcamp

mermaidcamp

Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water

You can scroll the shelf using ← and → keys

#MeatlessMonday For Everyone

November 28, 2016 — 2 Comments

The fad of #MeatlessMonday is a trend I happily embrace. My home is meatless every day, and folks sometimes ask me how to become a vegetarian. I always reply that by slowly converting, finding meatless meals that satisfy and please, anyone can eat less meat. I know that plenty of people view a meal without meat as a sacrifice. This is where the #MeatlessMonday fad shines brightly. The great display of recipes on display every Monday clearly demonstrates how tasty and appealing vegetarian diets can be.  #MeatFreeMonday is the UK version.  I have been trying vegetarian recipes in my kitchen since 1969, and every week these hashtags yield new ideas for my menu planning.  I appreciate the recipes from around the world and the new uses for ingredients I eat frequently.  This is my favorite living cookbook, appearing weekly on twitter.

I use Pinterest to store recipes and keep them in order.  Although I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian, I have a board that is vegan because we go lightly on the dairy and eggs.  Most of the food we eat is vegan, but we still include the dairy and eggs for variety.  My partner eats meat when he is outside the home, which does not bother me.  His consumption of meat is extremely low, and has no ill effects on my health or happiness.  His meat eating situation is between him and the animals he eats.  He is happy to take a vegetarian lunch with him to work every day from home.  I know sometimes he brags to his work colleagues about how they would never know his chili, or lasagna, or other dish contains no meat, and he makes them try it.  His coworkers share the meat dishes in their lunch boxes with him , so I guess it all work out in the end.

What is your favorite vegetarian dish, gentle reader?  I could not possibly choose just one.

raw taco salad

raw taco salad

Progress Through Procrastination

November 27, 2016 — 2 Comments

In the month of October I took the #OctoberUnprocessed challenge as I have for a few years now. Each year I give up fake meat products, chips and crackers for the month. I eat pretty well, but those products have been prominent in my diet forever.  I also bought two small packages of sugar, one brown and one confectioners, and vowed to make them last until 2017.  I am happy to report that both of those sugar bags remain unopened.  I probably will open one today for banana bread, but I have used no sugar in the kitchen for almost two months.  The other progress I made was to adapt to life without bags of chips and boxes of crackers.  I made one tasty batch of home baked crackers in October and then just forgot about them.  I decided that if I go to a great Mexican restaurant once a month that makes tortillas in house I never really need to buy bags of chips.  So far, this is working too.  Instead of answering each and every whim I have to eat nachos, I am practicing delayed gratification by anticipating much better nachos in the future.  There is no way I want to give up nachos forever.

I have stumbled upon a positive way to use procrastination.  This word   means putting off necessary tasks.  I have reversed this process by putting off  bad habits without giving them up once and for all.  It is brilliant.  I will admit I am back on the fake meat.  I was wolfing down bacon bits on the fist of November like they were going out of style.  Maybe next October I will break that habit. There are far worse things to which one can be addicted to than fake chicken McFriedFood and veggie burgers.  I can accept myself with this silly exception to my almost all unprocessed diet.  I am feeling good about the cracker conquest. They have no power over me any more.  Do you have a processed food that you can not bear to stop eating, gentle reader?  What is yours?  I have to have really good taco salads in my life:

tortilla fix

tortilla fix

Weekend Coffee Share, Thanksgiving Edition

November 26, 2016 — 11 Comments

Govinda’s Thanksgiving
Friend for lunch
Govinda’s Thanksgiving
holiday buffet
holiday buffet

If we were having coffee today I would tell you our week was almost perfect here.  Welcome to my home this lovely mild weekend in Tucson. If you are living up north I hope you packed your bathing suit so you can go in the jacuzzi and get some sun on the deck before you head back home. These are the perfect weather days that make Tucson so popular as a winter destination.  Help yourself to tea or coffee, and please enjoy a snack from the sideboard laden with food. I know many of the Americans will be weary of even seeing food, but for those of you who live in other countries we are serving pecan sweet potatoes, mini-croissants, green beans almandine, homemade spicy cranberry ketchup with chunks of ginger to compliment a large cheese tray.  In the center of the table is a mega plate of raw and pickled vegetables, olives, pickled peppers of every kind, and 20 different sauces in which to dip them.  If that does not overwhelm you with the colors and flavors of the fall season, there is nothing more I can do.  Please make yourself at home and eat as much or as little as you want.  Tell me what has been going on in your life.  Pull up a chair and stay a while.

If we were having coffee I would tell you about our day on Thursday.  We went to Thanksgiving lunch at our local vegetarian buffet run by the Hare Krishna community.  They have a great selection, beautiful outdoor patio, a band, and a live turkey.  This is the perfect place for our celebration.  We ran into an old friend we had not seen for years and ate our meal with her.  That was  pleasant surprise.  I chose not to overeat at lunch because I could take the leftovers home in a box and keep going later.  It all tasted great cold, especially the green beans mixed with mashed potatoes and gravy. I dump the carrot gravy on all my food because it is the thing that pulls the whole meal together.  I could drink this gravy as a beverage.  We write down what we appreciate most on a piece of paper to enter a drawing to win a free lunch.  It is not important if you win the lunch, but writing your gratitude and putting it in the jar with the other papers completes the group intention.  It is simple yet effective. They would love to encourage participation in their religion, but never solicit or recruit patrons of the restaurant.  The old days of aggressive Hare Krishnas chanting in airports are gone. Now they make fabulous food and finance their temple feeding Tucson. They announced a new  delivery service they are launching which I will surely use, even though I live right up the street.  They will bring me delicious food as well as any clothing, incense, wall hangings, or books I might need in the future.

As we drove to Govinda’s we were stopped at a red light when we observed two cop cars and two cops running around in a shopping center next to us.  One cop approached a Native American man who was waiting at the bus stop on the corner.  We rolled down the window to listen to the conversation between the two men.  The cop asked the native man if he had seen anything in the area.  We did not clearly hear his response, but he seemed to indicate the he had seen someone enter one of the locked, closed businesses.  The cop asked him for ID.  The man asked why he had to show ID.  The cop told him “I don’t know who you are…”  The light turned green and we drove on thinking that must have been some Twilight Zone Thanksgiving re-enactors back at that bus stop. Why should a Native man at a bus stop have to show ID to Tucson Police Department employee?  I thought about Standing Rock and the military vets who are self deploying to protect the sovereign rights and water quality of the First Nations in the Dakotas. The violence being used at Standing Rock reminds me of the Indian Wars, and that reminds me of Harvard being founded to convert the local Native Peoples to a particular brand of christianity. All that reminds me of Wounded Knee.  Our history is highly genocidal.  The irony is wildly significant on our “how we bonded with the Indians” holiday.

On a lighter note, my Thanksgiving cactus started blooming right on cue, on the very day. I am proud of her.  Please check out her rapidly unfurling flowers next to the front window.  Thanks very much for visiting on this busy weekend.  Please check out our other coffee sharing friends who gather at Diana’s site, here.  Post, comment, or just enjoy the coffee.

Nicholas Atwood, 11th Great-Grandfather

November 25, 2016 — 1 Comment

St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church

St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church

My eleventh great-grandfather was probably born in Sanderstead,Surrey, England in 1539.  He died in Surrey May 10, 1586. He married Olive Harman at St. Martins, London on 30 Jan 1569. (Olive Harman was born in 1548 in Sanderstand, Surrey, England,81 died in 1603 in Elstree Church, Herefordshire, England 81 and was buried in 1603 in Elstree Church, Herefordshire, England.)
Nicholas was baptized at All Saints’ Sanderstead.  His parents were John Hewson Attewood and Margaret Grenville.
Nicholas Atwood was assistant of the Queens Carriages. Due to the estate being left to Nicholas eldest son Harman, the younger brother John (Jonanem) sued Harman for the Estate but lost. (See Generation 10 for details of how the estate
passed to Harman)..

Here lyeth Nicholas Wood thirde sonne/ of John At wood of Sanderstead Corte who
served/ Queen Elizabeth sens the second year of her/ rayne & deceased the XIIIth
of May 1586 and left/ behind him a wife & children ix vii sonns HARMON/JOHN
NICHOLAS THOMS. JAMES JOHN RICHARD ALLIS & SUAN.

Olive Harman was born in 1548 in Sanderstead, Surrey, She was the daughter of James Harman. She also Married William Marleville and John Buck.

Nicholas Atwood (1539 – 1586)
11th great-grandfather
John Atwood (1582 – 1644)
son of Nicholas Atwood
John Thomas Wood (1614 – 1675)
son of John Atwood
Margaret Wood (1635 – 1693)
daughter of John Thomas Wood
Elizabeth Manchester (1667 – 1727)
daughter of Margaret Wood
Dr. James Sweet (1686 – 1751)
son of Elizabeth Manchester
Thomas Sweet (1732 – 1813)
son of Dr. James Sweet
Samuel Thomas Sweet (1765 – 1844)
son of Thomas Sweet
Valentine Sweet (1791 – 1858)
son of Samuel Thomas Sweet
Sarah LaVina Sweet (1840 – 1923)
daughter of Valentine Sweet
Jason A Morse (1862 – 1932)
son of Sarah LaVina Sweet
Ernest Abner Morse (1890 – 1965)
son of Jason A Morse
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
son of Ernest Abner Morse
Pamela Morse
I am  the daughter of Richard Arden Morse

A Chancery suit includes a statement that the Court Roll in 1547 show Nicholas Atwood to have then been the heir of Sanderstead Manor. Nicholas Atwood, was born before 1539, most likely at Sanderstead Court. He served Queen Elizabeth after the second year of her reign, as Assistant Sergeant of the Queen’s Carriages with his cousin, John Ownstead as Sergeant.

At St. Martin’s, 30 Jan 1569, he married Olive Harman (1548-1603), daughter and heiress of James Harman. Most of their children were baptized at St. Martin’s. When in the country, they resided at Court farm and here one night, when roads were especially bad, the Queen returning from one of her trips, spent the night at Court Farm.

Nicholas died 10 May 1586, in Sanderstead and was buried in St. Martin’s, 14 May 1586. His wife, Olive married for a second and third time. Her monument in Elstree Church names her Atwood children.

~Ye Ole Atte Wode Annals, pp. 3, 5
• Background Information. 179
~History of the Atwood Family, in England and the United States: To which is Appended a Short Account of the Tenney Family, p. 4, Nycholas Wood, died 1586, was the third son of John Atwoode, who died in 1520, and the father of Harman Attwood, also written Attwoodd. Harman Attwood is called Harman Woode until the entry of the baptism of his third child in the Saunderstead register. The Atte Woodes or Atwoods had many different spelling for their name in the records that can be found.
• Epitath. 110
“Here lyeth Nycholas Wood, the third son of John At Wood of Sanderstead corte, who served Queene Elizabeth seus the second yeare of her rayne, and deceased the 14 of may, 1586, leaving behind him a wyfe and children, – 7 sons, Harman, John, Nicholas, Thomas, James, John, Richard, Allis, Susan.”

~History of the Atwood Family, in England and the United States: To which is Appended a Short Account of the Tenney Family, p. 6

Visit To Plymouth Plantation

November 23, 2016 — 6 Comments

cannons above church Plymouth

cannons above church Plymouth

Pilgrims

Pilgrims

Pilgrim

Pilgrim

miller's take

miller’s take

mill pond

mill pond

When I visited Plymouth Plantation to see how my ancestors had lived the Mayflower was out of town being repaired. That did not bother me. I filled my day visiting at the museums of the living culture, including the grain mill extension in town.  The details are fabulous and the actors doing the recreation are very knowledgeable and professional at their work.  My personal ancestors were not on hand the day I went, but I did see the recreations of their homes.  I also spent time in the cemetery and the church.  The whole town is kind of preserved, with a definite Mayflower Pilgrim theme.

I was most interested in the Wampanoag section of the display. I thought for years I was a descendant of Quadequina, a member of the first Thanksgiving party.  I was thrilled to be a Wamp, but later my first cousin discovered an error in my research.  I had to cut that branch from the tree and begin again in the 1700s in South Carolina.  I was super distressed at this news, which at first I was unwilling to accept.  I was furious at my cousin, but had to face the reality that I had based my conclusions on specious data.  I had mistaken one John Taylor in South Carolina for another, and that was all it took to lead me astray.  It was a bummer.  I was just a wanna be Wampanoag after all.  It was a sad day when I had to admit that.

I stayed on Cape Cod where many of my ancestors moved after they had had it with the Plymouth bureaucracy and religious police.  The whole area is filled with history.  Even though my dreams of being a Wampanoag were dashed I enjoyed learning about the tribe and their struggle today.  My relationship to them is purely intellectual, but I still love the People of The First Light.  I love them more than I love the Pilgrims, who turned out to be pretty religious crazy.  That whole story about religious freedom and Plymouth has been stilted quite a bit.  They had no use for religious freedom other than their own specific brand of religious practice.  They forced everyone to go to their church and obey their church’s rules. That is why many of my ancestors left for Cape Cod and later for Rhode Island.  Those oppressive Pilgrims were just too intrusive to have as neighbors.

I hope to go back to Plymouth some day.  I now have done more research and more people to find in the vicinity.  I also hope I will revisit Williamsburg, VA because many of my ancestors were living down there in the 1600’s too.  If you have a chance to go see the exhibits at Plimouth Plantation Thanksgiving will never be the same for you.  You will see a clearer picture of what really happened in history.

Healing Through Hedonism

November 22, 2016 — 1 Comment

 

Without further ado I dedicate the rest of 2016 to pure pleasure.  If politics is the malady, happiness and personal fellowship is the remedy.  The election will not dominate my December.  The inauguration and the results will come soon enough for me.  What I do best is cook and entertain.  The drudgery of politics not only bores me, but usually astounds me with the futility of it all.  I have spent some time trying to change the political horizon during my life, but I now look upon all that time as a monumental waste.  I could have been just living my life in the most pleasurable way possible at the time.  This investment would serve me better than taking time to convince others to  participate in political causes.  Being happy and free is where it is at.

When I use the word hedonism I mean only fun. I do not mean overindulgence to the point of ruining all the good times. This common mistake has given fun a bad name.  Addiction is perhaps the shadow side of hedonism, but it is not pleasurable.   Fun is only fun when it is well managed.  Well executed pleasurable pursuits provide stimulus to all the senses and a feeling of time well spent.  It can be a week in Thailand or a walk around the block.  The difference between the ordinary and the hedonistic is attention to detail.  Wear what you want, see what you like to see, eat what delights you, linger over what intrigues you without trespassing on the pleasure of others. Travel to your own happy place.  This will require that you get to know your own true preferences, which will naturally change over time.  Self care for a teen is different than it will be when that person turns 65. We must evolve with our own best interests in mind.

My good friend and neighbor and I have opposing political views.  We never need to talk about politics at all.  If we do we joke about how crazy people are.  We have much in common, including an interest in cooking and cuisines.  To celebrate Heidi’s birthday we visited one of my favorite stores in Tucson, Alfonso’s Olive Oil, for a tasting of their vast selection.  It was a blast for me to introduce her to this wonderland of flavor and my great pleasure to buy her first bottle to start her own specialty oil and vinegar collection.  We tasted all over the store for a long time before she came to a decision.  She wisely selected the classic best unflavored dark balsamic vinegar because she can infuse it herself if she wants.  The vinegar she chose is exquisite, deep, complex, fruity….everything you want in a vinegar. I was happy to buy the gift, but more happy to introduce her to someplace she did not previously know.  Then we had lunch, also very good.  The balsamic birthday will go down as a complete success with little effort or expense on anyone’s part.  It was all about the discovery.

I suggest you look into your heart and decide what makes you happy.  Just do that, gentle reader.  Start with that.

 

Clulusion-The Sinister Fusion of Cluelessness and Collusion

November 21, 2016

Judgement

Judgement

If we make it through this Thanksgiving week without a flood of car traffic invited to park outside our front door to donate to a charity scam it will be the first time since I have been in my home. Our HOA has forced the homeowners here to host a donation drop off in the fire lane of our private property for the entire time I have lived here, almost 15 years. Literally thousands of cars have passed by my front door to leave junk, or food, or volunteer hours preparing food for the public for a fake charity.  The HOA board  has a fiduciary (legal) responsibility to protect the property value of the corporation, but they see fit to use our property to show off their own fake philanthropy to the neighborhood.  They operated these scams all year, and solicited donations in various ways.  They used the US Postal service to solicit funds from the neighbors, which was incredible.  Holidays were special times when we had non-stop cars drive through and park for hours to donate to the charity scams.

The most amazing feat they accomplished was to go to court and get a restraining order from a city court judge.  They told him they were “giving back” and need to restrain the people who live here and own the driveway with the fire lane they occupy from stopping the charity scam donations or food prep.  We tried for years to stop it through our official Tucson Police Department neighborhood watch, but the cop was in favor of both filling the fire lane with cars, and inviting the public to drive through this driveway we have to pay to pave in order to keep the white collar criminals happy.  She did not even know them, but wanted, in general, to make this a shittier place to live.  She encouraged the HOA board to trash the environment and break federal revenue law.  It seems she was just untrained or not paying any attention. There was no way to know what she was thinking because she simply refused to respond when we reported the crime.  She was able to influence the whole city government to refuse to enforce the fire lane law here for reasons known only to herself…or more likely to nobody, since it was a mindless clueless action. Cluelessness is contagious and soon the whole city government was too clueless to even collude with each other.  They had manifested the ultimate willfully blind untrust.  They unknowingly were the biggest promoters of obvious crime in front of all of us in the area.  They stuck to their guns for more than a decade, and last night there were 4 cars in the fire lane and 1 in a neighbor’s driveway without permission.  If a fire had broken out they had blocked people into their garages who would be trapped while the fire truck would be blocked.  They don’t see any reason not to expose us to that kind of risk.

After being forced to live with this full time donation drop off site in my front yard for years, the neighbors and I petitioned the newly elected mayor, who is a lawyer.  He refused to respond, and in fact since the first petition in 2013 he has not been willing to respond to the citizens here who petitioned his office to halt the charity scam activity that freaked the whole neighborhood out. His office thinks it has a right to remain silent while refusing to give us any law enforcement services for more than a decade.  They are not trying to refuse to perform. This is the extent of the ability they have.  They send out a cop to promote charity scamming and filling the fire lane of the property with as many cars as possible, and then refuse to respond when we ask for at least a clear fire lane.  No can do. I have pointed out the total number of nights our fire lanes have been clear in the last 15 years.  The number is stuck at 6 nights total.  They passively aggressively pretend that this law enforcement task is impossible for them, so they can’t do anything to improve this situation.  They manage to keep the fire lanes clear downtown.  They do know how to write these expensive tickets.  They prefer to ignore the issue. They have fully trashed our hood as well as trust in the police with their actions.  I still can’t get them to repair the damage because it would include admission of an error.  They are sticking with deeper clulusion.  This is why we can’t have nice things.

DNA For Hipsters

November 20, 2016 — 7 Comments

brother's estimate

brother’s estimate

my estimate

my estimate

The subject of DNA testing has become more and more popular since Ancestry.com directed some television programming at discovering the ethnicity of celebrities.  Many folks are surprised to learn their DNA reveals a different or much more complex ethnic background than they had assumed.  It is particularly poignant for black people to trace their ancestors back to slavery and find out how much non-African DNA they have.  The show and the advertising have increased the number of people sending samples to the database at Ancestry.com. This has the effect of defining all of us in the database with more precision.  I think that this is one way to eradicate racism. Our connections are much more complicated than any of us have been thinking.

The more DNA they have to compare, the more specific they can be. When I first took the test the program was new and not well known.  My profile initially told me I was 98% from the British Isles, and trace elements.  I was not very impressed.  As the database grew my profile showed more specificity including western Europe.  Recently my brother sent in his saliva in order to help a man find his birth father.  He has distant DNA links to our family and asked us for some help with his own research.  Male DNA reveals more than female, so my brother complied with his request.  I had heard this before, but when I studied my brother’s DNA results I was surprised to see he had more detail than I did.  We had the same parents for sure.  My partner said it is because my brother is a later model, but this makes no sense. I think it is because he is a male.  I will get to the bottom of this.  In the meantime I have started to investigate some of the 550 DNA matches that Ancestry has compiled for me over the years while I basically ignored this feature.  It is really interesting and fun.  They send me new connections all the time with charts about the lineage.  I am into it, and have made progress on my tree.  I have confirmed some sketchy connections in my research, and found many new ones.  DNA is where it is happening for my investigations right now.  It is yielding progress.  I paid my annual subscription fees this month, but feel really good about all the value I get from Ancestry.com.  The more DNA they collect the better it is for me, so send your spit to my database, please.

DNA testing for the public is a huge growth market.  It is also the talk of the town.  When I ran into my friend who is a doctor and knows she has Swedish ancestry did the test at 123 and Me recently.  She did it because it is possible to test for genetic predisposition to disease as well as for contraindicated medications.  She wanted to know which meds are going to harm her. I did not know that was part of the information being shared, but that does sound incredibly useful.  I need to check back with her to see what she learned beyond what she knows from that old family bible in Swedish that tells part of her story.  Everyone finds surprises.  Have you done any DNA tests yet, gentle reader? What have you discovered?  What made you decide to do it?

Weekend Coffee Share – Forging Ahead

November 19, 2016 — 5 Comments

Forge

Forge

If we were having coffee I would offer you some tasty new teas I just ordered, including a tangy cranberry flavored black tea that I am drinking.  We have coffee, of course, and some cornbread to eat by the wood stove.  The fire from last night is out, and today is warm, but I like to hang out next to my stove all winter.  It radiates heat as well as coziness.  I keep a big pot of water on top since it does zap what moisture we have out of the air.  Today I am floating a large dose of lavender essential oil with a dash of frankincense to bring up the seasonal mood.  My set of remote controlled LED candles arrives today from Amazon, which will complete my winter decorating. Next week I will let you play with them. I could not resist the sale on remote controlled candles.  They just sound like fun.

It is my pleasure to host this diverse group, and my wish that you will all continue to visit.  When the streets fill with the jolly sound of holiday traffic I stay home.  It is not difficult for me, and I am not at all missing out in any reindeer games.  I never go to malls, don’t like chain stores at all, and we don’t do any special gifting at holiday time.  So when I am asked if I am ready for Christmas I can safely say yes because I do nothing to prepare.  I like to have more lighting and scent in the home all winter, but there is no particular holiday theme. The theme is fire building, a sport I completely enjoy.  I love the job of fire tender, and consider it to be one of my best skills.  There is a trick to starting fires, which is allowing plenty of air to flow.  I try to use as little kindling as possible to get the bigger stuff started. My partner does the wood splitting, but I like the game of doing more with less. It is a metaphor for life.  We don’t need more fuel, we need more air to get started.

I consider this talented group of writers meeting for coffee to be friends, or at least allies.  Forging alliances takes time and alchemy.  We have a new year and new challenges.  This is a time to strengthen our alliances and forge new ones. We use this phrase to mean find commonality through trial by fire.  Forging requires intense heat and strong force. Once bonded the metals are inseparable, much stronger than a weld.  Hephaestus, blacksmith to the gods, was the creator of both Pandora and her famous box.  At the bottom of the box when all all else had escaped into the atmosphere, hope remained.

Hephaestus

Hephaestus

Thanks to all of you who forge friendships by finding time to share coffee each weekend.  I am mighty glad you came to hang out today.  My week has been smooth and easy.  My hope is to continue that pace and level of difficulty (very mellow) into 2017.  Please visit the digital party here to comment to add your post.

Dorothy Parker, Queen Of Swords

November 18, 2016

the queen of swords the queen of swords

One of my favorite authors of all time is Dorothy Parker who lived from 1893-1967.  Her career included writing poetry, journalism, drama criticism, and screen writing.  She is best known for her wit and satire.  As a public figure she was both well-loved and controversial.  Her political statements got her listed on the Hollywood black list during the witch hunt for communists.  When she died she bequeathed her estate to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Her stance on civil rights was progressive long before it was socially accepted.  I admire her for the way she used humor.

The Queen of Swords in tarot is a symbol of independent thought and judgement.  She is professional, perceptive, analytical and sharp witted.  She beckons to the future and is looking at it in the card, but we can’t see what she sees.  Her intellect is mature and her discernment and ability to judge impartially make her a royal.  She does not beat around the bush, but comes directly to the point without emotional investments.  She uses logic and facts to make good decisions.  When this card turns up reversed in a reading the shadow elements of the archetype are indicated.  When she is upside down it means her normally clear vision is being clouded by emotions.  Rather than clear and precise independent thought, she is influenced to preserve status quo in relationships. Her goals are compromised by fear of what others think.  Dorothy Parker had a lot of tragedy and failed relationships in her life.  She played both sides of the Queen of Swords, famously doing quite a bit of drinking.  Like her buddies Hemingway and Fitzgerald she spent a great deal of time in bars.  She suffered from alcoholism which consumed her last years. Her work endures.

Here are some of my favorite quotes attributed to this sharp and sassy sword queen:

“That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.”

“A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika.”

“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”

“I think that the direction in which a writer should look is around.”

Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker