Merhaba,

   I spent way too much time on the boat yesterday.  Luckily there was only a small piece of banana bread left and no chips.  So this morning I left fairly early for a long walk along the coast.  I thought I’d walk and then stop for a Turkish coffee, read my Kindle and then walk back.  I found the dolmus stop for the towns of Icemeler and Turunc.  I found stands that sold magazines…way too expensive and I found that walking along the beach promenade in the summer season is way too hot and quite boring.  It’s hundreds of empty beach chairs along the water side and hundreds of empty bars/restaurants along the other side.  So I cut over and walked back along the main road and that was better.  Lots of small shops selling beach necessities, lotions, sun glasses, towels, flip flops, bathing suits, things that say Marmaris!.  None of the coffee shops seemed appealing and the outside seating was mostly in the sun.  I decided just to walk back to the boat and eat a peach.  I also finally decided that I WOULD BUY A MAGAZINE which is what prompted this whole somewhat goofy email.  I need to get a life!

Ru

    If you don’t do something right away, you don’t do it. Maybe you forget, maybe you never have time, or maybe, as I can easily do, you think yourself out of it. After a week of arguing with myself, I finally bought a ridiculously expensive “ladies magazine.” Harper’s Bazaar. I really wanted Vogue, but that was even more ridiculously expensive, though at that point what’s a few more Turkish Lira here or there. But I drew the line and took the cheaper but just as enticingly fat Fall Fashion Issue of Harper’s Bazaar.

The magazine was printed in the UK so the first price is given in Pounds £4.30. The price in other countries follows: US $ 8.99, Canada $9.95, Australia $10.99, New Zealand $14.99, and France €6.95, and Italy €7.95 in Euros. Now $8.99 in the US would have given me pause. But even that isn’t as bad as the price in Turkish Lira which is 19 TL or $10.61 American Dollars. The Vogue would have been US $12.84. Other magazines like Elle, MarieClaire were more expensive and less appealing. As it is, I don’t know why I needed to buy this magazine, I only know that I NEEDED TO BUY THIS MAGAZINE. It’s something that hits me every now and then, though it has nothing to do with clothes or keeping up with fashionistas. If it’s not loose, comfortable, and fairly inexpensive, I don’t buy it. Unless I truly love it, will wear it for years, and it’s only sort of expensive. Shoes are exempt: they have to be Good or they don’t work or last at all. And it’s hard to lose them. I lost my Tana Toraja, Indonesia scarf in Cyprus and my Cyprus scarf in Israel. I still have my Israeli scarf….at least for now when it’s too hot to use it. I lost those scarves because they were worn more for decoration than necessity so I didn’t miss them when they fell by the wayside. The Tana Toraja scarf left me at Kantara Castle in Cyprus and the Cyprus scarf left me on Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Hope they are having good lives with their new owners.

    But back to this odd “need” for Vogue or whatever. I actually read the Vogue book and movie reviews and some of the interviews are usually pretty interesting. The clothes were so “couture” that to me they were more like costumes than clothes. But it was fun to look, and flipping through the pages was like watching a costume drama on TV or Dallas. For me, books, while entertaining offer less escapism. Movies don’t cut it either. Marshall McLuhan would say those mediums don’t reach me the way a magazine does. And though I am already a place where people except to, sometimes I need to escape from it. Maybe looking at magazines is like window shopping;  it’s the ultimate “just looking.” I know lots of magazines have web versions and there are “blogs” that cover about everything; BUT IT’S NOT THE SAME AS FLIPPING PAGES. At least not for me.  And since we buy our wifi time from Turkcell, maybe it works out the same either way. 

Magazine Stall in the Old Town where the magazines are çok pahali ( very expensive)

National Geographic was only available in Turkish or I’d have bought that too.

Ukrainian Woman (marble)

Marmaris 1st International Sculpture Symposium April-May 2008

Volodymar Kohmar is the Ukrainian Artist

She is just near the magazine stand and from the look on her face found the magazines too expensive also.

Speaking of art, I actually got out some art supplies yesterday. My artist friend Heidi shared one of her many techniques of using water color. You put watercolor on a piece of glass,  and then press paper onto it and then depending on what you see in the patterns….or you just use the paper and “make something happen.” Hers are wonderful. Mine are not. I have not learned how to use the right amount of water or LEAVE WHITE SPACE.   My subjects were a knife, fork, and two spoons from the set given to us by Charmaine and Linda. I used purple and black to try to catch the shimmer. No suck luck……

Way too much paint and too much of one solid blob…..

In real life the black ink I used didn’t do the job so I lost interest but might add a wine goblet and water glass that were also gifts from Charmaine and Linda. But at least there was more white space to maybe look like shine…..

Then these blobs reminded me of women doing yoga…..

Hopefully when we return to Marmaris after our fall visit home, there will be more cruisers here and I can find an art buddy. What I did stumble across is the International Academy of Marmaris which is actually located 12 miles away in Turunc. I hope I can maybe find an art teacher there. I will take the dolmus to Turunc this week and try to find the place

Randal and I have been there by motorbike and hopefully when the final motorbike paperwork is ever straightened out, we’ll bike there again. In the meantime the dolmus is fine.

  "IAM(International Academy of Marmaris) s a centre for art and culture. It belongs to a social foundation and is a non-profit organization. The buildings were erected by private initiative. The result is a wonderful building complex with a unique atmosphere. It meets the highest expectations and aspirations and is available as an international meeting place to people from all countries for activities in all fields of arts and crafts. In this beautiful setting, IAM offers an opportunity to combine intensive work with leisure-time activities and culture. In these surroundings combining sea, sun and nature, this is the ideal place to recharge your batteries, generate new ideas, exchange views with old or new friends and develop joint projects." http://www.akademimarmaris.net/index.php?&chlang=_e&myp=&txt_src

One last thing…  I have been doing lots more reading thanks to my Kindle.  I do find that some Amazon books priced for free are worth about that amount.  But some are surprising good.  The one I’m reading now was less that $4 to download.  I may have paid less; it may have been free.  I can’t remember but I don’t buy them for more than $4.  I am reading Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas. It is a wonderful book. I love the way she writes.

  "When Abigail Thomas’s husband, Rich, was hit by a car, his brain shattered. Subject to rages, terrors, and hallucinations, he must live the rest of his life in an institution. He has no memory of what he did the hour, the day, the year before. This tragedy is the ground on which Abigail had to build a new life. How she built that life is a story of great courage and great change, of moving to a small country town, of a new family composed of three dogs, knitting, and friendship, of facing down guilt and discovering gratitude. It is also about her relationship with Rich, a man who lives in the eternal present, and the eerie poetry of his often uncanny perceptions. This wise, plainspoken, beautiful book enacts the truth Abigail discovered in the five years since the accident: You might not find meaning in disaster, but you might, with effort, make something useful of it."
http://www.abigailthomas.net/abigail-thomas-three-dog-life.html

We have a 3G dongle because the wifi in the marina isn’t so great and my computer, even with the small antenna booster, just won’t connect. Every place else in the world it worked, but not here, hmmm. So I use my computer and the dongle to order books sent to my Kindle. After I order the book and ask it to be sent to my Kindle, I turn the Kindle on, turn the wifi on and a 3G symbol appears and downloads the book. Now the Kindle isn’t connected to the dongle so, to me,  it’s mind boggling magic that this works. At least I think that’s what’s happening. I can pick up the marina wifi if I go up on our flybridge. Maybe the Kindle is remembering that, but I don’t think so. I think it’s the 3G. Anyway, I’m just happy it works.