My High Tech Legacy -- (Snort)

So, in the grand Internet scheme of things, I forget that my personal and (until recently fairly dormant) professional lives cross. I recently Googled myself because I was looking up an old article reference that I knew had been on the web. In doing so, I realize that even these blog posts are showing up much more prominently than I ever expected. Not that there's too much to be ashamed of. Not that any of my new colleagues are looking me up... Let's hope not, anyway.

I did just find this, which really freaked me out. It's in Spanish, which I don't speak anymore. (Eight years of bilingual education as a young kid, but French is my game.) It references one of my very few published writing credits, a chapter in a little tome published in 1997 called The Intranet Resource Kit. The best I can tell, the author is referencing me and a colleague of mine with regard to the type of corporate culture necessary to facilitate a good working intranet.

Other Googlings result in some PR interviews I did for CyberSearch, a really great and cutting edge product for about the year that it was marketable, as people conducted offline searches of the Internet. (AOL and other ISPs realizing fairly quickly that the per minute/per hour charge for Internet access was a short-lived cash cow...)

My new colleagues are all doctors who have insane schedules, work endless hours, run hospitals, clinics, non profit organizations, write grants, and on top of all of that love and support spouses and children. So I sincerely doubt that they're spending a lot of time wondering about my background.

A disclaimer, just in case -- To my new colleagues -- don't be afraid. I really do have a career background that doesn't involve stuff like this. But having both personal and professional personas does make me a lot happier.

Book Club Rocks

We had our -- don't know how to say "every 15 months" in "--nial" terms -- book club selections last night, and frankly they're exciting! Every member brings two (hopefully) very different books and describes each. Through a process that is slightly less complicated than choosing the next Pope, we come up with the final list. I've also included the ones that didn't make the cut, because frankly they all sound pretty interesting!

Here's to the third Monday:

The Secret -- Rhonda Byrne
Broken For You -- Stephanie Kallos
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings -- Maya Angelou
Star Lake Saloon and Housekeeping Cottages -- Sara Rath
Suite Francaise -- Irene Nemirovsky
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals -- Michael Pollan
Silas Marner -- George Eliot
Rise and Shine -- Anna Quindlen
The Memory Keeper's Daughter -- Kim Edwards
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game -- Michael Lewis
A Northern Light -- Jennifer Donnelly
The Freedom Writer's Diary -- Erin Gruwell
The Tortilla Curtain -- T.Coraghessan Boyle
The Year of Wonders -- Geraldine Brooks

The "Also Rans:"

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close -- Jonathan Safran
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in WWII -- Doris Kearns Goodwin
A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence -- Patricia Hersch
Crazy in Alabama -- Mark Childress
Karelia: A Finnish-American Couple in Stalinist Russia -- author unknown
The Power of One -- Bryce Courtenay
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century -- Thomas L. Friedman
The Pavilion of Women -- Pearl S. Buck
Pitching My Tent -- Anita Diamant
The Last King of Scotland -- Giles Foden
Lost Daughters of China -- Karin Evans
1984 -- George Orwell
Eating Heaven -- Jennie Shortridge
The Measure of a Man -- Sidney Poitier
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia -- Elizabeth Gilbert
The Year of Magical Thinking -- Joan Didion

A New Thing I Love

This is the best thing since sliced bread. (Or multi-tabbed browsing, which I must mention was pioneered by our old product circa 1993...)

Back to the best thing ever. Christy told me about Pandora. Have you tried it? Omigosh, for a music lover it is just about as good as it gets. Type in your favorite artist, and it automatically provides radio-like stream for you to approve or not.

So far I have channels for Wilco, Lucinda Williams, Liz Phair and Uncle Tupelo. That's just a few hours' worth of listening.

Enjoy!

Garbie

We have a boy, a boy, and a girl, in that order. Our boys are wonderful, sensitive and intuitive. But they are in no way prepared for the invasion of "girl things" into their lives. As my eldest informed the ultrasound technician the day the news broke, "We don't do girls at our house." (What that makes me, I can only guess.)

So before my daughter came along, they never paid close attention to the My Little Pony commercials, or the Bratz aisle in Target -- except to hear me wonder aloud who designed a doll whose feet come off, fully shod. Creepy. Maybe the idea is to eliminate the micro tiny shoes that Polly Pocket or others wear. I won't even mention how offensive I think the Bratz dolls are in general, though my boys have heard all about that too.

My daughter just turned two. About a week before her family dinner birthday party, we were at the coffee shop and another girl, probably age five or so, came in with this doll:




To say she was interested in it would be like saying I am interested in coffee or chocolate. I am not interested in coffee and chocolate. I need coffee. Crave chocolate. Desire them both. So it was for my daughter with this doll. I think you can see from the picture that she is pretty cleverly packaged. A doll that disappears into a bouquet of flowers! How cool is that? The little girl was aghast that my daughter was honing in on her action. The need flourished.

I didn't know at the time that she as a Barbie, otherwise known in our house (by the brothers who can articulate it) as "She Who Shall Not Be Named." Or more accurately, "She Who Shall Not Enter Our Home." I certainly didn't know she was The Flower Girl in the Barbie Wedding Doll series. Even I have a problem with that, but I digress.

You may have guessed at this point that Flower Girl Barbie lives at our house now. I didn't invite her. My mom bought her, having witnessed the love affair that fateful day at the coffee shop. Our daughter simply adores her. When we told her it was a Barbie doll, she promptly christened it "Garbie." Which is, in garbled 2 year old speak, an expression of love, awe, and "I go the cool toy that girl in the coffee shop had!"

Where have all the English Majors Gone?

All my life I have been told that good reading and writing skills would serve me well in any discipline or career. I even changed my major in college from pre-engineering to English and French, because I was far more interested in reading literature and writing essays than trying, in vain, to "get" chemistry.

I've never regretted that decision. It was the right choice for me, though I do confess that when interviewing for my first job there were many moments when I was thinking, "Four years of private college tuition and I'm waitressing?" It only lasted a year and a half. And it wound up being my French, not my English, that landed me that first job.

Fast forward nearly two decades. I am shopping at my local Target, and stumble upon this:


It immediately caught my eye, not because of the riveting packaging (yawn) but because I happen to need some of these. So I picked up the box, and then I saw this:

Someone at the Rubbermaid Company actually gets paid to write this copy. Several other people get paid to review the box it in a product meeting and give it the green light. Yet another employee is in charge of having the boxes printed. No one along this line, even the printer, picked this up? Talk about quality control issues!!! (Or, just control issues -- those would be mine. I wasn't nicknamed "The Red Pen" for nothing.)


So go ahead, major in English. And please, check your spelling.

Call it Intuition...

... but Howard K. Stern is behind a lot more than propping her up in front of the cameras.

After learning of Anna Nicole Smith's untimely, if not unsurprising, demise, my friend Christy emailed me reminding me that I had predicted this scenario shortly after Anna Nicole's son's death.

The question is, will he ever be nailed for it? In spite of living in a high tech, DNA, crime scene investigation world, I wonder if he had way too much time, under the influence 'witnesses,' and non-US jurisdiction going for him in pulling off ... something.

It is sickening that a five month old child is now being clawed at from all angles -- Stern, two other men claiming to be her father, members of Smith's own family -- in an attempt to get to money she may not have even had rights to.

So sad.

The Seventh Sign of the Apocalypse

France will ban smoking in public places as of next February.

France. The country.

As someone who generally falls on the side of health advocacy, I know in my intellectual mind this is a great thing.

As someone who lived there during my younger years, I am shocked. What is this world coming to when the people who gave us Galoises are banning smoking from cafes and brasseries?

I think I need to take a quick trip to get one last look at the Paris I knew!

Then again, this could save them a bundle on restoring monuments, cleaning streets (though if they're sneaking cigs dans la rue, one can only imagine how many butts will wind up underfoot), and lower that pesky public healthcare bill...

More Girl Weekend Nonsense

Want a piece of this?

(Source: www.dailycandy.com)

I can't title this post as I'd really like to, because I'm protecting the innocent. It's a he. It's a husband. It's not the man (I think it's a man) in this picture. But my friend's husband wears fur pants. While naked. So when this came out at a weekend retreat (along with the coffee through my nose) -- well, you can just about imagine the threads that were spun.

Actually, this is a little misleading. I find when I go away with friends (and no spouses or kids) that we spend very little time talking about our husbands. Okay, maybe not very little, but it's certainly not the focal point of the weekend, unless someone is having an issue she's trying to hammer out. I think our husbands think we're talking a lot about them, when in fact we are dealing with more important topics such as:

• How we barely made it to the weekend. Any mom who has ever prepared to leave her home with someone else in charge knows that there is a universal law that states that chaos will precede the 24 hours of her departure. speeding tickets, clothing mishaps, ebola virus -- we've lived it.
• Toenail fungus. Why people get it, weighing in on whether or not we have it (and comparing toes for the visual judgment), and how we can get my friend's podiatrist husband to prescribe something long distance without ever seeing us. Because we're too embarassed to actually show someone in person our gnarly foot problems. And snapping anonymous digital photos for her to email him later and plead our case.
• Our families. Try as we might to "get away," our central focus always comes back into view. This husband's job situation, that child's latest developmental tilt-a-whirl. It's unavoidable, and let's face it, a great valve to let off whatever steam might be building up.
• Muffin tops. I just saw a comedienne use this term to describe her paunch. And I use the term loosely -- she looked okay to me. We need to know why they just won't go away. That goes for the people working out and dieting, and those who aren't, the latter just believing that caring about it and bringing it up in the group should be enough for it to disappear.

This ain't a guys' fishing trip. But it sure does the job!

What Katie Holmes Cruise and I Have in Common

I was delighted to see that Katie Holmes Cruise and I have something in common. I'm told you can buy the generics at Target -- but this chiquita requires the Spanx Sky Highs. As a public service announcement/cautionary tale -- I knew it was time to hit the gym when my Spanx actually caused my back to spasm, such was the shifting of body, um, mass.

(The only portion of Katie's life that leaves me jealous, aside from the fact that she can afford as many pair of SkyHighs as she wants, is that she's in Paris...)

"Hound Dog"

I haven't seen this movie, but I am disturbed by reports about the depth and nature of sexual content portrayed by child star Dakota Fanning. She turns 13 years old next month.

13 is practically fully grown in Hollywood. I get that. (If you have any doubts, the movie "Thirteen" will chill you to the bone, but it is well worth it for the great performances by Evan Rachel Wood and Holly Hunter.) But explicit scenes involving masturbation, nudity and rape for a 12 year old actress?

(Other accounts say that some of the more graphic scenes mysteriously disappeared from the cutting room floor when certain child advocacy groups protested the use of a minor actress in such disturbing scenes.)

Is anyone else bothered by reports that that Fanning's publicist and mother were attracted to the project, allegedly, because it had "Oscar written all over it."

For once, let's call a spade a spade. There appear to be good reasons that investors backed out of this film, which co-stars talented actresses Robin Wright Penn (one of my favorite actresses, BTW) and Piper Laurie.

In a bit of a Catch-22, I can't explore just how bothered I am about this without seeing the movie. But do I want to spend $10 to watch a child being exploited?

I'm not opposed to the telling of a great story, depressing or not. Child abuse is a serious problem and the more light shed on it the better. But at what expense? Certainly someone should be watching over Dakota's best interests as a not-yet-teenage child. Comparisons to Jodie Foster ("Taxi Driver") and Brooke Shields ("Endless Love"), who both portrayed sexualized teens don't even seem fair. I've seen both those movies. Both girls were inappropriately sexualized at a similarly early age, especially considering the time periods during which those movies were released. Interesting notion that we've slipped down a slope of expectations in that seeing characters like Tracie in "Thirteen" engaging in sex isn't too unbelievable.

But neither Foster nor Shields was hired, at age 12 and with the consent of her parents, to film an explicit rape scene. And providing the visualization, for the big screen, violence against a child, especially a rape of a young girl, seems unforgivable, especially in the name of art.

Photo Caption Contest #2

My friend Jane Doe is _____.


I'm calling her Jane Doe because although she agreed to let me use this anonymous version of her picture online, she, unlike some people we know, has her limits.

This photo was taken on a women's weekend affectionately called The Literary Retreat. Another friend's parents own a cabin on a beautiful, clear, peaceful lake (that shall remain unnamed to protect them -- oh right, to protect us) that our book club invades for shenanigans of the above sort.

Let's see if you were even remotely close to guessing what she was doing.


As I've posted before, I am a huge Project Runway fan. One of my fellow devotees, whose cabin this is, decided that this year we would add a PR challenge to our weekend. So everyone who attended had to bring three garments they didn't mind parting with, as well as assorted knick knacks, crafty items or whatever else they thought might be useful in the challenge.

We divided into three teams. Items were objectively divided into three piles, and each team got a pile, plus scissors, duct tape and whatever tools they wisely had brought with them.

Team One: Angeline Jolie

Team Two: Tori Spelling

Team Three: Bree VanDeCamp

I was on the Tori team. After tucking one of our discarded booze bottles neatly into a wicker basket/purse, Tori read a moving tribute to her late father, Aaron. Here's Tori getting into a little number (that come to think of it reminds me of that "Gift to Someone Special" Buddy gives his Dad in the movie "Elf") as well as her shoes, which were custom designed that day:

I swear she could be a foot model -- look how cute her toes are! But I digress...

Angelina looked like a vamp, and the outfit actually turned out pretty decently! And Bree, well the picture you saw in the beginning was Bree's racy housewife lingerie. I only wish I'd videotaped the festivities so that I had the scripts everyone used to describe their characters...

This is why my husband (and I'm sure he's not alone) can only scratch his head and wonder about "women's weekends." When I was describing all of this to him, he was silent. Later he said, "You know, when John and I go away for a 'man's weekend,' we fish, we eat, watch a little tv, and relax. There aren't any 'planned activities!' We don't schedule a craft or figure out who is making what for which meal! I don't get it!"

Which is exactly why they aren't invited.

Go Colts!

Yes, I have completely switched positions.

Earlier I was rooting for the Bears. Then my husband branded me unAmerican for not rooting for the Saints, all things considered. Frankly my plate has been so full lately that I didn't put together that the Bears would be playing the Saints. My bad. And I really do wish the Saints had played better than they did.

Anyway, after watching Peyton Manning lead his team from behind and beat the Patriots* I am absolutely hoping they win the Super Bowl. I can't even believe how interested I was in the game, and how genuinely excited I was that they won.

Part of it is -- I love Tony Dungy. I mean love him. (More than I love Lovey.) From back when Tampa Bay was in our conference and he was just a grade A guy. So between that and wanting to see Peyton Manning get his Vince Lombardi moment, here's to the Colts.

I understand that Dungy and Smith are best friends. That makes for good copy, even better than the angle that it will be the first time two black coaches will face off in the Super Bowl.

I take Indy by 14.

* It should be noted, that as a Packer fan, I am still bitter about that second in a row Super Bowl loss way back when. The Patriots just had to go -- their dominance reminds me of Dallas, another nemesis for Green Bay.

Photo Caption Contest

This idea is directly ripped off of Perez Hilton. Who allegedly rips off a lot of photos off the Internet. Thanks to Erica for the link on the first photo!!!

So here goes:

"This boy is really smiling because he _____"



Image from www.dailycandy.com


"Women across America are interested in David Beckham's coming to America because____"

Da Bears

It's football season, and in our house, we fly the Green and Gold. My husband is a diehard fan. We are engaged in the state pasttime of wondering if Bret Favre's un-joining the Oneida Golf club really means he's retiring, or if former Viking nemesis Randy Moss will don a Packer uniform next year. (Interesting emotion, envy. When Moss played for Minnesota my husband called him a cancer to the team. Now he views him as a possible savior.)

This year, the Packers were slow to gain momentum, had a team full of rookies and didn't make the playoffs. My husband's main wish is that the Chicago Bears don't win. I love Chicago, the city. I can't stand Chicago, the fans. But no, I don't wear a cheesehead!

I'm torn on this one. I love Lovey -- the man and the name. I love that he had the guts to state that his main goal was beating the Packers. I also have no small amount of nostalgia for the 1985-86 team, led by Jim McMahon. They won the Super Bowl during the time I was in Paris -- and feeling more American than even I cared to admit. (Homesickness being what it is.) No hard feelings given our long-standing rivalry.

It was also concurrent to the space shuttle exploding and I recall being so shocked to be witnessing the videotape of it while eating in a Mexican restaurant (read: American) surrounded by other Americans. It was one of a few moments for me that is an "I'll always remember when..."

So, to our archenemies, I say, "Good Luck." Or should I say, "Good luck getting past the Saints, and then the Patriots."

New Product Alert

My friend Jennifer pointed me in the direction of this groovy new product called Road ID. It's a little metal tag that fits onto your running shoe that has your name and whatever other critical info you need on it in very small print.

I always love a good product, and this one fits a need for our family. My husband has high blood pressure and has had heart problems. This is the bad news. The good news is that he runs nearly five miles a day, often outside and always by himself. So in the event of an emergency, he has no information on him.

For a while I made him a little tag that we laminated with a brief health history bulleted list and my cell phone number. Now he wears this on his shoe -- and I don't have to replace it every so many miles after it gets drenched with sweat and you can't read it anymore!!!

PS on an "I Love This Packaging" note -- Have you seen the new vegetable oils using the no-spill measuring cup as a cap? Brilliant. (Second place: Anything powdered that used to come in a bag that now comes in a dispenser with a lid, think cornstarch, baking soda, etc.)

Internet Joke Featuring My Two Favorites...

One day, when a seamstress was sewing while sitting close to a River, her thimble fell into the river. When she cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, "My dear child, why are you crying?"

The seamstress replied that her thimble had fallen into the water and that she needed it to help her husband in making a living for their family.

The Lord dipped His hand into the water and pulled up a golden thimble set with pearls.

"Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked. The seamstress replied, "No."

The Lord again dipped into the river. He held out a silver thimble ringed with sapphires.

"Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked. Again, the seamstress replied, "No."

The Lord reached down again and came up with a leather thimble. "Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked. The seamstress replied, "Yes." The Lord was pleased with the woman's honesty and gave her all three thimbles to keep, and the seamstress went home happy.

Some years later, the seamstress was walking with her husband along the riverbank, and her husband fell into the river and disappeared under the water. When she cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked her, "Why are you crying?" "Oh Lord, my husband has fallen into the river!"

The Lord went down into the water and came up with George Clooney.

"Is this your husband?" the Lord asked. "Yes," cried the seamstress. The Lord was furious. "You lied! That is an untruth!"

The seamstress replied, "Oh, forgive me, my Lord. It is a misunderstanding. You see, if I had said 'no' to George Clooney, you would have come up with Brad Pitt. Then if I said 'no' to him, you would have come up with my husband. Had I then said 'yes,' you would have given me all three. Lord, I'm not in the best of health and would not be able to take care of all three husbands, so that's why I said 'yes' to George Clooney."

And so the Lord let her keep him.

The moral of this story is: Whenever a woman lies, it's for a good and honorable reason, and in the best interest of others.

Minnie and Moo -- A Tribute

I have a friend, I'll call her Drae (because that's her name, but not her real name) who is incredibly dear to me. Our coming together is a sort of cosmic happening, since my husband and I went to college with her husband before she even him. Fast forward a decade or so later and I'm sitting next to her at an OJWC meeting and when she says her name, I say, "I knew a [so and so] in college," and she says, "That's my husband!" The rest is Herstory.

About the time I met her, we started laughing together and haven't stopped since. Over the years I have heard many people espouse the "Laughter is the best medicine" theory, and I have to tell you that Drae is my litmus test for that. We have gone from the sublime to the broad comedy together and I always come up gasping for air and wanting more, even as I'm grabbing my ribs because they just ache.

Early in our friendship, when we were working on a Kids Who Can committee together, I told her that our ramblings reminded me of the "Minnie and Moo" chapter books by Denis Cazyet. Stay with me (my kids and I love these books)! M & M are two cows who find themselves, largely due to Moo's philosophical bent and Minnie's undying support, in the most unimaginable situations. I am Minnie to Drae's Moo. Over and over again we have played out these roles. Drae has an incredible imagination and can visualize almost anything creatively. I love everything she comes up with and think, "Why not?!?!?" and pull the trigger.

Drae is the most real, unpretentious, caring and alive person I know. Her spirit is infectious, and though I lost her to a job transfer almost three years ago now, there is never a question that we are in touch and just as looney as we always were -- albeit probably a lot less dangerous given that we live a couple of hours away from each other now. Lack of proximity hasn't dampened my affection for her.

Oh, and the picture you see on my profile is from a rather infamous boat ride Drae was behind. I was still nursing at that time but had set aside the evening for a "Similac only" outing. Drae promptly presented me with a plastic resin bracelet reserved, until that day, for embarassed bovines. The personalization? "DRY COW."

The Princess

We just spent nearly a week at Walt DisneyWorld in Orlando, Florida. Where, I have now learned, all girls, including my nearly 2-year-old, are referred to as "Princess." Which shouldn't surprise me, I guess, except that I didn't hear anyone call my sons "Prince."

My favorite use of "Princess" occurred when she was having an "I'm almost 2-years-old" meltdown at the Magic Kingdom, where Rafiki {proud to say I pulled his name out of my a-- even though I've never seen the movie "The Lion King," we must have him in a storybook somewhere!} just totally freaked her out. As she's screaming "Me! You! Me! You!" -- which is her codephrase for "I hate this! Get me out of here!" or, at home "I hate this! I totally disagree with your authority!" -- the photographers and helpers are saying, "Here, Princess! Would you like a sticker or some pixie dust?"

To which she gave them a serious hairy eyeball, very un-Princess-like, and we stuck her in the stroller for the ride to the hotel. Belle, Jasmine, Cinderella, she is not.

That said, after I gave myself a manicure (this is out of character) before we left, she was caught trying to color her nails with a Sharpie...

What do you call African Americans when they live in Great Britain?

This question, from my oldest son, reveals a lot about why he loses sleep. And gives you some insight about how many steps ahead we are expected to be.

I'm not opposed to researching, reading, learning and informing myself to keep myself on the ball when they ask these questions. We love finding out answers to all kinds of mysteries. But I admit that my husband and I have become, when necessary, experts at the dodge and bull. Some diversionary tactics, in case you need them:

"I think that would be an excellent question for _____." (Where the blank is basically any other adult person of influence -- teacher, pastor, grandparent, etc.)

"We don't really understand how that happened. It's a mystery."

"That's a very good question. Let's look up the answer." This of course wouldn't apply to the title question, nor many others. But it does work for such inquiries as whether or not a species is carnivorous.

And of course, these are only the generics. You have to be poised and ready to concoct just about any framework for any given question, pulled out of the labyrinth of possibilities in their minds.

Try pitting your child against the popular electronic game 20 Questions. (I'm sure, if you have a kid who can read, you own one, or one of their friends does.) They routinely beat the game, often on finely split hairs that are in fact nuggets of truth they have databased somewhere from some Discovery Channel special or non-fiction library book. The computer chip doesn't have a prayer.

Given these odds, what chance do I have of providing a correct answer to the majority of what they ask me? Probably my best weapon is creativity. From the time I learned to mime a phone call to the kitchen to keep my toddler occupied ("Hi, this is Kia LaBracke -- we ordered grilled cheeses a little while ago but they haven't arrived... oh, I don't remember, wait, let me ask him -- Did you want fries or chips with that?"), I can digress far enough off the point to keep everyone happy. So even if I don't have the right answer, the tangent is always a fun ride.

The Secret

My friend Jenny often talks about a friend of hers who is, to put it mildly, an intuitive person. This friend reads reads Akashic records. So she's the closest thing to clairvoyant that I know of. I've never consulted this person but always have it in the back of my mind when I'm having difficulty sorting something out that her number is a good one to have in my back pocket.

Recently while speaking to this friend, Jenny noticed (because she also is an intuitive person) that her friend sounded different. When she asked her about it, her friend replied, "I am different. It's all because of this movie that I watched called 'The Secret.'"

Fast forward many Google searches and $150 later, and Jenny owns three copies of the DVD. After watching it and telling me -- without telling me, so as not to ruin it -- I buy one off of her and decide to give it to my husband for Christmas.

This was a thinly veiled plot to force him to watch it with me. I knew he'd be skeptical. Plus he manages direct salespeople -- so motivational speakers (and speaking) are his daily fare. So I knew it would be a stretch to get him to do this on his downtime.

Bottom line, my friends? Anyone who is over 40 should really be tuned into a lot of what is being said. The production is cheesy and even absurd at times.

But the message is outstanding. The conversations have been endless. And I find myself revisiting a lot of situations by reframing them with The Secret. So check it out, and let me know what you think. If you live nearby, I'm happy to loan you my copy.

I, too, am trying not to betray the full meaning of the movie for the uninitiated. But it can be summed up in one of the participant's quotes (and I'm paraphrasing):

"Mother Theresa would never attend an anti-war demonstration. But she would attend a pro-peace demonstration."

It's worth the watch.

PS: You need to get the Esther Hicks version. Or so says the clairvoyant...