Christmas cards have been sent out. Those I don’t have a lot of contact with received a letter included or hand-written note with our recent highlights. And here they are:

12/7/25 we held Ray’s private invitation book launch at Capital Books on K, in Sacramento. I booked the Flamingo Lounge on the second floor. A cute, intimate room with large picture windows overlooking K Street. Ray read from volume one of Love at Third Sight. We also offered our guests Prosecco, finger sandwiches and cookies. We had a great turnout and Ray and I were very happy with the event, the location and the staff of the bookstore were very helpful and accommodating. Some photos:

Yesterday we had the annual Christmas Party for our neighborhood. We rent a hall and there were about a hundred people there. It was great to catch up with those we only see occasionally on our walks. Also got to spend time with Donna and Jackie who I haven’t seen since our art show at our house in September. There was a raffle as well as Mexican food and plenty of Prosecco. Ray and I did well this year and both won prizes:

This past September the Verge Arts Center held their annual art exhibit inhouse and artists opened their homes on two weekends. We participated this year and hosted in our back garden several local artists.

Follow us on IG:

https://www.instagram.com/martathelegend/ and https://www.instagram.com/raybrankline/

and on FB:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057861271124

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009287921769

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https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=YITurUMZifxBntfdGj3Lk2Ocfg8huCgvUI3tNob8jU9

Love At Third Sight
Written by Brankline, Ray

Paperback
$19.99

Ships to the US.
Description
Love at Third Sight is a semi-autobiographical account of the young Paul Leone and Rebecca O'Leary from their first meeting, through first jobs, first muggings, first auditions, first run-in with the cops, first jobs, and lots of challenges. It delves into the search for maturity of young college students who fall in love, knowing love only as an innocent concept and finding what the true meaning is through laughter, pain, ambition, dreams and lofty notions.

Product Details:
Paperback
6 x 9 inches
202 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966558-62-0

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I was a professional belly dancer for 25 years, traveling around the globe.

https://designer-marta.blogspot.com/2025/01/how-my-dance-career-went-from-hobby-to.html

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https://designermarta.etsy.com/listing/1808126955/lightweight-gold-satin-harem-pants-for

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I can’t call this ‘weekly roundup,’ which would have a better ring to it, simply because I don’t write on a weekly basis! LOL

So, a lot of things have been going on.
1 – I discovered that advertising with Etsy is more effective than advertising with Google. I paid for advertising on Google for 6 months and was lost in the over-abundance of products, it seems. Nothing came of it when I checked my stats. I stopped that and started paid advertising with Etsy. The first week, my stats showed a huge improvement and sales increased. Additional perk is that Etsy advertises on Google, so I am showing there now in the Etsy ads. I love it!

2 – I was focusing on my children’s costumes in my shop. But the stats show a huge interest in my professional stage belly dance costumes and my harem pants. So guess where I’m shifting my focus.

3 – Ray’s book is getting closer to publication, though we don’t have an exact date yet. But we have been discussing the promotion. We will be blasting it out on social media to one and all!

4 – We finally contracted to get new windows for the house. The company will setup the scaffolding at the end of this month. Can’t wait. When it’s windy, it whistles through the windows since they don’t close properly any longer. This is just the front windows. If the house settled somehow or the ground shifted underneath, wouldn’t ALL the windows have shifted? I guess not.

5 – Ray and I put up the clothesline that Michael made for the Rush River house. Now I can hang the sheets, blankets and all the small stuff out in the open, under the covered patio. I am so happy about that. A smaller carbon footprint, and less power usage by not using the dryer any longer. Win-win.

Here’s one of the recent baby costumes, with link to my shop:

https://www.martathelegend.com/online-shop?store-page=Child-belly-dance-costume-p696989645

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After several months of submitting Ray’s manuscript “Love at Third Sight” to literary agents, we finally got a book deal with Penguin Publishing last week. The manuscript is currently being edited by one of their professional editors and we have a terrific Project Manager who has been very encouraging. I am absolutely over the moon about it!

The back-story is that Ray wrote the book 40 years ago. When we moved into the new house I found a tote filled with yellowing typewritten pages. You know, with one of those old electric typewriters! LOL I immediately asked him to get the pages in order and give them to me to put in digital format. It took a month for me to type it up in Microsoft Word, but now we have it.

Then we started editing. Seven versions later we were ready to start submitting. We had four rejections, or maybe five. And I needed to submit individually each time as each agent has different criteria and number of pages or chapters they want submitted. So finally getting this deal with Penguin Publishing is a huge relief for me! Now I feel like we are moving forward.

Next steps are author photo and bio and the book cover itself. I mentioned to the Project Manager that Ray is an artist and we may want to use one of his paintings for the cover, she loved the idea, remarking that it will make the book more personal.

So, off we go! Book deal for Ray with Penguin Publishing

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Yesterday I saw the film American Fiction. Great film, great actors, and a message we need to hear, repeatedly.

When we got home, I looked up the song Stagger Lee from Lloyd Price from 1959, which in turn made me look up the story behind the song.

First the song.

Here is a link to the original version that I remember as a kid:

But while searching, I discovered that Dick Clark thought the lyrics were too violent for his American Bandstand show and had Price rewrite them to tone it down for performance on the show,

with a happy ending. History of Stagger Lee 1950 – 1960.

Here are the original lyrics:

The night was clear
And the moon was yellow
And the leaves came tumbling down

I was standing on the corner
When I heard my bulldog bark
He was barking at the two men
Who were gambling in the dark

It was Stagger Lee and Billy
Two men who gambled late
Stagger Lee threw seven
Billy swore that he threw eight

Stagger Lee told Billy
“I can’t let you go with that
You have won all my money
And my brand new Stetson hat”

Stagger Lee went home
And he got his .44
Said, “I’m going to the bar room
Just to pay that debt I owe” (go’n Stagger Lee)

Stagger Lee went to the bar room
And he stood across the bar room door
Said, “Now nobody move”
And he pulled his .44

“Stagger Lee”, cried Billy
“Oh, please don’t take my life
I got three little children
And a very sickly wife”

Stagger Lee shot Billy
Oh, he shot that poor boy so bad
‘Til the bullet came through Billy
And it broke the bartender’s glass

Now look out, Stagg, come on
Get out of here Stagg
Police is coming
Go’n now Stagg

Songwriters: Lloyd Price, Harold Logan

The story

The story dates back to the late 1800’s. It is long, but totally worth the read.

The Real Story Behind That Bad Man “Stagger Lee” • Missouri Life Magazine

“On Christmas Eve, 1895, a shooting occurred in a North St. Louis saloon that was destined to find a prominent—and permanent—place in American oral tradition. “

“Lee belonged to a group of pimps known as macks. They were conspicuous for their strutting style and their flashy clothes. According to Cecil Brown, on the night Lee killed Billy Lyons, he wore a black dress coat, high-collar embroidered yellow shirt, elaborately patterned red velvet vest, and gray striped slacks. Dove-gray spats covered the tops of his St. Louis flats low-heeled shoes, with long, pointed, upswept toes, on each of which was a small mirror, designed to catch the light. He wore gold rings on his fingers and carried a  gold-headed cane. Crowning it all was an expensive highroller, white Stetson, its hatband adorned with an embroidered image of his favorite girl, Lillie.”

A memory

While I read the last quoted paragraph above, suddenly I remembered Matthias and Frankfurt, a long time ago. In the mid 1980’s I danced in a nightclub on a boat moored on the Main River in Frankfurt, Germany. It was large with a long bar, dance floor and generous seating on the deck. Below deck, Matthias had an office and private bar with seating for maybe 20.

Matthias was a tall, handsome, Nigerian. Married to a German woman named Ellen. He came to the club every night dressed to the nines. Alligator shoes, flocked velvet vests, silk shirt, numerous gold chains around his neck and a huge gold medallion. Gold and diamond rings. Curly black hair shining with pomade. Always easy-going, smooth-talking.

I don’t recall how I came to perform there, perhaps through the artists union or an agency, as I was listed with various promoters throughout Germany. When I did my show, the audience was attentive and appreciative, though they didn’t look at all like the audiences I was used to. I think they were in more transitory fields of employment. I never spoke with any of them, but I do recall that Hans bought a car stereo from some muscled guy with dark glasses and tattoos. It was hot, no doubt. And two weeks after we installed it in our Peugeot, it was stolen while parked on the Kaiserstrasse in Frankfurt.

One night Hans and I showed up for my show and the boat was dark and no one was around. We drove back to our apartment in Offenbach and the next morning, there was his photo in the Bild Zeitung. After closing the night before, he had an altercation with someone below deck over money and drugs and Matthias had been shot dead.

Read more musings here.

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We’ve all had them. One of ‘those‘ days. One of those days of just an average individual. The day starts off great, I’m getting things done, I’m planning, I’m doing. Then it starts. Things go wrong.

Plan A

I was going through my new book on HTML 5 and CSS and starting a timeline for the new site. Ray knocks on the door and we decide to go for a walk. It’s a beautiful, sunny day. I need my cane anyway as the numbness in my feet throws me off-balance occasionally. Halfway through the walk, Ray starts getting double vision and loses his balance. We stop and sit a bit to see if it will pass. It doesn’t. Taking his arm, we hobble together the rest of the way home.

Not Planned 1

Ray makes an appointment for the eye-doctor for tomorrow. He is walking sideways every time he gets up to go anywhere. He made a eye-patch. When one eye is covered, the dizziness is slightly better.

Not Planned 2

Workers show up to check why there is a rain leak on the back sliding doors. Two years ago we installed new doors. They removed the molding above the doors. We see that the window cap flashing is exposed, showing that it was installed backwards. Due to the flashing being installed incorrectly, the water is directed toward the door instead of to the outside. Sigh.

Planned

My two kittens have an appointment for grooming. Because of the goings on in the house with workers in and out, and Ray stumbling around, they are spooked and are hiding out. I managed to get Quimby into the carry case and have her waiting, meowing, in the laundry room. Flora is located, but she is squirming because she hears Quimby and thinks the world is ending. I barely make it downstairs with her squirming legs flying everywhere.

Plan B

I arrive at PetSmart http://www.petsmart.com and realize I have forgotten the rabies vaccination papers. They won’t touch the kittens without proof. I checked my email. I recall received copies by email. Can’t find them. Call Ray and ask him to txt photos of the documents to me. Explain that the docs are upstairs in the computer room in a yellow folder. Just as he txt me the pics, I find the email. One of those days of just an average individual.

Grooming goes pretty much with ease. Ok, they needed to put a cone on Quimby and a harness. She’s never had either, so she is weirded out. Flora’s cool. We get home. Ray let’s me know the workers will be back tomorrow to complete new flashing and other repairs on one section of the roof. I check my txt messages: $900.

Not Planned

I made a temporary eye patch for Ray. I converted one of the fabric masks we wore early on during COVID.

Plan C

Oh, and we were planning to go out to dinner tonight, but that’s not possible now. Tomorrow I will drive Ray to the eye doctor. Hopefully it is not something serious. Possibly an inner ear issue, or nerve issue. One of those days of just an average individual.

What. A. Day.

Read about some of my better days here. They’re not all like today!!

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Just completed: latest design for a child’s belly dance costume. The costume is made from suede. The skirt is chiffon. Both the top and belt are decorated with a self-designed trimming. I created the trim with my new machine. I’m looking forward to hearing what you think! You can see it here:

https://www.martathelegend.com/online-shop

Using Suede

It is the first time I have worked with suede. I never thought about using it for costumes and am happy to discover that I can punch holes around the edges, and they will not need finishing. Then I can embroider the pieces together or use a blanket stitch to create an edging. It is fun experimenting with this, for me, new media. That’s the latest costume design, there will be plenty more!

This also means I can use different types of threads, even yarns and ribbons to finish edges. Appliques can also be produced with suede and decorated in various ways.

Using Felt

I decorated a barrette using felt which I cut out with my welding machine. I folded the felt and stitched it onto the barrette. Lastly, I stitched plastic butterflies on either side. The result was cute and fun. Here is a photo:

The felt edging is in my online shop as well to use for scrapbooking, napkin holders, clothing and costuming, and other craft projects. I wrote an idea book to accompany the project packages. I am also compiling a costume idea catalog which will contain most of the costumes made in my atelier in Istanbul. The catalog will be available for download. Just another of the many projects on the planning board! I am sure some of you have the same dilemma: hours in the day vs. projects in our heads! LOL

Beyond the latest costume design, more will be coming to the shop as I design and experiment, time permitting. Read about my workshop and the welding machine.

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