CategoriesArchivesJanuary 2012 |
Chewing the FatFor those times that I want to blather on about whatever. Happy news!Everybody here is jumping up and down. I just got off the phone with my boy Will and he has been offered a spot in a great 3 year acting program in England. Hats off to you, honey! We are SO proud! Of course that means he’ll be living in London for a least another three years and it’s a long way away, but thank heavens it is all working out and he has the opportunity to follow his dreams. Couldn’t be happier. Another happiness is, I found out this morning that the playwright has given his permission for us to do his play, which is a huge relief. It’s one of those lulls in life, when things seem to fall into place, like finding the missing piece of the almost completed puzzle under the sofa. And it’s a weird juxtaposition, because on the other side of the ocean from us, such sorrows and tragedies are continuing to unfold, and my heart hurts for all the families and homes that have been/are being under siege. And I wonder how it is, that here, at the exact same time, our family has been blessed with such happiness. And I don’t understand how the world/the fates/God works. So much challenging times going on around the globe. Feel so helpless. And at the same time, feel almost overwhelmed with gratitude. Am grateful for this patch of sunshine, this dollop of happiness that Will’s good news brings my family. Am grateful for the cherry blossoms that are blooming outside my bedroom window. Grateful that the clouds took a break from raining and opened up to shower our budding gardens with warm, brilliant sunshine. I hold this moment close to my heart, try to absorb it down deep into my pores, so when the challenging times, that are always lurking just around the corner, decide to stop lurking and pounce on my head, I will have this moment, this day to draw from. And I will try to remember to remind myself that hard times and good times, change with the wind. Remind myself to breathe and to try and find the hidden blessings that are always present no matter how difficult the circumstances. Posted by Meg Tilly on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 in Chewing the Fat Bravo!Happy, doesn’t even begin to describe it. There are those times in life when mere words just aren’t sufficient. This is one of those times. xo Posted by Meg Tilly on Monday, February 28, 2011 in Chewing the Fat Emily and other things tooSo much is happening. It’s like one of those times in life where a million things hit the fan… Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly an accurate statement. More honest would be, “It’s like one of those times when you fling everything at the fan.“ And I don’t know about you, but the image that sprung to my mind was ice cream. All different flavors, some dripping with sauces, hot fudge, caramel and such, and me enthusiastically flinging them at a big industrial strength fan, causing a glorious, huge, impractical mess. One of the ice cream cones in my imagination had a cherry on top. Which totally doesn’t make sense, since I stopped eating maraschino cherries years ago when I found out one of the ingredients used was formaldehyde. Hmmm… I wonder if that’s true, or if it was just an urban myth that I totally bought into? I’m going to check. Be right back. * * * This is what I found on a History of the Marichino Cherry website. (I found other things too, but am only cutting and pasting the two myth/fact things that were of interest to me.) MYTH: Maraschino cherries are preserved with formaldehyde. FACT: Absolutely no formaldehyde is used in make maraschino cherries. Carl Payne, who heads the research and development department of Oregon cherry Growers, suspects that myth got started when a writer for a national news magazine doing a story on maraschino cherries confused formaldehyde with benzaldehyd, a flavoring oil extracted from cherry, walnut, or almond pits, which is used in maraschinos. NOTE: It’s the same flavor you taste in Dr. Pepper. The two aren’t even close, but the errors stuck, and the industry has been trying debunk it every since. More than anything else, this makes people in the maraschino industry want to scream. MYTH: The red dye in maraschinos is the scary one that can kill you. FACT: Maraschino manufacturers use FD&C Red Dye #40, the same dye used in Doritos, chewing gum, food coloring, and egg dye, say Payne. NOTE: He keeps a stack of examples in his office so you can read the labels for yourself. Red Dye #3 is the dye that caused concerns about cancer. Anyway, back to the more important…okay, that sentence just made me pause. Um… excuse me, Meg…more important? Ahem…Like your ramblings about cherries were important at all? Be that as it may. What I’m trying to say is a LOT has been happening here! First things first. All of my long-time loyal blogger followers, remember my daughter, Emily. Some of you followed her art as life project last year. This year she is working with a rather unique and unconventional man who happens to be a director of commercials, music stuff and other things. (Emily told me all about it, but you know how it is with us gray-haired, stout, jolly matrons, we get to a certain phase of life and can’t remember a gal-darn thing…) She’s working on a website etc for him, and she is writing the stories about him, his life. I knew that some of you would be curious, so here is a link. When you get to the page, you’ll see that the by-line is ez. That’s my daughter! She’s started, so you’ll be able to see it from the very beginning, help decide what bits about her boss you want her to explore and so on. Also, in her spare time, she is doing another website, http://wecantbefriends.wordpress.com/ with a woman who was in her graduate program. They aren’t friends. And the website is a series of letters that they write to each other exploring/explaining to each other, why. Check them out. You will get a taste of the world through my talented daughter’s eyes. * * * Now, back to my exuberant sundae flinging. Several things happened over the Christmas Holidays. There was the Christmas present I found under the Christmas tree, that was a bracelet from my sister, Jennifer. Carved on it were the words, “It is never too late to be what you might have been,“ a George Eliot quote. “Oh pooh,“ I thought, sitting in front of my writing desk with the little unwrapped parcel in my hands. “I am extremely happy with my life.“ And just as that thought meandered through my brain, there was another, more insistent voice that said, “You always wanted to do theatre.“ I tried to push the faintly wistful, ghostly longing aside, but there it was, now fully formed, dancing in the air around me. The next night, we were eating at a delicious Chinese restaurant and my daughter, Emily said, “Mom, I think you should think about doing some theatre.“ Just like that. Totally unprovoked. One minutes she is prying tasty crab morsels from a crab leg coated in a tasty, very goopy ginger and green onion sauce and then she drops this on my head. “Yeah,“ my boy Will says. “You should, Mom.“ “Hmmm…“ I replied, pretending to be busy spooning some fried rice on my plate, but I could feel my face flush. Then, a few weeks later, my sister, Jennifer, takes me to a spa for a week to celebrate my 50th birthday. And there is something about dragging one’s sorry ass out of bed at 5:40 am, to go on a six mile hike up a mountain, in the dark, that causes all kinds of things to spill out of one’s mouth. “I want to do theatre,“ I say, feeling sort of shy and embarrassed and hopeful all at once. “I flew to Toronto and bought a little condo, two days ago. I don’t know what got into me, I have always wanted to and then I got your bracelet, two days later the kids were saying the same thing, and I thought, what the hell? It almost doesn’t matter if I get in a play or not. What matters is that I’m trying.“ Next thing you know, my sister has zoomed into overdrive. She has sent out an email to undisclosed recipients, she is putting out feelers, she sets me up with Rich Caplan, an agent in Toronto, who also happens to be a ridiculously talented writer. I’m supposed to call him. I’m scared. I put on the good-luck necklace she gave me, for my 51st birthday that will be in a week, and I call him. He is super nice. He says he’ll take me on. The next day, he’s set up a meeting with Brian Richmond for Monday. Once, Trina Allen, my Canadian West Coast agent, realized that I was open to doing things, she started sending me stuff and set up a meeting with Matthew Jocelyn (who was very nice) on Friday in Vancouver. So, it’s been busy. Well, today is Monday. I met with Brian Richmond and… it looks like I’m going to be doing a play with Blue Bridge Theatre in Victoria! Hey, I guess I didn’t even need a little condo in Toronto! Crazy, huh? How fast life changes. During the week at the spa, my sister kept saying, “You build it and they will come.“ And I was scared, but I held onto her words, and now here it is, one week later, and I’ve just committed to fulfilling a lifelong dream. Not only that… but the part I am going to be playing is really wonderful! Of course, I’m going to have to figure out what to do about the apartments we rented to spend June and part of July in London and France. But really, I didn’t even have to think about it for a second. It was a no-brainer. Another thing busy time-gobbler I’m juggling, is that my literary agent, Laura, really liked the middle grade manuscript I sent her. She mailed it back last week with all her comments and notes and a request for me to lengthen it by another 40 pages, which I replied airily, “Sure, no problem. I should be able to get these changes done by the end of Feburary.“ Gulp… And I have been writing, but with all this other excitement, it seems to take my mind twice as long to settle down to the task at hand. Speaking of which, I’d better get working on that manuscript.
Posted by Meg Tilly on Monday, February 07, 2011 in Chewing the Fat I guess it all depends on who you speak to…I’ve received a couple of emails that lifted my spirits immeasurably. And I figured, why keep all this happiness to myself? So, here you are, fresh off the press! “Ha…wee bit of grey…not stout…pretty jolly…a matron (sure, but it’s not a bad thing.)“ These words of wisdom from D____. * * * And this avenging email came with the subject line: “PAH! I say” Which had me smiling before I even opened it. The rest of the email was equally satisfying. “My Dearest Meg, I saw the story in the UK press and got all indignant on your behalf. “STOUT” I said in a very un impressed tone. Didn’t want to draw your attention to it as clearly they know nothing about the wonderfulness that is my dear funny, articulate, talented, beautiful lumberjack tracker but as you blogged about it just wanted to say that PAH! Is what I say to the press.“ The rest of the email was personal, so I shan’t post it, but that little loyal masterpiece (a masterpiece because it was all nice things about me) was from L____. Ah… It’s nice to have friends. Posted by Meg Tilly on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 in Chewing the Fat Hello againFor anybody who is interested. Posted by Meg Tilly on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 in Chewing the Fat Ahem…I have been informed that there are all kinds of weird things being written about me in the English newspapers. Apparently, I am a rather stout grey-haired jolly matron. Sheesh… Now, maybe I am a few of those things, but really, couldn’t they just pretend? Posted by Meg Tilly on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 in Chewing the Fat Congratulations!Our happy hats off to a member of the family. We are so pleased for you! Hearty jigs are being danced. Tonight, dinner with Dave and Amy and we shall all lift a glass of wine to toast your continued success! Jubilant hugs and kisses from all of us. Onward and upward! Posted by Meg Tilly on Monday, January 17, 2011 in Chewing the Fat Hang on to your hats!Yesterday at it’s high gold was trading at $1393 per ounce. Right now it is trading at $1357.50. It has dropped below an important support level. Where it will close is anyone’s guess. See what I mean about volatile? It does this kind of thing all the time. Wild swings up, dramatic plunges down. One has to have a strong stomach to participate in this type of market. Some investors will be saying, “See, the end of the gold bull. I told you it was over valued!“ And others will be watching the drop and will be certain that it is just gold consolidating and will have a price point in their heads and they will use the drop to add more to their position. What is going to happen next? It’s anyone’s guess. Me? I’m off to exercise. My sister and I are on a mission to drop a few of those Christmas pounds. She’s having more success than me and has dropped FIVE POUNDS ALREADY! Whooohooo! Yay Jenny! Posted by Meg Tilly on Friday, January 14, 2011 in Chewing the Fat The gold debateHi Everyone, I just saw this video on one of the investment sites I read and thought you might enjoy it. Whether or not gold is for you, whether or not you think it is over-valued now (seeing as how an ounce of gold was selling for $252 dollars around 10 years ago and is now MUCH higher) I thought you might find this video interesting. It’s not too long and I figure, the people who have asked for my advice with regards to investing over the years have recently been wanting to know about gold, so perhaps some of you do as well. For those of you that are interested, have been hearing a lot of gold talk on TV and whatnot, but don’t know what all the fuss is about, here is a pretty informative video that will bring you up to date with the gold picture now. Whether you decide you want to own a few of those gleaming gold coins is a personal choice. It is a very volatile market and can drop a heart-stopping amount for no apparent reason. It earns no interest, pays no dividend, however many people are buying it as a safeguard against the looming threat of inflation. Whether we are going into a period of massive inflation is anyone’s guess. As with all investments, learn as much as you can about it and then only do what makes sense to you and doesn’t cause you to lose sleep. There are some investors that believe gold can rise to the $5-6,000 range. There are other investors that believe gold is peaking and is a bubble about to burst. Another word to the wise, if you do decide to buy a little gold, it is probably better to purchase the coins as opposed to the bars as some very good counterfeit gold bars have started appearing on the market. Happy viewing! Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, January 13, 2011 in Chewing the Fat Happy daysHello! I’ve been cooking up a storm. Doing the Christmas feast prep, but once on a cooking jag, it’s sort of like a run-away train. All my kids are home and so, on the counter is half a dark chocolate cake with a broiled pecan topping and melted chocolate drizzled on the top and slathered on the sides. There is part of a sponge cake that I made today. And yes, I know there is already the rest of yesterday’s chocolate cake to be consumed, but I have a good excuse. See… I decided not to make the usual three pies (pecan, apple and pumpkin) for Christmas day dessert. I figured that after all the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet yam rum-cinnamon mash, the various vegetables, gravy and so forth, that by the time pie rolls around, it’s more of a duty than a pleasure. So, this year I’m making a delicious trifle, using a bunch of the berries I froze from the farms this summer for a compote with a little sugar, half a squeezed lemon, and a few good glugs of vodka. I prefer to use homemade sponge cake rather than store bought lady fingers or cake, so I made a cake. Well, actually I made two, because we picked up our turkey at the butchers today and I had too much stuff in the fridge, so really, I made an extra sponge cake because I was being helpful. Not because I felt like eating it! Ahem… Then there was the custard to make for the trifle. Well… it took 10 egg yolks! And I didn’t want to throw out perfectly good egg whites, so I used them to make a slew of meringues. And yes, along with a goodly portion of the sponge cake, I have had a meringue as well. I won’t even mention the Purdy chocolate liquor balls that I bought… and re-bought… and re-bought again, because I kept eating them. I’ll be glad/sad when the holiday season is over and I can get back on the going-to-the-gym wagon. And, yes, I can hear some of you saying, “what’s wrong with getting on the wagon now, Meg?“ But I’m pretending I can’t hear you. All my kids home for Christmas! And so, I think what it is, is I’m trying to make up for them all living away from home by cooking overtime. Making every cozy food I can think of, even though they are grown and raw oysters and champagne, brie cheese and a pint are probably more in line with who they are, have become. I love having them home. Emily walking circles in the kitchen talking to a friend on the phone. Will downstairs. Dave working his butt off, but even David gets Christmas Day off and he and Amy will be staying over as well. A full house. So happy. And then in January, the day Will goes back to London, and one day after Emily returns to New York, our friends Ken and James are coming for a visit and we will write and cook and eat and talk and it’s really good timing, because even though I’ll be missing my kids, the house won’t be quite as empty and hollow feeling as it otherwise might have been. Wishing all of you a wonderful Holiday season! Much love, Meg xo Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, December 23, 2010 in Chewing the Fat Maddie DawsonI had a lovely surprise recently. You know how it is, one goes to one’s favourite bookstore and wanders around the aisles, picking up a few old faithfuls (authors one has read before and knows that a certain standard will be present) a few books that have been reccomended by fellow readers/friends whose taste one trusts, maybe grabbing a classic that one has intended to read for years and never gotten around to… And then there is the impulse buy. A book that grabs one for no discernable reason. An unknown author, reviews on the back by authors one doesn’t know. So, why did I not only pick up, browse through and actually buy Maddie Dawson’s the stuff that never happened? I don’t know. Maybe it was the cover which is absolutely lovely. Maybe it was because when I opened it up and read a few pages, it felt true. Maybe it was because it was her first novel and it was about the complications of marriage and what-ifs and longings and she had dedicated it her husband and in the author biography all it said was “Maddie Dawson lives in Connecticut. She is happily married.“ So, of course I thought, “Oooh!“ Seeing as how I sold my first “novel” as fiction even though there was nothing fictional about it, and I too had dedicated it to my mother, whose love I was terrified I would lose from the writing of this book. And after all it is an old writer’s tale that all first novels are based on life. Not that it’s true of course. In many instances fiction means fiction. And perhaps that is the case with the stuff that never happened. However, the possiblity of it was enough to prompt me to drop it on the stack of books in my arms and propel me to the cashiers counter. Not only that, but Annabelle, whose point of view the book is written from, was my age. Her youngest child had just left home. And even the tiny bit I had read standing in the aisle was enough to make me feel not so alone and adrift in my own musings about who-am-I-now-that-my-children-have-grown-and-how-did-I-get-here? Well, I am delighted to say that the $25.95 CAN purchase of this hardcover book was totally worth it! There is something so true about Maddie Dawson’s voice. Something that said, yes, that is the way life is sometimes. Emotions, relationships aren’t always neat and tidy. Sometimes there is spillover. Mixed feelings. I hope a lot of people embrace her book, so her publisher will be happy and sign her up for another novel.
Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, November 18, 2010 in Chewing the Fat hello, I’m backWe arrived home last yesterday afternoon punch-drunk from sleepiness from having just completed a twenty-one hour plane journey that took the form of two taxis, three airports, two sets of customs, a ferry terminal and some driving. I had told Don back in Amsterdam, rather cockily, that I would drive home since “I had better reflexes with no sleep.“ Don drove. I would have made good on my threat, but I think the idea of me behind the wheel of his beloved car, scared him enough to grab a couple of hours of sleep on the plane. I was not so lucky. I think perhaps it was a clever ploy on Don’s part. See, ever since he got his i-pad, he’s been trying to entice me into sharing his newest, greatest excitement of his life. Sliding it into my lap, saying, “Don’t you want to even give it a try?“ Or, “Look at this new app I’ve just downloaded, it is the coolest thing ever!“ Once he even resorted to showing me how he could click on a metal and a chunk of it would rotate, glimmering and sparkling. I guess he thought since I have an interest in the gold markets that I would scream, “Oh my god! That is soo cool! Fantastic! Set me up with one of those i-pad puppies!“ Nope. Nothing. Didn’t do it for me. Another attempt was when he showed me how if I was curious about a stock I could just plug in it’s symbol and all this information would pop up about the company. “Where’s the dividend yield?“ I said. “Um… Okay, so it doesn’t have that, but look at what else it came do. See, charts! One year chart, two year chart.“ “Hmm…“ Now I was interested. “Show me the ten year chart.“ ‘Can’t do that.“ “Okay, what about the twenty?“ “Nope, um… five years is as far as it can go.“ Which is totally silly, because I like to look further back than five years. So, naturally, my tiny spike of interest in the i-pad flew out the window. He showed me how he could read books on it, sliding his finger on the corner to flip the pages. “I prefer to hold a real book in my hand,“ I said. “Flip real pages. Besides, I’m an author, if everyone in the world bought electronic books then I wouldn’t be able to hold a book that I wrote in my hand, feel the weight of it, the accomplishment, admire the beautiful cover and spine. Wouldn’t be able to walk into a bookstore and see it sitting on the shelf for other people to pick up and enjoy. Not to mention, I love the whole, going to a bookstore experience. Nothing can take the place of wandering up and down the aisle and picking up possible reads. Nope electronic books are not for me. The only way I’m ever going to bend on that is when my eyes get so old and weary that they can no longer read the print, even with my progressive lenses.“ And I mean it too. If we want bookstores to stay an integral part of our communities, we MUST support them! It breaks my heart to see bookstore after bookstore closing their doors. As a matter of fact, the holidays are just around the corner, we are all starting to make lists of possible gifts, why not trot down to your local bookstore and pick up a couple. Hmm… I just realized, I have totally went marching down a different road than the one I thought I was travelling. Back to my round-about story of the airplane, lack of sleep and Don’s i-pad pushing. Which I had managed, with no small sense of smugness, to waft around, entirely above such juvenile pursuits as fidgeting with electronic toys, blowing up whatever... “I have better things to do with my time than blow up things,“ I would say. “I would much rather cook something yummy, or read a book, or take a walk, a million things nicer than staring at a computer screen and wiggling my fingers and thumbs. I am fifty years old, have never played a computer game in my life and certainly don’t intend to start now.“ Well…That was then and this is now. What happened is, Don was showing our friend, Ken, all the marvels of the i-pad, because Ken is an Apple-junkie as well. He is the one who came up to our old island cabin years ago, cradling his new mac-laptop, sliding his hands lovingly across the top, showing Don how fast it booted up when we were parked outside the local elementary school using their Internet. He is the reason that Don got started on his everything-Apple binge. So, while we were bobbing down the Rhine, Don showed him a few of the so-called marvels of the i-pad and then Ken said, “What’s your favorite game on it?“ So, of course Don showed him the Angry Ducks (or chickens?) It seems all innocuous, and has little jaunty music and tiny movies about how the green pigs stole the eggs so the birds hop into a sling-shot and the player takes his finger, pulls back and aims and propels the birds into the air to try to land on the pigs and break through their fortification. Okay, now, the mother in me when I would see Don or Dave or even newbie Ken, playing this game is: First: this is rather violent. These birds are committing suicide missions here and you are helping them. Why not go outside and plant some flowers or rake some leaves or something. Two: Wouldn’t it be better for the pigs and the birds to just get together and try to start some kind of discussion. Like, “Hey, look, stop stealing our eggs. These are our unborn children we are hatching. How about if we lay a certain amount of unfertilised eggs per week, which we will give to you in exchange for you ceasing and desisting from stealing the ones we are trying to hatch?“ Now I know that this might seem a little like an agreement that one might draw up if one was living in a neighbourhood which was run by the mafioso, however, given the amount of angry birds I’ve seen hurled out of the slingshot to certain death, this seems like a rather good compromise. Be that as it may, in watching Ken, who is probably one of the most honorable and nonviolent men you would ever meet, hunched over the i-pad, ruthlessly flinging electronic birds to an untimely end, enjoying himself enormously, Don having fun by proxy, and me, gradually, reluctantly, being drawn in. Later that night, when we had retired to our cabin and Don’s mom and Ken had gone to their respective rooms, Don was reading and I had finished my book. I wasn’t sleepy and didn’t want to start a new book, because I’m the type of reader who has to read a book from beginning to end, sleep-be-damned. “Would you like to try Angry birds?“ Don asked all innocently, once again sliding the glowing i-pad my way. ‘No,“ I said. And then two minutes later, “Okay.“ Not a good move. I don’t know how much time I have lost propelling imaginary birds through the air, but let me tell you this. Don’t start. It’s like warm Kettle corn. The first taste is not so good, the second taste better, by the third handful, you don’t know how you lived all these years without it. Angry Birds is like that. You can’t just play one game, because there is the next one to crack and the next one. I didn’t sleep on the plane. No, I blew up birds and green pigs and enjoyed every minute of it. It’s rather embarrassing to admit, but there you have it. Therefore, Don drove home, as I had hogged his i-pad for a goodly portion of the flight, sleep was not necessary, there were pigs to explode. It wasn’t until we arrived on Canadian soil, that I realized I was wobbling on my feet. Our friends, Dawna and Bob arrived on our heels as they are leaving for Florida today and we needed to do the table trade-off before they left. We (Don and Bob did most of the work) carried a rather hefty disassembled dining room table from the back of their van into the house. Staggering across the wet lawn, our muscles screaming in agony, Dawna observed cheerily, “Lucy and Ethel strike again!“ “Oh no,“ I gasped. “Don’t even say that!“ Visions of some unsuspecting disaster lurking just around the corner. Which of course made her cackle happily. We got the table pieces safely inside and Bob and Don assembled it while I made coffee. It was good to be home. The milk in the fridge had gone off while we were away, but Dawna and Bob pretended they liked it black. Then their son called, and off they went to have dinner. Someone in customs had sawed the lock off my suitcase, so after Dawna and Bob left I opened it up on the living room floor and checked to make sure that the delicious, mind-blowingly good chocolate liquor we purchase at the Schokoladen museum at the Lindt chocolate factory was still in there. IT WAS! Yay! I guess it’s rather odd, one would think I’d be worried about my fancy clothes or expensive boots that I bought in London last year that are the impossible-to-find-combination-of-stylish-AND-comfortable, but no… The only thing I was concerned about where these, not terribly fancy bottles of chocolate magic. If you ever go to Cologne, Germany, don’t bother with paying to go into the museum, as it is rather simple and boring and not really worth the price of admission even if they give you a wafer cookie with chocolate sauce. DO however, go into the attached store and buy all the chocolate liquor you can carry! Don’t be put off by the unimaginative labeling. It is DELICIOUS! I wish I had bought more. Posted by Meg Tilly on Tuesday, November 09, 2010 in Chewing the Fat At long last…Hello there, Some of you may be wondering what happened to the promised wedding photo. Well, it’s a longish story, but here is the shorter version. Don found this Apple (yes, we are both Mac users) feature where you can download your pictures from your camera and then choose the ones you want, drag them over to different slots and once you are finished, all you have to do is fill out a form, pay for it, and a few days later it arrives on your doorstep in book form! It took a while to choose the pictures and decide the order and then it took a few days more for the book to arrive, and I didn’t want to post any of the pictures here because I felt that Amy and David should be the first to see them. Well, we got the book and we gave it to them and they loved it! So, finally, here you are, the long promised glimpse. And yes, of course, tears came, my heart so full it was overflowing.
Amy organized and planned the whole thing right down to designing and assembling her own invitations. And all her hard work and attention to detail paid off, because everybody said it was the nicest wedding they had ever been to. Posted by Meg Tilly on Saturday, October 30, 2010 in Chewing the Fat Oh, also…Around a week and a half ago, we received a Fed-ex package. It was very mystifying since neither one of us was expecting anything. I carried it into the kitchen and with the help of a kitchen knife it’s contents were revealed. A banged-up box of what looked like rather expensive Italian chocolate. A card was stuck under the ribbon, but there was no name or greeting attached. “Um! Chocolate,“ I said, popping one into my mouth. Italian chocolate is fancy, but personally, I don’t find them very tasty. It’s weird how I keep giving it a go though, like maybe this time it will magically be better. “What are you doing?!“ Don said, staring at me horrified. “Eating chocolate,“ I answered suddenly feeling guilty and not sure why. “Spit it out!“ His voice rising several octaves. “Are you nuts? You don’t know who sent that. It could be poisoned!“ “Don’t be ridiculous,“ I said, swallowing just to show him he wasn’t the boss of me. “Meg, for god-sakes!“ And even though he had a point, I dug through the bruised box of chocolates looking for something that might possibly taste better than the last piece, (that I would have spit out, if he hadn’t demanded that I do, because why waste the calories on something that isn’t making my mouth happy?) “I’m serious, Meg. You shouldn’t eat that.“ He was sweating now, quite profusely. I took a jaunty bite of the new piece of chocolate. Yuck. It wasn’t tasty either. “It’s free,“ I said, chewing nonchalantly. “I can’t watch this,“ he said, like I was going to fall to the floor in spasms at any moment. “Then don’t,“ I said like I didn’t have a care in the world. So, he took my advice and left the room, for which I was extremely grateful. As soon as I heard him pad down the hall and into the family room, I grabbed the garbage can from under the sink and spat the candy out. Then I stuck my head under the faucet and rinsed it throughly. It’s not like he scared me or anything… Okay, well maybe just a little, but if he was a proper husband he wouldn’t have bossed me and made me swallow that first piece. I left the box of not-very-tasty chocolates on the kitchen counter and called a few possible chocolate senders and made discreet inquires, like, “By the way, did you send us a box of chocolates?“ The interesting thing was, it was sort of embarrassing when I asked. Now, maybe I was imagining it, but there would be a slight pause as if the person on the other end of the phone was desperately trying to remember if they should have. Was it my birthday? Was there something wonderful that I had done that should have been thanked with a box of chocolates? The chocolates became a great mystery to me. Hardly anyone knows where we live. Who had I told my address to and forgotten that I did? Who do I know that doesn’t eat chocolate, because really, if you did, you never would have sent Italian chocolate. Not that I have anything against Italy! I love visiting, love their pasta, the architecture, the winding streets, the way they cook potatoes, fish, meat. The chocolate is the only thing I’m not particularly fond of. Which, of course, I never would have told the sender, as it is the thought that counts. Finally, my brain hurt from trying to figure it out, so I stopped. I thought, whoever sent it will call to make sure they arrived safely. But whoever is was, hasn’t. So, if the sender is an occasional reader of this blog, “Thank you so much for the thoughtful gift. I do enjoy chocolates. And the only reason I haven’t thanked you verbally, is because I don’t know who you are.“
Posted by Meg Tilly on Sunday, October 24, 2010 in Chewing the Fat Okay, so here’s the scary foreclosure thing I read…This is the part of John Mauldin’s Thoughts From The Frontline that I was telling you about. I had to read it more than once to really absorb it. The possible implications of this are mind-boggling. I find it both terrifying, horrifying and fascinating all at once. If this is indeed true, then those of you who have been or are in danger of being foreclosed on, you must read this. Those of you invested in the U.S. banks that are now in the newspapers with the foreclosure situation, I strongly recommend you read this. And for those of you in heavily in stocks, please be careful, because if this thing blows it could be huge, make sure all your eggs aren’t all in one basket. If you aren’t used to reading investment stuff, take it slow. You don’t have to understand everything. Read it once, twice, three times, or not at all. Reader’s choice. * * * The Foreclosure Mess OK, in a serendipitous moment, Maine fishing buddy David Kotok sent me this email on the mortgage foreclosure crisis just as I was getting ready to write much the same thing. It is about the best thing I have read on the topic. Saves me some time and you get a better explanation. From Kotok: “Dear Readers, this text came to me in an email from sources that are in the financial services business and with whom I have a personal relationship. The original text was laced with expletives and I would not use it in the form I received it. Therefore the text below has had some substantial editing in order to remove that language. The intentions of the writer are undisturbed. The writer shall remain anonymous. This text echoes some of the news items we have seen and heard today; however, it can serve as a plain language description of the present foreclosure-suspension mess. There is a lot here. It takes about ten minutes to read it. - David Kotok (www.cumber.com) “Homeowners can only be foreclosed and evicted from their homes by the person or institution who actually has the loan paper…only the note-holder has legal standing to ask a court to foreclose and evict. Not the mortgage, the note, which is the actual IOU that people sign, promising to pay back the mortgage loan “Before mortgage-backed securities, most mortgage loans were issued by the local savings & loan. So the note usually didn’t go anywhere: it stayed in the offices of the S&L down the street. “But once mortgage loan securitization happened, things got sloppy…they got sloppy by the very nature of mortgage-backed securities. “The whole purpose of MBS was for different investors to have their different risk appetites satiated with different bonds. Some bond customers wanted super-safe bonds with low returns, some others wanted riskier bonds with correspondingly higher rates of return. “Therefore, as everyone knows, the loans were ‘bundled’ into REMIC (Real-Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits, a special vehicle designed to hold the loans for tax purposes), and then “sliced & diced”...split up and put into tranches, according to their likelihood of default, their interest rates, and other characteristics. “This slicing and dicing created ‘senior tranches,‘ where the loans would likely be paid in full, if the past history of mortgage loan statistics was to be believed. And it also created ‘junior tranches,‘ where the loans might well default, again according to past history and statistics. (A whole range of tranches was created, of course, but for the purposes of this discussion we can ignore all those countless other variations.) “These various tranches were sold to different investors, according to their risk appetite. That’s why some of the MBS bonds were rated as safe as Treasury bonds, and others were rated by the ratings agencies as risky as junk bonds. “But here’s the key issue: When an MBS was first created, all the mortgages were pristine…none had defaulted yet, because they were all brand-new loans. Statistically, some would default and some others would be paid back in full…but which ones specifically would default? No one knew, of course. If I toss a coin 1,000 times, statistically, 500 tosses the coin will land heads…but what will the result be of, say, the 723rd toss? No one knows. “Same with mortgages. “So in fact, it wasn’t that the riskier loans were in junior tranches and the safer ones were in senior tranches: rather, all the loans were in the REMIC, and if and when a mortgage in a given bundle of mortgages defaulted, the junior tranche holders would take the losses first, and the senior tranche holder last. “But who were the owners of the junior-tranche bond and the senior-tranche bonds? Two different people. Therefore, the mortgage note was not actually signed over to the bond holder. In fact, it couldn’t be signed over. Because, again, since no one knew which mortgage would default first, it was impossible to assign a specific mortgage to a specific bond. “Therefore, how to make sure the safe mortgage loan stayed with the safe MBS tranche, and the risky and/or defaulting mortgage went to the riskier tranche? “Enter stage right the famed MERS…the Mortgage Electronic Registration System. “MERS was the repository of these digitized mortgage notes that the banks originated from the actual mortgage loans signed by homebuyer. MERS was jointly owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (yes, those two again ...I know, I know: like the chlamydia and the gonorrhea of the financial world…you cure ‘em, but they just keep coming back). “The purpose of MERS was to help in the securitization process. Basically, MERS directed defaulting mortgages to the appropriate tranches of mortgage bonds. MERS was essentially where the digitized mortgage notes were sliced and diced and rearranged so as to create the mortgage-backed securities. Think of MERS as Dr. Frankenstein’s operating table, where the beast got put together. “However, legally…and this is the important part…MERS didn’t hold any mortgage notes: the true owner of the mortgage notes should have been the REMIC. “But the REMIC didn’t own the notes either, because of a fluke of the ratings agencies: the REMIC had to be “bankruptcy remote,“ in order to get the precious ratings needed to peddle mortgage-backed Securities to institutional investors. “So somewhere between the REMIC and MERS, the chain of title was broken. “Now, what does ‘broken chain of title’ mean? Simple: when a homebuyer signs a mortgage, the key document is the note. As I said before, it’s the actual IOU. In order for the mortgage note to be sold or transferred to someone else (and therefore turned into a mortgage-backed security), this document has to be physically endorsed to the next person. All of these signatures on the note are called the ‘chain of title.‘ “You can endorse the note as many times as you please…but you have to have a clear chain of title right on the actual note: I sold the note to Moe, who sold it to Larry, who sold it to Curly, and all our notarized signatures are actually, physically, on the note, one after the other. “If for whatever reason any of these signatures is skipped, then the chain of title is said to be broken. Therefore, legally, the mortgage note is no longer valid. That is, the person who took out the mortgage loan to pay for the house no longer owes the loan, because he no longer knows whom to pay. “To repeat: if the chain of title of the note is broken, then the borrower no longer owes any money on the loan. “Read that last sentence again, please. Don’t worry, I’ll wait. “You read it again? Good: Now you see the can of worms that’s opening up. “The broken chain of title might not have been an issue if there hadn’t been an unusual number of foreclosures. Before the housing bubble collapse, the people who defaulted on their mortgages wouldn’t have bothered to check to see that the paperwork was in order. “But as everyone knows, following the housing collapse of 2007-‘10-and-counting, there has been a boatload of foreclosures…and foreclosures on a lot of people who weren’t sloppy bums who skipped out on their mortgage payments, but smart and cautious people who got squeezed by circumstances. “These people started contesting their foreclosures and evictions, and so started looking into the chain-of-title issue, and that’s when the paperwork became important. So the chain of title became crucial and the botched paperwork became a nontrivial issue. “Now, the banks had hired ‘foreclosure mills’...law firms that specialized in foreclosures…in order to handle the massive volume of foreclosures and evictions that occurred because of the housing crisis. The foreclosure mills, as one would expect, were the first to spot the broken chain of titles. “Well, what do you know, it turns out that these foreclosure mills might have faked and falsified documentation, so as to fraudulently repair the chain-of-title issue, thereby ‘proving’ that the banks had judicial standing to foreclose on delinquent mortgages. These foreclosure mills might have even forged the loan note itself… “Wait, why am I hedging? The foreclosure mills did actually, deliberately, and categorically fake and falsify documents, in order to expedite these foreclosures and evictions. Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, who has been all over this story, put up a price list for this ‘service’ from a company called DocX…yes, a price list for forged documents. Talk about your one-stop shopping! “So in other words, a massive fraud was carried out, with the inevitable innocent bystanders getting caught up in the fraud: the guy who got foreclosed and evicted from his home in Florida, even though he didn’t actually have a mortgage, and in fact owned his house free -and clear. The family that was foreclosed and evicted, even though they had a perfect mortgage payment record. Et cetera, depressing et cetera. “Now, the reason this all came to light is not because too many people were getting screwed by the banks or the government or someone with some power saw what was going on and decided to put a stop to it…that would have been nice, to see a shining knight in armor, riding on a white horse. “But that’s not how America works nowadays. “No, alarm bells started going off when the title insurance companies started to refuse to insure the titles. “In every sale, a title insurance company insures that the title is free -and clear ...that the prospective buyer is in fact buying a properly vetted house, with its title issues all in order. Title insurance companies stopped providing their service because…of course…they didn’t want to expose themselves to the risk that the chain of title had been broken, and that the bank had illegally foreclosed on the previous owner. “That’s when things started getting interesting: that’s when the attorneys general of various states started snooping around and making noises (elections are coming up, after all). “The fact that Ally Financial (formerly GMAC), JP Morgan Chase, and now Bank of America have suspended foreclosures signals that this is a serious problem…obviously. Banks that size, with that much exposure to foreclosed properties, don’t suspend foreclosures just because they’re good corporate citizens who want to do the right thing, and who have all their paperwork in strict order…they’re halting their foreclosures for a reason. “The move by the United States Congress last week, to sneak by the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act? That was all the banking lobby. They wanted to shove down that law, so that their foreclosure mills’ forged and fraudulent documents would not be scrutinized by out-of-state judges. (The spineless cowards in the Senate carried out their master’s will by a voice vote…so that there would be no registry of who had voted for it, and therefore no accountability.) “And President Obama’s pocket veto of the measure? He had to veto it…if he’d signed it, there would have been political hell to pay, plus it would have been challenged almost immediately, and likely overturned as unconstitutional in short order. (But he didn’t have the gumption to come right out and veto it…he pocket vetoed it.) “As soon as the White House announced the pocket veto…the very next day!...Bank of America halted all foreclosures, nationwide. “Why do you think that happened? Because the banks are in trouble…again. Over the same thing as last time…the damned mortgage-backed securities! “The reason the banks are in the tank again is, if they’ve been foreclosing on people they didn’t have the legal right to foreclose on, then those people have the right to get their houses back. And the people who bought those foreclosed houses from the bank might not actually own the houses they paid for. “And it won’t matter if a particular case…or even most cases…were on the up -and up: It won’t matter if most of the foreclosures and evictions were truly due to the homeowner failing to pay his mortgage. The fraud committed by the foreclosure mills casts enough doubt that, now, all foreclosures come into question. Not only that, all mortgages come into question. “People still haven’t figured out what all this means. But I’ll tell you: if enough mortgage-paying homeowners realize that they may be able to get out of their mortgage loans and keep their houses, scott-free? That’s basically a license to halt payments right now, thank you. That’s basically a license to tell the banks to take a hike. “What are the banks going to do…try to foreclose and then evict you? Show me the paper, Mr. Banker, will be all you need to say. “This is a major, major crisis. The Lehman bankruptcy could be a spring rain compared to this hurricane. And if this isn’t handled right…and handled right quick, in the next couple of weeks at the outside…this crisis could also spell the end of the mortgage business altogether. Of banking altogether. Hell, of civil society. What do you think happens in a country when the citizens realize they don’t need to pay their debts?“
Posted by Meg Tilly on Monday, October 18, 2010 in Chewing the Fat |
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