I'll Tell You What...

We were going to go to Dairy Queen...

2010-06-17T08:43:00.000-07:00

I guess all parents use bribery to get their kids to do what they want them to do. This morning is the first day of summer break and Doug agreed to run up to the store to get the boys doughnuts, at their behest. They were fighting and bickering while he was getting ready to leave and I heard him chastise them a couple of times. They continued and I heard him yell out, "Ok! NO DOUGHNUTS THEN! YOU CAN FORGET THE DOUGHNUTS!"

I knew that he was still going to get the doughnuts...

My nephew Erick recently told me that Dwight and Scott used to say, "You know we were going to go to Dairy Queen, but I guess now we won't..." For every kind of thing - fighting in the back seat to cleaning their rooms. As an adult now, Erick realized that they were never planning to go to Dairy Queen, they'd just pull that out to get results. But as a boy, he would think, "Dang It! We could've gone to Dairy Queen!"

Portrait of Doreen Gray

2010-06-14T06:19:00.000-07:00

I had a dream Saturday night that I was re-living my youth. Young again! A chance to do it over! And I was young again while cognizant of life lessons learned in my first youth. But I experienced profound sadness when I realized that I was youthful with the young and not reliving my youth with my friends. I hated it - I was so depressed while I was dreaming (a very odd sensation).

I reflected on the dream all day Sunday. I realized that what made the idea of being young again pleasurable was being with my friends and knowing the people I knew then. Just getting youth back without those friends and even experiences (no internet, no social media, no mobile phones) was not palatable.

Fondue

2010-06-14T06:13:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was Emery's birthday party and he wanted a fondue party. So we had 5 or 6 boys over and they had chocolate and cheese fondue, watched a little of Alice in Wonderland and played outside.

It was such a joy to watch them run around and jump on the trampoline. I worry so much about Em and his friendships - I get concerned that he struggles to fit in. He's a very sensitive boy and his giftedness is a challenge for friend-making. It sounds like some kind of bragging to put it that way, but I can't ignore his giftedness any more than I can ignore his food allergies or ADHD.

I have long thought that all three of those things are connected somehow - gifted, allergic, ADHD. There are so many kids we meet that have the same three things in common. One of the families we'll carpool with to the gifted program Emery is attending this summer seems so like Em. His mom and I have been talking, mainly to get the carpooling to UW set up, and over the course of several conversations we realize that they are very alike. It reinforces to me that issue with attending to things is connected to his intellect and is the very thing that fuels his giftedness.

Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!

2010-05-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

Wilbur's artistic San Antonio drawing.

Skinny boy

2010-05-28T13:28:00.000-07:00

Emery and I just got hysterical... I helped him put on his tights for his ballet dress rehearsal today and he's so skinny that he looks like he's made of tinker toys. Doug said he looked like a dancing licorice whip.

Expotition (which is a long line of everybody) to the North Pole (which is just a thing that you discover)

2010-05-27T06:08:00.000-07:00

Doug has been reading the Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh to the boys each night. Last night they read about the expotition to the North Pole. I can hear them in there giggling and loving Pooh. It is delicious to hear them. Roo falls into the river and this reminds me of Wilbur eating ice cream:

there is a squeak from Roo, a splash, and a cry from Kanga. Roo has fallen into the river!
Roo is being brave and not panicking, and even asking his Mum to watch him as he is swimming in the stream, although really he is just being carried along by the current.

When we go to get ice cream, Wilbur always wants a dish of it but he really doesn't like ice cream. He says it's too cold. He does, though, insist on a dish. Then he dips his spoon in it and brings the spoon almost to his lips and says, "MMMMMmmmmm. Ice Cream!"

We all think it's so funny because he never takes a taste. It's sort of like the swimming...

2010-05-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

http://carlzimmer.com/books/parasiterex/index.html

I got Emery this book yesterday, worried that it was really over his head. I had heard Carl Zimmer on This American Life and he told a fascinating tale of parasites and their status as the most successful organisms on the planet. I thought Em would be interested in this but once I bought the book I wasn't sure I'd made a good choice. It was long and had no pictures and was not a book I felt I could read, let alone my 10-year-old.

I gave him the book after school and he began reading it immediately. He read the first third of it last night. Astonishing.

Die with a T

2010-05-11T12:43:00.001-07:00

I am in the third week of a food plan... I'm doing Jenny Craig again. I actually haven't gained any weight since I did the program 10 years ago. When I weighed in I weighed exactly my former goal weight. The problem is that over those years I had lost a little more and this winter I put it back on. I think my body just looks different at this weight today than it did 10 years ago. And I'm unhappy with it.

I've lost about 2.5 lbs which isn't much but I don't have that much to lose. Being back on JC reminds me of how I ate when I first got out of treatment. Strict portion control and small meals followed by light snacks. I don't know why it's so difficult to keep that up except that you sort of have to think about eating all the time and I really hate that. Sometimes I wish that I could just go through the day being fed intravenously and not have to think about it.

I also was drinking alcohol to regularly - a glass of wine here and cocktail there and in the middle of the week as well. Those calories added up quickly. So that was the first thing I did - no more drinking during the week.

I heard an owl!

2010-05-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

The other morning I was up very early and I heard an owl hooting...

Alzheimers

2010-05-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

I listened to NYC Radiolab's podcast today and it was about how a researcher in language had analyzed Agatha Christie's last 8 books and detected the possibility that she had Alzheimer's. The deduction was based on how much of her vocabulary she lost (20-25%) and how often she used the word thing, including something, nothing, everything, anything -- in other words, she became less specific and it appeared that this could be an early indicator for Alzheimer's.

I had to stop listening to the podcast. The other day I was searching for the word sentimental and could not come up with it. As I listened to this professor talk about how Christie was losing it, losing herself, losing her mind, I thought about analyzing my blogs and emails from the last 5 years... If they could tell a tale, would I want to know?

Decidedly not. What would be the point? I think it would just make me panic. My mother always says that being a mother and working full time and all that is what makes you unable to come up with the word sentimental when you need it. Just in case, I have started working the crossword puzzle again after going years without it. I think I need to keep sharp.

Fun Times

2010-05-05T07:59:00.001-07:00

Had such a fun weekend with Jeff and Ken. Now we must get to DC. Jeff convinced the children that he works for the government and he's going to have to do some pretty fancy footwork to entertain them when we visit our nation's capitol.

For dinner on Saturday night we had Leigh and Alex, Gigi and Charles Henry, Scott, Erick and Amber, Jeff, Ken, Paige, Doug... All the hee haw gang. J&K made a WONderful risotto. Fabulous.

This weekend for Mother's Day we are headed to the Staddon-Smiths where we'll get to see Colin and Rosemary, Alex's parents.

Flowers and Spring

2010-04-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

I made these containers this weekend. Hard to overstate how much they can lift my spirits each morning.

Baby Birds

2010-04-23T07:13:00.000-07:00

I heard what I think were baby birds chirping this morning. I hear the birds every morning now as I walk le dog around the yard, but this morning I heard the distint and plaintive cry of babies in the nest.

I am waiting for my own baby bird to return this afternoon from Camp Orkila. Listening to those babies chirp their I'm Hungry song this morning made me miss mine all the more.

Little Ducks Little Bee

2010-04-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

I saw my first baby ducklings today swimming in the stream along the protected wetlands that run between all the office buildings where I work. Mama Duck was out front and those babies kept right with her. If she got the least bit ahead of them the ran their little legs so hard that they came up out of the water as if they were trying to walk atop it. Good lord were they cute.

I am reading a book called Little Bee which is fantastic so far. Finished "The Art of Racing in the Rain" over the weekend. I got teary in my hairstylist's chair on Saturday as I finished it.

It is sunny and 70 degrees here - fabulous weather.

Little boys, little boys

2010-04-09T10:02:00.001-07:00

I am struck all too often now by how little time I have left before the boys go off to college and start living on their own. All of Emery's pants are too short and I just bought the newest of them 3 months ago. But each night, sometimes upstairs in Wilbur's room and sometimes downstairs in Emery's room, they crawl in bed together and sleep like angels. I encourage it since Emery is 4 years older than Wilbur and the time will come so soon that they just won't do that anymore.

I walk at home now when Doug isn't there. I just walk back and forth on a stretch of road that takes me just a little beyond our house in either direction. I stay close enough that if Wilbur needs me he can just stand on the front landing and he'll see me. Each week or so I venture a little farther. To see if Emery could watch after his brother for a little while at a time.

Sometimes I am so impatient with them. I get so frustrated and angry that they don't mind what I say or follow directions. I hate myself when I get that way and yell at them. I curse at times. I tell them after that I am wrong to lose my temper that way. I am afraid that's how they'll remember the entirety of their childhoods: mom losing her temper.

I feel it acutely when I think of how fast they are growing. So when I see them in bed, side by side facing each other and one arm slung over the other or a leg crossing the mid-line boundary denoting his side or his side, I think that maybe it will be ok.

2010-03-10T06:50:00.000-08:00

This is Wilbur's drawing of one of his faves.

Wilbur slept with me last night. He isn't feeling well. He lays in bed with me and touches my face like a sweetheart in a movie who is just watching the love of his life sleep peacefully. He tells me, "But you know? I'm afraid of the dark." He strokes my arm. He loves how my arm is flappy. This comment coming from anyone else, even my 10-year-old, would incense me somewhat. But when 6-year-old Wilbur says it, it's still just cute. I don't worry about my flappy, old-lady arms, but think of how soft my skin feels to him and how he needs that touch. Skin to skin is how we did it when he was a baby. He needed to be on me, near me. It's so special that he still does.

I don't like sappy and current country songs, but recently someone made a playlist for a baby shower I was hosting. And it included this country song called, "You'll Always Be My Baby". And for some reason, every time I hear it I cry. I was thinking of it last night while Wilbur snored softly next to me; one arm up over his head, just the way I sleep; his cherubic, angelic face at perfect peace... He looked heaven-sent.

In the sunlight or the rain
Brightest nights or darkest days
I'll always feel the same way
Whatever road you may be on know you're never too far gone
My love is there wherever you may be
Just remember that you'll always be my baby

Letter to Tony Kornheiser

2010-02-24T09:30:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Kornheiser,
I am a professional woman who works full-time (and then some) outside the home, a mother to two lovely boys, the manager of a well-kept home, and a loving wife to a wonderful husband. My salary is commensurate with my husband’s. Having borne two children, I have worked hard to get back to my size-4 shape. I believe I have a noticeable and personal style evident in my home décor and fashion-sense. All of this takes a lot of work. I don’t just wake up looking like this every day. I get my hair cut every 8 weeks and have it colored every few months. I exercise every day. I work hard at how I look every day, whether I'm taking the kids to a tennis lesson or going out to dinner. And even though my husband is very involved in our boys’ daily activities, the management of their needs is my domain.

I arrange all doctors’ appointments for my children. I shop for their clothes and arrange for their haircuts. I advise my husband on his clothes and often shop for him. I do all the grocery shopping and cooking. I prepare a home-cooked meal every night of the week, save one. I pack lunches each day. I take the boys to school and pick them up. I arrange for teacher conferences and oversee the completion of homework. I schedule their extra-curricular activities. I RSVP to all birthday party invitations and buy gifts for those engagements. I tell you all of this because I manage to do all these things while looking fabulous.

I bet Hannah Storm knows what I’m talking about. I bet your wife does, too.

I don’t need some man who is basically required to wear a uniform each day (slacks, shirt, tie?), who doesn’t have too much that needs doing where his hair is concerned, can wear any manner of undergarment without worry over panty-lines or fit or the need for smoothing, never has to buy hosiery, has no pressure to accessorize, doesn’t have to have the right purse for the right outfit, and can mask a belly for 15 pounds before needing to address the issue telling me OR ANY WOMAN that she isn’t dressed well, or age-appropriately.

My husband does a lot for all of us, don’t misunderstand me. He handles all the bookkeeping and the yard maintenance, house maintenance and helps me each morning to get the children up and dressed and fed and ready to go. But, he doesn’t have to ‘do his hair’ or find his Spanx. He doesn’t need to apply makeup. He isn’t expected to keep looking young and he doesn’t fear hearing someone say that he really let himself go after the children came. He is judged by what he does, not what he looks like while he does it.

I hope I’ve enlightened you to the real work that women have in front of them every day. I want my boys and my husband to be proud of me for my style, as well as many other more important things. I want them to see me as daring and courageous in my work, my sense of fashion, and my flair for entertaining. I want to bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. So, Mister, watch your words about these hero wives, mothers and professionals; you don’t want to piss us off. We run the world even if we don't rule it. Make no mistake about that.

Psalm 91

2010-02-23T06:58:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday the choir sang a piece based on the 91st Psalm:

Psalm 91
1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. [a]
2 I will say [b] of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust."
3 Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare
and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
5 You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
8 You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked.
9 If you make the Most High your dwelling—
even the LORD, who is my refuge-
10 then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent.
14 "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation."

I know it's a complicated Psalm because surely we wonder at times if God will rescue us or if we are experience His deliverance.

I chose this Psalm as the text at my Granny's funeral. And while the choir sang, I was overcome with emotion, longing for her. I also took comfort in hearing this promise, which I believe could be fulfilled after death and not necessarily during my life in this realm. Maybe this promise means that I will rest in the shadow of the Almighty when I have shuffled off this mortal coil. That's how I envision it: that as I move from conscious dwelling here in this life to a new realm with my Creator, my Mother, Father God will rescue me. The angels will guard me and I won't fear the terror of the night.

Tithing

2010-02-05T08:31:00.000-08:00

Doug and I have been on a journey of giving for the past 6 years. We joined Northshore United Church of Christ when Wilbur was 6 months old. We started to talk together about our financial support of the church and what our intentions were.

My grandparents always tithed 10% of the gross. That seemed almost impossible. Not only did we make more money each year, but our expenses went up as the children got older.

We decided to start slowly at 2% and build up. We didn't even know at the beginning that we were shooting for 10% (net or gross). But slowly, each year, we gave a greater percentage of the gross.

In 2010 we estimate that we will achieve the goal. 10% of the gross. 10 in 10. We are really proud of ourselves.

I don't know if we should be so proud. 10% sounds like very little when you say what you are giving back to God, to your community, or to represent all that you've been blessed with... It sounds like very little when I think about how lucky I am and how neither I nor God did that - just being born in the US, being white, raised in a fairly affluent family, going to good schools, having parents who told me all of my life that I was college-bound: that is all just luck. To think that God had anything to do with that means that people born with the opposite of my fortune are also hand-picked for their fate.

Conversely, 10% sounds like a lot when you start looking at your bottom line.

So, taking that all into consideration, we have a measured sense of pride at our accomplishment.

And, now it seems, we might keep raising the bar. Maybe we'll give 12% or 15% in a few years. It seems that, and I know this can't always be true for everyone, but it seems that the more we have given the more we have received, intangibly but tangibly as well. We really have experienced that often, when we have given money at a time when it was difficult to do so, we have gotten that money back very unexpectedly.

It's been a fruitful enterprise for us. And we continue to experience abundance as we travel this road.

Men Who Loved Women

2010-02-01T09:10:00.000-08:00

I've noticed a curious phenomenon:

The Lotharios I've known in the course of my life all have girl children. These men, who have finally given up their wanton pursuit of women and have, in their late 30s or even early 40s (never earlier than that), settled down into a married (or married-like) existence and started having children -- these men, almost without exception, have produced girl children.

I don't mean that all the men I know who have daughters are reformed rapscallions. But the men I know who were the worst of the worst for bed hopping, cheating, collecting bedpost notches and were famous for utterances of, "I'll call you", all, each one, without exception, have girls. And not just girls as well as boys - they don't ever produce boys - only girls. Their seed is all X chromosome sperm. (Isn't that how it works? Women's eggs are always X and men have X and Y sperm? It sounds right).

I think it's so interesting, really. Is there something in their DNA; something that both causes them to behave the way they do as young men while later in life determining that their progeny is exclusively female? If I believed in a god who seeks revenge, I'd think 'that's pretty fitting.' If I believed in reincarnation I'd think that these guys have come back in this go round to work on those issues of love and intimacy (or whatever causes all that skirt chasing). I guess what I really believe is that God has a wonderful sense of humor.

Misty watercolored...

2010-01-21T09:47:00.001-08:00

It's not that he cheated...

2010-01-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

It's that he lied about it. That's what women in movies always say about infidelity. And the logic seems pretty flawed. But I'm going to employ it and apply it to my feelings for the game last night - the championship game between Alabama and Texas.

I started to believe, somewhere during the second half, that Garrett Gilbert would, if he left his guts and heart on that field forever staining blood-red the grass in Pasadena, be rewarded. The gods would have to show him favor. The universe should work that way.

So, it's not that we lost but the way it happened that broke my heart. Or, it's not JUST that we lost but that we came so close, against incredible odds and crazy circumstances. If we'd played uninspired, with our without our star starting QB or if the defense had been lackluster and out of sync, maybe it would have been merely disappointing. But that kid was hitting it. And Alabama's offense was struggling. So I started to believe.

I know you can't say what might have happened if... If Colt McCoy didn't get hurt... If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Mac

2010-01-07T07:17:00.000-08:00

Christmas 2009 is the year that Emery got his first laptop. It was the last gift he opened and he said, "I guess what I hoped for is not going to happen..." I handed him the present and said, "this is a special kind of book that Daddy and I think you'd like." Of course it was - it was a Mac Book.

He has been overjoyed - absolutely. We have always worked to limit screen time (tv/comp/wii) and set guidelines for usage (after homework, once other things are done)... But, I have finally come to terms with the fact that this digital world is the world we live in and while I plan activities and opportunities for them to be active and engaged, they love their virtual worlds. Particularly Emery.

He plays games on his computer but he also does a lot of reading and research. He told me a few weeks ago that he gets his news primarily from the Internet. He said, "50 percent from the web, 30 percent from NPR and 20 percent from the newspaper."

So I'm not going to sweat it - this love of all things electronic, this lust for the new gadget and a SIM sort of world. It is what it is, and he'll probably be better prepared for what's coming by being invested in it now.

Making a List and checking it Twice...

2010-01-07T07:16:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve Wilbur said, "I don't know if I'm on the list of naughty or nice..."

So sweet.

The Godfather

2009-12-17T05:15:00.000-08:00

We went to see Emery's drama performance last night at school. They did a version of The Nutcracker (as a play not a ballet) and Emery played Godfather Dross. He was just wonderful. Doug and I so, so, so enjoy watching him perform. He has a great presence on stage and a lovely, clear voice that projects so naturally. Great, great, great.

Hate the Sinner, Love the SIN

2009-12-08T07:27:00.000-08:00

All of my growing up years I heard this concept repeated over and over - that we hate the sin but we love the sinner.

I've been so troubled by the setbacks in this ridiculous debate over gay marriage and the salivary glee conservative, religious heretics of this nation experience in denying some Americans their civil rights. They love to practice this exclusivity, this us-and-them thinking. They do it in their churches. They do it in their private pseudo-christian schools. And I am so sick of the separate-but-equals too, who propose civil unions and everything but marriage type of legislation. Sick, sick, sick.

I think they love the sin. I think they feed upon it. That sin, pretend and fake, keeps them in their exalted position.

I know I am not supposed to hate them. By their logic, I am to despise their sin and love them anyway. I am to love them, even as they spew their sin in public forums, with no shame for being BIG FAT Sinners. I feel shame that I don't love them as I should. I pray for forgiveness that I feel such pity and anger toward them. But their stupidity wears on me like a blanket of lead. And I loathe them.

Keep Abortion Legal

2009-12-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

I have been mulling something over, wondering how to do it... What if, in response to the stupid Stupak Amendment, there were a non-profit organization that gave money to a woman seeking an abortion no matter what her circumstances? Then we don't have to care about government money or health insurers' money. Is that something that could be done?

What is the Problem?????

2009-12-02T12:48:00.000-08:00

I thought I knew Maine and New York but they've disappointed me.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/new-york-gay-marriage-fai_n_377385.html

I feel so disheartened.

APPROVE REFERENDUM 71!

2009-11-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

About Referendum 71: Voting APPROVE on Ref. 71 is a vote to keep the domestic partnership law that provides legal protections for lesbian and gay couples and seniors who are in committed relationships. To be able to take unpaid leave to care for a critically ill loved one, without being fired. To be able to cover a partner in family health insurance. To make sure hard-earned pension and death benefits protect children when a parent dies. Approving Ref. 71 ensures that important protections are not taken away from committed couples, so that they are able to take care of each other, especially in times of crisis. Keep the domestic partnership law - Vote APPROVE on Ref. 71 by Nov 3.

Zen. Don't Even Think About It.

2009-10-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

I saw this on a bumper sticker today.

My friend Ken used to have this on his fridge:

your karma ran over my dogma...

Just love her...

2009-10-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

There is a chapter early on the The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck where Peck is counseling a friend who says that he has fallen out of love with his wife... they've been married a long time and the friend just doesn't feel that feeling anymore. Peck advises him that love is action and also feels that the friend is letting himself off too easy. Peck says, "Don't feel it, do it. Just love her. Just do it." Peck says that doing is what produces the feeling - love the one you're with. Love him.

That opened up a lot of doors to me when I read it 20 years ago. The idea that I could act instead of feel or do instead of react -- it was empowering.

I was on my walk the other day and I thought that same thought about myself. What if I didn't wait to outgrow the things I dislike about my appearance, or about aging. What if I didn't hope that they'd go away but instead just loved her - all of her. It felt so silly to delve into new age affirmations while walking about, but I thought the same passage in that book could apply to my relationship with myself, my love for me and my acceptance of myself. Instead of bemoaning that I used to be cuter or younger or thinner, what if I just loved myself?

Halloween Poem by Emery

2009-10-13T14:51:00.001-07:00

Emery wrote this for the newsletter at school:

I come back home
When the darkness
Is churning
I think I see
The doorknob
turning.
Out comes a
Nocturne,
Whose face
Unknown.
All that
Is left
Of me,
Is a pile
Of bone.
By Emery Arementrout

Periodontal Dis-ease

2009-09-18T09:50:00.001-07:00

A Dentist's Night'mare'
Originally uploaded by :: R(c) Photography ::

So, I am trying very hard to keep all of my teeth. In my family, we all have deep pockets; and I'm not referring to our generous natures... No, in my lineage the word pockets is always referring to that space around the roots of our teeth which shouldn't be there - that space that dentists and periodontists call Gingivitis.

To ward off its effects and to keep my own teeth for as long as I'm able I go to exhausting and terrifying lengths. First, I go to the periodontist every 3 months for a deep cleaning. Those always involve gas, numbing (read: shots in le mouth), and an hour's worth of scraping and torture. My periodontist's hygienist actually sharpens her tools many times over as she works on my plaque.

Then, every so often, as I did yesterday, I get a DEEP cleaning. This involves total numbing (not just partial) and the shots are in the worst part of my mouth - like the roof of my mouth. But yesterday, the lower jaw would not get numb - no matter how many shots she gave me.

I also floss, stimulate, brush, and use all sorts of instruments designated for home dental care to ward off the formation of these hard and calcified spots under my gums which really, really want to grow on the roots of my teeth.

All this is to say: I do a lot of work on my teeth. A lot.

Meanwhile there's Doug.

My husband brushes once a day. He rarely flosses, he has sweet breath (except for how much he loves raw onions) and he may make it to the dentist once a year. Sometimes he skips a year. But when he goes? When he does go to the dentist, guess what they say! "Doug, just perfect, as always!" No pockets, no gingivitis, no periodontal disease.

If that's not unfair, I don't know what is.

Cartoon History of the Universe

2009-09-16T13:14:00.001-07:00

Cartoon History of the Universe
Originally uploaded by Michael Vance1

Emery's favorite book

Reinvention

2009-09-16T06:46:00.000-07:00

I was just talking with some friends about how I reinvented myself when I left Texas and moved to Ohio for graduate school. Looking back on it I realized that although I had been a fairly unconventional Texan when I lived in the Lone Star State, once I left the constraints of its borders I became a walking example to Ohioans of all that a Texan is. I became someone who always wore make-up, always wore an 'outfit' (so much so that people often asked me where I was going, sure that I couldn't have arrived at my final destination when I was clearly so overdressed for where we were and what we were doing). I was a girl who always had her hair done - and done big (the higher the hair, the closer to God), favoring a high ponytail accessorized with a bow. I relished my Texas accent, used the phrase 'fixin' to' as often as possible and stuck a "y'all" in whenever appropriate.

I extolled the virtues of the Texas landscape, her people, her cultural institutions and culinary gifts - missed the Texas Two-Step and Country music; even though I'd been a fan of none of these things while growing up...

The opportunity to be a stranger in a strange land offered up the chance to be a curiosity and I loved it. I got to shed the things I'd carried around with me that I didn't like and take on new characteristics that were off-limits to me when I might run into someone I'd known since the third grade. On the Ohio University campus I was never going to run into someone who'd known me my entire life -- no one was going to say, "Wow, what happened to you?" It was a freedom that is lost to me now. Now I'm part of a community: at church, school and work. That's why it is so important to do it while you're young - and I hope my boys do that too. They should go away to college, to the East Coast or the Mid-West. Maybe when I retire we could run away again, Doug and me. Maybe we'll find that freedom again. Sometimes you wanna go where nobody knows your name...

2009-08-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

"Doug is just like Poppa. He even has Poppa's sweet little smile..." That's what I thought to myself early this morning. I thought about the most important men in my life and they have shared some really startling qualities, given that they're all from parts rural - either in Texas or Iowa. Poppa grew up in Paris, Texas on a farm growing cotton and sorghum. That sorghum was used to make syrup (and TJ Blackburn syrup is still made in Jefferson, Texas; that was one of his cousins, I believe). Daddy grew up in Temple, Texas and my grandaddy coached football and was a school teacher. Both my poppa and my daddy read poetry. My poppa was an artist and a poet himself. He had a beautiful singing voice and sang on the radio in Dallas with his brother and two other men in a quartet. My father could quote all the great poets and knew all of Shakespeare's sonnets. He sang beautifully and loved opera. How do men who grow up in Paris and Temple love these things? We never listened to country music in my home growing up in San Antonio. We listened to classical music and opera. We listened to Perry Como. But we never listened to country music. I don't remember either of my parents ever reading a trash novel. The book I can picture in our bookcase at home is Jude the Obscure.

Doug grew up on a farm in southwest Iowa. He loved poetry and playwrights and is gentle and sweet like my poppa. Doug is the first person in his family to go to college, and then he went on to graduate school, where I met him. I don't know why it never occurred to me before, how much like my poppa he is, his sweetness and his gentleness. I am sure I went looking for that. Children react to Doug just exactly like they did to my poppa - like moths to flame.

why is everyone a whisperer?

2009-08-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or is there too much whispering going on? Why is it just because you say you whisper to a horse, dog, ghost, child, mentally disturbed person somehow you are the great communicator? I have always been more of a yeller myself.

Fatter Somewhere

2009-07-28T10:00:00.001-07:00

funhouse mirror self-portrait
Originally uploaded by craftivista

I grew up in San Antonio and I am fatter there than I am anywhere else. I am a little fatter in Austin, where I went to college, than I am in other places, but I pull it off better than I do in San Antonio. I am always very fat in my mother's house. I am fatter in Seattle than I am on the Eastside (where I currently reside). I am thinner downstairs in my own house than I am upstairs. I am always thinner in church than I am out in the world. Feeling forgiven makes me feel thinner.

I have accepted that it will always be so: being fatter some places and thinner others. I have understood that my perception makes my reality and alters it according to my mood and my circumstance. I am not an objectivist. I like Ayn Rand, but I don't subscribe to her theories, at least not where my belly is concerned. My upper arms vary minute by minute, mirror to mirror. I can gain 200 pounds in the span of an hour. I can acquire a pound per mile as I travel from one part of the country to another. Memories and insecurities add fat as surely as the lack of them slim me down to my true size.

I take my clothes off in the middle of the day to check their size. Not that it matters. The 4s or 8s or 6s don't matter. the P after the 8 makes me feel no better or a little better depending on my mood. Everything is judged by what is better a 4 regular or an 8 petite... Everything is that kind of trade off. I see what I want to see. I see what I can't bear to see.

At the dentist office I ask him to turn up the Nitrous because I'm not feeling it. I feel drunk when he says, "are you sure? You're pretty small." I say, I'm not paying extra for that, right? I wonder why he tries to flatter me, what his agenda might be. He's tricking me. They're laughing at me behind my back, he and the hygenist, that's what I think.

Sometimes I go into the bathroom and do what I need to do without ever catching my reflection in the mirror. Sometimes I can't stop staring.

Post Your Secret

2009-07-27T06:22:00.001-07:00

This is incredible:
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Ugly, ugly, ugly

2009-07-23T12:03:00.001-07:00

Jon Gosselin
Originally uploaded by argo21

Ok, I can't figure this out. Why would one woman (much less three or four) show even a passing interest in this loser?

For one thing he's as ugly as homemade sin. Those puffy eyes and that squashy face. Ugh. He's soft. He's got a fat neck and a weak chin.

For another he has a brood of kids and a lot of baggage. He'd better be makin' a lot of money because he is going to be paying a fortune in child support. He's going to have to keep drumming up the drama just to keep the payola flowing in to support all these kids and exes.

Just gross.

The point is mute

2009-07-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

Moot is what he meant but mute is what he said. Moot: meaning debatable - like a moot court, not important, or just academic -- it doesn't mean soundless...

I can't tell you how often I hear someone say, "irregardless" which, of course, isn't a word. They really mean irrespective or regardless.

But, when people say, "the point is mute" I either want to laugh or scream.

Don't look... but stay right there

2009-07-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

My children are ridiculously modest. They can't have anyone be in the bathroom with them, no looking while they get dressed - all that. But they've been that way since each was about 2 1/2. So, it's difficult with a small, boy child not to help at all in the bathroom. I mean if you care anything about the walls and floor of your bathroom.

So Wilbur wants me to go with him to the bathroom, but he doesn't want me to come in, and, in fact, he locks the door as if I might want to terrorize him by popping my head in mid-stream. But he also does not want me to go away. What he wants is for me to stand outside the bathroom door and wait. What he says is, "Don't look. But stay right here."

It struck me this morning that this is a metaphor for parenting. As my children grow up they say that to me in many different ways and sometimes it's hard to hear. The 'don't look' part feels like, 'don't meddle, don't be in my life.' I have to remind myself of the 'stay right here' part that comes after.

Cuckoo Puffs

2009-06-29T11:12:00.001-07:00

Cocoa Puffs Combos
Originally uploaded by danajohnhill

Wilbur has asked me for this cereal, insisting that it's called Coo-Coo Puffs. I tried to say that the bird says he's cuckoo for cocoa puffs but he gets very frustrated with me and says, "No, it's COO COO FOR CO-CO PUFFS!"

Seattle Pride

2009-06-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

Our church marched in the Gay Pride parade yesterday - Doug stayed home with the boys and I marched. It was a beautiful Seattle day and it was a great parade. We waved and blew kisses and tried to show the gay community that there are churches where they are welcomed and wanted.

That was the cap to a wonderful weekend. We saw The Tempest on Friday night with our friend Bradley Goodwill as Alonzo. We stayed out until almost 2 AM that night. We had taken Leigh and Alex with us and they took us out to Via Tribunali after the show. Matt, in town for Catch Me If You Can at the 5th Avenue, met us also. Matt brought the musical director for Catch Me (his friend John) and we all had a marvelous time.

I hope that Leigh and Alex think it's fun to meet these people - these friends of ours. I hope we don't make them uncomfortable. Sometimes I wonder about that. We have all these friends who are theater people and I hope they find it fun and not tiresome to hang out with us.

Saturday the boys went to the Doyle's for brothers' day - an annual event now with them. Brian and Brandi Doyle are lots of fun and their kids and Wilbur are bosom buddies. So, I dropped them off at noon. We spent a little time alone, just the two of us, and then we went by a graduation reception for a boy who has done some sitting for us. Then we went back to the Doyle's for dinner and to pick up the boys. Wilbur cried his eyes out when we left - a total melt down. "I don't want to go-oh-oh-oh!!"

Yesterday was the pride parade. I feel like thank god it's Monday, because I am exhausted.

I got posted on Hey Rude!

2009-06-19T19:05:00.000-07:00

Check out my friend Helene's site about rude behavior in New York City! You'll see that they posted one of my submissions:

http://www.heyrude.com/2009/06/who-are-these-people-clean-up-after.html

City-sponsored meetings for gays trigger showdown over privacy vs. public records

2009-06-18T06:46:00.001-07:00

City%2Dsponsored%20meetings%20for%20gays%20trigger%20showdown%20over%20privacy%20vs%2E%20public%20records

Shared via AddThis

This is why I'm marching in the Pride Parade here in Seattle on June 28th. Not b/c I care about private vs. public records, but because a guy like this is out there spending all his spare time making sure no one is getting ahead of him in his race of rats.

Sage about Age

2009-06-18T06:00:00.001-07:00

Wrinkled Elegance
Originally uploaded by Athary

I think this is what's hard about aging: the -ing. It continues and it's ongoing. It's in process. It's not done.

I look in the mirror and I don't like a change I see. I realize the inevitability of the new wrinkle or the sag or just the alteration in the nature of my skin. Then I come to acceptance - of that, the way it is that day. But then I realize that I am not frozen in time and it's not going to stay 'this good'. That's what happens. I have never aspired to look like I'm in my Early 40s. But now, given that I'm almost in my mid-40s and then I'll be in my late 40s and then my early 50s (and the beat goes on), hanging on to the early 40s look sounds good.

100 dollar words

2009-06-10T07:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Emery was upstairs trying to watch a program 'On Demand' and he was struggling with the remote. I heard him grunt and get mad and I asked what was up. He said, "It's this remote! I can't get the infernal thing to work!"

This morning Wilbur is watching his requisite Backyardigans before school (it seems like they watch a lot of TV)... It's the Viking Voyage episode. Wilbur called out, "It's a whirlpool!" and Emery said, "It's more like a maelstrom. A maelstrom is even more powerful."

Happy Birthday Son

2009-06-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

Today my oldest boy is 10 years old. I can't believe it. How can I describe how much joy this child has brought into our lives? We call him our good luck charm because it seems that after he was born, everything fell into place.

It is certainly a journey that I couldn't imagine before I had him, and it's a journey that is so different today than when he was a baby. I used to see families with their children in the 'tween years and think that wouldn't be as fun as when they were babies. But it's much more enjoyable as they get older - the struggles grow, too. Not being able to protect my son, seeing his friends' influence outweigh ours, realizing that there is nothing I can do to make him a popular kid or the leader among his peers (that they have something to say about that), is not easy. It was certainly much easier to dress him in something adorable and ask him to smile.

Now, he has awkward moments and goofy moments. He is silly in that funny way boys have as they figure out how to tell a joke and then practice being un-enthused (oh. cool. -- I hear that a lot); they do that thing where they act like they are nonplussed and unimpressed. There are moments when I want to be able to punish him the way I used to and still punish Wilbur, sitting on the steps and taking a time out. But by the age of 9 and certainly now that he's 10, that just doesn't cut it anymore. The consequences require thoughtful consideration for every infraction, and every infraction can't warrant punishment. If I punished him every time he rolled his eyes at me there would be no 'time in' -- it would all be time out. So, I choose my battles and focus on the heinous deeds; a particularly nasty tone, complete refusals and uncompleted but required tasks (homework). And I try to stay the one he wants to talk to about hurt feelings and disappointments. Someone told me once that with boys you should be doing something alongside them to open up a conversation about feelings and needs - and she was absolutely right. If I'm not looking at him, he'll open up and tell me about the hard time someone is giving him, his first crush on a girl way out of his league (two years older, a 6th grader!), and how he wants to be part of a tougher crowd of boys at school but he's not quite making it.

It's not really something I could imagine 10 years ago as I labored for 36 hours without so much as a Tylenol, asking for street drugs or a sledgehammer. And truthfully, it's better that we don't really know what we're getting ourselves into, what we'll feel, how we'll struggle. You wouldn't have the energy for that journey at the start of the trip, and you'd set yourself up to fail. The only way to do it is the way we have to do it, a day at a time.

TEAM me

2009-05-08T08:19:00.001-07:00

Bicycle Built for Two - Tintype
Originally uploaded by photo_history

Doug and I have this thing that makes us laugh and it happened this morning. We imagined we were teamed up on that old game PASSWORD. I would be giving clues that I thought clearly indicated a word or concept and he would answer with something completely out of bounds, something that would make me think he was from another planet.

We first laughed and got hysterical about the concept of us as Le TEAM when Doug said one time that we'd never make it on a bicycle built for two. I would be all the time trying to wrest control from him although I wouldn't want to be the front rider. We said I'd be saying things like, "SLOW DOWN! You're going TOO FAST!" Doug would be sure we should go one way and I would know we should go another. The idea of that made us fall apart with the giggles.

Doug and I are a great team if we each do what we do best. But we aren't a real work-together kind of team. We are both really stubborn about how we want something done and we are complete opposites about how we approach even the simplest task. Doug is thorough, plans before he begins, is painstakingly methodical and does things in a certain order. I am quick, dive in without a plan, impulsive and impetuous and do things in no order at all - I may have to stop in the middle to preheat the oven, know what I mean? I hardly ever follow a recipe completely, to great acclaim at times and alternately resulting in disaster. It's why I can't bake. I start a crossword in the middle. I start things and tire of them and quit. Doug doesn't stop because it's dark out and he'll weed tomorrow - he stops when he gets to a logical stopping place. That is not me. If I don't want to do something anymore, I don't.

The way we are is good. Sometimes it's good to be a quitter like me (If something's not working for you, get out of it, move on). Sometimes it's good to have stick-to-itiveness. Sometimes it's advantageous to have a plan. Sometimes it's nice to go off the grid. But, after 15 years together, we know the couple we are. We couldn't go on Password and we would never make it on a bicycle built for two.

Don't forget your mother! Give her Jesus!

2009-05-06T07:20:00.001-07:00

The Mother's Day Gift To Make Her Say Hallelujah
Originally uploaded by sudergal

I used to think Mother's Day was a nice thing to do. Now I realize what mothers really do, what they set aside, what they give up; and how much they love doing that. It's hard to explain how you give so much of yourself away and that you find you want to do it - it's hard to say that without sounding like some kind of martyr... or sounding like you think your Jesus.

I remember my first week of motherhood after Emery was born. I was so overwhelmed with love for him. And sadness for the loss of myself. I kept thinking, I will never be just me. I thought, I will never just do something I want to do or go somewhere I want to go without considering this child first. And that is a loss, particularly for someone in her 30s at the time who was accustomed to going and doing where and as she pleased.

Maybe all mothers don't feel that way, but I certainly do. I would walk through the hottest fire blah blah blah, as any mother would. I would lay down my life. And I do it in little ways each day. This is not to say I don't want to - it makes me aware though, the commitment you make before you have any idea what you're getting into.

There is a kind of vulnerability, too, that comes from loving a child so much and realizing how you could crumble into nothing if any hurt or ill came to that child. It was difficult for me, in the early days of parenting, to feel so raw and vulnerable. That is something I've adjusted to over the years. I used to have this insane vision each time I pulled into our driveway that I would run over one of my children. I think the true nightmare of worrying over your kids is that you might be the one to hurt them and cause them pain. I still have that vision but only now and then...

So don't forget your mother.

This flickr image reminds me of a time when my Poppa was alive but ailing in the hospital. Mother, Granny and Garland had been visiting him. It was around Christmastime, and they left the hospital to grab a bite to eat at a Whataburger across the street. The Whataburger was decorated for Christmas, but in a haphazard and half-ass way. There was a manger scene, but it was divided up and distributed over the entirety of the restaurant, as if they didn't have enough decorations so they decided to split the members of the scene up and have them take their places all over the restaurant. They made the entire restaurant the stable. But the thing that made Granny and Mother and Garland laugh, made them actually get hysterical (the way you do after death or suffering when you are so tired and sad) was where they had decided to put the baby Jesus... He was laying face up on the cash register - no manger, no straw.

TA$TE

2009-05-04T06:20:00.000-07:00

My mother has always hated to go shopping. It was one of the anomalies I experienced as a child growing up in Texas -- my mother was not a typical Texas mother. Other people's mothers loved to shop, shopped on vacation even. My mother couldn't fathom shopping on vacation! Why, that's what you went on vacation to escape, mundanities such as shopping. She didn't like to shop (a bore, it made her feet hurt), didn't want me to be a cheerleader (it's silly, beneath you), begged me not to join a sorority (all that singing together and iced tea), and offered to give me the money she'd spend on my wedding if I'd elope (buy a house! are you sure you don't want the money?). My mother is a pragmatist.

So, when we went shopping we always got tickled about something in the dressing room and completely lost control of ourselves. Regardless of whether she enjoyed shopping or not, my mother, like my grandmother before her, would not buy cheap clothes. And never, NEVER, buy cheap shoes. My mother would rather go barefoot than wear cheap shoes, and she got that from my Granny. Granny never told me that I could learn a lot about a person by walking in his shoes, she said, "You can tell a lot about a person by the shoes they wear." I think she was wearing Ferragamo's when she died.

When we went shopping, it seemed that we'd look and look for something (we were always shopping for something specific; my mother didn't just shop for no reason, she hated it too much) and I'd invariably find one single thing I liked -- and it was always the most expensive thing in the store. My mother used to always say, "Well Paige, you've got good taste" or, "Paige, you sure have expensive taste" or finally, "you have your father's taste."

My father always said you couldn't buy taste - you either had it or you didn't, it was either bred into you or it wasn't. He grew up not rich, but his father had a college education and was a teacher and his mother loved the finer things, she adored china and silver with such a passion that I have full sets of china and crystal for any occasion. Dessert teas, ladies luncheon, you name it: I have a specific set of china for the occasion. Daddy used to point people out at our country club who were rich rich rich but whose taste was all in their mouths. Those were the people about whom he said, "Squirrel, money can't buy taste."

I have those same eyes now. I see these awful, gargantuan houses and I hear my father's voice in my head, 'money doesn't buy taste.' I hear my mother's voice in my head when I browse online at Nordstrom.com and finally see something I think is cute and it's always like $498 bucks. "Paige, you sure have expensive tastes." I'm not saying I spend that on a wear-to-work dress, I'm just saying, that's what I like.

La Bikina

2009-05-02T08:22:00.000-07:00

My father loved mariachis. The first time Doug met my daddy we were in San Antonio. Daddy had it in his mind that we'd go to Paisano's but I was thinking La Margarita and if you knew my father you knew that he was pretty stubborn. So he agrees to go to La Margarita for 'a drink and let's see', he says. But once we get there, there is one of those incredible mariachi bands - one of those with like 20 guys - and the lead guy, the singer, he can really sing. Really. And, to top it off, there is an engagement party going on at the next 2 tables and they are paying these guys to play over and over again. So, it was a good night. My father sat back in his chair, across from Doug, and chewed his ubiquitous cigar and kept saying things like, "They don't make 'em like that anymore Squirrel" -- his pet name for me.

Fast forward to this past Christmas and my mother gives me this Luis Miguel CD, with La Bikina on it. Now La Bikina was my daddy's favorite mariachi song. He requested it if he felt like the mariachi singer could really sing it. And it's the song he requested that night at La Margarita when he started paying the mariachi band. We ended up closing La Margarita that night and my daddy and Doug became as thick as thieves. So, in preparation for Cinco de Mayo, and in honor of my father, I share with you, "La Bikina!"

Lichen a Challenge

2009-05-01T12:21:00.001-07:00

Sysiphus
Originally uploaded by k4cay

People always say that they like a challenge. They often say it when they are interviewing for a job. They claim to work well under pressure, better in fact than without any pressure. They say they like deadlines. "I work well on a deadline." "I like a fast-paced environment," they'll say.

I have discovered that I do not like a challenge. I really don't. And I'll tell you what else, I think there are more people out there like me than you'd think. And, I bet other people like me SAY that they like a challenge, but they don't. They say it because they think they are supposed to like it.

But why would I want to do something the hard way if I could have it easier? Wouldn't I rather have the luxury of time? I am often lamenting to myself, as I hurry around my house trying to leave on time, that haste makes waste. I'll admonish myself for trying to yank on pantyhose only to ruin them with a run, or practicing some clever step saving that costs me extra time in the end (once I went through this whole elaborate routine to try to get out of washing my hair and I just had to go all the way back to step one and get in the damn shower)... I don't work better under pressure or deadline and I don't like a challenge. When I have the luxury of time and a pressure free mind I come up with a great comeback that I would give anything to have said to that boorish colleague who has been irritating me for months.

The next time I interview someone for a job (and that's going to be soon, I'm hiring) when they say that they like a challenge, as they invariably will, I'm going to say, "Really? Do you really? Because I don't..."

There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste. Goethe

2009-04-27T06:06:00.000-07:00

"Der moderne Buchdruck" - Modern book printing, Berlin

I often think that Goethe's statement that there is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste is a singularly perfect thing. More of that has been seen in this country during our most recent boom times than perhaps anytime in recent history; what with our McMansions (ugh. shudder at it) and big toys (I never refer to any purchase of mine as a toy. Toys are for tots); the gross and exuberant displays of bad taste and absolutely no taste have been flaunted as shamelessly as a coed at her first Mardis Gras.

So, when I consider another famous Goethe quote, "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free" it all knits together so nicely. It's almost as if Goethe knew us, intimately.

I write about these things so the children will read this later and be reminded of How To Do Things. Some things are not ok and never will be. Exercising some bad taste option that entails more than $1.59 is not worth it.

Sad Today

2009-04-23T07:19:00.000-07:00

Today is the second anniversary of Granny's passing and I miss her as much today as I did that day two years ago. I've experienced a wave a grief lately - the kind of grief that made me wonder if this was only the 1st anniversary... I had to think about it, no, no, this is two years.

My friend Jon once said that as time passes a new kind of grief comes from getting by without the person you miss. You almost feel sorry that you haven't collapsed and been unable to continue because that would be a reaction commensurate with your love and longing for your loved one. He's right. Sometimes it feels so bad to have gone days without thinking of Granny.

But it's just a cycle and it ebbs and flows like anything.
Today it's very present.

Is it my imagination...

2009-04-23T06:11:00.000-07:00

Or does every gay man have a close friend named Zoe (Zoey, Zooey)?

Stop the Insanity

2009-04-22T06:29:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090422/ap_on_re_us/us_fed_up_mom;_ylt=AlX0B6fzoXSf1tFkONazZzcDW7oF

Ok, I would never do this but who wouldn't show up in court for this woman to say, "I've thought about it."

It's like a baby crying - it has this sort of dual effect - you have this overwhelming sympathy and concern and somewhere on a lower, baser track in your brain you just want to get it to stop. After months of little sleep and this crying that has no explanation (you go through your litany, wet? no. hungry? been fed. tired? just woke up.) and you find yourself thinking, "What?" to your baby. What in the world have you got to cry about?!

It's the same with the bickering. God! It's awful. My kids have this way of saying each others names in disgust that might as well be a screeching sound or nails on a chalkboard. "Wilbuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrr!!!!!" "Emeryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!"

It's terrifying.

And in the car it's always the worst. They want to bring a book a toy a lego guy a whatever in the car, even though we have a rule about no toys in the car. But I'm late, we need to get to school, I sigh, "Whatever! Fine! Bring a lego guy, bring 10 lego guys, let's just go!" Then in the car they fight over the LEGO GUYS! It's insanity. Absolute insanity.

So, would I pull the car over and say 'get out'? No, but I can imagine this poor woman. Gripping the steering wheel, trying to drive, she keeps calmly reinforcing to her children that they must stop fighting. And then, if you don't stop fighting I'm going to pull this car over and leave you wherever we are to duke it out. And suddenly in her head, as the incessant bickering continues over some bullshit that the children don't actually even CARE about it occurs to her to just do it. The little devil says, "you told them. You said if they didn't stop. Follow through for once in your life. Do it!"

Mari's Beehive

2009-04-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

I patterned myself after Mari Wilson off and on through college. I did the beehive, cocktail dresses (although I paired them with combat boots)... And I loved this song. I bought this cassette tape while I was in high school (1983? 84?) and I remember riding around in Susie Shearer's Honda Matic with the sunroof open and this blasting.

What Rich Is

2009-04-20T06:03:00.000-07:00

"I'm not after sympathy. We are blessed. What I want is a reality check on what rich means," Ms. Parnell says. "I can pay my mortgage and I can buy some clothes. I'm not going without, but I'm not living a life of luxury."

This is from a woman whose family earns $250,000 per year...

http://finance.yahoo.com/retirement/article/106934/Wealth-Less-Effect-Earning-Well-Feeling-Otherwise

There is this article in the WSJ about whiny-pusses who make at least 250K and don't want their taxes to go up because they are barely eking out a living.

Please.

It's hard for me to even know where to start with these people. I feel so rich, so blessed, so privileged - because "I can pay my mortgage and I can buy some clothes. I'm not going without" to quote idiot-woman Ms. Parnell. And if she wants a reality check, I submit she look no further than within. What is it about Ms. Parnell that makes her feel less than rich in the midst of all that abundance? It seems more a spiritual quandary than a tax issue. Compared to most people in this country she's rich. Certainly when you scan the globe, she and the other 250K/year earners are among the Super-Rich. Do we now define Candy Spelling as rich and anything less as middle class? I guess I thought when you could do all those things (am I a Depression baby all of a sudden?): Pay your mortgage, go to resorts for vacation, have 5 kids (these people had 5 kids! My mother is an only child because my grandparents couldn't afford more. All those kids were a choice!) and have $1,200 left over every month ---- YOU WERE RICH. Yes, Ms. Parnell, I think you do need a reality check on what Rich is. You are but you didn't have the sense God gave you to enjoy it.

FOR THE EYE and The sun doesn't move

2009-04-16T07:01:00.000-07:00

Emery has to take these eye drops every day for his allergies - it's called Pataday and it comes in this teeney little bottle that you'd swear holds about 3 drops. The last time I refilled the prescription they put the bottle in a pill bottle (it usually just comes in the Pataday box, which is also teensy weensy) and on the pill bottle was a sticker, larger than the eye drop bottle, that said, "FOR THE EYE" . And I just thought, what else would you do with this? Or would it be so harmful to accidentally swallow it? Or is it that it wouldn't be effective if you took this some other way? I pictured people putting it on their skin as a topical or putting drops on their tongues and screwing up their faces in consternation, saying to their significant others in a twangy voice, "I cain't figger this out, it jus' ain't workin'! These gol' dang allergys is jus' as bad as before!"

On another note, it was a very sunny morning yesterday, the kind we live for here in the Seattle Metro but as we left for school the sun had briefly gone behind a cloud. The clouds were thick enough that you could stare right at the sun and see this shadowy round thing up in the sky - a perfect outline of the sun. Wilbur asked me what that round thing was in the sky and I said it was the sun, that the sun had gone behind a cloud. In a very concerned voice Wilbur said, "the sun doesn't move!" He said it like I was messing with the laws of the universe and shaking the very foundation on which he based his understanding of this world. So I said, "yes, you are right, the sun doesn't move -- I should have said the clouds came in front of the sun..."

Holy Week

2009-04-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

I love Easter and especially love all of holy week. We are going to communion for Maundy Thursday at church tomorrow and then for Good Friday we are doing a dramatic reading that I put together. We rehearsed last night and I think it's going to be very good - moving and solemn.

The thing about Iowans...

2009-04-03T09:11:00.001-07:00

Atlantic Meat Locker
Originally uploaded by mcrriowa

They are stubborn, independent thinkers. Meredith Wilson was right, there is an Iowa kind:

Oh, there's nothing halfway
About the Iowa way to treat you,
When we treat you
Which we may not do at all.
There's an Iowa kind of special
Chip-on-the-shoulder attitude.
We've never been without.
That we recall.
We can be cold
As our falling thermometers in December
If you ask about our weather in July.
And we're so by God stubborn
We could stand touchin' noses
For a week at a time
And never see eye-to-eye.
But what the heck, you're welcome,
Join us at the picnic.
You can eat your fill
Of all the food you bring yourself.
You really ought to give Iowa a try.

I have found every Iowan I've ever met to fit this bill in some form or fashion. I have loved every minute I've spent in that beautiful state so I understand why my husband loves it so much. I also understand why he left, not so much Iowa, but the small town life he knew there. Being a very private person and having everyone in town know all your business all the time was a kind of torture to him.

I've gotten a first-class education in all things Iowan from my Iowa-born-and-bred farmer husband. They would give you the clothes of their backs but they wouldn't want you to mention it to anyone. They don't put on airs but they are proud, proud, proud. And they may pick at each other but they wouldn't want to be anywhere else. They aren't hick-ish or uneducated, the state of Iowa may have the best public schools in the nation and their students are industrious, well educated and resourceful.

So, it was a surprise to me that they passed an amendment banning gay marriage. I am just glad that sitting on the bench of Iowa's State Supreme Court are some independent thinkers who are now protecting their constitution and the rights of many of their citizens.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_re_us/iowa_gay_marriage

White Like Me

2009-03-31T06:31:00.000-07:00

Both boys desperately needed haircuts. For the past 8 years I have cut Emery's hair and for the past 4, Wilbur's too. But they've gotten too squirmy and there's too much complaining and I'm sick of sweeping hair into the yard... So, I started taking them to this little neighborhood 'Hair and Nailz' kind of place. But I want to be able to walk in (their signs always say, "Walk-Ins Welcome") but this last time no one was available to cut their hair. Plus, they'd each had their hair cut at this place once and they hadn't done a great job. All I ever did, and what I wanted done, was a buzz. They both have perfectly straight hair and until they are ready to groom it themselves the only haircut that keeps it neat and tidy is a buzz.

So, out we walked. I told the boys that we were going into town to see if we could find a barber to cut their hair and low and behold as soon as I got downtown in Woodinville I saw a barber's pole. I swear I've driven that way a hundred times and never noticed it, but there we were. I parked the car and we all went in. There were 4 black men getting their hair cut by 3 black men and one black woman. I registered this information - we were the only white people in there - and then realized that one of the guys getting a haircut is a guy that works in my building. So, we spoke and laughed for a moment and I made arrangements for the young woman to cut the boys' hair. We sat down. Emery has been giving me looks and then when he's out of earshot of the barbers and customers he says, sotto voce, "Are we going to get our hair cut here?" I said that yes, we were.

Well, it only took about 10 minutes and the boys were comfortable (there is a chess set and a pool table and they wanted to do both) and they got the best haircuts they've ever had and they were more comfortable actually getting the hair cut (she was good with the clippers I mean). We talked about the experience on the way home. I asked Emery, "were you uncomfortable when we first walked in?" and he told me, "yes - I felt like we didn't belong there" -- I pointed out that any one of those people in there might feel the same way anywhere else in Woodinville. It was very likely that they were surrounded by white people and one of them might be the only black person in the room. I told the boys that it was a good thing to be in a situation like that where you were the 'other'.

I asked the young woman her name as she finished Wilbur's haircut and I paid her. She said, "Mess" and handed me her card. I thought I'd misunderstood her. But sure enough, that was her name.

I Can Read

2009-03-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

I remember the mobile library in San Antonio and going to get books there. They always had those books that said "an I Can Read! book"...

Wilbur is just on the verge of reading. He writes, almost compulsively, letters in strings that mimic words, he asks me what every single sign says - along the roads, in the grocery store, everywhere. But he just isn't quite getting it. It's so odd how something doesn't make sense and then one day, it does. I never went through this with Emery because he read so early. I keep worrying that Wilbur won't read or that there is something wrong. It's sort of maddening.

I should just enjoy this and not worry. I should just be where we are and quit trying to get somewhere else faster.

A Rooster Crows in Brooklyn

2009-03-17T06:28:00.000-07:00

Years ago Doug lived in Los Angeles - before I knew him. He was deciding whether or not to go graduate school, trying to decide if he should leave LA; and one morning in the middle of LA County he was awakened by a rooster crowing. I often make him tell me this story... and the end of the story is that when he hears that rooster crowing he thinks to himself, "I've got to get the fuck out of here." Like that was the signal it was time to leave Los Angeles, the big city, the excess, the current road trip, all that; and go back to school.

When we lived in New York in Hell's Kitchen I heard roosters crowing all the time. I wanted to leave the City; nothing was going my way and things hadn't worked out the way I supposed. Every time we heard a rooster crow in the morning I would say to Doug, "See? We've got to get the fuck out of here. The rooster is telling us. The rooster is telling us to go." But Doug would remind me that the California rooster was the harbinger and a rooster to be obeyed because his crowing came out of nowhere. And that's why it was a sign. "These roosters crow all the time" he would say as salsa music blared from the apartment building behind us. "Castro had chickens in NY, it's not so unusual here."

I was reminded of all this by this story of a woman getting shot by an arrow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/nyregion/17arrow.html?ref=nyregion

This woman was getting out of her car and as she opened the door she got hit in the gut with an arrow. I think if that happened to me, and Doug were there with me at that moment, I would say, "OK, are you satisfied? It's the wild west in Manhattan. Can we go now?"

Bye Bye Seattle P-I

2009-03-11T06:46:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to this series on KPLU (the NPR station at Pacific Lutheran U) on the last days of the Seattle Post Intelligencer, and our last days as a 2-daily-newspaper city. (http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1478803) The broadcast yesterday focused on investigative journalism asking who would be our watchdog if newspapers couldn't anymore.

They had a blogger named Scott St. Clair who posited that the blogosphere (a loathed word) fills this function and there is no need for professional journalists. He spoke of the inanity of 'professional' journalism with such derision that it caught my attention and I started rolling his name around in my mind. And when he talked of representing the Evergreen Freedom Foundation I knew exactly who he was.

Whenever the word Freedom is used by an organization, you can bet that 7 times out of 10 it's some rabid right-wing cabal. And this time was no exception. This fool, Scott St. Clair, was one of the major opponents of Tent City, and, no surprise - the Evergreen Freedom Foundation is a conservative think tank.

That the irony escapes Mr. St. Clair is also no surprise; I mean the fact that he is publicly associated with a conservative think tank and yet proposes to fill the role of an unbiased journalist.

Motel Living

2009-03-11T06:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/us/11motel.html

Our family has been involved in the horror of homelessness since 2004, when the Tent City IV encampment first moved to the East Side of King County. At that time, while we weren't in a recession, while we were all living high on the hog and while the high life we enjoyed seemed never to end, people here expressed vitriolic rage that any roving group of homeless people would be given comfort in our suburban neighborhoods.

I bet some of those people are now facing the prospect themselves.

For some reason, being homeless myself is one of my long-term fears. I have been afraid of ending up with nowhere to go since I first left my parent's home in 1984. I don't know why, it's not always a rational fear, but I think about it. I used to think about who I'd call to ask for help. Maybe it's because I always felt it could happen to me that I felt compassion for people in that situation - I don't know. I had some of the same fears that opponents expressed. But in the end, I'm mostly afraid I'll be one of those people who needs help one day, and if I did, I would hope to find compassion.

Squre Root Day & Give It Up for Lent

2009-03-03T06:19:00.001-08:00

Today, 3/3/09, is Square Root Day. Just to mark it and make mention.

And now, Give it up for Lent...

I am going to abstain from Facebook for Lent this year. It just came to me in church on Sunday that that is what I should do. I sit in front of a computer all day and maybe I could get tuned into the lengthening of the days and the season of Lent by not getting online in the evening.

Working Title

2009-02-27T05:56:00.000-08:00

I have started trying to figure out what the children will do all summer. This is an annual task, fraught with pitfalls. The school offers day camps and we have some college student nannies who like to pick up summer work. Historically, whatever ratio of home care to school care I've tried I hear complaints. If they are home more than at camp they get bored. If they are at camp more than at home they miss the comforts of home. One thing I have begun to figure out is that I should just ignore all that bitching and not take it so personally. But both options are pricey and when they complain I feel bad that they aren't enjoying their summers and then I feel resentful because I've spent all this money - blah blah blah.

I am going to try and find some more challenging options for Emery - either technology or science camp - for part of the summer.

What's a whorehouse?

2009-02-20T08:54:00.001-08:00

New Store in Denver: Men's Whorehouse
Originally uploaded by Jeffrey Beall

So yesterday Emery is watching TV upstairs - some program called Kirby, which I have never actually sat down and watched. I hear parents all the time saying, "I watched the program and felt it was ok..." Well, I really have never done that. I have listened to the program from another room and the program is on Noggin or PBS or Nickelodeon. I have overheard the program. I trust it's ok.

But yesterday, Emery comes down the stairs from watching this show and says to me, "Mom, what's a whorehouse?" I start to wonder if giving him my secret code was really stupid or what in the world is he watching up there? I ask him that, "What are you watching up there?" Kirby he says, but they may have said the H word. And something about a whorehouse. What's the H word I say? I tell him to just say it - it's only a word. And we don't want him to go around saying Hell, not because it's a bad word but because it's common and sounds low rent for kids to cuss. Doug and I stumble a bit trying to explain a whorehouse, and we say things like house of ill repute which really doesn't go any further in explaining the concept, in fact it is obviously purposefully vague.

Finally I say that a whorehouse is a place where someone can pay for sex. Someone can pay someone else to have sex with them. I've always tried to be very factual and even casual about the topic of sex or our anatomy or procreation. But I have to admit, explaining deviant behavior, something lusty and illicit, is a different proposition.

In end, Emery has the show paused upstairs (it was OnDemand) and he says, "Let me just show you." As he's rewinding he's saying, "I think they said something like Hell up in a whorehouse" and I am trying to imagine the innocent circumstance that would permit Kirby or any show to throw around the word whorehouse. When the snippet plays I realize the animated character says, "Hello poorhouse" as in "if such-and-such happens it'll be Hello Poorhouse!"

I am relieved (that he wasn't watching a dirty, damaging show) and then immediately realize that we explained this whole thing about whorehouse to him when we really didn't have to. Really though, explaining a poorhouse is much harder.

forgiveness

2009-02-14T08:07:00.000-08:00

There are certain things that I've never forgiven myself for and they often come into my thoughts early in the morning when I'm just waking up. No matter the 12 steps, no matter how sick they made me, nor how long I've carried them around, I just can't bring myself to let them go. I can't get past the notion that I've not attoned for these things and that somewhere the people I've wronged, some of whom are dead, remember these things against me; even in death. And they have not forgiven me either.

There's a notion promulgated by therapists and mental health professionals that I must forgive myself and accept forgiveness from others. But I don't see how. As I get older these things get more pronounced. The one that awoke me this morning was making someone give up something for me, a high school boyfriend... And he missed something that he shouldn't have. And a year later he was gone. I torture myself with that and I have for 25 years. After 25 years it seems more important, because I'm a parent and I think of all the things I want for my children. This boyfriend's mother must feel that kind of regret about me: why did I hurt her son? Why did he die? If he was going to die, couldn't he have had a nicer girlfriend who would make sure he did all the things he should have done before he died, instead of one who held him back? She held him back out of selfishness and insecurity. Shame on her.

The rational part of me (or I might say the evil part) tries to say that it was just as much in his control as mine - to say whether we stayed or went to that dance. It says that I can't make up history and decide that this was an all-important life experience that he regretted missing. I really don't know what he thought of it. All I know is that it was a puppy-love, teen-age romance that is forever colored in my mind because he died. Because of that, everything I did or didn't do, all of my insecurities that played out on someone else's life, my inability to be a normal teen-ager at that time have tormented me. I think, 'I should have done things differently'. I wish I could call him up and laugh about it now - how I wouldn't go, how strange and wierd I felt inside about all those budding feelings, how I hated all that and just wasn't ready for it. I think now how unprepared I was to have any sexual feelings and how I was overwhelmed by growing up.

I realize now how all of this was fertile ground for growing mental dis-ease and disorder. And they grew tall and put down deep and substantial roots. No wonder I was so sick. Sometimes I think I could so easily get sick all over again. Like a mouth sore that I wish I could avoid, I'm drawn to this pain over and over; I keep sticking my tongue in it, making it hurt more. I had a dentist once who said the toungue is an exaggerator; a sort of drama queen, enlarging everything it feels. I don't want to be indulgent with this painful memory or the many others that I dredge up. There's the whole bit about my best friend in high school - that mess. I don't want to be indulgent, but there are things that happened, that I felt and did, for which it seems there is no forgiveness.

Susanna Kaysen

2009-02-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

I am reading Susanna Kaysen's book, The Camera My Mother Gave Me... And last night we started watching Away From Her, the film for which Julie Christie received an Oscar nod. Aging is bringing about a whole slew of insecurities and troubles for me. The notion that your body or your mind can just turn on you is truly frightening. The changes in my skin and hair bother me already, I can't imagine if my mind began to go - it's truly terrifying.

The Susanna Kaysen book is all about her vagina and the fact that something went horribly wrong with it - it hurt all the time. But no one can find anything wrong with her - it's like a phantom limb. So, it seems that it's not necessarily her body turning against her. Her mind might be doing it.

Months ago I read this fascinating article in the New Yorker about itching. It recounted the story of a woman who had this phantom itch on her scalp and an uncontrollable desire to scratch it. She managed to control the urge while awake, but once she fell asleep all bets were off. She finally scratched all the way through to her brain fluid - all the way through her scalp. The thing is, it was all neurological. Some scientist doing research on phantom limb pain figured out that one thing that seemed to work was using mirrors to give the illusion that the limb was there. When the patient's mind was fooled into seeing the limb and the person could scratch the phantom, the brain let go of the itch or the pain or what-have-you.

Because a Great Nation Deserves Great Art

2009-01-29T06:29:00.000-08:00

There's a whole lotta wrangling going on with the stimulus bill and some 50 million (0f the more than 800 billion) going to the National Endowment for the Arts. Now I know that even a sum so small, when multiplied many times for many "pet" projects adds up. But, if there were ever a time in our history when we need museums, libraries, theatres, art programs in schools, opera, symphony and the like, it is most certainly now. We need our spirits nourished and lifted. And there are so many communities across this country who could lose their art presence with this economic downturn ne'er to have it return.

We don't really have to worry about the New Yorks, the LAs, Seattles, Houstons -- we have to worry about Omaha or Midland or Jacksonville or Springfield... And it's not just how many people are employed downstream of the NEA, it's really about holding on to who we are during tough times.

So, pony up. I am tired of republicans throwing around the acronym NEA with derision like it's so ridiculous that we spend money on art and culture. Who are we without it?

My Big Break

2009-01-27T14:43:00.000-08:00

So This American Life's theme this week was all about people who'd gotten their big break only to find that it was probably the worst thing that could ever happen to them. One story was about a couple who had a sketch comedy act and their big break came being on the Ed Sullivan show the same night as The Beatles. The Beatles first time on TV in the US.

It's funny to me because I recently thought that I was glad that some of my dreams didn't come true - that I didn't really know what I was dreaming about when I was hoping for them. I've discovered, for example, that in a lot of ways I'm a private person and being famous is probably something I would hate. Although I dreamed of being famous when I was a little girl. I don't like to travel all that much - more of a homebody, but I used to sort of fancy myself someone who'd travel the world. I now realize I probably would hate that.

Anyway, it's interesting... the synchronicity of the universe... that just when I was thinking that I heard a whole show about it...

This is the day...

2009-01-20T06:02:00.000-08:00

It's Inauguration Day! It's Inauguration Day! I have a song in my heart:

This is the day
(this is the day)

That God has made
(that God has made)

I will rejoice
(I will rejoice)

and be glad in it
(and be glad in it)

This is the day that God has made
I will rejoice and be glad in it

This is the day
(this is the day)

That God has made

Happy Inaugural 2009!

Harald the Shaggy

2009-01-16T10:52:00.000-08:00

This morning Emery was telling me all about Harald the Shaggy, who was some Norse Mythological figure who would not let his facial hair or the hair on his head be cut or combed until he conquered all of Norway . Emery said all that and then Wilbur said, "Big hair."

Andrew Wyeth

2009-01-16T07:06:00.001-08:00

“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.”

Andrew Wyeth

This is why Doug loves Andrew Wyeth's paintings so much. Doug loves any movie or story that is set in winter - stark, cold - not lush and green. When we start a movie, in the theatre or at home, if it's cold he'll say, "I love a movie that's set in winter." A Simple Plan, Fargo, Affliction. There are many, but those come to mind at this hour.

I don't mean that any movie set in a cold climate is a great movie to him, nor does he dislike movies where climate isn't a factor or where it's warm or what-have-you... It's just that he particularly likes what happens when there's shivering and snow and wind. And a starkness to the landscape. I think he likes what Andrew Wyeth likes. The thing beneath and the promise of what's coming but isn't visible. And that idea that the whole story doesn't show.

Goodbye to Andrew Wyeth, whose art is loved by us.

Traveling Wilburys Wisdom During Tough Times

2009-01-15T06:49:00.000-08:00

Well it's all right
Riding around in the breeze
Well it's all right
If you live the life you please
Well it's all right
Doing the best you can
Well it's all right
As long as you lend a hand

You can sit around and wait for the phone to ring
(at the end of the line)
Waiting for someone to tell you everything
(at the end of the line)
Sit around and wonder what tomorrow'll bring
(at the end of the line)
Maybe a diamond ring

Well it's all right
Even if they say you're wrong
Well it's all right
Sometimes you gotta be strong
Well it's all right
As long as you got someone to lay with
Well it's all right
Every day is judgment day

Maybe somewhere down the road a ways
(at the end of the line)
You'll think of me and wonder where i am these days
(at the end of the line)
Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays
(at the end of the line)
Purple Haze

Well it's all right
Even when push comes to shove
Well it's all right
If you got someone to love
Well it's all right
Everything will work out fine
Well it's all right
We're going to the end of the line

Don't have to be ashamed of the car I drive
(at the end of the line)
I'm just glad to be here happy to be alive
(at the end of the line)
And it don't matter if you're by my side
(at the end of the line)
I'm satisfied

Well it's all right
Even if you're old and gray
Well it's all right
You still got something to say
Well it's all right
Remember live and let live
Well it's all right
The best you can do is forgive
Well it's all right
Riding around on the breeze
Well it's all right
If you live the life you please
Well it's all right
Even if the sun don't shine
Well it's all right
We're going to the end of the line

Whatever

2009-01-14T06:01:00.000-08:00

Wilbur always puts his shoes on the wrong feet. I don't know why, we've gone over it a million times, he's a very capable, smart child... But for some reason he really insists on putting them on the wrong feet. If we are just headed out to school I don't really worry with it anymore. He looks a little like Eugene Levy in Waiting for Guffman and his two left feet, but no matter. When he gets to school he's going to change into his 'inside' shoes anyway. But if we are going somewhere together in public I have to insist that he change them; I think people will think, "now why wouldn't his mother put his shoes on the right feet?"

Yesterday, Emery had to stay after school to finish his geography work and Wilbur and I went over to Starbucks (a sign he instantly recognizes) to kill a half hour. As we walked from the car I told him that his shoes were on the wrong feet and couldn't we stop and switch them? He kept saying "no they're not" and I kept saying "yes they are" and finally he sighed and said, with great exasperation, "Whatever..."

Global Storming

2009-01-08T09:41:00.001-08:00

As we flood in Western Washington and people are evacuated from their homes and all the major highways that lead to Seattle are closed, I think back to last week when we had record snows - there are a lot of people around here of a conservative ilk who said, "Global Warming, heh!" I had a science teacher in 7th grade who used to ask us tricky questions and when anyone gave an answer that wasn't well thought out or too obvious he'd say, "you can pick the dummies out of the crowd..."

That's what I think about people who, during bouts of intense, abnormal and devastating weather, say, "Global warming, hmph." As if they are somehow the scientists. As if it's really that simple. Wow, more snow this year, I guess that hot planet theory is all wet.

The predictions about global warming, from what I've read, predict more hurricane activity, intensified storm systems, and hotter heat waves. Cold snaps and snow falling in the Southern reaches of the US isn't evidence against the warming of this planet.

The thing is, if I were God and I created the world and the heavens, I would get pretty sad and hurt and angry seeing people crap on it. I would get pretty tired of all their carbon footprints marking up the beautiful home I made for them. And I think that would make me more disappointed than anything else human beings do. Except maybe war. War and crapping on the beautiful world I gave my selfish, petty, ungrateful children. I could do without praises and lauding if the the people in the world I made would just treat it and each other decently.

Little Brother

2009-01-07T16:58:00.000-08:00

Wilbur just asked me, "Am I a little brother?" And I said, "Yes." And he said, "I have a bigger brother?" And I said, "Yes."

Loving Lent

2009-01-07T06:13:00.000-08:00

I love Lent. Growing up we didn't really observe lent - it seemed distinctly Catholic and Baptists didn't really want to have anything to do with that. But I love the 40 days (minus Sundays) that make up lent much more than I enjoy the 12 days of Christmas. Christmas feels public - as it should, bringing a baby into the world ushers you into community even if you've kept to yourselves prior to that event. Lent feels private. Lent feels like meditation and reflection.

I am working on something for Good Friday that really excites me. I saw this incredible documentary about a death row minister in Texas and it's a Good Friday story. I will work on that through Lent. That's my lenten project.

One bad apple

2008-12-24T07:28:00.001-08:00

One bad apple
Originally uploaded by waɪ.tiː

Last week on This American Life the theme was 'Ruining it for the rest of us...' and what happens when one person's actions or choices affect a lot of other people.

The opening was a study of group dynamics and behavior by a Professor of Management who found that one bad apple could spoil the whole bunch girl; and it's something that I have seen myself as a manager of people. It's so easy to be negative that if someone on your team starts enticing you there you tend to slide right into hell with them.

This business of our choices affecting others is nowhere more evident than the subprime lending crisis. People borrowing money they can't afford to repay affects us all. Our choices aren't made in a vacuum.

Story Corps

2008-12-19T06:40:00.001-08:00

Story Corps
Originally uploaded by BinaryLA

I love this program on NPR - Story Corps is an organization that lets ordinary people record stories of their lives. This morning, in a story from Atlanta, the story was a hospital chaplain reflecting upon her retirement. A friend interviews her and asks her about the most significant moments in her ministry. The chaplain's answer moved me.

First she spoke of blessing the hands of hospital workers, not just doctors and nurses but the janitorial staff who clean toilets, the people who do food prep, each of them getting a blessing to carry out their efforts. it struck me how forward thinking and comprehensive her ministry was - to honor the work and labor of each person doing the meanest task.

Then she told of a place in the hospital, in windowless rooms, where surgical technicians assemble the instruments for each surgery. They are given an order with patient's name and all the instruments required for that person's surgery. The chaplain said that as she blessed the hands of a woman technician who was doing this work, the technician told her that she'd been doing the job for 40 years and for all that time, as she assembled the tools for each surgery she prayed for that person by name as she added each instrument.

The chaplain said she found out that many of the technicians did this and she talked of the importance of this work that no one knew about - the families didn't know their loved one was being prayed for, the person having surgery didn't know and the technician would never meet these people or know the outcome of the surgery. But each had this quiet ministry, requiring no reconginition of their work.

It would be easy to look at the job description of one of these surgical techs and to list the requirements and duties of the job. But it's impossible to estimate the value of the creativity and energy someone brings to a job, where it's not required and there is no tangible benefit to the worker to do more and go above what's asked of them.

On The Porch of Charlie

2008-12-19T06:09:00.000-08:00

It's so funny how children discern new concepts and the questions they ask reflect that. Wilbur plays around with syntax as he learns the rules of expressing oneself. Lately he keeps asking us what certain things are - conceptually, he's trying to understand it. Like midnight - he asked what time is midnight. But he'll also ask what something is when it just is what it is...

Yesterday, as we got 12 inches of snow between sunrise and sunset, they went out to play at our next-door-neighbor's house. I bundled them up and put a hat on Wilbur under his parka hood. When Wilbur got home I noticed that the hat wasn't on his head and asked him about it. "Oh NO!" he said - "I left it on the porch of Charlie!"

Barack Obama and Rick Warren

2008-12-18T14:22:00.001-08:00

I have no fondness for Pastor Warren, but I totally understand this strategy from our future President and I think it's more than a ploy. If you want people to understand your position and have any respect for you at all, you have to bring them into your fold, and it's so obvious that Obama is one of those people who could find some kind of value in sitting down for a beer with almost anyone.

It's the smart move. If democrats and religious progressives like myself ever hope to be understood by the religious right, we have to talk to them. We can't all keep playing this game where when I'm in charge you're shut out and when you're in charge I am.

I am encouraged, like some kind of Libra, that this man keeps his friends close and his enemies closer and that he shows deference and respect for people whose views are very different from his own. We need this kind of dispassionate, reasoned, rational approach. Someone from any part of the spectrum may be the one with the bright idea. It'd be a shame to miss it because of ideology.

Richie, Ralph and Ponzi

2008-12-17T06:35:00.000-08:00

What is Ponzi I asked myself? Is it an acronym?

What's interesting to me about this kind of greed is that Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay and the Tyco guy and Ted Stevens ET AL are people who are generally bright and well-educated, completely aware of the thing they are doing and how the ripple will stretch out from the center. It's not like some person embroiled in poverty for a lifetime who steals a TV from WalMart.

I have just been shocked at the unscrupulousness of Americans in general; like people who buy a house they absolutely know they can't afford, or the woman on 60 Minutes the other night in Miami who is a successful acupuncturist but got involved in real estate on the side. Rula Giosmas. The acupuncturist. The real estate speculator. This woman/prototype has brought our financial system to its knees.

This idiot woman bought 6 properties - some of them apartment complexes and multi-family homes - and now has them financed with adjustable rate mortgages which she cannot afford to pay. When asked by Scott Pelley if she'd read the paperwork, if she'd understood that the interest rate was ADJUSTABLE, she looked unblinking back at him and said, I KID YOU NOT, 'I was very busy. ' As if that is some sort of reason or answer. As if we care that she was busy. Or that since she was busy it was clearly incumbent upon someone else to understand her financial wheeling and dealing.

Here's the story:

Asked what she understood about the loans, Giosmas says, "Well, unfortunately, I didn't ask too many questions. I mean in the old days, I would shop around. But because of the frenzy, and I was so busy looking to buy other properties, I didn't really focus on shopping around for mortgage brokers."

"But if you're investing in real estate, you're buying multiple properties, you should be asking a lot of questions," Pelley remarks. "Why didn't you ask?"

"I was busy. I was really busy looking at property all the time, all day long," she replies. She also acknowledges that she didn't read the paperwork. Now she’s losing money on every property.

I want homeowners to get help and Main Street to get help, but this kind of stupidity should experience the Darwinian result of its actions.

Here's what wikipedia says about Ponzi Schemes:

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high returns to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from the profit from any real business. It is named after Charles Ponzi.[1] The term "Ponzi scheme" is used primarily in the United States, while other English-speaking countries do not distinguish verbally between this scheme and other forms of pyramid scheme.[2]
The scheme usually offers abnormally high short-term returns in order to entice new investors. The perpetuation of the high returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises (and pays) requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going.
The system is destined to collapse because there are little or no underlying earnings from the money received by the promoter. However, the scheme is often interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses, because a Ponzi scheme is suspected and/or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. As more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities
increases.
The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who became notorious for using the technique after emigrating from Italy to the United States in 1903. Ponzi was not the first to invent such a scheme, but his operation took in so much money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States. His original scheme was in theory based on arbitraging international reply coupons for postage stamps, but soon diverted later investors' money to support payments to earlier investors and Ponzi's personal wealth. Today's schemes are often considerably more sophisticated than Ponzi's, although the underlying formula is quite similar and the principle behind every Ponzi scheme is to exploit investor naïveté. However, it has been shown that entering a Ponzi scheme can be rational even at the last round of the scheme if a government will likely bail out those participating in the Ponzi scheme.[3]

nunchuck and weremote

2008-12-14T08:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the boys were going upstairs to play the wii and since we only have one nunchuck at the moment (I know, we are getting another one for Christmas, who knew so many games required the remote and nunchuck?)... since we only have one nunchuck Emery said, "I call nunchuck!" and Wilbur said, "I call weremote!"

D and I laughed with each other about this. First of all, it's so funny that the little 0ne calls the thing that's left. But even funnier is how Wilbur has always called the REmote the WEREmote. Like Werewolf but Weremote. I don't know how this is because he pronounces other words with RE just fine.

It's one of those things that I hope never goes away, even though I know it will.

A Triumph!

2008-12-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

We saw Emery's first acting efforts tonight in front of a full house and it was glorious! He was so wonderful, natural, beautiful to watch! I don't want him to be an actor, but I loved seeing him up there; he was confident and self-assured and when he had the briefest glimmer of uncertainty in the first moments he was out there he just breathed a deep breath and found his place and blew on by.

We don't act anymore, Doug and me... But we certainly benefit from our experience and we know Emery will, too. It's a skill, to stand up in front of a crowd and play a part - whether speaking on some subject or being a character. Tonight he was the narrator - sort of a master of ceremonies - and he played it to the hilt. And we were so proud.

What if there were no hell?

2008-12-10T09:57:00.000-08:00

What if Jesus died for everyone, really? Like he really did and no matter what you did or said or what religion you were or where you were born or how you were raised? What if? What would church mean if he just died for everyone? If he just died for everyone. period. What if that was his gift and he gave it - he didn't expect anything in return. A true gift.

What if Jesus said, "I am a way, a truth and a life?" What if Jesus said things that were transcribed in a slightly different way than the way he actually said them? What if we asked questions about how the bible became the bible? Who picked what's in there? What did they leave out? What could happen?

What if Jesus is a savior, a prophet, a messiah? Does he have to be the only one? Does he have to be the only way? What if he weren't? What if his message of love and inclusion is for you, whether you believe it or not? What does that mean to people who believe? Is that a threat? Why?

What if we have a creator who loves his creation? What if we are the collective creators and the creation? What if we can't really understand what that all means? Is it worth killing for, When we may not really understand it?

What does it mean to believe without fear? What would it mean to just have faith for today and nothing else happens - no hell, no heaven? Or what if heaven is a sleeping child in the crook of his parents' arms? What if it's just peace? Would that be ok?

What if Jesus doesn't need your belief? What if he just gave a gift and he doesn't need something back? What if we all get to be one with creation in death? What could that mean? What if all the things that matter now fell away? Deeds, misdeeds, loves, failures, crimes great and small? Is that bad?

Capital Disgrace

2008-12-08T06:02:00.001-08:00

At the Death House Door - Fresh Air
Originally uploaded by WhipTheDo

I don't think of myself as an activist with regard to capital punishment and the failure of the death penalty as either a deterrent or as a just solution, but whenever I hear any story of any death row inmate - no matter how guilty, no matter the circumstance, I start to feel like an activist.

I watched the documentary At The Death House Door on Saturday (on IFC) and I kept thinking 'this is a Good Friday drama'. The death row inmate, Carlos de Luna, is proclaimed innocent by an overwhelming number of people and yet he's dead, killed by the State of Texas. And it didn't go well. It took 11 minutes.

The man at the center of the documentary though is Carol Pickett, whose death house ministry has turned him into an activist, although he's uncomfortable with that word. He crusades all over Texas against the death penalty.

I want to take this story and use it for Good Friday and Easter. That idea hit me right between the eyes when de Luna asked to call Carol Pickett Daddy. It just jumped out at me - Abba, Father...

Emery On Stage

2008-12-05T06:21:00.000-08:00

Emery's first dramatic performance will be this coming Wednesday with Woodinville Montessori School's Christmas Caper. Emery has a near photographic memory, so if he'll read through his lines a few times he'll have it, and with some basic maintenance he can have it down cold. The thing is, IF he'll read through it and do the basic maintenance.

It's funny that when I was acting the most pesky question was, "how do you learn all those lines?" because it seemed like the least of the work and here you'd just sweated it out all over the stage and someone asked you about memorization. It'd be like watching a mechanical genius rebuild an automobile engine and then asking him or her, "How did you slide under the car?"

But, having said that, I realized when Emery joined the drama club and came home with his first script, memorization was going to be the biggest hurdle. All of a sudden I wanted to ask him, "How are you going to memorize all these lines?" Because there were a lot of them - big long speeches... And I had no concept of the rehearsal strategies or methodology. So, we've gone over and over the lines; trying to have him slow down to a pace where human ears can hear what he's saying and he doesn't sound like an announcer on a car commercial. We've tried to give him pointers without telling him how to do it or making him frustrated or, God Forbid, giving him a line reading. We've said things like, "you're going to be nervous at the performance so you really want to have this down cold." And, "you know, if you go up during the show you'll have to SAY something - you can't call for line."

I realize he doesn't really know what we're talking about. He's never done this so he can't imagine how naked and vulnerable it feels 2 minutes before the show starts, or how you question all the work you've done and think thinks like, 'what in the world have we been doing for the past 6 weeks - I don't remember anything! Have we even rehearsed?' So we just keep urging him on, and looking forward to seeing him up there. We know he'll understand it all very soon.

You Can't Take It With You

2008-12-04T06:30:00.001-08:00

David Sedaris!
Originally uploaded by Aaron_M

I'm sure it's just because I'm reading Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, but... We saw Seattle Rep's production of YCTIWY last night and the Vanderhof/Sycamore family had resonances to me with my visions of the Sedaris family.

I don't mean to say that David Sedaris sees his family the way Alice sees hers, but they are so eccentric and funny.

It was a lovely production and so timely, what with the state of the world the way it is.

Happy Birthday Granny

2008-12-03T06:12:00.000-08:00

Today would have been Granny's 93rd birthday. Doug and I were talking about this last night and saying it was still hard to imagine that she is gone.

I hear her every now and then and I talk to her too. Just like I talk to Daddy. I was watching an old Andy Williams Christmas special on PBS the other night and he got choked up about still missing his parents, even though now he is a very old man. Time changes the pain and lessens it, but it also makes me sad to be less sad. I don't want to keep losing the people I've lost. I don't want to lose my memories of them or the sharpness of their image in my mind. So feeling better is a different kind of grief.

out of the habit

2008-12-03T06:03:00.000-08:00

I haven't been journaling/blogging for a few days and I find I'm a bit out of the habit. Our Thanksgiving was lovely - Leigh & Alex and Gabrielle and Charles Henry came and stayed the night. Erick and his girlfriend Amber came (and Erick did a lot of the cooking). Tyler came and brought Green Bean Casserole. It was a great time and everything was delicious. It made a huge difference having Erick there to do most of the cooking. I did all my stuff on Tuesday and Wednesday (cranberry sauce, cheesecake, cornbread and dry ingredients for dressing, fruit salad, brining) and he was really on the spot Thursday (he made brussel sprouts with pancetta, creamed corn, mashed potatoes, a lovely salad and a fabulous banana/butterscotch dessert).

It is always so nice to see my nephews, and it just makes me even more excited for Christmas!

Granny's Musical Chairs

2008-11-24T05:57:00.000-08:00

As the holidays approach and we have planned to have our wonderful guests spend nights in our home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I keep remembering a story we tell in our family... People were coming to stay with Granny and Poppa and my mother and somehow, the way Granny had it arranged in the end, no one got to sleep in his own bed. She came up with some sort of illogical solution and my family has laughed about it for years now.

That story is sort of a life-lesson story for me to just relax about the details and give up some of the control. Maybe step back a bit and see what I'm really doing - how I'm actually arranging things and ask myself, Does this make sense?

I keep thinking about where all these people are going to sleep. What if my nephew Erick and his girlfriend stay the night on Thanksgiving? Where will they sleep? But, you know what Paige? It'll work out and you shouldn't worry about it. And don't make Leigh and Alex sleep in your bedroom so that Erick and Amber can sleep in Wilbur's room, while Wilbur sleeps with you in Emery's room and Doug and Emery sleep in the TV room. Because that's the kind of scenario you've been devising and guess what? No one would be in his own bed!

quick note

2008-11-20T07:37:00.001-08:00

Emery just told me he was really reluctant to go downstairs and feed his guinea pigs in the morning b/c the heat isn't on first thing and it's quite chilly. It sounded so funny for him to say, "I'm really reluctant..."

Wilbur loses tooth, and really loses tooth

2008-11-19T11:50:00.000-08:00

I drove Emery to tennis on Saturday and as we parked the car Wilbur says, "I lost my tooth." Just very calmly, I lost my tooth. So I said, "Oh! when did you lose it?" and Wilbur replies, "10 minutes ago."

Well, knowing that my 5-year-old has no concept of time or the difference between 10 minutes and 8 hours I start to get a little concerned. It turns out that we don't know where or when he lost his tooth and he hasn't said one word about the tooth fairy.

I've started to wonder if he was so concerned with the tooth fairy coming that he just got rid of that tooth! He wouldn't be that cheeky, would he?

Christmas Hair Bows

2008-11-17T06:42:00.001-08:00

http://www.abunchofbows.com/smalchrishai.html

Ok, this is so funny. When I see the two words Hair Bow together, I think of UT Bow Heads. I don't know if everyone had bow heads in the 1980s, but in Austin we had this sect or class of girls. The bow head:
1. in a sorority. And not some lame one like KD. Tri-Delt, Theta, Chi Omega
2. wore those nylon soccer/jogging shorts. When I think of the things we wore that gave us no shape at all and yet that's what was in. And they wore them really low on their hips.
3. always had on big oversized t-shirts with the short-sleeved arms rolled up so they looked sleeveless. You had to have really skinny arms to roll your sleeves up like that and not have your shoulders and upper arms look manly. I know because I didn't.
4. Hair always pulled into a tight ponytail almost on the top of your head - tied with, you guessed, a big bow.

Now the bows got BIG. And these girls may not all have been stupid, but they sure looked like they were and they certainly sounded like they were. Every sentence began with "Ummmm..." Except it was more like Ehmmmm....

I shudder to think of it.