Kryssi, Since you said not to, ah, happy you-know-what I hope! May you have your wish, lots of people getting trashed and tipping big. lol.

Have flown alot, both comm’l and private planes and have only been really scared twice. [Both my son’s father and two male cousins flying back from Tahoe in their plane with their two 15-year daughters in the back seat, were all killed in plane accidents]. Twice I thought it was about to happend to me: My sister-in-law, her then young son and I were in the back seat of a twin-engine plane flying low over Big Bear Lake…a mountain lake and ski resort in the San Bernardino Mts. at about 8,500 ft altitude. My brother was flying and his friend was in the co-pilot seat. A twin-engine private plane can be very loud, this one was, and my brother and the friend were talking over headphones—we couldn’t hear them. They decided, without telling us, to practice mid-air stalls at about 11,500 ft. over the windy mountain. A stalled plane slides backwards, tail down and to the side and then they restart it in the air. This was at a very weird angle, and something I never experienced before, along with the sudden total quiet and senations of falling and vertigo. My sister-in-law and I were both livid at my brother [not the one who died, he wd never have done such a thing though he was a private pilot too]. She said “How dare you risk the lives of two mothers with young children and without their consent?” The plane finally restarted in the air, and we flew on over the mountain range and then landed in the desert on the other side to go out for lunch. When we got back up in the air he flew under power lines [dangerous and against the law]. He’s always been a dare-devil. It was the last time I flew with him. His son, the young boy who’d been with us, is now a commercial pilot. The second time, my second husband [who’d been a naval pilot], and two of his friends and I were flying in a private plane from Burbank airport to Oakland airport, we first dropped one of the friends off at small airport strip in Northern CA and would pick him up on our return flight. My husband and his other friend, John, were in business suits and had a meeting in San Francisco, I was along for the ride to go for lunch with a girlfriend at Sam’s, a famous burger place on the water in Tiburon. Great day. Then we all met back up at the plane in the late afternoon. My husband’s friend was flying, I was in the co-pilot seat, my husband in the back seat working on paperwork from the meeting. We were over the SF Bay with commerical traffic, private planes, and military planes taking off from a now defunct base. Incoming private planes were at 5,000 ft., outgoing at 6,000 ft. John was in a hurry to get down the coast with fog rolling in to pick up our other friend before it was too dense to see, he needed to look at maps to check the unfamiliar route. He wasn’t communicating with the tower for other traffic location and we were flying VFR. He told me to take the controls and fly steady to that mountain top, he pointed to the distance [we were still over the bay]. I don’t know anything but basics…and made the mistake most novices do: watched the airspeed and altitude and other controls instead of the airspace. When I glanced back up there was another plane coming right at us barely off our left wing, I could see the pilot’s wide scared eyes. In a split-second I looked down at the bay/imagined our left wing wd be sheared off and that we would spiral down and that would be it, no way to recover w/o a wing. I said “John!” in an alarmed voice. He gabbed the controls and turned the wing and dove sharply. He had also been a naval pilot…and neither he nor my husband said a word, but just went back to what they’d been doing as if nothing happened. My heart pounded for the rest of the trip. That was the very last time I was in a light plane.

My personal experience with mammograms has been hell so haven’t gotten one in 3+ years. 1st: I had one when my aunt was dying and there was a tiny lump they said needed to come out, but the needle localization machine was broken so had to wait 2 weeks, worried, then had the localization and into the OR to have removed. Said it would take 45M max….in there from 10AM to 4PM, cutting, not finding it, sending various small slices to pathology, sewing me up, walking down hall for another localization, back more cutting w/o enough anesthetic….etc. 2nd: A large lump showed…they did a needle aspiration and it was fine, just a cyst. 3rd: At Stanford Medical Center they do the mammograms in the new cancer center so you are seeing people in horrible condition that scares the beejesus out of you. Got the mammogram and 4-5 radiologist etc came out afterwards with worried faces and had me get so many more from every possible angle that thought all that radiation was scary…then they had me get a ultrasound….then schedule surgery and more x-rays. It was the first day of school so talked dr into a local so could leave afterwards. The surgeon did a terrible job so a scar….but am not going to become a stripper anytime soon so—whatever—and the scar gets a little blue in cold weather so could be a weather lady with a storm predicting breast. Now am just afraid of them….it hurts…it’s awful. Will drink wheat grass and take my chances.

Char —-She’s the Anti-Christ with a cross around her neck. Such a hypocrite.

Lily, Thanks for the heads up. HuffPo posters are so irreverant. Love: “I worship at the alter of irony.” I got to “did she break it or wear it our” and thought Jaw? Or Ya-Ya? She won’t say how. Fell off a barstool? Some Red-Neck BF punched her?

Plus she has/had Heritage Foundation $$$ behind her….to buy her schlock in bulk to rocket it to Bestsellerland. Question: Why does she wear a black cocktail dress on AM TV? Appears as if just tumbling out of the previous night’s bed. And why live in liberal Manhattan….instead of some simpatico Red-Neck state. For me being in a Red-Neck locale is like drowning…..could Apple-Adam Annie be a total $$$ grabbing farce and getting rich off half-wits hawking things she doesn’t really believe? Like a Time’s Sq hooker making her John think he’s actually turned her motor on?

I think the publishing world has bought a lot of junk to throw against the wall to see what would stick, and now must reasses just like most segments. Trade paperback with coping ‘how-tos’ for the current environment will sell. And with Kindle and other e-book readers the market is going more in that direction. I do Internet marketing so just go where the money is. I had a national career until an costly accident. While recuperating wrote a book that got me a grant to the UCLA Writing [and film] program that I finished in 1/2 the time with a 4.2 GPA and a novel that I wrote with the benefit a focus group, and to the marketing/demographic research I did first. Then had it edited by a first rate editor from a top lit agency. Was all set to go when my brother died in July and I pulled it back. Now the market has gone down the drain. I’d make $1.80 on a tradition $20 book (w/agent’s %) and can sell the same book online for $12…keep it all, only need to sell 8,300 to make $100K and don’t have to travel. So benefits all around, and if sell 30,000 electronically a traditional house would buy it and put some marketing $ behind it. I think agents/editors are the most overworked, underpaid, talented, interesting people going and am sorry that this hits them, too. But we all need to creatively adapt. One of my FaceBook friends is coming out Jan 19 with “Throwing Sheep In the Boardroom.” Kind of another slant on Wikinomics, an excellent book. Great guy, lives in France, love the YouTube he did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubo1asE4l-o Imagine it will do well he’s doing all the right things. Hope to hear more from you as things develop. Thanks for the piece.

Whoopi, Terrific book cover…I would have loved that as a child. Love ballet, and did get to meet Baryshnikov backstage aft he danced his White Oak Project for 90 minutes…so impressive….and because he was a friend of a friend. So gracious. Am sure you have another hit that will be a delight to many young girls. Think the discipline of dance remains for life.

Frank Marks, What a blockhead you are…let me guess. McCain supporter.

Brad, I congratulate you on being an involved father and guiding your children into something that will give them self-esteem and self-discipline that will remain with them for life. Six hours a week, especially today with physical education classes cut, and most kids stuck in front of a computer screen or TV, is definitely not too much. My son at that age had a paper route, was in scouts, trained as an equestrienne, ran a gardening service in our immediate neighborhood. He charge homeowners $20 a week and paid his two friends $5 each a year, he also worked with them….so his ‘profit’ was $5 a yard. He was an excellent student, went on to one year of HS in France, speaks 4-5 languages, and completed grad school in Paris at age 23. Again, I commend you for being a wise and involved parent. Although I was too tall for ballet (I’m 5’9”) it is excellent to know and study….also stress relieving. As Bogart said of Audrey Hepburn when they starred in ‘Sabrina’ together “All those ballet broads are disciplined.” Audrey Hepburn, btw, when she was a child in occupied Holland during WWII taught other children ballet and put on shows to raise a little money for the resistance. She lived not far from Anne Frank and said she experienced so many of those things too….family members taken out and shot, stravation, cold, being forced onto a busline to a work camp that she narrowly escaped by running when the armed guard turned his back. But her ballet was a release. And when the war was over that ability got her her first small audition/part and of course she used that skill in films like “Funny Face” as in dancing in this scene with Fred Astaire that was a dream of her life. Imagine if she’d not taken ballet when she was your girls ages……all that would have been lost to the world. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp-MTdE0MBo And here she is dancing to “How to be Lovely” with Kay Thompson the creator of “Eloise” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YOeFBSVhu8&feature=related And from the same film her athletic dance that became a modern Gap Commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Di5XPllM18&feature=related Again, Brad….cheers to you!

And so attractive and stylishy dressed, too. lmao. Yikes….someone call the fashion police…it’s an emergency. My eyes, my eyes!

That’s right, Char. At least we can give them credit for neatly printed signs with correct spelling. lmao. And Ann Coulter’s jaw-wired shut…talk about divine intervention.

FP—Yes, very much…..it must be snowing there…and am sure you won’t complain if snowed-in ;) You have plenty more to be thankful for this year…as we all do with Obama. Glad to ‘see’ you.

As The Economist has said of his choices….Competence is back. Another terrific choice. [And very attractive, too…another bonus].

I’ve always loved exercise, you name it, I’ve done it: Downhill skiing [even expert slopes], water skiing, tennis, golf, long distance jogging/walking, ocean swimming, have captained ocean sail races, pilates, aerobics, weights. When a kid played football/softball with the boys, was always team captain or first picked at school, and the queen of four-square and teetherball. Also rode horses/jumped for 7 years including in shows. Even did the firewalk barefoot over 2,000 degree coals. Now with vertigo not inclined to ski etc, but still love long distance walking and a exercise routine I made up with weights. The combination is a good balance and keeps me fit. Weights are very good for bones and are the secret to a defined/cut look….and if have that feel good, have energy, and look good in plain black/fitted clothes.