Vivian Greene

“The Kisses Business” By Erica M. Rauzen,
editor Miami / South Florida Magazine

Vivian Greene jauntily walks into an office and drops a beige teddy bear on the desk. The curly-haired bear is wearing a black lace teddy and carrying a red satin heart. “It’s a Let’s Have An Affair Bear”, Greene laughs. “Want her? Or a Kiss?”

The bear – not to mention thousands of Kisses™ greeting cards, hundreds of nighties, scores of dolls and countless comic strips – is one of Greene’s creations. Her products all emerge from her insight and intuition: the embodiments of charming, childlike cartoon characters.

She’s a business dynamo who bases her economic practices on emotion, something the Harvard School of Business would scorn. Greene, 37, initially became known as the creator of greeting cards bearing chubby, loving children and touching, wry slogans. The youngest and first female card manufacturer in the US at age 21, Greene made her first million by age 26. Her success began with the Kisses™ characters who appeared on her greeting cards and in her comic strip.

The tousled toddlers are drawn without eyes because, Greene reveals, “All that is real is seen with the heart…” and that’s how she does business.

Greene is a sought-after corporate consultant as well as the owner of four Kisses™ affiliate companies—a manufacturing plant, Kisses™ syndicator, an advertising/endorsement agency, and a retail franchise chain. Her practical, professional achievements are based as much upon love as logic, upon emotion as economics. Imagine a fortune and a bottom-line business reputation founded on whimsical greeting cards.

“I could love you forever… but after that you’re on your own!” teases one Kisses™ card depicting two kids dressed up as bride and groom. Another one, slightly more naughty from Greene’s Juvenile Delinquent line shows a cherubic innocent remembering, “I left my panties at your place.”

Greene’s product lines, including the newest additions Angelwishes and Be Cuz Bears crop up on stationary, key chains, folders, lunch buckets, bikinis and even on T-shirts for the Rain Festival in Seattle where Greene spent her childhood.

The angel dust messages of Greene’s cards were born from the gristmill of her life. Raised in a lower-middle-class home, swimming in cross-cultural currents between her black and white neighbors Greene was surrounded by opportunities for self-reliance and imaginative resourcefulness. Thus she created her special friends, the fantasy characters who are her stock in trade today.

Her mother, separated from her father before Greene was born, had relinquished her career as an artist to become a sales clerk. Greene swore she’d live a more enterprising life. At age 12 she began to work after school. Eventually she started the Seattle Times’ youth page and gradually assembled her portfolio.

At 17, she enrolled in the University of Washington. She finished her degree early, but she never made it to graduation ceremonies. A month or so before commencement, she saw Midnight Cowboy, and two weeks later caught a plane to Miami. “It was one of the most inspired moves I ever made.”

After a stint on a local paper in suburban Coral Gables, Greene sold her first comic, the Kisses™ panels, to a New York syndicate (she made the connection by ghostwriting for one of their columnists). The sale proved to be a false start on the road to success. The syndicate went out of business just weeks before Kisses™ was scheduled for release.

Undaunted, Greene introduced her character greeting cards at a New York trade show. Her 24 designs generated $12,000 in orders. With $700 in her pocket and $12,000 in paper promises, Greene returned to Miami. She found an attorney, an accountant and a printer who would invest their skills in her future and launched her business from her apartment. Two Miami Dolphins lived in her building, and the whole team pitched in to help box and haul her first shipments of cards.

In 1972, the first year she took her cards to trade shows around the country, she generated $300,000 in orders.

By 1975, she had a warehouse, 21 employees, 80 salespeople and her first magazine cover stories. She was cited as a self-made millionaire in The Miami Herald’s Tropic Sunday supplement and as an unknown millionaire in US News and World Report.

That year, Kisses™ finally made syndication in a deal with National Newspaper Syndicate that lasted until the syndicate was purchased by United Feature Syndicate in 1979. Greene declined United’s contract due to unsettled copyright agreements, but people still write her asking when Kisses™ will return to the comic pages. “If the newspapers respond to public demand, it’ll be back,” Greene reassures us.

Kisses™ did very well without the funny pages, thank you. Kisses™ is syndicated now only abroad in 22 languages, and it thrives in the US on cards and some 65 additional licensed items.

Greene stepped out of manufacturing in 1983, when she affiliated with Mark I, a Chicago greeting card company, with projected royalties of $250,000 a year. Mark I filed bankruptcy in 1985 and, a year later, Greene became a manufacturer again.

Her personal approach and devotion to simple principles – light-heartedness, integrity, generosity, warmth – make for successful, if offbeat, business relationships.

In 1980, Greene applied to Miami’s Biscayne Federal Bank for a $200,000 loan to buy a house. Bank officials assured her it was a cinch, but required her financial statements. Greene asked the bank to approve the loan based on her sterling integrity and platinum credit. “That’s like a man who won’t love you unless you undress”, she explains. Although bank officials were reluctant, Greene prevailed, supported by advice from an art appraiser who valued the licensing life-span of just one of her card images at $150,000.

But value beyond money led to her newest venture. In 1981, at age 32, Greene became a foster parent, a $22-a-month sponsor of a third world child. By age 33—having asked her friends to sponsor their own foster kids for her birthday—she had six foster children. Now, she’s embarked on an innovative program that will benefit the overall Foster Parents Plan.

Greetings cards on sale must be inventoried, store by store, week by week. Instead of paying store clerks to count her Kisses™ cards, Greene is rewarding Foster Parent Plan volunteers. For each month that a volunteer counts cards, Greene’s company will sponsor a child in the volunteer’s name. This program is being launched in June in New York, Boston and Miami and represents both a different approach to business and a unique motivation for volunteerism.

“The volunteers will feel a real commitment to the mission,” Greene explains. “They’ll know that because of their input, a child will eat. The foster children and their families will have more opportunities, and the volunteers can contribute time instead of money.”

Buyers of Kisses™ cards become involved as well, because the back of every 1987-edition card reads, “Thank you for sharing Kisses™ — and contributing to the support of a third world foster child.” Greene’s friend Woody Allen quips, “Being a Foster Parent is fun. You get darling letters from wonderful, needy kids that you’re helping and they live in remote places so you never have to lend them the car.”

Greene’s other new venture is chocolate-coated. Nestles chocolate, in fact. Sometime next year, perhaps by Valentine’s Day, Nestles will launch “Divine Chocolates”. Each high quality candy bar will come with a collectible Angelwishes decal designed by Greene. Nestles vice president Allen J. Berger describes Greene as “The most unusual, but by far the best business woman I have ever met.” Why unusual? Perhaps because she requested that he read The Little Prince before she’d seal the deal with Nestles. “The book describes what’s real, what’s a genuine ‘matter of circumstance,’ Greene smiles. “After all, we produce most effectively with others who share the same purpose?”

What’s next for Greene? What matters of circumstance? A musical television feature is pending. It will be called Rotunda Luvs Robert Redford, based on her character Rotunda and co-produced by double Emmy winner Jay Poyner. Lavish retail outlets for her Kisses™ line are scheduled to open first in Miami, Beverly Hills and New York, and later in Geneva, Paris, Cannes, Milan and Tokyo. “We do more abroad than we do in the U.S. with products other than cards,” Greene explains.

Not all her travel is business-related. Every now and then it’s just time for R & R. At least once a year, Vivian Greene heads for the airport with only a toothbrush, passport, bikini and coat. And why not? Kisses™, angels and teddy bears are welcome anywhere.

Story by Erica M. Rauszin, editor, Miami / South Florida Magazine. Released with permission.

© 2011, Vivian Greene. All rights reserved.

©2013 Vivian Greene. All Rights Reserved.

Laughter heals. That’s the motto of Save the Ta-tas - which raised awareness and more than $500,000 to fight breast cancer. Save the Ta-tas won the Change the World Gala Humanitarian Award.

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” ~Dr Seuss

Vivian Greene
Invest In Love inc

“All that is real is seen with the heart.”

Please Leave a Comment

© 2010 – 2011, Vivian Greene. All rights reserved.

©2013 Vivian Greene. All Rights Reserved.

Zazzle cancelled my entire custom postage stamp order (re-order) I had designed for a USPS contest, because they objected to this one design! They said…

“For these reasons, we were unable to process your original order:
Title: Love and Kisses
Result: Not Approved
Content Issues: — Design may be considered obscene, pornographic, or sexually suggestive, including most depictions of artistic nudity.”

Better alert all the teachers, schools and libraries that use Kisses™ illustrated books since 1979. And all those 400 newspapers that had Kisses™ on the doorstep daily and Sunday for so many years. Not to mention the many charities which use Kisses™ to raise money and awareness to help millions of children throughout the world.

And – the greeting cards…80 million or more Kisses™ “nudists” are out there! Jeff Bezos even has one. Careful…The word “Bezos” means “Kisses.” And I mean business.

I’d like my Zazzle Postage Stamps, please.

I’d also like to develop the first and only dedicated character merchandising program online to do good in the world. And I believe I am the only artist alive who has 35 years of design and product development experience, and owns my own intellectual property to do so.

Don’t blush. When they’re not doing their “angel work” in the world, Kisses™ wear clothes. They even design clothes – and nearly every product you’ve ever seen Snoopy adorn.

Photo GEORGE F. LEE / Honolulu Star Bulletin
You can’t read Vivian’s mind, but you can read her dress.

In fact, I notified Zazzle in December that my art and quotes are used on some of your products, and was assured Zazzle would contact the artists/store owners to send me samples and request permission. It could be lucrative for all of us…

…Like one of my blog posts:
http://viviangreene.org/dance-baby-dance/172

I’ve asked my attorney Gary Fergus to follow up, so we can explore a collaboration.

I believe things happen for a higher purpose. And all kidding aside, I thanked Zazzle for their notice. I assured them that my life is dedicated to helping children, and the child in all of us. My work with Shriners Hospitals for Children, Stolen Childhoods, Foster Parent Plan, World Family, and an endless list is testimony. I could really further that work with Zazzle.

As one of my other characters proclaims “Together…we can soar.”

Please send my Zazzle Postage Stamps. Thank you.

cc: Jeff Bezos

Vivian Greene
Invest In Love inc
“All that is real is seen with the heart.”

Please Leave a Comment

© 2010 – 2011, Vivian Greene. All rights reserved.

©2013 Vivian Greene. All Rights Reserved.

I was late. I had already called my ‘publisher to be’ and said I’d like to make dinner a half hour later. I couldn’t wait to meet Mac Anderson, founder of Simple Truths. We were supposed to have had dinner in Palm Beach, but his assistant regretfully cancelled our Monday dinner on Friday, not a Good Friday, and said we’d reschedule. That was in January and this was March 4th. I had waited months. And now, I was late.

When Mac told me he was going to Scottsdale for a month, I decided to meet him there. My dear friend Harv Jaffe who had been president of our high school class – the Rainier Beach Vikings in Seattle, had moved there and I had an invitation for some time. I was a year late for Harv too.

You see, I was recovering from a car accident and it had limited my travel because I could not lay flat. GEICO had helped with an adjustable hospital bed – which, needless to say, would have looked suspicious going through airport security and cost too much to check. Pillows and cushions didn’t work. I needed the precise angle.

My definition of success is going to bed when you’re tired, and getting up when you’re not. I do not own an alarm, and have traveled 40 weeks a year for 20 years just fine with my ‘mental’ alarm clock – a tool I learned when I received my MSU in Psychology.

But that was before the injuries I sustained in the accident.

So, although I never had trouble sleeping before, without that bed it was awful. I do NOT believe in excuses.

You know, I’m the one who wrote Excuse Me, No Excuses, and the quote that led me to this meeting with Mac Anderson, “Life’s not about waiting for the storm to pass…It’s about Learning To Dance In The Rain.”©

So I tried to make a shorter trip, and deal with any sleep depravation. Airport security might have questioned those bags under my eyes after a night without my adjustable bed.

Harv made a great suggestion. He took me to Dillards in Scottsdale where they were having a special promotion for Dior. The head make up artist was there. The makeover was not only free, I was given a beautiful gift. And then. The cameras started flashing. I was even asked to possibly be in an endorsement for Dior.

When you’re feeling kind of frumpy from the pain and being away from what you love so much, this is the ultimate compliment. The only problem was, I was going to be late even for the 7:00 dinner that I had asked Mac to move to 7:30.

“You look stunning. It was worth the wait.” Harv said when he picked me up to meet Mac.

“You’re tardy.” Mac said, when I arrived at 7:45.

‘You’re hungry!” I said. I know men. Laugh, Love, Eat and Dance. Those things will cure anything! In fact, I saw today that Mac agrees with that, because below is who he quoted, and a video you’ll love.

Copyright Cops – Video Pending   We love the Copyright Cops because they protect our work, too. Here’s a great video you can view: Go to —>YouTube until we receive permission to post it here. After visiting, do come back to us!!   By the way, if you ever happen to see my Kisses™, quotes or art without my name, let us know.  You’ll be rewarded!!

“The human race has only one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. The moment it arises, all your irritations and resentments slip away and the sunny spirit takes their place.”
~Mark Twain

And if you think this is great, wait ’till you see what Simple Truths publishes of mine!

Vivian Greene
Invest In Love inc
“All that is real is seen with the heart.”

Please Leave a Comment

© 2010 – 2011, Vivian Greene. All rights reserved.

©2013 Vivian Greene. All Rights Reserved.

“All that is real is seen with the heart.® means something different to different people.
“Close your eyes” says the man in this video. “Then you’ll know.” You’ll know it’s okay to be different.

This young deaf and mute girl from Thailand will touch your heart even more than Susan Boyle awestruck millions on Britain’s Got Talent. All of us often don’t see, hear, or realize the light in ourselves, the light we can share and light in others.

“Let Your Light Shine” was actually a commercial in Thailand sponsored by Pantene. And the light of the music is immortal – The composer, Pachelbel is best known for the Canon in D, the only canon he wrote in the late 1600′s.

I’m deeply moved by this Pantene video. Kisses™ cards and comics are drawn with their eyes covered by their hair, because  “All that is real is seen with the heart.®”

Keep that in mind and “Let Your Light Shine” as Pantene showed. You’ll never have a bad hair day!

“May the light at the core of your being illuminate the world.”
by Kate Nowak, May You Be Blessed

“Sometimes our light goes out
but is blown again into flame
by an encounter
with another human being.

Each of us
owes the deepest thanks
to those who have rekindled
this inner light.”
~Albert Schweitzer

Let Your Light Shine!

Vivian Greene
Invest In Love inc
“All that is real is seen with the heart.”

Please Leave a Comment

© 2009 – 2011, Vivian Greene. All rights reserved.

©2013 Vivian Greene. All Rights Reserved.

GEICO has a Gecko, Met Life has Snoopy and my insurance has a Stool Pigeon. Health Care and insurance can be amusing.

I’m recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident. Today, I was sent to Quest Laboratories to get a stool specimen. I’m not real sure what this test has to do with my wrist and neck injuries, but you know the insurance and medical procedures inspire curiosity. It’s just the Rules of Stools and we must cooperate.

What I was given was some colorful little containers to take home, with instructions in TEN languages. Some of them are jokes and puzzles. For example, “the vial with the White Cap is to be refrigerated.” The caps are blue, orange, and pink. I am an artist, and I know my colors. I checked some of the other languages: blanca in Spanish, blanco in Italian. White.White. White. I couldn’t read the Cambodian, German, Japanese, Chinese, or Vietnamese and I don’t even know what Laotian is.

I decided to Google stool. Aha! Stool Pigeon: “A decoy bird, or a police informer.” Just WHAT is the purpose of the IME (Independent Medical Exams)?

I love Google. Here’s what I found:

Here’s a humorous post I found by Chas at BangItOut.com entitled:
AMA and Health Care

Health Care and so many of our concerns are like caterpillars who cannot fly. . . . . Yet! © Vivian Greene. All rights reserved.

The American Medical Association has weighed in on Obama’s health care package.

The Allergists were in favor of scratching it, but the Dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves.

The Gastroenterologists had sort of a gut feeling about it, but the Neurologists thought the Administration had a lot of nerve.

Meanwhile, Obstetricians felt certain everyone was laboring under a misconception, while the Ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted.

Pathologists yelled, “Over my dead body!”. while the Pediatricians said, “Oh, grow up!”

The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while the Radiologists could see right through it.

Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing and the Internists claimed it would indeed be a bitter pill to swallow.

The Plastic Surgeons opined that this proposal would “put a whole new face on the matter.” The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the Urologists were pissed off at the whole idea.

Anesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas, and those softy Cardiologists didn’t have the heart to say no.

In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision up to the tushies* in Washington.

* Forgive me, Chas, I took the liberty of changing that one naughty word.

AMA and Health Care = IME Rules and Stools

Vivian Greene
Invest In Love inc
“All that is real is seen with the heart.”

Please Leave a Comment

© 2009 – 2011, Vivian Greene. All rights reserved.

©2013 Vivian Greene. All Rights Reserved.

I wrote about Pink, playfully teasing General Mills, bless their hearts, to give even more money than the generous $2 million dollars they just donated for breast cancer research.

I hope to help with my Kisses™ characters, which not only adorn anything you might see with a comic friend like Mickey Mouse or Snoopy on it, but Kisses™ angels are what we call “endearing advocates,” designed to make a difference in the world. I have a rich background in design, marketing, character merchandising and fundraising.

Here is the reason this is so important to me:

I have friends who did not survive cancer. I know women who are warriors and have certainly beat the odds — yet going through “the war” was so challenging, for them and for me and all who care for them.

Here is a saying I’ve shared in my book GOOD MOURNING and audio tape, RELAX:

We can love without suffering for those we love.

and another…

Your own happiness is the greatest gift you can give to another.

However, like overcoming illness or pain, it is easier said than done.

Love is The Greatest Healer.

This was a poem I wrote, initially as a gift for my friend, therapy for myself. Little did I know it would spawn my first book of poetry, GOOD MOURNING, What Death Teaches Us About Life, and then MOURNING GLORY, Love Lives Forever.

-=*=–=*=- -=*=–=*=- -=*=–=*=-

I called my friend, Mildred
and she told me her husband,
her partner for forty-two years,
the man she loves
has cancer
and it is terminal.

I know what it feels like
although it took me many years
to feel it
after my best friend
was told he had six months to live
and left, I thought, until I realized
how much he taught me, before, and now,
and that our relationship never left
love cannot die
and only the cancer was terminal.

~ Vivian Greene

-=*=–=*=- -=*=–=*=- -=*=–=*=-

…with gratitude to SU2C (Stand Up to Cancer) and their supporters including Amgen, AARP, Bloomberg Philanthropies, GlaxoSmithKline, Revlon, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Wallis Annenberg & The Annenberg Foundation, Alliance for Global Good, New York Giants, Milken Family Foundation, Philips Electronics, Steve Tisch, The Island Def Jam Music Group and many others.

In addition to ABC, CBS and NBC, SU2C major media partners include AOL, Condé Nast Media Group, eBay Inc., Facebook, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Hearst Corporation, Los Angeles Times, Meredith Corporation, The New York Times Company, Time Inc and WebMD.

…and heartfelt appreciation to St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a non-profit organization that raises funds for childhood cancer research. In 2009 research grants and other awards totaled $11.5 million.

Fellowship winners include:

 
• Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.
• University of Colorado at Denver.
• Northwestern University, Chicago Campus.
• University of Minnesota.
• Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, N.Y.
• Columbia University Medical Center, New York, N.Y.
• New York University School of Medicine, New York, N.Y.
• Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, N.Y.
• Duke University, Durham, N.C.
• University of Pittsburgh.

 

Scholar Awards went to:

 
• UCLA.
• University of Chicago.
• Feinstein Institute of Medical Research, Manhasset, N.Y.
• Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, N.Y.
• Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Ore.
• Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tenn.
• Baylor College of Medicine, Houston.
• University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston.
• Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle.
• University of Washington. (my alma mater)

 

Research grants went to:

 
• UCSF.
• UCLA.
• St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital of Tampa, Tampa, Fla.
• University of Illinois at Chicago.
• Children’s Hospital Boston, Boston.
• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston.
• Health Research Inc., Roswell Park Cancer Institute Division, Buffalo, N.Y.
• Columbia University Medical Center, New York, N.Y.
• Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
• Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pa.
• St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tenn.
• Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tenn.
• Texas Children’s Cancer Center, Houston.
• University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
• Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va.
• Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wis.

 

Another $5 million in cooperative research funding was given to the Children’s Oncology Group and labs used by that group’s 200 member institutions, the foundation said.

Email Chris Rauber at crauber@bizjournals.com
(415) 288-4946

And above all, you who care. May there be more films of the this caliber, poetry, art, and
little sisters who share their hair.

 

Love is The Greatest Healer.

Vivian Greene
Invest In Love inc
“All that is real is seen with the heart.”

Please Leave a Comment

© 2009 – 2011, Vivian Greene. All rights reserved.

©2013 Vivian Greene. All Rights Reserved.

Pink! Pink! Pink! National Breast Cancer Awareness month came to an end, but you wouldn’t know it by my house. This may be the single best licensing campaign for awareness and fund raising ever conceived. And I know how to make it even better.

Kisses™ make everything better!

No one in my family has ever had breast cancer, and they probably never will. What a wonderful job the American Breast Cancer Foundation has done of creating awareness, support, prevention and more and more success with cure.

I Love Pink! Everywhere you look, there is pink ribbon cancer awareness. It’s on my Musselman’s Natural Applesauce (and not on the Cinnamon one, that has corn syrup). It’s on my box of Cheerios, along with a Pampers coupon so the Cheerios from Publix Supermarket are practically free.

And it’s on my new line of pink water bottles I just designed. I’m looking to collaborating with the Safe Water Foundation and other companies that like to make a difference in the world next year. My name is “Greene“ after all. But for now, let’s stay with Pink, Pink, Pink!

We’re still working on the pink water bottles and other ideas. These are just initial prototypes. Let us know what you think.

When I stop for a little snack of Fiber One Chewy Bars, I see “Pink Together $2 Million Dollars is being donated this year by General Mills to Susan G. Komen for the Cure” draped across the package. At first I thought the $2 million was a contest, or my purchase was part of the $2 million goal for chewy bars.

Oh Oh. While writing this today, I read the small print. The $2 million is being “donated this year by the General Mills Company. Hey, General Mills you can do better than just $2 million dollars!! How many more Cheerios and Chewy bars were purchased with that pink ribbon, and the good will for your company?

If you can’t afford more than $2 million dollars, call me and I’ll help you next year.

I mean I happen to know just who that masked man was. General Mills Company was the sponsor of the radio show of The Lone Ranger even before I was born. And then they brought us Zorro on TV. And if that weren’t enough, I totally love General Mills for Häagen-Dazs.

So…come on…only $2 million? Did I misunderstand?

General Mills Company (NYSE: GIS) is an American Fortune 500 corporation, headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota. I’m sure with one of the world’s best ice creams, and such known brands, such as Betty Crocker, Yoplait, Colombo, Totinos, Jeno’s, Pillsbury, Green Giant, Old El Paso, Cheerios, Lucky Charms and Wanchai Ferry they could afford to give more than $2 million for Pink, Pink, Pink.

I mean they’re not perfect. Who is? Remember those monster cereals in the disco days? I love to dance, and I live in Miami, the home of the Latin Hustle, the Bee Gees, KC and the Sunshine Band, dancing all night. I’d come home from a day of designing my cards and Kisses™ comic strip, sleep from 6 pm to 11, slip on my dancing dress and boogie the night away at Regine’s, or the Cricket Club, or Honey for the Bears – featured as the best disco in the country. Then my friends and I would go to breakfast. There was no Pink, Pink, Pink on the shelves then.

General Mills Company made cereals called Frute Brute and Yummy Mummy. Yukky. But the sugary monsters were discontinued. And General Mills started using whole grain so we’d be healthy enough to keep dancing.

Since 2004, General Mills has been producing more products desired by we health-conscious consumers. I understand they use less sugar in the kids cereal now too.

So, since they’re promoting the American Breast Cancer Foundation, and they are really equally promoting General Mills, I think we should find a way to give the charity more than $2 million dollars. If I misunderstood that inscription on my big box of Whole Grain Cheerios, “Pink Together $2 Million Dollars is being donated this year by General Mills to Susan G. Komen for the Cure”, sorry . I’m just quoting the box. And regardless, I’m sure I- or rather Kisses™ – can help generate greater awareness and profits to prosper all concerned.

This is what I did when I didn’t even know what I was doing that was a huge success in Japan in one year – and believe me, they didn’t have anything near Häagen-Dazs, or Cheerios, or as important a mission as a cure for cancer.

Tour de France champion Mr. Lance Armstrong, a cancer survivor and internationally recognized advocate for cancer research, spoke to Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN’s Vital Signs at the Livestrong Global Cancer Summit in Dublin, Ireland. He said as research progresses and people are educated on healthy living, “cancer can at least be managed as a chronic disease rather than a terminal illness”.

Thanks to programs like Pink, Pink, Pink, companies like General Mills, Musselman, Ford, and so many more – as well as the grass roots efforts and STS (Survivors teaching Students), there is a far more optimistic and enlightened view: “All that is real is seen with the heart.®”

Well, the pink ribbon is also on a pink 2010 Cancer Calendar called The Cancer Warriors Calendar, created by Mikel’s Fine Art Photography. It is filled with uplifting stories. It came to my attention because a quote of mine is so beautifully illustrated by the November warrior, Martha Gallub Esposito. She writes:

“I was diagnosed with two unrelated cancers which required a double surgery…then radiation and RAI treatments….I sent emails to my friends to let them know what was going on. The outcome of support was both awesome and humbling. The realization that I really meant so much to so many people gave me a lot of strength. I called it my “cancer journey”, and made it humorous, sending photos in my new fun wigs. I kept my mind and body active, doing things, visiting people, walking for exercise, enjoying life and believing I would get through this ok, then I would be fine. I tried to make the most of every day. As Vivian Greene said, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

2010 Cancer Warriors Calendars are available through Mikel for $10.00
702-564-7166 www.MikelsFineArt Photography.com.

We applaud Pink, Pink, Pink and our company, Invest In Love inc.
We will give a matching Gift Certificate for products or events
for the first 50 orders or donations.

 

Kiss The General Mills Company Pink with Vivian Greene.

Vivian Greene
Invest In Love inc
“All that is real is seen with the heart.”

Please Leave a Comment

© 2009 – 2011, Vivian Greene. All rights reserved.

©2013 Vivian Greene. All Rights Reserved.

This is a story about a Big Bad Bank, an Ordinary Couple, Dade County Water and Sewer, a brave and honorable Judge, a little Shih Tzu Angel named Timmy, and God.

Miami Dade Water & Sewer hasn’t answered my letter. You know, the “Monopoly Rules” theory practiced by those who think “We the People” are just “Oh those guys…” I have now been attempting to resolve an issue over an “alleged” leak for ten months, three weeks and four days. (See my article: Kisses and Volkswagon To The Rescue)

The more I ask for cooperation, the higher the bill, the more times they waste all that fuel and time by sending out the big truck to turn the water off over and over again in my home of 33 years.

A wealth of other people responded. Unexplained charges, usurious penalties, interest charges….You know the story. No need to upset your breakfast.

But a surprising amount of support, concern, comradery and even money came from all over the country – the world in fact. You can see it in our posts, and some I will publish. We are all in the same boat. It doesn’t matter who is responsible for the hole. If there is a hole in the boat, we all sink.

That is why this story includes the Big Bad Bank, et al.

Diane Yano-Horoski and her husband, Greg from Suffolk County was the first thing I saw on AOL, thanks to an Eyewitness News Reporter (thank you ABC), The Honorable Judge Spinner, (go New York!!!) and a couple who tried everything they could think of to avoid litigation and just make affordable payments.

At first blush, that may not seem exactly the same as my plight with Dade County Water and Sewer, but when you can see the whole story, and especially what’s real from your heart, as the little shisu Timmy and the big award testify, it’s the same.

Only the decimals and names are different.

Their mortgage nightmare with banksters from One West, a California Bank, is much like mine was for five years in a case that involved Amerifirst, an S& L and the RTC (Resolution Trust Company). The Water & Sewer dilemma is the same crazy making senseless abuse tactics. I call them Soul Squishers.

Knock Knock. How are my usurious bills for an alleged water leak like a foreclosure action? Has anything like this ever happened to you – or should I say, how often?

I’ll explain.

The definition of a leak is “to become known despite efforts at concealment ” ~Webster

It is the bank and Dade County Water & Sewer who have “leaks.”

Suffolk Judge Jeffrey Spinner erased $525,000 in mortgage payments that One West Bank was demanding from the couple who had tried (like me) everything they could to get some co-operation.

“We did act in good faith and the only reason we had taken this case into the judicial system was because we could go no further.” said Papa Bear Horoski.

Judge Spinner said One West’s conduct was “inequitable, unconscionable, vexatious and opprobrious,” He cancelled the debt.

“Spinner pulled no punches as he smacked down the bankers at One West — who took an $814.2 million federal bailout but have a record of coldbloodedly foreclosing on any homeowner owing money” said NY Post reporters

“A Bombshell Decision” cheered ABC News.

The decision, we all know if we’ve ever been to court or owned a TV, will be challenged.

I still own my home – with much thanks to an advocate, Marie McDonnell. But I can tell you this – I never received a penny owed to me by the Resolution Trust Company, now defunct. And I never received the money still owed by the Savings and Loan, now defunct.

And even after I survived that ordeal, my own Miami Homeowners Association tried to steal my property claiming I had not paid a fee the year of Hurricane Andrew. I was flat on my back in traction from a car accident in Honolulu when a fan of my Kisses™ comic strip sent my office a condolence note about “the foreclosure action.”

I still own my house. Thanks to Ms McDonnell again. I had to retain attorneys, locate records from years past and the debris of the worst natural disaster of all time in 1992- Hurricane Andrew, Category 5.

I had to borrow money, wake up at 3AM to make the calls with the Hawaii-Florida time difference. I proved I did not owe the money. But it wasn’t necessary. The Statute of Limitations was up anyway. Had I not heard from a fan, I would have lost my home – paid in full – over an alleged $700 or $800 Homeowners Association Fee.

Know what – one of those little old ladies is still on the board of the Beautification Committee for the Homeowners Association bothering people about duck poop on their patio.

You can see why the story about the Horoskis – who paid so much and didn’t even have equity in their home, and why Dade County Water and Sewer, who cannot even answer one letter after repeated requests and inquiries for nearly a year, and bankers, businesses, and Bernies who get away with duck poop have to be stopped.

Everything Happens For The Best!

Bless Judge Jeffrey Spinner for blasting the bad bank and erasing $525G of debt. Bless the press for publicizing this and giving so many people so in need of hope a glimpse of justice.

But most of all, I am really grateful for Diane Yano-Horoski’s genuine sharing of her feelings, her fear, her faith. She said this “victory” did not come without a price:

“While speaking with a news reporter, our beloved Shih Tzu, Timmy, was killed by an oncoming car. Nothing can replace him or the sadness his death has caused. It has been a bittersweet time for us, and I am certain marks the beginning of yet another round with this bank.”

This is the simple truth. Nothing can replace a life, a relationship, a bond where love is the driving force. That’s not true of a house, or mortgage, or money, or unfortunately in this case – a judgment, which may just create more expense and concern and litigation during the already threatened appeal.

We never own anything. We tend to allow things to own us though.

In my book (literally and figuratively, I am the author of GOOD MOURNING, What Death Teaches Us About Life) Timmy’s death poses that incessent question: WHY? As Rabbi Kushner best selling book asks “Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?”

Why, indeed, is this couple and why are millions of us pinched by the tallons of the Big Bad Bank? Or the victim of loveless bureaucracy – like my situation with Dade County Water and Sewer, or a Foreclosure happy Homeowners Association?

Maybe we’ve put those material things first, and when we were looking the other way, we lost what matters most.

I asked Pastor Elwin Ahu of New Hope Christian Ministry this question. He had served as a judge in Honolulul for 24 years before he became a minister for this Four Square church.

He listened to my tales of woe – everyone in my family has died, my legal battles for my house, copyright infringments, my withdrawal from newspaper syndication of my comic strip because I would not tolerate my designs on products made my child slavery, the Moving and Storage stole 20 years worth of my work and every possession I had.

Pastor Ahu listened.

“Why do you think these things happen?” Pastor Ahu asked me. And I thought only Jewish people answered questions with questions…

“I don’t know why, I said. But I do know this. Eventually, everything…even death…has been a seed for something good to blossom in it’s own time.”

“By not allowing the newspaper syndicate to strong arm me into ownership of my copyrights, I use my work to endorse and promote things that make a difference in the world. And here I am in Hawaii, in paradise.”

Pastor Ahu gave me a knowing grin. “I’ll tell you why.”

“When you love God so much, and do good – you are a threat to the darkness.”

So this story about a Big Bad Bank, an Ordinary Couple, Dade County Water and Sewer, a brave and honorable Judge, a little Shih Tzu Angel named Timmy, and God reminded me that “Everything Happens For The Best.”

Regardless of what happens next with the appeal or the banks, for me Diane and Greg Horoski are already the winners. Not because of the $500,000.

If some nitwit at One West Bank does pursue the appeal, or the sleeping beauty in the White House doesn’t examine just what the Big Bad Bank is doing with that $814.2 million federal bailout, this ordinary couple and extraordinary judge have restored some respect and trust in our judicial system, and perhaps a higher law.

The Horoskis are welcome to move in with me. I’m looking into privatized water, and the itty bitty duck droppings on the patio wash away with the rain.

Everything Happens For The Best!

Vivian Greene
Invest In Love inc
“All that is real is seen with the heart.”

Please Leave a Comment

© 2009 – 2011, Vivian Greene. All rights reserved.

©2013 Vivian Greene. All Rights Reserved.

If I’m in a tug of war – be it a personal struggle, with Goliath Dade County Water & Sewer who charges me up the kazoo for a leak that never existed, or even if I were the President of the United States, there is one thing that is always true. In a tug of war, no matter how hard and strong the other side is, if I let go, technically I lose. But the truth is…when I let go, the other side falls on it’s tushie.

When I was a little girl I wanted to be the First Lady. Jacqueline Kennedy was so beautiful, eloquent, regal. I know today little girls want to be the first Lady President. But my family hailed from Italy and the Greek island of Rhodes, and as you may have seen in that hilarious (true true true) movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the Mama of the family says her hubby may be the head of the family, “But mama is the neck.”

Michele…help. What a terribly difficult decision we’re facing.

I’ve never had political aspirations. But I’ve always had Love inspiration – a desire to add love to work, politics, health, relationships…life. That’s why my Kisses™ characters are drawn with their eyes covered: “All that is real is seen with the heart.”®

When I saw this picture – pictures say so much more than words – I felt such compassion. I hurt. For our president, our country, all of the people who suffer so from war.

I read that Napoleon Hill, the famous author of Think and Grow Rich, was an advisor to President Roosevelt. I wish I could do the same with President Obama and help him. It’s not that I know the answer, but I do know as I say in my book:

“You can’t see the mountain when you’re standing on it.”

“I know we all can enter that space of the artist, or musician, or poet, or dancer, that place in the heart where the vibration is more clear and pure than advice.”

Maybe you can enter that space and help too. I don’t mean by writing congressmen, marching around, or making any kind of demands. Not demands. Questions. Seeking the answers within and sharing them by the love we put into each and every day, and relationships. If we can’t get along with a parent, spouse, boss, friend — how can we expect peace in the world?

This incredible art came from an article by Ray McGovern. Please visit Truthout. Most of all, search the truth within. Let’s help..

Friday 27 November 2009

Ray McGovern | Obama’s Profile in Courage, or Cave-In?
Ray McGovern, Truthout: “‘It took a lot of courage on Kennedy’s part to defy the Pentagon, defy the military – and do the right thing,” said Col. Larry Wilkerson, USA (ret.), according to Robert Dreyfuss in his recent Rolling Stone article ‘The Generals’ Revolt.” …

Wilkerson, who was chief of staff at the State Department (2002-2005) and now teaches at George Washington University, was alluding to President John F. Kennedy’s courage in 1962, when he faced down his top generals and refused to bomb Cuba and risk nuclear war.”
Read the Article

Let’s have a Tushie to Tushie Talk With President Obama!

Vivian Greene
Invest In Love inc
“All that is real is seen with the heart.”

Please Leave a Comment

© 2009 – 2011, Vivian Greene. All rights reserved.

©2013 Vivian Greene. All Rights Reserved.