Squeeze in a celebration of the accordion

02 Jun 2015 Leave a comment

by Holly Ocasio Rizzo in Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

Ah-one, ah-two, and break out the bubbles: In June, the national spotlight shines on the accordion.

Blame National Accordion Month on Tom Torriglia, a San Francisco accordionist

Creative Commons/public domain

Creative Commons/public domain

who established it in 1989, then got San Francisco to make the accordion the city’s official musical instrument the next year, though not without a protest by kazoo players.

It’s fitting that the observance originated in The City, because Guerrini Accordion Co. produced the first U.S.-made piano accordion there in 1907. That’s the type that looks like it has piano keys on one end. People loved it. An accordion virtuoso, Guido Deiro, even developed a style called “Frisco Sound,” playing dates all over the West – and playing the real-life husband of actress Mae West.

The accordion in all its forms was not only a San Francisco treat. You’ll hear it in music from almost every part of the globe. China has lately made more accordions than any other country. Lucy Liu, Billy Joel and Shakira all play. Weird Al Yankovic wouldn’t be half as weird without one. Torriglia once told More

Going native in the garden

01 Jun 2015 Leave a comment

by Holly Ocasio Rizzo in Uncategorized Tags: , ,

I arrived steeled for a riot, boots laced up, garden gloves on and wheeled crate at my side. I’ve heard about these native plant sales. The quantities are so limited

Iris douglasiana gone wild at Strawberry Peak! (Holly Ocasio Rizzo)

Iris douglasiana gone wild at Strawberry Peak! (Holly Ocasio Rizzo)

that ordinarily mild people, it is said, go wild at them. Turn your back, and there go all four of the Rosa californica you’ve hankered for years to adopt. Turn too fast, and get whacked in the thigh with a two-quart nursery pot of Iris douglasiana.

You can’t just go out in the national forest and dig up these things. It’s illegal. What grows in the forest stays in the forest. It is not for domestication.

Thirty-five dollars later, I proudly owned a California wild rose, a Humboldt lily and a matilija poppy that will produce platter-size flowers resembling fried eggs. All will tuck into the new garden at the top of my property.

My neighbor has made grand plans for my garden there, which she sees from her kitchen window. The plans involve rows of lavender inspired by photos of Provence and the so-called “old” roses that Napoleon and Josephine grew at Malmaison. The perfume would satiate us and the beauty would stun us. But the garden would not be wild.

My imagination, especially now in the drought, crowds my garden with a riot of orange-tinged blanket flowers, fiery penstemons, golden yarrow and blue California lilacs. I want a fence made of sunflowers and hollyhocks and a pergola made of pallets with a bamboo shade. Everything would look More

Finish line for the Blogathon — but not the blog!

30 Jun 2014 Leave a comment

by Holly Ocasio Rizzo in Uncategorized Tags:

Today marks the end of the Freelance Success/WordCount Blogathon. If not for the Blogathon, I might not have started this blog.WordItOut-word-cloud-441119-1 Because of the Blogathon, I won’t end it.

The Blogathon has become an annual event in which the participating bloggers set their own challenges and set out to reach them. An overall goal for all the bloggers — if they choose it — is to blog every day.

Blogging daily requires the discipline to Velcro your shorts to your desk chair to get it done, creativity to try new ways of blogging and stick-to-it-iveness to come up with enough blog ideas to cover each day of the month. Like marathoners, blogathoners hit a wall around the halfway point; some get a second wind and keep going, others slow down or drop out.

As you can see by this site, I made it all 30 days. In fact, all you’ll see on the California WildWoman blog site right now is the Blogathon. That’s because this event kicked off my blog. It was fun! Now I don’t want to sit on the sidelines anymore: I want to keep blogging.

I may take a few days off to sharpen the blog’s focus and to decide how often to write. My new goal will be to entertain you while also informing you, but not necessarily to race.

Thank you for this journey through June. I very much appreciate your views, visits, likes, comments and support — and I’ll see you again on Fourth of July weekend!

(Note: I planned to do something special for this post, but I was sick and couldn’t get it done. I’ll try again this weekend. This thing will make you smile.)

— Holly

Iggy says ‘bye for now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkxZDwLsUoA

The heartbreak that time doesn’t heal

29 Jun 2014 Leave a comment

by Holly Ocasio Rizzo in Uncategorized Tags: , ,

My sister’s birthday passed last week without my thinking about it. She got her wish. I was the last one in the family still trying to keep the door open after sheMission Impossible walked out of it.

I bring up the subject because summertime is family reunion time – time to haul out the usual petty BS about relatives. It’s pretty easy to sort out the gossipy aunt, the rude brother-in-law, the cousin who spills too much personal information. Then there is adult sibling jealousy, a one-sided condition that leaves its victims baffled. It’s basically the jealous sibling’s self-imposed retribution for her own feeling that she was short-changed by parental comparisons and expectations while growing up.

My sister has adult sibling jealousy. The name sounds like a condition for grade-schoolers, but it’s not. It’s also not as simple as a family feud. In a family feud, both sides can kiss and make up. With adult sibling jealousy, that will never happen unless the jealous one overcomes her feelings. It’s estimated that 45 percent of adults have a jealous relationship with a sibling, and that it’s often one-sided. In fact, the brothers and sisters who are victims of this abuse may be stunned by it, never realizing it exists. I was.

I’m not going to haul all the skeletons out of a walk-in closet, but I do want to give you a couple of early examples. It took a long time to figure out More

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