Music Video Featuring the Piano of Robin Meloy Goldsby

My Favorite Christmas Gift

My Neighbor, Wilma Flinstone, knows me well. She gave me this little change purse as a Christmas present. Has anyone else out there overdosed on volunteer work?

For me it was the sixth grade silent auction (to raise money for an end of the year camping trip) that sent me over the edge. Knowing this is, I assume, why inside the change purse was a compact miror featuring a very glamorous babe posing in front of a high rise hotel. "I love not camping," she says.

Amen, Wilma.

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We Are a Bunko Group

We are a bunko group. We began years ago when things like fund-raising and PTA meetings brought us together. Some of us met in school, some through exercise classes or neighborhood watch meetings. We are sisters, in-laws, business associates, teachers, consultants. We are friends. We make each other laugh. We make each other cry. But above all else, we make each other know we are not in this alone. Photo from Christmas Bunko, December, 2008. Tucson, AZ.

Do You Play Bunko?

Even if you don't belong to a bunko group, you may have heard of this dice game played by MILLIONS of American women each month. It's no secret that this game is so simple that the only brain requirement is you know how to count to 21. The main physical requirement is that you know how to roll dice.

What may be a secret, however, is that women who belong to bunko groups don't go to the monthly gatherings just to play the game. The main reason they go is to connect with the women in their group. Anyone looking for a way to get through the challenges of daily life will benefit by sharing stories (and rolling dice) with friends. Learning you're not alone is the most valuable gift women can give to one another.

Join a bunko group. You won't be sorry.

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

Rabbit 

Rabbit 

Rabbit

Old tradition: say the word "rabbit" three times first thing on the first day of the month and you'll have good luck for that month.

Happy Thanksgiving

AFTER

The Hunk Goes For a Haircut

Much as he vowed to never be soulful ponytail man, for our last wedding anniversary I gave him 19 coated hair ties to signify our 19 years of marriage. Today he finally goes for a cut. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, this is his BEFORE photo.

For Your Book Club

Per your requests we have provided relevant questions about the book, the characters and the dynamics of women's groups to help jump start your book club discussions. CLICK HERE.

It's Not Your Mother's Bridge Club

It's Not Your Mother's Bridge Club

By Michele VanOrt Cozzens

NOW AVAILABLE FROM YOUR FAVORITE ON LINE BOOK STORES

Amazon.com

Barnes & Noble

From Midwest Book Review: FIVE STARS

"A fantastic piece of writing, recommended."

From Author Robin Meloy Goldsby: FIVE STARS
"I think Cozzens has herself one heck of a screenplay here. She would have actresses lined up to play all of those wonderful roles. Think of it this way: THE WOMEN meets DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. But with a Rattlesnake Valley twist.

From Armchair Interviews: FIVE STARS 
"Cozzens has put together a fun novel. Yet it isn't simply humor. There are real problems discussed and dealt with-particularly alcoholism, but also infertility, job loss and personal insecurity. She deals with the problems in a manner that feels quite realistic, like these women could be anyone's neighbors."

From Reader Views: FIVE STARS
It's Not Your Mother's Bridge Club is tons of fun, although at times bittersweet, and I would recommend it to all of the female readers, especially those who have a number of colorful friends. As for husbands, they might want to pick up a copy as well - and they just might learn what their wives do on girls' nights out..."

Book Club Discussion Questions

This award-winning novel, A Line Between Friends, has been popular with book clubs across the country. Per your requests we have book cub topics and questions posted to help jump start your group's discussions. 

CLICK HERE.

A Line Between Friends

A Line Between Friends
A Novel by Michele VanOrt Cozzens.

Now Available on Amazon.com



Publication, November, 2006
McKenna Publishing Group

Warning: Ephedra Tests Positive For Amphetamines

“Fuck Off!”

I have a friend with three children. Two of the three are ill. Gravely ill. It’s a degenerative disease with no known cure, although through efforts of research and experimental medicine, “progress” and “hope” are words deeply engrained into their everyday lives.

Once she expressed a concern she had over elementary school boys making fun of her elder son. This mother, an educated woman, a sensible gal who had been around the proverbial block a few times, advised her troubled son that the next time some typically insensitive kid made fun of him—particularly for the way he walked with the slow limp of a fellow eight times his age—that he turn around, look the offensive kid straight in the eyes, and boldly tell him to FUCK OFF.

When I heard her relate this story, my immediate reaction was to crack up laughing. I thought to myself: “Yes! That’s right! Tell this moron to “fuck off.” What does he/she know about the seriousness of being critically ill—of facing a life-threatening illness that makes you different, when all you want to do is be the same? I thought her advice to her son was bold and empowering, and I believe she went on to say that he gave it a try one day and it worked. All the more reason to smile. In my heart I knew if anyone had a right to scream those words, it was this child.

Anyone who has survived childhood—healthy or sick—knows that kids can be really mean. But damn, so can adults. I’m not suggesting it’s always appropriate to tell someone who is bothering you to “fuck off,” but if you feel you have good reason and it makes you feel better, why the fuck not?!

Who Reads This Crap Anyway?

Dear Diary,

I have opened your pages to the world.

I’ve thrown away the key.

No one was interested in you before

And as for now, why should they be

curious about my life and my hours

spent twisting thoughts into words?

You once held all my secrets, my dreams,

desires, hopes both realistic and absurd.

But I have no secrets left, dear Diary, I’ve

offered and bared my soul and was kidding myself

in believing someone cared.

What I Wish I’d Said to the Desperate Housewife

The redheaded woman with eyes as green as a Jesus Christ lizard called to me from the back of the tourist bus. “Pssst, Michele,” she said. I wasn’t sure I heard it the first time, however, the second time she uttered my name, I knew I had to turn around.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like a desperate housewife?”

“Excuse me?”

“On the TV show. You look just like one of the women on Desperate Housewives.”

Self-consciously, I smoothed my coiling, rain forest-infused hair and furrowed my brow. “Which one?” was all I could think to ask. The redhead didn’t know any of their names—the characters or the actresses who played them—so she used description, assuming I was familiar with the show and could figure it out. Not an invalid assumption.

Let’s see. I live in America. I watch television and read a couple newspapers per day. I’m a white, middle-aged wife and mother, and I reside in an affluent, suburban community. It’s virtually impossible for me NOT to know many details about the women of Wisteria Lane. The redhead, by the way, was a beautiful woman from Seattle who, in a soft-spoken manner, took every opportunity on the guided nature tour we had just completed to cut down her fat, sweaty and smoking husband. She looked more like a television star than I could ever hope to.

As she configured her description, I sat up a little straighter and my imagination put me into red carpet evening gowns and Emmy Award show glamour. Did she mean the tall and regal redhead who could whip together a gift basket faster than Martha Stewart? The cute, doe-eyed klutz who looks better in T-shirts and blue jeans than any other woman in America? The sexy-little nymph who turns the heads of teenage gardeners?

“It’s the one with the kids,” said the redhead. “The haggard one.”

“Yes, she does look like her,” chimed in a squat woman with corkscrew curls and an Olivia Newton-John 1970s workout outfit. “She’s the slender blonde who can never quite handle what’s going on around her.” This woman looked to her traveling companion, her thirty-something, bookish and humorless daughter, for confirmation. The daughter only frowned, clearly unwilling to admit she knew anything about some silly television program depicting women who had absolutely nothing in common with her.

“The haggard one?” I asked, no doubt slouching back into my tourist seat.

“Well,” said the redhead, “she cleans up nicely.”

Not knowing whether to be flattered or insulted, I simply answered her question. “No,” I said. “No one has ever told me I look like a desperate housewife.”

As she followed her enormous, wet and smelly husband off the bus and into the lobby of her hotel, the redhead didn’t turn to say “good-bye.” Before the door of the van slid shut, I felt like calling out to her, “Hey Red! Has anyone ever told you that you act like a desperate housewife?”

But, of course, I didn’t say that. I just turned to my handsome husband, saw my content reflection in his eyes and smiled as if posing for a camera.

E.F. L.— English as a First Language

How lucky I am to have English as my first language. I’ve had the good fortune to travel to many countries and am continually grateful to find that most persons, even in the remote corners of the globe, understand enough English (mixed with universal sign-language) to meet my communications needs. The consistently most universal word: “OKAY!” Everyone says it and everyone knows what it means. It’s a great, great word.

I’ve taken many years of classroom Spanish and rote memory vocabulary words are etched in my brain. I don’t always get the verb conjugations correct, but I get by. Here in Costa Rica there have been very few incidents of miscommunication. When I ask questions in Spanish, the answers come in English. Today, however, was the first day that I actually received a response or two in Spanish and I’m not sure if the speaker noticed my ojos bug out of my head while I worked quickly to translate his response.

We were on a long and excruciatingly boring tour at the Manuel Antonio National Park. When our tour guide pointed out the first of far too many sleeping sloths parked atop the tree branches, I asked in Spanish, how many toes it had. On the night before we left on our trip, our eight-year old quizzed me on a take-home packet of Spanish words given to her by her Spanish teacher and I distinctly remember being surprised that the word for fingers and toes was the same . . . but made a mental note. Happily, it came in handy.

“¿Cuantos dedos tiene?” I asked, practically under my breath.

“Dos,” he said, spinning around and boring his Costa Rican brown eyes into me. That I understood. I can’t tell you what else he said, but I was certainly pleased that he answered the question I wanted to know en Español.

After the tour, we ate lunch and I had Sex on the Beach. I had no idea what I was ordering, but I simply had to say the name of this drink out loud while reading the menu, and the next thing I knew, a tall, tropical fru-fru drink (the kind with cherries and an umbrella) was set before me. I drank it, got drunk immediately and then went souvenir shopping. I wanted to buy something for the folks taking care of our children and our dog, as well as something for the children (and not the dog).

At a souvenir shop we’d been eyeing for a few days we found the perfect shirt for our 10-year-old, which means it was BLUE and not too girly. The added bonus is that it had something to do with soccer, her favorite sport. The only problem is that the large size looked too small and I didn’t want to give her a legitimate excuse not to wear it. Speaking what I thought was clear Spanish to the shop girl, she assured me that large was the biggest and only size they had in that particular shirt. We were about to leave when a slightly older, plumper woman stepped into the transaction and insisted that the large shirt would be big enough for our ten-year-old.

“This shirt is my size,” she said in perfect English.

“No way,” I said, glancing at her well-endowed chest. She was easily three times as thick as our daughter.

“Sure it is,” she said. “I’ll try it on and show you.”

I laughed, thinking she was nuts, and watched as she stuffed her bulbous arms through the sleeves. Within seconds her dyed red hair poked through the neck hole and she wiggled it onto her body. Spreading her arms in a “ta-da” motion, she broke into a smile and said, “See! I told you.”

Damn! She wasn’t kidding. The blue soccer shirt fit her perfectly. And it looked . . . great!

“She just stretched it out,” whispered my husband. “I think now it’ll be the right size. Let’s buy it.”

“Fine,” said the woman as she took off the shirt and placed it on the counter. “And what else can I get for ya?”

I laughed and tried for a moment to remember where we were. “You have a very American accent,” I said. “Where did you learn English?”

“Jersey,” she said. “I’m from Costa Rica originally, but I lived in New Jersey for years. So, you wanna pay in colones or dollars?”

Like English responses to my Spanish, I wondered if I paid her in Costa Rican colones if she’d give me change in American dollars. Compromising, I decided to charge it to my VISA. And when I presented the card, she smiled and said, “OKAY!”

Costa Rican Canopying Coneheads

Mention you’re going to Costa Rica and the first question you hear from anyone who knows anything about this Central American country is, “are you planning to go canopying?”

“What, pray tell, is canopying?” was my response.

An Internet pal, someone from Guyana with whom I sometimes chat, zipped me a photo of helmeted individuals wearing harnesses and standing on a platform up high in a forest. She said since she lived on the edge of a rain forest, she knew what canopying was. And apparently, it’s all the rage in the land of rain forests. This was confirmed when we arrived in the San Jose airport and in the customs area there was a life-sized, three-dimensional display of this signature endeavor.

Canopying is an activity that has you climbing to the treetops to perch upon a variety of manmade platforms. Well-trained guides use carabineer clips, cables and cords to attach you to a pulley straddling “zip lines” that go from tree to tree. With a little jump, you’re on your way sailing like George of the Jungle through the trees from platform to platform. All you have to remember to do is lean back and keep your feet up, and then Weeeeeeeeee!

I felt like a kid on a playground going down a slide for the first time, and wanted to do it again and again and again.

From a first timer’s perspective, canopying is as fun as scuba diving, takes less effort and equipment, and certainly less study. They’ll let any able-bodied individual participate—including a group of oversized cruise ship vacationers from Canada. The brochure says they’ll even let your five-year-old do it. And the little kids certainly look cuter in the get-ups they make you wear.

Told to wear long shorts or pants, I chose to wear capri pants, which, as soon as a stud named Alejandro outfitted me, were cinched up tight in a crotch-pinching harness. (If I were to do it again, I’d definitely rethink the thong underwear.) Aside from the Barbarella straps, by far, the most unflattering aspect of the getup was the bright orange conehead helmet teetering atop my skull. I knew my husband looked kind of funny, but I didn’t realize I looked like such a dork until I saw photos of myself on a CD on which we spent 40 bucks.

We just viewed this CD in the comfort of our beautiful bungalow. The array of pictures began with stunning snaps of the flora and fauna of the land: toucans, monkeys, sloths, coatis, hummingbirds, butterflies, poisonous dart frogs, flowers of every color, teak trees, palm trees and ferns, ferns, ferns. We oohed and aahed at the pretty colors of everything and laughed at the human-like features of the white-faced monkeys. And right after a monkey’s face filled the screen, the very next photo was a close-up of my husband’s face. His clear blue eyes protruded with excitement, his smile was wide and, his “package” was conspicuously outlined by the harness for all to see; however, what stood out even more than that package was the STUPID, bright orange conehead helmet atop his head. NOT attractive. And trust me, I looked even stupider.

I’m not sorry we purchased the CD. It’ll be fun to show our kids, who aren’t yet aware of vanity and probably won’t think we look goofy. And frankly, taking the opportunity to relive the memories of a fun-filled day swinging through the trees will make the purchase worthwhile. But for now, my little zip line trip through the jungle reminded me of the fact that LIVE is always better than Memorex.

Nobody Looks Up in the Internet Café

Had my first experience in an Internet Café in Costa Rica. With directions swimming in my head—go past the escuela, past the futbol field, and on la isquerda you’ll see a sign reading Le Chante—we spotted a little orange, concrete building perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Putting the rented Daihatsu in park, we read a sign saying “Abierto a 1:30." Open at 1:30, still fifteen minutes away. This was fine. We could easily fill fifteen minutes. We went back down the road to the supermercado and bought some Pringles. My husband and I have a thing about eating Pringles potato chips in every country we visit. I’m eating them as I type. Crunch. Crunch.

Upon our return the Internet Café was in full swing. One couple in the corner laughed over e-mails, another couple huddled over their computer, clearly into some heavy research. Since I wanted to use my own computer, I asked the young boy running the shop if he had wireless.

“¿Tienes wireless?” I asked. Believing high tech to be its own language, it didn’t occur to me to try and come up with a Spanish word for Wireless. But it did me no good. El niño had no idea what I was talking about.

So, we pulled out the laptops and watched his face immediately brighten. He led us to one of the computers, bent to the floor and handed me a cable, and motioned for me to sit. The cable was a USB cable, which I promptly plugged into my laptop. I called up my browser and received no connection. My husband then picked up the USB cable and followed it to the source. It led to a mouse. Oops. I don’t know the Spanish word for mouse, but of course I’m wondering now if it sounds something like the word “wireless.”

Rather than try and communicate further, my able-bodied husband got down on his hands and knees, found the cat-five cable and plugged me in. And within a few slow, Spanish seconds, I was online. That was my first five minutes. I spent forty more uploading blogs and book reviews (I have a lot of time to read and write on vacation) and checking my e-mail. all at about the speed of an afternoon siesta.

From the moment I logged on, I completely forgot about the couple in the corner, the couple doing research, my husband scrambling on the floor for another cat-five and el niño behind the cash register monitoring my minutes. I was dining heavy at the Internet Café.

Our sessions at El Chante cost about three bucks. Por todo. This led us to believe that time may be slow, but it sure is cheap in Third World Cyberspace.