nakedjen

Naked Juice

nakedjuicecollectorbottle
Originally uploaded by nakedjen.

Don't you think I'd make a great spokesperson for that company?

They just don't know how many more bottles of juice they could sell!?!

And we could make a whole line for them that had real medicinal benefits, as well. Based upon my tea formulas.

Oh the possibilities!!!

Moral Quandary

so here's a moral question for you.  if you think this is about you, it might just be. 

what if someone you knew was having an affair? and you know. but their marriage partner does not. you're very good friends with both partners in the marriage. veryveryvery good friends.

the thing is, the person having the affair doesn't know that you know. you know because the person she/he's sleeping with is also a veryveryvery good friend and has told you.

what do you do???

It's Better to be Better

Those of us who reside at ChezNaked full time have been rather unwell the last ten days or so.  As we all know and saw, poor Buddha had that awful surgery on his head that left him with tubes coming out of two sides and a big incision down the middle that made him quite ready for his appearance in the Santa Cruz Players rendition of FrankenPuppy.  Unfortunately, they're not putting on that particular performance until the end of October (Halloween and all) and someone who shall remain nameless (ahem...DearSweetDave) forgot to mention this to Buddha, forgot to tell him that they called and left a message, and so Buddha went and got himself all cut up and ready for his stage debut only to learn that he was two months early!

Bah.

Meanwhile, karma is a bitch because DearSweetDave ended up with a doozy of a virus that knocked him right on his ass.  Sore throat, runny nose, cough that rattles the windows, fever!  Oh goodness, the fever!  And the snoring, people.  My heavens.  Well, yes, certainly, my heavens.  I'm quite sure that the heavens can hear this snoring and that no sleep is happening up there, either.  I'm quite surprised the angels aren't shooting down their own puff balls of clouds at DearSweetDave just so they can get some sleep!

Of course I don't know what I did in what previous incarnation (or perhaps it was just this one and am even more unaware of my actions than I thought...) but I got DearSweetDave's icky yucky nasty virus.  Which threw quite the monkey wrench into my very specific marathon training plans AND my very necessary taking extra special care of Buddha plans.  When you're feverish and you're sore and you're achy and your nose has decided to run a marathon all by itself it is one very difficult challenge indeed to even get yourself out of bed and up and about and take your very energetic and jubilant Labradors on a walk around the gulch. 

Oh I'm sure there are those of you whom are thinking, "Why, Nakedjen, you don't have to take those Labradors on a walk every single day.  I'm sure they'll be okay if you skip a walk.  They'll understand." 

To this I will say, "And your kids will understand if you forget to feed them dinner for three nights in a row and just don't come home!" 

While Buddha and Stella are really quite well behaved for two young energetic Labradors, they are still two young energetic Labradors.  If we could somehow harness that energy, I wouldn't even ever have to pay PG&E.  In fact, I could sell energy to PG&E.  They could pay ME to light up the neighborhood.  I haven't figured out how to plug into Buddha and Stella yet and I'm still trying to work that out, but in the meanwhile, it is actually quite pertinent that they get at least one walk a day, preferably two.  Two is optimal, one is an absolute necessity.  Or the couch and chairs and floors will most certainly suffer.  They're not destructive.  It's just that they really enjoy playing SUPER DOG.  Which consists mostly of Stella running as fast as she can around the house with her butt tucked underneath her, tail tucked between her back legs and every time she passes Buddha she literally is like a Tasmanian Devil and attacks him in a blind black ball of fur(ry). 

Of course furniture most certainly gets toppled because Stella really loves to use it like a "bumper" in her own version of pin ball.  She bounces her body off of the chair to the couch to the dining room table and she really deserves her own SUPER DOG cape because she flies through the air, hits Buddha, knocks him off his feet leaving him with stars circling about his head and keeps going all the while never really allowing her own four feet to truly touch the ground. 

Perhaps she should be the one running the marathon?

Meanwhile, because of the NASTY VIRUS that has plagued ChezNaked over the last week, a virus that even cupcakes from the marvelous cupcake crusader could not vanquish (though it was sure fun trying!), my marathon training efforts have taken a big backwards step.  I was honored to receive a sweat shirt from those lovely Team In Training folks for raising so much money (thank you to all of you for helping!!) but I wasn't able to even attempt the very long miles we were supposed to complete last week and now I'm feeling a tad nervous.  I've got a lot of catching up to do.

However, we all know I'm good about keeping to my promises.  If not to myself, to everyone else.  So now that I finally seem to have bid that nasty virus adieu, I'm going out to the track to log some very important training miles. 

And Buddha?  He wants you all to know that his head is healing and he's feeling much better, too.  As for DearSweetDave?  I think we still need to do something about that snoring.  Any suggestions??

Love and Chocolate Cake

Long ago, in the dark ages of my life, I was a not so naked girl with a pony.  Her name was Sandpiper.  She was, quite honestly, my best friend.  She came into my life when I was eleven years old and was quite certain that there was really no use to go on with the whole horseback riding business because I had outgrown my favorite pony at the time, Blackberry, and well, what use was there riding if I couldn't ride Blackberry? 

Sandpiper had been "left" at the barn by her former owners because their children no longer wanted to ride her and she was a bit "too much to handle" for any beginner rider or even some of the more advanced ones.  She had a very strong and willful personality and you had to do things on her terms, not the other way around.  But if you were able to convince her that something was actually "her idea", well then, you were golden.

At eleven, I was quite similar to Sandpiper in personality, I'll admit it.  And I do believe that perhaps there were some adults in my life that convinced me that it was "my idea" that Sandpiper was just the pony for me.  I spent hours and hours and hours upon her back, riding around in circles, riding on trails, jumping jumps, and yes, occasionally flying over jumps while she stood on the other side having decided that THAT particular jump wasn't a jump that she necessarily felt like jumping that day.  I have the concussions to prove this.

Still, Sandpiper and I became rather inseparable.  She would follow me around, literally, without need for a lead line or even a halter.  I just would call her name and start walking and she'd follow.  I could say, "Stay" and she'd stay.  I could wander over to the wash tubs, ask her to stay, and give her a bath and she wouldn't move until I told her it was time to go.  I could stand her outside her stall and braid her mane for HOURS and she'd never move.  Unless someone had, perhaps, brought a chocolate cake for the barn bake sale and placed it on the bench outside the tack room.  Then you'd find her up to her eyeballs in chocolate frosting and having to explain to the distraught baker that your pony happens to have a thing for chocolate cake and you'll pay for it, you really will, but can't you see she just LOVES IT??   She was truly like a big, cuddly puppy dog.

Our relationship, quite frankly, was not unlike Danae's relationship with her horse, Lucy, in the comic strip Non Sequitur.  And today's comic strip?  Today's just made me laugh and laugh.  Because, I swear to Goddess, I had this exact same thing happen to me with Sandpiper during summer camp, too.

I miss Sandpiper.  You know she lived to be 33?  That's a really long time for a pony.  It must have been all that love and chocolate cake. 

Hello, You Know Who?

This one's just for you. 

Anarchist Cupcake!

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Originally uploaded by nakedjen.

I'm at Pergolesi, a very very funky coffee house in Santa Cruz. Home to our resident anarchists and those who are far too cool for school.

But it has organic coffee. And free wireless. Provided by the very kind folks of Cruzio. And it's only three blocks from ChezNaked. Closer than Lulu's.

I'm here instead of home because home is without electricity today. You never realize just how very dependent you are upon electricity until PG&E shows up and just shuts it off. And yes, we've paid our bill. They're doing some work on some wires...or at least that's what they told me this morning when the fish tank suddenly stopped bubbling and gave me my first clue that something was amiss.

They also have cupcakes here. Remember how I have been searching and searching for a decent cupcake in Santa Cruz? Who knew that the anarchist coffee house was hording them all along? And they're organic!

But...alas...they are not as good as Gwendomama's. I suspect they don't use as much butter as she does. So I still believe if she were to grab a cart and sell those cupcakes on Pacific Avenue she'd make a million dollars.

But until she does, it's nice to know I can get a proper organic anarchist cupcake fix right here when I desperately need one.

(Of course, I'd rather hold out for those Gwendomama cakes of goodness...but you know...a girl with a serious cupcake addiction can't hold out FOREVER!).

Dreams Do Come True

The Traveling Vegetarian - Atlanta, GA - R Thomas Deluxe Grill

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My very good friend, Yvonne Smith, is a big believer in going after her dreams.  In absolutely making them come true. 

This is just the beginning of what I know is going to be something REALLY BIG. 

And I am absolutely THRILLED for her.  Go say hello to the Traveling Vegetarian and tell her why she should come visit you in your town!

Big love and Big Congrats, Yvonne.  You're a STAR!!

 

Whole Paycheck?

This is a very interesting article.  Actually, there have been a slew of interesting articles lately about Whole Foods and the FTC trying to block their purchase of Wild Oats.  I've been following the "drama" mostly because I'm the purveyor of a very small tea business and I'm hoping that someday soon those teas are going to be available on the shelves of health food stores near you.

I'm also following this story because there's rumblings in our own little Santa Cruz that Whole Foods is coming to town.  It plans to open not one, but TWO locations here in a town that already has many health food store options of its own.

And this revelation about its business practices in relation to its competitors makes me just a little bit nervous.  I will admit that when I first heard that Whole Foods was coming to Santa Cruz I actually cheered.  While I absolutely LOVE Staff of Life (my very local health food store), there are some things that I am able to get at Whole Foods that I just can not get at Staff of Life.  And because I am the only one on the planet who seems to ever "request" these items from Staff of Life, they just never carry them.  And you know what?  That's okay.  I just stop at Whole Foods whenever I'm near one (and they're all a substantial driving distance away...so that isn't all that often) and pick up the things that they carry that I can not get in Santa Cruz.  It's all good.

But...having a Whole Foods that is actually here in town?  Right down the street?  Well, I was genuinely excited if for the gas savings alone.  However, now, I'm not so sure. 

You see, I'm quite attached to Staff of Life.  And the folks who work there.  And the fact that even though they may not have ALL the things I want on an everyday basis, they always know me, they always have fantastic sales and they really do represent "Santa Cruz" to me.  I don't want Whole Foods opening right down the street to create an environment that doesn't allow for fair competition.  It will be my intention to shop at BOTH stores.  But this article (and the others that have preceded it) makes me very nervous.   It seems that Whole Foods isn't so much about fair competition as it is about taking the entire paycheck!

I guess it all remains to be seen what will happen.  The store(s) here in Santa Cruz haven't opened yet and don't even seem like they'll be opening any time soon.  It's all, as they say, just organic food for thought.

SCO is Toast for Breakfast

I've been following this story with a lot of interest.  Many of you who regularly read this blog may know why, but there are others who are probably scratching your heads and going, "Why on earth would the alternative medicine practicing naked deadhead hippie chick care about that??" 

And, quite honestly, I'm leaning more in the camp of those who are scratching their heads at this point than with those who actually do know why I would be following that story.

But here's one ancient clue.

That's me.  Last century!  Wearing my SCO badge.  And Keith Cavanaugh's coveted blazer from St. Andrew's, har! 

It's a little-known fact that I used to be a marketing executive for SCO. 

Me. 

Nakedjen. 

I actually can talk intelligently about UnixWare, believe it or not?   I have made corporate presentations across the globe about why it is the best solution for the enterprise.  I've even convinced Compaq and IBM to hand over $250,000 each in co-marketing funds for big splashy parties for the resellers.

Um, yeah. Me.  Who now likes to ask you if perhaps there's a tea that might help you with that nagging cough that you've had since Christmas. 

The same me who is so so so much happier these days appearing here before you naked, body, heart and soul, and no longer selling herself for corporate ducats that were not benefiting the planet in any way at all!

It's fascinating to now watch this story from way outside the sidelines and I'm really enjoying my toast for breakfast.

Like Mama, Like Dog

Somewhere in this house I actually do have a picture of me looking very much like Buddha does in that post surgery picture I posted a few days ago.  I had just come out of brain surgery and had tubes coming out of my own head to relieve the pressure and suck out the excess fluid and I had bandages all around and there was blood in lots of bad places and well, yeah, i had swollen raccoon eyes and I was not pretty.  At all.

But I am not sure where that photo is at the moment and am not up for searching.  Besides, you all don't really want to see it.  I'll spare you.

Have this one, instead. 

That was me a few days post-op, after they'd removed the stunts from my head, and my nurse was changing out the bandages.  I still had all the staples in my head, because they had literally cut it open like an orange...peeled it open three ways!  But no more tubes!  Hooray for healing.

Which is what I want to say about Buddha.  And your prayers.  Hooray for healing.  He's so much better and so much more himself.  He's getting his own tubes out of his head today.  And the swelling has gone down and he's able to open his eye and even give me his classic raised eyebrow!  Yes, oh yes, we're on the healing path.  I've been giving him all kinds of magical herbal concoctions to speed the healing process along, but have also been adhering to his doctor's protocol. 

Of course he's obviously not too fond of the ice packs on his head, but what can I say?  They're really helping.  Stella, of course, has been doing her part by licking his head at her every opportunity and when she's not busy doing that, she's doing her best to torment him in whatever ways that she can possibly dream up. 

Thank you, all of you, for all your prayers and love and good healing vibes.  They're really working.  I know he's going to be back to his good old self in no time.  It would have been so much more fun for him if he could have just waited until Halloween for all of this, though, don't you think? 

I mean, honestly, he makes the perfect FRANKENPUPPY!