dumbfounded

a bread crumb ...

2011-07-13T19:41:00.000-07:00

For anyone who happens upon this trail in cyberspace, I don't maintain this blog any longer. I've fooled around with a few others since, and am on Google+ as of today, which seems to want to link to this old stuff.

Cheers!

Happy Birthday, Roxana ...

2009-04-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

Roxana Saberi, an American citizen of Japanese & Iranian descent, has been working in Tehran as a freelance journalist for six years. In January the government arrested her on charges of purchasing a bottle of wine, a crime in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Later, she was charged with working without the proper press credentials, and on April 8, Iran finally charged Ms. Saberi with espionage and sentenced her to eight years in prison.

No evidence was presented against her in court, and the one-day trial occurred behind closed doors. Ms. Saberi is being held in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison and is currently in the sixth day of a hunger strike. Her father describes her as an already frail person.

Today is Ms. Saberi's 32nd birthday. She holds two master's degrees, one in broadcast journalism, the other in international relations. She is working on a third, in Iranian studies. She had planned to return to the United States later this year after completing work on a book about Iranian culture. This is a young woman who was born in the United States and raised in Fargo, North Dakota. In fact, she was crowned Miss North Dakota in 1997, and expressed the desire at that time to work toward promoting cultural awareness.

President Obama has expressed "grave concern" about Ms. Saberi's circumstances, which doesn't seem quite a strong enough response to me. President Ahmadinejad refuses to intervene in what he insists is his country's "independent" judiciary. Right.

Amnesty International is monitoring the situation. Friends & colleagues have set up a website to mobilize support for Ms. Saberi. An email account has been set up at happybirthdayroxana@gmail.com; her parents and/or defense team will print out a selection of emails to bring to Evin Prison today.

Email is fine; we're all well used to its immediacy by now. However, I'm recalling that lovely scene in Miracle on 34th Street in which the functionaries of the United States Postal Service haul in one mailbag after another to turn out onto the judge's desk, as evidence of Kris Kringle's true identity. If everyone reading this blog would take a moment to write a letter, a postcard, or a short note to Ms. Saberi, it would achieve a twofold effect. Provided the mail reaches Ms. Saberi, it would perhaps lift her spirits and let her know that the world is watching; more importantly, in my opinion, a sufficient volume of mail would put the Iranian government on notice that the international community will not tolerate its wrongful incarceration of an innocent woman.

Here is Ms. Saberi's contact information:

Ms. Roxana Saberi
Evin Prison
Section 209
Chamran Highway
Adjacent to Azadi Hotel
Dasht Behesht Street
Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran

Mail to Iran costs $0.94 for the first ounce.

a matter of perspective ...

2009-04-19T05:21:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning. Four am. Sleep is elusive chez Dumbfounded, for both of us. I go out to the garage to root around in some of the storage boxes which are still piled up out there, even three years into our cohabitation. Spotting a black widow and her web in a fairly prominent & inconvenient location, I retreat to the house to consider my options (which mostly involves having a large cup of coffee).

I read about black widows. Among other tasty bits, they eat cockroaches & beetles, a very large one of which was in the garage just yesterday, just where the spider has built her web, clever creature.

A bit later on, I wander into the bedroom and notice ... a certain odor familiar to all cat & dog owners. But ... happily, there's nothing on the floor; I must be mistaken. Then, the dog joins me, hops onto the bed (which she considers her very own), and begins sniffing a huge wet spot with great interest. #@$%#@#~!! This is the second time in as many days that the cat, wretched creature, has ... had an accident (if that's what it was). The dog is delighted with herself not to be in trouble, for a change. We rush to strip the bed.

Drama over, I catalogue the morning's woes to C:

1. Up at 4 o'clock. On a Sunday!
2. Poisonous beast in the garage.
3. Traitorous beast in the house.

His spin on the same events?

1. We'll be absolutely entitled to a delicious nap this afternoon.
2. The spider likely ate the huge beetle.
3. The cat pee didn't soak into the mattress.

It's good to have a balanced perspective ...

memories of Pakistan ...

2009-04-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

My dear friend Yousaf, who once served me an exquisite breakfast of bacon, cantaloupe & blueberries (in January!) after my bedraggled arrival in Baltimore on a PIA flight from Islamabad, asked me what I miss from my time (1990 to 1994) in Pakistan. I think of the place (mostly fondly) often, but I’m not sure I’ve ever stopped to consider what exactly I long for from there. So here goes. This is some of what I miss from Pakistan:

1. Jacaranda trees in bloom on either side of Attaturk Avenue near our house.

2. Deliciously scented sweet peas that the mali, or gardener, always produced in the spring, with what appeared to be truly a minimum of effort (just bits of twine dangling from a lateral wire). This year marks something like my dozenth failed attempt to grow similarly luscious sweet peas.

3. The kindness of strangers, with which I was sometimes gifted at the most unexpected (and opportune) of times.

4. A thousand smiling-faced children who turned up, nearly from nowhere, at every single stop on every single jaunt, even when all I was doing was looking for a likely bush by the side of the road.

5. Muezzin-song five times a day. A fellow with a lovely voice did the job at the mosque near our home.

6. The Jumma Bazar, or Friday Market, occupying a huge vacant city block. The center of the market displayed mountains of spices and exotic fruits; the streets on the exterior held side-by-side vendors of carpets, leather goods, artifacts, jewelry ... so many temptations, so much delicious haggling over requisite cups of tea and genuine courtesy.

7. The complicated negotiations (something like a drug deal, I believe) involved in the occasional bacon purchase at the Covered Market in Islamabad.

8. The shock of driving (for arid hours!) through apparently unrelenting desert, only to round a bend suddenly and find the shining wall of Rakaposhi rising above, with a chaikhana, marked by colorful flags & welcoming signs, just there at the curve in the road.

9. The shock of driving (for arid hours!) through apparently unrelenting desert, only to round a bend suddenly and find respite within the verdant, apricot-bearing Hunza Valley.

10. Spending the night at a bougainvillea-covered cottage on the banks of the Indus.

11. Sipping apricot wine beneath the stars with a minor mir (prince) somewhere in the Northern Areas after watching an old reel-to-reel film of his grandfather hosting British dignitaries visiting his princely state in the 1940’s.

12. Visiting a Kalash village in the Bumburet Valley near Chitral. The mythology of the Kalash suggests that they are descended from a few of Alexander’s soldiers; there was enough fair hair and pale eyes during my visit for this tale to be plausible.

13. Stopping en route to Gilgit to pluck garnets from the dust & shale at the side of the road.

14. Dining in Peshawar with a journalist of some repute who kept cranes in his garden and two wives in his home. One wife (a lawyer) stayed in the kitchen to do all the cooking; the other wife (a doctor) played hostess, along with her/their husband, to our party which included my mother. After dinner, the journalist turned to my mother very courteously and asked if she would object to his smoking a little hashish.

15. The Lahore Museum & Zamzama.

16. The scent of wild marijuana, overripe fruit and human bodies that assaulted me during my first few days in Islamabad. I spent my first night in Pakistan sleeping outside on the terrace (to my then-fiancé’s dismay) because I couldn’t get enough of that exotic, unfamiliar smell.

17. Drinking hot chocolate while strolling down the main street in wintertime Murree, a former British hill station above Islamabad.

18. Picnicking with friends in Nathiagali, a green & gorgeous mountain town beyond Murree.

19. The ability to throw a magnificent garden party with colorful shamianas and lights hung in the trees for not a lot of money.

Note that I have omitted those memories … like being able to stumble out of bed, ring a bell and have coffee delivered into my waiting hands … which have nothing at all to do with Pakistan and everything to do with having lived a wretchedly overprivileged expatriate lifestyle for a few short years.

Thank you, Yousaf Sahib, for offering me the opportunity to meander along memory lane this afternoon …

bug sex & bird poop ...

2009-04-13T14:50:00.001-07:00

It thrills me to know that I have created a space out back where bugs want to fool around. No, really! It’s a reminder that I also am participating in life, however feebly. In addition to insect intercourse, more birds are visiting the garden this year, more butterflies too. Things were much quieter, more drab last year. It’s a bit shocking that such a small patch of ground can invite so much beauty, offer such possibilities. (And, honestly, with only a small amount of labor on my part.)

Early returns from the dirt patch out back suggest that the Dumbfoundeds will be eating a lot of beets later on this year ... the thin little stalks are such a brilliant shade of red, even right at the beginning! ... but no green beans, at least not yet. A solitary corn plant has … just this morning! … poked its way out of the earth; sap that I am, I couldn’t be prouder if I’d won a prize. Sunflower sprouts are an inch tall already. Many infinitesimal Sweet Annie seedlings are fighting for space in their square inch of special seed starting soil. Such a lovely scent, I wish I could keep them all.

Breck’s cleverly sent me a catalogue which arrived today. It's the perfect time, really, to order big, lush bulbs for next spring: just after you’ve realized what poor performers the cheap, crappy bulbs you thought you could skimp on were. (I’ll be placing my order within the week for *scads* of new Dutch bulbs.) I think even C. agrees that there’s so much more room for bulbs in the naked winter landscape than either of us realized. Scads of new Dutch bulbs … yippee!

Just now I was climbing amongst the wisteria tangles, coaxing them up rather than out, when I came nose to nose with the Tibetan prayer flags strung along the very top of the pergola. Bird poop glistened on the blue “prosperity” flag. I guess we didn't win the lottery. Again.

Boy Child has been impossible lately. People keep telling me, “Well, he’s 16,” as if that would, should, could explain his behavior. I’m pissed off at him more because of the inconsistency of his actions … sometimes, occasionally, in the midst of the teenage terror, he still acts like a decent human being … than the actual ignorance & inconsiderateness of them. Inconsistency really throws me, despite the fact that it seems to be part of the human condition. It’s not a lack of empathy or imagination on my part; I well remember being 16. I was absolutely an asshole adolescent myself, but I was *always* an asshole for a few years there, and therefore consistent. I’m not exactly sure why consistency matters to me, but it does.

Having the Dumbfounded premises all to myself for a few hours, I’m listening to the incomparable Raising Sand at full volume, a CD which won the Grammy, after all. I confess that the “marriage” of Robert Plant & Alison Kraus intrigued me into buying the CD a number of months before the award. The fact that the album (I had to look up whether they’re still called “albums”) won the Grammy did vindicate my musical tastes, however. Sometimes, in this phase of my life, I feel alone in my fondness for bluegrass & banjo, Bruce & Bob Dylan.

the scent of roses ...

2009-03-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

How prescient that I got a pedicure yesterday!

Lovely day. I was second in the line of people waiting for individual blessings this morning from Sri Karunamayi, or Amma, so the drudgery of arising so early paid off. And I enjoyed the journey, during which I listened to Prodigal Summer on CD and was very much entertained.

Amma entered the church in radiance, coming slowly down the center aisle, smiling, murmuring words of love, shimmering in saffron. She seated herself cross-legged on a white dais in the center of the stage.

She spoke to us, in English, of selflessness, of service, of unity & compassion. We chanted with her, following Sanskrit words projected onto a huge screen at the side of the stage. She directed us to hold our arms up as we chanted, to feel the energy in the room. It was palpable, powerful.

Amma is involved in many charitable enterprises in India ... hospitals & housing, for example ... and she giggled like a girl as she shared stories with us of the transformations enabled by these projects.

Amma then performed the Abhishekam ritual, a sacred bath (in this case, of milk) honoring a deity. Then we were directed to approach the stage for our individual blessings. Time became skewed. I was second in line, so before I knew it, I was pressed up against the stage in the namaste mudra before this lovely & loving creature. But then, as soon as she put her hand on my head, time slowed way down.

She took the card on which I'd written my blessing requests, read it, smeared a bit of sacred ash on my third eye and placed her hand on my head. I'm sure she only rested it there for a few seconds, but it felt like a lovely long time. Amma's hand was warm. I felt trembly. Tears started to gather behind my closed eyes. She smelled of roses. I felt such love, from her and for her. I could have remained in that position for a long, long time.

Jai Karunamayi!

how far would you drive?

2009-03-25T19:06:00.000-07:00

My intent for tomorrow is to drive for four hours round trip to (hopefully) receive a blessing from Amma Sri Karunamayi. My toenails are newly painted, and the alarm is set for 4:27 in the hope of getting myself on the road (or at least to the nearest purveyor of caffeine) by 5 am & avoiding the worst of the rush hour traffic. (Is there anything disturbing ... anything at all ... about a society where coffee shops find it profitable to open at such an unholy hour?)

C (formerly known as "George") has a birthday on Friday; we're having a little hoolie on Saturday. (My delight at being reacquainted with this word is large). There is much to do in preparation, so I considered *not* making the drive to see Amma. For about five minutes. But as soon as I looked at her website again this evening, I felt drawn anew to make the journey. I keep telling myself (and others) that I am having a midlife crisis, or an existential moment of being (thanks, Virginia), so I need to walk the talk, or whatever, don't I? So the alarm is set; my white clothing is ready; and, yes, my spirit rouses a little ... after a long, dreary winter ... at the prospect of a jaunt on the morrow.

Until a few days ago, I knew nothing about this woman. There's another Indian female teacher, another Amma, (which is, after all, only the Hindi word for "mother"), aka the hugging saint, who I *had* heard of. Initially I confused the two and felt disappointed that this Amma wasn't the same as that Amma. Such silliness. As my friend J said, " ... the world needs as many manifestations of the Divine Mother as we can get!" And so I am excited to have this manifestation to look forward to.

A joy to me in all of this is the fact that I learned of each of these Ammas from two especially dear friends. Several months ago, J shared information with me about the "first" Amma; and now my friend A has told me about her recent blessing from the "second" Amma. I've "known" A & J for perhaps a year, maybe two; the quotes are because we've never met face-to-face, even though we've shared many cyber conversations of intimacy & hilarity, the three of us. We all participated for a time in a Yahoo! group intended to foster spirituality and sisterhood. Sadly, the experience fell far short of the mark for me, but even in disaster there are gifts.

To me, J & A are delights that I carried with me from a painful experience. And I continue to profit from their association on Facebook, a venue (?!) about which I remain conflicted. I love to play word games and keep up, generally speaking, with my friends, but Facebook is turning out to be a frighteningly efficient time-suck in a life already marked by too many temporal challenges.

Anyway, I am grateful to my friends, past & present, and to all the Ammas in the world. My hopes are high for tomorrow.

quotes ...

2009-03-18T18:58:00.000-07:00

Sad when you've been gone from your blog so long that you have to re-enter your password, sadder still when you're too senile to remember that password.

I'm not sure I'm ready to be especially long-winded just yet, but I keep looking at these quotes, and thinking my thoughts, and I thought I'd put the quotes up here for your consideration (I may have done so with one or another of them previously):

It may be that, when we no longer know which way to go, we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~ Wendell Berry

... I realized that I had often shortchanged my own creative process. For years I'd been willing to neglect my inner life for a relationship with a man or for drugs or because someone else's needs or theory or work or life seemed somehow more important than mine. But I couldn't do that anymore. The most critical commitment I now had to make was to myself and my writing; everyone and everything else would just have to wait. Oddly enough, what came to sustain me was knitting. I used my knitting to sink down into the deep creative well that was the source of my writing, and I knitted to rise to the surface when I had finished my work for the day.

~ The Knitting Sutra: Craft as a Spiritual Practice, Susan G. Lydon

Because how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

~ Annie Dillard

My neglected little garden is proving to be surprisingly fertile this early spring; let's hope for fertility of the mind & tongue & heart as well.

Oh, and I acknowledge the intercession of Ganesha in the form of a recent, welcome increase in my work. Jai Ganesha!

of Edith Bunker ...

2009-03-17T22:13:00.000-07:00

Gotta wonder what's up with someone who tells a story, the preamble for which is longer than the dang story ...

of violet ink ...

2009-03-17T19:57:00.000-07:00

Preamble:

My father was born to a German Jewish family in Berlin in 1921. His father, my Opa, a noted scientist of the day, came from Jewish forebears (some of whom can be traced back to 16th cent. Czechoslovakia) and made rather a dramatic escape from his home en route to safety in America. He left his Aryan wife, my Oma, behind to manage the family affairs. One of Opa's children, my aunt, had preceded him to Philadelphia and, in fact, sponsored her father's emigration.

Another child, the oldest, my uncle, had already joined the Wehrmacht and was unable to leave the country. (It has always suited me to believe that my uncle was an honorable man, remaining in the army from a sense of duty and love of country, rather than any belief in the Third Reich. He certainly did not benefit from his military service and, while hiding in plain sight (if this is what he did) did enable him to survive the war, he spent five of those years in a Russian POW camp, which ultimately caused his death while still a young man.)

The third child was my father. Membership in the Hitler Youth became mandatory in 1936, when my dad was 15; two years later Kristallnacht occurred, the aftermath of which my father was taken to witness by his father. Soon afterward, my father was sent for safe-keeping to school in England. Safe he was, but not at all well treated, being a young German man in a country being bombed by other young German men. When, eventually, my dad was able to emigrate to the United States, he became a citizen, joined the United States Army and was promptly sent back to Europe to take part in the Reconstruction.

Today's Story:

When my father returned to Berlin during the Reconstruction of that city (1946/47?), he visited his mother at the old family home in Lichterfelde, bringing with him coffee, cigarettes, sugar, flour ... all the coveted items that were so scarce, during the war and in its aftermath. Rather than expressing appreciation, Oma asked my dad why he'd forgotten her favorite: grapefruit juice. Grapefruit juice?

My father, while driving across France in a jeep, wrote to his dad, newly a Philadelphian, to send him a particular shade of violet ink for his fountain pen. Many years later, my dad sent me on a wild goose chase to a Washington, DC, department store in search of a very specific type of ice cube tray based on something he'd purchased there 20 years earlier.

Today, I placed an online order for an entire box of very agreeable ballpoint pens, of which I've become very fond, and which are very difficult to find ... with purple ink.

completion ...

2009-03-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

CES, Sr.

1919 - 2009

My first completed knitted project, a shawl for C's mom, Pat.

weeds ...

2009-02-27T18:16:00.000-08:00

As I was making my rounds this morning, I stopped at a red light beside a huge open field. (Not too many of those in Suburban Hell.) A dark-skinned woman holding a plastic shopping bag bent over to harvest some leafy green from the earth. Enthralled, I considered pulling over to interrogate her, but lacked the nerve (and a suitable parking spot).

She looked as if she might have been from the West Indies. I am fascinated by people's stories: who they are, what they are doing, how they got where they are. And I love the melting pot of America, where it's not uncommon to see, for example, an Asian person in a Mexican restaurant, or a person of Hispanic origins purchasing sushi at the grocery store. I am easily bored by homogeneity. People of color were a rarity in Dublin in the late 80's; even though I loved living there, I missed seeing non-white faces. Conversely, it felt tedious to see nothing but non-white faces while in Bangkok. (I dispute this, but it *has* been said that I'm difficult to please ....)

I read somewhere recently that it's rude to ask people about their heritage; this makes me sad, because I am not a rude person generally, but I often ask people about their names or backgrounds when the opportunity presents itself. I had an endoscopy last year and the gentleman who performed the procedure had an unusual accent and skin so black it seemed nearly blue. Gorgeous. Before I got the happy juice, I asked him where he hailed from. He appeared irritated. "Tennessee," he said, putting on a passable twang. When pressed, he allowed as how, prior to the American Southeast, he had come from the Gambia. This allowed me to mention a favorite high school French teacher who'd been Senegalese; we went on to have a pleasant, albeit brief, conversation.

Perhaps such inquisitiveness of strangers is only rude when used to define and perpetuate the myth of "Other." I prefer to see what common ground there might be with a stranger. Several years ago, "George" & I endured an afternoon in Car Purchasing Hell, an annoyance relieved only by the company of the car salesman, a personable fellow originally from Nairobi. We discussed our mutual admiration for Wangari Maathai; thus, I ended up with a pleasant memory in connection with the purchase of a new car, often an anxiety-ridden pastime.

Anyway, I wish I knew what the greens-picker was pulling up this morning and how she prepared it and, especially, if she ascribed any medicinal value to it. Just a block from the grocery store, she was, too. It was lovely.

I have been delighted to discover, in my much neglected garden, odd little stands of what must be offspring from last year's garden: a lettuce start here, some feathery dill fronds over there, calendula and borage in many spots. Even the bulbs, which I myself planted, seem quite surprisingly miraculous to me. The tenacity of life heartens me.

verdancy ...

2009-02-24T08:30:00.000-08:00

Often on NPR they acknowledge the contribution of The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which "is working to build a more just, verdant and peaceful world." I am ensorcelled by the word verdant and, indeed, by the very idea of verdancy.

Astonishingly ... or perhaps not ... I am not the only blogger to remark upon this (and very recently too). There's nothing new under the sun anymore, I guess. (I swear this was an independent idea!)

I'm a longtime fan of Mark Bittman ... even though I persisted in referring to him as "Martin" for the longest time ... who periodically gives space to guest bloggers, for instance Kerri Conan, whose charming piece, The Garden Begins, has put me in mind of verdancy once again. I have a lush crop of chives in my small garden too! I shall cook something with them today and feel grateful.

Finally, I got around to planting bulbs last year, albeit in a typically haphazard fashion. I didn't plant as many as I'd intended to, but I did a good enough job of it to be feeling the wonder of them now, as they're poking above the surface of the soil. Crocuses, in fact, have come & gone; shockingly early even for California, it seemed to me. Daffodils are next and tulips to follow soon. All of this amuses my friend Dana, who lives in Portland (Maine, not Oregon), whose barn door has been blocked by snowdrifts for weeks, and who hasn't the hope of seeing a bulb for another three months.

Have a verdant day, gentle readers ... (Is Miss Manners still writing? I adore her.)

don't forget to brine the squirrel ...

2009-02-23T21:07:00.000-08:00

"George" & I went on a jaunt the other evening, just the sort of thing that I love. (Anything to escape from Suburban Hell.) George is less fond of these adventures than I am, but he kindly accompanied me to a storytelling performance, with dinner beforehand at an ethnic restaurant. (And, joy! nearly across the street from the restaurant was a yarn store where I got to fondle wool quite unexpectedly.)

The storyteller hailed from Texas, and before that from a "holler" on the Kentucky River in Appalachia. She was lovely. She told a story about going home to her holler for Christmas one year, prepared to fix turkey & ham for the holiday meal for a few of her older relations. She'd been gone from home for a long time and had forgotten their preference for red squirrel, especially when served with squirrel gravy and biscuits.

So she arranged for someone to hunt the squirrels for her, and to skin & dress them as well. As he turned over the bounty, the hunter reminded her to soak the squirrel carcasses in salt water before cooking. (Apparently, squirrel is inedible without having been brined beforehand ... who knew?) The teller said she wasn't sure if she would have remembered this detail of squirrel preparation, since she'd been in Texas for so long. (Don't they eat squirrel in Texas too?)

Her story was amusing; we tittered politely, this white, relatively affluent audience. She cautioned us, saying with times as hard as they are, this information might prove useful yet.

George's dad died yesterday morning. Charles would have been 90 in June and was a Pearl Harbor survivor. Thanks for all your good wishes.

between hope & grief ...

2009-02-19T09:41:00.001-08:00

Seldom am I at a loss for emotion. Reference to AT&T commercials dates me, I know, but I never watched one of them without getting weepy. I once cried so enthusiastically at a family funeral that my brother glared at me. Watching an animal show in which a cheetah’s lingering death is painstakingly detailed left me in hysterics in the latter days of my marriage, about a dozen years ago. It’s not just tears, I hasten to add. “George” often cuts up to such an extent that my sides ache with laughing and I resolve to do Kegels more consistently in the future. I’m also given to shrieking in surprise when he touches me while my mind is elsewhere. We live in color at the Dumbfounded House.

Lately, though, we’ve been becoming acquainted with that place between hope and grief … a dry place, a dull one. One’s better nature yearns to pursue hope, even as the stark reality leads inexorably toward grief. George’s dad had a massive stroke about ten days ago. Last week he was moved to hospice and all care, beyond the palliative, ceased. Once the inevitability of death becomes clear … well, it seems cruel to wish for it, but existing in this in-between place (too late to hope, too soon to grieve) is a very great challenge, as indeed it must be for the patient himself.

It occurs to me that this death vigil is merely a microcosm of what goes on in the larger scheme of life. When death is not so immediately in my face, I can believe that I have some control over situations, events, people. The reality, of course, is that I can control absolutely nothing, from traffic lights and the weather, to the behavior of others and when death comes calling. It’s easy to ignore this utter lack of control when death doesn’t have its grip around your throat, or the throats of those you love. Under the crush of everyday minutiae, I often forget that the only real task in this life is to be present in this moment, open & loving now, without regard for what came before and what might follow.

To keep us humble & in a state of balance, the challenges at the other end of the generational spectrum are also well represented these days. Boy Child passed his driving test yesterday and has become quite insufferable. Because everything has always come easily to this kid, he appears to have an odd sense of entitlement about taking over his dad’s car (the advent of the Jetson mobile is still some months off) and the *huge* insurance premiums that will be paid on his behalf, at least at first. (That wicked Y chromosome makes his insurance rates treble those of his sister when she’d just passed her test.)

Fortunately … although I doubt he would agree … Boy Child will be living chez Dumbfounded the next week while his mother is away on business. I can nearly guarantee that he will behave like a decent human being while he is with us. (Or else.)

I’ve taken up knitting recently. It’s enormously comforting. I was making a scarf for George, but I’ve switched now to a shawl for his mom. I feel an odd compulsion to work on it nearly continuously. It’s a bad trade, isn’t it? … a husband of 60 years for a shawl, the first completed work of a novice knitter. So, back to knitting. I don’t know what else to do.

walking ...

2009-01-06T11:53:00.000-08:00

Santa brought "George" & me matching step counters (mine's the yellow one) on the theory that walking an extra 10,000 steps each day might be a Good Thing. So far, George has had me beat most days, but with the advent of my 30th high school reunion (I have to keep saying it to myself; otherwise, it just doesn't seem real!), I'm getting fired up to institute some changes. No, really!

The other day on a morning walk with the dog (who's now getting sometimes 20,000 extra steps in her day ... a tired dog is a good dog, after all), we passed a young Sikh who gave us quite a cheery greeting. His turban was a burnt umber sort of color (yes, I still miss it in my crayon box!). This morning, we passed him again, in a bright sunshiny turban, and his smile was even more beatific, his salutation even more jolly than before. So often passersby are unwilling, unable to acknowledge one another; his good cheer delighted me. I expect we'll have tea one day if this continues. And these are the moments that make living in a place tolerable, aren't they?

cognitive dissonance ...

2009-01-03T10:55:00.000-08:00

My friend Heidi recently convinced me to return to DC in May for our high school reunion (30 years for me ... oy!). It wasn't a very hard sell: I think Heidi said, "Why don't you come?" (Okay, maybe she used an exclamation mark.)

I'm quite looking forward to the trip since I've been missing my roots a lot lately out here in this weird land of California. You can get a crab cake, but they aren't Maryland crabs. Bagels & pizza just suck compared to their East Coast cousins. ("George" & I have been making some yummy homemade pizzas lately, but having just overcome my lifelong fear of yeast with Mark Bittman's excellent no knead bread, I am not ready to tackle bagels yet.) Wanting some color in February & March, I planted crocuses a month ago; they began coming up last week. It took *years* before I could get The New York Times delivered to my doorstep, and (with apologies to New Yorkers) what I really wanted & found impossible to get was The Washington Post. Ten years on and I am still startled & amazed by orange trees; still I long for cardinals, fireflies & forsythia. California is just ... odd to me, even after so long.

Also odd is the fact that many of my friends from home & high school now have children the same age as we were the last time we hung out. How did this happen? Gidget has osteoporosis, for chrissakes! How did *that* happen?

long time, no blog ...

2008-12-29T02:58:00.000-08:00

Long time, no blog. "No excuses, sir," as my mother (the granddaughter, daughter, wife, mother & grandmother of a number of military men) might have said. Nevertheless, here is a sort of excuse:

Because how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

~ Annie Dillard

I ran across this quote several weeks ago and have been a little possessed by it ever since. How many poor choices have I made when plotting my days? How many drifting, depressed days have there been, where making a choice was beyond my ability? I spent years in an unhealthy marriage trying to lose myself in computer games and other mind-numbing pastimes so I wouldn't have to face a reality which confused & frustrated me. Yeech! Would I have those years back? They contribute, somehow, to who I am now, so, probably, no. Still, I mourn the time wasted, particularly as the passage of that time appears to speed up.

108 posts later and I'm no more speedy or disciplined a writer than I was when I began the Blog Experiment. I am still here, however, still trying ...

A joyous & prosperous 2009 to us all, every one!

The Christmas Story

2008-12-29T02:41:00.000-08:00

Madeline and the Cats of Rome, delightfully written & illustrated by Ludwig Bemelmans's grandson, was my favorite gift from "George." (Well, apart from the pearl earrings.) Better still was the fact that he read it aloud to me on a lazy Christmas afternoon. Words. Spoken words, rich & resonant beside the fire. What magic!

Then, of course, he asked if I would read aloud to him from *his* new book, full of woodworking projects ...

beauty

2008-12-29T02:29:00.000-08:00

This is Maya Angelou on her 80th birthday last month. Letter to My Daughter had just been published. Check out the birthday cake. My friend Kendall Barrett made it. Wow!

this lawn is your lawn ...

2008-12-27T10:24:00.000-08:00

This Lawn is Your Lawn from roger doiron on Vimeo.

The Girl Effect

2008-12-17T19:07:00.000-08:00

this is what you shall do ...

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

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body…

~Walt Whitman, preface to Leaves of Grass, 1855 edition

Dismiss whatever insults your own soul ... how much clearer, nay brilliant, could life-advice get?!

Le Jour de Merci Donnant

2008-11-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

In my house growing up, this article by the late, great Art Buchwald was de rigeur on Thanksgiving Day. And, this year, Thanksgiving falls on my mother's birthday, so there's a certain sheen of nostalgia at the Dumbfounded House this morning.

Said house smells terrific. "George" has done a magnificent job with the free-range turkey. I did nothing to further the Thanksgiving cause other than wander out back in my pink sheepskin booties to clip some rosemary. Then, I promptly returned to bed for a nap.

Today, on Thanksgiving, let me declare publicly to George: I have beaucoup de gratitude in my coeur pour you, mon petit chou.

International Buy Nothing Day

2008-11-26T13:39:00.000-08:00

Participate by not participating!

The Friday after Thanksgiving in the USA (and Saturday, November 29, 2008 elsewhere) is International Buy Nothing Day. It's a day where you challenge yourself, your family and friends to switch off from (mindless) shopping and tune into life.

The rules are simple:

For 24 hours you will detox from consumerism and live without mindless, needless shopping. Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending (mindlessly)!

This event was founded by Vancouver artist Ted Dave and subsequently promoted by Adbusters magazine.

PLEASE VISIT THE WEBSITE FOR MORE DETAILS:

http://www.buynothingday.info

bumper stickers & peace

2008-11-23T14:19:00.000-08:00

I just adore the Quakers. I've always loved them, even though I've never stuck with them on any of my previous investigations. In college in New York state, ever so briefly, ever so long ago, I hung with friends of Quakers, friends of Pete Seeger; an infinitesimal amount of their calm good humor stayed with me. Just enough to make me keep on reaching out in that direction, every now & then.

Once, in Dublin 20 years ago, I went to a Friends meeting. I didn't then have the advice that a F/friend recently gave me: go to three meetings before making a decision. For some forgotten reason, I never returned to the Irish meeting.

Then, when I first moved to the redwoods, there turned out to be a Quaker retreat center near me in a lovely setting. I went once, eight years ago, to a labyrinth workshop, and then again just last month to a story-telling weekend which was a marvelous respite from Suburban (and midlife-crisis) Hell. I'm going back to the redwoods at the beginning of December for a weekend infused with and informed by Walt Whitman, including an appearance by the man himself . "George"was teetering (although probably not much) whether or not to come with me, then decided against it. Too bad.

There's an older couple in meeting who sit beside one another (duh!) for silent worship; from time to time their hands find each other and they sit with hands clasped for a while. It's very companionable, very loving, very heartening to watch. Apart from the born-again Baptist who I nearly married when I was 19 (!), I've never felt able to share things spiritual with a partner. I think I would like that, at least to see what it feels like.

It delights me no end to see all sorts of bumper stickers displayed on vehicles outside the meeting house. I have long been a bumper sticker sort of girl and me & my car feel right at home amongst these good folk now.

The gentleman of the hand-holding pair shared a story this morning after meeting. He'd been taking part in an ongoing, monthly, hour-long stand for peace in a nearby town. There were noisy leaf-blowers across the street, operated by prisoners under some sort of supervision. He'd approached the supervisors and said that all the noise made it difficult to concentrate on peace. The guys said they'd see what they could do. The hand-holding gentleman returned to his vigil where he closed his eyes and meditated on peace. A while later, he peeked (this admission was made with a bashfulness that was charming), and he saw the formerly noisy prisoners sweeping up the leaves with brooms. At the end of the hour, when the Quakers all held hands for a minute before disbanding, our gentleman noticed that the prisoners had ceased sweeping altogether and were standing in an attitude of reverence for a moment.

This reminds me of a story about Pete Seeger that I heard in college. After one of his concerts, Pete came out onto the grounds where the concert had been held. Silently, he began picking up trash. A few people noticed and began to do the same. Soon, more & more people realized what was going on and pitched in to help.

All it takes is one of us to do the right thing, whatever it might be in that moment.

Dick Cavett on Sarah Palin

2008-11-21T10:55:00.000-08:00

Hilarious article here.

it's all very zen ...

2008-11-19T19:14:00.000-08:00

Brown pelican R81 is recovering from last week's adventure. Prior to his abortive release, he'd been at the rehab hospital since July, with only the accoutrements of the pelican aviary for exercise, so we're hopeful that he's simply out of shape and needs a little more mending. Thanks to all who've asked after him!

This morning the patients included a cockatiel who'd been found emaciated & bedraggled at the local Subway, a Great Blue Heron who'd suffered electrocution, and a poisoned pigeon. Holy god, what we humans have done to those condemned to share the planet with us.

Poison just perplexes me. If you must kill an animal, for heaven's sake dispatch it with alacrity (and, if possible, a little reverence)! (Shout-out here to my friend Bri and her burgeoning farm, whence comes the Dumbfounded Family Turkey this year. Oh! Doesn't that just make you remember the Griswold Family Christmas?! I can hardly wait for Christmas films & eggnog and the two weeks of the year that I can reasonably make a fire in this climate.)

So, the Bird Place was bustling today. Rinse fish. Dish out breakfast. Chat with new intern. Gather duckweed. Wash dishes. Listen during rounds, when the treatment for each bird is discussed & assigned. Catch bird. Weigh bird. Take bird's temperature. (Okay, not yet! But one day ....) Draw blood (ditto). Prepare special "slurry" (Ensure & smelt ... mmmm). Draw slurry up into syringes and place in warm water bath. Move injured bird to water pool as therapy. Clean cages. Do laundry. Fold bottomless hampers of sheets & towels.

It's all very Zen, as was my favorite paying job ever, working in a nursery (plants, not kids). You just have to do what needs to be done, each day, with commitment & perhaps a little heart. I can't figure out how to approach my own life in a similar manner, which is unfortunate. I think it may be key to my survival of this here mid-life crisis.

Today I finally sussed out that the goldfish tank at the Bird Place is not a container for pets, but a farm to provide some of the patients with the very freshest of meat. I should be embarrassed, I guess, but, honestly, what's the point? It happens so often. Shortly after I'd become part of her village, a then-14-year-old Woman Child once got me with "Did you know 'gullible' is not in the dictionary?" It seems a bit like stealing candy from a baby, but "George" insists that toying with my credulity is good sport. Shockingly, he is nowhere near the first to have arrived at the same conclusion.

quote for the day

2008-11-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

~Camus

taking up space ...

2008-11-14T13:48:00.000-08:00

This morning, during a conversation about the Aunt Situation, I used some (ever so slightly) colorful language on the telephone with my brother, not directed at him but at the circumstances in which our elderly aunt finds herself. In fact, what I said was, "WTF?," because I'd arisen this morning, not all that much later than usual, to find seven (!) emails from "back East" about various new developments. I'd cleared my inbox last night at 10 pm, so this seemed a very great deal to wake up to, and before coffee too.

Anyway, my dear brother is a conservative sort, and he took a moment to express his unhappiness with my vernacular. In the past, this would have upset me deeply, silly though it now seems. So little has been my sense of self, my ability to inhabit my own space that I have really depended throughout much of my life on the opinions of others. Now, I'm able to view my brother's point of view with affection and a certain amount of tolerance. He can't help who he is, and he loves me, and we've been getting along better lately than in many years, and I am grateful for that. So I can say "fuck" (which I don't really do all that often), and he can disapprove, and we can still have a good relationship. No way would I have been so calm in earlier times. Gotta love better living through chemistry & herbs ...

An hour or so later, a high school alumni magazine arrived in the post, a full-color glossy affair, thicker than People, though nowhere near as juicy. I happened on a photograph of some former classmates and began shrieking with laughter (but briefly!) ... naturally, the classmates had aged far less well than I myself have ... . Very suddenly, or so it felt to me in my wee nostalgic reverie, "George" told me I was being too loud and tried to shush me up.

Oh my! I'm afraid I reacted very poorly to this. I'd been preparing to go out & run some errands and ended up leaving in a bit of a huff, as George stalked back to his office in his own little snit. I had a good, restorative time in my car scooting around Suburban Hell. I went to the herb farm, always a reliable, if brief, antidote to the lawns, drive thrus & freeways which make up my current existence. My friend Rose & I had a fun little natter, catching up on our news, and I brought home a few new lovelies for the herb garden. Later, I bought bird books & two novels and some conciliatory magazines for George.

And, during my errands, I thought quite a lot about women: women speaking their minds, women raising their voices, women being heard, women taking up space, women not deferring to others, women standing their ground. When I tried to express my outrage to George about the way his attempts to quieten me felt, I failed miserably. But I will lay money that any woman "of a certain age" who reads this blog will know ... absolutely, in her bones & in her blood ... what I mean about learning how to inhabit one's own body ... about not backing down ... about not stifling your curses, if that's the language you need ... about not hushing up. Above all, my sisters, don't be Good Girls. Raise a freaking ruckus, if you need to.

"Well-behaved women seldom make history," says the T-shirt I put on this morning.

Yes, ma'am.

pelican release

2008-11-14T10:20:00.000-08:00

Yup, this is just what it was like yesterday ... except one of the released birds didn't fly away. Last I heard, the pelican of yesterday's adventure is back in the pelican aviary, having flown up to the middle perch, alas not the high one.

small things ...

2008-11-13T15:20:00.000-08:00

Such a day! It began with news that my 90-year-old aunt is perhaps being fleeced by her caretaker. I know it's inappropriate, unnecessary & completely pointless, but I took this news extremely personally, because last month I met the woman, liked her and felt delighted at the job she did, the relationship she had with my aunt. I subsequently engaged in battle with my aunt's advisors, on behalf of my aunt and her apparently ill-considered scheme to move to Hawai'i, funnily enough with the caretaker.

It's the emotions of something that will get me. Every single time. (I'm one of those saps who used to weep at the old AT&T commercials.) During our visit, my aunt importuned me, in words and earnest glances, to help her make this transition. I recognized her fervent desire, wanted to make it come true, went to bat, got squashed (appropriately so, I think) by the accountant, who reeled off the many financial and logistical disadvantages to moving to Hawai'i.

For whatever it's worth, I *also* recognized in my aunt (who said in so many words that she intends to live for another six or eight years, and whose genetic & family patterns give no evidence to the contrary) a certain boredom, after a lifetime of interesting travel and educational experiences, with being "stuck" in one rutted place for so long, without any interesting interludes.

So, it's not exactly a surprise to learn that I'm a poor judge of character. I didn't expect to feel so personally ... wronged, however. Oh well. After responding to several emails from my aunt's advisors, and after doing a very small amount of work, it was a pleasurable escape to be able to drive to a small coastal area just north of the Golden Gate Bridge to be able to witness the release of a common murre and four (!) brown pelicans today at midday.

Quite a crowd of us gathered there to mark the occasion, and because everyone wanted to take pictures, I was asked to open one of the four cages (two pelicans were in one cage). The murre made his getaway first, which he did with apparent pleasure, all puffed up and scuttling away across the surface of the water, until he dove into the sea. We opened the doors to the pelican cages all at once. Three of them left their cages immediately; the one in my cage was a bit slower on his feet. Finally, they all floated away from us as we stood on the shore, eight or ten of us, cameras & binoculars at hand, watching our patients, our babies leave the nest for the second, hopefully final, time.

Twenty minutes passed before any of the pelis took flight, and then three of them at once went off, flying south. The slow one remained on the surface of the water, flapping his huge wings occasionally, but never really lifting off, looking more & more tired. Painful to see.

One of the long-time volunteers finally observed that we had a choice: we could walk away, we could throw ourselves on the mercy of the US Coast Guard (who were nearby, but who had not proved helpful on a similar occasion in the past), or we could try to solicit a fisherman or pleasure boater to help us recapture the wayward pelican. I made a few phone calls ... to a friend with a friend in the Coast Guard, to "George" whose friend works for animal control ... but nothing panned out. Meanwhile, a delegation of us had gone to visit the Coast Guard; happily, they consented to take one of us out on their boat in an attempt to rescue our pelican.

Some of us went in one direction around the cove to spot the pelican, who'd drifted out of sight. Others went the other way onto the pier to get the best view of the rescue. Amazingly, a pair of binoculars was thrust at me at the most opportune moment, and I witnessed the entire event. It was astonishing, lovely to behold, just the right amount of drama. We wept, we cheered, we hugged. The Hispanic fishermen around us ... who'd stopped their labors when three agitated Caucasian women, all in IBRRC baseball hats, rushed out onto the pier ... looked very pleased as well. One even wheeled his young daughter in a stroller over with us to watch the landing, to see the pelican up close as he was restored to his cage for the drive back to the rehab center.

In our delight at the kindness of the Coast Guard, we applauded them as well; one lucky fellow even got a hug. As a particularly young and handsome Coastie (that's what they're called; I looked this up!) approached me, I said, "The Coast Guard rocks!"

"Yes, ma'am!" he replied.

It all puts me in mind of any of a number of M*A*S*H* episodes, in which Hawkeye & Trapper and the others are so horrified by the death & destruction of the "police action" around them, only there's nothing they can do to affect such a large wrong. They can only help to right the small wrongs: the pregnant Korean girl who's lost her family, the baby abandoned by a US serviceman, the lamb diverted from the Greek Easter dinner to Radar's farm in Iowa. Small kindnesses to offset the huge evil. David against Goliath.

I can't put my hands around the neck of my aunt's caretaker and apply pressure, no matter how much I'd like to. I can't whisk my aunt off to Hawai'i in her dotage, no matter how much I'd like to. I can't make it so that Proposition 8 was voted down instead. (Gotta love Wiki's speed!) But I *can* learn to attend to the creatures in my immediate vicinity ... the ones who'd like to become citizens & learn English, the ones who've run afoul of some human or animal atrocity (car, fishing hook, children's toy arrow, seal bite), the ones who would sleep on the pavement (cold in winter, even in California) otherwise.

Of course, the pelican *should* have flown away. It's not usual to have to rehabilitate them from freedom from rehabilitation. He may not be able to heal. There is a line beyond which there is nothing more to be done. But, whatever happens, as the amazing rescuer said to me, at least he won't starve to death.

Fingers crossed for the brown pelican. Gratitude for the opportunity to be attentive. Yes, ma'am.

Strewth!

2008-11-10T22:18:00.000-08:00

Strewth! I just returned from my daily swim on the beautiful Fijian beach and realized I have not updated this since Paris Hilton was in jail. You would not believe my anguish at my misdoings. I prostrate myself in sorrow and beg thy forgiveness.

I am flat out like a lizard drinking with setting fire to people wearing Crocs, learning to speak Japanese, just generally being a slave to my partner. My day is a magical flight from the first cockadoodledoo from the rooster to midnight. I am avoiding recapture. It will be fun fun fun till they take my TBird away.

I swear on the bones of my ancestors, although very chaste ones. No, really! Unless of course the pool with the cocktail bar is heated!

This from the Lazy Bloggers Post Generator, with thanks to Krishanna for posting about it!

joys

2008-11-08T19:16:00.001-08:00

Lately I seem to have been extremely remiss about blogging, perhaps because I have been unusually attentive to the business of living. (Thank the Deity of Your Choice!) For me, depression seems to take root when I rest, paralyzed by choices ... or fear ... or whatever.

So many joys these days!:

Finding an almost adequate bagel place, newly opened in town. There's nothing as nice as a toasted garlic bagel for breakfast, although for some reason "George" doesn't agree ...

Catching up on Facebook with many, many friends from various pages of my past.

Looking forward to the hope & promise (yes, we can!) of President-Elect Obama, whose election I celebrated by making a Baked Alaska. I recognize that, for those who know me, this is inconceivable, but see for yourself!

Taking a walk along the Berkeley Pier this afternoon and knowing that the diving bird which caught my eye was a Western Grebe.

Chatting with the sanitation engineer (?!) the other morning, while I tried to bring order to the lavender hedge, enjoying the exchange beyond measure, remembering that one actually has to set foot outside the house to share such pleasantries.

Being befriended by an 80-something woman named Gloria who told shining stories.

Having classes & dinners & new volunteer opportunities & concerts to anticipate.

And all these joys end in "~ing" ... in other words: action, involvement, engagement with my world. Doesn't seem quite so frightening now. A snowball sort of thing. What's the worst that could happen? Hee. Oh, that! Well ... shoot ... that's going to happen *anyway.*

the old home place ...

2008-11-05T06:50:00.000-08:00

looking forward to the day after election day ...

2008-10-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

This is my car.

The poster in the back window reads:

DISCRIMINATION SUCKS

VOTE

NO ON 8!

EQUAL RIGHTS 4 ALL

Here's a summary of Proposition 8:

ELIMINATES RIGHT OF SAME–SEX COUPLES TO MARRY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.

Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.
Provides that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Yesterday, while driving down the freeway to get to my birds, a young white male driving a car with a "Yes on 8" bumpersticker honked at me and flipped me off. I'm not sure whether to feel gratified or pissed off.

I know how he feels, I think. There's a house I drive past often that has not one but three "Yes on 8" signs in the front yard, lit up by spotlights. Depending on what else is on my mind at the time, I can feel anywhere from moderately irritated to nearly enraged by this display.

Six Random Things About Me ... Tag!

2008-10-28T20:41:00.001-07:00

My very dear friend, Annette, tagged me with the weighty responsibility of posting six random things about myself. I just returned from a story-telling workshop, so maybe this blog entry will be more interesting than usual? (We can only hope!)

1. I'm a beer snob. I categorically refuse to drink Budweiser, Michelob, Schlitz (dating myself, I know!), Coors (owned by Republicans, gasp!), or any other mainstream domestic beer. I'm not all that fond of Heineken, Foster's, Bass Ale or any other mainstream imported beer, either. Give me a happy little microbrew, with just the right amount of hops, and I will be hoppin' happy.

2. When I was too young & poor to have many principles, I spent a summer working for two brothers in an abandoned military officers' club trying to get a memorial erected in DC for Korean War vets. I wrote begging letters to members of Congress, potential donors, other interested parties. (As far as I know, this endeavor had nothing to do with the current Korean War Memorial in DC.) One of the benefits of this job was all the Coors I could drink. (I was young and truly stupid, okay?)

3. I'm a coffee & mustard snob too. (Possibly I'm just a snob?) Some of my "people" drink (my brother)/drank (my mother) instant coffee. With apologies to them, the thought of this repulses me. I grind my own beans every morning. ("George" is even more of a coffee snob than I am. I'd be okay with letting the water sit overnight, and with giving the coffeepot only a cursory scrub every now & again. He insists upon fresh water and a ritual soapy bath for the coffeepot at every opportunity. Once, very early in our relationship, I left him alone in my house for three hours or so. I returned to find him, not snooping in my underwear drawer or trying to crack the secret code on my email, but taking apart my French press and giving it a thorough wash!)

And as far as I'm concerned, the only decent mustard is Seeds & Suds. George prefers French's yellow mustard, so I guess he's a snob in his own way.

4. I got extremely teary-eyed when I attended a Jane Goodall talk earlier this year. I wanted to grow up to be Jane Goodall when I was around 12. It was that National Geographic film shown in fifth or sixth grade ... do you remember it?

5. When I was 15, I was given a beautiful, handmade ceramic vase by the potter, a dear friend of mine. It was Christmas. We were at a really fun saloon in 1976 DC, drinking too much. (The drinking age at the time was only 18, not 21, so this behavior is slightly less reprehensible than it might at first appear. Um, I think.) On the way out, in the parking lot, I puked into that vase. It took me awhile to learn not to mix drinks. My friend was extremely gracious. I wonder if I can find her on Facebook, where I have been killing myself with amusement the last few weeks.

6. I throw great parties, once I've got my sh*t together. And, after a dormant period of several years, it's nearly together again ... yay!

So ... here are the rules for this, whatever it's called:

1. Link to the person or persons who tagged you.

That's 'Nette.

2. Post the rules on your blog.

Done.

3. Write six random things about yourself.

Done.

4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.

I don't think I know six bloggers that well, but here goes:

Tracie
Jake (not likely that I'll be able to link to Facebook from here, but here goes ...)
Julie Powell (on the off chance that such a famous person would look twice at a peasant like me ... come to think of it, she may have posted something like this recently, in which case I humbly beg her pardon)
Maggie, who's probably way too busy making art to engage in such foolishness.

5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.

Um, okay, I can figure out how to do that ... sure, no worries ...

6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Yup.

temporal oddities ...

2008-10-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

3:40 on a Sunday afternoon feels different than 3:40 on a Monday afternoon. When I observed this to “George” just now, he understood exactly, even though I'm less than articulate about what I mean.

We couldn’t go to the early show of The Secret Life of Bees today, so the only other workable option was 3:40 pm. But I don’t feel like going to the movies at nearly four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. Instead, I feel like stirring a soup pot, having a nap or a bath, lounging in the disappearing triangle of afternoon sun, planning special cocktails & snacks for a bit later on, celebrating the Sabbath.

On Monday afternoon at the same time, I would *love* to see a film. It feels like an escape then, an early secret, something we’re getting away with before everyone else emerges from their workaday world. Time is a funny thing.

It exhausts me to contemplate it. I must nap now. (Thanks, ME, for planting the seed of an idea!)

who ARE these people?

2008-10-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

An excerpt from yesterday's Weekend America on Ohio Undecideds:

Elderly woman [speaking about Barack Obama]: He's a Muslim, you understand, and I like Muslims, but he's a wicked one.

Younger woman: I have a hard time with his name, with Osama's name, because of what we're going through and what this country's been through and maybe that's wrong, but I don't really know of his affiliations because of his name.

* * * * *

From Among Fans of Palin, Dudes Rule, in this morning's NYT:

“They bear us children, they risk their lives to give us birth, so maybe it’s time we let a woman lead us,” said Larry Hawkins, a former truck driver attending a rally late Thursday at Elon University in North Carolina.

* * * * *

From A Rage No One Should Be Stoking, in The Washington Post yesterday:

From an older white woman: "I'm afraid if he wins, the black [sic] will take over. He's not a Christian. This is a Christian nation! What is our country gonna end up like?"

. . .

A young white man holding a child: "He seems like a sheep -- or a wolf in sheep's clothing to be honest with you. And I believe Palin -- she's filled with the Holy Spirit, and I believe she's gonna bring honesty and integrity to the White House."

. . .

An older white man: "He must support terrorists! You know, uh, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. And that to me is Obama."

A young white woman: "Just the whole, Muslim thing, and everything, and everybody's still kinda -- a lot of people have forgotten about 9/11, but . . . I dunno, it's just kinda . . . a little unnerving."

A white woman: "Obama and his wife, I'm concerned that they could be anti-white. That he might hide that."

An older white woman: "I don't like the fact that he thinks us white people are trash . . . because we're not!"

a little bit of butter ...

2008-10-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

"Nobody,
My darling,
Could call me
A fussy man -
BUT
I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!"

~ The King's Breakfast, A. A. Milne

Sunday Morning in Suburban Hell:

Train songs on Stained Glass Bluegrass. Cafe au lait (ooh la la!) in bed. A nearly decent garlic bagel, toasted. Cream cheese. Smoked salmon. The newspaper. A kitty who will never be Stella but who's shaping up to be her own best self. A length of rawhide (that *was* Stella's!) with which to torment her. The prospect of an outing with "George" to look forward to. No responsibilities, for today at least.

Ahhhh ....

animalia

2008-10-18T22:06:00.000-07:00

This began as a response to Jake's question about otter medicine, but grew too large. Here's a bit about each of my three new animal friends (see Animal Speak by Ted Andrews for more information):

Otter: curiosity, play, fun, water, feminine energies, creativity, imagination.

Crow: magic, creativity, magic, spiritual strength, magic!

Moose: contradictions, feminine energies, creativity, herbs, intuition, ability to move between worlds, learning to trust that I already have the answers (in other words, learning to believe that I'm not, in fact, crazy!).

All very relevant. Why do I continue to be surprised by this sort of synchronicity?!

It's been a trying few months, in some respects; on the other hand, it's been a time of huge growth and much laughter. Maybe one is necessary for the other.

otters & crows & moose, oh my!

2008-10-17T21:54:00.001-07:00

In New Hampshire, I took a magnificent hike (the length of which evolved as it went along, somewhat to "George's" consternation) through the woods and along the banks of Mascoma Lake. Poor George was left to work out where to meet me, after I unilaterally changed plans, but it worked out okay. Later on, marking out the trail I'd taken over a cold beer, I reckoned I'd walked six miles. Yum. I wish I could do that particular walk four or five times a week. As George points out, there is a bike trail/greenbelt sort of affair here, although I've never investigated beyond the mile and a bit that surrounds this neighborhood and constitutes my usual morning walk.

I took that walk this morning in a fuck-you sort of gesture to the cold that plagues me and to the sinking thought that perhaps I was meant to spend the day in bed, a prospect which just bores me. The trail was a circuit that I've often taken with the pooch, but since she ran away from me when I let her off the leash several weeks ago, I haven't been brave enough to walk her again. The path winds along beside a creek at its best, middle part, with walks along busy streets and through suburban neighborhoods on either side.

Midway through the creekside path, I heard walkers behind me and stepped aside to let them pass. I paused at a small overlook to the creek, with a grassy bank below me. I saw a plump cat down there, lying on the grassy bank, looking up at me. Hmm. A cat? Long tail for a cat. Oh! Slinky swirl into the water. An otter! I hadn't any idea that such a creature could survive in a dirty suburban creek. Although I don't have the finger-energy to relay the information here, I looked up the characteristics of otter as a totem when I got home, and they seem fitting to my current path.

A little further along the walk, I took note of some crows. In some family information recently received from my aunt, I've learned that one of our family names means "crow mountain" when translated into English. During our visit last week, we ran across several versions of bookplates with ornate designs involving crows, mountains, castles, which intrigued me.

So I've been watching crows since we returned from our trip. There were many crows at one point along the trail. A noisy one flew atop a bay tree. Other crows joined him in the same tree. Some of them pulled the nuts off the tree, flew a short distance to the tarmacked basketball court and dropped their booty, swooping down to scoop out the tender nut meats after the hard shell had cracked. As I was getting ready to continue my walk, a crow left the tree and flew slowly around me in a circle before returning to the bay tree.

Crows & otters. So far, so good. When I found my animal totem book, instead of turning to crows or otters right away, or to some neutral page, the book opened to the page containing "moose" information. I've lately become more entranced than usual with moose. Mooses? Meese? I still haven't seen one, but on this last trip I was able to console myself with some amusing moose souvenirs. And moose has the most incredible description of all in my totem book, something which speaks to me right now, so ... yay!

Otters & crows & moose, oh my!

god's heart

2008-10-16T13:19:00.001-07:00

the kiss of the sun for pardon,
the song of the birds for mirth,
one is nearer god’s heart in a garden,
than anywhere else on earth …

~ Dorothy Gurney (with thanks to my own personal researcher)

Despite a half-assed effort from me this year, there is much of delight in the garden! How to garden “properly” in this climate still puzzles me. For instance, in May (I think), I planted five small borage starts from the gorgeous herb nursery up the road. They were sweet as they grew … delicate at first, soft fuzz, bright blues & greens, upright posture; I was too in love to pluck them for salads or sandwiches, although I did take a small taste of a flower once. (Yes, very like cucumbers.)

Then I lost attention. Not for long, perhaps four or five weeks. But that length of time in mid-summer is the absolute wrong time to snooze, isn't it? The borage plants grew heavy, their color dulled, the blossoms dragged in the dirt. They launched a spiny attack on the shorts-wearing pool guy one Tuesday morning, and I knew their time had come. To every thing there is a season, right? (I suck at this sort of thing. It’d be so much easier to just let everything live. I know, I know. Burning, trimming, clipping, taking stock, weeding out, allowing death (as if there were any choice!) ... it’s all healthy and promotes new growth. But I have a hard time with what feels like destruction. In fact, it *is* destruction. But it’s not wanton and therein lies the difference.)

So, out the borage went, with some small sadness, maybe six weeks ago. One plant remained, propped up a bit, while I thought about what to do with borage next season. Only … I’m not sure borage recognizes the seasons. Throughout the former borage bed, there is now a small village of baby borage plants emerging from the cedar mulch. Now. Really. In October. I just don’t understand it.

The holy basil seized up and died while we were gone, but the Genovese basil is, astonishingly, still going strong. Mmmm, perhaps one more evening of fresh pesto before the cold really sets in. In general, the culinary herbs are doing well and becoming reliable friends. I get such a lot of pleasure from being able to step out and harvest a few sprigs of thyme or parsley or tarragon, whenever the fuck I am moved to do so, rather than having to pay too much for too many non-organic herbs which will end up going to waste.

I have thirty-seven olives on my tree! Woo-hoo! The only other olive tree I've had a relationship with was in Pakistan. It was in a large ornate planter just outside the bureau chief's office, as I recall. I wonder if it's still there. So, it is my intention to cure the fruit of this tree, all thirty-seven of them, and to feast on them one day, with bread & wine, with my sweetheart. Beside the olive tree, the white sage that I resuscitated is growing bushy & strong. My intention is to burn some this afternoon in an offering to the spirits that I may be relieved of this damnable head cold!

It's past time to transplant the red banana ... oy! That picture fills me with guilt, because my poor plant has been confined to a pot for several months now. It's in the back of my mind that I will begin working in the garden with renewed purpose, not to mention vigor, just as soon as it's rained once or twice. The ground is wicked hard, and it only rained briefly that time several weeks ago. Yes! That's it! I'll work very diligently in the garden … just as soon as it begins to rain.

The passionflower is very happy (and me too!) with the privacy panels that George erected several weeks ago. Indeed, they work, even without full plant coverage, and I began swimming again recently. Mwah, sweetie, thank you! I have a passionflower blossom pressing at the moment. They’re so fantastic looking au naturel, I don’t know what to expect from one that’s been squished.

From a more recent trip to the herb farm, I came home with an abelia that’s home to an ootheca. (I know, I had to look it up too.) We're going to be grandparents! I'm not sure how many preying mantises to wish for (apparently it'll be between 10 and 400!), but I sure hope I'm there for the birth.

~green & magical blessings to all (and heartfelt thanks for staying with me),

Katja

Pax et bonum!

2008-10-15T20:21:00.001-07:00

I broke out of a Franciscan retreat house this afternoon. I arrived yesterday for a so-called "Mid-Life Workshop" where, at 47 (and well past mid-life, as my loving brother likes to remind me), I was the youngest participant. (Do Catholics live longer than the rest of us?)

I decided to leave early partly because the workshop wasn't hitting the mark for me, although the Myers-Briggs prayers were fun (INFP here, how about you?); and partly because of a virulent cold that I brought home from New England. Prior to our trip, "George" & I had successfully resisted Boy Child's sickness for several weeks, but our white cells must have broken down under the onslaught of East Coast germs because we are now both miserable. (George has stories to tell about East Coast fungi.)

The moon was full last night. In the two years since I last called in to the Franciscans, they've put in a very pretty labyrinth beside the vegetable garden, with a tiny lake beyond. I walked once last night, and then again very early this morning under the soft, watchful gaze of a pair of deer. Perfect spot for a little psychic housecleaning ... to leave behind that which no longer serves me ... in preparation for the riches that lie ahead. So mote it be! Pax et bonum! Was hael! Amen! (A Franciscan Wiki, astonishing!)

Last night at the get-acquainted "social" for the workshop, held in a generous room with picture windows, two young deer strolled along the path just outside. A number of us ... the 50-something nun leading the retreat, several ladies in their 60s & 70s, and I ... watched as the two deer stopped for a moment on their single-file descent of a steep incline. How precious! What a lovely welcome to this holy place! A sign of God's grace! And then the deer at the back mounted the deer in the lead.

Thanks to my friend Heidi for this link. (Roseanne Cash in The Nation on why she'd be a better Veep than Palin.) McCain was unattractively pit bullish tonight, without benefit of any lip color at all.

New England

2008-10-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

With apologies to Mr. Browning, oh, to be in (New) England now that autumn's there! (You'll just have to take my word that the tiny photo at the left is, in fact, New England.) "George" & I are just back from a quick trip to visit my aunt. We also stopped in to reconnect with a girlfriend of mine who I first met in elementary school. More about that below.

My 90-year-old aunt says she has six to eight years left and wants to move to Hawaii, Goddess love her. And why not? She survived a 1930's Berlin childhood (with enough Jewish forebears for emigration to become necessary). She recreated herself in this country, achieving four degrees in the process. She's climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, swum with dolphins, ridden elephants on safari, cruised the Arctic to study icebergs and piloted airplanes & hot air balloons in various corners of the world. She speaks six languages, including Russian & Chinese. Within the last several years ... in other words, in her late eighties ... she not only attended continuing education classes at Dartmouth but gave lectures there herself. Why the hell shouldn't she move to Hawaii? We should all be so vital at that age.

The family stuff wore me out, compelling though my aunt's story is. It was a joy to cross the border into Maine at the end of our trip, headed toward the fish market in Portland for two bags of mahogany clams to take to dinner with my oldest school friend. We met in the third grade, at a private school in the shadow of the Washington National Cathedral in DC. (Fabulous building, eh?) Her family's dysfunction was different than that of my own, much more exotic & entertaining. Her WASP mom shared a water bed with her Brazilian hairdresser boyfriend who wore very revealing swimsuits and could crack eggs with one hand. They lived in a condo with a wet bar, and swept me off for summers in the mountains and at the beach. I was entranced by them, and so grateful for the welcome & respite from my own family that they offered me year after year.

Just a few weeks ago I rudely teased George about the 35 years which had elapsed since he'd seen a high school friend of his we were meeting for dinner. But ... longer than that has passed since my friend & I met ... 38 years, gasp! ... and I am ashamed of my earlier unkindness. We're all old farts, I guess, and just getting older!

It's simply lovely to be able to touch your own past, to learn that the magic & giggles and affection that bound you to another then remain today. What a gift for someone muddling through an existential "crisis" to have the touchstone of a Real Friend.

Tut-tut, it looks like rain ...

2008-10-03T22:31:00.001-07:00

And it smells like rain, and it feels like rain, and I just know it will rain any minute now. I may go dance & prance about in it, when it does. I cannot remember the last time it rained. Seriously. It was March, maybe. Indecent to live in such a dry climate.

I am just going to love being a wildlife rehabilitator! My first official action at the wild bird place this morning was to don huge waders, make my way out into a pond and skim duckweed off the surface, a whole red bucketful. Then I fed it to the ducks who loved it, and to some Canada geese and one lonely domestic duck (all white) who didn't care as much for it.

Then it was time for rounds. Each bird-patient is listed on a white board with information about condition, medication, food intake, therapy & prognosis. We discussed each of birds, which took an hour (and this is slow season, with not too many birds in residence), and then went off to minister to them as had been discussed.

Except I ministered to a wheelbarrow, a shovel and a pile of gravel which needed to be moved to the pelican aviary. That was okay with me; I volunteered for it, in fact. I have a secret fondness for manual labor. My favorite job of all was working at a nursery (plants, not kids) in the mid-90's. I was only there for three months, but in that time I hauled trees & large woody plants back & forth across five acres during a wet & windy DC spring, and lost four jeans sizes while eating like a horse. I was in love with my work boots, the walkie-talkie in my rear pocket, the holstered clippers on my belt, and especially with the opportunity to drive the electric cart about the property. It was a glorious job.

I feel pleased with myself in the same way now, a little achy, but happy. I'll be doing the John McCain wave tomorrow, unable to raise my arms above my shoulders, but I'll be smiling by-goddess and looking forward to my next shift. I was able to spend a lot of time observing the brown pelicans this morning, magnificent creatures who I often saw flying along the coast where I lived before.

This was a good move, finding the bird place.

Palin for President!

2008-10-02T16:13:00.000-07:00

With thanks to Jake, who I have missed!

Miscellany

2008-10-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, since I’ve received a few surprised reactions to my last blog, Thursday’s admission must be that I don’t actually *watch* football (although I have done so in the past, usually when there’s been a football-watching man in my life). But I *do* remember my earlier life in DC with much fondness and a certain amount of nostalgia. And I *have* sung that song, loudly, in public, which seems hilarious to me (and probably only to me). And the ‘Skins won last week, which isn’t something that happens often. Finally, the football players in that picture were so cute, weren’t they?

(Digression: The older my mother got, the more she remarked on the attractiveness of younger & younger men. The apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree, in this case at least. My customary wariness of ending up “like my mother” seems to be relaxing a little. Maybe this is a function of age, a subject with which I seem to be inordinately concerned these days. Pretty predictable, aren’t I? “Suburban Hell” (Psst, honey? This is said with a certain amount of affection, OK?), aging, friendship, politics … doesn’t take a lot to get me wound up, does it? End digression within digression.)

I have many half-written blog posts on the above topics (and others!) which I’m not sure will ever coalesce into a whole. Maybe part of becoming a writer is to learn to keep these notes in the hope that they will later make themselves useful in some future work.

My schedule is slowly getting busier which, for me, is a very good thing. Depression paralyzes me; activity is a terrific antidote. It’s just that, sometimes, getting over that first hump into an active place can be so difficult. Right now, I feel like spitting over my shoulder, or uttering some disparagement to divert the deities’ attention from my current good fortune. I am happy, and have been for some time now (well, a month, maybe … LOL, I’ll take what I can get), and I am so grateful.

Things are going really well with my ESL/literacy student. She’s finally gotten over her writing-shyness and is gaining confidence in her abilities. I’m beginning a second volunteer gig tomorrow as a wildlife rehabilitator, a title which I love. I’ll be learning how to care for wild aquatic birds who have been injured in oil spills, fishing accidents, by cars and (inconceivably) by deliberate human action. I’m stoked! Volunteering at the pound was out of the question, since “George” refuses to consider adopting more animals. Plus, I didn’t think working at a place which would surely bring me to tears regularly would be useful in my quest for mental health. During orientation at the bird center, we were cautioned to keep our emotional distance from the birds; somehow this seems like an easier prospect than it would with cute, furry mammals. I guess we’ll see.

The work for which I get paid has been more regular lately, always a good thing. I still need to learn to trust rather than panic during the fallow periods, but that’s a lesson worth learning well.

And we have a trip “back East” to look forward to next week, including a reunion with a friend I’ve known since the age of nine, and, hopefully, some autumnal color as well. I read a story earlier this morning about a man who FedExed a box of scarlet & gold leaves to his homesick wife in London. That’s my kind of love language. (Read more about Patti Digh and her excellent book, Life is a Verb, here.)

Don’t forget to watch the debate tonight. I’m thinking it might be like taking candy from a baby, if Biden does his job well. On the other hand, the truly scary thing about Palin is not her astonishing & obvious lack of substance, but the fact that people don’t seem to *care* that there’s nothing there.

Hail to the Redskins!

2008-09-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

Hail to the Redskins!
Hail Victory!
Braves on the Warpath!
Fight for old D.C.!

Run or pass and score -- we want a lot more!
Beat 'em, Swamp 'em,
Touchdown! -- Let the points soar!
Fight on, fight on 'Til you have won
Sons of Wash-ing-ton. Rah!, Rah!, Rah!

Hail to the Redskins!
Hail Victory!
Braves on the Warpath!
Fight for old D.C.!

In a Sunday confessional, I will admit that I have sung this song publicly, while under the influence of alcohol, at bars in the DC area. (It was *many* years ago and I'm sure my brother had something to do with it.)

Trees

2008-09-24T10:31:00.001-07:00

Originally uploaded by Luo Shaoyang

Trees have been on my mind lately. I have a friend who waxes rhapsodic about a cottonwood whose growth she's been observing for 30 years. She can lie in bed and watch the tree through her picture window "headboard," which seems lovely to me. I've put in a request with "George" that the House Of Our Dreams will have such a window.

Just about a year ago, we purchased a few trees for the Dumbfounded Garden: a flowering pear, a Crimson Frost birch, a cross red & silver maple for autumn color (of which there's no sign yet), and most exotic of all to my East Coast sensibilities, an olive tree. All are doing well in spite of the watering system not being quite right yet. There are 27 olives on my tree, and I intend to learn how to cure them when the time comes! Good thing I saw Under the Tuscan Sun!

My father grew up in Berlin, in a house with walnut trees on the surrounding grounds. (Receiving parcels of walnuts from my German grandfather is a happy early childhood holiday memory.) When the house in Berlin had to be sold, perhaps in the mid-70s, my father made arrangements to have some of the walnut trees shipped to his home in Switzerland where he had them planted beside the road beneath his hillside home. I didn't find this out until after he died; the tenderness of this gesture confirms my suspicion that there was more niceness to the man than he ever let on in life.

The Georgetown neighborhood in which I grew up was planted with many ginkgo trees. Every autumn, the red brick sidewalks grew slick & stinky with rotting ginkgo seeds. Ginkgoes were a joy & an annoyance, always present throughout my growing-up years. I've recently been craving one, maybe for similar reasons to my father's desire for those walnut trees. Two considerations have held me back: (1) the fact that they grow to be hundreds of feet tall; and, (2) those smelly seeds. Imagine my delight when I discovered a dwarf (5 - 7 ft.) male (no seeds) ginkgo available from a catalogue! Now, where to put it?

When George & I first met, I lived alone in a very large house on the edge of a redwood forest. A steep hill laden with huckleberries & gorse and crisscrossed with coyote & deer tracks rose immediately behind the house; tall, spare trees stood at attention on all other sides, some in those circular groves so characteristic of redwoods. I moved there the week after my mother died and lived there for three years; it was a terrific house for the solitude that my grief needed then.

In the five years that George & I kept our LDR going, I moved three times. Clearly the idea of moving to Suburban Hell so traumatized me that I needed to do it in baby steps! Although I never again lived *in* the forest, the redwoods were never far away, and I miss them here on Forest Lane. Suburbia: the place where they cut down all the trees and name the streets after them!

Mood Enhancers ...

2008-09-23T20:56:00.000-07:00

I spent a few minutes lying in the sun this afternoon en déshabillé, which is more than anyone probably wants to know, but there you have it. Afterwards I swam a few laps. For all my whining about this climate, it is so fantastic to have a pool, even a little, crummy, cracked-concrete one like ours! I still pinch myself about it. I didn't know any Pool Owners when I was coming up; they were an exotic species, much like the larger set of Suburbanites.

So, pretty good mood today. Yesterday, the same. Sunday, middlin', overall. Saturday ... I can't remember. Lying in the garden-to-be this afternoon, I thought how great getting some Vitamin D would be for my mood. Then my Monkey-Mind ... OMG! Don't you *love* Wiki? ... began listing the other mood-elevating pursuits I'd engaged in today, the ones I'd tried recently, how well any of them worked, etc., etc., etc., analyze, analyze, think, categorize, reflect, bada-boom. Yawn.

Who has time for all this self-examination? I often think that if I were a peasant in darkest Africa, having to haul water from five miles away twice a day, with a family of six to feed and care for, this kind of navel-gazing would be purely a luxury, something ridiculous in the face of recurring life & death struggles.

And, once one has gotten a handle on things after all the self-reflection, who the fuck has time to implement all the needed changes?!!! Here's a general outline of some of my own mood stabilizers/enhancers, in no particular order:

Getting a good night's sleep. (Can't party like I used to ... sigh. At least not for more than one night in a row.)
Having regular massages. (Not that I can afford this on part-time work!)
Having regular manicures & pedicures. (Ditto!)
Eating "good" food. Regular meals, with protein & complex carbs. Lots & lots of water.
Going for a walk or, better, a hike.
Rock 'n' roll.
Visiting the ocean.
Spending time with animals.
Taking vitamins & other supplements (don't forget the anti-depressant!).
Maintain stable blood sugars. (Too much up & down, which still happens often, saps me.)
Having a bath.
Making sure to get "alone time" on a regular basis.
Engaging in a creative outlet.
Taking deep breaths.
Remembering to chew food thoroughly, rather than wolfing it down. (Apologies to wolves!)
Maintaining healthy boundaries. Saying "no" when I need to. Speaking my mind. Giving in less often.
Drinking black tea.
Drinking herbal infusions.
Taking a nap.
Getting some aerobic exercise.
Learning something.
Doing a puzzle (extra points for winning!).
Writing.
Giving of myself in some way.
Being intimate with another, which could be great sex, or the sort of emotional sharing that goes on in close female friendships.
Great sex (Wait! Now that I think of it, this belongs in its own category!).

Who can fit all or even a majority of these pursuits into her day? No wonder I'm such a hag sometimes!

Anyway ... less haggish lately, for whatever it's worth.

Mabon Blessings!

2008-09-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

I know whence comes the Dumbfounded holiday turkey this year! We celebrated Mabon yesterday by attending a ritual & feast at a friend's home in the countryside about an hour northeast of Suburban Hell. It was low-key, very pleasant, with kids & dogs, chickens & turkeys underfoot. My friend harvested the smallest of her toms, a bird of around 25 lbs. Usually, I don't care for turkey, but hers are succulent, something to do with once having had a French mother-in-law who, of course, was un chef magnifique.

So, she'll be culling her flock in mid November, and I've put in a request for a bird (and a recipe!). We'll have to take in a lot of "strays" to warrant greater than a 25 lb. turkey! It feels very ... odd, disingenuous, I guess, to write about "harvesting" and "culling" in this way, when what I'm really talking about is cutting a bird's throat (or does one wring a turkey's neck?) and bleeding, dressing and plucking it. My friend grew up on a farm, so this is all normal for her.

I, on the other hand, grew up in Georgetown where my grandmother had her meat (including, sometimes, "a pound of top of the round, ground," a phrase which captivated my childhood ears) delivered by the neighborhood market, founded in 1909 by Lebanese immigrants. (Don't, however, imagine from this that the Georgetown of my 1960s childhood was anything other than completely homogenous, full of monied, historied white folks and those, like my family, who were only white and landed there by happenstance.) It's so easy to amuse me ... if you click on that Georgetown Wiki link, you'll see a picture of the very same bank that my grandmother used, the Farmers and Mechanics Branch of Riggs Bank (RIP). Spectacular building, particularly when the sun hits that dome!

I'm a bit of a hypocrite, I think. I'll go out of my way to purchase meat that has been raised humanely, with as few additives as possible, and dispatched with alacrity (points for reverence & gratitude). And, I agree that local, as "George" keeps reminding me, may be better than organic. I'm delighted to have "local" turkey, raised with awareness & affection, to look forward to for this year's holidays, but I'm ever so grateful that my friend will deal with the "icky" bits of preparing it for table.

George has been invited to accompany his new-found brother-in-law on a guided moose-hunting expedition in Canada next year. I have two concerns: (a) it's fabulously expensive; and, (b) one comes home with 1,000 lb. of moose meat. 1,000 lb.?! Remember that I Love Lucy episode where they get the large freezer and Lucy mistakenly orders 700 lb. of meat? Plus, each time we visit my aunt in New Hampshire (which we're getting ready to do in a few weeks), I'm always hopeful of seeing a moose ... like, alive, not on my dinner plate. Maybe this year.

It's a glorious day in Suburban Hell! I'm sitting in bed, eating leftover roasted butternut squash and drinking pink champagne; the detritus of The New York Times is spread to one side of me, the animals to the other. George is about the place doing something useful. Boy Child is still snoozing. Girl Child turns 21 today; I believe she had quite the celebration last night; the tamer family celebration is this afternoon at a Greek restaurant. I guess the reverse of one of my favorite sayings is true: Having to behave for the children ruins middle age! I'm cooking acorn squash, rice & sausage for dinner and thinking how fortunate I am. It's good to be alive. I hope you feel the same.

Speechless ...

2008-09-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

Palin Shock: A fugue-like state in which one’s time is evenly divided between the following emotions: (a) astonishment at the current GOP ticket & confidence that there’s no way in hell it’ll ever win, and (b) deep discouragement owing to the secret & fearful conviction that the pretty Palin picture will blind the American voting public to its actual & inherent danger.

I know whereof I worry: After all, I live in the state that authorized the recall of the duly-elected governor and put the Terminator into the State Capitol instead. By all accounts, Arnold has turned out to be a good leader. But it seems very unlikely that we should be so lucky again, should the unimaginable happen in November.

Because this dilemma has apparently rendered me speechless, I’ll just pass along some interesting links:

Misery Loves Democrats

As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood

Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes

She’s Not Ready

Sarah Palin Was My Mayor

Librarians against Palin!

Mudflats … Tiptoeing Through the Muck of Alaskan Politics

And, my personal favorite: The Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

You know, you could see the United States Capitol from the last house I owned. Maybe I should run for office.

~Grill Igloo Palin

Palin & Clinton on SNL!

2008-09-14T10:05:00.001-07:00

Seven Years On ...

2008-09-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

What do you remember about September 11, 2001?

I lived alone in an enormous house in a redwood forest then. It was a Tuesday morning. Watching television in the morning wasn't usual for me, but ... for some reason ... I turned it on that day, just before 6 am. The skies were so blue in New York, weren't they?

Until I saw the second plane hit the South Tower, it was easy to believe it was a random tragedy, a plane gone terribly wrong. How could it be anything else? Who could conceive of such evil? I was many hours late to work that morning; I couldn't remove myself from the live television.

One atrocity after another: I remember watching Palestinian children react to news of the attacks by dancing on the West Bank.

We were all insane afterwards. "George" & I debated whether I should leave home and drive up to be with him; we'd only been together for eight weeks or so, possibly our newness added to the sense of urgency. I recall that when I *did* travel north at the weekend I had a very anxiety-ridden time crossing a steel cantilever bridge that I'd traversed a number of times previously. I remember attending an office lunch the week following the attack and listening to a very impassioned discussion about the reasons behind the attack. No one could make sense of it. We were far too naive.

Inconceivable as such an act of terror was then, it was even more unthinkable that our government could have had a hand in it. Now, I'm afraid, such a scenario is much easier to imagine. Cheney & Bush have done untold damage to this country. We may be learning the extent of it, and certainly will be recovering from it for years to come.

That September seven years ago, my mother had died not yet two years earlier, and I was still accustomed to speaking with her. I remember conversing with her about what had happened ... she'd been taken to dinner at Windows on the World once or twice ... and about why the American flag was suddenly *everywhere.* I couldn't make any sense of it for her benefit either; telling her about events was simply a way of trying to digest it for myself.

So, I'll wake up tomorrow morning and hang the flag out front, something I religiously do as infrequently as possible. I refuse to have the American flag on display every day, in inclimate weather, or ... just because. It's a powerful symbol that only retains its power when used judiciously, with thought & reverence.

A Blustery Day!

2008-09-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

Today I'm wearing long pants & woolen socks! I'm cooking a burrida. I've scheduled a chimney sweep to give the fireplace the once-over. It's a blustery day, mid-sixties, and I am loving life, at least climatically speaking. Hopefully, all my autumnal activities won't jinx things and bring on more triple digit weather.

So, after producing a number of medicinal tinctures which put me in mind of cat pee, I'm having another go at it. But this time, rather than throwing some newts & a few bats' wings into a Mason jar (along with some of George's best brandy) and hoping for the best, I've decided to follow a recipe ... er, mostly. I'm tincturing roots of Echinacea angustifolia & E. purpurea in a grain alcohol-blackberry brandy (my own!)-water mixture. I'm following a precise weight:volume ratio of herbs & liquid, and using no other herbs this time, just echinacea. I run into trouble whenever I tincture a bunch of herbs at once.

George might agree with this, poor fellow. I caught my Non-Compliant Family Member (as one of my herb teachers used to call them) in a weak moment earlier today after he'd sneezed twice, and he agreed to swallow an elderberry-ginger-orange glycerite, one of my few near-successes of recent months. It doesn't taste at all bad, but I was a bit liberal with the ginger. Poor George reached for a fireball to cool his mouth down. Ooops! Sorry honey ... but but but ... if it made you twitch, think what it's doing to those nasty old germs!

Fingers crossed for echinacea tincture; sometimes, I guess, coloring *inside* the box is the preferred course of action.

Sugar?

2008-09-08T08:14:00.000-07:00

One of the books I'm reading currently is Potatoes not Prozac, which suggests (from the back cover) that:

You're not lazy, self-indulgent, or undisciplined. Many people who suffer from sugar sensitivity don't even know it -- and they continue to consume large quantities of sweets, breads, pasta, or alcohol. These foods can trigger exhaustion or low self-esteem, yet their biochemical impact makes those who are sugar sensitive crave them even more. This vicious cycle can continue for years, leaving sufferers overweight, fatigued, depressed, and sometimes alcoholic.

In chapter 2, the author asks a question:

Imagine you come home and go into the kitchen. A plate of warm chocolate chip cookies just out of the oven sits on the counter. Their smell hits you as you walk in. You do not feel hungry. No one else is around. What would you do?

You mean, there's more than one answer to this question?! The author claims that there are folks who might go change clothes, or check the answering machine rather than eating a cookie, something ... frankly, and somewhat embarrassingly ... I find inconceivable. Conversely "[p]eople who are sugar sensitive laugh at the cookie question. Their bodies are already responding to the very idea of the cookies."

What I want is to hear from people who wouldn't eat the cookies. Do you really exist?

I'm fascinated by the thought that I may have fewer character defects than I've always imagined, that perhaps by understanding the brain chemistry behind this, I can find answers to the depression.

Impeccable Moral Rectitude ... Almost

2008-09-07T19:30:00.000-07:00

My story begins with honest intent, truly. One of the anticipated joys of moving to Suburban Hell a couple of years ago was being able to wake up to a newspaper on my front doorstep. (Previously, I lived in a village in the redwoods where there was neither cell reception nor mail delivery, and where dial-up was still the norm.) So, as soon as I moved here, I signed up eagerly for home delivery of The New York Times on Sundays. Only ... it never came. During the course of a three-month trial subscription, I received a newspaper on perhaps three Sundays. Often I'd receive a substitute when I called to report non-delivery, but sometimes not. Whether I eventually received the paper or not, Sundays were never the relaxed experience of my longings, so I didn't renew the subscription.

But *then* the Sunday paper began coming regularly. Really, really regularly. Like, almost every week. For more than a year. With nary a bill. Yikes! Major moral dilemma! I enjoyed the paper too much to seriously consider stopping delivery once it had finally begun. But neither was it my intention to receive an object of value ... $5 for a Sunday paper, can you believe it? I was incensed at the price until I found out that this is what it costs in NY too ... without paying for it. I often thought about making a regular weekly contribution to some worthy charity, just never got around to it.

So ... better late than never ... here's my pledge: I shall make a payment or payments totaling ... let's see, $5 times 52 weeks would be $260, so let's say, $300 to a charity of my choice, in recompense for the thievery of accepting all those free deliveries.

My "free" subscription ended three weeks ago. I've been cut off, and I am in mourning! Today when I finally got around to going out for a paper, there were none left. George kindly went in search of one for me too, alas! to no avail. It's just not the same reading it online. I love the feel of the newsprint, the crackling of the pages as I fold them back & smooth them out, the way (if I had a brave pussycat) she might dart under the pages for a game of hide 'n' seek. And taking the puzzle to bed with George is magnificent, of course.

My "perfect Sunday" involves reading the Sunday NYT (or, better still, The Washington Post; I just cannot understand why the newspaper of our nation's capital isn't available everywhere!), in bed, with coffee and/or champagne ... ooooohh, and maybe some strawberries & cream ... listening to "stained glass" bluegrass. I know, I know ... there's no accounting for tastes (said the farmer, as he kissed his cow).

This morning was very far removed from this fantasy, so I've been feeling a little cranky all day. Oh, and tennis appears to have superseded 60 Minutes as well, so there's a certain cloud of misery in Suburban Hell this evening.

I renewed my Sunday NYT subscription this morning. Perhaps I'll have a different delivery experience for money this time around ...

National Disaster Preparedness Month

2008-09-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

I've been "indulging" myself in this here existential crisis for seven months now, although at the beginning I wasn't aware that's what I was doing. (The quotes are because this period of time has been and continues to be absolutely necessary ... not an indulgence at all ... to my sanity & survival.) I'm not ready for it to end just yet, but alas! it cannot go on forever. I was a lot more useful to George when I was employed full-time, for instance. Possibly part of the process is evaluating where I am, how things are going, what I've learned. Here are a few thoughts:

Women can be far crueler to one another than men could ever dream of being. "The wound that needs to be healed is the wound between women," as China Galland says.

I need to be more careful about where I invest my energy, my trust, my hope and my heart.

Any good deeds that I do will not guarantee consideration in the future. (And why should they? Kindness must exist in the moment, without thought of recompense, right?)

Ever since the first time our mother gave my brother the extra meatball instead of me, I have perceived the world as an unfair place. This is true. And no amount of my railing against this fact will change it.

Fireballs are enormously satisfying.

That's all for today. I'm too disgusted by the tenor of the RNC to say anything substantive about it, except to observe that they were very mean-spirited. The Democrats were aggressive, perhaps ... and certainly direct in their criticisms of the McCain camp, but they were neither malicious nor petty, as were the many derisive remarks about Barack's days as a community organizer. How does foregoing a high-paying Wall Street job in favor of public service become a bad decision?

September is National Disaster Preparedness Month. Do you have a plan? (That's one more chore I haven't gotten around to yet.)

Sarah Palin

2008-09-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so, someone pointed out to me today that there's something ... off about her eyes. They're so intense, almost glassy, a little feverish. It's a look of fanaticism, I'm afraid ... the look of a woman (!) who believes in criminalizing abortion, even in cases of rape or incest ... the look of a hunter (and I'm not necessarily opposed to hunting, provided it's done with respect, compassion & honorable intent ... hunger helps too) who favors shooting wolves from the air ... the look of a speaker who, at an address earlier in the summer, suggested that her audience pray for God's will to be done in Iraq.

What kind of Alaskan is in favor of drilling, either offshore or in the Arctic Refuge; opposes the protection of polar bears under the Endangered Species Act; crusades against a clean water initiative; refutes the very existence of global warming?

Sarah Palin is one scary lady, in my opinion.

What an Existential Crisis is Like ...

2008-09-02T10:17:00.000-07:00

There is a place in soul and psyche, la selva subterránea, the underground forest ... a mysterious locus which acts as el refugio, a protected place where the exhausted spirit can safely rest ... and where attracted by la luz violeta, the violet light from worldly wounds, angels come to tend to souls with infinite tenderness.

-- Clarissa Pinkola Estés

I feel quite blessed (today at least!) to be "in crisis." Thank goodness for storytellers and their currency; for friends with stamina & joy & laughter who are able to share themselves with me; for wise counselors to lead the way; for good food & curative herbs; for sunlight & moonlight; for my brothers; and most of all, for "George," who makes all my hard work so worthwhile.

-- Katja Thomas

WTF Was McBush Thinking?

2008-08-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

Don't you love Maureen Dowd?

I feel very uneasy about Sarah Palin. She's pretty enough, what's that good for? I can't tell yet if she's got wits. I *hate* feeling this way about a woman! But ... isn't that ... I dunno, reverse sexist? I have no problem putting a male politician under the microscope, examining his every idiosyncrasy. Why would it be different for a woman under the lens? I don't owe her anything; our common gender does not make us allies. I am terribly simplistic in my emotions. I need to examine them so carefully to get at the truth of them. (Tedious process!)

Sigh. Also, I'm a hypocrite! I just reread the last paragraph. Why is mentioning her looks at all valid? I think Obama is cute enough, but I've never written anything about that. Why now, with a woman? I disappoint myself.

Anyway, I feel nervous about her. She's nothing to compare with Hillary. If that's what McBush was about when he pulled her name out of the hat, he's terribly stupid. And I don't think he is. So what's up with the choice? Are there *so* many religious right-wingers amongst the voting public that he *needs* to partner with an NRA member, a pro-lifer, a social conservative?!

How *is* his health, really? Will he make it for four more years? What about a second term? How could Sarah Palin lead this country, if that need arose? The mind boggles.

End rant.

Oh ... sorry ... except I haven't seen *your* signature on the petition to nominate Pete Seeger for the Nobel peace prize. (Oh, Jake! You're lovely! Thank you! You are absolved from the following! And, George, darling, so, of course, are you!) Unless you have a strong opposition (and how *could* you?!), *please* sign this petition. You can find reasons why this would be the right thing to do in this blog entry.

Thank you!

confetti & fireworks

2008-08-27T18:58:00.000-07:00

Oh, I just *loved* the convention! My brother said he didn't bother to watch it, what was the point of so much excess and corruption, there on the screen for all to see. He's the cynic and I'm the romantic, and somewhere in the middle, perhaps, lies the truth.

Although I didn't vote for her, I grew to be terribly fond of Hillary recently. She did what no woman has done before. And what a great speech she gave the other night!

I loved Bill too. Ex-presidents are so cool! So admirable, much more so than when they were in office! (A little maternal channeling there ... )

Wasn't Uncle Charlie a good touch?! Barack's mom's brother was one of the liberators of Buchenwald, God bless him. Michelle helped him up, whispered in his ear, and he looked pleased, very pleased, if a little befuddled, when all the applause began. I stood up, along with everyone else in the arena, to acknowledge Barack's Uncle Charlie.

And Joe Biden's mom! What a lovely lady, pleased as punch to see her boy on the podium! When little Joey came home from having been bullied, she sent him straight back out again, with instructions to bloody the bully's nose, so that he ... Joe ... would be able to walk down the street the next day with his head held high. Yeah, what happened to fisticuffs, anyway? Today kids seem to fight with guns & knives, so much more deadly than a pair of fists. I'm not as much opposed to fighting as I am to dying, especially for something as trivial as the latest athletic shoes or electronic gadget.

I was truly afraid last night when I heard the announcement that the convention was switching to a larger venue for tonight, so that more could participate. I fear for Obama's safety. I caught the tail end of a radio program today, in which a caller with moderately conservative leanings spoke about the racist & misogynist sentiments which exist, to this day, in the south, which he (the caller) hears expressed regularly during the course of a day in his part of the south ... at the gym, in the diner, at the pool hall or the grocery store. Please keep Barack & his family safe during this election season, and thereafter.

It was a terrific spectacle! What a festival! The music! The politicians! The ordinary folks! The fever! This is why I believe in convention-watching ... to marshal the forces, to enliven the spirit, to gird our loins (?!) for the coming fight.

Maybe yes, yes we can!

I'm a Winner!!!

2008-08-26T12:06:00.000-07:00

I just received an email from SARK's assistant! I won an autographed copy of Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper for my entry into her juicy blogging contest!

This just rocks because (against everything I ever learned about respect for books) I cut up my original copy for use in my vision board. I'm so happy to be getting a sparkling new copy! Woo-hoo!

Psst ... it's a very wonder*full book.

Father God?

2008-08-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

The Democratic National Convention began last night. I make no apology for being a Political Animal. I was raised in Washington, DC, during the '60s & '70s by a woman who ... when she was paying attention ... sheltered war protesters, fed foreign exchange students, taught me about César Chavez & the UFW boycotts, and read The Washington Post religiously. She wasn't ... er, paying attention a lot of the time, but that's the subject of another blog ... maybe. Her belief in participation in the world filtered through to me. (The times I haven't participated are those times when I've been most depressed; even though I'm not always able to *do* it, I always know that I *should* get involved.)

My "aunt" worked in the U.S. Congress for many years; on retirement she promptly got involved in local politics, where she served in a variety of capacities for as many years as she had worked in Congress. In a former life, I married a journalist I met in DC and spent some years living overseas with him. Our home in Islamabad was a way station for many journalists on their travels to & from Afghanistan; it was a rich experience.

So, I was thrilled to sit down with a glass of wine and some cheese & bread last night to watch the spectacle. Wasn't it great that Ted Kennedy made an appearance? Doesn't Caroline look like her dad? Wasn't Nancy Pelosi a bit of a disappointment? Didn't Michelle do an excellent job speechifying? I liked very much that she acknowledged Hillary for the precedents she, too, set during this campaign. There I was after an evening of red, white & blue ... banners & pennants & signs ... hundreds of good-hearted, happy people, all hoping for something better for our country. I was feeling warm, cozy, included ... and quite hopeful myself that change is, in fact, in the air.

As I reached for the knob to turn off the TV, I heard the opening words of the pastor making the benediction:

"Father God, ... "

What?! So much for my feelings of inclusion ...

Why did there need to be a benediction at the conclusion of DNC Day One? Does anyone (anyone at all?) remember separation of church & state?

Did the benediction need to be given by a Christian (and an evangelical one at that!)? Or, better, did it need to be given *only* by a Christian? Why not have representatives of a number of faiths offering up prayers ... for a peaceful & fair election, an end to the war, better education & health care & jobs for American citizens ... for everything that needs prayer?

If a particular deity needed to be invoked at all (which I'm not convinced was necessary), was it also necessary to give It a gender?

I believe in God. I also believe in the Goddess. And in Allah, and the Buddha, and Ganesha & Hecate too. They're possibly all the same being. Does it really matter? Trying to put God/dess into the gender box makes him/her smaller, and ourselves as well.

Inclusion is always, always the best policy. It was working for a while there last night.

Where Did Our Creativity Go?

2008-08-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

I'm a Color Genius! How About You?

2008-08-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

Look what I found: Crayola Color Quizzer!

Envisioning my (Peachy!) Future

2008-08-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

I've been (not) working on creating a vision board for about six months. Most recently, I was reminded of vision boards in The Secret ... it embarrasses me a tiny bit to admit to having watched this DVD, because of all the brou-ha-ha surrounding it, because of its very popularity perhaps ... but the concept of vision boards has been around for a while, I think. And studies have shown that ... well, they work. So here's to envisioning the future!

After luxuriating in Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper for a couple of days, I felt encouraged to complete the vision board I'd been planning for such a long time. That necessitated a delightful day and a half re-reading all the old magazines I'd set aside for this project (I'm a magazine addict!), half a day clipping and two days positioning & gluing. So ... that was ... er, four & a half, no four days ago, and now I am finished!

I feel a little naked looking at it. Vulnerable & empowered at the same time; weird sort of combination. I've received some really positive & encouraging emails on the topic of this blog or my writing in general; copies of *all* of these words occupy space on my vision board. (I'm secretly afraid that this identifies me as neurotic.) There are also photographs of magical places to which I'd like to travel before I die, and many inspirational quotes about creativity and the process of writing.

Here are photos:

I feel joyous to have created something so vibrant, so colorful, so ... *me.*

"George" & I & The Boy have gorged ourselves on peaches this weekend, and I've learned a bit about peach varieties and availability in Suburban Hell; we're thinking of planting some peach pits and seeing what happens. I would walk a mile for a lb. of O'Henry peaches. (Who pays attention to the variety of peach they eat? Never me, until I had my first O'Henry peach, yesterday!) The existence of such exquisitely delicious peaches has softened my disposition, albeit a tiny bit!, toward SH. It's back to being hot, hot, hot again, otherwise.

How to Be a Writer

2008-08-22T15:03:00.001-07:00

How to Be a Writer

Dream lucid. Listen with care. Study people. Live your
life. Don’t hide. Share your words. Embrace wonder.
Love your brother. Forgive your parents. Give up expectations.
Pick up the pen. Be brave. Don’t hold your breath. Open
your eyes. Sit outside. Walk everywhere. Savor your coffee.
Take up space. Don't lower your voice. Choose purple.
Laugh more. Withhold judgment. Stand up. Toughen up.
Work hard. Open your mind. Remember the fairies. Let it come.
Nap with the dog. Keep reading. Take your time.
Suspend disbelief. Forgive yourself. Tell your truth.

Read Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper by SARK!
(Then read all her other books!)

Note: The format of this piece was copied shamelessly from SARK's amazing How to Be an Artist poster. And this blog is my entry in the Planet SARK "juicy blogging" contest.

(Deity of Your Choice) Bless America!

2008-08-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

The United States of America gained 1,553 new citizens in Sacramento this morning. (One of them was a 29-year-old Mexicana who's been learning English with me for the last two years through the public library's literacy program. Yay!) Among others, there were 350 individuals from Mexico, 55 from the Republic of China, 47 from Pakistan, 8 from Canada, 17 from Iran, 1 from Algeria and 1 from American Samoa (which is a little confusing, no?).

These new Americans included black people, brown people, yellow people, pink people ... large people, little people ... men in turbans of burgundy, pale blue & saffron, together with a white-robed man wearing a Hajj cap. (I'm mortified that I lived in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan for four years and don't recall the name of this head-covering.) There were also women in saris & salwar kameez ... people in wheelchairs ... women holding infants ... one who looked 9-1/2 months pregnant ... folks in jeans, at least one in pearls.

Elderly American Legion volunteers in military hats helped to distribute & gather various pieces of paper. Washington Post and God Bless America were rendered decently over the PA system. An immigration services representative in white slacks and a red blazer spoke ineffectually into a microphone, growing progressively more agitated because the Democrats had gotten an early start out front and were trying to recruit new voters before they were actually citizens.

The Republicans were nowhere in evidence before the ceremony ... when I remarked on this during a phone call to George from the auditorium before the ceremony began, he allowed as how it was because the Republicans didn't want any new immigrants in the first place ... but there *were* a few Elephant tables set up afterwards.

Since I can't see well at distances even *with* spectacles on, I spent a good 20 minutes waving vigorously to what turned out to be the wrong woman. Eventually my student came close enough and waved hard enough to get my attention, so I decided to stop harassing the other woman.

I was standing at a particularly advantageous viewing point on the balcony, and as a result there were many people coming & going beside me. The most interesting ... okay! the cutest! ... was an eastern European man, craning his head from side to side over the railing. He asked me if I knew if there were a special section for women and children. I asked if he were looking for his wife. He nodded.

"But your baby's already a citizen, right?" He nodded again, smiling with pride.

"And what about you?"

"Soon," he said shyly.

My immediate reaction to hearing there were Canadians amongst the new citizens was to scoff to myself and think they were headed in the wrong direction. But, that was only my first, try for a laugh response. On further reflection, I remembered that this country was good to my family during the 40s, and that generations of men in my family have given (and are giving) brave military service, and that I love her. Perhaps like an old, long time spouse, I don't always *like* her ... especially the administration of the last eight years ... but she is always worthy of my love.

Something that I've been proud of recently is the fact that "my" immigrant will speak English, unlike so many who come to this country, a state of affairs which has occasionally irritated me. This is fairly hypocritical, though, because although I tried briefly each time, I didn't manage to learn the language of any country that I lived in ... well, except for Ireland (and even that was difficult at first!).

In addition to handing out buttons and (apparently illicit) voter registration forms, the Democrats were also dispensing flags, unfortunately of a poor quality. Just a couple of staples tacked the stiff fabric to the flimsy wooden-sticked flag I felt fortunate to get; larger plastic sticks were much more prevalent. I'd lay money that these American flags were made in China.

I remember the day ... it was the Friday after September 11th ... that we were all encouraged to wave the flag. Folks? It was supposed to be for a day, not for seven years! Too much of something lessens its power to move, to unite, to inspire. Plus, the flag is not being cared for properly in our current fervor to fly it on every conceivable occasion. It should be lowered at dusk, taken in during the rain, and not stuck out the window of a car to grow tattered and dirty.

Welcome to America, Rosalba! Now you, too, have the right to complain about this country ... together with the responsibility of being proud of her. (It works the other way 'round too!)

What Happened to Burnt Umber?!

2008-08-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

I got my paws on a box of crayons the other day, the old-fashioned 64 pack with the sharpener in the box, remember? What fun!

Only ... they've changed the colors. There's no Burnt Umber! There's Raw Siena and Burnt Siena, but Burnt Umber is just ... gone! For some inexplicable reason this devastates me.

Familiar colors I was happy to see again include Goldenrod, Carnation Pink, Sea Green and Spring Green. I recall there being both a Green Yellow and a Yellow Green, but the latter has been retired, apparently. There *are* still a Red Violet & a Violet Red, but while there's a Red Orange, there is no longer an Orange Red.

Did you always use Brick Red to color houses? I did but then, in my coloring days, I lived in a neighborhood with a high proportion of actual brick houses, most of them red. (George keeps talking about painting our red brick fireplace white, which I can't really get my mind around. Fortunately, I don't believe he's ready to do anything about this anytime soon, so this is a Dumbfounded Disagreement Diverted.)

The color formally known as Flesh is gone, thank goodness!

Silver & Gold are still in the box (although nowhere near as *sparkly* as they used to be ... no doubt the glitter was a toxin of some virulent sort), but ... they've done away with Copper! I *loved* Copper; by his reaction when I told him it wasn't there any longer, so did George. Rats to the loss of Copper, which was probably even more poisonous, back in the day.

Strange new colors include Tumbleweed, Timberwolf, Purple Mountains Majesty (nice one!) and Mauvelous. Mauvelous? Cerulean & Scarlet are very dramatic-sounding, aren't they? I noticed Pacific Blue, and as a proud & occasionally homesick East Coaster, promptly went looking for Atlantic Grey, to no avail. Hopefully no one in the division that named Macaroni & Cheese and Granny Smith Apple actually *cooks* for their families, because pasta or fruit in either color would be just ... wrong. Tickle Me Pink, Dandelion & Wisteria are charmers. Other additions are Robin's Egg Blue, Cadet Blue and Indigo, the latter of which may have been there previously.

As if all this innovation weren't bad enough, in addition to those new colors, I've been compelled to adjust to the newest of the new colors: the eight new kids' choice colors, namely, Bear Hug, Happy Ever After (I guess it would be obsessive to fret about grammar here?), Best Friends, Super Happy (perhaps for five minutes, if you're wearing dark sunglasses), Fun in the Sun (if you're a lobster), Famous (maybe Paris Hilton's favorite lipstick?), Giving Tree and Awesome.

George says the smell is the same. I disagree; to me it smells at once more sour & a bit drier. I may, however, be confusing scents with the Play-Doh I inhaled the other day, which I found comfortingly familiar. (No, I never ate paste or graduated to sniffing glue.)

I really, really miss Burnt Umber ...

Dogs & Drugs

2008-08-16T15:43:00.000-07:00

This is my dog.

This is my dog on drugs.

These are the "drugs."

Against all reason, given the SH climate, we have a thriving crop of Galium odoratum (sweet woodruff) immediately beyond the Dumbfounded doorstep. This is a shade-loving, unassuming plant with whorled leaves, which gives forth small white blossoms in late spring, and which is traditionally found in European woodlands. I can only imagine its survival in 100º+ temperatures is due to a great deal of shade, very regular watering and my deep & pervasive need for reminders that temperate & pleasant climates *do* exist in the world. My spirit is delighted and restored whenever I see it.

So, the dog grabs a jawful of my woodruff each time she crosses the threshold, with all the glee of a small child dipping into the cookie jar when Mom's back is turned. I cannot imagine why, beyond the fact that she's still very much a puppy and likes to be in the midst of everything.

Sweet woodruff is an aromatic herb ... indeed, Mrs. M. Grieve allows that it has "an agreeable odour," similar to that of new-mown hay ... which has traditionally been used to scent linens and stuff mattresses, to flavor snuff, and to transform young Rhine wine into Maibowle for springtime festivities. (I remember enjoying bowle with my dad occasionally during my late adolescent summer visits to Luzern, although I don't recall whether he used woodruff.)

Why would this be attractive to the pooch? I can't imagine that she'd chow down on just *anything* growing outside the door. Must be that new-mown hay smell. Silly creature.

Said pooch is in the Dumbfounded doghouse this evening. "George" took me out for a very pleasant evening at a new restaurant. We returned after a couple of hours to find a pair of my Birkenstocks lying in the front hallway, damp with dog spit. This makes about the dozenth pair of shoes of mine she's ruined. (She's also fond of underwear & socks ... always mine, never his.) George stopped forking out money for new shoes for me after about the sixth time this happened. He maintains this destruction is my fault for not securing my belongings properly whenever I leave the premises; however, since I'm not the one exercising my teeth, I don't think this is entirely fair.

Unfortunately, it's impossible to remain mad at Gracie (or George) for longer than about three seconds. They're too damn cute. And they know it.

A Nobel Peace Prize for Pete Seeger!

2008-08-11T14:18:00.000-07:00

Why a Nobel Peace Prize for Pete?

Pete Seeger is an ambassador for Peace and Social Justice and has been over the course of his 88-year lifetime. Using his prowess as a musician he worked to engage other people, from all walks of life and across generations, in causes to build a better and more civilized world: His work shows up wherever you look in the history of labor solidarity, growth of mass effort to end the Vietnam war, ban of nuclear weapons, work for international diplomacy, support of the Civil Rights Movement, for cleaning up the Hudson River and for environmental responsibility in general. Pete knit the world together with songs from China, the Soviet Union, Israel, Cuba, South Africa and Republican Spain. We learned that Crispus Attucks, born a slave, was the first man to die at the opening of the Revolutionary War, that the Farmer-Labor party in the mid-west had a socialist philosophy that lasted well into the 20^th century, we learned that anti-slavery movements were often inspired by songs that indicated a map of escape, such as "Follow the Drinkin' Gourd," he popularized many of the IWW songs that helped in CIO organizing, and spread the Civil Rights Movement through promoting the SNCC Freedom Singers and making songs such as "We Shall Overcome," known all over the world.

When subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee in August of 1955, at the height of the McCarthy period, Pete defended himself on the basis of the First Amendment, the right of an American citizen to free association, not the Fifth Amendment, protection against self incrimination. When he was boycotted from earning a living and practicing his craft on a national scale Pete appeared at union meetings, summer camps, Jr. High Schools, High Schools, and Colleges. His pay at times was as little as $5, but his value was priceless!

Pete also had his mentors: among them Paul Robeson, who said: "The Artist must elect to fight for freedom or slavery..." It is time that a cultural worker receives the acknowledgement that, as Bertolt Brecht points out, "Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it." The cultural workers who know the power of the arts for social and political change, also know how difficult it is to gain recognition for cultural creation without either trivializing the art or somehow qualifying for designation of "high art" by an elite. Pete Seeger always held to the principals that people's music is not only "good art" but is representational art through music. That reality often refers to the conditions of exploitation and oppression that were apparent to formally uneducated folk. Thus "folk music" was not cute or quaint or obsolete, but through Pete, a living, vibrant form of culture.

Pete is again the Pied Piper of an historic environmental movement. When I was a child in New York City the Hudson River was an open sewer, GE alone pumped a million pounds of PCB's into it. Pete developed the idea for the Sloop Clearwater, modeled after Hudson fishing vessels in the 19th century when the river supplied fresh fish for people from Albany to Manhattan; he suggested having song festivals along the river banks to bring attention to cleaning up the river. Of course the idea was derided by everybody except those who knew Pete; he said, "You can't expect people to fight for a cleaner river until they learn to love it." People learned to love the idea that there were things they could do to clean the river. They pitched in, they cleaned the river, now there is a floating pool where children can swim and the Shad and Sturgeon are edible again. In a segment of the otherwise brutal sitcom Law and Order on CBS a character says, "The Hudson River's clean now, thanks to Pete Seeger!"

Culture, in essence, means to honor our forbears. In the words of the Eastern European writer Milan Kundera: "the struggle for people's power is the struggle for memory and against forgetting". Pete's talent, sense of decency, and inalterable belief in, as Anne Franke said, that, "at heart, people are basically good", were uniquely his, but he has never been alone in his work; the support of his wife Toshi and his family gave him the opportunity to be all he could be. We all stand on Pete Seeger's shoulders in a manner of speaking. We share Pete Seeger as a "father" of cultural, social, and political movements, as much as we share our parental DNA.

It is time that cultural work receives the recognition that the arts have great influence and global reach, that it is not only a medium of entertainment but of education, compassion and action. It is the desire of the committee that Pete Seeger be recognized as a beacon of integrity and principle in a time, and in a country, more defined by the absence of those qualities than by their honor.

Eleanor Walden, 2007, www.nobelprize4pete.org

Dog Days

2008-08-10T21:27:00.000-07:00

Phoebe is the first long-haired kitty I've shared my life with. As a result of my inexperience, the poor girl has had progressively worse matted hair as the summer passes. Finally, I twigged to the fact that I needed to *groom* her on a regular basis, at least in the summer heat, rather than simply brushing her occasionally. I've been raking her over with two implements borrowed from the dog's grooming kit which look positively medieval, but Phoebe seems to be okay with them, provided there's lots of treats in the offing, of course. (Treats make everything better, don’t they?) We've had *fistfuls* of cat fur coming off in the last week. Too bad I'm not a better knitter.

Speaking of knitting, I had the idea that if I were to front up at my local yarn shop I might be able to take a few classes, find some community, make myself at home here, like that. Clearly the Universe is aligned against this endeavor, however, because not one but *two* nearby knitting emporia have recently gone belly up! With gas at $4, who can afford the luxury of yarn?

Number two brother has been phoning regularly to update me on how things are in the Old Country, or countries. Receiving a telephone call from a ship off the coast of Russia was novel! We come from sturdy stock, he & I, on either side. He & his wife had their sandals walked off in Stockholm by our 85-year-old paternal cousin, and an 80-year-old Danish cousin on our mother's side swims in the cold waters of the Baltic four times (!) each day, climbing up & down a steep billy goat trail each time. We’ve gone soft in America, with our cars, white bread & big box stores.

Yesterday, “George” & I went for a jaunt, something which has the potential to work wonders for my mood. On the way home, a bee flew in the window, struck me on the cheek (without stinging me, luckily for both of us) and landed in my lap. Earlier that morning, a dear friend, in attempting to throw a lifeline into the stagnant waters of my depression, advised me to watch for a sign from the Goddess on my outing. Well! I’m reminded of my confirmation into the Anglican Church in early adolescence and the accompanying cheek slap from the bishop. Bees mean community, just off the top of my head, and industry. I need to study up on them a little more. This is actually not the first time Bee has turned up in my life; she appeared also just around the time that I moved to SH (Suburban Hell). Interestingly, I was already reading two bee books and purchased a third while we were away yesterday. Clearly there’s more I need to learn from bees.

When I forget to put on my (prescription) sunglasses before heading off on my morning jaunts, the background to my travels is entirely different, much softer than when I can put definition to the distance. I'm forced to focus on the immediate, whatever's in front of my face, rather than concentrating on discerning the distance, either behind or before me. Apart from the squint factor, it might be good to forget those glasses every now & then.

Thanks for keeping the faith, Gentle Readers. (Whatever happened to Miss Manners?)

Lughnasadh Blessings

2008-08-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

Today we harvested two types of beefsteak from our garden: Aunt Ruby's German Green and Pineapple. Still waiting for Black from Tula and Jaune Flamme. Already inundated with Sweet 100 and Yellow Pear cherries, the latter of which is disappointingly watery this year!

May Mabon & Samhain harvests be richer still, with inner fruition to balance the outer.

Suburban Wilderness

2008-08-02T08:36:00.001-07:00

One caveat about seeing Mamma Mia: your partner is likely to be whistling ABBA tunes ever after. "George" gave a rousing rendition of Knowing You, Knowing Me in the shower this morning. Yesterday, it was Dancing Queen, all freakin' day long. Honey, if you're reading this ... have a heart!

You know there's something wrong when the Sacramento Oldies station highlights a year each Saturday morning, and this morning that highlighted year ... that OLDIES year ... was 1991.

We need wilderness and extravagance. Whatever shuts a human being away from the waterfall and the tiger will kill him. ~Robert Bly

I've been meditating on the idea of wildness, wilderness, wildishness. Rediscovering Women Who Run With the Wolves, as I've done, is synchronistic.

That's All.

-30-

Sunday Sound Bites

2008-07-27T10:14:00.000-07:00

My horoscope says that my intellectual powers are at their best today. This is laughable. Unless it's true.

My brother called me this morning from a cruise ship between Estonia and Russia. How cool is that?

There are clam dip, potato chips, ice cream and pizza in the Dumbfounded Kitchen. This is what comes from taking The Boy in for a week while his mom gallivants in Puerto Vallarta.

My current lifestyle is unsustainable. Editing technical writing at home is just temporary. But I haven't settled on What To Do Next yet, so I don't know how to prepare for it.

I've been having this here so-called Existential Crisis for several months now. My path is not a whole lot clearer now than it was going in. What's up with that?

Washington, DC, is under a severe thunderstorm watch right now. I would sell my granny to be able to experience a thunderstorm again.

I've fallen in love with tomatillos, these pale green lanterns that were nowhere to be seen in the lima beans & iceberg lettuce of my youth. Sadly, I only planted one variety, Toma Verde, this year, and it seems to be an early producer, not one of the ones that turns purple when ripe. Next year, there shall be fewer tomatoes and more tomatillos in the Dumbfounded Garden.

Mamma Mia! was very sweet. Here's to sliding down banisters!

My First Meme

2008-07-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

Holy shit! I used to feel pretty "hip," pretty on top of cultural breezes, up to date on politics, aware of the latest fads. That is just not so any longer! I hope it's not an indication of age, about which I'm finding myself terribly conflicted lately.

I just recently delved into urban slang. A friend referred to me as the shiznit, and I couldn't tell if she deserved a hug or a thwack. Today, I find out about a meme. So here's my entry. I probably don't know five people to tag, or ... how to tag them, but I might give that a try.

Oh, and apologies for the last few boring entries. I've got the mediocre blues lately.

Here are the instructions:

Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).

Open the book to page 123.

Find the fifth sentence.

Post the next three sentences.

Tag five people.

The nearest book is Ralph Metzner's Sacred Vine of Spirits, Ayahuasca. The relevant sentences are:

"This is what is meant by the warrior's impeccability: s/he is without stain or blemish, no egocentric projections are distorting perception. The warrior is never a victim and does not idealize the condition of vulnerability. Although s/he can be wounded of course, as anyone can, whether in the jungle of subjective visions or the urban jungle, such wounds are taken care of in the appropriate way."

Man! No wonder my posts have been tedious recently, if this is the tenor of my reading material! Maybe I should read something ... low-brow? I'm completely enraptured by The Shamanic Way of the Bee right now, but that's definitely not easy amusement.

Oh, I guess I should say that I read about this exercise in Grian's lovely Panthea blog. And it is my intention to tag Nette & Lisa.

Temporary Coolth

2008-07-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

It's been delightfully cool (relatively speaking, of course ... it's been in the 80's but with a delicious breeze) here the last two days. I love the early hours just before dawn when it's actually chilly enough to reach for the duvet and curl into it for another hour or two of precious sleep.

I feel a bit like a heretic, wishing for the coolth of autumn when summer is just now upon us and the tomatoes still green in their lycopene jungle. But I'm at my best (such as that is) in jeans and sweater and hiking boots with a cassoulet or tagine bubbling in the crock pot and a loaf of bread in the oven. I like tramping through fallen leaves, sniffing wood smoke in the air, perching on a bluff above the sea, watching seals rambunct on the rocks ... bummer ... "rambunct" would make such a useful verb.

So, I'm grabbing this unseasonal bliss and running with it, until I'm once again felled by the heat. Funny ... I was waiting for "George" (who is becoming quite an accomplished artist) outside the art gallery the other morning when I saw a couple walking past, carrying their groceries. Each was wearing a broad hat against the sun and going about her business, and I thought ... this is how it's done. People *do* live their lives, regardless of the weather. Weather is not a good reason to hibernate, to be morose, to pick at oneself.

A wise friend once observed to me that it's possible to be depressed while standing up. In other words, be depressed if you must, but don't neglect the business of living. My lavender bed needs pruning and weeding. The oregano lotion I made the other day turned out better than previous attempts, but it's still yellow and watery, so I believe I'll return my attention to the easier work of salve-making. And I've just discovered a nearby dog park, so Gracie (who is a very undersocialized pooch) & I are going to check it out this afternoon.

And ... joy! ... I overheard George on the phone to his newly discovered older sister (topic for another blog, but imagine learning about and meeting an older sibling for the first time when you're in your 50's!) just now discussing plans for us to take the train to the PNW for a visit. I've just been thinking that my spirits would be mightily enlivened by an adventure, so it's off to check out train schedules!

Ordinary, Lovely Day

2008-07-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

Some days depression seems further away, peanut butter seems slightly less urgent, and it's just ... pleasant ... pleasant to sleep late, to savor orange cranberry scones with butter & coffee, to go to a film with my sweetie, to nap with the animals around us, to read the Sunday paper, to observe the cocktail hour. It's good to be ordinary. No drama. No navel-gazing. The world will continue without any more of my angst, at least for today.

Sure, I have blogs saved in rough form about religion, reading material, the election, and my fondness for microbrew, all fascinating and vital topics to be sure, but ones that don't need to be addressed today. I can take today off without divine recrimination.

By the way, Batman rocks and I fully expect Heath Ledger's excellent Joker to win best supporting actor. Long film though. The Dumbfounded bladder was getting a little twitchy toward the end.

By the way, by the way, George & I are fond of weird cocktails. The latest one was the Kirsch Rickey, a delightful & refreshing surprise after the first shock of all that kirsch. Oh, and we used fresh black cherries from our amble through the farmer's market yesterday morning, not maraschinos. Mmmm.

Making Medicine

2008-07-18T13:47:00.000-07:00

I joined an interesting herbal forum the other day. The very first post got me salivating with the abundance, community and womancraft it exuded. It was about two or three women who got together to harvest the "useful plants" and "put up" some medicine. If I could do that a few times a year, commune with some sympatico sisters, have a few laughs, do some *good,* I would be *so* happy.

My mother would say that I have a bad case of lack of stick-to-it-iv-ness. There are so many jars of herbs, bottles of oils, containers of ground spice about the place. I have some lovely unexpected free time today (hours and *hours* of it!), and I'm determined to put some of my projects to rights.

The MRH vanilla extract recipe turned out *great* so I'm trying it again, this time with a 50:50 Everclear-water mixture. It looks quite ... gray right now. Hopefully, it'll get a little more robust in time.

Next, I'm making a wild rose elixir, for internal purposes. The Medicine Woman's Roots is a great resource; I'm enjoying discovering this site very much, and I have to say that I'm curious when she writes that some people find this elixir quite "perception altering." I'm extremely fond of altering my perception, after all.

Isn't that sort of a cool way of thinking about this journey through the ups & downs of life ... an attempt to alter our perceptions so as to do some good (or, at the least, do no harm), to be relevant for a little while, to have a few laughs?

Then, I'll transform the calendula oil and the oregano oil into salves or lotions. The last time I attempted a lotion it separated, like bad mayonnaise. Fingers crossed for different results this time!

Science Project

2008-07-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

I need to get my own digital camera. One I can operate without adult supervision. "George" is always a mite fretful when I ask to borrow his, and it's much more complicated than is necessary for my purposes. A camera would be very useful in providing evidence of any future science projects that I might inadvertently begin.

Sigh. Shameful Admission time. I buy way more veggies than either of us is inclined (or has time) to prepare and eat. Consequently, there's a certain amount of wastage in the Dumbfounded Fridge, on nearly a weekly basis. I grew up being lectured about the poor Biafran babies who hadn't enough to eat, so this is a huge source of guilt for me.

(Digression: I just looked up Biafra and learned that that that nation only existed for slightly less than three years. Ergo, the timeperiod of this memory of being strongly encouraged to finish all my food is 1967 to 70, or when I was six to nine; seldom can I be so specific in placing in time the meager childhood memories I have, so I'm grateful for this.)

Anyway, this morning I went on a reconnaissance mission through the Dumbfounded Produce Department and discovered the Science Project: a sweet potato ... um, maybe a yam, I'm a little confused on the difference between the two ... which had put out green shoots two feet long. And, no, I don't want to enter into a discussion about why I didn't notice a two-foot long ... vegetal growth when it was just two *inches* long and ... taken steps.

Since this ... tuber has reached this state of development, I'm really thinking it wants to live. I'd like to enable this life-force. However, I know nothing of spud cultivation. I think I need to cut the sweet potato up into "eyes," preferably those with roots, and plant each of them individually. Can anyone enlighten me further?

I don't really need to plant a sweet potato crop. I just want to honor life, wherever I can, particularly that reached for with such determination. Why the hell is it so much easier to acknowledge the life-force of a potato over my own? (If anyone's lurking in the audience compiling a list of quotable quotes for posterity, please help yourself ... )

"George" has made several observances since he's been following this blog:

My initial attempt to avoid swearing (for example, I first wrote "Why the heck," above) is fatuous, considering how very obvious it is what my preferred word would be. So, no more not swearing, and if any sensibilities are disturbed, please see George.

I encompass too many subjects in one blog. He may be right. He reckons I'll straighten up as I do this more. He may be right there too.

He's also made one threat: That if I give away too much, he'll start his own blog! Hmm ... I'm probably not supposed to view that as a challenge ...

Is America Smart Enough for Satire?

2008-07-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

NPR was on during my car-errands yesterday, and I registered, but only vaguely, a rather lively discussion, something to do with the portrayal of the Obamas on the cover of The New Yorker. Today, my copy arrived in the mail and ... um, okay, now I get it.

David Resnick, what were you *thinking?!* Mr. Resnick, the editor, believes that the irony of this drawing will be apparent to the majority of Americans. I wish I could believe that we were sufficiently intelligent. The latest Newsweek poll discovered that 12% of the population believe that Mr. Obama took his oath of office on the Qu'ran and is a practicing Muslim today, while 26% believe he was raised as a Muslim. (The same poll revealed that 44% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats consider it "very important" for the POTUS to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ!)

Obama, on Larry King, apparently refused to get his knickers in a twist over this "cartoon," as it termed it, and fair play to him. Getting riled up would not benefit his cause in the slightest.

Why am *I* so riled up? Actually, I'm more confused, to tell the truth. My initial reaction is anger, indignation, revulsion, like that. Very emotional. But after that little reactionary rush, thought sets in. The images are so completely outlandish that no one could possibly view them in a literal sense. Could they?

The National Review (I know, I know, but Buckley was an interesting fellow, wasn't he?) speaks eloquently for the other side:

In any case, those about whom the outraged presumably are most concerned are: (1) unlikely to pick up a New Yorker; (2) unlikely to be swayed or disabused of their preconceptions. So what exactly are they worried about?

That yahoos just passing by a newsstand will see those images and have their paranoid suspicions confirmed?

This is elitism at its most self-destructive. Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and former New Yorker staffer, put it nicely to the San Francisco Chronicle: “The essence of what they’re saying is, ‘I get it, but I don’t trust the people in Kansas to get it.’ ”

This is *exactly* what I am saying, with all due apologies to any Kansans out there, and with a certain amount of embarrassment.

Time for Some Campaignin'

2008-07-16T10:04:00.001-07:00

I loved them in 2004, and they're back!

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Jif or Skippy?

2008-07-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

Living with others has come to mean a variety of nut butters in the Dumbfounded Fridge. Woman-Child likes Jif Extra Crunchy. Boy-Child is fond of Skippy Creamy. "George" has finally made the transition from commercial brands to something which purports to be organic (this is important since peanuts are one of the most heavily sprayed crops), although it contains a shocking amount of honey. My preference is for organic, crunchy, unsweetened peanut butter with salt, and I can totally appreciate how confusing this might be to someone like ... oh, say ... George, since until recently I really grooved on crunchy non-salted, non-organic almond butter.

George & I once nearly broke up because of one too many arguments about the presence of transfats on the ingredient label of his former nut butter. He's a good man to have forgiven my lack of flexibility on this subject.

And now? Now, I am the epitome of flexibility, reduced to dipping my apple into Jif peanut butter, because I haven't been to the Coop for "real" food in a week. If I lived alone still, I wouldn't have had *any* nut butters to dig into ... hard to work out which is the lesser of those two evils right now.

Vive la Bastille!

2008-07-14T10:37:00.001-07:00

Gotta love Google ... Thomas Jefferson's handwritten, eye-witness account of the storming of the Bastille.

Vive la Bastille!

No Regrets. Really?

2008-07-14T08:33:00.000-07:00

People sometimes state that they have no regrets in life. I wonder, is this really true? How can that be? What's wrong with me that I *do* have regrets? Yikes!

A not-so-recent regret is that after I repatriated myself from Thailand to California ... Oh! Ten years ago, like, *today* ... I spent three years dating a newly separated man who possessed no imagination whatsoever. Flights of fancy, wonder & speculation are so central to my current existence that the passage of time with such an insipid individual is a Secret Shame of mine, in fact. It was a stunningly boring relationship, which I attempted to enliven with the insertion of a great deal of drama. The toxicity of this pairing is clear to me now, of course, but at the time it seemed entirely reasonable to try to forge a relationship with him.

(Digression: His lack of imagination and his non-awareness of the world around him was such that he confessed to me once that, after several decades of marriage, he wasn't sure if he had ever been able to give his wife an orgasm. Fellows, if you're reading this now and you do not know the answer to this question, you need to find out. Ladies, too, come to think of it. This is something that needs to be known (and savored!) with our partners. Okay?)

A more recent regret involves my ongoing inability to rouse myself from a sort of paralysis, the sort which has me staring at the computer screen for hours, under the mistaken belief that if my fingers are moving across the keyboard *something* is being accomplished. (Note to Self: Playing solitaire does not count in the grand scheme of things.) I feel ever so virtuous for not watching television, but that's nothing but a bit of sophistry considering the amount of time I spend right here.

This is depression, of course, not laziness or lack of ambition, as I sometimes berate myself. And, thank the gods & goddesses for Lexapro, which lessens the depression to the extent that I can actually get out of bed of a morning and appear to be nearly fully functional. A few years ago, after two years of better living with chemistry, I thought it would be good to see if I could manage without antidepressants, if Forest Labs finest had fixed whatever faulty wiring there is upstairs. Inside of two weeks, both "George" and Boss-Man were imploring me most sincerely to resume treatment. And so I did.

Several months ago I read a fascinating article in the National Geographic about the effects of ayahuasca on depression. In a subsequent email exchange with the author of the article, she confirmed for me that she has been depression free ever since the ayahuasca ceremony, four or five years ago. Needless to say, my sights are now set on Peru, although with no fixed degree of certitude as to when I'll be able to make the trip.

The worst part of depression, right now, is that it makes me terribly self-centered, not a good friend at all. I blew off a chance to visit with one of my oldest friends yesterday because I thought I would need to explain how I got to a place with a swimming pool and a lawn, when the dreams I shared with her when we were 15 involved writing poetry and traveling the world. All I could think of was having to review my life through the magnifying lens of her eyes, her love & her memories of me. It never occurred to me that she might need me for something. Nope, I just don't see how it's possible to live this life with no regrets at all.

It's good that it has't come to this yet ...

2008-07-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

I remember reading once, maybe in The Washington Post (my hometown rag, which I miss dearly), a tale of a sailor who'd been alone at sea, for reasons I don't recall, when there'd been an accident which had necessitated him sewing his own eyeball back into his eye socket. OMG! Can you *imagine* what that must have been like?

The sailor had a terribly romantic story ... the Merchant Marine or the Foreign Legion. (Digression: I have no idea if the FFL even *had* a navy ... but I suppose they must have ... how else to get back & forth between France & North Africa? And you know what's joyous about living now? I can look this shit up, like, *immediately.* Okay, so, Wiki says that the Foreign Legion was formed in 1831 as a division of the French Army, so no navy.) This article appeared possibly as long ago as 20 years, so however the story went, it must have been something, to have captivated my imagination to the extent that I think of it still.

Isn't it good that life hasn't come to anything this horrifying yet? There's really so little to complain about.

Love & Fear, an Unoriginal Thought

2008-07-11T11:03:00.001-07:00

Every human action stems from either love or fear. I wish I could remember where I first learned this, but it's been borne out often enough in my life, particularly in my recent retrograde-inspired period of communication woes.

Jealousy? Fear of losing. Rejection? Fear of being wounded. Greed? Fear of not having enough. Anger? Fear of being irrelevant, perhaps. Hate? A mixture of love and fear.

And, of course, this all occurs on a continuum, because we are deliciously human, with all the complexity & confusion this fragile state entails. A woman who is governed by fear in one encounter is the very embodiment of love in another relationship. My aspiration is to learn to be more loving than fearful in my actions and interactions, something which I'm able to accomplish with varying degrees of success. One good thing about the passage of time is that this seems to become a tiny bit easier with age.

On the topic of fear, I'm giving some thought to further herbal education, including a class on the ins & outs of beginning an herbal business. I've always been firm in my disinclination to hang out a shingle, in spite of the fact that I likely have as much education as some who have done so ... very little chutzpah at the moment, but a fair amount of education. And why *not* parlay all the herbs around the place into something that might earn a few shillings? Um ... here's the fear ... because of an equally strong disinclination to engage in harming anyone in this lifetime? At the conclusion of one recent herbal course, the graduates placed a hand upon Mother Earth and sent the Hippocratic Oath off into the aethers, a lovely moment which I took very seriously. "George" might protest that I have no compunction about attempting to harm him, but then he's given to exaggeration, particularly on the topic of my healing skills.

This ponderance is partly prompted by the fact that I haven't found homes for the last supply of medicinal herbs I ordered, and the *next* shipment is arriving today! I've developed a bad habit of reading through dozens of herbals, finding recipes that speak to me, ordering the ingredients and then forgetting the concoctions for which I ordered them when the box arrives. Naturally, my preference is to regard this as an overabundance of green witch enthusiasm, rather than evidence of early senility.

Cherchez le Shoemaker

2008-07-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

If your shoes needed repair, where would you take them? Do many of us buy shoes these days that warrant repair? Shoes may be one more disposable item in an increasingly disposable world. But it wasn't always this way.

When I was a child in Georgetown, my mother often visited the Bredice brothers shoemakers on Wisconsin Avenue. (Digression: I'll be damned! I just "Googled" them and they're still in business, although they are now the Bredice Brothers Hardware & Shoe Repair Shop, which speaks to the question of shoe disposability.) I remember two or three old (from a five year old's perspective) men with accents and neckties, always charming to a single mother and her small girl child. I remember the cold metal of the shoe sizer ... which I've just learned is called a Brannock device ... how's that for useless trivia?, and I remember lollipops & the delicious scent of leather.

Before I relocated to Suburban Hell (and it's been quite hellish, weather-wise, this week), my local shoemaker was a handsome man of a certain age who gave Armenian language lessons on the side to a very lovely redhead many years his junior. I sought him out for repairs to a leather handbag ... my love affair with leather handbags could occupy an entire post of its own, as "George" would be quick to agree, but I *am* trying not to bore my readership overmuch. After leaving the bag with him, he eyed my raggedy Birkenstocks (which, for many years, I had been guilty of treating as disposable) and diplomatically mentioned that he had the technology to refurbish them.

And, now, finally, after 18 months here, I've made the acquaintance of this town's shoemaker, a Vietnamese gentleman of limited English but ... again! ... with an abundance of charm. He sold me some leather conditioner for the aforementioned Italian leather love seat which has suffered several indignities at the paws of Gracie & Phoebe. Now I know where to take my Birkenstocks. It's a way, albeit tiny, of feeling more at home here.

In the same strip mall was a vacuum cleaner repair shop, another item which I've always considered disposable. Shame on me. I remember a heavy Electrolux canister machine of my grandmother's, which I'm certain she had repaired on more than one occasion. (The repairman probably made house calls, if you can imagine that!) My upright just doesn't feel as substantial, as worthy of repair. And it's that deliberately shoddy workmanship (on the part of the manufacturer) and that disposable mentality (on my part) which is contributing to an unsustainable way of life marked by wretched excess, a tanking economy and too many landfills.

Oy! Stop me before I rant any further!

Those Danes ...

2008-07-10T07:21:00.000-07:00

And now a little something from the country of my foremothers ... (Thanks to my lovely ex-husband for this one!)

Tribute to Witches

2008-07-09T21:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Nette!

Wilting ...

2008-07-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

  Today                Wed                   Thur                   Fri

112° | 72°      110° | 70°       106° | 63°      103° | 61°

Food Rocks; Heat Sucks

2008-07-06T18:18:00.000-07:00

I'm astonished (and gratified) by the way the counter keeps incrementing, even though I've been silent and largely witless for most of the last week. It's 102˚ today, and I'm just coming off a three-day juice fast which left me cranky and extremely appreciative of peanut butter.

When "George" & I first began dating ... Oh! It'll be seven years on Tuesday! ... and drove back & forth from our separate homes (and micro-climates!) on weekends, I told him that I could only be his winter-time (such as winter is in California) girlfriend. The heat just freaking depletes me. My "people" are from northern Europe originally, and I'm just not suited for hot weather. My aunt lives in New Hampshire, and even she complains about the summer heat, retreating to Maine and Canada whenever she can. George doesn't cut me any slack for this position, because his forebears hail from the same area and *he* tolerates the heat just fine.

Fasting was interesting, much more tolerable than I'd imagined it would be, although I'm extremely happy to have a dinner of salmon & corn & sautéed fennel to look forward to. I think fasting, like some other pursuits, may be best undertaken when one lives alone. I love living with George, but there are a few pastimes that I just miss from my solitary time in the redwoods. Wandering around buck naked with my hair in a towel and a green clay mask smeared on my face. Turning the volume up up up on Creedence, Skynyrd, the Stones, Bruce, Dylan or the Dead. Spending an entire day with my nose in a book, accountable to none.

Contrast that with cryptic crosswords in bed, candlelight dinners, giggles, hugs, and genuine love and good fellowship, and it's hard to say that one scenario is better than the other. I want *both,* contrarian that I am. I'd have said that Woody Allen and Mia Farrow had the right of it, with separate apartments on Central Park connected by a bridge, but look what happened to them. So, George & I are still trying to find our own way, eighteen months after beginning to "live in Sin" ... that's a city near Sacramento.

It's not helped by the fact that I am a bona fide hag when I'm too hot; I felt so validated a few years ago when I met a woman in an herb class, a transplant from San Francisco's fog to Sacramento's heat, who said that the hot weather just made her *angry.* I thought, yes! That's just how it is for me. Hopefully, I compensate for it with a sweeter disposition in the autumn.

I've been studying nutrition recently. It seems apparent to me that healthy aging is aided by the fine-tuning of various behaviors that one may have taken for granted for a number of years, hence the fasting. My body has been sending me subtle, and not-so-subtle, signals for a few years now that I need to make some changes, and I'm just beginning to decipher them. This is where much of my interest lies lately, but people who talk incessantly about their health are *boring,* aren't they?

George & I attended the 50th birthday party of his ex-wife last night. Originally, I thought I'd be fasting, and I couldn't imagine anything I'd less like to do than attend a party while not eating, not drinking. But my crankiness got the better of me yesterday morning, and I broke the fast with some kefir and some fruit. So we attended the party, and it was really fun.

The ex, who is very nice in her own right, has some really nice friends. And I have none, at least locally. I've been fretting about my lack of friends lately, and I keep thinking of the I Love Lucy episode, Lucy's Last Birthday, where she hooks up with the Friends of the Friendless.

I'm a recent refugee from a Yahoo! group which provided me with an abundance of friendship and community, and ... given the fact that I've made no "real," reliably accessible friends since I relocated to Suburbia ... I miss that involvement a great deal. But it was also an exercise in frustration, given some of the personalities involved, and quite a bit of a time suck since I couldn't seem to regulate the time I spent there. I've been reading a lot more since I no longer have that resource/distraction, playing with herbs more often, watching the changes in my garden, introspecting ... I just made that word up (or so I thought) and am deeply troubled that spell-check didn't catch it.

I have friends all over the world from the various places I've lived, and I do have some amazing "cyber" friends (who are as real to me as the "real" ones), but what I most need is an Ethel to my Lucy, someone over the back fence to have coffee and a bitch fest with from time to time. And, for the right candidate, I'd even let her be Lucy sometimes ...

The First Amendment

2008-07-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

My local coffee shop seems to have been taken over by Christians, a subject about which I may rant more later. (Something to look forward to, eh?!) As I was sitting in my car outside the place this morning, catching up on the Sunday NY Times, a gentleman getting into the car (with a fish-Jesus decal on the rear) beside me asked me about the "Free Tibet" sticker on the back of mine.

      "Why should we free Tibet?"

      "For the Tibetans?"

      "But we're not even there."

      "That didn't stop us in Iraq, did it?"

He could have inquired about the sticker which reads "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross," a discussion which would have been slightly more challenging for me. It doesn't make a lot of sense for one so confrontation-shy to have so many bumper stickers on the back of her car, does it?

Sometimes, if I'm stopped in traffic, I amuse myself (simple minds & all ...) by watching in the rear view mirror for the reactions engendered by the exercise of my First Amendment rights on the back of my car. Every now & then, I'll get a wave or a honk, sometimes a frown; more often than you'd believe, I see lips moving while they're reading. And, once, in a moment that made me proud, there was a little red convertible stopped behind me in which sat a 40-ish man and his "tween" daughter. She read one of the stickers out loud, "No one died when Clinton lied," and asked her dad what it meant. Little ripples ...

I got smart after my last car, which had several layers of stickers affixed to the rear, and began using magnets with this car. It suits my apparently Mercurial nature to be able to change the display at will. The only downside is that the bumpers no longer seem to be made of metal, so there's a bit less of a canvas than I'd like.

Today, I finally got around to adding "How's my driving? Let's discuss it on my cell phone," which is a bit less than timely, at least for California which ... from today ... has made hands-free phones mandatory.

Hold the Anchovies!

2008-06-28T07:37:00.000-07:00

My house smells like a pizzeria this morning. I've recently learned that (a) oil of oregano is a potent fungicide; and, (b) there are thousands ... yes, *thousands* ... of fungi that live on or in the human body. Ick. Most are beneficial, or at least not virulently harmful, fungi. But there are the odd few that need taming or flat out destruction. So, I've been experimenting with oil of oregano. If George would only hold still, I'd daub some on him too, but in seven years he's become adept at dodging my alternative ministrations.

(My brother recently observed that I have too much time on my hands. Oddly, this has been my busiest week since becoming self-employed.)

I have a deep distrust of the medical profession and, particularly, the pharmaceutical industry. Clearly, if there's an acute catastrophic injury to me or my loved ones, we'll be right there at the emergency room with everyone else. But in the absence of severe blood loss or deep trauma, I'm going to treat myself (and any stationary person in my immediate vicinity) with more organic means. It worked for our grandmothers for millennia, after all.

Several years ago, while reading the delightful The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, I thought the application of a turmeric face mask would be a good idea. Possibly, if I'd had a lovely golden complexion to begin with, this might have worked a little better than it actually did. My face ... also my sheets, towels and formerly white telephone ... was yellow for *days.*

Oh well. You win some, you lose some. I'm betting on the oregano oil.

Ben Hur is Smiling Today

2008-06-26T07:32:00.000-07:00

For the first time since the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, the Supreme Court has weighed in with a conclusive interpretation of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." Cheney's hunting buddy Scalia, speaking for the majority, wrote that the Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home."

Perhaps this is too simplistic, but why in hell would a document written 217 years ago ... when, as near as I can figure, the standard weapon was a flintlock musket ... make reference to handguns, a firearm that hadn't yet been invented?!

I am all in favor of a "well-regulated Militia," but I don't see how a handgun is much deterrent to Al-Qaeda. The only purpose of a handgun is to be concealed. And to kill. Usually innocents.

Here are some statistics to chew on (and, yes, I know what they say about statistics):

Over a twenty-five year period, from 1972 to 1997, over 59 million handguns were manufactured in the U.S.

A gun in your home makes it three times more likely that you or someone you care about will be murdered by a family member or intimate partner. (Kellerman, New England Journal of Medicine v329, n.15 1993)

In 1998, 499 children from ages 0-19 died in CA due to firearms. Nationally during the same year, 3792 children from ages 0-19 were killed in the US due to firearms. (CA Dept. of Health)

In 1998-99, states and territories expelled 3,523 students from bringing a firearm to school, down from 5,724 in 1996-97. (US Dept. of Ed., 2000 Press Release)

In 1998, for every one time a woman used a handgun to kill a stranger in self-defense, 302 women were murdered in handgun homicides. (FBI's Supplementary Homicide Report, 1998)

In a household with a gun, a person is almost five times more likely to die by suicide than people living in a gun-free home. (New England Journal of Medicine, v327, n.7, 1992)

In 1997, for every time that a civilian used a handgun to kill in self-defense, 43 people lost their lives in handgun homicides. (FBI Supplementary Homicide Report data, 1997)

In 1997 there were 15,690 homicides, of which 8,503 were committed with handguns. Only 193 (2.3 percent) handgun homicides were classified as justifiable homicides. (FBI Supplementary Homicide Report data, 1997)

(All statistics from here.)

~Disgusted in Suburbia

Who's in Charge Here?!

2008-06-25T17:32:00.000-07:00

They don't look like terrorists, do they? Such innocent faces, so sweet. Do not for an instant be fooled! They are tyrants of the furriest sort!

Every morning, well before 6am, I get a full body press from Gracie, the 45-lb beast on the right. I'm not given to late sleeping as a rule, but it would be nice at least to have the option of arising, say, at 7 am from time to time.

Phoebe, the brute on the left, is the brains of the two. She incites the dog to bark or to commit some other crime, knowing full well that the dog will be yelled at; she then slinks out to the sun room, an area off limits to the dog, content in a bit of work well done.

When visitors drop by (or when any other threat presents itself), Phoebe ... a skittish sort ... must be guaranteed safe passage, preferably in a straight line, out of the center of activity; otherwise, she's liable to pee, just like that, without regard for whether or not she's perched on, say, the new leather loveseat. (Gotta love leather, so easy to clean.)

No matter how often George Jetson explains to Gracie that we only can lay claim to ownership of the house and the lawn (ugh! a lawn!), not the sidewalk or street beyond, she sets to growling & woofing any time there's the slightest commotion out front ... UPS, neighbor kids on skateboards, a leaf blowing (sadly, I'm not at all exaggerating here).

And, with astonishing regularity, they present themselves, committee-like, each evening beginning at 5pm, to await the dinner hour (which occurs at 6 o'clock, not 5 o'clock, no matter how starving, adorable or deserving they make themselves out to be).

Pussy- & puppy-whipped in Suburbia.

Blogging as Medicine?

2008-06-25T07:18:00.000-07:00

Who knew there was a (presumably) scholarly journal called CyberPsychology & Behavior? It's a sign of the times, I guess (and of my advanced age that I should be surprised by it). Anyway, according to an article in the latest issue of Newsweek, a study in the aforementioned journal suggests that blogging might be beneficial for one's mental health. Maybe I'll get to a point where I can toss the Lexapro after all.

Cohabitation as Comedy

2008-06-24T20:42:00.000-07:00

"George" isn't thrilled with his moniker. Well, given the last eight years, who could blame him, really. But I suspect there's more to it than that, George Jetson not being the most virile of characters. When I quizzed him about manly cartoon figures, there weren't many he could come up with ... it's a bit of a contradiction in terms, isn't it? He mentioned Zandor of the Herculoids and He-Man, neither of which I'd ever heard of. (I'm a bit deficient in cartoons, apparently. My tastes run more toward Underdog.) I figure George Jetson is better than, oh, Snidely Whiplash or Elmer Fudd, and there *is* the matter of that car.

Some of the funniest moments happen on account of my cohabitation with George, so I've been trying to prepare him for the possibility of his eventual notoriety. He doesn't look thrilled by that either. In fact, he's threatened to begin his own blog if I spill too much. There's no need to fear, Underdog is here ...