Awesome Sauce – 5:00 Fridays TM

I really need the election to end. I also need my family to stop coughing up bits of lung and leaving spewed out green snot in the powder room sink. And, I need a cleaning service. Life has been so out of hand that I haven’t even decorated for fall yet. I know what you’re thinking. Wow, that is one crazy life she leads if it’s October 5 and there are no dried leaf garlands and gourds adorning her mantel yet. I know, right?

September has been a blur. I literally went coast to coast and barely stopped to breathe. When I did stop to breathe it was on a flight and said breath landed me with the flu. If only I could have opened the windows for some fresh air. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Both Bird and I were sick while Mac Daddy was in a land far far away with maid service and take out Indian food. I’ve been the queen of my own pity party this week. Lesley Gore has been looping on the playlist. It’s been one hell of a way to round out what was an otherwise pretty spectacular weekend.

I was in the desert town of Ojai, California for a retreat of sorts. Emphasis on treat. I was with 49 creative, writerly types at the Creative Alliance conference. Unlike blogging conferences I’ve been to, CA was peaceful and warm, with no jockeying to Instagram the celebrity chef du jour or tweet every word from every panel about how to make money online. We focused on our craft, our friendships, our goals. The tone was overwhelmingly uplifting and energizing. I left feeling like someone stuffed fresh batteries into my ribcage. I don’t have adequate words to describe the momentum that lifted me and the quiet confidence that embraced me. I have to believe that awesome sauce travels through osmosis. Surely something from those women’s auras penetrated my creative spirit. I gotta believe. I left believing in the good of people, in the power of creativity, and most importantly, I left believing in me.

And I owe it all to Kim, who nudged me to travel across the country to experience this glory. Cheers, my friend.

(Forgive all the desert scenery photos. This East Coast girl was smitten.)

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Awesome Sauce

1 ounce Absolut Grapevine (Sidebar: I hear “grapevine” and get bad 90s aerobics class flashbacks of me tripping over my feet and going the wrong direction. Am I alone here?)

3 ounces Hansens Mandarin Lime soda

1/2 fresh tangerine (fresh from an Ojai grove would be divine)

Fill a lowball glass with ice. Add the vodka. Top with soda and squeeze in the tangerine juice. Give it a stir. Terribly refreshing on a moonlit desert evening surrounded by kindred spirits. And since yesterday was National Vodka Day, you can mix this up to keep the party rolling.

I hope you soak up some awesome sauce of your own. Surround yourself with people who ooze it. It’s way better than green snot. I leave you with this:

“In strange and uncertain times such as those we are living in, sometimes a reasonable person might despair. But hope is unreasonable and love is greater even than this. May we trust the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse.” ― Robert Fripp