My husband, William, and I have long been Artoartist (artists who sell their art through Art*o*mat machines). We have just launched a new series of Art*o*mat pieces called Fine Art Bag Tags. They feature William's photos of animated fruits and vegetables with a place on the back side for your own name and address so you can pop it on your bookbag, keys or luggage. They are coming to an Art*o*mat near you so watch for them.


Here's a picture of the whole bag tag with photo inside.


And, of course, this one is my favorite animated veggie! :)

Rhonda Locklair (the Barefoot Artist) and I first met on Myspace. We were just profile pages to each other at first, but after some e-mails and phone calls, a sincere friendship was forged. We felt we were kindred spirits though we live in different parts of the country.

Well, this past weekend, we met in person! That's right—no longer virtual friends but real friends! Rhonda flew from North Carolina to Wisconsin to take part in a laughter yoga leader training retreat that I was facilitating. She also atuned me as a Reiki Master during her brief stay in the Midwest. As you can see, we had an absolutely fabulous time together.

So yes, ours is a happy story that proves Myspace really can bring people together who can befriend and bless one another's lives. Visit my Barefoot Artist & Stray Eggplant Photo Album to see more silly photos my husband took of us together.

Announcing the release of Laura's brand new film, Laughter Friends: A Laughter Yoga Workout for Kids. The Web site is: www.laughterfriends.com.

Here is what the back of the DVD says about Laughter Friends:

Calling all kids & kids at heart!

Join Laughing Laura and her laughter friends in this fun, easy-to-follow laughter yoga workout on DVD! Laugh your way through dozens of delightful laughter exercises and deep breathing techniques to help make you healthier and happier while you sing and dance along with toe-tapping laughter songs. The more laughter friends, the better, so invite your family and friends to join you in the laughter fun!

Laura Gentry is a certified laughter yoga teacher, author,
artist, motivational speaker and pastor.

Produced by William and Laura Gentry
www.thegentryjoint.com

Filmed and edited by Red Letter Media
Music composed by Tom Bourcier
and Laura and William Gentry

To learn more about the worldwide laughter yoga movement and the Dr. Kataria School Of Laughter Yoga-- visit: www.laughteryoga.org.

Laughter yoga is a high-impact, aerobic exercise. Please consult your physician before beginning this or any other exercise program.

Total running time: 36 minutes
www.laughterfriends.com

"By producing this Laughter Yoga film for children, Laura Gentry has started a new initiative in America that will help young people laugh and play more, thus developing their emotional intelligence and communication skills as they grow."

—Dr. Madan Kataria
Laughter Yoga Founder

The Stray Eggplant project now has it's own site! It's just a start at this time, but please drop by and check it out at: www.strayeggplant.com

I've just returned from a vacation in Bulgaria. I went with my parents and my husband, William. We rented our own car and ventured into the unknown.

We learned a great deal about this country. No doubt, you've dreamed of a vacation in Bulgaria. But before you purchase your ticket, you should do these things to prepare yourself.

LEARN TO NAVIGATE BY MEANS OF MENTAL POWERS
In Bulgaria, they have discovered that road signs are a luxury item and not needed or used with any sense of regularity. What highway signs do exist are printed in the Cyrillic alphabet of the Bulgarian language and do not match the town names on our map, which are in our Latin alphabet. Fortunately, William studied Russian in high school and was able to decipher the signs for us. I am not kidding--there were whole cities without a single street sign. I don't know WHY they name the streets when they are never ever posted on those streets. It took my navigational skills to a whole new level. I could compete in the Olympics if they added a map-reading sport.

BECOME FLUENT IN BULGARIAN
Nobody in Bulgaria speaks English. Okay, I admit that I am exaggerating. We found 4 people in 2 weeks that knew a little. Apparently, they are too poor of a country to offer it in school. So it was back to the old act-everything-out routine for basic communication. This is my dad's favorite means of vacation communication and he calls it "international sign language" but even this does not work, as their "yes" is a back and forth head bobble that looks much like "no". Lucky for us, my parents brought a tour book with a few Bulgarian words so I didn't have to act out "I have to go to the bathroom" as I'm not sure there is a gesture for this which can be used in polite company. We learned the following in Bulgarian: hello, thank you, toilet, and I'm ready to pay the bill. If you know these words in the native language, you can get by in most any country. I even learned to count to 5 so as to help get our restaurant orders right. Sometimes even showing the number of fingers did not communicate numbers to our waitresses.

PACK PLENTY OF IMODIUM AD
Here is an essential trip for travelers: pack enough Imodium AD for any bowel troubles you may have eating foreign food so you don't have to ask for it by name in a country where you can't speak the language. Though we had the foresight to bring some along, Bulgarian cuisine affected us all and we soon ran out. Believe me, acting this one out for the pharmacists (who, of course, do not speak English and keep EVERYTHING--including cosmetics--behind the counter) was a bit embarrassing, but it did give everyone a good laugh both times we had to buy more.

NEVER BE WITHOUT YOUR OWN SUPPLY OF TOILET PAPER
Most travel books warn you to bring a little toilet paper along when you go to foreign nations, especially the less developed ones, but they weren't kidding when it comes to Bulgaria. Not only did they not have toilet paper, many places were altogether without toilets. That's right, even while dining in a fancy restaurant, you may go into the bathroom and find yourself facing nothing but a flushing hole with foot pads for where you're supposed to stand (in the less fancy restaurants, it is a non-flushing hole). For men, this is hardly a change from urinals, but for women this provides a noteworthy travel challenge. My advice: keep an eye out for forests along the highway. As long as you're going to have to bring your own toilet paper and squat anyway, you might as well go in a place that's nice-smelling. And as mentioned earlier, this situation reinforces the need for an ample supply of Imodium AD.

RESEARCH TOURIST SITES WELL IN ADVANCE
You can Google "Bulgarian Tourism" and find plenty of information on-line. This may lead you to believe that you will also find information in the country itself. This would be wrong. Bulgaria is not tourist-ready and may not be so for many years to come. We only found one tourist office in the entire nation and it was utterly vacated. If you wish to travel in Bulgaria, YOU have to take full responsibility find the unmarked attractions. The road signs will not tell you. And if you can somehow communicate your question the locals, they will simply make odd, indecipherable gestures. If, however, you do have the persistence and psychic abilities to find the sites, do not expect to find parking. World-class archeological and cultural sites are usually without a parking lot.

WATCH YOUR STEP
If there is a hazardous walking environment, do not plan to be warned by the Bulgarians. You can walk along Roman ruins dozens of meters in the air with no guard rails. Holes in the ground, into which you could fall to your death are not marked so do mind your step.

BE IN EXCELLENT PHYSICAL CONDITION
Handicap accessibility? What's that? You cannot see anything without traversing numerous, uneven steps with no handrails. To see the 8th century rock carving in the mountains of Madara, for example, you must be capable of walking the 373 odd-sized steps to reach the base.

LEAVE YOUR LAPTOP AT HOME
Despite the fact that some hotels advertise "free wireless internet" the signal is never strong. You can sit right on the base and get, at best, two bars of signal. This means that you cannot do any significant tourism research while on vacation either so do it well in advance, as stated previously, so leave your computer at home. And while we are on past points, do you have enough Imodium AD?

DODGE THE DOGS
Wherever you go, you'll encounter stray cats and dogs roaming the streets, politely begging for food in the outdoor sections of restaurants and rummaging through garbage bins. Unless you have updated rabies shots, try to avoid petting them. I had no problems with the stray dogs but the pet of some people we met, bit my heels in their house. He was sheep dog and clearly had mistaken me for one of the livestock, which I still have bruises to demonstrate.

PREPARE TO PARTY
Bulgarians, the books will tell you, are "a party people". We did not understand the inherent truth of this statement until we tried to sleep. Bulgarians do not seem to awaken until about noon and then they begin partying at 10 p.m. and go all night. They always use their outdoor voices during party hours, no matter where they are--even when they are inside your hotel on the floor right above you. They think nothing of talking, laughing, wrestling, jumping up and down, yelling and leaping off large objects at 3 o'clock in the morning. How could that possibly disrupt the sleep of those staying downstairs? Since you can't beat them, you might as well join them. With the low cost of the delicious Bulgarian beers, you can hardly afford not to party along. And you might as well take up smoking while you're there so you won't be the only one in the room without a cigarette in hand.

Despite these extraordinary impediments, we had a fabulous time and saw sprawling ancient fortresses, Roman baths, stadiums and amphitheaters, amazing Orthodox churches with countless fresco paintings, saw the horseman carving 100 meters up on a cliff of Madara, crawled inside hand-carved caves which served as a 3rd century monastery, boated across through the Black Sea in a flimsy boat, went to a bird sanctuary which is one of the most important bird-watching sites in the world, scaled up the side of a mountain to see the blue rocks in an old, open-air ski lift, "hiked with the car" through narrow old towns with just a few inches to spare on each side, dodged countless stray dogs, drove to several communist monuments on mountaintops. stood on the banks of the Danube River which flows through more countries than any other river in the world, the watched Bulgarian Independence Day fireworks from our guesthouse window, got free grapes, energy healing work and 60-degree vodka from a Bulgarian alternative medicine doctor who could not speak English but invited us into his home nevertheless, watched a narrow-gauge passenger train (which haven't been used in the US for about a hundred years) breeze by, were given a bottle of pear-based moonshine from English people living in Bulgaria, stayed at a fancy spa where I got a chocolate massage, walked inside the tomb of an ancient Thracian king whose belongings we'd seen earlier in a museum that day, rented luxury rooms at the Palace Hotel in Kazanlak that were larger than most houses, swam in therapeutic pools with no chlorine, endured hearing disco music everywhere even during breakfast, saw the rose oil capital of Europe, met the mayor of Ruse, looked across the river to see Romania, visited a trout farm, climbed into a wine cave in the town of Melnik and bought a bottle of wine that was filled right from the aging barrel and corked in front of us, saw a Bulgarian art exhibit, talked with a nun in a monastery (she was one of the 4 Bulgarians that spoke English), and managed to order enough food and Immodium AD--despite the language barrier--to subsist for 2 weeks of pure Bulgarian adventure.

Oh, and my mom received a blessing from an old peasant woman outside a church in Plovdiv. My mother can walk but uses a travel wheelchair for vacation because she has trouble walking for long distances. As soon as the woman gave the blessing, Mom promptly got up out of her wheelchair and began to walk--thoroughly astonishing the woman who thought she'd performed a genuine miracle! We all squeeled and carried on in order to help convince the woman of her healing powers. :)

The first Art*o*mat machine in Minnesota was just installed in Minneapolis at



Chambers
The Luxury Art Hotel of Minneapolis
901 Hennepin Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403

I just got word that my stray eggplants are currently available in this beautiful new machine.

Because I studied laughter yoga with Dr. Madan Kataria, the founder of the world wide laughter club movement and international authority on laughter, I made him an eggplant bearing a quote about the premise of laughter yoga: "laugh for no reason". He graciously received his eggplant with his characteristic chortle and promised to give it a happy home in India.

His website is www.laughteryoga.org.

Since becoming a member of myspace, I have met a number of other artists with whom I've swapped art. Here are some of my fabulous swaps.

HERB HOOVER
New York artist, Herb Hoover, and I traded one of his famous pop art pewter crackers for a customized eggplant.





HERB'S WEBSITE: www.herbhoover.com

REBECCA GRANTHAM
Ohio plein air painter, Rebecca Grantham and I swapped one of her beautiful paintings for customized eggplant.





REBECCA'S WEBSITE: www.rebeccagrantham.com

DR. EGGPLANT
Dr. Eggplant is a very ominous character in an unbelievably hilarious adventure film called "Oranges: Revenge of the Eggplant" written by Mike Stoklasa and Rich Evans. He holds the place of my very top friend at myspace because he demanded it--and there is no sense in arguing with a deranged eggplant. We traded a DVD of this great film for a customized eggplant.





DR. EGGPLANT'S MYSPACE: www.myspace.com/dreggplant



Rent this DVD from Netflix

Order the DVD from Amazon.com

Order the DVD from Tempe Video















FAT THUMB ORIGINALS
Michele Hirata is the creator of Fat Thumb Originals, which offers, among other things, beautiful beanies made to feel comfortable on everyone--even chemo patients who need a happy covering for their head. She ordered an eggplant from me and I sent her a bonus copy of my book, Living Word. Then, she sent a special eggplant colored hat for me and two others to donate to chemo patients. I love my Fat Thumbs hat. It is so comfortable and funky too.







FAT THUMB'S WEBSITE: www.fatthumboriginals.com

HEDONIST
Hedonist is a very talented young artist and she made me these inspired eggplant felties. Check out the monogramed eggplant pin! I feel like a vegetable version of Laverne from Laverne and Shirley. Too much fun! I am working on a customized eggplant for her.



HEDONIST'S MYSPACE: www.myspace.com/hedonist_j

Today, April 11, I was in the background action of a short clip about laughter yoga on the Oprah Winfrey Show! On Saturday, it was filmed at the Midtown Athletic Club in Palatine, Illinois.



Here I am with Oprah's make-up artist, Reggie Wells. We had so much fun in our laughter session!



Here are the two leaders for the Oprah segment: Jeffrey Briars (left) who started the Laguna Laughter Club that meets every day in Laguna Beach, California and my fantastic laughter yoga teacher, Sebastien Gendry (right), who first brought laughter yoga to this country and who, among other things, directs the American School of Laughter Yoga.



I gave Reggie this eggplant and he promised he'd get it to Oprah. So now I can count her among my eggplant collectors! :)

Check out these blogs by eggplant owners:



Modern Art Landscape Painting by Rebecca Grantham Blogspot

Grantham's Myspace Blog

Feminine Art's Myspace Blog

Purple Soup Blog

How Great Thou (Visual) Art by Jonathan Rundman at Blogspot




If you've blogged about the Stray Eggplants, please let me know so I can post a link here. Thanks!!