On a Limb with Claudia

I NEED YOUR HELP!

I have decided that I should be the next co-host of the View with Barbara Walters and I NEED YOUR HELP!

I wrote her this email:
______________________________________
Dear Barbara,

I would like to apply for the position of co-host on the View. Here are some of my qualifications:

1. I have 3 sisters and am well known for holding a middle ground between strong women with a variety of opinions.

2. I am tall and there no tall co-hosts on the View. Tall women make up a large demographic in the United States.

3. I am randomly good looking but prefer to think of myself as the ?smart? one instead of the ?pretty? one leaving room for anyone who wants to be the ?pretty? one on the show.

4. I am the founder of the Open Grove. We create audio programming in holistic health and wellness. For over 5 years, I have conducted telephone and in-person interviews. (One of our largest demographics is women in their 70s ? you?ll love us!) I am known for my insightful questions and thoughtful commentary as well as my bubbly friendly charm. I have a relationship with many people in the Holistic Health world and can easily pull some interesting, and not too stupid people, from my Rolodex if the View needed people to interview.

5. I am well read, well mannered, well groomed, and well educated (UC Berkeley, Biochemistry 1986, Antioch, MA Clinical Psychology 1994).

6. I once received a hand written note from Janet Reno.

7. I have High Blood Pressure and would never ever hide my struggle with it or what ever holistic or medical intervention I needed to take in order to stay alive.

8. I have a MySpace page, but my dog Rose has more friends than I do.

Thank you for your interest!

Warmly,

Claudia H. Christian
Founder, The Open Grove
Fabulous Human Being
_____________________________
HERE'S HOW YOU CAN HELP!

Take a moment and send an email to Barbara by going to this page and click on Email Barbara.

SUBJECT: Hire Claudia Christian for the next co-host of the View

BODY:

Dear Barbara,

Please hire Claudia Christian for the next co-host of the View.

Thank you

A quiz for you!

We Netflixed the The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants this week and really liked it. I had 3 sisters growing up and the movie portrayed some of the fun of having so many sisters. There is actually a Sisterhood Central about the 4 novels written by Ann Bradshares. Check out this quiz.

My sister soul mate is Bridget. That's nearly impossible for me to believe as she is the "pretty" one and we all know that I am the "smart" one.... Here's my description: You are an aggressive go-getter who sometimes bites off more than you can chew, but life for you is about pushing boundaries. You exude confidence and like being the center of attention. Your friends enjoy being around you.

If you haven't seen the movie, it's fun, short and perfect after a long day of blogging. Check it out!

Crazy

My sister is crazy.

"Oh?" you say politely thinking something like, "Sheez, Claudia should work out her relationships."

Except my sister is really crazy. Always has been. Right now she is employed by the government as a paranoid schizophrenic. If you ask her, she works for the CIA as a secret operative.

The fact that she was always crazy is up for family debate. My sister was in a terrible car accident when she was 20 years old. According to one side of the argument, her delusions began as a result of the accident. Even though my maternal grandmother and paternal cousin were both paranoid schizophrenics, some people believe that my sister's mental disorder is not genetic.

The problem is that I remember her insanity when we were kids. She would bow out of roller skating, biking or our favorite activity (throwing ripe oranges at each other), to lay on her bed and day dream. My father thought she was reading, and gave her hundreds of books which collected dust on the shelf. My mother talked about her day dreaming in her bassinette for hours as an infant. She was lost in her own world decades before she was diagnosed.

She defended her insanity with an impulsive violent temper. She was a big heavy person. She was terrifying when she was angry. She hit, punched, slapped, and bit. She pushed me out of the car if she was driving.

Her ideas, and delusions, were defended with violence. I have noticed this pattern a lot lately - delusional insanity defended by violence. Have you noticed this as well?

Worth sharing

I found this in Rob Brezney's astrology newsletter. I get his newsletter in order to figure out what the next week might look like for me. Unfortunately, being a very literal person, I mostly don't understand what he's saying. It's still a bright point in my week.

This was part of the inspirational part of the newsletter.

MIRABILIA REPORT

Mirabilia n. innovations generated by unseen presences, enigmatic
phenomena on the cusp between fake and real, odd acts of deliverance
that inspire love or wonder or both; from the Latin mirabilia, "marvels."

* In 2002, scientists discovered a secret underground river running 800
feet below a Mauritanian town in the Sahara Desert. With a flow rate of
8,450 gallons per hour, it is the biggest unnamed river in the world.

* Oblivious to dire biblical prophecies about swarms of locusts, residents
of Beijing, China, warmly greeted their arrival in 2002. They scooped the
insects up in large bags, deep-fried them, and made them the main dish of
an enormous feast.

* Two percent of your fears are based in fact and are actually worth
worrying about, while the other 98 percent are either imagined or else not
yours, having infected you through the psychic version of contagion.

* Astronomers have discovered a crystal as big as our moon at the core
of a dying white dwarf star.

* A Japanese genius invented a robot that can belly dance.

* Twelve percent of the population believes that Joan of Arc was Noah's
wife.

* Because half of the world's vanilla crop is grown in Madagascar, the
whole island smells like vanilla ice cream.

* Your body contains so much iron that you could make a spike out of it,
and that spike would be strong enough to hold you up.

* Bali has 80,000 temples.

* Some piranhas are vegetarians.

MP3 Center

We finally posted our MP3 center tonight. It is a page in the audio magazine section. We included a link on the home page so it's easier to get to.

The audio magazines posted right now are fairly random. We have been publishing audio for over 4 years (text over 5 years), so there's a lot that's currently missing from the page. We wanted to test the interest in our MP3s while we continue to reconfigure the rest of our audio programming.

Currently we have also only listed the entire audio magazines. We will eventually post all the segments in MP3. We must find a better way to list them than what we have now. We are working on a specific search feature for our audio programming. We are hoping to post it this summer before we go on hiatus in August.

Check it out and let us know what you think by leaving a comment here or emailing us. If you have ideas or suggestions, please do not hesitate to make them. We are working to serving you better!

Longevity?

We are working on our longevity audio magazine and came upon this Longevity Game. It looks like I am going to live well into my 90s! What about you?

What? Real World Denver?

They just began taping the Real World in Denver and the Denver Post has them completely staked out. They have web-cams posted on the location. Spy-witnesses everywhere the Real Worlders go. All right under the noses of MTV. The reporters have been threatened, thrown out of bars, and the saga continues as MTV attempts to keep the Denver Post from spoiling their fall show.

Join in! Check out the Denver Post's website at: getrealdenver.com. Become a spy-witness. If you are out and about in Denver, let them know what you see.

Oh and by the way, if you signed your kid up for an Outward Bound trip this summer, you might want to reconsider as the Real Worlders are working there this summer - with no experience or expertise just employment created by MTV.

Mental Flexibility

Hey we posted the Mental Flexibilty newsletter this morning. It is part of our month long look at Longevity. Did you get a chance to take a look? Let us know what you think!

Life between....

Did you see this NY Times article? Life Between Jobs in the New York Times? This article speaks to Post Baby-Boomers quitting their jobs in order to live their lives, take a vacation, or go back to school. The "career experts" say that: "(t)he trend is an outgrowth of today's nomadic job culture, as well as an attitude among many young people open to adventure and big experiences ? and, yes, a bit of indulgence."

Oddly the article never mentions the lack of job security. Almost everyone I know has been laid off at least once and most people between the ages of 38 - 43 years old have been laid off 3 or 4 times. One friend was literally laid off from his first job the day he arrived to start it. We have always been disposable employees.

Why would we stick in there at a job when the employer is just as likely to "reorganize", "downsize" or "out source"? Why trust that we will "retire" when social security is in the toilet? Why not chuck it all when you have the chance and take some time off?

Most Post Baby Boomers know that we will be working all of our lives. We can't count on a retirement that we don't create. Is it honestly indulgent to take time off when you can rather than expecting that someone else will foot the bill later?

What do you think?

Read a good blog lately?

We met as a board last Thursday and decided to change our "In My Grove" section from an essay section to a blog review. We are interested in reading and reviewing the blogs you regularly read. If you like a particular posting or article, feel free to let us know.

We are not talking about a list of blogs or a blog search engine. We are talking about blogs that meet our standards of excellence including independence from traditional media sources, integrity and truth as well as editorial excellence. Oh, and these blogs need to match our mission as well.

You can trust that if you see a blog posted on the Open Grove, that it's worth your time reading. (And if it's not, feel free to let me personally, and we will remove it from our listing.)

Just some thing new at the Open Grove.....