Archive for 2007

DECEMBER 30TH, SUNDAY 2007- ‘DEAD MAN DRIVING!’

Monday, December 31st, 2007

This morning I was driving up town to meet some women artist friends for coffee and talk, when I stopped my car at the end of the road before I joined the Highway…and who sailed by in his Old Red Caddie? My “father!”

At the coffee shop, after an hour or so of the four of us discussing our fading hair color and what Judy’s husband should do about remarriage if she happens to die before he does, (the consensus was that she should choose a woman for him before that occurs so he won’t be mobbed) the only dissenter was me.
I felt Judy should have a lottery for the man and take in some extra money for The Art Guild, as God knows we need it…

Anyway, later, as I drove out of the small parking lot, there was the Old Red Caddie, parked a few doors down from the coffee shop in front of the Chinese take-out!

And last night, my long ‘dead’ Grandma, my father’s mother, came bobbing toward me in a dream, led along by my very much alive sister, Candy.

Jemminy Christmas; what’s everybody going to be up to tonight??
Well, time for bed. ‘They’ may be waiting up for me.

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SATURDAY, DEC 29TH, 2007 ‘DADDY AND THE OLD RED CADILLAC CAR’

Sunday, December 30th, 2007

Hello my friends and Oh my gosh, I have been so caught up in My Adventures that I haven’t stopped long enough to blog them.

Here’s the latest:

Whenever I see The Old Red Cadillac Car around town I know my dad is trying to reach me.

My father has been ‘dead’ for 7 and 1/2 years, now. When he was alive my folks had a Red Cadillac. Maybe the one I see now is theirs, maybe it isn’t but, in my mind, it’s now my dad’s car and his way of getting my attention. I often see the car parked and empty but the times I have seen it moving I have never noticed the person driving it. Isn’t that strange?

As an aside, I also find dimes when my dad is looking for me. My mother finds dimes from Daddy, too and so does one of my brothers. Apparently my father is not a penny kind of man like all the other spirits who drop pennies from heaven to get their relative’s attention.

For three or four days now I have been seeing The Old Red Caddie and I’m thinking, ‘OK Daddy, what is it?’

Meanwhile, my ankle has been hurting for at least ten years which will indeed, eventually have some bearing on this story.

Many years ago I fell in a gopher hole and twisted the ankle. Being young and limber, I popped right up off the ground and went on with my life. The ankle cried about the trauma but I didn’t listen. Now, years later, it has flared up and berates me and aches me and refuses to let me take the long walks in the morning that I love to take.

Chiropractors and podiatrists have looked at it and I have had expensive inserts put in my shoes. I have had the ankle massaged and rubbed and pulled. I have soaked it and plied it with hot and cold packs, I have oiled it with miracle pain creams and have taken magic supplements but, my ankle has remained mad and swollen and vengeful.

Lately, My Very Normal Friends in this town have been telling me about a woman here who has healed their feet, their shoulders and their lives.

Carol, my 80 year old friend, the one who wasn’t dead and didn’t go to Paris, either, (see Nov. 2007 about the fires) was having intense foot pain for several years and did all the things I have done plus she actually saw real doctors about it. She got no relief until she saw Dr. Daisy.

“She grabbed my foot, said my heel was out, gave it a little push, and I’ve been pain free ever since,” she tells me.

Regina, my 50 year old art friend who’s husband died a year ago, had her chronic shoulder pain cured “In 3o seconds.”

Faye, my 80 year old interior designer friend thinks the world of Dr. Daisy and her work.

Even my lovely, Intense Christian neighbor, in her forties, admits she got major help from her, but unfortunately she had to stop going because she felt Dr. Daisy was “too metaphysical.”

I go back to Carol and say, “She won’t take my blood pressure, will she? I have a phobia about that.”

Carol assures me that Dr. Daisy just tapped her painful foot a bit and that was it.

I’m excited. I want to see Dr. Daisy. I make an appointment.

Then, I start seeing The Old Red Caddie all over town.

“Umm,” I wonder, “is Daddy trying to tell me he approves? Or, that he maneuvered this? Or, am I just hoping hard to get my ankle to like me, again?’

Dr. Daisy has her office in-between the Cash Your PayCheck-and Loan place and the shabby Food Stamp store.

The waiting room is a jumple of toys and chairs and faded pictures on the walls of the spine and nerves and autonomic nervous system.

Her personal office is cluttered and piled with papers and books and boots with no place to sit down which is fine since we don’t tarry there. As I follow her to another room I notice that she is a woman of indeterminate age, with thin short brown hair that has been slicked by her bed pillow, to her head.
She’s wearing enormous brownish tweed pants that are way too big for her, and a short sleeved, rumpled, wrinkled, used-to-be pink sweater. Or maybe it’s a tee shirt?
I like her look.

I sit down in this other room with her and tell her about my ankle.

She wants to take my blood pressure.

Oh No! I don’t want her to take it. I tell her I have white coat syndrome and that just the thought of taking my blood pressure sends me into a frenzy of boiling blood and loudly screaming and teetering heart.
But, hey no need to put all my phobias on the table, I think, as she ignores my pathetic whimpering and wraps a little blood pressure thing around my wrist and sets it going. My eyes roll around as I watch the numbers leap up and up and up. Pretty soon I’m shouting and flinging the thing off me.

Well. This is a fine way to start a relationship.

“Can I shine a light in your ears?” she asks.

“Oh sure,” I say, “I don’t have any phobias about having lights shone in my ears.”

We go from there to her shining a light in my eyes and having my eyes follow the light.
Now she’s got some little rubber hammers and I know she’ll be banging on my knees, next.
I start complaining about my ankle and how it’s my ankle that I am here about.

Dr. Daisy leans against the examining table and looks at me.

“We’re not going to do the ankle today,” she says.

“We’re not??”

“You’ve had major head trauma,” she says. “When did this happen?”

I’m stumped. I don’t have a clue. But, I have to come up with some response.

“Ah…I had lots of major dental work when I was a kid,” I say. “It was very invasive.”

Dr. Daisy looks at me.

“I volunteer at The Ranch twice a week,” she says. “I see lots of head trauma and you have it.”

I assume The Ranch must be a place where Dr. Daisy works with battered and abused women and children?

“How can you tell I have head trauma?” I ask.

“The left side of your face. It looks like someone smacked you…really hard! and knocked your face sideways. One of your eyes is lower than the other one which is too far up. The right side of your face is cramped and squished up because of the blow on the left.”

I have forgotten about the blood pressure. The news about my face is startling. I have no memory of when this damage may have happened, but it could explain many persistent problems in my head. Dizziness, ear sounds, pains in teeth that have no cause, TMJ, chronic sinus, headaches, a cottony/fuzzy feeling at times, eye problems and more.

I lie down on the table, face up. Dr Daisy tells me she will work on my face to bring it back into alignment.
I am however, still whining about my ankle.

With a sigh, Dr. Daisy goes to the end of the table, gives my foot a little rub and a tweak and I hear and feel a ‘snap.’

“There,” she says, “there’s your nice arch back.”

Oh my gosh! More then 10 years of pain and all it took was a little ‘snap’ to release it? Hoorah!

But, we’re back to my face.
For half an hour Dr. Daisy holds her hands and finger tips lightly over parts of my face and above it. She moves them around a bit.

“Your palate is very unhappy with a certain dentist,” she says. “Which one was it?”

“I don’t know. There were a lot of them.”

“Take the tip of your tongue,” she says, “and feel your palate. Is one side higher then the other?”

“Yes. The left side.”

She asks me about my birth.

“All I know is my mother was put to sleep for the birth and that I came out with a pointed head.”

“Ahh,” says Dr. daisy, “it was a hard and complicated labor. Maybe they used forceps.”

As we book another appointment for the following week, Dr. Daisy tells me that I may now have strange aches and pains and emotional states; that I should just allow them to release.

As I stagger out into the sunshine, I’m thinking, “Wow. What a Strange Adventure that was.”

And….my dad’s car drives by. The Old Red Caddie drives right by me as I’m standing in the parking lot. It whooshes past me and rolls past the McDonalds and the Laundromat.

“So Daddy,” I’m thinking as I drive out of the lot, “was all of this your doing? Am I going to feel better, now?”

I’m heading home when, by golly, The Old Red Caddie sails on by me on the right!

Later, at my mother’s house, I recount my Latest Adventure. Mom loves to hear about my adventures. When I mention the Old Red Caddie and Daddy, she says, “Oh! I often see that car too and think that’s your father contacting me.”

When I ask her about my birth and the doctors drugging her she says, “I’ll never do that again!”

I’m looking at her a bit oddly and she says, “..Oh, well, at 85 I guess I won’t be doing that, again.”

That night I have a dream. I hear my father calling me, twice, and very loudly. I’m outside and I know it’s my father who I know is dead. I’m looking in the direction of his voice. I’m looking and looking. And then, I see him. There he is. He’s in the flesh, in real life, alive! I’m stunned. He’s managed to step through the borderland and into our world. He’s cracked the code between life and death.

Today, as I write this, it seems so reasonable. Why can’t we walk from here to there and there to here? I’m sure it can be done.

In my work as a medium I ‘see’ and chat with ‘dead’ people all the time. But, I don’t see them in the physical flesh as we live folks see each other.
And yet, my father did it.
And, so I know it can be done, and I expect to see my father again, hopefully in the daytime, in this daytime that is really also a dream, as real and as unreal as a night dream.

……….And yes, my ankle is still fine, thanks for asking.
As for my head? Umm, maybe I should ask you what you think about that?

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DECEMBER 14TH, THURSDAY 2007 “DECEMBER RANDOM WINNERS FOR FREE STUFF”

Friday, December 14th, 2007

Hello my friends,
This is Venus. I’m back on the blog! I had lots of server situations and could not get into my blog for almost three weeks. But, come back soon, as I will be on a writing roll.

CURRENT RANDOM WINNERS FOR FREE STUFF

You can *win as many times as your name is drawn*. I do not discard the winning email addresses but leave them in as part of the on going ‘sweepstakes’ drawings.
If you are not signed up for free stuff from me, please go to my home page and click on “Free Sessions and More.” Periodically, I randomly draw emails from the list and announce the winners on my site.

If you are on this current winning list, you have until Dec 27th 2007 to contact me via email and claim your prize. (tovenus@earthlink.net) After that this offer is null and void.

FREE “GOD IS ALWAYS HAPPYS CDS” the first 2 in the set. (Available at www.amazon.com)

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FREE TELE-CLASS FOR MANIFESTING GOOD THINGS…WITH SUMMER ( From The FLOW-DREAMING SHOW) AND VENUS

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FREE 15 MINUTE PERSONAL PHONE SESSION WITH VENUS

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NOVEMBER 25TH, SUNDAY 2007 “MY MOTHER AND THE SEPTIC TANK”

Sunday, November 25th, 2007

Hello my friends,
It’s a few weeks after the fire storms and my mother and I and her tenet Sharon The Masseuse are sitting on Mom’s new deck, on Mom’s new patio furniture at her new wrought iron table with the two massive umbrellas.

It is also several weeks before my sister Barbara, (who looks after Mom’s money,) will tell my mother that our sister Polly is wrong in telling her that she is a wealthy woman, that, in fact she is Not rich and that she has spent way too much on the new deck and repairs to the big white house where Sharon lives. Barbara will tell Mom that her account is shockingly small and almost over-drawn.

This will cause my mother to fire the house keeper that we have worked so hard to find for her and will cause her to stop buying ice cream, beer and other food necessities. Mother will also lapse into a black state of constant worry about being impoverished.

Polly will remind all of us ‘kids’ that Mom is indeed land rich; that her property is worth millions and we can keep borrowing money against it. Since Mother plans to live to be 102 we feel that with all this borrowing there won’t be any inheritance left for us to get and that is OK.

“Live it up, Mom,” we tell her. “We’re glad you don’t have to put our inheritance towards an old folk’s home or nursing care. Drink lots of beer and eat lots of ice cream and chocolate. And, for gosh sakes, live comfortably!”

I’m thinking about all this as we sit on the fancy, solid new deck that’s just been built, (pardon the following words,) off her truly crappy, rusty rotten mobile home.

She likes the mobile home and she doesn’t want to live, anymore, in the 100 year old, two-story, cold and dark white farm house that she rents to Sharon and many of Sharon’s kids and grand-kids. Mom has had enough of that old, historic home and needs the rent from it, to be able to keep the 13 acres she lives on.

So, it is now several weeks before Mom’s mental ‘financial collapse’ and she is sitting on the patio with Sharon and me, loving the eight new beige chairs with the puffy cushions, the bright orange umbrellas and all the new potted plants on the new deck with the thick, strong stairs and the white, wooden railing.

It’s a clear, vast blue-skied late afternoon and we’re sharing a bottle of red wine and it’s 14.5% alcohol. What could could be finer?

We lift our glasses and I say, “Here’s to beauty, Mom. To your beautiful outdoor Party Place.”

We each take a big sip of wine and we hear, “So, where’s the septic tank?”

What?

There he is, leaning on the deck rail, The Plumber, a greasy-haired man in his 50′s, part of what, since I have had dealings with them, I privately call The Dumb and Dumber Team.

I look at Sharon and my mother with a question on my face.

Sharon says, “Oh! Here you are. Did the rental manager call you? I told her my septic tank is full and poop is in my bathtub and every-time someone uses the toilet, upstairs or down, we get more poop in the bathtub!”

“We don’t pump out septic tanks,” The Plumber says.

“Well, you’re a plumber, why don’t you pump out septic tanks!” Sharon shouts. “I told that woman to send someone to pump out the tank. I know what’s wrong with it. It’s full!”

Sharon is clearly irritable and tired of hosting growing piles of poop in her bathtub.

“We’ll take a look,” says The Plumber.

My mother points out where the underground tank is, about 12 feet from where we sit.

Great. This will be fun..

The Plumber scratches his head.

His partner, the Younger Plumber, ambles up.

“We don’t pump septic tanks,” he says.

We then proceed to watch a version of the 3 Stooges, (minus a stooge,) at work.

As we drink our wine, we enjoy the view.

The Two Plumbers kick the dirt where they think the underground tank may be.
They whack at the ground with a pick axe.
They use a shovel.
One gets whacked in the leg with the shovel.
They bark at each other and mumble.
Up comes the lid off the tank along with a monstrous smell.

“Here it is,” Younger Plumber says. “It’s full. It’s full to the top.”

Yep, I guess we knew that.

Sharon shakes her head and her eyes roll around.

The mess reeks but we’re not going inside. We are determined to enjoy the new deck, the new furniture, the wine and each other’s company.

The Two Plumbers shovel and hack around in the deep tank.

“You need to have this pumped,” says The Plumber.

We know that.

“But, we don’t pump septic tanks,” he reminds us.

The Two Plumbers look at each other and shrug their shoulders.

(As historical background, these are the Two Plumbers who came to my house several years ago to put in a garbage disposal and fix some pipes in my garden.

They couldn’t agree on how to put the disposal in and I had to get down on the floor with them and partially under the sink, to confer.
It took them two hours to get the disposal hooked up and working without spitting water on my wood floors.

They were tired, I guess, and agreed that they would come back another day and look at the garden pipes. They never came and they never billed me, either.)

“Just send them away,” I now whisper to Sharon.
“They don’t know what they’re doing and anyway, they don’t pump septic tanks.”

The Two Plumbers are now on their stomachs, hanging over the pit in the ground, staring into it’s depths, appearing to be inhaling the contents.

The Older Plumber stands up and ambles over to us.

“We don’t pump tanks,” he says.

“Then go home,” Sharon says. “I don’t know why you’re doing all this since you don’t pump tanks.”

“You need to get this tank pumped,” The Older Plumber says sagely.

“Oh for God’s sake!” Sharon whispers. “I’m going to call Sludge Busters, they pump tanks!”

“Good idea,” agrees Younger Plumber, who has just idled over to us.
“You really need to get this pumped.”

Dumb and Dumber finally leave and later, Mom, Sharon and I finish up our day, while drinking wine and smartly saluting the two enormous men who arrive as The Sludge Busters. They roar into yard, set up a massive hose…and Pump The Septic Tank!!!

We had a great afternoon.

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NOVEMBER 16TH FRIDAY, 2007 “CHRISTMAS IN MY VALLEY”

Friday, November 16th, 2007

Hello my friends,
I got an email from a radio listener/blog reader asking if I had found my 83 year old friend Irene, whose home burned in the fires and how my brother is doing after the loss of his house.

I did find Irene. I even saw her interviewed on T.V.
She lost everything including all the glorious quilts she has made over the years. Her attitude is good. She has released the past and says, “Let God’s will be done.”
She is having a bit of trouble living with her daughter as Irene is very independent and finds it hard to fit completely into someone else’s way of doing things.

My brother and his wife are having a difficult slog. They discovered they were under-insured and can’ t afford to build a ‘stick’ house. They are looking now at manufactured homes. The old house has to be cleared off the property, first.

One of my sisters gave them a significant amount of money and the rest of us ‘kids’ are pooling our money to get them some grocery gift cards and a department store gift card. When I asked what they needed, Mary Ellen said, “Everything.”

The people in our valley are still dazed and frightened from the storm. And now we hear that another huge Santa Ana wind is expected, probably next Wednesday. Isn’t it interesting how energies gather and play out until they are ‘exhausted,’ in a sense?

But, here is a wonderful thing. A friend, a lady named Sharon, that I have never met who listens to my radio program, emailed me and identified herself as a quilter. She and her fellow quilters wanted to send some handmade quilts to people in my valley who have lost their homes. I was naturally overjoyed.

The quilts arrived a few days ago and are magnificent. I spent a happy morning with my Art Girl’s Group, showing them the quilts. We had a wonderful time deciding who we would give them to.
One, naturally, went to my sister in law, Mary Ellen, another to a friend who lost her home and the 3 others were taken by two of my artist friends, to be given to 3 other artists who lost everything in the fires.

We felt sad when we ran out of quilts because we have more art friends who need them.

However, later that day, Sharon emailed me and said another box of handmade quilts had been put in the mail to me that morning.

I feel like it’s Christmas!!

Sharon is a generous woman makes beautiful quilts, infused with magical energies. To see her work, please go to:
www.sharonschambernetwork.com/ia/free/index.htmlmed

(If I messed that web address up, you can google Sharon Schamber.)

Talk to you, soon,
X Venus

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NOVEMBER 11TH, SUNDAY 2007 “LOVE AND HAIR STYLES”

Monday, November 12th, 2007

Why is it that many of the people who go to health food stores look so bad? After saying this, I must tell you that I am one of those people who goes to health food stores!

I know that many people are there because they are sick and want to be well, so that explains some of it. But, it doesn’t explain miserable, ugly colored outfits, hairy feet and bad hair.

Yesterday I went to a huge health food store down the mountain.

Next to my table, as I ate a healthy lunch, sat an older, tall, skinny lady with a gray and white buzz haircut that made her nose appear to be huge, as if it were standing straight out, sniffing the wind.
I started imagining how beautiful she would appear if she wore her hair longer and softer and got rid of the large greasy poof that was jutting up from her forehead.

This kind of thing drives my hair dresser mad.
Kaycee is a true artist. She can look at a person and know exactly how to cut their hair to make them utterly gorgeous when they have never been gorgeous in their life.

Being an artist myself, I am always looking at people and thinking how to bring out their best qualities.
I mentioned to Kaycee, one day, that if it bothers me to see ugliness, how much more it must disturb her since she knows hair.

“AWWWGH!” was Kaycee’s response. She told me it kills her to see how people could look and she can’t do anything about it.

All my life, I had bad haircuts. Hair dressers always gave me what I call “Dog Head.” There’s something about the way my hair grows that resembles a certain kind of dog. Hair dressers always went with the natural wave and I would leave the shop all perfumed and cut, with this great ruff of head hair, and I would look like a damn Standard Poodle.

Kaycee saved me from that and I will never leave her even though we always have appointments set at noon that don’t actually start until 2 or 3PM or even much later. And I never get back home until well after dark.
But, I look really good.

Maybe you shouldn’t get me started on hair.

As you know, I had an oily adventure the other day. Now, I am taking various herbs and spice waters and I am doing a sesame oil rub over my entire body every morning.

“It’s especially good for you to rub the oil through your hair and onto your scalp,” the Ayurvedic doctor told me………..

Well, honey, you should see me. Now I look like a greased chihuahua.

……….There’s really no point to this blog today, just a ramble. My daughter, Summer, told me that I need to write in my blog more often.

I said, ‘But, I don’t want to bore my friends!’

Summer didn’t think that was a possibility considering the kind of life I have.
……………………………….
I did see my mother and my sister Candy this morning.

I gave my mom another Love Mojo Treatment and she gave me two. Candy demanded one, also. She wants more attention from her husband.

The three of us discussed Mom’s love life.
Candy and I told Mom that if she wants to have an affair with her suitor, Skip, she should. Why the heck, not? She’s old enough. We think it’s terrific that she’s 85 and he’s a handsome, virile 62. We think she’s lucky.
Mom asked if she has our approval to have sex with Skip.

We said, “Are you kidding? One of us needs to have a good time. Do it. We’ll live your life, vicariously.”

Mom has happily fallen into line with our thinking and we’ll see what happens next. I’ll let you know.

Maybe you had better check into my blog more often…you don’t want to miss the next Big Event in my mother’s love life, do you?

And P.S.
I told you on my radio show last week that my brother Jim was introducing me to a younger guy; he had hopes for a romance between us.
Well, I met the man. He’s a nice man, a millionaire who is always sick. He had an ice pack to his cheek when I met him, because of a bad tooth infection. And, according to him he had a big asthma attack a few weeks ago. He then described in some detail, his militant migraines and a nose operation where the doctors removed 3 cysts that looked like ‘big, red grapes. They hammered them out with a chisel.”

Oh, Yummy. That’s appealing.

I told Jim later, that I think I may know this fellow’s future. Some young chickie will look at him and say, “…Ummmm. Here’s a sick old millionaire who’s ready to die. I’d better marry him.”

This is why I had my mom give me another Love Mojo. For better luck next time….

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NOVEMBER 8TH, THURSDAY “ANOTHER OILY ADVENTURE”

Thursday, November 8th, 2007

I’m driving the back roads in my town today and it’s foggy. Normally, I don’t care for fog but since the Wild, Dry East Winds and the Fire Storms that swept through our valley recently…I love fog. It means, No Fires Today!

I’m off on another one of my happy adventures. This time, I am off to see the Ayurvedic doctors from India. As improbable as it seems, there is a small group of people that live in Vedic houses in the hills. Visiting Indian doctors come and read the pulses and suggest herbs, diets and various treatments for anyone who cares to come out and visit.

I love stuff like this.

Years ago, before it became popular and when my daughter Summer was a teenager, I used to drive for hours up the coast to Santa Monica, California for this kind of thing. I would often spend a week or so there and get PK treatments for my health.

I sometimes took Summer with me.
She came, but she would always fly into a frenzy and tell me ‘no’ she wouldn’t! And then she would complain the whole time we were there.

I wonder, what’s so hard about getting PK treatments to cure and prevent health problems? You get hot oil dropped on your forehead and hot oil run up your nose and sesame oil rubbed all over your body and into your hair, everyday, and no showering it off; is that hard to do for 5-7 days?

And, who would complain about the big oil enemas we were given and the diapers we had to wear full time?
Summer didn’t like the greasy turbans we had to wear, either.
Can you imagine?
What a difficult child.

I remember once, several days into the program, Summer and I were sitting outside at the tables with everyone else, having our vegetarian buffet lunch.

People from the community liked to come by on their lunch break and eat at this place because the food was so good.

That day, we sat with a collection of Famous Soap Opera Stars.
Yum. What handsome men. And there Summer and I sat, she deep in humiliation, and I, well, I was pretty close to humiliation, myself!

We were all greased up. We had our oily turbans wrapped around our greasy heads, were wearing our stinky, oily clothes and our greasy, leaking diapers. We were trying especially hard not to not pass oil induced and rather noisy gas.

And, the men were so cute!

I told Summer we were having an Adventure. She gave me a violent look.
Kids are so hard to be with, sometimes.

Now, I’m happy all over, again, since the Ayurvedic people moved to my town. I get to have my pulses read and follow a weird diet and take magical herbal syrups and tablets.
I think this is all good for me and I expect to live to be a hundred or more.

Why? Not because of the treatments so much…but because of the Adventure!

Adventures keep me stimulated and involved in life and they give my very active mind something to do besides think of myself, myself and myself, which gets so boring don’t you think?

Here’s my advice, even though you didn’t ask for it: Have an Adventure every day even if its a teensy, tiny one. Adventures will make you happy.
……. But, maybe you shouldn’t take your kids along?

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OCT 31ST WEDNESDAY- “WINNERS OF RANDOM DRAWINGS and RETAIL SITE FOR THE ASTONISHING HERBAL TEA”

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

THE OUTRAGEOUSLY EFFECTIVE TEA

The HERBAL TEA I drink, that seems to do just about everything to improve weight, digestion, bowel function, skin, blood pressure, organs and various health problems, now has a RETAIL Site:

WWW.HTCHOLYTEA.COM/VENUS

If you have an interest in getting the tea wholesale or perhaps building a business with it, the site is:

www.holyteaclub.com/venus
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My intent is for the CDs to get to as many people as possible as this is not a money-making endeavor. Please go to www.amazon.com to purchase them.
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WINNERS OF THE CURRENT RANDOM DRAWINGS FOR FREE ‘STUFF’ ARE BELOW.
To be eligible for these drawings for FREE PHONE SESSIONS with Venus, FREE FLOW DREAMING TELE-CLASSES or FREE “GOD IS ALWAYS HAPPY” CDs, please click on “free stuff” on my home page.

(The current winners have until Nov. 14th, 20007 to claim these prizes, after that this offer is null and void.
All winners go back into the ‘pot’ and are eligible to win, again.)
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OCTOBER 31ST, WEDNESDAY-”VENUS AND THE FIRE STORMS IN HER TOWN”

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

I’m waiting in line at the bank. A young fellow dressed in a wrinkled blue tee shirt and cut off jeans clutches a plastic jar full of coins. His dark haired wife has an arm wrapped tightly around his waist.
Another young couple is waiting in line behind them. I hear them ask the people with the coins if they lost their home.

“Yes,” the man says, “I grabbed our can of change and we ran. It’s all we’ve got and we’re going to exchange it for bills.”

The second couple nods and I hear the woman say, “We lost everything, too. The fire came so fast.”

I’m looking around the bank. It’s full of people. We’re all a scruffy looking bunch. Most of us have just been allowed back into the town after five days of being evacuated. We had to fight to return. All the roads into Ramona were closed. Hwy 67, the main road was blocked by the National Guard with rifles because the town was without water. We’re back home now, after media and political intervention, but we still have no water.

Awhile ago I drove around the valley looking for friend’s homes.

Regina’s neighborhood, nestled among groves of avocado trees, was barricaded. Large swatches of burn had taken out many trees and houses. I knew the fire had swept to Regina’s door and burned her husband’s truck and tractor. I knew that because someone had told Regina who told me, “I’ve been crying all day. Bruce died 9 months ago and I just couldn’t have managed losing our home, too.”

She added, “You know the man from Belgium with the victorian house who makes the special soaps, right across from me? His home burned. A lot of homes burned around me. And, you know what Venus? I’m supposed to go to Paris this Saturday and I can’t even get into Ramona.”

Now that I am driving by her area, I stop and call her on my cell phone. I get voice mail. She must have flown to Paris and why not? All the mess will still be here when she returns.

On all sides of me there is devastation. Many homes are leveled and the land is black with twisted trees and vegetation. I drive farther into the hills.

There’s Johnny’s road that leads back to his ranch. I went to school with him. He wears a long braid down his back and when he hurt his hand a few years ago, he had me comb his hair and re-braid it for him.
I can’t get down his street. Everything is burned and a tree is leaning across the dirt road.

The farther I drive the worse it gets. Finally, feeling queasy, I turn back.

I decide to look for my brother Art the Jeweler’s house. I know it burned, but I just want to see for myself.
I drive to the east side of town and park at the beginning of his family’s dirt road.

Houses are leveled. One still stands. I start walking up the hill because it’s not drive-able. I get lost. This can’t be right. Where am I? I’m on the wrong road. I try another road and it’s not right, either. I’ve been to Art’s home many times and now I can’t even identify his street!

I finally give up and drive further to the east. I’m concerned about my art friends Judy and Loretta.
It looks bad. Many houses are down. The fields are black. I round a bend and drive up the hill to where I hope Judy’s new house will be. I’m trembling a bit.

It stands!
I pull in the drive, hop out of my car and look at the surrounding hills and mountains. To the left, just a small jump across Judy’s narrow road, everything is gone. Utterly gone.

Judy’s husband Joe appears from behind his studio looking dazed. He’s glad to see me and says, “I was in Utah when this happened.”

We look across the street.

“Tom the Potter’s home is gone,” Joe says. He points to a spot in the small valley across from where we’re standing. “And the lady who makes the jewelry. She lived right there.” He nods toward another spot in the distance. “And all the other homes are gone. Susan the Optometrist. Max and his family. He even had a water truck on his property. And all the other houses burned up.”

We’re silent. I’m thinking, “So many of my friends! So many people I know!”

“This tree is bent,” Joe says, as he touches a small tree in his yard. “It looks like the wind pushed it over.”
He’s wandering, like a man in a trance.

I give him a kiss and get in my car.

I drive farther down the Old Julian Hwy. It’s mainly gone. Some houses are left but not many. I can’t remember Loretta’s street. When I call her number, the phone always rings busy. I’m finding that when a line rings busy it means the house has burned. Her home must be gone.

I can’t look any further; I’m feeling despondent and I head back to town.

On the way, I turn down Magnolia Street. I haven’t been able to reach my friend Irene. She’s 83 and makes the most gorgeous quilts in the world.

I’m shocked. The homes on her street are mainly decimated. The farther I drive, the worse it gets. As I approach the park of manufactured homes where Irene lives, I have a dreadful feeling. Her phone keeps ringing busy.
The Park is barricaded but I drive in, anyway. Many homes are still here but the many under the towering oaks are gone.

I stop and ask some Red Cross workers if they know what happened to Irene. They direct me to the Park’s owner who tells me, “Her home burned to the ground. She lost everything, including her quilts.”

He thinks she went to stay with her daughter. I give him my number and beg him to have her call me if he hears from her.
He says, “I lost 50 homes in here.”

I say I’m sorry and that I hope he has good insurance. He says, “Well, I guess I’ll find out!”

My heart is sinking further as I head again towards down-town Ramona. I need to see my brother and I think he will be at his shop.

I’m again aghast as I enter the town. One more skip and the fire would have leveled the little town, itself.

I find my brother Art at the coffee shop next to his shop. He’s wearing a bright red t-shirt with a logo and new jeans with cuffs. I say, “That’s some shirt you have on. You don’t look like yourself.”

He says, “Oh, someone bought me some new clothes.”

Ouch. Of course, he lost his clothes in the fire. Then I notice his wife MaryEllen. She has on a hot pink top with silver designs and spangles! Well. She lost all her clothes, too.

Jimmy and Rath, the couple who own the coffee shop, come over and hug me. I painted a portrait of Jimmy a few years back who gave it as a gift to Rath. I painted ten pictures of Jimmy before I got it right.

Jimmy says, “We haven’t been able to work all week because we have no water, but we’re giving away free coffee and juice. Let me get you some.”

And there’s David. I’ve known him for years. He lost his house in the fire four years ago. He comes over, says, “Gads, it’s good to see you!” and gives me an enormous hug like he loves me.

What I am finding I like about this fire is that people are so open now and vulnerable to each other. The man in the grocery store who always nods at me, this morning stopped me in the aisle and asked how I am and if I am OK and how am I doing!

And, on my drive into Ramona the other day after being away for so long, I was feeling tired and cranky. The cars were bumper to bumper as we all returned home at once and it was taking us hours. Suddenly, close to my street, by the side of the road, at the vineyard, I saw a parked van with three people sitting beside it.

They had a large sign that said, “WELCOME HOME RAMONA! Don’t drink the water. Drink wine!”

It was my friends the vintners! I rolled down my window and pointed at them as they shouted, “Venus! It’s Venus! Welcome home, Venus!’
Immediately, I felt warm and delighted.

Now, at the coffee shop, I am thinking about all the openness and kindness expressed by people during this time. “It’s too bad,” I think, “that after things like this are over, we all close down, again; we fold back into ourselves again, like dying flowers.”

I’ve kissed and hugged my brother and sister in law and my nephews and it’s time to go. Go where? Well, somewhere. I’m not sure where.

My cell phone rings. It’s an older lady, Ruth, a friend of my mothers. She’s calling because she is frantic. Where is our friend Carol?! She wants to know.

Carol is a painting partner of mine. She’s close to 80 and lost her ranch and home, just down the road from my house, in the Cedar Fire four years ago.

I tell Ruth that Carol is fine.

Ruth says, “How can she be? I just called your mother and asked where Carol is and your mother said, ‘…I think she’s dead. No? Maybe she went to Paris?…’ ”

I laugh. My mother can’t hear that well. I tell Ruth that Regina went to Paris and Carol is just back from Panama. She’s not dead.

I get off the phone and I’m laughing. It feels good to laugh, again.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
FOR MORE ABOUT THE START OF THE FIRES IN RAMONA AND WHAT WE DID- PLEASE LISTEN TO MY ARCHIVED SHOW: ‘VENUS AND THE WILDFIRES’ on www.hayhouseradio.com “The Dear Venus Show” Oct 26th, 2007.

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OCT 18TH, THURSDAY 2007 “THEME FOR A DAY”

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

There is an Octoberfest in the field across the street from my mother’s property. I decide it will be lovely to have my son-in-law drive up the mountain with my grandkids; Loch, who is 18 months old and Lexi who is 4 1/2 years old.

“The kids will love the Carnival,” I tell Charles, “and it will give you a break from watching them while Summer is out of town.”

What we think will be a small hike through my mother’s fields and across the paved road onto the Octoberfest grounds turns out to be a good long hike, as we soon find that we are fenced out of the Carnival.

Charles is pushing the stroller with Loch in it, breaking his way though the weeds and bouncing over the rough ground. I am holding Lexi’s hand while my Ex-boyfriend Bill is bringing up the rear.

We finally venture out onto the paved road; no side walks here, and we continue on toward another road rather far away, that will take us, eventually, where we want to go.

As we’re trudging along, suddenly a monstrously huge, bright red truck speeds towards us, a young kid at the wheel. The guy and the truck roar past us, blowing up our hair and swirling dirt and field burrs.

I say, incensed, “What an idiot! He’s driving too fast!”

Lexi tugs on my hand, looks up at me and seriously and reflectively says, “You know…my dad’s an idiot…..”
………

On finally reaching the grounds, we drink lemonade, go on the kiddie rides and eat lots of Funnel Cake, sprinkled liberally with white powdered sugar.

Lexi wheedles me out of several sticker books, gets her face painted with ghosts and Loch loses a red balloon to the gusty wind.

Bill buys my mother a funnel cake.

Finally, covered with grit, slivers of flying straw from the ground and a bit sun-burned, we make the long walk back to my mother’s house.

Later, we all sit at Mom’s table on her reliably unreliable chairs; the ones which have seats that can unexpectedly flip a person into the center of the room. This keeps all of our nerves revved up, alert and at attention.

Bill presents Mom with the funnel cake. She’s never has this kind a cake, she says. She admires it’s powdered sugar topping and says she loves the taste of the cake.

My grandson Loch, loves the cake, too.

“Gray Grandma” as Lexi calls her, and Loch eat quite a bit of the cake.

As we’re leaving Mom’s house, Mom thanks Bill profusely for the “Flannel” cake and remarks that “Log’” loved it, too.

Lexi looks at me, puzzled.
“Tomorrow,” I tell her, “Grandma will be getting her ears cleaned!”

On reflection, I realize that this has been a day of learning new words for Lexi! “Idiot”-”Flannel Cake” and her brother Loch’s new name: “Log”.

Well, every day has a theme. Some days they are big themes like love or confusion, heartache or money, perhaps, and some days they are smaller themes but no less important.
I am sure Lexi will be putting the word ‘Idiot’ to good use.

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