I can't believe I didn't post a pic of this (my bad)
Our Anniversary Dinner at Bonefish...
A most yummy Bang Bang Shrimp for the appetizer
I had the Cod with Creamed Spinach and Lump Crab
Opie had the Cobia with Feta and Artichoke Hearts
and we shared Creme Brûlée for dessert
everything was completely fantastic!
Looking forward to our next year together 🎉💞🍾
🎉28 years and still going strong 💕🌹💕 Life is good🍾
This really spoke to me. I hope this resonates within many of you.
The past is the past. We cannot change it but we can grow from it.
... and become the unique soul we were always meant to be.
I'm ready - are you? Let's take that Leap of Faith together!
went fishing with our friend Guy... he caught a shark!
me... a teeny tiny puffer fish. did I say teeny tiny!
Oh well... both were released and lived to swim another day!
What a perfect month! The trifecta of celebrations and it all began with Lobsters! I made them for us on Valentines Day and we had them again at a restaurant on my Birthday. Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum!
Yesterday was our 25th & 26th Anniversary. So... how is that possible you're asking! Well - we originally got married in Mexico - and then again - on the very same day - one year later - in the States. There is no such thing as too much of a good thing for us!
Then last night we had the most fantastic/delicious dinner at Carmelo's with our close friends Sue & Haich...
The Calamari Fritti appetizer melted in our mouths!
I had the Chicken Limoncello - with Sun Dried Tomatoes, Artichokes and Capers finished in a Basil Limoncello Cream Sauce. It was divine!
And Opie had one of his favorite dishes from Italy. Pork Shank Ossobuco. It was like being transported back to Florence!
And then came the Dessert... Tiramisu... a gift from Carmelo's to celebrate our special day. To say it was delicious would be an understatement. it was like Communion from the Gods... and... the best we ever had!
If you ever find yourself in beautiful Punta Gorda... Carmelo's Italian Ristorante is a must!
Holidays are a time to gather together with friends and family, to enjoy life, and to create lasting memories. With so many to celebrate, how can you not have a favorite?
For Opie and me it has always been Halloween… from the time we were children putting on costumes to go trick or treating, to present-day adult costume parties, telling scary stories, and watching old classic horror movies. Not the blood and guts movies made today, but English Hammer Films, just about anything from Roger Corman, and movies that can raise the hair on the back of your neck, give you goosebumps, and make you afraid of the dark.
The movie Ghost Story comes immediately to mind, and even earlier than that was a black and white movie called Dead of Night, about a man’s recurring dream. I first came across it in the early 70’s and it chilled me to the bone. I was so frightened, I called a friend and we watched it together on the phone! I watched it again in the late 80’s with Opie and it was just as scary.
And speaking of bones and things that go bump in the night, we’d like to introduce you to our newest Dada, the Mistress of the Garden, created especially for the 2009 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors and not for the faint of heart.
She came into being as Opie and I wondered what the Mistress of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights would be like… if one existed of course!
The original triptych is in the Prado in Madrid (c.1500) and we are fortunate to have a copy as a result of a friends visit there many years ago. It’s one of our favorites and seems to be simpatico with all that is Halloween.
As we were contemplating this newest Dada, images of Witches, Vampires, Skeletons and Bats immediately sprang to mind, but something was still lacking. While She was both… She was more… She was innocence transformed and transcended. The Mother of all nightmares who devours the souls of the wicked and the bones of the damned.
But why her and why here? Did she fall from grace or was this her destiny from the beginning. Some things are meant to remain a mystery.
What we can tell you is she started out an innocent doll that somehow came apart and was put back together with old bits and pieces that oddly enough seemed to fit like a glove. Broken toys, discarded doll parts... Frankenstein’s bride personified with the delicate wings of a bat. Eternal, nocturnal, and insatiable. Empty inside, she exists only too feed, but it’s never, never enough.
Many cultures believe that Halloween or All Hallow’s Eve is the most magical night of the year. A night of ghost stories, tricks or treats, costumes, jack-o’-lanterns and séances. A metaphysical night, when the veil that separates “our world” from the “other-world” is the thinnest, and the dead walk among us. A “spirit night” … when thoughts turn to the supernatural.
It is the one night that The Mistress of the Garden is free to roam our realm. If you are pure of heart, have no fear she will not harm you, but if you are not, then beware the slight movement in the shadows, or the faint almost inaudible whispers in the wind, or a sudden chill in the air that feels as if someone just walked across your grave. It is she and she is coming. In the dark. In the night. And she will feast on your bones and bring your soul back to her garden… for all Eternity.
Happy Halloween!
Opie and Linda O'Brien are mixed-media artists and authors, who enjoy pushing the envelope in myriad ways, using organic, recycled and found materials because they seem to have a voice that must be heard, a story that must be told, and a life that would otherwise be too soon forgotten. They consider themselves "caretakers of the mundane and the ordinary" and their unique offerings include jewelry, dada dolls, handmade and altered books, metal collage and assemblage, printmaking, encaustic, digital art and photography, iPad-ography, sketching, watercolor, original music and more.
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