I finally came across a copy of the KQED Perspective I did in 2007. I had taken a class of how to write and present a topic for this well-known radio format and was thrilled when my offering was accepted. I recorded it at the KQED studios in San Francisco. It is no longer in their archives, so I was excited to find a copy in my own files. For all you single folk out there…enjoy!
For an exciting holiday gift and a thank you to the hundreds of fans and followers of my Doc Flamingo’s Blog, my Facebook Page, and my @docflamingo Twitter page
I am offering a FREE KINDLE PROMOTION
Friday, December 13th until Tuesday, December 17th, 2019
Click on Title below for FREE Download
Offer good on Amazon WORLDWIDE ~ for FIVE DAYS!
VIEW THE TRAILER TOO!
View the heart-pounding DEGREES OF OBSESSION book trailer
DEGREES OF OBSESSION – SYNOPSISCharlie Pederson, fierce but flawed like all women who have loved deeply and lost, takes a dangerous thrill ride from risky infatuation to the edge of disaster when she stalks her still suck-the-breath-out-of-you handsome college flame.
As a therapist, Charlie knows she should abandon her crazed obsession over Danny Shapiro. But as a woman turning fifty and stifled in her marriage to deadly dull Harold, she finds herself driven to take a dicey last chance to find all that her heart needs.
Little does she suspect that an impulsive visit to Danny’s law office will make her the target of a homicidal erotomaniac. As she chases Danny down, she jeopardizes her professional reputation, infuriates her best friend, alienates her husband, and risks exposing the most painful secret of her life.
DEGREES OF OBSESSION has it all—juicy romance and heart-pounding suspense. Best of all, it shines light on the fears, follies, and fantasies that drive the choices women make and on the love that redeems them.
For an exciting holiday gift and a thank you to the hundreds of fans and followers of my Doc Flamingo’s Blog, my Facebook Page, and my @docflamingo Twitter page
I am offering a FREE KINDLE PROMOTION
Friday, December 13th until Tuesday, December 17th, 2019
Click on Title below for FREE Download
Offer good on Amazon WORLDWIDE ~ for FIVE DAYS!
VIEW THE TRAILER TOO!
View the intriguing MOTHER TONGUE book trailer.
MOTHER TONGUE:LINGUA CORSA – SYNOPSIS
Child advocate attorney, Liz Fallon, desperately needs a break after legal blunders and her own negligence lead to the kidnapping and death of a mother and daughter she represents. Fluent in her mother’s native Corsican tongue, she nabs a job at a Paris newspaper as a lingua corsa translator for Pierre Benatar, whose coverage of the explosive Corsican Nationalist movement has enraged every separatist faction.
When Benatar and his seven-year-old son disappear, she resolves to prevent another tragedy and cons her way to Corsica under the ruse of researching a tabloid story about the mazzeri, the isle’s ancient harbingers of death. She cozies up to the prime suspects using her secret knowledge of lingua corsa and the aid of an elderly Brit and a courageous teen Corsican cousin. The hunters suddenly become the hunted when Liz’s inquiries arouse the suspicions and passions of both the separatist leader and the French police chief. When the mazzeri story also takes a chilling personal turn, she has to wonder whether Corsica intends to reclaim her as its prodigal daughter or destroy her.
water licks the quay
tasting concrete not sand
determined to find welcome
one wave, fraught with foamy fervor
demands attention and
ebbs reluctantly
another, hardly noticed
crawls away defeated
never-ending swells
rise from the depths of a bay
crisscrossed with struts and steel
bound on three sides by
tacky tourist traps
soul-less mansions
waves of tears from decades past
emerging from an immigrant isle
less angelic than its name
salt-tinged waves seep under a golden bridge
entering these protected waters
with no identity except hope
now doomed to lick and find
no nourishment
never able to rise above the jutting wall of
sharp-edged boulders
positioned to keep them in their place
beneath
below
yet still they come
with relentless repetition
fueled by courage that defies reason
seeking what they do not have
My original intention for my Doc Flamingo’s Blog was to write about my travels to France plus offer columns focused on the other interests in my life–flamingos, Corsica, fiction writing, making book trailers, classic cars and auto racing, and various psychological topics garnered from my 44 years as a Psychologist.
The best laid plans…etc. sometimes go astray. For me it has been a second retirement, two serious falls, the onset of health problems related to aging, and all that “life” stuff!
But this summer I have the opportunity to return to my first love–travel in France. My daughter and granddaughters (ages 7 and 9) are all bilingual and spend 6 weeks every summer somewhere in France. The girls attend French summer camps while the adults, such as grandmothers who spend some of the summer there, enjoy long lunches at the best restaurants and visit museums, hilltop villages, historic sites, and chateaux. I joined them 2 years ago in Annecy, and in prior years in Orleans, and Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume. We most often take advantage of home exchanges which not only bring the cost of housing down to zero but provide us with free transportation. Ah…all the more to spend on those fabulous lunches.
This year after a few days exploring Dijon while the girls were at sleep-away camp in Burgundy, we drove to Les Baux en Provence to see the Van Gogh Lumieres show in the quarry there. And then on to our home exchange on the 17th floor of a high rise in Monaco with a drop dead gorgeous view of the Monte Carlo harbor and the convenience of an INTERMARCHÉ grocery store on the ground level. Interestingly, from our balcony I could see the very spot where we berthed of yacht Wigeon of Fearn during my wild adventure at age 19 in 1963.
In future posts I will add more photos and describe the girls summer camps and museums, historic sites, and hilltop villages that we visited along the Côte d’Azur.
Ava Catherine Roberts Kinnison in 1908 with husband Charles and first child Hilda
On this International Women’s Day, I was thrilled to discover the Fifty-Eighth Catalogue of Ohio Wesleyan University, which lists my grandmother, Ava Catherine Roberts as a resident of Monnett Hall, and the recipient of the Degree of Bachelor of Literature in 1902.
The Catalogue states that at Monnett Hall “the rooms are furnished with the exception of bed clothing and towels.” And in addition to bringing their own linens, each student “should come provided with waterproof, umbrella, and overshoes; also tumbler, teaspoons, knife and fork, for use in her own room.” The regular expenses at that dormitory for women taking only literary studies was $60 to $70 and covered scholarship, incidental fee, board, room, light, and heat for a term of 12 weeks. If students took Music or Art, which I’m sure my grandmother did, expenses went up $15. This did not include books or washing. Books were $3 to $5 a term. Washing was $2.50 to $5 a term but “facilities are afforded whereby those who desire can do a part of their own laundry work.” A comment is made that “charges at Monnett Hall are low compared with the advantages and comforts offered…much lower than usual in colleges of like grade.” However “all extravagances in dress of habits of life is discouraged by the officers of the University, and we hope to have the hearty cooperation of patrons and students in this direction.” In addition, “on reaching Delaware, young women are expected to take a street car, or one of the hacks found at each train, and go directly to Monnett Hall. The hackman will see that the trunks are promptly delivered at the Hall.”
Ohio Wesleyan Female College was established in 1853. It was incorporated into the Ohio Wesleyan University in 1877 “to secure an equal educational opportunity with men” according to the Board Of Trustees minutes from June of 1877.
There were 828 men and 557 women in attendance at Ohio Wesleyan 1902—a significantly higher proportion of women than were in attendance at Stanford University when I was a Freshman in 1961.
Degrees achieved by women in 1902 at Ohio Wesleyan—one hundred and seventeen years ago!
Ava Catherine taught English and German prior to her marriage to Charles Kinnison. They lived in Willoughby, Ohio and had two girls–Hilda born in 1908 and my mother, Ava Margaret, born in 1914 (seen at 17 standing in this photo).
My mother followed in her mother’s footsteps and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1937 with a Degree in Political Science.
Obtaining a PhD was mandatory considering the history of the women in my family!
Source: Unknown
#10 – You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for as long as you live. How you take care of it or fail to take care of it can make an enormous difference in the quality of your life.
#9 – You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time school called Life. Each day, you will be presented with opportunities to learn what you need to know. The lessons presented are often completely different from those you think you need.
#8 – There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error and experimentation. You can learn as much from failure as you can from success.
#7 – A lesson is repeated until it is learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it…
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For an exciting holiday gift and a thank you to the hundreds of fans and followers of my Doc Flamingo’s Blog, my Facebook Page, and my @docflamingo Twitter page,
VIEW THE TRAILERS TOO!
View the heart-pounding DEGREES OF OBSESSION trailer and the suspenseful MOTHER TONGUE trailer.
DEGREES OF OBSESSION – SYNOPSIS
Charlie Pederson, fierce but flawed like all women who have loved deeply and lost, takes a dangerous thrill ride from risky infatuation to the edge of disaster when she stalks her still suck-the-breath-out-of-you handsome college flame.
As a therapist, Charlie knows she should abandon her crazed obsession over Danny Shapiro. But as a woman turning fifty and stifled in her marriage to deadly dull Harold, she finds herself driven to take a dicey last chance to find all that her heart needs.
Little does she suspect that an impulsive visit to Danny’s law office will make her the target of a homicidal erotomaniac. As she chases Danny down, she jeopardizes her professional reputation, infuriates her best friend, alienates her husband, and risks exposing the most painful secret of her life.
DEGREES OF OBSESSION has it all—juicy romance and heart-pounding suspense. Best of all, it shines light on the fears, follies, and fantasies that drive the choices women make and on the love that redeems them.
MOTHER TONGUE:LINGUA CORSA – SYNOPSIS
Child advocate attorney, Liz Fallon, desperately needs a break after legal blunders and her own negligence lead to the kidnapping and death of a mother and daughter she represents. Fluent in her mother’s native Corsican tongue, she nabs a job at a Paris newspaper as a lingua corsa translator for Pierre Benatar, whose coverage of the explosive Corsican Nationalist movement has enraged every separatist faction.
When Benatar and his seven-year-old son disappear, she resolves to prevent another tragedy and cons her way to Corsica under the ruse of researching a tabloid story about the mazzeri, the isle’s ancient harbingers of death. She cozies up to the prime suspects using her secret knowledge of lingua corsa and the aid of an elderly Brit and a courageous teen Corsican cousin. The hunters suddenly become the hunted when Liz’s inquiries arouse the suspicions and passions of both the separatist leader and the French police chief. When the mazzeri story also takes a chilling personal turn, she has to wonder whether Corsica intends to reclaim her as its prodigal daughter or destroy her.
Between recent infirmities and age, I’m not up to marching, so I created this video as my contribution to the efforts to resist policies that foster the inhumane treatment of immigrants.
The soundtrack is borrowed with much gratitude from my favorite French singer, France Gall, who recently passed away.
Here is a link to my video on YouTube.
Dr. Karen Stephen aka Doc Flamingo 