Happy Friday

I was lucky enough to get to see Steve Westfield and the Slow Band last night. A ten-piece band that hadn't played out in eight years, they had one practice before the gig then just jumped in together. They lifted my feet off the floor and lifted my spirit, too.

What music will you enjoy this weekend?











Peace.

Monday Blooms

A friend gave me this hydrangea plant as a housewarming gift ten years ago. The nursery tag attached read, "will never turn blue." I read it as a warning, like, "don't worry, this won't turn blue." I thought that was odd, because in my limited gardening experience at the time, I thought everyone wanted blue hydrangeas, so turning blue would be a good thing. After thinking for a minute, I realized it meant, "don't try everything you've ever heard of to turn this hydrangea blue, 'cause it ain't gonna happen."

I planted it in the front of the house, in a protected spot (which the tag said it needed), but it didn't bloom at all the first couple years. I decided it wasn't a sunny enough spot, so I transplanted it. That first year after moving it, I got one very pale pinkish white blossom, and congratulated myself on doing the right thing. The next year: no blooms. The year after that, one. So I decided to give this plant some space (ie, I kinda ignored it). With one exception: I had read that plants like coffee, so I started dumping my coffee grounds in the garden, alternating between the rose bush and the hydrangea. Year after year, no blooms, and the plant only grew a little (caffeine stunting it's growth?!?). Then, with help, I pruned the forsythia and lilac nearby to give the hydrangea more room. The plant seemed happy. Finally, this year, three flowers. I guess you'd call them purple, but they're almost blue.

Somehow, this is a parable for my life right now.
Still not quite sure what it means...

Peace.

Snark Fail

This reminds me of a few people I know.

Peace.

Helen Mirren's Breasts

My friend, jac posted a link to this video earlier today. I am new to the Helen Mirren phenomenon. What I mean is, she seems suddenly to be on everyone's list of sexy older women. I don't know much current pop culture, but I think she even did a skit on Saturday Night Live recently about her magical breasts (please correct me if I'm wrong, for I'm too lazy to google). It turns out she was a sexy younger woman, too.

What struck me about this video is how well she carries the exasperation at being asked those questions that women artists always get asked. Essentially: how can you create any art of value when you have breasts? How can you expect men to take you seriously? Either you're too beautiful so that is too distracting or you're too ugly so why should we pay any attention to you.

Yet another post about soaking in patriarchy. Maybe I should get out more.









Peace.

Side of the Road

Side of the Road
by
Vincent Van Gogh

Peace.

Happy Blogiversary!

I just realized that today is my blogiversary.

Three years ago today I decided I wanted a public place to write.

Even though my college application essay started with the sentence, "In second grade, I decided to become a writer," I have found that writing is actually a very slow process for me (I spend waaaaaaaayyy too much time editing).

Looking at my youtube channel yesterday (no, not something I do often!), I discovered that this video of me reading Max Drives Away has almost 3000 hits! Maybe writing doesn't have to mean a lot of words...

There is always the question of whether I actually have anything to say!

I will continue to stumble my way through the alphabet, hoping for the best.


Thanks for reading!










Peace.

A Gorgeous Adventure

Today my ten year old daughter is doing something with her fifth grade class that is incredibly challenging for her. In helping her get to this place, I realize how often as an adult I allow myself the freedom to skip things that seem just too hard. While of course she knows that she doesn't have to face today's adventure if it's really too much for her, the way it's been framed is that she will do it. In order not to, she'll have to use the mommy-rescue-me escape hatch.

Because of her anxiety disorder and other disabilities, those of us who care for her are always aware of her challenges. Everyday there are little things in the path that most of us wouldn't even notice. For my daughter they are major obstacles. The courage that she possesses to face each day is amazing. On days like today where she is being asked to manage all of her everyday challenges, and so much more, I am able to recognize her enormous strength, how brave she really is.



On her very first day of kindergarten, years ago, she got on the school bus just like a big kid. The bus drove about twenty feet, then stopped. I said to the crowd of parents that I knew it was my daughter that caused the stop. Sure enough, she was in tears. I got on the bus and tried to convince her that she would be okay, but she didn't want to let me go. Luckily, her godfather had come to see her off that morning, too (he also took this picture of her!). He got on the bus, and by that time, the kindergartner sitting next to my daughter had begun to cry, too. So her godfather told my daughter that she had to go to school and she had to help this little boy get to school, too. And it worked. He and I got off the bus, and they drove away. I later found out that most of the kindergartner parents, including the mom of the little boy, had followed the bus to school in their cars, for a second goodbye to their kids, safe at school. I had a home daycare at the time and didn't even think of the possibility of being there at school that morning. So my daughter, scared enough to stop the school bus, managed to make it all the way through her first day of school, including another bus ride home, without her mommy by her side. Until recently, when I've thought of that story, I've focused on how scared she was to leave me. Now I see that she has always had this incredible strength and courage.

I am so proud of her and so inspired.




What challenges will you face today that seem like they're just too hard?





Peace.

Conflicted

I think this is a beautiful picture, a peaceful human quilt.

Then I see the other images from Egypt of men armed with rocks and other weapons, wounded and bloodied. I see the men in military garb, and other men in their makeshift helmets, like boys playing war. And while part of me is carried along from my safe spot where I live in this mock democracy (de-mock-cracy?), an honored internet guest, on the mythic ride to battle: Good vs. Evil, another part of me sees a scene as absurd as stealing Erno's nose. While I have to believe in something (don't I? don't I have to hope and work for change?), I am so wary of all these men and their gods and their battles. Even the president of America is puffed up with prayer, walking with god.

I wish their backs were bent in humility and humanity.





















Peace.

The Size of a Buick

Yes, this spider was in our bathroom last week (haven't seen it since -- Boo!)

Happy October!

The Muttis

My brother made three great videos for my dad's birthday today. Of course, this one is my favorite 'cause I'm in it(!), as are both my grandmas, my mom, my dad, my sister, and my daughter from when she was five months old (she'll be ten years old this summer). We both look older now than we did then!

The video opens with my dad and my sister watching my paternal grandma open birthday presents in Florida. Then, there's a beautiful sunlit scene of my dad and mom with my baby daughter. Then, it's scenes of us celebrating my mom's birthday in California, including shots of my maternal grandma. Then, back to Florida for close-ups of birthday flowers and the all-important magarita salt. Cheers.

I have been known to bark about people videoing their lives too much. I have been at more than one birthday party where they roll out the cake, everyone sings, but when they realize they didn't get a good tape of it, they do it over again. When I see something like this, though, I'm so glad someone was taping. Thanks, James!

Happy Birthday, Dad. I would never call myself daddy's little girl, in fact, we fought a lot when I was growing up. Yet through it all, you were always there for me. I love you, Poppy. A la famiglia!






Peace.

The Story of Stuff

Getting increasingly discouraged with our corporate government, I felt like watching "The Story of Stuff" again. It does give me hope when Annie Leonard reminds us that this system didn't just happen, that it's not like gravity that we just have to live with, that it was created by people, and we're people, too. It is still overwhelming to acknowledge the amount of work it will take to create a better system, how important it is that we all work together, and how impossible it feels right now.

I am definitely on the low end for middle class Americans in terms of my embrace of the golden arrow of consumption. I still buy a ton of stuff I don't need, though. And even though my girls don't watch TV, so they don't see commercials, I would say the biggest bulk of "plastic crap" (as we call it) that we buy is toys.

For more information, visit The Story of Stuff website.


Update: The weirdest thing just happened as I hit "Publish Post," one of the girls' toys that makes music played its little song from upstairs, even though no one is up there right now. "It's coming from inside the house!"





Peace.

Guy Smiley

I guess it's a youtube day...

Today's earworm (no idea where it came from...)

Renewing America's Promise

A brand new day.



(who's surprised that I'm not the first person to think of this song in this context?)











Peace.

Good People Day

(I love this guy. I'm gonna go watch more...)

If you want to sing out, sing out.

Happy New Year.








Peace.

Remembering Townes and Hank

This beautiful poster was created by Philip Price


Townes Van Zandt
(7 March 1944 - 1 January 1997)


Hank Williams

(17 September 1923 - 1 January 1953)

Peace.

Star of Wonder

The morning selection of photos at Huffpo were bloody Palestinian babes-in-arms vs. face-painted heavily-armed Israelis. Until this one.


Update I (from Gummo at Eschaton this morning):

There's a good guest column in the Times today laying out Israel's side in the current situation (i.e., their rationalizations for this massacre).

The hell of it is, they have some very real concerns; yet everything they do makes their situation worse.

As an American Jewish son of Holocaust survivors, Israel is very important to me -- yet it's being run by crazy people.
Gummo | 12.30.08 - 10:08 am |

The politics of peace in the Middle East may be beyond human beings in these times. I cannot defend Israel's choices, but I will forever defend the rights of Jews to be a flawed and human as everybody else. I am ignorant and uninformed, but I am afraid of all the hatred.

Masters of War

Update II: What Digby said.

Peace.