Well, we have returned from a week at the shore. I am a lovely shade of golden brown, like a perfectly grilled marshmallow. No snickers, please. And I came home to find that Blogger has switched me to DANO, the legendarily despised and trouble filled new version of my blogging software. This is just what I need.

On the other hand, the vacation was wonderful. I accomplished all my goals: I got tan. I read the new Harry Potter. I slept a lot and then I napped. I shopped. I ate some great food. And I didn't think about my office once. Except when I mentioned that my boss plays golf.

More later, but it's nice to be home.

Gentle Readers,

I'm not sure if I'll be out of pocket for a week, because I'm heading for the left coast, and don't know if I'll have internet access during my stay on the Gulf. I have a suitcase full of bikinis and t-shirts, and a cooler full of boat drinks. There's a copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix waiting for me at a local, independent bookseller, so whether it rains or shines, I'll be suitably entertained. We are scheduling a visit to the Ringling School of Art to schmooze the head of the illustration department on behalf of my other half. I've downloaded the Zagat guide for Sarasota and Tampa, and a quick check of the baseball schedules reveals a week-long home stand by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays against the New York Yankees. That oughta be fun to watch. Even though I bet fabric on the TBDR, in the most locked-down secret part of my heart, I'll always be a Yankees fan. If I rooted for any American League team. (Hate the designated hitter rule.)

So know that if I'm not posting, I'm taking photos and making notes of all the annoying things I see. I'll report back when I can. Air kisses on both cheeks, sweeties and don't forget me while I'm gone.

Short answer: no. Unless it's low-fat cheese, because I'm on a mission to lower my cholesterol. This is karma for telling my father-in-law (OBM) not to worry, but to just eat the damn onion ring, because, trust me, something OTHER than his cholesterol was going to kill him first. For the record, I was right, and also for the record, he started enjoying his food again after I told him that. And he did eat the onion rings. But for the first however many years I knew him, his mantra was "Cholesterol, cholesterol, cholesterol." He worried about that like politicians worry about approval ratings. If I used a tablespoon of butter in a recipe that made 12 servings, he got on my case that I was trying to kill him. So I'd break it down: one tablespoon is three teaspoons and that means each serving has only a quarter of a teaspoon of butter in it. Give it a rest. He wouldn't. But there were things he couldn't identify in my cooking, and I never told him that the reason he loved my matzoh balls was because I used freshly rendered goose fat in them. Bwa-ha-ha.

Right. Now, despite the fact that I only make goose-fat laden matzoh balls once a year, and then only eat one, I have been told I have high cholesterol. Since wagging fingers at my gene pool won't do me any good, my doctor has determined that I need to change my diet and exercise more. The biggest change in the old diet is that I have to eat constantly, or so it seems to me.

My idea of a big breakfast is three cups of coffee. I now start each day with a bowl of McCann's oatmeal and a cup of fresh fruit. Then there's a midmorning snack, a protein-rich lunch, a midafternoon snack, dinner and a little something to tide me over until the next day. This is to keep my metabolism busy. It's keeping me crazy. I don't snack. I don't eat lunch. Except, well, now I do. And you know what? It's working. At least, I'm losing weight. I hope that my cholesterol levels are dropping as well as my jean size, but I won't know for another two months.

Wish me luck.

My mentor, Eugene Massin, has died. I am, of course, consumed by guilt for not having visited him at his studio for a couple of years. I am, of course, consumed by guilt for not having called him lately, either. This was the man who taught me, well, frankly, he taught me everything that was ever of use to me after I got out of art school.* He taught me the difference between looking and seeing, and I don't believe that there is a more essential skill. He taught me how to draw. Really draw. How to make a line that was lush and delicate at the same time. How to lay a pencil mark on paper that spoke volumes about light and shadow and texture and skin. How to draw.

He taught my husband how to teach art, although neither of them knew it at the time. He taught us all to respect our work, to see the majesty in our calling. The first time I told him to keep his marks off my drawing, he tousled my hair and told me I was going to be an artist, after all. He taught us to question everything, to absorb it and to process it and to put it back out with the marks of our own hands, our own souls.

He was a giant. He truly loved to teach and to be surrounded by his students. They kept him vital. And he gave us something that cannot be put in words.

Physically, he was huge, or seemed to be. If Michelangelo was around the Grove in the 70s and had needed a model for Moses, he would have chosen Gene. He was patriarchal in the biblical sense of the word. His presence was such that it filled any space he happened to occupy.

And now, there is a vacuum. We, his students, must strive to fill that void with our own works, in Gene's memory and honor.

Another memorial service. Crap.

* OK, I learned one other thing of value in college, and this from my film professor: The action goes where the interest lies. Yeah. That'll straighten everything in life out, if you just think about it and follow it.

It's mango season here in the sub-tropics. This means only one thing: total strangers speak to each other and offer up the juicy globes, freely and without constraint. You get on the train, and there, walking up and down the aisles are people trying to give away mangos. Children set up card tables on the side of the road, and sell the fruit for a quarter. I have been known to slip out under cover of darkness and leave bags of them on my neighbors' doorsteps.

That's because if we don't we will be drowning in mangos. Mangos are luscious and fragrant, until they hit the ground and immediately rot. I think they start the rotting process the nanosecond the stem detaches from the fruit and it begins its descent. Then the stench of rotting fruit is unbearable and inescapable. Entire neighborhoods reek of rotting mangos, since so much of this city was fruit groves prior to development. There are clouds of fruit flies hovering beneath the trees. Blue jays and squirrels take up permanent residence until the end of the season. From my four trees (three varieties doncha know: two Haydens, one Smithfield and a Keitt) I have made: mango jelly, mango marmalade, mango daiquiris, mango margaritas, mango bread, mango chutney, chicken with mango, green mango chutney, green mango pickles, frozen mango, and green mango pie.

The only salvation is that mangos fruit every other year. This year I have too many, next year I won't have enough. But even then, in a month, when the trees finally give up that last, sweet, fragrant fruit, I'll be out in the yard, looking up and asking: Any left? One more? Please?

And now, because maybe YOU have too many mangos, here's a little something for you.

Mango Upside-Down Cake

2 cups ripe mangoes, sliced
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup milk
1-1/4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder

Pour lemon juice over mangoes and allow to stand 15 minutes. Melt butter in 8-inch pan or casserole. Add brown sugar and cover with a layer of mango slices. To prepare the cake batter: Cream the shortening, add the shortening, add the sugar and cream together, then add beaten egg. Sift dry ingredients and add alternately with milk. Pour over mangoes and bake 50 to 60 minutes at 375 degrees F. When cake is done, turn it out upside-down and serve while still warm. Serve with whipped cream or a lemon or lime sauce.

Hey! Check this out. The lovely Jodi sent me this link. Another person who thinks in Dylanese and takes pictures of other women's feet. Too scary to contemplate, but in an infinite universe, where anything CAN happen, everything MUST happen.