I’ve never taken the time to participate in Cee’s Share Your World, mostly because I am always rushing through posts and this one requires you to stop, and think, and write… So here’s my first, and hopefully not last, contribution.

What’s your most memorable (good or bad) airplane flight? Definitely, my most memorable airplane flight was going from New York to London on the Concord. I had always dreamed of making that famous short trip across the Atlantic and my dream finally came true in 2000. We celebrated our anniversary flying the British Airways Concord to spend the weekend in London. In spite of all the hoopla, the Concorde not very luxurious. The seats, while comfortable, were not as plush as most first-class seats in regular planes, but the food and the service were superb. And, of course, there was the excitement of moving twice the speed of sound: about 1,500 miles per hour, compared with 485 miles per hour on a commercial 737. Wow! Right? Quite a thrill there. Besides that, the crew really made you feel special. It was part of the Concorde folklore to make you have a great experience. They pampered you with all they could. We also got beautiful gifts, including elegant leather pieces, and a Wedgwood paperweight with Concorde illustrations (see photo below). I still have and use them. But the real treat was the fact that in 3 hours we were landing in London and ready to enjoy the city. Unfortunately, that same year, Air France’s Concorde crashed outside Paris, killing 113 people and from that point on things went downhill for the Concorde. On top of all the bad publicity about “mechanical flaws”, 9/11 caused ticket sales to plunge. With fewer people flying, it became very expensive to maintain the fleets. British Airways and Air France announced the end of the Concorde flights in 2003. I still mourn that loss… 😦

How many bones, if any, have you broken? None whatsoever, although I’ve had all sorts of minor injuries in my life…

If you had your own talk show, who would your first three guests be? (guest can be dead, alive, famous or someone you just know). My first guest would definitely be Barack Obama and we would only talk about cool stuff because he is a cool cat. Yes, I am a huge fan… 🙂 The second guest would be the legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, if I could bring him back to life. We would talk about his memorable work capturing all those incredible decisive moments. The third would probably be another photographer, Vivian Maier, who worked for forty years as a nanny, while secretly building a portfolio of some 150,000 photographs of the people and architecture of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Her work was found in 2007, two years before she died, when her negatives, prints, audio recordings, and 8 mm films were auctioned because she was ill and broke and stopped paying for their storage. That’s how the brilliant street photography of Vivian Maier was revealed to the world. I am intrigued by her decision to keep her extraordinary gift a secret and would like to hear her reasons.

Make a Currently List: What are you reading, watching, listening to, eating, needing, wanting, and missing right now? Reading: I’ve just begun reading “Numero Zero” Umberto Eco’s last novel, published just months before he died. Watching: I’m binge-watching “The Americans” and watching a three-part series on the Life of Napoleon Bonaparte; Listening: I am a classic rock lover but am very open to other genres. Currently I’m a bit obsessed with the music of Andra Day and Chris Stapleton (I know, such different genres…), and keep going back to them all the time. Eating: Not much. I’m in the middle of a “cleanse” which means eliminating all “toxic food” (i.e.,  delicious food) from my diet for 21 days. I have one more week to go. Needing: Nothing that I can think of. Wanting: to take another photography class to step up my skills. Missing: delicious, decadent meals…!!! 🙂

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? I am grateful that last week was uneventful and that I got to take nice early evening walks along my favorite place, Palisades Park, in Santa Monica. This week I’m looking forward to throughly cleaning up and adding new plants to our garden and backyard, with the help of the landscaping team of John, Carlos, and Antonio, because my husband and I are terrible gardeners…